Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

A 

NEW AND REVISED EDITION 

AN ENCYCLOPADIA 

OF 

FREEMASONRY 

AND 

ITS KINDRED SCIENCES 

COMPRISING 

THE WHOLE RANGE OF ARTS, SCIENCES AND LITERATURE 

AS CONNECTED WITH THE INSTITUTION 

BY 

ALBERT G. MACKEY, M.D ., 33° 

AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY," "LEXICON OF FREEMASONRY," "A TEXT-BOOK OF 

MASONIC JURISPRUDENCE," "SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY," ETC., ETC. 

THIS NEW AND REVISED EDITION 

PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION, AND WITH 

THE ASSISTANCE, OF THE LATE 

WILLIAM J. HUGHAN, 32° 

PAST GRAND DEACON (ENGLAND), PAST GRAND WARDEN (EGYPT), PAST GRAND WARDEN (IOWA), PAST 

ASSISTANT GRAND SOJOURNER (ENGLAND), ONE OF THE FOUNDERS QUATUOR CORONATI 

LODGE (LONDON) ; AUTHOR OF "ENGLISH MASONIC RITE," "OLD CHARGES," ETC . 

BY 

EDWARD L . HAWKINS, M.A ., 30° 

PROV. S. G. W. (SUSSEX), P. PROP. S . G. W. (OXFORDSHIRE), MEMBER QUATUOR CORONATI 

LODGE (LONDON), AUTHOR OF "CONCISE CYCLOPMDIA OF FREEMASONRY" 

PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED 

VOLUME I 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MASONIC HISTORY COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

1914 .

COPYRIGHT, 1873 AND 1878, BY MOSS & CO. AND A. G . MACKEY 

REVISED EDITION, WITH ADDENDUM, COPYRIGHT, 1884, BY L . H. EVERTB & CO . 

PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY, COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY L . H . EVERTS 

COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY LOUIS H. EVERTS & CO. 

COPYRIGHT, 1909 . BY THE MASONIC HISTORY COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE MASONIC HISTORY COMPANY

f 

PREFACE 

the Institution of which such works profess to be an exponent . But should he 

have met with even Hutchinson's Spirit of Masonry, or Town's Speculative 

Masonry, which are among the earlier products of Masonic literature, he will 

be conscious that the system which could afford material for such works must 

be worthy of investigation . 

Oliver is not alone in the belief that the higher elevation of the Order is 

to be attributed "almost solely to the judicious publications on the subject of 

Freemasonry which have appeared during the present and the end of the 

last century ." It is the press that is elevating the Order ; it is the labor of 

its scholars that is placing it in the rank of sciences . The more that is published 

by scholarly pens on its principles, the more will other scholars be attracted 

to its investigation . 

At no time, indeed, has its intellectual character been more justly appreciated 

than at the present day . At no time have its members generally cultivated 

its science with more assiduity. At no time have they been more zealous 

in the endeavor to obtain a due enlightenment on all the topics which its system 

comprehends . 

It was the desire to give my contribution toward the elevation of the 

Order, by aiding in the dissemination of some of that light and knowledge 

which are not so easy of access, that impelled me years ago to commence the 

preparation of this work-a task which I have steadily toiled to accomplish, 

and at which, for several years, I have wrought with unintermitted labor 

that has permitted but little time for other occupation, and none for recreation . 

And now I present to my brethren the result not only of those years of toil, 

but of more than thirty years of study and research-a work - which will, I 

trust, or at least I hope, supply them with the materials for acquiring a knowledge 

of much that is required to make a Masonic scholar . Encyclopedic learning 

is not usually considered as more than elementary . But knowing that but 

few Freemasons can afford time to become learned scholars in our art by an 

entire devotion to its study, I have in important articles endeavored to treat the 

subject exhaustively, and in all to give that amount of information that must 

make future ignorance altogether the result of disinclination to learn . 

I do not present this work as perfect, for I well know that the culminating 

point of perfection can never be attained by human effort . But, under many 

adverse circumstances, I have sought to make it as perfect as I could . Encyclopedias 

are, for the most part, the result of the conjoined labor of many 

writers. In this work I have had no help . Every article was written by 

myself. I say this not to excuse my errors-for I hold that no author should 

wilfully permit an error to pollute his pages-but rather to account for those

PREFACE 

v 

that may exist . I have endeavored to commit none . Doubtless there are some . 

If I knew them, I would correct them ; but let him who discovers them remember 

that they have been unwittingly committed in the course of an exhaustive 

and unaided task . 

For twelve months, too, of the time in which I have been occupied upon 

this work, I suffered from an affection of the sight, which forbade all use of 

the eyes for purposes of study . During that period, now happily passed, all 

authorities were consulted under my direction by the willing eyes of my daughters-all 

writing was done under my dictation by their hands . I realized for 

a time the picture so often painted of the blind bard dictating his sublime 

verses to his daughters . It was a time of sorrow for the student who could 

not labor with his own organs in his vocation ; but it was a time of gladness 

to the father who felt that he had those who, with willing hearts, could come 

to his assistance . To the world this is of no import ; but I could not conscientiously 

close this prefatory address without referring to this circumstance so 

gratifying to a parent's heart. Were I to dedicate this work at all, my dedication 

should be-To FILIAL AFFECTION. 

ALBERT G. MACKEY, M . D.

REVISER'S PREFACE 

THE revision of this most comprehensive Encyclopedia has been a most 

anxious and laborious task . I have endeavored to preserve as much as possible 

of Dr. Mackey's work untouched, but at the same time to correct statements 

which later investigations have shown to be unfounded ; thus I have left all of 

Dr. Mackey's opinions and theories unaltered. 

All completely new articles, or old ones with many alterations, I have 

marked with my initials and I must take all responsibility for them, though 

as far as possible they were submitted to Bro. Hughan for his approval . 

I have to return hearty thanks for kind aid to the late Bro . Henry Sadler, 

Librarian of the Grand Lodge of England ; to Bro. W. J . Songhurst, Secretary 

of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No . 2076, London, England, for valuable advice 

and assistance on many points ; to Bro. the Rev . M . Rosenbaum, P . Prov. G . 

Chaplain of Northumberland, for help with Hebrew words ; to Bro . John 

Yarker, P . G . Warden of Greece, for information about the Antient and Primitive 

Rite ; and to Bro. A. C . Powell, P. Prov. G . Sup . of Works of Bristol, for 

the article on the Baldwyn Encampment . 

St. Leonards-on-Sea, England, 1912. 

EDWARD L. HAWKING, M . A .

PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

IN presenting to the Fraternity this new and revised edition of The Encyclopedia 

of Freemasonry, we, also, wish to return hearty thanks to Bro . Edward 

E . Cauthorne, A . B ., A . M ., Brooklyn, N . Y ., for his articles on Aitchison's-Haven 

Lodge, Catacombs, Comacine Masters, Como, etc ., and to Bro . 

A. G . Pitts, P . M . Detroit, Michigan ; Bro . Robert A . Shirrifs, 33°, of Elizabeth, 

N. J . ; Bro . Wm . J . Allen, G . H. G. L. of New York ; Bro . Charles A . Brockaway, 

P . M . New York City, for their articles on Freemasonry in the United 

States and Mexico ; and to Bro . Will H . Whyte, 33 °, P . G. M . of Canada, for 

his articles on Freemasonry in Canada . 

T . M . H . Co .

A 

A 

AB 

A. (k, Aleph.) In the Accadian, Greek 

Etruscan, Pelasgian, Gallic, Samaritan, and 

Egyptian or Coptic, of nearly the same formation 

as the English letter. It originally 

meant with or together, but at present signifies 

one . In most languages it is the initial letter 

of the alphabet ; not so, however, in the Ethiopian, 

where it is the thirteenth. The sacred 

Aleph has the numerical value of one, and is 

composed of two Yods, one on either side of 

an inclined Van. It is said to typify the 

Trinity in Unity. The word Aleph signifies 

" ox," from the resemblance to the head and 

horns of that animal. The Divine name in 

Hebrew connected with this letter is 

AHIH. 

Aaron. Hebrew I VIN, Aharon, a word of 

doubtful etymology, but generally supposed to 

signify a mountaineer. He was the brother of 

Moses, and the first high priest under the Mosaic 

dispensation, whence the priesthood established 

by that lawgiver is known as the 

" Aaronic ." He is alluded to in the English 

lectures of the second degree, in reference to a 

certain sign which is said to have taken its 

origin from the fact that Aaron and Hur were 

present on the hill from which Moses surveyed 

the battle which Joshua was waging with the 

Amalekites, when these two supported the 

weary arms of Moses in an upright posture, 

because upon his uplifted hands the fate of the 

battle depended. See Exodus xvii. 10-12 . 

Aaron is also referred to in the latter section 

of the Royal Arch degree in connection with 

the memorials that were deposited in the ark 

of the covenant . In the degree of " Chief of 

the Tabernacle," which is the 23d of the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite, the presiding officer 

represents Aaron, and is styled " Most Excellent 

High Priest." In the 24th degree of the 

same Rite, or " Prince of the Tabernacle," the 

second officer or Senior Warden also personates 

Aaron. 

Aaron's Band . A degree instituted in 1824, 

in New York City, mainly for social purposes, 

and conferred in an independent body . Its 

ceremonies were not dissimilar to those of 

High Priesthood, which caused the Grand 

Royal Arch Chapter of the State to take umbrage, 

and the small gathering dispersed. 

Aaron's Rod . The method by which Moses 

caused a miraculous judgment as to which 

tribe should be invested with the priesthood, is 

detailed in the Book of Numbers (ch . xvii .) . 

He directed that twelve rods should be laid up 

in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, one 

for each tribe ; that of Aaron, of course, represented 

the tribe of Levi . On the next day 

these rods were brought out and exhibited to 

the people, and while all the rest remained dry 

and withered, that of Aaron alone budded and 

blossomed and yielded fruit . There is no 

mention in the Pentateuch of this rod having 

been placed in the ark, but only that it was 

put before it . But as St . Paul, or the author 

of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews ix . 4), 

asserts that the rod and the pot of manna were 

both within the ark, Royal Arch Masons have 

followed this later authority . Hence the rod 

of Aaron is found in the ark ; but its import is 

only historical, as if to identify the substitute 

ark as a true copy of the original, which had 

been lost . No symbolical instruction accompanies 

its discovery . 

Ab. :X . 1 . The 11th month of the Hebrew 

civil year and corresponding to the 

months July and August, beginning with the 

new moon of the former. 2 . It is also a Hebrew 

word, signifying father, and will be readily 

recognized by every Mason as a compo- 

1

2 ABACISCUS 

ABBREVIATIONS 

nent part of the name Hiram Abif, which 

literally means Hiram his father . (See Abif.) 

Abaciscus . The diminutive of Abacus, 

and, in architecture, refers to the squares of 

the tessellated pavement or checkered flooring 

of the ground floor of the Solomonian Temple . 

Abacus. A term which has been erroneously 

used to designate the official staff of the 

Grand Master of the Templars . The word has 

no such meaning ; for an abacus is either a 

table used for facilitating arithmetical calculations, 

or is in architecture the crowning plate 

of a column and its capital. The Grand Master's 

staff was a baculus, which see . 

Abaddon. A Hebrew word 11`1Z9, signifying 

destruction. By the Rabbis it is interpreted 

as the place of destruction, and is the second of 

the seven names given by them to the region 

of the dead . In the Apocalypse (ix . 11) it is 

rendered by the Greek word 'Awoxwmr, Apollyon, 

and means the destroyer. In this sense it 

is used as a significant word in the high degrees. 

Abazar . The title given to the Master of 

Ceremonies in the Sixth Degree of the Modern 

French Rite . 

Abbreviations . Abbreviations of technical 

terms or of official titles are of very extensive 

use in Masonry. They were, however, but 

rarely employed in the earlier Masonic publications 

. For instance, not one is to be found 

in the first edition of Anderson's Constitutions 

. Within a comparatively recent period 

they have greatly increased, especially among 

French writers, and a familiarity with them is 

therefore essentially necessary to the Masonic 

student. Frequently, among English and always 

among French authors, a Masonic abbreviation 

is distinguished by three points, .' . , 

in a triangular form following the letter, which 

peculiar mark was first used, according to 

Ragon, on the 12th of August, 1774, by the 

Grand Orient of France, in an address to its 

subordinates . No authoritative explanation 

of the meaning of these points has been given, 

but they may be supposed to refer to the three 

lights around the altar, or perhaps more generally 

to the number three, and to the triangle, 

both important symbols in the Masonic system 

. 

Before proceeding to give a list of the principal 

abbreviations, it may be observed that 

the doubling of a letter is intended to express 

the plural of that word of which the single letter 

is the abbreviation . Thus, in French F.• . 

signifies " Frere," or " Brother" and ~'F .' . 

" Freres," or "Brothers ." And in English 

L. • . 

and LL .- . to denote " Lodges ." This remark is 

made once for all, because I have not deemed 

it necessary to augment the size of the list of 

abbreviations by inserting these plurals . If 

the reader finds S.' . G. • . . • . 

eign Grand Inspector," he will be at no loss to 

know that SS .- . GG .' . IL' . must denote " Sovereign 

Grand Inspectors ." 

A.' . Dep .' . Anno DePositionis. In the Year 

of the Deposit . The date used by Royal and 

Select Masters. 

A.'% and A .' . Ancient and Accepted . 

A.' . and A .' . S.% R .' . Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite . 

A .' . and A.% R .' . Ancient and Accepted Rite 

as used in England . 

.' . F.- M .- . Ancient Freemasons . 

A .' . F .' . and A .' . M .' . Ancient Free and 

Accepted Masons . 

A .' . Inv.- . Anno Inventionis . In the Year 

of the Discovery. The date used by Royal 

Arch Masons. 

A .'. L.' . Anno Lucis . In the Year of Light . 

The date used by Ancient Craft Masons . 

A .' . L . • . .'. D .' . G. • . .' . D .' . L'U . • . 

Gloire du Grand Architecte de l' Univers . To 

the Glory of the Grand Architect of the 

Universe . (French .) The usual caption of 

French Masonic documents . 

A .-. LO .- . A l'Orient. At the East. 

(French .) The seat of the Lodge . 

A .' . M .' . Anno Mundi. In the Year of the 

World . The date used in the Ancient and 

Accepted Rite . 

A .- . O .- . Anno Ordinis . In the Year of 

the Order. The date used by Knights 

Templars A .' Y.' . M .- . Ancient York Mason . 

.' A.% Buisson Ardente. Burning Bush . 

B .' . Bruder . (German for Brother.) 

B .' . B .- . Burning Bush. 

B'n . • . . (German for Brethren .) 

. • .- . Celestial Canopy. 

C .' . H.' . Captain of the Host . 

.- Deputy . 

D .' . G .- . G .- . H .' . P.' . Deputy General 

Grand High Priest . 

D . • . .' . H .• . .' . Deputy Grand High 

Priest .- G .- . M .- . Deputy Grand Master . 

D .- . Prov .- . G .- . M .- . Deputy . Grand 

Master. 

Dis.- . D .- . G.- . M .' . District Deputy Grand 

Master (England.) 

D . D . G . M . (America .) 

.' Eminent ; Excellent . 

.' A.- . Entered Apprentice or E .' . A.- . P.- . 

E .' . C .- . Excellent Companion . 

Ec .' . Ecossaise . (French .) Scottish ; belonging 

to the Scottish Rite . 

E.• . .- . C .-. Eminent Grand Commander . 

E.• . . • . . (French .) Vulgar 

Era ; Year of the Lord . 

F . • . Brother . (French.) 

F.' C . • . . 

F.' . M .- . Freemason . Old Style . 

G.' Grand. 

G.' A.• . .' . Grand Annual Sojourner . 

G.' . A .'. O.' . T .' . U .' . Great Architect of the 

Universe . 

G.' C.' . Grand Chapter ; Grand Council . 

G.' . Com .- . Grand Commandery; Grand 

Commander . 

G.' D .- . Grand Deacon . 

G.' . D .' . C .' . Grand Director of Ceremonies 

. 

G.- E .' Grand Encampment ; Grand East . 

G.' G .- . C.' . General Grand Chapter . 

G.' G .- . H .' . P.' . General Grand High 

Priest .

ABBREVIATIONS 

ABDIEL 3 

G: . H . • . P.- . Grand High Priest . 

G.- . L .- . Grand Lodge. 

G. • . M .- . Grand Master . 

G. - . N . - . Grand Nehemiah . 

G. - . O.- . Grand Orient ; Grand Organist . 

G. - . P.- . Grand Pursuivant. 

G. - . P. - . S . - . Gran d Past Sojourner. 

G. - . R . - . Grand Registrar . 

G . - . R . - . A.• . C .- . Grand Royal Arch Chapter. 

G . - . S.- . Grand Scribe ; Grand Secretary. 

G . • . S.- . B . - . Grand Sword Bearer ; Grand 

Standard Bearer . 

G.' . T. - . Grand Treasurer . 

H . - . A . • . B . - . Hiram Abif . 

H . - . E . - . Holy Empire . 

H . - . K.- . T . - . Hiram, King of Tyre . 

H . • . R :. D. • . M .' . Heredom. 

Ill. - . Illustrious . 

L . N. • . R : . I : . Iesus Nazarenus, Rex 

Iudxorum . (Latin .) Jesus of Nazareth, King 

of the Jews. 

I . - . P. -. M .• . Immediate Past Master . 

(English.) 

I : . T.- . N . • . O . • . T: . G.- . A . - . O . • . T. - . U. - . 

In the Name of the Great Architect of the 

Universe. Often forming the caption of 

Masonic documents . 

J .'. W.- . Junior Warden . 

K . - . King . 

K-H . • . Kadosh, Knight of Kadosh . 

K .- . H. - . S .' . Knight of the Holy Sepulcher . 

K . - . M .- . Knight of Malta . 

K . - . S. - . King Solomon . 

K . - . T . - . Knights Templar. 

L . • . Lodge. 

LL.- . Lodges . 

L . - . R.- . London Rank. A distinction introduced 

in England in 1908 . 

M . - . Mason . 

M . - . C . - . Middle Chamber. 

M . -. E.- . Most Eminent ; Most Excellent . 

M . •. E . - . G. • . H . - . P.- . Most Excellent Grand 

High Priest. 

M . - . E . • . G . - . M . • . Most Eminent Grand 

Master (of Knights Templar) . 

M . • . L. • . Mere Loge. (French .) Mother 

Lodge . 

M .- . M .- . Master Mason. 

M . .. M .% Mois Maconni.que . (French .) 

Masonic Month . March is the first Masonic 

month among French Masons . 

M . • . W.- . Most Worshipful. 

M .' . W. - . S . • . Most Wise Sovereign. 

O . - . Orient . 

OB .' . Obligation . 

P.' . Past. 

P.- . G .' . M . - . Past Grand Master. 

P. • . M . • . Past Master . 

Prov : . Provincial. 

Pro : . G . - . M .' . Pro-Grand Master . 

Prov : . G . - . M . - . Provincial Grand Master. 

P . - . S.' . Principal Sojourner . 

R . - . A . • . Royal Arch . 

R.- . C . • . or R : . t .' . Rose Croix . Appended 

to the signature of one having that degree . 

R .' . E . • . Right Eminent . 

R . - . F.- . Respectable Frere . (French .) Worshipful 

Brother. 

R.- . L. • . or R .' . O Respectable Loge. 

(French.) Worshipful Lodge . 

R . - . S .' . Y .' . C .' . S . - . Rosy Cross (in the 

Royal Order of Scotland) . 

R . • . W.' . Right Worshipful. 

S .' . Scribe . 

S .' . C .' . Supreme Council . 

S. - . G.' . I .' . G.' . Sovereign Grand Inspector 

General . 

S.- . P .' . R . • . S . - . Sublime Prince of the Royal 

Secret . 

S.- . S.• . 

Holies. 

Sanctum Sanctorum or Holy of 

S . - . S.- . S . - . Trois fois Salut . (French .), 

Thrice greeting . A common caption to 

French Masonic circulars or letters . 

S.' . W. • . Senior Warden . 

T . - . C . - . F . - . Tress Chere Fre re . (French .) 

Very Dear Brother . 

T . • . G . • . A .' . O.' . T .' . U. - . The Great Architect 

of the Universe . 

V.' . or Ven: . Venerable. (French .) Worshipful 

. 

V.' . D . • . B .% Very Dear Brother . 

A . - . Veut Dieu Saint Amour, 

V.' . D .' . S . - . 

or Vult Dei Sanctus Animus . A formula 

used by Knights Templar . 

V.- . L .' . Vraie lumie re . (French.) True 

light . 

V . - . W. - . Very Worshipful . 

W .' . Worshipful. 

W . • . M .- . Worshipful Master . 

O . Lodge. 

E!p . • . Lodges. 

Prefixed to the signature of a Knights 

Templar or a member of the A. and A . 

Scottish Rite below the Thirty-third Degree . 

Prefixed to the signature of a Grand 

or Past Grand Commander of 

Knights Templar or a Mason of the 

Thirty-third Degree in the Scottish Rite. 

Prefixed to the signature of a Grand 

or Past Grand Master of Knights 

Templar and the Grand Commander 

of the Supreme Council of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite . 

Abda. A word used in some of the high 

degrees . He was the father of Adoniram . 

(See 1 Kings iv . 6 .) Lenning is wrong in saying 

that he is represented by one of the officers 

in the degree of Master in Israel . He has confounded 

Abda with his son. (Encyc . der 

Freimaur .) 

Abdamon. The name of the orator in the 

Fourteenth Degree of the Rite of Perfection, or 

the Sacred Vault of James VI . It means a servant, 

from abad, " to serve," although somewhat 

corrupted in its transmission into the 

rituals . Lenning says it is the Hebrew Habdamon, 

" a servant' ; but there is no such 

word in Hebrew . 

Abdiel. (Heb., Servant of God .) The 

name of an angel mentioned by the Jewish 

Kabbalists . He is represented in Milton's 

Paradise Lost, Book V ., as one of the seraphim, 

who, when Satan tried to stir up a revolt 

among the angels subordinate to his 

authority, alone and boldly withstood his 

traitorous designs :

4 ABDITORIUM ABIF 

Among the faithless, faithful only he ; 

is to be 

Among innumerable false, unmoved, 

considered simply as an appellative or 

Unshaken, unreduced, unterrified, 

surname, he preserves the Hebrew form, his 

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal . (894-7 

translation being as follows : " Machte Huram 

.) Abif dem Konige Salomo ." The Swedish veraname 

became the synonym of his aHyrainstead of " 

honor faithfulness . 

father," gives us " m Abiv." In thee 

Abditorlum. A secret place for the deposit Latin Vulgate, as in the English version, the 

of records-a Tabularium . words are rendered " Hiram pater ejus . I 

Abelites . A secret Order which existed have little doubt that Luther and the Swedish 

about the middle of the 18th century in Ger- translator were correct in treating the word 

many, called also " the Order of Abel." The Abif as an appellative. In Hebrew, the word 

organization was in possession of peculiar ab, or " father, is often used, honoris causa, 

signs, words, and ceremonies of initiation, as a title of respect, and may then signify 

but, according to Gadicke (Freimaurer Lexi- friend, counselor wise man, or something else 

con), it had no connection with Freemasonry. of equivalent cf,aracter. Thus, Dr. Clarke, 

According to Clavel the order was founded at commenting on the word abrech, in Genesis 

Griefswald in 1745. xli . 43, says : " Father seems to have been a 

Abercorn, Earl of. James Hamilton, Lord name of office, and probably father of the king 

Paisley, was named Grand Master of Egland or father of Pharaoh might signify the same as 

by the retiring G. Master, the Duke of Rich- the king's minister among us . And on the 

mond in 1725 . He was at that time the very passage in which this word Abif is used, 

Master of a Lodge, and had served on the he says : " :X, father, is often used in He- 

Committee of Charity during that year . He brew to signify master, inventor, chief operator ." 

succeeded his father as Earl of Abercorn in Gsenius, the distinguished Hebrew lexi- 

1734. cographer, gives to this word similar signifi- 

Abercorn, Duke of . Grand Master of Ire- cation, such as benefactor, master, teacher, 

land 1874-85 . 

and says that in the Arabic and the Ethiopic 

Aberdour, Lord . Grand Master of Scot- it is spoken of one who excels in anything. 

land, 1755-6 . Also of England 1757-61 . This idiomatic custom was pursued by the 

Abib. The original name of the Hebrew later Hebrews, for Buxtorf tells us, in his "Talmonth 

Nisan, nearly corresponding to the mudic Lexicon, that among the Talmudists 

month of March, the first of the ecclesiastical abba, father, was always a title of honor," 

year . Abib is frequently mentioned in the and he quotes the following remarks from 'a 

Sacred Scriptures, and signifies green ears of treatise of the celebrated Maimonides, who, 

corn or fresh fruits . 

when speaking of the grades or ranks into 

Abibale . The name of the first Assassin in which the Rabbinical doctors were divided, 

the Elu of the Modern French Rite . says : " The first class consists of those each 

Derived most probably from the Hebrew of ,whom bears his own name, without any 

abi and balah, " :X and y~ :, which mean father 

title of honor ; the second, of those who are 

called 

of destruction, though it is said to mean " le 

Rabbanim • and the hird, of those who 

meurtrier du Pire" 

are called Rabbi, and the men of this class also 

Abide by. See Stand to and abide by . 

receive the cognomen of Abba, Father ." 

Abif (or Abiff, or perhaps more correctly 

Again, in 2 Chronicles ii. 13, Hiram, the 

Ablv) King of Tyre, referring to the same Hiram, 

. An epithet which has been applied in the widow's son, who is spoken of subse- 

Scripture to that celebrated builder who was quently in reference to King Solomon as 

sent to Jerusalem by King Hiram, of Tyre, to father," or 

" his 

superintend the construction of the Temple Abif in the passage already cited, 

. writes to Solomon : " And now I have sent a 

The word, which in the original Hebrew is cunning man, endued with understanding, of 

)" :N, and which may be pronounced Abiv or Huram my father's 

Abif, is 

." The only difficulty in 

compounded of the noun in the con- this sentence is to be found in the prefixing of 

struct-state I:X, Abi, meaning " 

and the pronominal suffix 1, which, with father," the letter lamed > before Huram which has 

preceding vowel sound is to be sounded as iv caused our translators, by a strange blunder, 

or if, and which means!` his" ; so that the word to render the words l Huram abi, as meaning 

thus compounded Abif literally and gram- " of Huram my father's," * instead of 

matically signifies " his father ." The word is "Huram my father ." Luther has again taken 

found in 2 Chronicles iv. 16, in the following the correct view of this subject, and translates 

sentence : " The pots also, and the shovels, the word as an appellative : So sende ich 

and the flesh hooks, and all their instruments nun einen weisen Mann, der Berstand hat, 

did Huram his fathr make to King Solomon . ' Huram Abif" that is, " So now I send you a 

The latter part of this verse is in the original wise man who has understanding, Huram 

as follows : Abif ." The truth, I suspect, is, although it has . 

escaped all the commentators, that the lamed 

nn5ln `15r~5 1':X a7 in 'IVY) in this passage is a Chaldaism which is some- 

Shelomoh lamelech Abif Huram gnasah times used by the later Hebrew writers, who 

Luther has been more literal in his version 

of this passage than the English translators, the 

* 

true 

It may 

meaning, 

be remarked 

for the 

that 

father 

this 

of 

could 

King 

not 

Hiram 

be 

and appearing to suppose that the word Abif was not another Hiram, but Abibal.

ABIRAM 

ABORIGINES 5 - 

incorrectly employ 5, the sign of the dative 

for the accusative after transitive verbs . 

Thus, in Jeremiah (xl. 2), we have such a construction 

: vayikach rab tabachim l'Yremyahu ; 

that is, literally, " and the captain of the 

guards took for Jeremiah," where the 5, 1, or 

for, is a Chaldaism and redundant, the true 

rendering being, " and the captain of the 

guards took Jeremiah ." Other similar passages 

are to be found in Lamentations iv . 5, 

Job v . 2, etc. In like manner I suppose the 5 

before Huram, which the English translators 

have rendered by the preposition " of," to be 

redundant and a Chaldaic form, the sentence 

should be read thus : "I have sent a cunning 

man, endued with understanding, Huram my 

father" ; or, if considered as an appellative, 

as it should be, " Huram Abi ." 

From all this I conclude that the word Ab, 

with its different suffixes, is always used in the 

Books of Kings and Chronicles, in reference to 

Hiram the Builder, as a title of respect. When 

King Hiram speaks of him he calls him " my 

father Hiram," Hiram Abi ; and when the 

writer of the Book of Chronicles is speaking of 

him and King Solomon in the same passage, 

he calls him " Solomon's father' - "" 

father," Hiram Abif. The only difference is 

made by the different appellation of the pronouns 

my and his in Hebrew. To both the 

kings of Tyre and of Judah he bore the honorable 

relation of Ab, or " father," equivalent to 

mend, counselor, or minister . He was "Father 

dram." The Masons are therefore perfectly 

correct in refusing to adopt the tr anslation of 

the English version, and in preserving, after 

the example of Luther, the word Abif as an 

appellative, surname, or title of honor and distinction 

bestowed upon the chief builder of 

the Temple, as Dr . James Anderson suggests 

in his note on the subject in the first edition 

(1723) of the Constitutions of the Freemasons. 

[E. L. H .1 

Abiram . One of the traitorous craftsmen, 

whose act of perfidy forms so important a part 

of the Third Degree, receives in some of the 

high degrees the name of Abiram Akirop . 

These words certainly have a Hebrew look ; 

but the significant words of Masonry have, in 

the lapse of time and in their transmission 

through ignorant teachers, become so corrupted 

in form that it is almost impossible to 

trace them to any intelligent root . They may 

be Hebrew or they may be anagrammatized 

(see Anagram) ; but it is only chance that can 

give us the true meaning which they undoubtedly 

have . The word "Abiram" means 

" father of loftiness," and may have been 

chosen as the name of the traitorous craftsman 

with allusion to the Biblical story of 

Korah, Dathan and Abiram who conspired 

against Moses and Aaron . (Numbers xvi .) In 

the French ritual of the Second Elu it is said 

to mean murderer or assassin, but this would 

not seem to be correct etymologically . 

Able. There is an archaic use of the word 

able to signify suitable . Thus, Chaucer says 

of a monk that "he was able to ben an abbot," 

that is, suitable to be an abbot . In this sense 

the old manuscript Constitutions constantly 

employ the word, as when they say that the 

apprentice should be " able of Birth that is 

ffree borne ." (Lansdowne MS .) 

Ablution. A ceremonial purification by 

washing, much used in the Ancient Mysteries 

and under the Mosaic dispensation. It is 

also employed in some of the high degrees of 

Masonry . The better technical term for this 

ceremony is lustration, which see . 

Abnet. The band or apron, made of fine 

linen, variously wrought, and worn by the 

Jewish priesthood. It seems to have been 

borrowed directly from the Egyptians upon 

the representations of all of whose gods is to 

be found a similar girdle . Like the sennaar, 

or sacred cord of the Brahmans, and the white 

shield of the Scandinavians, it is the analogue 

of the Masonic apron . 

Aborigines. A secret society which existed 

in England about the year 1783, and of whose 

ceremony of initiation the following account is 

contained in the British Magazine of that date . 

The presiding officer, who was styled the Original, 

thus addressed the candidate : 

Original . Have you faith enough to be 

made an Original? 

Candidate . I have . 

Original . Will you be conformable to all 

honest rules which may support steadily the 

honor, reputation, welfare, and dignity of our 

ancient undertaking? 

Candidate. I will . 

Original . Then, friend, promise me that 

you will never stray from the paths of Honor, 

Freedom, Honesty, Sincerity, Prudence, Modesty, 

Reputation, Sobriety, and True Friendship 

. 

Candidate. I do. 

Which done, the crier of the court commanded 

silence and the new member, being 

uncovered, and dropping on his right knee, 

had the following oath administered to him by 

the servant, the new member laying his right 

hand on the Cap of Honor, and Nimrod holding 

a staff over his head : 

" You swear by the Cap of Honor, by the 

Collar of Freedom, by the Coat of Honesty, by 

the Jacket of Sincerity, by the Shirt of Prudence, 

by the Breeches of Modesty, by the 

Garters of Reputation, by the Stockings of 

Sobriety, and by the Steps of True Friendship, 

never to depart from these laws ." 

Then rising, with the staff resting on his 

head, he received a copy of the laws from the 

hands of the Grand Original, with these words, 

" Enjoy the benefits hereof." 

He then delivered the copy of the laws to 

the care of the servant, after which the word 

was given by the secretary to the new member, 

viz . : Eden, signifying the garden where 

Arms, the great aboriginal, was formed . 

Then the secretary invested him with the 

sign, viz . : resting his right hand on his left 

side, signifying the first conjunction of harmony 

. 

It had no connection with Freemasonry, 

but was simply one of those numerous imita-

6 ABRAC 

ABRAXAS 

tive societies to which that Institution has ple with bread and wine, and blessed him . The 

given rise . 

King of Sodom wished Abraham to give up the 

Abrac. In the Leland MS . it is said that persons, but retain the goods that he had recovered 

; however, Abraham positively refused 

the Masons conceal " the wey of wynninge 

the facultye of Abrac ." Mr. Locke (if it was to retain any of the spoils, although, by the 

he who wrote a commentary on the manuscript) 

says, " Here I am utterly in the dark ." and declared that he had sworn that he would 

customs of the age, he was entitled to them, 

It means simply the way of acquiring the not take " from a thread even to a shoelatchet 

." (Genesis xiv .) Although the conduct 

science of Abrac ." The science of Abrac is 

the knowledge of the power and use of the of Abraham in this whole transaction was of 

mystical abraxas, which see ; or very likely the most honorable and conscientious character, 

the incidents do not appear to have been 

"Abrac " is merely an abbreviation of Abracadabra. 

introduced into the ritual of the High Priesthood 

for any other reason except that of their 

Abracadabra . A term of incantation which 

was formerly worn about the neck as an amulet 

against several diseases, especially the ter- 

founder of an Order of Priesthood. 

connection with Melchizedek, who was the 

tian ague . It was to be written on a triangular 

piece of parchment in the following form : who made himself notorious at Paris, in the be- 

Abraham, Antoine Firmin . A Mason 

ABRACADABRA 

ginning of the present century, by the manufacture 

and sale of false Masonic diplomas and 

ABRACADABR 

ABRACADAB 

by trading in the higher degrees, from which 

ABRACADA 

traffic he reaped for some time a plentiful harvest. 

The Supreme Council of France de- 

ABRACAD 

ABRACA 

clared, in 1811, all his diplomas and charters 

ABRAC 

void and deceptive. He is the author of 

ABRA 

L'Art du Tuileur, dedie a tour les Masons 

ABR 

des deux hemispheres, a small volume of 20 

AB pages, 8vo, printed at Paris in 1803, and he 

A 

published from 1800 to 1808 a periodical work 

It is said that it first occurs in the Carmen 

de Morbis et Remediic of Q . Serenus Sammonicus, 

a favorite of the Emperor Severus in the 

2d and 3d centuries, and is generally supposed 

to be derived from the word abraxas . 

Abraham. The founder of the Hebrew nation 

. The patriarch Abraham is personated 

in the degree or Order of High Priesthood, 

which refers in some of its ceremonies to an 

interesting incident in his life . After the 

amicable separation of Lot and Abraham, 

when the former was dwelling in the plain in 

which Sodom and its neighboring towns were 

situated, and the latter in the valley of Mamre 

near Hebron, a king from beyond the Euphrates, 

whose name was Chedorlaomer, invaded 

lower Palestine, and brought several of 

the smaller states into a tributary condition . 

Among these were the five cities of the plain, 

to which Lot had retired . As the yoke was 

borne with impatience by these cities, Chedorlaomer, 

accompanied by four other kings 

who were probably his tributaries, attacked 

and defeated the kings of the plain, plundered 

their towns, and carried their people away as 

slaves . Among those who suffered on this 

occasion was Lot . As soon as Abraham 

heard of these events, he armed three hundred 

and eighteen of his slaves, and, with the assistance 

of Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, three 

Amoritish chiefs, he pursued the retiring invaders, 

and having attacked them near the 

Jordan, put them to flight, and then returned 

with all the men and goods that had been recovered 

from the enemy . On his way back he 

was met by the King of Sodom, and also by 

Melchizedek, King of Salem, who was, like 

Abraham a worshi er of the true God . 

Melchizecek refresh Abraham and his peo- 

entitled Le Miroir de la verite, dedie a tous les 

Masons, 3 vols., 8vo . This contains many 

interesting details concerning the history of 

Masonry in France . In 1811 there was published 

at Paris a Circulaire du Supreme Conseil 

du 33e degre, etc ., relative a la vente, par 

le Sieur Abraham de grades et cahiers Magonniques 

(8vo, 15 pp .), from which it is evident 

that Abraham was nothing else but a Masonic 

charlatan . 

Abraxas. Basilides, the head of the Egyptian 

sect of Gnostics, taught that there were 

seven emanations, or aeons, from the Supreme 

God ; that these emanations engendered the 

angels of the highest order ; that these angels 

formed a heaven for their habitation, and 

brought forth other angels of a nature inferior 

to their own ; that in time other heavens were 

formed and other angels created, until the 

whole number of angels and their respective 

heavens amounted to 365, which were thus 

equal to the number of days in a year ; and, 

finally,that overall these an omnipotent Lordinferior, 

however, to the Supreme God-presided, 

whose name was Abraxas . Now this 

word Abraxas, in the numerical force of its 

letters when written in Greek, ABPA BA:X, 

amounts to 365, the number of worlds in the 

Basilidean system, as well as the number of 

days in the year, thus : A, 1 . ., B, 2 . ., P, 100 . ., 

A, 1 . ., B, 60 . ., A, 1 . ., 2 200 = 365 . The god 

Abraxas was therefore a type or symbol of the 

year, or of the revolution of the earth around 

the sun . This mystical reference of the name 

of a god to the annual period was familiar to 

the ancients, and is to be found in at least two 

other instances . Thus, among the Persians 

the letters of the name of the god Mithras, 

and of Belenus among the Gauls, amounted 

each to 365 .

ABRAXAS 

ACACIA 7 

M = 40 B = 2 

E 5 H = 8 

I = 10 A = 30 

0 = 9 E = 5 

P = 100 N = 50 

A = 1 0 = 70 

Z = 200 = 365 Z = 200 = 365 

The word Abraxas, therefore, from this 

mystical value of the letters of which it was 

composed, became talismanic, and was frequently 

inscribed, sometimes with and sometimes 

without other superstitious inscriptions, 

on stones or gems as amulets, many of which 

have been preserved or are continually being 

discovered, and are to be found in the cabinets 

of the curious . 

There have been many conjectures among 

the learned as to the derivation of the word 

Abraxas . Beausobre (Histoire du Manicheisme, 

vol. ii.) derives it from the Greek, 

À,Bgos law, signifying "the magnificent Saviour, 

he who heals and preserves ." Bellermann 

(Essay on the Gems of the Ancients) supposed 

it to be compounded of three Coptic words 

signifying " the holy word of bliss ." Pignorius 

and Vandelin think it is composed of four 

Hebrew and three Greek letters, whose numerical 

value is 365, and which are the initials of 

the sentence : " saving men by wood, i. e . the 

cross ." 

Abraxas Stones. Stones on which the 

word Abraxas and other devices are engraved, 

and which were used by the Egyptian Gnostics 

as amulets . 

Absence . Attendance on the communications 

of his Lodge, on all convenient occasions, 

is considered as one of the duties of every 

Mason, and hence the old charges of 1722 (ch . 

iii .) say that " in ancient Times no Master or 

Fellow could be absent from it [the Lodge] 

especially when warn'd to appear at it, without 

incurring a severe censure, until it appe~ar'd 

to the Master and Wardens that pure 

Necessity hinder'd him." At one time it was 

usual to enforce attendance by fines, and the 

By-Laws of the early Lodges contain lists of 

fines to be imposed for absence, swearing and 

drunkenness, but that usage is now discontinued, 

so that attendance on ordinary communications 

is no longer enforced by any sanction 

of law . It is a duty the discharge of 

which must be left to the conscientious convictions 

of each Mason . In the case, however, 

of a positive summons for any express 

purpose, such as to stand trial, to show cause, 

etc., the neglect or refusal to attend might be 

construed into a contempt, to be dealt with 

according to its magnitude or character in 

each particular case . 

Acacia. An interesting and important 

symbol in Freemasonry . Botanically, it is the 

acacia vera of Tournefort, and the mimosa 

nilotica of Tinneus, called babul tree in India. 

It grew abundantly in the vicinity of Jerusalem, 

where it is still to be found, and is familiar 

in its modern use as the tree from which the 

gum arabic of commerce is derived . 

Oliver, it is true, says that " there is not the 

smallest trace of any tree of the kind growing 

so far north as Jerusalem " (Landm ., ii ., 149) ; 

but this statement is refuted 

by the authority of Lieutenant 

Lynch, who saw it growing in 

great abundance in Jericho, 

and still farther north . (Exped. 

to Dead Sea, p . 262 .) The 

Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, who 

is excellent authority, says : 

" The Acacia (Shittim) tree, 

Al Bunt, is found in Palestine 

of different varieties ; it looks 

like the Mulberry tree, attains 

a great height, and has a hard 

wood . The gum which is obtained 

from it is the gum 

arabic ." (Descriptive Geography and Historical 

Sketch of Palestine, p308, Leeser's translation 

. Phila., 1850 .) Schwarz was for sixteen 

years a resident of Palestine, and wrote from 

personal observation. The testimony of Lynch 

and Schwarz should, therefore, forever settle 

the question of the existence of the acacia in 

Palestine . 

The acacia is called in the Bible Shittim, 

which is really the plural of Shittah, which 

last form occurs once only in Isaiah xli . 

19 . It was esteemed a sacred wood among 

the Hebrews, and of it Moses was ordered 

to make the tabernacle, the ark of the 

covenant, the table for the shewbread, and the 

rest of the sacred furniture . (Exodus xxv .- 

xxvii .) Isaiah (1. c .) in recounting the promises 

of God's mercy to the Israelites on their return 

from the captivity, tells them that, among 

other things, he will plant in the wilderness, 

for . their relief and refreshment, the cedar, the 

acacia (or, as it is rendered in our common 

version, the shittah), the fir, and other trees . 

The first thing, then, that we notice in this 

symbol of the acacia, is that it had been always 

consecrated from among the other trees of the 

forest by the sacred purposes to which it was 

devoted. By the Jew, the tree from whose 

wood the sanctuary of the tabernacle and the 

holy ark had been constructed would ever be 

viewed as more sacred than ordinary trees . 

The early Masons, therefore, very naturally 

appropriated this hallowed plant to the equally 

sacred purpose of a symbol, which was to teach 

an important divine truth in all ages to come . 

Having thus briefly disposed of the natural 

history of this plant, we may now proceed to 

examine it in its symbolic relations . 

First . The acacia, in the mythic system of 

Freemasonry, is preeminently the symbol of 

the IMMORTALITY OF THE souL-that important 

doctrine which it is the great design of the 

Institution to teach . As the evanescent nature 

of the flower, which " cometh forth and is 

cut down," reminds us of the transitory nature 

of human life, so the perpetual renovation 

of the evergreen plant, which uninterruptedly 

presents the appearance of youth and vigor: is 

aptly compared to that spiritual life in which 

the soul, freed from the corruptible companionship 

of the body, shall enjoy an eternal 

spring and an immortal Fence. is

8 ACACIA 

ACACIA 

the impressive funeral service of our Order, it 

is said that " this evergreen is an emblem of 

our faith in the immortality of the soul . By 

this we are reminded that we have an immortal 

part within us, which shall survive the 

grave, and which shall never, never, never 

die." And again, in the closing sentences of 

the monitorial lecture of the Third Degree, the 

same sentiment is repeated, and we are told 

that by " the ever-green and ever-living 

sprig " the Mason is strengthened " with confidence 

and composure to look forward to a 

blessed immortality ." Such an interpretation 

of the symbol is an easy and a natural one ; 

it suggests itself at once to the least reflective 

mind ; and consequently, in some one form or 

another, is to be found existing in all ages and 

nations. It was an ancient custom-which 

is not, even now, altogether disused-for 

mourners to carry in their hands at funerals a 

sprig of some evergreen, generally the cedar or 

the cypress, and to deposit it in the grave of 

the deceased . According to Dalcho,* the 

Hebrews always planted a sprig of the acacia 

at the head of the grave of a departed friend . 

Potter tells us that the ancient Greeks " had a 

custom of bedecking tombs with herbs and 

flowers ." t All sorts of purple and white flowers 

were acceptable to the dead, but principally 

the amaranth and the myrtle . The very 

name of the former of these plants, which signifies 

" never fading," would seem to indicate 

the true symbolic meaning of the usage, although 

archeologists have generally supposed 

it to be simply an exhibition of love on the part 

of the survivors . Ragon says that the ancients 

substituted the acacia for all other plants because 

they believed it to be incorruptible, and 

not liable to injury from the attacks of any 

kind of insect or other animal-thus symbolizing 

the incorruptible nature of the soul . 

Hence we see the propriety of placing the 

sprig of acacia, as an emblem of immortality, 

among the symbols of that degree, all of whose 

ceremonies are intended to teach us the great 

truth that " the life of man, regulated by morality, 

faith, and justice, will be rewarded at its 

* "This custom among the Hebrews arose 

from this circumstance . Agreeably to their 

laws, no dead bodies were allowed to be interred 

within the walls of the City ; and as the Cohens, 

or Priests, were prohibited from crossing a grave, 

it was necessary to place marks thereon, that 

they might avoid them. For this purpose the 

Acasia was used ." (Dalcho, $nd Oration, p . 23, 

note .) I object to the reason assigned by Dalcho, 

but of the existence of the custom there can be no 

question, notwithstanding the denial or doubt 

of Dr. Oliver . Blount (Travels in the Levant, 

p. 197) says, speaking of the Jewish burial customs, 

"those who bestow a marble stone over 

any [gravel have a hole a yard long and a foot 

broad, in which they plant an evergreen, which 

seems to grow from the body and is carefully 

watched." Hasselquist (Travels, p . 28) confirms 

his testimony. I borrow the citations from 

Brown (Antiquities of the Jews, vol . ii ., p. 356), 

but have verified the reference to Hasselquist . 

The work of Blount I have not been enabled to 

oonsult. 

t Antiquities of Greece, p . 569 . 

closing hour by the prospect of Eternal 

Bliss ." * So, therefore, says Dr . Oliver, when 

the Master Mason exclaims "my name is 

Acacia," it is equivalent to saying, " I have 

been in the grave-I have triumed over it 

by rising from the dead-and being regenerated 

in the process, I have a claim to life everlasting 

." (See Landmarks, ii .,151, note 27 .) 

The sprig of acacia, then, in its most ordinary 

signification, presents itself to the Master 

Mason as a symbol of the immortality of the 

soul, being intended to remind him, by its 

ever-green and unchanging nature, of that 

better and spiritual part within us, which, as 

an emanation from the Great Architect of the 

Universe, can never die . And as this is the 

most ordinary, the most generally accepted 

signification, so also is it the most important ; 

for thus, as the peculiar symbol of immortality, 

it becomes the most appropriate to an 

Order all of whose teachings are intended to 

inculcate the great lesson that " life rises out 

of the grave ." But incidental to this the acacia 

has two other interpretations which are well 

worthy of investigation . 

Secondly, then, the acacia is a symbol of 

INNoCENCE. The symbolism here is of a peculiar 

and unusual character, depending not 

on any real analogy in the form or use of the 

symbol to the idea symbolized, but simply on 

a double or compound meaning of the word . 

For acaKla in the Greek language, si es 

both the pant in question and the moral uality 

of innocence or purity of life . In this sense 

the symbol refers, primarily, to him over 

whose solitary grave the acacia was planted, 

and whose virtuous conduct, whose integrity 

of life and fidelity to his trusts have ever been 

presented as patterns to the craft, and consequently 

to all Master Masons, who, by this 

interpretation of the symbol, are invited to 

emulate his example. 

Hutchinsont indulging in his favorite theory 

of Christianizing Masonry, when he comes to 

this signification of the symbol, thus enlarges 

on the interpretation : " We Masons, describing 

the deplorable estate of religion under the 

Jewish law, speak in figures :-'Her tomb was 

in the rubbish and filth cast forth of the temple, 

and ACACIA wove its branches over her 

monument ;' aKaKta being the Greek word 

for innocence, or being free from sin ; implying 

that the sins and corruptions of the old law, 

and devotees of the Jewish altar, had hid religion 

from those who sought her, and she was 

only to be found where INNOCENCE survived, 

and under the banner of the divine Lamb ; 

and as to ourselves professing that we were 

to be distinguished by our ACACY, ,or as true 

ACACIANs in our religious faith and tenets ." t 

But, lastly, the acacia is to be considered as 

the symbol of INITIATION . This is by far the 

most interesting of its interpretations, andwas, 

we have every reason to believe, the primary 

and original ; the others being but incidental . 

* Dr . Crucefix, MS . quoted by Oliver . Landmarks, 

ii., 2. 

t Hutchinson's Spirit of Masonry, Loot. IX.; 

p . 160, ed . 1775.

ACACIAN 

ACADEMY 9 

It leads us at once to the investigation of the 

significant fact that in all the ancient initiations 

and religious mysteries there was some 

plant peculiar to each, which was consecrated 

by its own esoteric meaning, and which occupied 

an important position in the celebration 

of the rites, so that the plant, whatever it 

might be, from its constant and prominent use 

in the ceremonies of initiation, came at length 

to be adopted as the symbol of that initiation . 

Thus, the lettuce was the sacred plant which 

assumed the place of the acacia in the mysteries 

of Adonis. (See Lettuce .) The lotus was 

that of the Brahmanical rites of India, and 

from them adopted by the Egyptians . (See 

Lotus .) The Egyptians also revered the erica 

or heath ; and the mistletoe was a mystical 

plant among the Druids . (See Erica and Mistletoe.) 

And, lastly the myrtle performed the 

same office of symbolism in the mysteries of 

Greece that the lotus did in Egypt or the mistletoe 

among the Druids . (See Myrtle.) 

In all of these ancient mysteries, while the 

sacred plant was a symbol of initiation, the 

initiation itself was symbolic of the resurrection 

to a future life, and of the immortality 

of the soul . In this view, Freemasonry is to us 

now in the place of the ancient initiations, and 

the acacia is substituted for the lotus, the erica, 

the ivy, the mistletoe, and the myrtle. The 

lesson of wisdom is the same-the medium 

of imparting it is all that has been changed . 

Returning, then, to the acacia, we find that 

it is capable of three explanations . It is a symbol 

of immortality, of innocence, and of initiation 

. But these three signification are closely 

connected, and that connection must be observed, 

if we desire to obtain a just interpretation 

of the symbol. Thus, in this one s - 

bol, we are taught that in the initiation of e, 

of which the initiation in the Third Degree is 

simply emblematic, innocence must for a 

time lie in the grave, at length, however, to be 

called, by the word of the Great Master of the 

Universe, to a blissful immortality . Combine 

with this the recollection of the place where 

the sprig of acacia was planted-Mount 

Calvary-the place of sepulture of him who 

"brought life and immortality to light," and 

who, in Christian Masonry, is designated, as 

he is in Scripture, as " the lion of the tribe of 

Judah" ; and remember, too, that in the mystery 

of his death, the wood of the cross takes 

the place of the acacia, and in this little and 

apparently insignificant symbol, but which is 

really and truly the most important and significant 

one in Masonic science, we have a 

beautiful suggestion of all the mysteries of 

life and death, of time and eternity, of the 

present and of the future . 

Acaclan. A word introduced by Hutchinson, 

in his Spirit of Masonry, to designate 

a Freemason in reference to the akakia, or innocence 

with which he was to be distinguished, 

from the Greek word arcaKla . (See the preceding 

article .) The Acacians constituted an 

heretical sect in the primitive Christian 

Church, who derived their name from Acacia, 

Bishop of Casarea ; and there was sub- 

sequently another sect of the same name 

Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople . But it 

is needless to say that the Hu tchinsonian application 

of the word Acacian to signify a 

Freemason has nothing to do with the theological 

reference of the term . 

Academic des Illumines d'Avignon. A 

Hermetic system of philosophy, created in 1785 . 

Academy. The Fourth Degree of the 

Rectified Rose Croix of Schroeder . 

Academy of Ancients or of Secrets . 

(Academie des Secrets .) A society instituted at 

Warsaw, in 1767, by M . Thoux de Salverte, 

and founded on the principles of another 

which bore the same name, and which had 

been established at Rome, about the end of 

the 16th century, by John Baptiste Porta . 

The object of the institution was the advancement 

of the natural sciences and their application 

to the occult philosophy. 

Academy of Sages . An order which existed 

in Sweden in 1770, deriving its origin from 

that founded in London by Elias Ashmole, on 

the doctrines of the New Atlantis of Bacon . A 

few similar societies were subsequently founded 

in Russia and France, one especially noted by 

Thory (Act . Lat.) as having been established 

in 1776 by the mother Lodge of Avignon . 

Academy of Secrets . See Academy of 

Ancients. 

Academy of Sublime Masters of the Luminous 

Ring . Founded in France, in 1780, 

by Baron Blaerfmdy, one of the Grand Officers 

of the Philosophic Scotch Rite . The Academy 

of the Luminous Ring was dedicated to the 

philosophy of Pythagoras, and was divided 

into three degrees . The first and second were 

principally occupied with the history of Freemasonry, 

and the last with the dogmas of the 

Pythagorean school, and their application to 

the highest grades of science. The historical 

hypothesis which was sought to be developed 

in this Academy was that Pythagoras was the 

founder of Freemasonry. 

Academy of True Masons . Founded at 

Montpelier, in France, by Dom Pernetty in 

1778, and occupied with instructions in hermetic 

science, which were developed in six 

degrees viz . : 1 . The True Mason ; 2. The 

True 11iason in the Right Way ; 3 . Knight of 

the Golden Key ; 4. Knight of Iris- 5 . 

Knight of the Argonauts ; 6. Knight of the 

Golden Fleece. The degrees thus conferred 

constituted the Philosophic Scotch Rite, which 

was the system adopted by the Academy. It 

afterward changed its name to that of Russo- 

Swedish Academy, which circumstance leads 

Thory to believe that it was connected with 

the Alchemical Chapters which at that time 

existed in Russia and Sweden . The entirely 

hermetic character of the Academy of True 

Masons may readily be perceived in a few paragraphs 

cited by Clavel (p . 172, 3d ed ., 1844) 

from a discourse by Goyer de Jumilly at the 

installation of an Academy in Martinique . 

" To seize," says the orator, " the graver of 

Hermes to engrave the doctrines of natural 

philosophy on your columns ; to call Flamel, 

the Philalete, the Cosmopolite, and our other

10 ACADEMY 

ACCEPTED 

masters to my aid for the purpose of unveiling 

the mysterious principles of the occult sciences,-these, 

illustrious knights, appear to be 

the duties imposed on me by the ceremony of 

your installation . The fountain of Count 

Trevisan, the pontifical water, the peacock's 

tail, are phenomena with which you are familiar." 

Academy, Platonic . Founded in 1480 by 

Marsilius Ficinus, at Florence, under the patronage 

of Lorenzo de Medicis . It is said by 

the Masons of Tuscany to have been a secret 

society, and is supposed to have had a Masonic 

character, because in the hall where its members 

held their meetings, and which still remains, 

many Masonic symbols are to be found . 

Clavel (p . 85, 3d ed., 1844) supposes it to have 

been a society founded by some of the honorary 

members and patrons of the fraternity 

of Freemasons who existed in the Middle 

Ages, and who, having abandoned the material 

design of the institution, confined themselves 

to its mystic character . If his suggestion 

be correct, this is one of the earliest 

instances of the separation of Speculative 

from Operative Masonry . 

Acanthus. A plant, described by Dioscorides, 

with broad, flexible, prickly leaves, 

which perish in the winter and sprout again at 

the return of spring . It is found in the Grecian 

islands on the borders of cultivated fields 

or gardens, and is common in moist, rocky situations 

. It is memorable for the tradition 

which assigns to it the origin of the foliage 

carved on the capitals of Corinthian and Composite 

columns . Hence, in architecture, that 

part of the Corinthian capital is called the 

Acanthus which is situated below the abacus, 

and which, having the form of a vase or bell, is 

surrounded by two rows of leaves of the acanthus 

plant . Callimachus, who invented this 

ornament, is said to have had the idea suggested 

to him by the following incident . A 

Corinthian maiden who was betrothed, fell ill, 

and died just before the appointed time of her 

marriage. Her faithful and grieving nurse 

placed on her tomb a basket containing many 

of her toys and jewels, and covered it with a 

flat tile . It so happened that the basket was 

placed immediately over an acanthus root, 

which afterward grew up around the basket 

and curled over under the superincumbent 

resistance of the tile, thus exhibiting a form of 

foliage which was, on its being seen by the 

architect adopted as a model for the capital of 

a new order ; so that the story of affection was 

per etuated in marble. Dudley (Naology, p . 

164) thinks the tale puerile, and supposes that 

the acanthus is really the lotus of the Indians 

and Egyptians, and is symbolic of laborious 

but effectual effort applied to the support of the 

world . With him, the symbolism of the acanthus 

and the lotus are identical . See Lotus . 

Accepted. The Worshipful Compan of 

Masons of the City of London-a flour' ' g 

Guild at the present day-possesses as its earliest 

document now existing an account book 

headed 

" 1620. 

The Accompte of James Gilder Mr (Master) 

William Ward & John Abraham wardens 

of the Company of ffremasons wthin the Citie 

of London beginninge the first day of Julie 

1619 And endinge the day of Julie 1620 

of all receite & payment for & to the use the 

same company as ffolloweth, viz ." 

From the entries in this book it appears 

that besides the ordinary Freemen and Liverymen 

of this Company there were other members 

who are termed in the books the " Accepted 

Masons," and that they belonged to a 

body known as the "Accepcon," or Acception, 

which was an Inner Fraternity of Speculative 

Masons . 

Thus in the year 1620 the following entry is 

found : 

" They charge themselves also wth Money 

Receyued of the Psons hereafter named for 

theyr gratuitie at theyr acceptance into the 

Lyvery viz" (here follow six names) ; and 

among the accounts for the next year (1621) 

there is an entry showing sums received from 

several persons, of whom two are mentioned 

in the entry of 1620, " Att the making masons," 

and as all these mentioned were already 

members of the Company something further 

must be meant by this . 

In 1631 the following entry of the Clerk's 

expenses occurs : " Pd in goeing abroad & att 

a meeteing att the hall about ye Masons yt 

were to bee accepted VIB VId ." 

Now the Company never accepted its members 

; they were always admitted to the freedom 

either by apprenticeship, patrimony, or 

redemption. Thus the above entries suggest 

that persons who were neither connected with 

the trade nor otherwise qualified were required, 

before being eligible for election on the 

livery of the Company, to become " Accepted 

Masons," that is, to join the Lodge of Speculative 

Masonry that was held for that purpose 

in the Company's Hall. 

Thus in the accounts for 1650, payments are 

entered as made by several persons " for coming 

on the Liuerie & admission uppon Acceptance 

of Masonry," and it is entered that Mr . 

Andrew Marvin the present warden, and another 

paid 20 shillings each " for coming on 

the Accepcon" ; while two others are entered 

as paying 40 shillings each "for the like," 

and as the names of the last two cannot be 

found among the members of the Masons 

Company it would seem as if it was possible 

for strangers to join "the Accepcon " on 

paying double fees. 

Unfortunately no books connected with 

this Acception, or Lodge, as it may be called, 

have been preserved : but there are references 

to it in several places in the account books 

which show that the payments made by newly 

accepted Masons were paid into the funds of 

the Company, that some or all of this amount 

was spent on a banquet and the attendant 

expenses, and that any further sum required 

was paid out cf the ordinary funds of the 

Company, proving that the Company had 

entire control of the Lodge and its funds . 

Further evidence of the existence of this

ACCEPTED 

ACCEPTED 11 

Symbolical Lodge within the Masons Company 

is given by the following entry in an inventory 

of the Company's property made in 

1665 : 

"Item . The names of the Accepted Masons 

in a faire inclosed frame with lock and 

key" ; and in an inventory of 1676 is found : 

"Item. One book of the Constitutions of 

the Accepted Masons.* 

"A faire large table of the Accepted Masons 

." And proof positive of its existence 

is derived from an entry in the diary of 

Elias Ashmole-the famous antiquary-who 

writes 

" March 10th . 1682 . About 5 p .m. I received 

a summons to appear at a Lodge to be 

held next day at Masons Hall London . 

March 11th. Accordingly I went and 

about noon were admitted into the Fellowship 

of Free Masons : Sir William Wilson Knight, 

Capt . Rich Borthwick, Mr Will Woodman, 

Mr Wm Grey, Mr Samuell Taylour, and Mr 

William Wise.t 

I was the Senior Fellow among them (it 

being 35 years since I was admitted) ." 

He then mentions the names of nine others 

who were present and concludes : "We all 

dyned at the halfe Moone Taverne in Cheapeside 

at a noble dinner prepaired at the charge 

of tce New-Accepted Masons ." 

All present were members of the Masons 

Company except Ashmole himself, Sir W . 

Wilson and Capt. Borthwick and this entry 

proves conclusively that side by side with the 

Masons Company there existed another organization 

to which non-members of the Company 

were admitted and the members of which 

were known as "Accepted Masons ." 

It may here be mentioned that Ashmole 

has recorded in his diary that he was made a 

Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire on 

October 16, 1646 . In that entry the word 

"Accepted" does not occur . 

No mention is made of the Accepted Masons 

in the accounts of the Masons Company after 

1677, when £6-the balance remaining of the 

last Accepted Masons' money-was ordered 

to be laid out for a new banner ; and it would 

seem that from that time onward the Lodge 

kept separate accounts for from the evidence 

of Ashmole's diary we snow it was at work in 

1682 ; but when and why it finally ceased no 

evidence is forthcoming to show . However, 

it may fairly be assumed that this Masons 

Hall Lodge had ceased to exist before the Revival 

of Freemasonry in 1717, or else Anderson 

would not have said in the Constitutions of 

1723 (p . 82) : "It is generally believ'd that 

the said Company (i .e. the London Company 

of Freemen Masons) is descended of the an- 

* No doubt this was a copy of one of the Old 

Charges . 

tIn the edition of Ashmole's diary published 

in 1774 this was changed into "I went, and about 

noon was admitted . by Sir William Wilson 

&c ." an error which has misled many Masonic 

historians . See Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol . xi ., 

p. 6, for a facsimile of the entry as in the original 

diary. 

dent Fraternity ; and that in former Times no 

Man was made Free of that Company until 

he was install'd in some Lodge of Free and 

Accepted Masons, as a necessary Qualification 

. But that laudable Practice seems to 

have been long in Desuetude," which passage 

would indicate that he was aware of some tradition 

of such a Lodge as has been described 

attached to the Masons Company admitting 

persons in no way operatively connected with 

the craft, who were called "Accepted Masons" 

to distinguish them from the Operative 

or Free Masons. (Conder's Hole Craft and 

Fellowship of Masonry and Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 

vol . ix .) 

Anderson in the 1738 Constitutions quotes 

from a copy of the old Constitutions some regulations 

which he says were made in 1663, and 

in which the phrases accepted a Free Mason 

and Acceptation occur several times . These 

regulations are found in what is known as the 

Grand Lodge MS. No . 2, which is supposed 

to have been written about the middle of 

the 17th century, so that Anderson's date in 

which he follows the Roberts Old Constitutions 

printed in 1722 as to the year, though he 

changes the day from December 8th to December 

27th, may quite possibly be correct. And 

Bro . Conder (Hole Craft, p . 11) calls special attention 

to these regulations on account of the 

singular resemblance that one of them bears 

to the rules that govern the Masons Company . 

The extracts given above from the books of 

the Masons Company, the 1663 Regulations 

(if that date be accepted), and the quotation 

from Ashmole's diary, are the earliest known 

instances of the term "Accepted" Masons 

for although the Inigo Jones MS. is headed 

"The Antient Constitutions of the Free and 

Accepted Masons 1607," yet there is a consensus 

of opinion among experts that such date 

is impossible and that the MS . is really to be 

referred to the end of the 17th century or even 

the beginning of the 18th ; and the next instance 

of the use of the term is in 1686 when 

Dr. Plot in The Natural History of Staffordshire 

wrote with reference to the secret signs 

used by the Freemasons of his time "if any 

man appear, though altogether unknown, that 

can shew any of these signer to a Fellow of the 

Society whom they otherwise call an Accepted 

Mason, he is obliged presently to come 

to him from what company or place soever he 

be in, nay, though from the top of steeple ." 

Further, in 1691, John Aubrey, author of 

The Natural History of Wiltshire, made a 

note in his MS . "This day (May 18, 1691) is a 

great convention at St. Paula Church of the 

fraternity of the free Masons," in which he 

has erased the word free and substituted accepted, 

which, however, he changed into adopted 

in his fair copy . 

In the "Orders to be observed by the Company 

and Fellowship of Freemasons att a 

Lodge held at Alnwick, Septr . 29, 1701 being 

the Gen" Head Meeting Day,"we find :'lThere 

shall noe apprentice after he have served 

seaven years be admitted or accepted but 

upon the Feast of St . Michael the Arehangell ."

12 ACCLAMATION 

ACHISHAR 

And from that time onward the term Accepted 

Masons becomes common, usually in 

connection with Free : the term Free and Accepted 

Masons thus signifying both the Operative 

members who were free of their d 

and the Speculative members who had een 

accepted as outsiders. Thus the Roberts Print 

of 1722 is headed, " The Old Constitutions belonging 

to the Ancient and Honourable Society 

of Free and Accepted Masons," and in 

the Constitutions of 1723 Anderson speaks of 

wearing " the Badges of a Free and Accepted 

Mason" (p. 48) and uses the phrase in Rule 

27, though he does not use the phrase so freqyently 

as in the 1738 edition in which " the 

Charges of a Free-Mason " become " the old 

Charges of the Free and Accep ted Masons," 

the " General Regulations " become " The 

General Regulations of the Free and Accepted 

Masons, and regulation No . 5 ." " No 

man can be made or admitted a Member " 

becomes " No man can be accepted a Member," 

while the title of the book is " The new 

book of Constitutions of the Antient and 

Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted 

Masons " instead of " The Constitutions of 

the Free-Masons," as in the earlier edition . 

[E. L. H.] 

Acclamation . A certain form of words 

used in connection with the battery . In the 

Scottish rite it is hoshea ; in the French vivat; 

in Adoptive Masonry it was Eva; and in the 

rite of Misraim, hallelujah . (See Battery .) 

Accolade. From the Latin ad and collum, 

around the neck. It is generally but incorrectly 

supposed that the accolade means the 

blow given on the neck of a newly created 

knight with the flat of the sword . The best 

authorities define it to be the embrace, accompanied 

with the kiss of peace, by which the 

new knight was at his creation welcomed into 

the Order of Knighthood by the sovereign or 

lord who created him . (See Knighthood.) 

Accord. We get this word from the two 

Latin ones ad cor, to the heart, and hence it 

means hearty consent . Thus in Wielif's translation 

we find the phrase in Philippians, which 

in the Authorized Version is " with one accord," 

rendered "with one will, with one 

heart." Such is its signification in the Masonic 

formula, " free will and accord," that is, "free 

will and hearty consent." (See Free Will and 

Accord .) 

Accuser. In every trial in a Lodge for an 

offense against the laws and regulations or the 

p rinciples of Masonry any Master Mason may 

be the accuser of another, but a profane cannot 

be permitted to prefer charges against a 

Mason . Yet, if circumstances are known to a 

profane upon which charges ought to be predicated, 

a Master Mason may avail himself of 

that information, and out of it frame an accusation 

to be presented to the Lodge. And 

such accusation will be received and investigated, 

although remotely derived from one 

who is not a member of the Order . 

It is not necessary that the accuser should 

be a member of the same Lodge. It is sufficient 

if he is an affiliated Mason ; but it is gen- 

erally held that an unaffiliated Mason is no 

more competent to prefer charges than a profane 

. 

In consequence of the Junior Warden being 

placed over the Craft during the hours of refreshment, 

and of his being charged at the 

time of his installation to see " that none of 

the Craft be suffered to convert the purposes 

of refreshment into those of 'intemperance and 

excess," it has been very generally su posed 

that it is his duty as the prosecuting Meer of 

the Lodge, to prefer charges against an member 

who, by his conduct, has made himself 

amenable to the penal jurisdiction of the 

Lodge . We know of no ancient regulation 

which imposes this unpleasant duty upon the 

Junior Warden but it does seem to be a very 

natural deduction, from his peculiar prerogative 

as the custos morum or guardian of the 

conduct of the Craft, that in all cases of violation 

of the law he should, after due efforts 

toward producing a reform, be the proper 

officer to bring the conduct of the offending 

brother to the notice of the Lodge . 

Aceldama, from the Syro-Chaldaic, meaning 

field of blood, so called because it was purchased 

with the blood-money which was paid 

to Judas Iscariot for betraying !is Lord . It is 

situated on the slope of the hills beyond the 

valley of Hinnom and to the south of Mount 

Zion . The earth there was believed, by early 

writers, to have possessed a corrosive quality, 

by means of which bodies deposited in it were 

quickly consumed ; and hence it was used by 

the Crusaders, then by the Knights Hospitalers, 

and afterward by the Armenians, as a 

place of sepulture, and the Empress Helena is 

said to have built a charnel-house in its midst . 

Dr. Robinson (Biblical Researches, i . p . 524) 

says that the field is not now marked by any 

boundary to distinguish it from the rest of the 

field, and the former charnel house is now a 

ruin . The field of Aceldama is referred to in 

the ritual of the Knights Templars . 

Aeerrellos, B. S. A nom de plume assumed 

by Carl Rossler, a German Masonic writer . 

(See Rossler .) 

Achad. One of the names of God . The 

word `V1tt, Achad, in Hebrew signifies one or 

unity. It has been adopted by the Masons as 

one of the appellations of the Deity from the 

passage in Deuteronomy (vi . 4) : "Hear, 0 

Israel : the Lord our God is (Ached) one 

Lord" ; which the Jews wear on their phylacteries, 

and pronounce with great fervor as a 

confession of their faith in the unity of God . 

Speaking of God as Aclcad, the Rabbis say, 

" God is one (Ached) and man is one (Ached) . 

Man, however, is not purely one, because he is 

made up of elements and has another like himself 

; but the oneness of God is a oneness that 

has no boundary." 

Acharon Schilton. InHebrew1t9~TD ,11rHt, 

signifying the new kingdom . Significant words 

in some of the high degrees . 

Aehlas. A corru ption of the Hebrew Achijah, 

the brother of Jah ; a significant word in 

some of the high degrees . 

Achishar. Mentioned in 1 Kings (iv . 6)

ACHTARIEL 

ACTA 13 

under the name of Ahishar, and there described 

as being " over the household " of 

King Solomon. This was a situation of great 

importance in the East, and equivalent to the 

modern office of Chamberlain. The Steward 

in a Council of Select Masters is said to represent 

Achishar . 

Achtariel. A Kabbalistic name of God belonging 

to the Crown or first of the ten sephiroth 

; and hence signifying the Crown or God . 

Acknowledged. When one is initiated into 

the degree of Most Excellent Ma ter, he is 

technically said to be " received and acknowledged 

" as a Most Excellent Master . This 

expression refers to the tradition of the degree 

which states that when the Temple had been 

completed and dedicated, King Solomon received 

and acknowledged the most expert of 

the craftsmen as Most Excellent Masters . 

That is, he received them into the exalted rank 

of perfect and acknowledged workmen, and 

acknowledged their right to that title. The verb 

to acknowledge here means to own or admit, to 

belong to, as, to acknowledge a son . 

Acousmatiei. The primary class of the 

disciples of Pythagoras, who served a five 

years' probation of silence, and were hence 

called acousmatici or hearers. According to 

Porphyry, they received only the elements of 

intellectual and moral instruction, and, after 

the expiration of their term of probation, they 

were advanced to the rank of Mathematici . 

(See Pythagoras .) 

Acquittal . Under this head it may be 

proper to discuss two questions of Masonic law . 

1 . Can a Mason, having been acquitted by the 

courts of the country of an offense with which 

he has been charged, be tried by his Lodge for 

the same offense? And, 2 . Can a Mason, having 

been acquitted by his Lodge on insufficient 

evidence, be subjected, on the discovery 

and production of new and more complete 

evidence, to a second trial for the same offense? 

To both of these questions the correct 

answer would seem to be in the affirmative . 

1 . An acquittal of a crime by a temporal 

court does not relieve a Mason from an inquisition 

into the same offense by his Lodge ; 

for acquittals may be the result of some technicality 

of law, or other cause, where, although 

the party is relieved from legal punishment, 

his guilt is still manifest in the eyes of the community; 

and if the Order were to be controlled 

by the action of the courts, the character of 

the Institution might be injuriously affected 

by its permitting a man, who had escaped 

without honor from the punishment of the 

law, to remain a member of the Fraternity . 

In the language of the Grand Lodge of Texas, 

" an acquittal by a jury, while it may, and 

should, in some circumstances, have its influence 

in deciding on the course to be pursued, 

yet has no binding force in Masonry . We decide 

on our own rules, and our own view of the 

facts ." (Proc . G. L . Tex., vol. ii ., p . 273 . ) 

2 . To come to a correct apprehension of the 

second question, we must remember that it is 

a long-settled principle of Masonic law, that 

every offense which a Mason. commits is an 

injury to the whole Fraternity, inasmuch as 

the bad conduct of a single member reflects 

discredit on the whole Institution . This is a 

very old and well-established princi ple of the 

Institution ; and hence we find the Old Constitutions 

declaring that Masons "should never 

be thieves nor thieves' maintainers." (Cooke 

MS ., 1 . 916 .) The safety of the Institution 

requires that no evil-disposed member should 

be tolerated with impunity in bringing disgrace 

on the Craft . And, therefore, although 

it is a well-known maxim of the common lawnemo 

debet bis puniri pro uno delicto-that is, 

" that no one should be twice placed in peril of 

punishment for the same crime," yet we must 

also remember that other and fundamental 

maxim-salus populi suprema lex-which 

may, in its application to Masonry, be well 

translated, " the well-being of the Order is 

the first great law ." To this everything else 

must yield ; and, therefore, if a member, having 

been accused of a heinous offense and tried, 

shall, on his trial, for want of sufficient evidence, 

be acquitted, or, being convicted, shall, 

for the same reason, be punished by an inadequate 

penalty-and if he shall thus be permitted 

to remain in the Institution with the 

stigma of the crime upon him, "whereby the 

Craft comes to shame, ' then, if new and more 

sufficient evidence shall be subsequently discovered, 

it is just and right that a new trial 

shall be had, so that he may, on this newer 

evidence, receive that punishment which will 

vindicate the reputation of the Order. No 

technicalities of law, no plea of autrefois acquit 

nor mere verbal exception, should be allowed 

for the escape of a guilty member ; for so long 

as he lives m the Order, every man is subject 

to its discipline. A hundred wrongful ac uittals 

of a bad member, who still bears with 

the reproach of his evil life, can never discharge 

the Order from its paramount duty of 

protecting its own good fame and removing 

the delinquent member from its fold . To this 

great dut y all private and individual rights 

and privileges must succumb, for the wellbeing 

of the Order is the first great law in 

Masonry. 

Acta Latomorum,ou Chronologie de 1'Histoire 

de la Franche-Maconnerie frangaise et 

etrangere, etc . That is : " The Acts of the 

Freemasons, or a chronological history of 

French and Foreign Freemasonry, etc ." This 

work, written or compiled by Claude Antoine 

Thory, was publishedat Paris, in 2 vols ., 8vo, 

in 1815 . It contains the most remarkable 

facts in the history of the Institution from obscure 

times to the year 1814 ; the succession of 

Grand Masters ; a nomenclature of rites, degrees, 

and secret associations in all the countries 

of the world ; a bibliography of the principal 

works on Freemasonry published since 

1723 ; and a supplement in which the author 

has collected a variety of rare and important 

Masonic documents . Of this work, which has 

never been translated into English, Lenning 

says (Encycl . der Freimaurerei) that it is, 

without dispute, the most scientific work on 

Freemasonry that French literature has ever

14 ACTING 

ADAM 

produced . It must, however, be confessed that 

in the historical portion Thory has committed 

many errors in respect to English and American 

Freemasonry, and therefore if ever translated, 

the work will require much emendation . 

(See Thory .) 

Acting Grand Master . The Duke of Cumberland 

(grandson of George II ., brother of 

George III.) having in April, 1782, been 

elected Grand Master of England, it was resolved 

by the Grand Lodge " that whenever a 

prince of the blood did the society the honour 

to accept the office of Grand Master, he should 

be at liberty to nominate an peer of the 

realm to be the acting Grand Master ." (Constitutions 

of G. L, of England, ed. 1784, p. 341 .) 

The officer thus provided to be appointed was 

subsequently called in the Constitutions of the 

G. Lodge of England, ed . 1841, and is now 

called the Pro Grand Master . 

In the American system, the officer who performs 

the duties of Grand Master in case of 

the removal, death, or inability of that officer, 

is known as the Acting Grand Master. For 

the regulations which prescribe the proper 

person to perform these duties see Grand 

Master. 

Active Lodge. A Lodge is said to be active 

when it is neither dormant nor suspended, but 

regularly meets and is occupied in the labors 

of Masonry . 

Active Member . An active member of 

a Lodge is one who, in contradistinction to an 

honorary member, assumes all the burdens of 

membership, such as contributions, arrers 

and participation in its labors, and is invested 

with all the rights of membership, such as 

speaking, voting, and holding office . 

Actual Past Masters. This term is sometimes 

applied to those who have actually 

served as Master of a Craft Lodge in order to 

distinguish them from those who have been 

made " Virtual Past Masters," in Chapters 

of the United States, or "Past Masters of Arts 

and Sciences," in English Chapters, as a preliminary 

to receiving the Royal Arch degree . 

(See Past Master.) 

Adad. The name of the principal god 

among the Syrians, and who, as representing 

the sun, had, according to Macrobius (Saturnal, 

i., 23), an image surrounded b rays . 

Macrobius, however, is wrong, as Selden has 

shown (De Diis S ris, i ., 6), in confounding 

Adad with the Hebrew Ached, or one-a 

name, from its signification of unity, applied 

to the Great Architect of the Universe. The 

error of Macrobius, however, has been perpetuated 

by the inventors of the high degrees of 

Masonry who have incorporated Adad, as a 

name of (xod, among their significant words . 

Adam. The name of the first man. The 

Hebrew word C"I$ ADaM, signifies man in 

a generic sense, the human species collectively, 

and is said to be derived from 1VIfi, 

ADaMaH, the ground, because the first man 

was made out of the dust of the earth, or from 

ADAM, to be red, in reference to his ruddy 

complexion . It is most probably in this collective 

sense, as the representative of the whole 

human race, and, therefore, the type of humanity, 

that the presiding officer in a Council of 

Knights of the Sun the Twenty-eighth Degree 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is 

called Father Adam, and is occupied in the investigation 

of the great truths which so much 

concern the interests of the race . Adam, in 

that degree, is man seeking after divine truth . 

The Kabbalists and Talmudists have invented 

many things concerning the first Adam, none 

of which are, however, worthy of preservation . 

(See Knight of the Sun .) 

Adam . * The Entered Apprentice degree 

symbolizes the creation of man and his first 

perception of light. In the Elohist form of the 

Creation we read, " Elohim said, `Let us 

make man in our image, according to our likeness, 

and let him have dominion over the fishes 

of the sea, over the fowls of the air, over the 

cattle, and over all the earth, and over every 

reptile that creeps upon the earthl' And Elohim 

created man in his image ; in the image of 

Elohim he created him ; male and female he 

created them. . . . AndYahvehElohimformed 

man of the dust of the ground, and breathed 

in his nostrils the breath of life, and man was 

made a living being ." Without giving more 

than a passing reference to the speculative 

origin and production of man and to his spontaneous 

generation (Principe Generateur) 

as set forth by the Egyptians, when we are told 

that " the fertilizing mud left by the Nile, and 

exposed to the vivifying action of heat induced 

by the sun's rays, brought forth germs which 

spring up as the bodies of men," accepted cosmogonies 

only will be hereinafter mentioned ; 

thus in that of Peru, the first man, created by 

the ivi Animated earth.; The calle ascaD" Mandans, one 

of the North American tribes relate that the 

Great Spirit molded two figures of clay, 

which he dried and animated with the breath 

of his mouth, one receiving the name of First 

Man, and the other that of Companion . 

Taeroa, the god of Tahiti, formed man of the 

red earth, say the inhabitants ; and so we 

might continue . But as Frangois Lenormant 

remarks in the Beginnings of History, let us 

confine ourselves to the cosmogony offered by 

the sacred traditions of the great civilized 

nations of antiquity . " The Chaldeans call 

Adam the man whom the earth produced . 

And he lay without movement, without life, 

and without breath, just like an image of the 

heavenly Adam, until his soul had been given 

him by the latter." The cosmogonic account 

peculiar to Babylon, as given by Berossus, 

says : " Belos, seeing that the earth was uninhabited, 

though fertile, cut off his own head, 

and the other gods, after kneading with earth 

the blood that flowed from it, formed men, 

who therefore are endowed with intelligence, 

and share in the divine thought," etc . The 

term employed to designate " man " in his 

connection with his Creator, is admu, the 

Assyrian counterpart of the Hebrew Adam . 

(G . Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis.) 

* This article is by C. T. McClenachan .

ADAM 

ADAR 15 

Lenormant further says, that the fragments of 

Berossus give Adorns as the name of the first 

patriarch, and Adiuru has been discovered on 

the cuneiform inscriptions . 

Zoroaster makes the creation of man the 

voluntary act of a personal god, distinct from 

primordial matter, and his theory stands 

alone among the learned religions of the ancient 

world. 

According to Jewish tradition in the Targumim 

and the Talmud, as also to Moses Maimonides, 

Adam was created man and woman 

at the same time, having two faces, turned in 

two opposite directions, and that during a 

stupor the Creator, separated Havvah, his feminine 

half, from him, in order to make of her a 

distinct person . Thus were separated the primordial 

androgyn . 

With Shemites and Mohammedans Adam 

was symbolized in the Lingam, whilst with the 

Jews Seth was their Adam or Lingam, and successively 

Noah took the place of Seth, and so 

followed Abraham and Moses . The worship of 

Adam as the God-like idea, succeeded by 

Seth, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, through 

the symbolism of pillars, monoliths, obelisks, 

or Matsebas (images), gave rise to other symbolic 

images, as where Noah was adored under 

the emblems of a man, ark, and serpent, signifying 

heat, fire, or passion . 

Upon the death of Adam, says traditional 

history, the pious Gregory declared that the 

" dead body should be kept above ground, till a 

fulness of time should come to commit it to 

the middle of the earth by a priest of the most 

high God ." This traditional prophecy was fulfilled, 

it is said, by the body of Adam having 

been preserved in a chest until about 1800 

B .c ., when "Melchizedek buried the body in 

Salem (formerly the name of Jerusalem), 

which might very well be the middle of the 

habitable world ." 

The Sethites used to say their prayers daily 

in the Ark before the body of Adam . J. G. R . 

Forlong, in his Rivers of Life, tells us that " It 

appears from both the Sabid Aben Batric and 

the Arabic Catena, that there existed the following 

`short litany, said to have been conceived 

by Noah .' Then follows the prayer of 

Noah, which was used for so long a period by 

the Jewish Freemasons at the opening of the 

Lode : 

" 0 Lord, excellent art thou in thy truth, 

and there is nothing great in comparison of 

thee . Look upon us with the eye of mercy and 

compassion . Deliver us from this deluge of 

waters, and set our feet in a large room . By 

the sorrows of Adam, the first made man ; 

by the blood of Abel, thy holy one ; by the 

righteousness of Seth, in whom thou art well 

pleased ; number us not amongst those who 

have transgressed thy statutes, but take us 

into thy merciful care, for thou art our Deliverer, 

and thine is the praise for all the works of 

thy hand for evermore. And the sons of 

Noah said, Amen, Lord ."' 

The Master of the Lodge would omit the 

reference to the deluge and add the following 

to the prayer : 11 But grant, we beseech thee, 

that the ruler of this lodge may be endued 

with knowledge and wisdom to instruct us 

and explain his secret mysteries, as our holy 

brother Moses did (in his lodge) to Aaron, to 

Eleazar, and to Ithamar (the sons of Aaron), 

and the several elders of Israel ." 

Adam Hadmon. In the Kabbalistic doctrine, 

the name given to the first emanation 

from the Eternal Fountain . It signifies the 

first man, or the first production of divine 

ener*y, or the son of God, and to it the other 

and inferior emanations are subordinate . 

Adams, John Quincy, the sixth President 

of the United States, who served from 1825 to 

1829 . Mr . Adams, who has been very properly 

described as " a man of strong points and 

weak ones of vast reading and wonderful 

memory, oi great credulity and strong prejudices," 

became notorious in the latter years of 

his life for his virulent opposition to Freemasonry 

. The writer already quoted, who had 

an excellent opportunity of seeing intimately 

the workings of the spirit of anti-Masonry, 

says of Mr . Adams : " He hated Freemasonry, 

as he did many other things, not from any 

harm that he had received from it orPersonally 

knew respecting it, but because his credulity 

had been wrought upon and his pr~e~judices 

excited against it by dishonest and selfish 

politicians, who were anxious, at any sacrifice 

to him, to avail themselves of the influence 

of his commanding talents and position 

in public life to sustain them in the disreputable 

work in which they were enlisted . In 

his weakness, he lent himself to them . He 

united his energies to theirs in an impracticable 

and unworthy cause ." (C . W. Moore, 

Freemasons' Mag ., vol . vii., p . 314 .) The result 

was a series of letters abusive of Freemasonry, 

directed to leading politicians, and published 

in the public journals from 1831 to 1833 . A 

year before his death they were collected and 

published under the title of Letters on the 

Masonic Institution, by John Quincy Adams . 

(Boston, 1847, 8vo, pp . 284 .) Some explanation 

of the cause of the virulence with which 

Mr . Adams attacked the Masonic Institution 

in these letters may be found in the followin g 

paragraph contained in an anti-Masonic work 

written by onHenry Gassett, and affixed to 

his Catalogue of Books on the Masonic 

Institution . (Boston, 1852 .) "It had been 

asserted in a newspaper in Boston, edited by 

a Masonic dignitary, that John Q. Adams was 

a Mason . In answer to an inquiry from a person 

in New York State, whether he was so 

Mr. Adams replied that 'he was not, and 

never should be .' These few words, undoubtedly, 

prevented his election a second time as 

President of the United States . His competitor, 

Andrew Jackson, a Freemason, was elected ." 

Whether the statement contained in the italicized 

words be true or not, is not the question. 

It is sufficient that Mr. Adams was led 

to believe it, and hence his ill-will to an association 

which had, as he sup posed, inflicted 

this political evil on him, and baked his ambitious 

views. 

Adar. Hebrew, TIN ; the sixth mgnth 9f

16 ADAREL 

ADDRESSES 

the civil and the twelfth of the ecclesiastical 

year of the Jews . It corresponds to a part of 

February and of March. 

Adarel . Angel of Fire. Referred to in the 

Hermetic degree of Knight of the Sun. Probably 

from TItt, Adr, splendor, and Sit, El, 

God, i . e ., the splendor of God or Divine splendor 

. 

Addresses, Masonic. Dr . Oliver, speaking 

of the Masonic discourses which began to be 

published soon after the reorganization of 

Masonry, in the commencement of the eighteenth 

century, and which he thinks were instigated 

by the attacks made on the Order, to 

which they were intended to be replies, says : 

" Charges and addresses were therefore delivered 

by, brethren in authority on the fundamental 

principles of the Order, and they were 

printed to show that its morality was sound, 

and not in the slightest degree repugnant to 

the precepts of our most holy religion . These 

were of sufficient merit to insure a wide circulation 

among the Fraternity, from whence 

they spread into the world at large and 

proved decisive in fixing the credit of tie Institution 

for solemnities of character and a 

taste for serious and profitable investigations 

." 

There can be no doubt that these addresses, 

periodically delivered and widely published, 

have continued to exert an excellent effect in 

behalf of the Institution, by explaining and 

defending the principles on which it is founded . 

The first Masonic address of which we have 

any notice was delivered on the 24th of June, 

1721, before the Grand Lodge of England, by 

the celebrated John Theophilus Desaguliers, 

LL.D . and F .R .S . The Book of Constitutions 

(ed . 1738, p. 113) under that date, says 

" Bro . Desaguliers made an eloquent oration 

about Masons and Masonry ." Dr . Oliver 

(Revelations of a Square, p . 22) states that 

this address was issued in a printed form, but 

no copy of it now remains-at least it has escaped 

the researches of the most diligent Mar 

sonic bibliographers . 

On the 20th of May, 1725, Martin Folkes, 

then Deputy Grand Master, delivered an address 

before the Grand Lodge of England, 

which is cited in the Freemason's Pocket Companion 

for 1759, but no entire copy of the address 

is now extant . 

The third Masonic address of which we have 

any knowledge is one entitled " A Speech delivered 

to the Worshipful and Ancient Society 

of Free and Accepted Masons, at a Grand 

Lodge held at Merchants' Hall, in the city of 

York, on St . John's Day Dec . 27, 1726, the 

Right Worshipful Charces Bathurst, Esq., 

Grand Master . By the Junior Grand Warden . 

Olim meminisse juvabit . York: Printed by 

Thomas Gent, for the benefit of the Lodge . ' 

The author was Francis Drake, M .D., F.R.S., 

who was appointed Junior Grand Warden of 

the Grand Lodge of All England at York on December 

27, 1725 . (See Drake, Francis .) The 

first edition of the speech bears no date, but 

was probably issued in 1727, and it was again 

published at London in 1729, and a second 

London edition was published in 1734, which 

has been reprinted in Hughan's Masonic 

Sketches and Reprints (American edition, 

p . 106) . This is, therefore, the earliest Masonic 

address to which we have access . It 

contains a brief sketch of the history of Masonry, 

written as Masonic history was then 

written. It is, however, remarkable for advancing 

the claim of the Grand Lodge of York 

to a superiority over that of London, and for 

containing a very early reference to the three 

degrees of Craft Masonry . 

The fourth Masonic address of whose existence 

we have any knowledge is " a Speech 

Deliver'd to the Worshipful Society of Free 

and Accepted Masons, at a Lodge, held at the 

Carpenters Arms in Silver-Street, Golden 

Square, the 31st of December, 1728. By the 

Right Worshipful Edw . Oakley, Architect, 

M .M ., late Provincial Senior Grand Warden 

in Carmarthen South Wales." This s eech 

was reprinted ~y Cole in his Ancient Constitutions 

at London in 1731 . 

America has the honor of presenting the 

next attempt at Masonic oratory . The fifth 

address, and the first American, which is extant, 

is one delivered in Boston, Mass . on 

June 24, 1734 . It is entitled "A :Dissertation 

upon Masonry, delivered to a Lodge 

in America, June 24th 1734 . Christ's Regm ." 

It was discovered by i3ro . C. W . Moore in the 

archives of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 

and published by him in his magazine in 1849 . 

This address is well written, and of a symbolic 

character, as the author allegorizes the Lodge 

as a type of heaven. 

And, sixthly , we have " An Address made to 

the body of Free and Accepted Masons assembled 

at a Quarterly Communication, held 

near Temple Bar, December 11, 1735, by Martin 

Clare, Junior Grand Warden." Martin 

Clare was distinguished in his times as a 

Mason, and his address, which Dr. Oliver has 

inserted in his Golden Remains, has been considered 

of value enough to be translated into 

the French and German languages . 

Next, on March 21, 1737, the Chevalier 

Ramsay delivered an oration before the Grand 

Lodge of France, in which he attributed the 

origin of Freemasonry to the Crusaders and 

traced an imaginary history of its course 

through Scotland and England into France . 

which was to become the center of the reformed 

Order. The best report of this speed 

is to be found in the Histoire &c . de la tr . 

ven. Confraternitk des F . M . &c. Traduit pa ; 

le Fr . de la Tierce. Francfort, 1742 ; and an 

English version of it is given in Gould's His. 

tory of Freemasonry (iii ., 84-9) . (See Ram- 

'say Ater this period, Masonic addresses rapidly 

multiplied, so that it would be impossible to 

record their titles or even the names of their 

authors . 

What Martial (i ., 17) says of his own apigrams, 

that some were good, some bad, and s 

great many middling, may with equal pro. 

priety and justice, be said of Masonic ad • 

dresses. Of the thousands that have been de

ADELPH 

ADJOURNMENT 17 

livered, many have been worth neither printing 

nor preservation . 

One thing, however is to be remarked : that 

within a few years the literary character of 

these productions has greatly improved . Formerly, 

a Masonic address on some festal occasion 

of the Order was little more than a homily 

on brotherly love or some other Masonic 

virtue . Often the orator was a clergyman, selected 

by the Lodge on account of his moral 

character or his professional ability . These 

clergymen were frequently among the youngest 

members of the Lodge, and men who had 

no opportunity to study the esoteric construction 

of Masonry. In such cases we will find 

that the addresses were generally neither more 

nor less than sermons under another name . 

They contain excellent general axioms of conduct, 

and sometimes encomiums on the laudable 

design of our Institution . But we look in 

vain in them for any ideas which refer to the 

history or to the occult philosophy of Masonry 

. They accept the definition that " Freemasonry 

is a science of morality veiled in allegory 

and illustrated by symbols, ;' only in part . 

They expatiate on the science of morality, but 

they say nothing of the symbols or the allegories 

. But, as has been already said, there 

has been an evident improvement within a few 

years, in America especially for the reform 

has not equally extended to 'England. Many 

of the addresses now delivered are of a higher 

order of Masonic literature . The subjects of 

Masonic history, of the origin of the Institution, 

of its gradual development from an 

operative art to a speculative science, of its 

symbols, and of its peculiar features which 

distinguish it from all other associations, have 

been ably discussed in many recent Masonic 

addresses, and thus have the efforts to entertain 

an audience for an hour become not only 

the means of interesting instruction to the 

hearers, but also valuable contributions to 

the literature of Freemasonry . 

It is in this way that Masonic addresses 

should be written. All platitudes and old 

truisms should be avoided ; sermonizing, which 

is good in its place, is out of place here . No one 

should undertake to deliver a Masonic address 

unless he knows something of the subject on 

which he is about to speak, and unless he is 

capable of saying what will make every Mason 

who hears him a wiser as well as a better man, 

or at least what will afford him the opportunity 

of becoming so . 

Adelph. From the Greek &E€XJs (a 

brother) . The first degree of the order of the 

Palladium (q v .) . Reghellini says that there 

exists in the Masonic archives of Douai the ritual 

of a Masonic Society, called Adelphs 

which has been communicated to the Grant 

Orient, but which he thinks is the same as the 

Primitive Rite of Narbonne . 

Adept. One fully skilled or well versed in 

any art; from the Latin word "Adeptus," 

having obtained, because the Adept claimed to 

be in the possession of all the secrets of his 

peculiar mystery . The Alchemists or Hermetic 

philosophers assumi .d the title of Adepts . 

(See Alchemy.) Of the Hermetic Adepts, who 

were also sometimes called Rosicrucians, 

Spence thus writes, in 1740, to his mother- 

" Have you ever heard of the people called 

Adepts? They are a set of philosophers supe. 

rior to whatever appeared among the Greeks 

and Romans . The three great points they drive 

at, are, to be free from poverty, distempers, 

and death ; and, if you believe them, they have 

found out one secret that is capable of freeing 

them from all three. There are never more 

than twelve of these men in the whole world at 

a time ; and we have the happiness of having 

one of the twelve at this time in Turin . I am 

very well acquainted with him, and have often 

talked with him of their secrets, as far as he is 

allowed to talk to a common mortal of them ." 

(Spence's Letter to his Mother, in Singer's Anecdotes, 

p . 403 .) In a similar allusion to the 

possession of abstruse knowledge, the word is 

applied to some of the high degrees of Masonr 

. 

A ept, Prince. One of the names of the 

28th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite . (See Knight of the Sun .) It was 

the 23d degree of the System of the Chapter of 

Emperors of the East and West of Clermont . 

Adept, the. A Hermetic degree of the collection 

of A . Viany (q. v.) . It is also the 4th 

degree of the Rite of Relaxed Observance, and 

the 1st of the high degrees of the Rite of 

Elects of Truth . " It has much analogy," 

says Thory "with the degree of Knight of 

the Sun." it is also called " Chaos disentangled 

., ' 

Adeptus Adoptatus . The 7th degree of 

the Rite of Zinnendorf, consisting of a kind of 

chemical and pharmaceutical instruction . 

Adeptus Coronatus . Called also Templar 

Master of the Key . The 7th degree of the 

Swedish Rite (q . v .) . 

Adeptus Exemptus. The 7th degree of the 

system adopted by those German Rosicrucians 

who were known as the " Gold and Rosenkreutzer," 

or the Gold and Rosy Cross, 

and whom Lenning supposes to have been the 

first who engrafted Rosicrucianism on Masonry. 

Adhering Mason . Those Masons who, 

during the anti-Masonic excitement in America, 

on account of the supposed abduction 

of Morgan, refused to leave their Lodges and 

renounce Masonry were so called . They 

embraced among their number some of the 

wisest, best, and most influential men of the 

ceAdjurnment. C. W . Moore (Freemasons' 

Mag., xii., p . 290) says : "We suppose it to be 

generally conceded that Lodges cannot properly 

be adjourned . It has been so decided 

by a large proportion of the Grand Lodges in 

America, and tacitly, at least, concurred in by 

all. We are not aware that there is a dissenting 

voice among them . It is, therefore, 

safe to assume that the settled policy is against 

adjournment ." The reason which he assigns 

for this rule, is that adjournment is a method 

used only in deliberative bodies, such as legislatures 

and courts, and as Lodges do not par-

18 ADMIRATION 

ADMONITION 

take of the character of either of these, adjournments 

are not applicable to them . The 

rule which Bro. Moore lays down is undoubtedly 

correct, but the reason which he assigns 

for it is not sufficient . If a Lodge were permitted 

to adjourn by the vote of a majority of 

its members, the control of the labor would be 

placed in their hands. But according to the 

whole spirit of the Masonic system, the Master 

alone controls and directs the hours of labor . 

In the 5th of the Old Charges, approved in 

1722, it is declared that " All Masons shall 

meekly receive their Wages without murmuring 

or mutiny, and not desert the Master till the 

Lord's work is fanish'd." Now as the Master 

alone can know when " the work is finished," 

the selection of the time of 1"k must be 

vested in him. He is the sole judge of the 

proper period at which the labors of the Lodge 

should be terminated, and he may suspend 

business even in the middle of a debate, if he 

supposes that it is expedient to close the Lodge . 

Hence no motion for adjournment can ever be 

admitted in a Masonic Lodge . Such a motion 

would be an interference with the prerogative 

of the Master, and could not therefore be entertained. 

The Earl of Zetland, when Grand Master 

of En land, ruled on November 19, 1856, that 

a Loge has no power to adjourn except 

to the next regular day of meet* g . He said : 

" I may . . . say that Private Lodges are governed 

by much the same laws as Grand Lodges, 

and that no meeting of a Private Lodge can 

be adjourned ; but the Master of a Private 

Lodge may, and does, convene Lodges of 

Emergency ." (Freemasons' Magazine, 1856, 

p 848 . 

This prerogative of opening and closing his 

Lodge is necessarily vested in the Master, because, 

by the nature of our Institution, he is 

responsible to the Grand Lodge for the good 

conduct of the body over which he presides . 

He is charged, in those questions to which he 

is required to give his assent at his installation, 

to hold the Landmarks in veneration, and 

to conform to every edict of the Grand Lodge ; 

and for any violation of the one or disobedience 

of the other by the Lodge, in his presence, 

he would be answerable to the supreme 

Masonic authority . Hence the necessity that 

an arbitrary power should be conferred upon 

him, by the exercise of which he may at any 

time be enabled to prevent the adoption of 

resolutions, or the commission of any act 

which would be subversive of, or contrary to, 

those ancient laws and usages which he has 

sworn to maintain and preserve . 

Admiration, Sign of . A mode of recognition 

alluded to in the Most Excellent Master's 

Degree, or the Sixth of the American Rite. Its 

introduction in that place is referred to a Mar 

sonic legend in connection with the visit of the 

Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, which states 

that moved by the wide-spread reputation of 

the lsraelitish monarch, she had repaired to 

Jerusalem to inspect the rn ignificent works of 

which she had heard so many encomiums . 

Upon arriving there, and beholding for the 

first time the Temple, which glittered with 

gold, and which was so accurately adjusted 

in all its parts as to seem to be composed of 

but a sine piece of marble, she raised her 

hands an eyes to heaven in an attitude of 

admiration, and at the same time exclaimed, 

" Rabboni! " equivalent to saying, " A most 

excellent master hath done thisl " This action 

has since been perpetuated in the ceremonies 

of the degree of Most Excellent Master . The 

legend is, however, no doubt apocryphal, and 

is really to be considered only as allegorical, 

like so many other of the legends of Masonry . 

(See Sheba, Queen.) 

Admission. Although the Old C es, 

approved in 1722, use the word adm as 

applicable to those who are initiated into the 

mysteries of Freemasonry, yet the General 

Regulations of 1721 employ the term admission 

in a sense different from that of initiation . 

By the word making they imply the reception 

of a profane into the Order, but by admission 

they designate the election of a Mason into a 

Lge. Thus we find such expressions as these 

clearly indicating a difference in the meaning 

of the two words . In Reg . v.-" No man can 

be made or admitted a member of a particular 

Lodge ." In Reg . vi .-" But no man can be 

entered a brother in any particular Lodge, or 

admitted to be a member thereof ." And more 

distinctly in Reg . viii .-" No set or number of 

brethren shall withdraw or separate them . 

selves from the Lodge in which they were made 

brethren or were afterwards admitted members 

." This distinction has not always been 

rigidly preserved by recent writers ; but it is 

evident that, correctly speaking, we should 

always say of a profane who has been initiated 

that he has been made a Mason, and of a 

Mason who has been affiliated with a Lodge, 

that he has been admitted a member . The 

true definition of admission is, then, the reception 

of an unaffiliated brother into membership 

(See Affiliated Mason .) 

Admonition. According to the ethics of 

Freemasonry, it is made a duty obligatory 

upon every member of the Order to conceal the 

faults of a brother, that is, not to blazon 

forth his errors and infirmities, to let them be 

learned by the world from some other tongue 

than his, and to admonish him of them in private 

. So there is another but a like duty or 

obligation, which instructs him to whisper 

good counsel in his brother's ear and to warn 

him of approaching danger . And this refers 

not more to the danger that is without and 

around him than to that which is within him ; 

not more to the peril that springs from the 

concealed foe who would waylay him and 

covertly injure him, than to that deeper peril 

of those faults and infirmities which lie within 

his own heart, and which, if not timely crushed 

by good and earnest resolution of amendment, 

will, like the ungrateful serpent in the fable, 

become warm with life only to sting the bosom 

that has nourished them. 

Admonition of a brother's fault is, then the 

duty of every Mason, and no true one wila, for 

either fear or favor, neglect its performance,

ADONAI 

ADONHIRAMITE 19 

But as the duty is Masonic, so is there a Masonic 

way in which that duty should be discharged. 

We must admonish not with selfsufficient 

pride in our own reputed goodnessnot 

in imperious tones, as though we looked 

down in scorn upon the degraded offendernot 

in language that, by its harshness, will 

wound rather than win, will irritate more than 

it will reform ; but with that persuasive gentleness 

that gains the heart-with the allsubdum' 

ginfluences of " mercy unrestrained " 

-with the magic might of love-with the language 

and the accents of affection, which mingle 

grave displeasure for the offense with grief 

and pity for the offender . 

This, and this alone, is Masonic admonition 

. I am not to rebuke my brother in anger, 

for I, too, have my faults, and I dare not draw 

around me the folds of my garment lest they 

should be polluted by my neighbor's touch ; 

but I am to admonish in private, not before 

the world, for that would degrade him ; and I 

am to warn him, perhaps from my own example, 

how vice ever should be followed by sorrow, 

for that goodly sorrow leads to repentance, 

and repentance to amendment, and 

amendment to joy . 

Adonal. In Hebrew, ,]ÌN, being the plural 

of excellence for Adon, and signifying the 

Lord . The Jews, who reverently avoided the 

pronunciation of the sacred name JEHovAH, 

were accustomed, whenever that name occurred, 

to substitute for it the word Adonai in 

reading . As to the use of the plural form instead 

of the singular, the Rabbis Bay, " Every 

word indicative of dominion, though singular 

in meaning, is made plural in form ." This is 

called the " pluralie excellentiae ." The Talmudists 

also say (Buxtroff, Lex. Talm .) that 

the tetragrammaton is called Shem hamphorash, 

the name that is explained, because it is 

explained, uttered, and set forth by the word 

Adonai. (See Jehovah and Shem Hamphorasch 

.) Adonai is used as a significant word 

in several of the high degrees of Masonry, and 

may almost always be considered as allusive 

to or symbolic of the True Word . 

Adonhiram . This has been adopted by the 

disciples of Adonhiramite Masonry as the 

fling of the name of the person known in 

.pture and in other Masonic systems as 

Adoniram (which see) . They correctly derive 

the word from the Hebrew Adon and 

hiram, signifying the master who is exalted, 

which is the true meaning of Adoniram, the 

or h being omitted in the Hebrew by the coalescence 

of the two words . Hiram Abif has also 

sometimes been called Adonhiram, the Adon 

having been bestowed on him by Solomon, it is 

said, as a title of honor . 

Adonhiramite Masonry . Of the numerous 

controversies which arose from the middle to 

near the end of the eighteenth century on the 

Continent of Europe, and especially in France, 

among the students of Masonic philosophy, 

and which so frequently resulted in the invention 

of new degrees and the establishment 

of new rites, not the least prominent was that 

which related to the person and character of 

the Temple Builder . The question, Who was 

the architect of King Solomon's Temple? 

was answered differently by different theorists, 

and each answer gave rise to a new system, 

a fact by no means surprising in those 

times, so fertile in the production of new Masonic 

systems . The general theory was then, 

as it is now, that this architect was Hiram 

Abif, the widow's son, who had been sent to 

King Solomon by Hiram, King of Tyre, as a 

precious 'ift and " a curious and cunning 

workman .' this theory was sustained by the 

statements of the Jewish Scriptures, so far as 

they threw any light on the Masonic legend . 

It was the theory of the English Masons from 

the earliest times ; was enunciated as historically 

correct in the first edition of the Book 

of Constitutions, published in 1723 4p. 11) ; 

has continued ever since to be the opinion of 

all English and American Masons ; and is, at 

this day, the only theory entertained by any 

Mason in the two countries who has a theory 

at all on the subject . This, therefore, is the 

orthodox faith of Masonry . 

But such was not the case in the last century 

on the Continent of Europe . At first 

the controversy arose not as to the man himself, 

but as to his proper appellation. All parties 

agreed that the architect of the Temple 

was that Hiram, the widow's son, who is described 

in the 1st Book of Kings, chapter vii . 

verses 13 and 14, and in the 2d Book oI 

Chronicles, chapter ii., verses 13 and 14, as 

having come out of Tyre with the other workmen 

of the Temple who had been sent by King 

Hiram to Solomon . But one party called him 

Hiram Abif, and the other, admitting that 

his original name was Hiram, supposed that 

in consequence of the skill he had displayed 

in the construction of the Temple, he had received 

the honorable affix of Adon, signifying 

Lord or Master, whence -his name became 

Adonhiram . 

There was, however, at the Temple another 

Adoniram, of whom it will be necessary in 

passing to say a few words, for the better understanding 

of the present subject . 

The first notice that we have of this Adoniram 

in Scripture is in the 2d Book of Samuel 

chapter xx ., verse 24, where, in the abbreviated 

form of his name Adoram, he is said to have 

been "over the tribute " in the house of David ; 

or, as Gesenius translates it, " prefect over the 

tribute service," or, as we might say in modern 

phrase, principal collector of the taxes . Seven 

years afterward, we find him exercising the 

same office in the household of Solomon ; for it 

is said in 1 Kings iv . 6 that Adoniram, " the 

son of Abda, was over the tribute." And lastly, 

we hear of him still occu~pying the same station 

in the household of Zing Rehoboam, the 

successor of Solomon. Forty-seven years after 

he is first mentioned in the look of Samuel, he 

is stated under the name of Adoram (1 Kings 

xii . 18), or Hadoram (2 Chron . x. 18), to have 

been stoned to death, while in the discharge of 

his duty, by the people, who were justly indignant 

at the oppressions of his master. 

The legends and traditions of Masonry

20 ADONHIRAMITE ADONHIRAMITE 

which connect this Adoniram with the Temple 

at Jerusalem derive their support from a single 

passage in the 1st Book of Kings (v . 14) 

where it is said that Solomon made a levy o' 

thirty thousand workmen from among the Israelites 

; that he sent these in courses of ten 

thousand a month to labor on Mount Lebanon, 

and that he placed Adoniram over these 

as their superintendent . 

The ritual-makers of France, who were not 

all Hebrew scholars, nor well versed in Biblical 

history, seem, at times, to have confounded 

two important personages, and to have lost all 

distinction between Hiram the Builder, who 

had been sent from the court of the King of 

Tyre, and Adoniram, who had always been an 

officer in the court of King Solomon . And this 

error was extended and facilitated when they 

had prefixed the title Adon, that is to say, 

lord or master, to the name of the former, 

making him Adon Hiram, or the Lord Hiram . 

Thus, in the year 1744, one Louis Travenol 

published at Paris, under the pseudonym of 

Leonard Gabanon, a work entitled Catechisme 

des Francs Masons, ou Le Secret des Masons in 

which he says : " Besides the cedars of Leianon, 

Hiram made a much more valuable gift to 

Solomon, in the person of Adonhiram, of his 

own race, the son of a widow of the tribe of 

Naphtali . His father, who was named Hur, 

was an excellent architect and worker in metals 

. Solomon, knowing his virtues, his merit, 

and his talents, distinguished him by the most 

eminent position, intrusting to him the construction 

of the Temple and the superintendence 

of all the workmen ." (Recueil Precieux, 

p. 76 .) 

From the language of this extract, and from 

the reference in the title of the booktoAdoram, 

which we know was one of the names of Solomon's 

tax-collector, it is evident that the author 

of the catechism has confounded Hiram 

Abif, who came out of Tyre, with Adoniram, 

the son of Abda, who had always lived at Jerusalem 

; that is to say, with unpardonable ignorance 

of Scripture history and Masonic tradition, 

he has supposed the two to be one and 

the same person . Notwithstanding this literary 

blunder, the catechism became popular 

with many Masons of that day, and thus arose 

the first schism or error in relation to the 

legend of the Third Degree . In Solomon in 

all His Glory, an English exposure published 

in 1766, Adoniram takes the place of Hiram, 

but this work is a translation from a similar 

French one, and so it must not be argued that 

English Masons ever held this view . 

At length, other ritualists, seeing the inconsistency 

of referring the character of Hiram, 

the widow's son, to Adoniram the receiver of 

Mount Lebanon, and that he speaks of Hiram, 

the widow's son, simply as a skilful artisan, 

especially in metals, who had only made all 

the mechanical works about the Temple according 

to the will of Solomon . (viii . 3 .) This 

apparent color of authority for their opinions 

was readily claimed by the Adoniramites, and 

hence one of their most prominent ritualists, 

Guillemain de St . Victor (Recueil Precieux 

de la Magonnerie Adonhiramite, pp . 77, 78), 

propounds their theory thus : " We all agree 

that the Master's degree is founded on the architect 

of the Temple. Now, Scripture says 

very positively, in the 14th verse of the 5th 

chapter of the 3d Book of Kings,* that the 

person was Adonhiram . Josephus and all the 

sacred writers say the same thing, and undoubtedly 

distinguish him from Hiram the 

Tyrian, the worker in metals . So that it is 

Adonhiram, then, whom we are bound to 

honor." 

There were, therefore, in the eighteenth 

century, from about the middle to near the 

end of it, three schools among the Masonic 

ritualists, the members of which were divided 

in opinion as to the proper identity of this 

Temple Builder : 

1 . Those who supposed him to be Hiram, 

the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, 

whom the King of Tyre had sent to King Solomon, 

and whom they designated as Hiram 

Abif. This was the original and most popular 

school, and which we now suppose to have 

been the orthodox one . 

2. Those who believed this Hiram that came 

out of Tyre to have been the architect, but 

who supposed that, in consequence of his excellence 

of character, Solomon had bestowed 

upon him the appellation of Adon, " Lord " or 

" Master," calling him Adonhiram. As this 

theory was wholly unsustained by Scripture 

history or previous Masonic tradition, the 

school which supported it never became prominent 

or popular, and soon ceased to{ exist, 

although the error on which it is based is 

repeated at intervals in the blunder of some 

modern French ritualists . 

3 . Those who, treating this Hiram, the 

widow's son, as a subordinate and unimportant 

character, entirely ignored him in their 

ritual, and asserted that Adoram, or Adoniram, 

or Adonhiram, as the name was spelled 

by these ritualists, the son of Abda, the collector 

of tribute and the superintendent of the 

levy on Mount Lebanon, was the true architect 

of the Temple, and the one to whom all 

the legendary incidents of the Third Degree of 

Masonry were to be referred . This school, in 

consequence of the boldness with which, unlike 

the second school, it refused all compromise 

with the orthodox party and assumed a 

wholly independent theory, became, for a 

time, a prominent schism in Masonry. Its 

disciples bestowed upon the believers in Hiram 

taxes, and the impossibility of t reconciling the 

discordant facts in the life of both, resolved to 

cut the Gordian knot by refusing any Masonic 

position to the former, and making the latter, 

alone, the architect of the Temple. It cannot Abif the name of 

be denied that Josephus (viii . 2) states that 

Adoniram, or, as he calls him, Adoram was, 

at the very beginning of the labor, placed over, 

the workmen who prepared the materials on called the 1st and 2d of Kings . 

Hiramite Masons, adopted 

as their own distinctive appellation that of 

* In the LXX the two books of Samuel are

ADONHIRAMITE 

ADONIRAM 21 

Adonhiramites, and, having developed the system 

which they practised into a peculiar rite, 

called it Adonhiramite Masonry . 

Who was the original founder of the rite of 

Adonhiramite Masonry, and at what precise 

time it was first established are questions 

that cannot now be answered with any certainty. 

Thory does not attempt to reply to 

either in his Nomenclature of Rites, where, if 

anything was known on the subject, we would 

be most likely to find it. Ragon, it is true, in 

his Orthodoxie Magonnique, attributes the rite 

to the Baron de Tschoudy . But as he also assigns 

the authorship of the Recueil Precieux 

(a work of which we shall directly speak more 

fully) to the same person, in which statement 

he is known to be mistaken, there can be but 

little doubt that he is wrong in the former as 

well as in the latter opinion . The Chevalier 

de Lussy, better known as the Baron de 

Tschoudy, was, it is true a distinguished ritualist 

. He founded the Order of the Blazing 

Star, and took an active part in the operations 

of the Council of Emperors of the East and 

West ; but we have met with no evidence, outside 

of Ragon's assertion, that he established or 

had anything to do with the Adonhiramite Rite . 

We are disposed to attribute the development 

into a settled system, if not the actual 

creation, of the rite of Adonbiramite Masonry 

to Louis Guillemain de St . Victor, who published 

at Paris, in the year 1781, a work entitled 

Recueil Precieux de la Magonnerie Adonhiramitet 

etc . 

As this volume contained only the ritual of 

the first four degrees, it was followed, in 1785, 

by another, which . embraced the higher degrees 

of the rite . No one who peruses these 

volumes can fail to perceive that the author 

writes like one who has invented, or, at least, 

materially modified the rite which is the subject 

of his labors. At all events, this work furnishes 

the only authentic account that we possess 

of the organization of the Adonhiramite 

system of Masonry . 

The rite of Adonhiramite Masonry consisted 

of twelve degrees, which were as follows, 

the names being given in French as well 

as in English : 

1 . Ap rentice-Apprentif . 

2 . Fellow-Craft--Compagnon . 

3 . Master Mason-Maitre . 

4 . Perfect Master-Maitre Parfait. 

5 . Elect of Nine-Premier Elu, ou L'Elu 

des Neuf. 

6 . Elect of Perignan-Second Elu nomm6 

Elu de Plrignan . 

7 . Elect of Fifteen-Troisieme Elu nomme 

Elu des Quinze . 

8 . Minor Architect-Petit Architecte . 

9 . Grand Architect, or Scottish Fellow- 

Craft-grand Architecte, ou Compagnon Ecos- 

80is. 

10. Scottish Master-Maitre Ecossois . 

11 . Knight of the Sword, Knight of , the 

East, or of the Eagle-Chevalier de l'Epee 

surnommk Chevalier de l'Orient ou de l'Aigle . 

12. Knight of Rose Croix-Chevalier Rose 

Croix. 

This is the entire list of Adonhiramite degrees 

. Thory and Ragon have both erred in 

giving a thirteenth degree, namely, the Noachite, 

or Prussian Knight . They have fallen 

into this mistake because Guillemain has inserted 

this degree at the end of his second 

volume, but simply as a Masonic curiosit , 

having been translated, as he says, from the 

German by M . de Berage. It has no connection 

with the preceding series of degrees, and 

Guillemain positively declares that the Rose 

Croix is the ne plus ultra (2nde Ptie r p. 118), 

the summit and termination, of his rite . 

Of these twelve degrees, the first ten are occupied 

with the transactions of the first Temple 

; the eleventh with matters relating to the 

construction of the second Temple- and the 

twelfth with that Christian symlolism of 

Freemasonry which is peculiar to the Rose 

Croix of every rite. All of the degrees have 

been borrowed from the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite, with slight modifications, which have 

seldom improved their character . On the 

whole, the extinction of the Adonhiramite Rite 

can scarcely be considered as a loss to Masonry 

. 

Before concluding, a few words may be said 

on the orthography of the title. As the rite 

derives its peculiar characteristic from the fact 

that it founds the Third Degree on the assumed 

legend that Adoniram, the son of Abda and 

the receiver of tribute, was the true architect 

of the Temple, and not Hiram, the widow's 

son, it should properly have been styled the 

Adoniramite Rite, and not the Adonhiramite; 

and so it would probably have been called if 

Guillemain, who gave it form, had been acquainted 

with the Hebrew language, for he 

would then have known that the name of his 

hero was Adoniram and not Adonhiram . The 

term Adonhi ramite Masons should really have 

been applied to the second school described in 

this article whose disciples admitted that 

Hiram Abih was the architect of the Temple, 

but who supposed that Solomon had bestowed 

the prefix Adon upon him as a mark of 

honor, calling him Adonhiram . But Guillemain 

having committed the blunder in the 

name of his Rite, it continued to be repeated 

by his successors, and it would perhaps now be 

inconvenient to correct the error . Ragon, 

however and a few other recent writers, have 

ventured to take this step, and in their works 

the system is called Adoniramite Masonry . 

Adontram. The first notice that we have of 

Adoniram in Scripture is in the 2d Book of 

Samuel (xx. 24), where, in the abbreviated 

form of his name Adoram, he is said to have 

been "over the tribute" in the house of 

David, or, as Gesenius translates it, " prefect 

over the tribute service, tribute master," that 

is to say, in modern phrase, he was the chief 

receiver of the taxes . Clarke calls him "Chancellor 

of the Exchequer." Seven years afterward 

we find him exercising the same office 

in the household of Solomon, for it is said 

(1 Kings iv . 6) that "Adoniram the son of Abda 

was over the tribute." And lastly, we hear of 

him still occupying the same station in the

22 ADONIRAM ADONIS 

household of King Rehoboam, the successor 

of Solomon . Forty-seven years after he is 

first mentioned in the Book of Samuel, he is 

stated under the name of Adoram (1 Kings 

xii . 18), or Hadoram (2 Chron . x. 18) to have 

been stoned to death, while in the discharge 

of his duty, by the people, who were justly 

indignant at the oppressions of his master . 

Although commentators have been at a loss 

to determine whether the tax-receiver under 

David, under Solomon and under Rehoboam 

was the same person, there seems to be no reason 

to doubt it ; for, as Kitto says, " It appears 

very unlikely that even two persons of 

the same name should successively bear the 

same office, in an age when no example occurs 

of the father's game being given to his son . 

We find, also, that not more than forty-seven 

years elapse between the first and last mention 

of the Adoniram who was òver the tribute' 

; and as this, although a long term of 

service, is not too long for one life, and as the 

person who held the office in the beginning of 

Rehoboam's rei gn had served in it long enough 

to make himself odious to the people, it appears, 

on the whole, most probable that one 

and the same person is intended throughout ." 

(Encyc . Bib . Lit.) 

Adoniram plays an important r6le in the 

Masonic system, especially in the hi gh degrees, 

but the time of action in which he appears 

is confined to the period occupied in the 

construction of the Temple . The legends 

and traditions which connect him with that 

edifice derive their support from a single passage 

in the 1st Book of Kings (v. 14), where it 

is said that Solomon made a levy of thirty 

thousand workmen from among the Israelites ; 

that he sent these in courses of ten thousand a 

month to labor on Mount Lebanon, and that 

he placed Adoniram over these as their superintendent 

. From this brief statement the 

Adoniramite Masons have deduced the theory, 

as may be seen in the preceding article, that 

Adoniram was the architect of the Temple ; 

while the Hiramites, assi gning this important 

office to Hiram Abif, still believe that Adoniram 

occupied an important part in the construction 

of that edifice . He has been called 

" the first of the Fellow Crafts" ; is said in one 

tradition to have been the brother-in-law of 

Hiram Abif, the latter having demanded of 

Solomon the hand of Adoniram's sister in 

marriage ; and that the nuptials were honored 

by the kings of Israel and Tyre with a public 

celebration ; and another tradition, preserved 

in the Royal Master's degree, informs us that 

he was the one to whom the three Grand Masters 

had intended first to communicate that 

knowledge which they had reserved as a fitting 

reward to be bestowed upon all meritorious 

craftsmen at the completion of the Temple . 

It is scarcely necessary to say that these and 

many other Adoniramic legends, often fanciful, 

and without any historical authority, 

are but the outward clothing of abstruse sym- self and Venus . 

Adoniram, in Hebrew, compounded 

of j1K, ADON,Lord, and C1M, HiRaM, altitude, 

signifies the Lord of altitude. It is a word of 

great importance, and frequently used among 

the sacred words of the high degrees in all the 

Rites . 

Adoniramite Masonry . See Adonhiramite 

Masonry . 

Adonis, Mysteries of. An investigation 

of the mysteries of Adonis peculiarly claims the 

attention of the Masonic student : first, because, 

in their symbolism and in their esoteric 

doctrine, the religious object for which they 

were instituted, and the mode in which that 

object is attained, the y bear a nearer analogical 

resemblance to the Institution of Freemasonry 

than do any of the other mysteries or 

systems of initiation of the ancient world ; and, 

secondly, because their chief locality brings 

them into a very close connection with the 

early history and reputed origin of Freemasonry. 

For they were principally celebrated 

at Byblos, a city of Phoenicia, whose 

Scriptural name was Gebal, and whose inhabitants 

were the Giblites or Gebalites, who are 

referred to in the 1st Book of Kin,§s (chap . v . 

18) as being the" stone-squarers' employed 

by King Solomon in buildin g the Tem ple . See 

Gebal and Giblim . Hence there must have evidently 

been a very intimate connection, or at 

least certainly a very frequent intercommunication, 

between the workmen of the first Temple 

and the inhabitants of Byblos the seat of 

the Adonisian mysteries, and the pace whence 

the worshipers of that rite were disseminated 

over other regions of country . 

These historical circumstances invite us to 

an examination of the system of initiation 

which was practised at Byblos, because we 

may find in it something that was probably 

suggestive of the sy mbolic system of instruction 

which was subseq uently so prominent a 

feature in the system of Freemasonry . 

Let us first examine the myth on which the 

Adonisiac initiation was founded . The mythological 

legend of Adonis is, that he was the 

son of Myrrha and Cinyras, King of Cyprus . 

Adonis was possessed of such surpassing 

beauty, that Venus became enamored of him, 

and adopted him as her favorite . Subsequently 

Adonis, who was a great hunter, died 

from a wound inflicted by a wild boar on 

Mount Lebanon. Venus flew to the succor of 

her favorite, but she came too late . Adonis 

was dead . On his descent to the infernal 

regions, Proserpine became, like Venus, so attracted 

by his beauty, that notwithstanding 

the entreaties of the goddess of love, she 

refused to restore him to earth . At length 

the prayers of the desponding Venus were 

listened to with favor by Jupiter, who reconciled 

the dispute between the two goddesses, 

and by whose decree Proserpine was compelled 

to consent that Adonis should spend 

six months of each year alternately with her- 

bola, some of which have been preserved, and This is the story on which the Greek poet 

others lost in the lapse of time and the igno-', Bion founded his exquisite idyll entitled the 

ranoe and corruptions of modern ritualists . 1 Epitaph of Adonis, the beginning of which has

ADONIS 

ADOPTION 28 

been thus rather inefficiently " cone into English 

" ; 

"I and the Loves Adonis dead deplore : 

The beautiful Adonis is indeed 

Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more 

In purple, Cypris! but in watchet weed, 

All wretched! beat thy breast and all aread- 

'Adonis is no more .' The Loves and I 

Lament him . 'Ohl her grief to see him bleed. 

Smitten by white tooth on whiter thigh, 

Out-breathing life's faint sigh upon the mountain 

high. ,, _ 

It is evident that Bion referred the contest 

of Venus and Proserpine for Adonis to a period 

subsequent to his death, from the concluding 

lines, in which he says : " The Muses, too, 

lament the son of Cinyras, and invoke him in 

their song; but he does not heed them, not because 

he does not wish, but because Proserpine 

will not release him." This was, indeed, 

the favorite form of the myth, and on it was 

framed the symbolism of the ancient mystery . 

But there are other Grecian mythologues 

that relate the tale of Adonis differently . According 

to these, he was the product of the 

incestuous connection of Cinyras and his 

daughter Myrrha . Cinyras subsequently, on 

discovering the crime of his daughter, pursued 

her with a drawn sword, intending to kill her . 

Myrrha entreated the gods to make her invisible, 

and they changed her into a myrrh 

tree . Ten months after the myrrh tree 

opened, and the young Adonis was born . 

This is the form of the myth that has been 

adopted by Ovid, who g~ves it with all its moral 

horrors in the tenth book (298-559) of his 

Metamorphoses . 

Venus, who- was delighted with the extraordinary 

beauty of the boy, put him in a coffer, 

unknown to all the gods, and gave him to Proserpine 

to keep and to nurture in the under 

world. But Proserpine had no sooner beheld 

him than she became enamored of him and 

refused when Venus applied for him, to surrender 

Lim to her rival . The subject was then 

referred to Jupiter, who decreed that Adonis 

should have one-third of the year to himself, 

should be another third with Venus, and the 

remainder of the time with Proserpina . Adonis 

gave his own portion to Venus, and lived happily 

with her till, having offended Diana, 1 

was killed by a wild boar . 

The mythographer Pharnutus gives a still 

different sto and says that Adonis was the 

ry, 

grandson of Cmyras, and fled with his father, 

Amnion, into Egypt, whose people he civilized, 

taught them agriculture, and enacted many 

wise laws for their government . He subsequently 

passed over into Syria, and was 

woundd in the thigh by a wild boar while 

hunting on Mount Lebanon . His wife, Isis, 

or Astarte, and the people of Phoenicia and 

Egypt, supposing that the wound was mortal, 

profoundly deplored his death . But he afterward 

recovered and their grief was replaced 

by transports of joy. All the myths, it will be 

seen, agree in his actual or supposed death by 

violence, in the grief for his loss, in his recovery 

or restoration to life, and in the conse- 

quent joy thereon . And on these facts are 

founded the Adonisian mysteries which were 

established in his honor . 

While, therefore, we may grant the possibility 

that there was originally some connection 

between the Sabean worship of the sun 

and the celebration of the Adonisian festival, 

we cannot forget that these mysteries, in common 

with all the other sacred initiations of the 

ancient world, had been originally established 

to promulgate among the initiates the once 

hidden doctrine of a future life . The myth of 

Adonis in Syria, like that of Osiris in Egypt, of 

Atys in Samothrace, or of Dionysus in Greece, 

presented, symbolically, the two great ideas 

of decay and restoration : sometimes figured 

as darkness and light, sometimes as winter and 

summer, sometimes as death and life, but always 

maintaining, no matter what was the 

framework of the allegory, the inseparable 

ideas of something that was lost and afterward 

recovered, as its interpretation, and so 

teaching, as does Freemasonry at this day, by 

a similar system of allegorizing, that after the 

death of the body comes the eternal life of the 

soul. The inquiring Freemason will thus readily 

see the analogy in the symbolism that 

exists between Adonis in the mysteries of the 

Gebalites at Byblos and Hiram the Builder in 

his own institution . 

Adoption, Masonic. The adoption by 

the Lodge of the child of a Mason is practised, 

with peculiar ceremonies, in some of the 

French and German Lodges, and has been recently 

introduced, but not with the general 

approbation of the Craft into one or two 

Lodges of this country . Clavel, in his Histoire 

Pittoresque de la Franc-Maconnerie 

(p . 3d ed .), gives the following account of 

the ceremonies of adoption. 

" It is a custom, in many Lodges, when the 

wife of a Mason is near the period of her confinement 

for the Hospitaller, if he is a physician, 

an~ if not, f or some other brother who is, 

to visit her, inquire after her health, in the 

name of the Lodge, and to offer her his professional 

services, and even pecuniary id if 

he thinks she needs it . Nine days ter the 

birth of her child, the Master and Wardens 

call upon her to congratulate her on the happy 

event . If the infant is a boy, a special communication 

of the Lodge is convened for the 

purpose of proceeding to its adoption . The 

hall is decorated with flowers and foliage, and 

censers are prepared for burning incense . 

Before the commencement of labor, the child 

and its nurse are introduced into an anteroom . 

The Lodge is then opened, and the Wardens, 

who are to act as godfathers, repair to the infant 

at the head of a deputation of five brethren 

. The chief of the deputation, then addressing 

the nurse, exhorts her not only to 

watch over the health of the child that has 

been intrusted to her care, but also to cultivate 

his youthful intellect, and to instruct him 

with truthful and sensible conversation . The 

child is then taken from the nurse, placed by 

its father upon a cushion, and carried by the 

deputation into the Lodge room . The pro-

24 ADOPTIVE 

ADOPTIVE 

cession advances beneath an arch of foliage to 

the pedestal of the east, where it stops . 

" ` Whom bring you here, my brethren? ' 

says the Master to the godfathers . 

" ` The son of one of our brethren whom the 

Lodge is desirous of adopting,' is the reply of 

the Senior Warden. 

" ` What are his names, and what Masonic 

name will you give him? ' 

" The Warden replies, adding to the baptismal 

and surname of the child a characteristic 

name, such as Truth, Devotion, Benevolence, 

or some other of a similar nature . 

" The Master then descends from his seat, 

approaches the louveteau or lewis (for such is 

the appellation given to the son of a Mason), 

and extending his hands over its head, offers 

up a prayer that the child may render itself 

worthy of the love and care which the Lodge 

intends to bestow upon it . He then casts 

incense into the censers, and pronounces the 

Apprentice's obligation, which the godfathers 

repeat of ter him in the name of the louveteau . 

Afterwards he puts a white apron on the infant, 

roclaiming it to be the adopted child of the 

ge, and causes this proclamation to be 

received with the honors . 

"As soon as this ceremony has been performed, 

the Master returns to his seat, and 

having caused the Wardens with the child to 

be placed in front of the north column, he recounts 

to the former the duties which they 

have assumed as godfathers . After the Wardens 

have made a suitable response the deputation 

which had brought the chid into the 

Lodge room is again formed, carries it out, 

and restores it to its nurse in the anteroom . 

" The adoption of a louveteau binds all the 

members of the Lodge to watch over his education, 

and subsequently to aid him, if it be 

necessary, in establishing himself in life . A 

circumstantial account of the ceremony is 

drawn up, which having been signed by all the 

members is delivered to the father of the child . 

This document serves as a dispensation, which 

relieves him from the necessity of passing 

through the ordinary preliminary examinations 

when, at the proper age, he is desirous of 

participating in the labors of Masonry . He is 

then only required to renew his obligations ." 

In the United States, the ceremony has 

been recently practised by a few Lodges, the 

earliest instance being that of Foyer Maconnique 

Lodge of New Orleans, in 1859 . The 

Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, has 

published the ritual of Masonic Adoption for 

the use of the members of that rite. This 

ritual under the title of " Offices of Masonic 

Baptism, Reception of a Louveteau and Adoption," 

is a very beautiful one, and is the 

composition of Brother Albert Pike . It is 

scarcely necessary to say that the word Baptism 

there used has not the slightest reference 

to the Christian sacrament of the same name . 

(See Lewis .) 

Adoptive Masonry. An organization 

which bears a very imperfect resemblance to 

Freemasonry in its forms and ceremonies, and 

which was established in France for the initiation 

of females, has been called by the French 

" Magonnerie d'Adoption, " or Adoptive Masonry, 

and the societies in which the initiations 

take place have received the name of "Loges 

d'Adoption," or Adoptive Lodges . This appellation 

is derived from the fact that every 

female or Adoptive Lodge is obliged, by the 

regulations of the association to be, as it were, 

adopted by, and thus placed under the guardianship 

of, some regular Lodge of . Freemasons. 

As to the exact date which we are to assign 

for the first introduction of this system of 

female Masonry, there have been several theories, 

some of which, undoubtedly, are wholly 

untenable, since they have been founded, as 

Masonic historical theories too often are, on an 

unwarrantable mixture of facts and fictionsof 

positive statements and problematic conjectures 

. Mons . J . S. Boubee, a distinguished 

French Mason, in his Etudes Maconniques, 

places the origin of Adoptive Masonry in the 

17th century, and ascribes its authorship to 

Queen Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles 

I . of England; and he states that on her return 

to France, after the execution of her husband, 

she took pleasure in recounting the 

secret efforts made by the Freemasons of 

England to restore her family to their position 

and to establish her son on the throne of his 

ancestors . This, it will be recollected, was 

once a prevalent theory, now exploded, of the 

origin of Freemasonry-that it was established 

by the Cavaliers, as a secret political organization, 

in the times of the English civil war between 

the king and the Parliament, and as an 

engine for the support of the former. M . Boubee 

adds that the queen made known to the 

ladies of 'her court, in her exile, the words and 

signs employed by her Masonic friends in 

England as their modes of recognition, and by 

this means instructed them in some of the 

mysteries of the Institution, of which, he says, 

she had been made the protectress after the 

death of the king . This theory is so full of 

absurdity, and its statements so flatly contradicted 

by well-known historical facts, that 

we may at once reject it as wholly apocryphal . 

Others have claimed Russia as the birthplace 

of Adoptive Masonry ; but in assigning 

that country and the year 1712 as the place 

and time of its origin, they have undoubtedly 

confounded it with the chivalric Order of 

Saint Catharine, which was instituted by the 

Czar, Peter the Great, in honor of the Czarina 

Catharine, and which, although at first it 

consisted of persons of both sexes, was 

subsequently confined exclusively to females . 

But the Order of Saint Catharine was in no 

manner connected with that of Freemasonry . 

It was simply a Russian order of female 

knighthood . 

The truth seems to be that the regular 

Lodges of Adoption owed their existence to 

those secret associations of men and women 

which sprang up in France before the middle 

of the 18th century, and which attempted 

in all of their organization, except the

ADOPTIVE ADOPTIVE 25 

admission of female members, to imitate the 

Institution of Freemasonry . Clavel, who, in 

his Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Magonnerie, 

an interesting but not always a trustworthy 

work, adopts this theory, says that 

female Masonry was instituted about the year 

1730) p . iii ., 3d ed .) ; that it made its first a 

pearance in France, and that it was evident 

a product of the French mind . No one will be 

disposed to doubt the truth of this last sentiment. 

The proverbial gallantry of the French 

Masons was most ready and willing to extend 

to women some of the blessings of that Institution, 

from which the churlishness, as they 

would call it, of their Anglo-Saxon brethren 

had excluded them. 

But the Masonry of Adoption did not at 

once and in its very beginning assume that peculiarly 

imitative form of Freemasonry which 

it subsequently presented, nor was it recognized 

as having any connection with our own 

Order until more than thirty years after its 

first establishment . Its progress was slow 

and gradual . In the course of this progress it 

affected various names and rituals, many of 

which have not been handed down to us . It 

was evidently convivial and gallant in its nature, 

and at first seems to have been only an 

imitation of Freemasonry, inasmuch as that 

it was a secret society, having a form of initiation 

and modes of recognition . A specimen of 

one or two of these secret female associations 

may not be uninteresting . 

One of the earliest of these societies was 

that which was established in the year 1743, 

at Paris, under the name of the " Ordee des 

Felicitaires,"which we might very appropriately 

translate as the " Order of Happy 

Folks ." The vocabulary and all the emblems 

of the order were nautical . The sisters 

made symbolically a voyage from the island of 

Felicity, in ships navigated by the brethren . 

There were four degrees, namely, those of 

Cabin-boy, Captain, Commodore, and Vice- 

Admiral, and the Grand Master, or presiding 

officer, was called the Admiral . Out of this 

society there sprang in 1745 another, which 

was called the " Knights and Ladies of the 

Anchor," which is said to have been somewhat 

more refined in its character, although for the 

most part it preserved the same formulary of 

reception. 

Two years afterward, in 1747, the Chevalier 

Beauchaine, a very zealous Masonic adventurer, 

and the Master for life of a Parisian 

Lodge, instituted an androgynous system 

under the name of the " Ordre des Fendeurs," 

or the "Order of Wood-Cutters," whose ceremonies 

were borrowed from those of the wellknown 

political society of the Carbonari . All 

parts of the ritual had a reference to the sylvan 

vocation of wood-cutting, just as that of the 

Carbonari referred to coal-burning . The 

rowed from the Carbonari . The reunions of 

the " Wood-Cutters " enjoyed the prestige of 

the highest fashion in Paris ; and the society 

became so popular that ladies and gentlemen 

of the highest distinction in France united 

with it, and membership was considered an 

honor which no rank, however exalted, need 

disdain . It was consequently succeeded by 

the institution of many other and similar androgynous 

societies, the very names of which it 

would be tedious to enumerate . (Clavel, pp . 

111, 112 .) 

Out of all these societies-which resembled 

Freemasonry only in their secrecy, their benevolence, 

and a sort of rude imitation of a 

symbolic ceremonial-at last arose the true 

Lodges of Adoption, which so far claimed a 

connection with and a dependence on Masonry 

as that Freemasons alone were admitted 

among their male members-a regulation 

which did not prevail in the earlier organizations 

. 

It was about the middle of the 18th century 

that the Lodges of Adoption began to 

attract attention in France, whence they 

speedily spread into other countries of Europe 

-into Germany, Poland, and even Russia ; 

England alone, always conservative to a fault, 

steadily refusing to take any cognizance of 

them . The Masons, says Clavel (p . 112), 

embraced them with enthusiasm as a practicable 

means of giving to their wives and 

daughters some share of the pleasures which 

they themselves enjoyed in their mystical assemblies 

. And this, at least, may be said of 

them, that they practised with commendable 

fidelity and diligence the greatest of the 

Masonic virtues, and that the banquets and 

balls which always formed an important part 

of their ceremonial were distinguished by 

numerous acts of charity. 

The first of these Lodges of which we have 

any notice was that established in Paris, in 

the year 1760, by the Count de Bernouville . 

Another was instituted at Nimeguen, in Holland, 

in 1774, over which the Prince of Waldeck 

and the Princess of Orange presided. In 

1775, the Lodge of Saint Antoine, at Paris, 

organized a dependent Lodge of Adoption of 

which the Duchess of Bourbon was installed as 

Grand Mistress and the Duke of Chartres, 

then Grand Master of French Masonry, conducted 

the business. In 1777, there was an 

Adoptive Lodge of La Candeur, over which the 

Duchess of Bourbon presided, assisted by such 

noble ladies as the Duchess of Chartres, the 

Princess Lamballe, and the Marchioness de 

Genlis ; and we -hear of another *governed by 

Madame Helvetius, the wife of the illustrious 

philosopher ; so that it will be perceived that 

fashion, wealth, and literature combined to 

give splendor and influence to this new order 

of female Masonry . 

At first the Grand Orient of France appears 

to have been unfavorably disposed to these 

pseudo-Masonic and androgynous associations 

but at length they became so numerous 

place of meeting was called a wood-yard, and 

was supposed to be situated in a forest ; the 

presiding officer was styled PPre Maitre, 

which might be idiomatically interpreted as 

Goodman Master; and the members were and so popular that a persistence in opposite 

designated as cousins, a practise evidently bor- I tion would have evidently been impolitic, if it

26 ADOPTIVE 

ADOPTIVE 

did not actually threaten to be fatal to the 

interests and permanence of the Masonic 

Institution. The Grand Orient, therefore, 

yielded its objections, and resolved to avail 

itself of that which it could not suppress . Accordingly, 

on the 10th of June, 1774, it issued 

an edict by which it assumed the protection 

and control of the Lodges of Adoption . Rules 

and regulations were provided for their government, 

among which were two : first, that no 

males except regular Freemasons should be 

permitted to attend them ; and, secondly, 

that each Lodge should be placed under the 

charge and held under the sanction of some 

regularly constituted Lodge of Masons, whose 

Master, or, in his absence, his deputy, should 

be the presiding officer, assisted by a female 

President or Mistress ; and such has since been 

the organization of all Lodges of Adoption . 

A Lodge of Adoption, under the regulations 

established in 1774, consists of the following 

officers : a Grand Master, a Grand Mistress, 

an Orator (dressed as a Capuchin), an Inspector, 

an Inspectress, a Male and Female 

Guardian, a Mistress of Ceremonies. All of 

these officers wear a blue watered ribbon over 

the shoulder, to which is suspended a golden 

trowel, and all the brothers and sisters have 

aprons and white gloves . 

The Rite of Adoption consists of four degrees, 

whose names in French and English are 

as follows : 

1 . Apprentice, or Female Apprentice . 

2. Compagnone, or Craftswoman. 

3 . Mattresse, or Mistress . 

4. Parfaite Maconne, or Perfect Mason . 

It will be seen that the degrees of Adoption, 

in their names and their apparent reference to 

the gradations of employment in an operative 

art, are assimilated to those of legitimate Freemasonry 

; but it is in those respects only that 

the resemblance holds good . In the details 

of the ritual there is a vast difference between 

the two Institutions . 

There was a fifth degree added in 1817-by 

some modern writers called " Female elect " 

-Sublime Dame Ecossaise, or Sovereign Illustrious 

Dame Ecossaise ; but it seems to be a 

recent and not generally adopted innovation. 

At all events, it constituted no part of the 

ongm al Rite of Adoption . 

The first or Female Apprentice's degree, is 

simplp preliminary in its character, and is 

intended to prepare the candidate for the more 

important lessons which she is to receive in 

the succeeding degrees . She is presented 

with an apron and a pair of white kid gloves . 

The apron is given with the following charge, 

in which as in all the other ceremonies of the 

Order, le Masonic system of teaching by 

symbolism is followed : 

" Permit me to decorate you with this 

apron ; kings, princes, and the most illustrious 

princesses have esteemed, and will ever 

esteem it an honor to wear it, as being the symbol 

of virtue ." 

On receiving the gloves, the candidate is 

thus addressed : 

" The color of these gloves will admonish 

you that candor and truth are virtues inseparable 

from the character of a true Mason . 

Take your place among us, and be pleased to 

listen to the instructions which we are about 

to communicate to you." 

The following charge is then addressed to the 

members by the Orator : 

"MY DEAR SISTERS :-Nothing is better calculated 

to assure you of the high esteem our society 

entertains for you, than your admission as a member 

. The common herd, always unmannerly, 

full of the most ridiculous prejudices, has dared 

to spripkle on us the black poison of calumnybut 

what judgment could it form when deprived 

of the light of truth, and unable to feel all the 

blessings which result from its perfect knowledge? 

" You alone, my dear sisters, having been repulsed 

from our meetings, would have the right 

to think us unjust ; but with what satisfaction do 

you learn to-day that Masonry is the school of 

propriety and of virtue, and that by its laws we 

restrain the weaknesses that degrade an honourable 

man, in order to return to your side more 

worthy of your confidence and of your sincerity . 

However whatever pleasure these sentiments 

have enabled us to taste, we have not been able 

to fill the void that your absence left in our midst ; 

and I confess, to your glory, that it was time to 

invite into our societies some sisters who, while 

rendering them more respectable will ever make 

of them pleasures and delights. We call our 

Lodges Temples of Virtue, because we endeavor 

to practise it. The mysteries which we celebrate 

therein are the grand art of conquering the 

passions and the oath that we take to reveal nothing 

is to prevent self-love and pride from entering 

at all into the good which we ought to do . 

"The beloved name of Adoption tells you sufficiently 

that we choose you to share the happiness 

that we enjoy, in cultivating honour and 

charity ; it is only after a careful examination 

that we have wished to share it with you, now 

that you know it we are convinced that the light 

of wisdom will illumine all the actions of your 

life, and that you will never forget that the more 

valuable things are the greater is the need to preserve 

them ; it is the principle of silence that we 

observe, it should be inviolable . May the God 

of the Universe who hears us vouchsafe to give 

us strength to render it so." 

It will be seen that throughout this char~ 

there runs a vein of gallantry, which gives the 

true secret of the motives which led to the organization 

of the society, and which, however 

appropriate to a Lodge of Adoption, would 

scarcely be in place in a Lodge of the legitimate 

Order. 

In the second degree, or that of Compagnone, 

or "Craftswoman," corresponding to 

our Fellow-Craft, the Lodge is made the symbol 

of the Garden of Eden, and the candidate 

passes through a mimic representation of the 

temptation of Eve, the fatal effects of which, 

culminating in the deluge and the destruction 

of the human race, are impressed upon her in 

the lecture or catechism . 

Here we have a scenic representation of the 

circumstances connected with that event, as 

recorded in Genesis . The candidate plays the 

role of our common mother . In the center of 

the Lodge, which represents the garden, is 

placed the tree of life, from which ruddy apples 

are suspended . The serpent, made with the-

ADOPTIVE 

ADOPTIVE 27 

atrical skill to represent a living reptile, embraces 

in its coils the trunk . An apple plucked 

from the tree is presented to the recipient, who 

is persuaded to eat it by the promise that thus 

alone can she prepare herself for receiving a 

knowledge of the sublime mysteries of Freemasonry. 

She receives the fruit from the 

tempter, but no sooner has she attempted to 

bite it, than she is startled by the sound of 

thunder ; a curtain which has separated her 

from the members of the Lodge is suddenly 

withdrawn, and she is detected in the commission 

of the act of disobedience . She is sharply 

reprimanded by the Orator, who conducts her 

before the Grand Master . This dignitary 

reproaches her with her fault, but finally, with 

the consent of the brethren and sisters present, 

he pardons her in the merciful spirit of 

the Institution, on the condition that she will 

take avow to extend hereafter the same clemency 

to the faults of others . 

All of this is allegorical and very pretty, and 

it cannot be denied that on the sensitive imaginations 

of females such ceremonies must produce 

a manifest impression . But it is needless 

to say that it is nothing like Masonry . 

There is less ceremony, but more symbolism, 

in the third degree, or that of " Mistress." 

Here are introduced, as parts of the ceremony, 

the tower of Babel and the theological ladder 

of Jacob. Its rounds, however, differ from 

those peculiar to true Masonry, and are said 

to equal the virtues in number . The lecture 

,or catechism is very long, and contains some 

very good points in its explanations of the 

symbols of the degree . Thus, the tower of 

Babel is said to signify the pride of man-its 

base, his folly-the stones of which it was 

composed, his passions-the cement which 

united them, the poison of discord-and its 

spiral form, the devious and crooked ways of 

the human heart . In this manner there is an 

imitation, not of the letter and substance of 

legitimate Freemasonry, for nothing can in 

these respects be more dissimilar, but of that 

mode of teaching by symbols and allegories 

which is its peculiar characteristic . 

The fourth degree, or that of " Perfect Mistress," 

corresponds to no degree in legitimate 

Masonry. It is simply the summit of the Rite 

of Adoption, and hence is also called the " Degree 

of Perfection ." Although the Lodge, in 

this degree, is supposed to represent the Mosaic 

tabernacle in the wilderness, yet the ceremonies 

do not have the same reference . In one 

of them, however, the liberation, by the candidate, 

of a bird from the vase in which it had 

been confined is said to symbolize the liberation 

of man from the dominion of his passions 

; and thus a far-fetched reference is made 

to the liberation of the Jews from Egyptian 

bondage . On the whole, the ceremonies are 

very disconnected, but the lecture or catechism 

contains some excellent lessons . Especially 

does it furnish us with the official definition 

of Adoptive Masonry, which is in these 

words : 

" It is a virtuous amusement by which we 

recall a part of the mysteries of our religion ; 

and the better to reconcile humanity with the 

knowledge of its Creator, after we have inculcated 

the duties of virtue, we deliver ourselves 

up to the sentiments of a pure and delightful 

friendship by enjoying in our Lodges the 

pleasures of society-pleasures which among 

us are always founded on reason, honor, and 

innocence ." 

Apt and appropriate description of an association, 

secret or otherwise of agreeable and 

virtuous well-bred men an~ women, but having 

not the slightest application to the design 

or form of true Freemasonry . 

Guillemain de St. Victor, the author of 

Manuel des Franches-Maronnes, ou La Vraie 

Magonnerie d'Adoption (which forms the 3d 

part of the Recueil Precieux), who has given 

the best ritual of the Rite and from whom the 

preceding account has been taken, thus briefly 

sums up the objects of the Institution : 

The first degree contains only, as it ought, 

moral ideas of Masonry ; the second is the initiation 

into the first mysteries, commencing 

with the sin of Adam, and concluding with the 

Ark of Noah as the first favor which God 

granted to men ; the third and fourth are 

merely a series of types and figures drawn 

from the Holy Scriptures, by which we explain 

to the candidate the virtues which she ought to 

practise ." (P . 13, ed . 1785 .) 

The fourth degree, being the summit of the 

Rite of Adoption, is furnished with a "tablelodge," 

or the ceremony of a banquet, which 

immediately succeeds the closing of the Lodge 

and 'which, of course, adds much to the social 

pleasure and nothing to the instructive character 

of the Rite . Here, also, there is a continued 

imitation of the ceremonies of the 

Masonic Institution as they are practised in 

France, where the ceremoniously conducted 

banquet, at which Masons only are present, is 

always an accompaniment of the Master's 

Lodge. Thus, as in the banquets of the regular 

Lodges of the French Rite, the members 

always use a symbolical language by which 

they designate the various implements of the 

table and the different articles of food and 

drink, calling, for instance, the knives 

" swords," the forks " pickaxes," the dishes 

"materials " and bread a "rough ashlar" ; 

so, in imitation of this custom, the Rite of 

Adoption has established in its banquets a 

technical vocabulary, to be used only at the 

table . Thus the Lodge room is called " Eden," 

the doors " barriers," the minutes a " ladder," 

a wineglass is styled a " lamp," and its contents 

" oil"-water being " white oil " and 

wine " red oil ." To fill your glass is " to trim 

your lamp," to drink is " to extinguish your 

lamp," with many other eccentric expressions 

. f 

Much taste, and in some instances, magnificence, 

are displayed in the decorations of 

the Lodge rooms of the Adoptive Rite . The 

apartment is separated by curtains into different 

divisions, and contains ornaments and 

decorations which of course vary in the differ- 

* Clavel, Hist . Pitt ., p . 30. t Clavel, p. 34.

28 ADOPTIVE 

ADOPTIVE 

ent degrees . The orthodox Masonic idea that 

the Lodge is a symbol of the world is here retained, 

and the four sides of the hall are said 

to represent the four continents-the entrance 

being called " Europe," the right side " Africa," 

the left "America," and the extremity, 

in which the Grand Master and Grand Mistress 

are seated, " Asia." There are statues 

representing Wisdom, Prudence, Strength, 

Temperance, Honor, Charity, Justice, and 

Truth . The members are seated along the 

sides in two rows, the ladies occupying the 

front one, and the whole is rendered as beautiful 

and attractive as the taste can make it .* 

The Lodges of Adoption flourished greatly 

in France after their recognition by the Grand 

Orient. The Duchess of Bourbon, who was the 

first that received the title of Grand Mistress, 

was installed with great pomp and splendor, 

in May, 1775, in the Lodge of St. Antoine, in 

Paris . She presided over the Adoptive Lodge 

Le Candeur until 1780, when it was dissolved . 

Attached to the celebrated Lodge of the Nine 

Sisters, which had so many distinguished men 

of letters among its members, was a Lodge of 

Adoption bearing the same name, which in 

1778 held a meeting at the residence of Madame 

Helvetius in honor of Benjamin Franklin, 

then our ambassador at the . French court . 

During the reign of terror of the French Revolution, 

Lodges of Adoption, like everything 

that was gentle or humane, almost entirely 

disappeared . But with the accession of a 

regular government they were resuscitated, 

and the Empress Josephine presided at the 

meeting of one at Strasburg in the year 1805 . 

They continued to flourish under the imperial 

dynasty, and although less popular, or less 

fashionable, under the Restoration, they subsequently 

recovered their popularity, and are 

still in existence in France . 

As interesting appendages to this article, it 

may not be improper to insert two accounts, 

one, of the installation of Madame Cesar 

Moreau, as Grand Mistress of Adoptive Masonry, 

in the Lodge connected with the regular 

Lodge La Jerusalem des Vallees Egyptiennes, 

on the 8th of July, 1854, and the other, 

of the reception of the celebrated Lady Morgan, 

in 1819, in the Lodge La Belle et Bonne, as 

described by her in her Diary. 

The account of the installation of Madame 

Moreau, which is abridged from the Franc- 

Mason, a Parisian periodical, is as follows : 

The fete was most interesting and admirably 

arranged. After the introduction in due 

form of a number of brethren and sisters the 

Grand Mistress elect was announced, and she 

entered, preceded by the five lights of the 

Lodge and escorted by the Inspectress, Depositress, 

Oratrix, and Mistress of Ceremonies. 

Mons . J. S . Boubee, the Master of the 

Lodge La Jerusalem des Vallees Egyptiennes, 

conducted her to the altar, where, having installed 

her into office and handed her a mallet 

as the symbol of authority, he addressed her 

in a copy of verses, whose merit will hardly 

* Reeueil Precieux, p. 24. 

claim for them a repetition . To this she made 

a suitable reply, and the Lodge then proceeded 

to the reception of a young lady, a part of the 

ceremony of which is thus described : 

" Of the various trials of virtue and fortitude 

to which she was subjected, there was one 

which made a deep impression, not only on 

the fair recipient, but on the whole assembled 

company . Four boxes were placed, one before 

each of the male officers ; the candidate was 

told to open them, which she did, and from the 

first and second drew faded flowers, and soiled 

ribbons and laces, which being placed in an 

open vessel were instantly consumed by fire, 

as an emblem of the brief duration of such 

objects ; from the third she drew an apron, a 

blue silk scarf, and a pair of gloves ; and from 

the fourth a basket containing the working 

tools in silver gilt . She was then conducted to 

the altar, where, on opening a fifth box, several 

birds which had been confined in it escaped, 

which was intended to teach her that 

liberty is a condition to which all men are 

entitled, and of which no one can be deprived 

without injustice . After having taken the 

vow, she was instructed in the modes of recognition, 

and having been clothed with the 

apron, scarf, and gloves, and presented with 

the implements of the Order, she received 

from the Grand Mistress an esoteric explanation 

of all these emblems and ceremonies . 

Addresses were subsequently delivered by the 

Orator and Oratrix, an ode was sung, the poor 

or alms box was handed round, and the labors 

of the Lodge were then closed ." 

Madame Moreau lived only six months to 

enjoy the honors of presiding officer of the 

Adoptive Rite, for she died of a pulmonary 

affection at an early age, on the 11th of the 

succeeding January. 

The Lodge of Adoption in which Lady 

Morgan received the degrees at Paris, in the 

year 1819, was called La Belle et Bonne . This 

was the pet name which long before had been 

bestowed by Voltaire on his favorite, the Marchioness 

de Villette,t under whose presidency 

and at whose residence in the Faubourg St . 

Germaine the Lodge was held, and hence the 

name with which all France, or at least all 

Paris, was familiarly acquainted as the popular 

designation of Madame de Villette. 

Lady Morgan, in her description of the 

Masonic fete, says that when she arrived at 

the Hotel la Villette, where the Lodge was 

held, she found a large concourse of distinguished 

persons ready to take part in the ceremonies. 

Among these were Prince Paul of 

Wurtemberg the Count de Cases, elsewhere 

distinguished in Masonry, the celebrated 

Denon, the Bishop of Jerusalem, and the illustrious 

actor Talma . The business of the evening 

commenced with an installation of the 

officers of a sister Lodge, after which the 

candidates were admitted . Lady Morgan describes 

the arrangements as presenting when 

the doors were opened, a spectacle of great 

magnificence. A profusion of crimson and 

t Clavel, p . 114.

ADOPTIVE 

ADOPTIVE 29 

gold, marble busts, a decorated throne and 

altar, an abundance of flowers, and incense of 

the finest odor which filled the air, gave to the 

whole a most dramatic and scenic effect . 

Music of the grandest character mingled its 

harmony with the mysteries of initiation, 

which lasted for two hours, and when the 

Lodge was closed there was an adjournment 

to the hall of refreshment, where the ball was 

opened by the Grand Mistress with Prince 

Paul of Wurtemberg. Lady Morgan, upon 

whose mind the ceremony appears to have 

made an impression, makes one remark worthy 

of consideration : " That so many women," 

she says, " young and beautiful and worldly, 

should never have revealed the secret, is among 

the miracles which the much distrusted sex 

are capable of working." In fidelity to the 

vow of secrecy, the female Masons of the 

Adoptive Rite have proved themselves fully 

equal to their brethren of the legitimate Order . 

Notwithstanding that Adoptive Masonry 

has found an advocate in no less distinguished 

a writer than Chemin Dupontes, who, in the 

Encyclopedie Magonnique,* calls it " a luxury 

in Masonry, and a pleasant relaxation which 

cannot do any harm to the true mysteries 

which are practised by men alone," it has 

been very generally condemned by the most 

celebrated French, German, English, and 

American Masons . 

Gaedicke, in the Freimaurer Lexicon, speaks 

slightingly of it as established on insufficient 

grounds, and expresses his gratification that 

the system no longer exists in Germany . 

Thory, in his History of the Foundation of 

the Grand Orient (p . 361), says that the introduction 

of Adoptive Lodges was a consequence 

of the relaxation of Masonic discipline ; and 

he asserts that the permitting of women to 

share in mysteries which should exclusively 

belong to men is not in accordance with the 

essential principles of the Masonic Order . 

The Abbd Robin, the author of an able work 

entitled Recherches sur les Initiations Ancients 

et Modernes, maintains (p. 15) that 

the custom of admitting women into Masonic 

assemblies will perhaps be, at some 

future period, the cause of the decline of 

Masonry in France. The prediction is not, 

however, likely to come to pass; for while 

legitimate Masonry has never been more popular 

or prosperous in France than it is at this 

day, it is the Lodges of Adoption that appear 

to have declined . 

Other writers in other countries have spoken 

in similar terms, so that it is beyond a doubt 

that the general sentiment of the Fraternity is 

against this system of female Masonry . 

Leaning is, however, more qualified in his 

condemnation, and says in his Encyclopadie 

der Freimaurerei, that wile leaving it undecided 

whether it is prudent to hold assemblies 

of women with ceremonies which are called 

Masonic, yet it is not to be denied that in 

these female Lodges a large amount of charity 

has been done . 

* Published in Paris in 4 vole., 1819-25. 

Adoptive Masonry has its literature, although 

neither dxtensive nor important, as it 

comprises only books of songs, addresses, and 

rituals . Of the latter the most valuable are : 

1 . La Magonnerie des Femmes, published in 

1775, and containing only the first three degrees, 

for such was the system when recognized 

by the Grand Orient of France in that 

year. 2. La Vraie Magonnerie d'Adoption, 

printed in 1787 . This work, which is by Guillemain 

de St. Victor, is perhaps the best that 

has been published on the subject of the Adoptive 

Rite, and is the first that introduces the 

Fourth Degree,of which Guillemainissupposed 

to have been the inventor, since all previous 

rituals include only the three degrees . 3 . Maconnerie 

d'Adoption pour les Femmes, contained 

in the second part of E . J. Chappron's 

Necessaire Maconnique, and printed at Paris 

in 1817 . This is valuable because it is the first 

ritual that contains the Fifth Degree. 4. La 

Franc-Maconnerie des Femmes . This work, 

which is by Charles Monselet, is of no value 

as a ritual, being simply a tale founded on 

circumstances connected with Adoptive Masonry 

. 

In Italy, the Carbonari, or " Wood- 

Burners," a secret political society, imitated 

the Freemasons of France in instituting an 

Adoptive Rite, attached to their own association. 

Hence, an Adoptive Lodge was founded 

at Naples in the beginning of this century, 

over which presided that friend of Masonry, 

Queen Caroline, the wife of Ferdinand II . 

The members were styled Giardiniere, or Female 

Gardeners ; and they called each other 

Cugine, or Female Cousins, in imitation of the 

Carbonari, who were recognized as Buoni 

Cugini, or Good Cousins . The Lodges of 

Giardiniere flourished as long as the Grand 

Lodge of Carbonari existed at Naples . 

Adoptive Masonry, American. The 

Rite of Adoption as practised on the continent 

of Europe, and especially in France, has never 

been introduced into America . The system 

does not accord with the manners or habits of 

the people, and undoubtedly never would become 

popular. But Rob . Morris attempted, in 

1855, to introduce an imitation of it, which he 

had invented, under the name of the " American 

Adoptive Rite ." It consisted of a ceremony 

of initiation, which was intended as a 

preliminary trial of the candidate, and of five 

degrees, named as follows : 1 . Jephthah's 

Daughter, or the daughter's degree . 2. Ruth, 

or the widow's degree . 3 . Esther or the wife's 

degree . 4. Martha, or the sisters degree . 5 . 

Electa, or the Christian Martyr's degree . The 

whole assemblage of the five degrees was called 

the Eastern Star . 

The objects of this Rite, as expressed by 

the framer, were " to associate in one common 

bond the worthy wives, widows, daughters, 

and sisters of Freemasons, so as to make their 

adoptive privileges available for all the purposes 

contemplated in Masonry= to secure to 

them the advantages of their claim in a moral 

social, and charitable point of view, and 

from them the performance of corresponding

30 ADOPTIVE 

ADORATION 

duties." Hence, no females but those holding 

the above recited relations to Freemasons were 

eligible for admission . The male members 

were called " Protectors " ; the female, " Stellar 

" ; the reunions of these members were 

styled " Constellations " ; and the Rite was 

presided over and governed by a " Supreme 

Constellation." There is some ingenuity and 

even beauty in many of the ceremonies, although 

it is by no means equal in this respect 

to the French Adoptive system . Much dissatisfaction 

was, however, expressed by the 

leading Masons of the country at the time of 

its attempted organization ; and therefore, 

notwithstanding very strenuous efforts were 

made by its founder and his friends to establish 

it in some of the Western States, it was 

slow in winning popularity . It has, however, 

within a few years past, gained much growth 

under the name of " The Eastern Star." 

Bro . Albert Pike has also recently printed, for 

the use of Scottish Rite Masons, The Masonry 

of Adoption . It is in seven degrees, and is a 

translation from the French system, but 

greatly enlarged, and is far superior to the 

original . 

The last phase of this female Masonry to 

which our attention is directed is the system 

of androgynous degrees which are practised 

to some extent in the United States . This 

term " androgynous " is derived from two 

Greek words, Zdjp (21vipos), a man, and yvvi1, 

a woman, and it is equivalent to the English 

compound, masculo feminine . It is applied 

to those " side degrees " which are conferred 

on both males and females . The essential regulation 

prevailing in these degrees, is that 

they can be conferred only do Master Masons 

(and in some instances only on Royal Arch 

Masons) and on their female relatives, the 

peculiar relationship differing in the different 

degrees . 

Thus there is a degree generally called the 

" Mason's Wife," which can be conferred only 

on Master Masons, their wives, unmarried 

daughters and sisters, and their widowed 

mothers . Another degree, called the "Heroine 

of Jericho," is conferred only on the wives and 

daughters of Royal Arch Masons ; and the 

third, the only one that has much pretension 

of ceremony or ritual, is the " Good Samaritan," 

whose privileges are confined to Royal 

Arch Masons and their wives . 

In some parts of the United States these 

degrees are very popular, while in other places 

they are never practised, and are strongly 

condemned as modern innovations . The fact 

is, that by their friends as well as their enemies 

these so-called degrees have been greatly 

misrepresented. When females are told that 

in receiving these degrees they are admitted 

into the Masonic Order, and are obtaining 

Masonic information, under the name of 

" Ladies' Masonry," they are simply deceived . 

When a woman is informed that, by passing 

through the brief and unimpressive ceremony 

of any one of these degrees, she has become a 

Mason, the deception is still more gross and 

inexcusable . But it is true that every woman 

who is related by ties of consanguinity to a 

Master Mason is at all times and under all 

circumstances peculiarly entitled to Masonic 

protection and assistance . Now, if the recipient 

of an androgynous degree is candidly 

instructed that, by the use of these degrees, 

the female relatives of Masons are put in possession 

of the means of making their claims 

known by what may be called a sort of oral 

testimony, which, unlike a written certificate, 

can be neither lost nor destroyed ; but that, by 

her initiation as a " Mason's Wife " or as a 

" Heroine of Jericho," she is brought no nearer 

to the inner portal of Masonry than she was 

before-if she is honestly told all this, then 

there can hardly be any harm, and there may 

be some good in these forms if prudently bestowed 

. But all attempts to make Masonry 

of them, and especially that anomalous thing 

called " Female Masonry," are reprehensible, 

and are well calculated to produce opposition 

among the well-informed and cautious members 

of the Fraternity . 

Adoptive Masonry, Egyptian . A system 

invented by Cagliostro . (See Cagliostro .) 

Adoration . The act of paying divine worship. 

The Latin word adorare is derived from 

ad, " to," and os, oris, " the mouth," and we 

thus etymologically learn that the primitive 

and most general method of adoration was by 

the application of the fingers to the mouth . 

Hence we read in Job (xxxi . 26) : " If I beheld 

the sun when it shined, or the moon walking 

in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly 

enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this 

also were an iniquity to be punished by the 

judges ; for I should have denied the God that 

is above ." Here the mouth kissing the hand is 

an equipollent expression to adoration, as if 

he had said, " If I have adored the sun or the 

moon." This mode of adoration is said to have 

originated among the Persians, who, as worshipers 

of the sun, always turned their faces 

to the east and kissed their hands to that luminary. 

The gesture was first used as a token of 

respect to their monarchs, and was easily 

transferred to objects of worship. Other additional 

forms of adoration were used in various 

countries, but in almost all of them this 

reference to kissing was in some degree preserved 

. It is yet a practice of quite common 

usage for Orientals to kiss what they deem 

sacred or that which they wish to adore example, 

Wailing Place of the Jews at Jerusalem . 

The marble toes of the statue of St . Peter in 

the Cathedral of St . Peter's at Rome have been 

worn away by the kissings of Catholics and 

have been replaced by bronze . Among the ancient 

Romans the act of adoration was thus 

performed : The worshiper, having his head 

covered, applied his right hand to his lips, 

thumb erect, and the forefinger resting on-it, 

and then, bowing his head, he turned round 

from right to left . And hence Apuleius 

(Apolog.) uses the expression " to apply the 

hand to the lips," manum labris admovere, to 

express the act of adoration. The Grecian 

mode of adoration differed from the Roman in 

having the head uncovered, which practise

ADVANCED 

ADVANCEMENT 31 

was adopted by the Christians . The Oriental 

nations cover the head, but uncover the feet . 

They also express the act of adoration by prostrating 

themselves on their faces and applying 

their foreheads to the ground . The ancient 

Jews adored by kneeling, sometimes by prostration 

of the whole body, and by kissing the 

hand . This act, therefore, of kissing the 

hand was an early and a very general symbol 

of adoration. But we must not be led into 

the error of supposing that a somewhat similar 

gesture used in some of the high degrees of 

Freemasonry has any allusion to an act of 

worship . It refers to that symbol of silence 

and secrecy which is figured in the statues of 

Harpocrates, the god of silence . The Masonic 

idea of adoration has been well depicted 

by the medieval Christian painters, who represented 

the act by angels prostrated before a 

luminous triangle . 

Advanced . This word has two technical 

meanings in Masonry . 

1 . We speak of a candidate as being advanced 

when he has passed from a lower to a 

higher degree ; as we say that a candidate is 

qualified for advancement from the Entered 

Apprentice's degree to that of a Fellow-Craft 

when he has made that " suitable proficiency 

in the former which, by the regulations of the 

Order, entitle him to receive the initiation into 

and the instructions of the latter ." And when 

the Apprentice has thus been promoted to the 

Second Degree he is said to have advanced in 

Masonry. 

2 . However, this use of the term is by no 

means universal, and the word is peculiarly 

applied to the initiation of a candidate into the 

Mark Degree, which is the fourth in the modification 

of the American Rite . The Master 

Mason is thus said to be " advanced to the 

honorary degree of a Mark Master," to indicate 

either that he has now been promoted one 

step beyond the degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry 

on his way to the Royal Arch, or to express 

the fact that he has been elevated from 

the common class of Fellow-Crafts to that 

higher and more select one which, according 

to the traditions of Masonry, constituted, at 

the first Temple, the class of Mark Masters . 

(See Mark Master.) 

Advancement Hurried . Nothing can be 

more certain than that the proper qualifications 

of a candidate for admission into the 

mysteries of Freemasonry, and the necessary 

proficiency of a Mason who seeks advancement 

to a higher degree, are the two great 

bulwarks which are to protect the purity and 

integrity of our Institution . Indeed, we know 

not which is the more hurtful-to admit an 

applicant who is unworthy, or to promote a 

candidate who is ignorant of his first lessons . 

The one affects the external, the other the internal 

character of the Institution. The one 

brings discredit upon the Order among the 

profane, who already regard us, too often, 

with suspicion and dislike ; the other introduces 

ignorance and incapacity into our ranks, 

and dishonors the science of Masonry in our 

own eyes . The one covers our walls with im- 

perfect and worthless stones, which mar the 

outward beauty and impair the strength of our 

temple ; the other fills our interior apartments 

with confusion and disorder, and leaves the 

edifice, though externally strong, both inefficient 

and inappropriate for its destined uses . 

But, to the candidate himself, a too hurried 

advancement is often attended with the most 

disastrous effects . As in geometry, so in Masonry, 

there is no " royal road " to perfection . 

A knowledge of its principles and its science, 

and consequently an acquaintance with its 

beauties, can only be acquired by long and 

diligent study. To the careless observer it 

seldom offers, at a hasty glance, much to attract 

his attention or secure his interest. The 

gold must be deprived, by careful manipulation, 

of the dark and worthless ore which surrounds 

and envelops it, before its metallic 

luster and value can be seen and appreciated . 

Hence, the candidate who hurriedly passes 

through his degrees without a due examination 

of the moral and intellectual purposes of 

each, arrives at the summit of our edifice without 

a due and necessary appreciation of the 

general symmetry and connection that pervade 

the whole system . The candidate, thus 

hurried through the elements of our science, 

and unprepared, by a knowledge of its fundamental 

principles, for the reception and comprehension 

of the corollaries which are to be 

deduced from them, is apt to view the whole 

system as " a rude and indigested mass " of 

frivolous ceremonies and puerile conceits, 

whose intrinsic value will not adequately pay 

him for the time, the trouble, and expense that 

he has incurred in his forced initiation . To 

him, Masonry is as incomprehensible as was 

the veiled statue of Isis to its blind worshipers, 

and he becomes, in consequence, either a 

useless drone in our hive, or speedily retires in 

disgust from all participation in our labors . 

But the candidate who by slow and painful 

steps has proceeded through each apartment 

of our mystic Temple, from its porch to its 

sanctuary, pausing in his progress to admire 

the beauties and to study the uses of each 

learning, as he advances, " line upon line, ands 

precept upon precept," is gradually and almost 

imperceptibly imbued with so much 

admiration of the Institution, so much love 

for its principles, so much just appreciation of 

its design as a conservator of divine truth, and 

an agent of human civilization, that he is inclined, 

on beholding, at last, the whole beauty 

of the finished building, to exclaim, as did the 

wondering Queen of Sheba : " A Most Excellent 

Master must have done all this!" 

The usage in many jurisdictions of the 

United States, when the question is asked in 

the ritual whether the candidate has made 

suitable proficiency in his preceding degree, is 

to reply, " Such as time and circumstances 

would permit ." We have no doubt that this 

was an innovation originally invented to evade 

the law, which has always required a due proficiency. 

To such a question no other answer 

ought to be given than the positive and unequivocal 

one that "he has ." Neither "time

32 ADVANCEMENT 

ADVANCEMENT 

nor circumstances " should be permitted to 

interfere with his attainment of the necessary 

knowledge, nor excuse its absence . This, with 

the wholesome rule, very generally existing, 

which requires an interval between the conferring 

of the degrees, would go far to remedy 

the evil of too hurried and unqualified advancement, 

of which all intelligent Masons 

are now complaining . 

After these views of the necessity of a careful 

examination of the claims of a candidate 

for advancement in Masonry, and the necessity, 

for his own good as well as that of the 

Order, that each one should fully prepare himself 

for this promotion, it is proper that we 

should next inquire into the laws of Masonry, 

by which the wisdom and experience of our 

predecessors have thought proper to guard as 

well the rights of those who claim advancement 

as the interests of the Lodge which is 

called upon to grant it . This subject has been 

so fully treated in Mackey's Text Book of Masonic 

Jurisprudence (b . iii ., ch . i., p. 165 et 

seq.) that we shall not hesitate to incorporate 

the views in that work into the present article . 

The subject of the petition of a candidate 

for advancement involves three questions of 

great importance : First, how soon, after receiving 

the First Degree, can he apply for the 

Second? Secondly, what number of black balls 

is necessary to constitute a rejection? And 

thirdly, what time must elapse, after a first 

rejection, before the Apprentice can renew his 

application for advancement? 

1. How soon, after receiving a former degree, 

can a candidate apply for advancement to the 

next? The necessity of a full comprehension 

of the mysteries of one degree, before any attempt 

is made to acquire those of a second, 

seems to have been thoroughly appreciated 

from the earliest times ; thus the 13th Article 

in the Regius MS ., which is the oldest Masonic 

document now extant, provides that " if the 

master a prentice have, he shall teach him 

thoroughly and tell him measurable points, 

that he may know the craft ably, wherever 

he goes under the sun ." Similar direction 

is found in most all the MS . But if there 

be an obligation on the part of the Master 

to instruct his Apprentice, there must be, 

of course, a correlative obligation on the part 

of the latter to receive and profit by those instructions 

. Accordingly, unless this obligation 

is discharged, and the Apprentice makes 

himself acquainted with the mysteries of the 

degree that he has already received, it is, by 

general consent, admitted that he has no right 

to be entrusted with further and more important 

information . The modern ritual sustains 

this doctrine, by requiring that the candidate, 

as a qualification in passing onward, 

shall have made " suitable proficiency in the 

preceding degree." This is all that the general 

law prescribes. Suitable proficiency must have 

been attained, and the period in which that 

condition will be acquired must necessarily 

depend on the mental capacity of the candidate 

. Some men will become proficient in a 

shorter time than others, and of this fact the 

Master and the Lodge are to be the judges . 

An examination should therefore take place in 

open Lodge, and a ballot immediately following 

will express the opinion of the Lodge on the 

result of that examination, and the qualification 

of the candidate . [Such ballot, however, 

is not usual in Lodges under the English Constitution.] 

Several modern Grand Lodges, looking with 

disapprobation on the rapidity with which the 

degrees are sometimes conferred upon candidates 

wholly incompetent, have adopted special 

regulations, prescribing a determinate 

period of probation for each degree . [Thus 

the Grand Lodge of England requires an interval 

of not less than four weeks before a 

higher degree can be conferred .] This, however, 

is a local law, to be obeyed only in those 

jurisdictions in which it is in force . The 

general law of Masonry makes no such determinate 

provision of time, and demands only 

that the candidate shall give evidence of " suitable 

proficiency ." 

2 . What number of black balls is necessary 

to constitute a rejection? Here we are entirely 

without the guidance of any express law, as 

all the Ancient Constitutions are completely 

silent upon the subject . It would seem, however, 

that in the advancement of an Apprentice 

or Fellow-Craft, as well as in the election 

of a profane, the ballot should be unanimous . 

This is strictly in accordance with the principles 

of Masonry, which require unanimity 

in admission, lest improper persons be intruded, 

and harmony impaired . Greater qualifications 

are certainly not required of a profane 

applying for initiation than of an initiate 

seeking advancement ; nor can there be 

any reason why the test of those qualifications 

should not be as rigid in the one case as in the 

other . It may be laid down as a rule, therefore, 

that in all cases of balloting for advancement 

in any of the degrees of asonry, a single 

black ball will reject . 

3 . What time must elapse, after a first rejection, 

before the Apprentice or Fellow-Craft can 

renew his application for advancement to a 

higher degree? Here, too, the Ancient Constitutions 

are silent, and we are left to deduce 

our opinions from the general principles and 

analogies of Masonic law. As the application 

for advancement to a higher degree is founded 

on a right enuring to the Apprentice or Fellow- 

Craft by virtue of his reception into the previous 

degree-that is to say, as the Apprentice, 

so soon as he has been initiated, becomes 

invested with the right of applying for advancement 

to the Second-it seems evident 

that as long as he remains an Apprentice " in 

good standing," he continues to be invested 

with that right. Now, the rejection of his 

petition for advancement by the Lodge does 

not impair his right to apply again, because it 

does not affect his rights and standing as an 

Apprentice ; it is simply the expression of the 

opinion that the Lodge does not at present 

deem him qualified for further progress in 

Masonry. We must never forget the difference 

between the rightof applying foradvance-

ADYTUM 

AFFILIATED 33 

ment and the right of advancement. Every 

Apprentice possesses the former, but no one 

can claim the latter until it is given to him by 

the unanimous vote of the Lodge . And as, 

therefore, this right of application or petition 

is not impaired by its rejection at a particular 

time, and as the Apprentice remains precisely 

in the same position in his own degree, after 

the rejection, as he did before, it seems to follow, 

as an irresistible deduction, that he may 

again apply at the next regular communication, 

and, if a second time rejected, repeat his 

applications at all future meetings . The Entered 

Apprentices of a Lodge are competent, 

at all regular communications of their Lodge, 

to petition for advancement . Whether that 

petition shall be granted or rejected is quite 

another thing, and depends altogether on the 

favor of the Lodge . And what is here said of 

an A prentice, in relation to advancement to 

the Second Degree, may be equally said of a 

Fellow-Craft in reference to advancement to 

the Third. 

This opinion has not, it is true, been universally 

adopted, though no force of authority, 

short of an opposing landmark, could 

make one doubt its correctness . For instance, 

the Grand Lodge of California decided, in 

1857, that " the application of Apprentices or 

Fellow Crafts for advancement should, after 

they have been once rejected by ballot, be 

governed by the same principles which regulate 

the ballot on petitions for initiation, and 

which require a probation of one year ." 

This appears to be a singular decision of 

Masonic law . If the reasons which prevent 

the advancement of an Apprentice or Fellow- 

Craft to a higher degree are of such a nature 

as to warrant the delay of one year, it is far 

better to prefer charges against the petitioner, 

and to give him the opportunity of a fair and 

impartial trial. In many cases, a candidate 

for advancement is retarded in his progress 

from an opinion, on the part of the Lodge, 

that he is not yet sufficiently prepared for 

promotion by a knowledge of the preceding 

degree-an objection which may sometimes be 

removed before the recurrence of the next 

monthly meeting . In such a case, a decision 

like that of the Grand Lodge of California 

would be productive of manifest injustice . It 

is, therefore, a more consistent rule, that the 

candidate for advancement has a right to 

apply at every regular meeting, and that 

whenever any moral objections exist to his 

taking a higher degree, these objections should 

be made in the form of charges, and their 

truth tested by an impartial trial . To this, 

too, the candidate is undoubtedly entitled, on 

all the principles of justice and equity . 

Adytum. The most retired and secret 

part of the ancient temples, into which the 

people were not permitted to enter, but which 

was accessible to the priests only, was called 

the adytum . And hence the derivation of 

the word from the Greek privative prefix 

a, and Slew, to enter = that which is not to be 

entered . In the adytum was generally to be 

found a Tdoos, or tomb, or some relics or sa- 

cred images of the god to whom the temple 

was consecrated . It being supposed that 

temples owed their origin to the superstitious 

reverence paid by the ancients to their deceased 

friends, and as most of the gods were 

men who had been deified on account of their 

virtues, temples were, perhaps, at first only 

stately monuments erected in honor of the 

dead . Hence the interior of the temple was 

originally nothing more than a cavity regarded 

as a place for the reception of a person interred, 

and in it was to be found the oop6s, or 

coffin, the Td¢os, or tomb, or, among the 

Scandinavians, the barrow or mound grave. In 

time, the statue or image of a god took the 

place of the coffin ; but the reverence for the 

spot as one of peculiar sanctity remained, and 

this interior part of the temple became, among 

the Greeks, the o-710s, or chapel, among the 

Romans the adytum, or forbidden place, and 

among the Jews the kodesh hakodashim, the 

Holy of Holies . (See Holy of Holies .) "The 

sanctity thus acquired," says Dudley (Naology, 

p . 393), " by the cell of interment might 

readily and with propriety be assigned to any 

fabric capable of -containing the body of the 

departed friend, or the relic, or even the symbol, 

of the presence or existence of a divine 

personage ." And thus it has happened that 

there was in every ancient temple an adytum 

or most holy place . The adytum of the small 

temple of Pompeii is still in excellent preservation 

. It is carried some steps above the level 

of the main building, and, like the Jewish 

sanctuary, is without light . 

,Eneid . Bishop Warburton (Div . Leg .) has 

contended, and his opinion has been sustained 

by the great majority of subsequent 

commentators, that Virgil, in the sixth book of 

his immortal Epic, has, under the figure of the 

descent of 2Eneas into the infernal regions, 

described the ceremony of initiation into the 

Ancient Mysteries . 

Aon . This word, in its original Greek, 

atw, signifies the age or duration of anything . 

The Gnostics, however, used it in a peculiar 

mode to designate the intelligent, intellectual, 

and material powers or natures which flowed 

as emanations from the BvObs, or Infinite 

Abyss of Deity, and which were connected 

with their divine fountain as rays of light are 

with the sun . (See Gnostics .) 

,Era Architectonica . This is used in 

some modern Masonic lapidary inscriptions to 

designate the date more commonly known as 

annus lucis, the year of light. 

AfHate, Free. The French gave the 

name of " free affiliates " to those members of 

a Lodge who are exempted from the payment of 

dues, and neither hold office nor vote . Known 

among English-speaking Masons as " honorary 

members ." 

There is a quite common use of affiliate in 

Lodges of the United States to designate one 

who has joined a Lodge by demit . 

Affiliated Mason . A Mason who holds 

membership in some Lodge . The word affiliation 

is derived from the French aflier, which 

Richelet (Dict . de la langue Frangaise) defines,

34 AFFIRMATION AFRICA 

," to communicate to any one a participation 

in the spiritual benefits of a religious order," 

and he says that such a communication is 

called an " affiliation ." - The word, as a technical 

term, is not found in any of the old Masonic 

writers, who always use admission instead 

of affiliation . There is no precept more 

explicitly expressed in the Ancient Constitutions 

than that every Mason should belong to 

a Lodge. The foundation of the law which 

imposes this duty is to be traced as far back as 

the Regius MS ., which is the oldest Masonic 

document now extant, and of which the " Secunde 

poynt " requires that the Mason work 

upon the workday as truly as he can in order 

to deserve his hire for the holiday, and that 

he shall " truly labour on his deed that he may 

well deserve to have his meed." (Lines 269- 

274 .) The obligation that every Mason should 

thus labor is implied in all the subsequent 

Constitutions, which always speak of Masons 

as working members of the Fraternity, until we 

come to the Charges approved in 1722, which 

explicitly state that "every Brother ought 

to belong to a Lodge, and to be subject to its 

By-Laws and the General Regulations ." 

Grand Master on the Coast of Africa and in 

the Islands of America, excepting such places 

where a Provincial Grand Master is already 

deputed ." However, in spite of these appointments 

having been made by the Grand 

Lodge of England, there is no trace of the establishment 

of any Lodges in West Africa 

until 1792, in which year a Lodge numbered 

586 was constituted at Bulam, followed in 

1810 by the Torridzonian Lodge at Cape 

Coast Castle . There are now on the West 

Coast of Africa fourteen Lodges warranted 

by the Grand Lodge of England, one holding 

an Irish warrant, one under the Grand Lodge 

of Scotland and two German Lodges ; and in 

the Negro Republic of Liberia a Grand Lodge 

was constituted in 1867, with nine daughter 

Lodges subordinate to it . 

In the North of Africa there is the Grand 

Lodge of Egypt at Cairo with 47 subordinate 

Lodges ; both England and Scotland have 

established District Grand Lodges in Egypt 

by consent of the former, while Italy, France 

and Germany have Lodges at Alexandria and 

Cairo. 

In Algeria and Morocco French influence 

is predominant, but in Tunis there is 

A®rmation. The question has been an independent Grand Lodge, established in 

mooted whether a Quaker, or other person 1881 . 

having peculiar religious scruples in reference Masonry was introduced into South Africa 

to taking oaths, can receive the degrees of by the erection of a Dutch Lodge (" De Goede 

Masonry by taking an affirmation . Now, as Hoop") at Cape Town in 1772, followed by 

the obligations of Masonry are symbolic in another under the same jurisdiction in 1802, 

their character, and the forms in which they and it was not until nine years later that the 

are administered constitute the essence of the first English Lodge was established there, 

symbolism, there cannot be a doubt that the which was gradually followed by others, the 

prescribed mode is the only one that ought to Dutch and English Masons working side by 

be used, and that affirmations are entirely inadmissible. 

The London Freemason's Quarterly Provincial Grand Master for the District who 

side with such harmony that the English 

(1828, p. 286) says that "a Quaker's affirmation 

is binding." This is not denied : the only Grand Master for the Netherlands . In 1860 

was appointed in 1829 was also Deputy 

question is whether it is admissible . Can the a Scotch Lodge was set up at Cape Town, 

obligations be assumed in any but one way, and 35 years later one was erected at Johannesburg 

under the Grand Lodge of Ireland, 

unless the ritual be entirely changed? And can 

any "man or body of men" at this time make so that there are four different Masonic bodies 

such a change without affecting the universality 

of Masonry? Bro . Chase (Masonic Digest, together in South Africa, viz ., the Grand 

exercising jurisdiction and working amicably 

p . 448) says that "conferring the degrees on Lodges of England, Ireland and Scotland, 

affirmation is no violation of the spirit of Freemasonry, 

and neither overthrows nor affects a Under the Grand Lodge of England there 

and the Grand Orient of the Netherlands . 

landmark ." And in this he is sustained by were at the last issue of the Masonic Yearthe 

Grand Lodge of Maine (1823) ; but the Book, 155 subordinate Lodges arranged in 

only other Grand Lodges which have expressed 5 Districts, viz ., Central, Eastern and Western 

South Africa, Natal and the Transvaal . 

an opinion on this subject-namely, those of 

Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, At the same time there were 16 Lodges 

Virginia, and Pennsylvania-have made an owing allegiance to the Grand Lodge of Ireland, 

76 under the Scotch Constitution, di- 

opposite decision. The entire practise of 

Lodges in America is also against the use vided among the Districts of Cape Colony, 

of an affirmation . But in England Quakers Cape Colony Western Province, Natal, Or- 

have been initiated after affirmation, the ange River Colony, Rhodesia and the Transprinciple 

being that a form of 0 B . - . which the vaal, and 28 under the jurisdiction of the 

candidate accepts as binding will suffice . Grand Orient of the Netherlands, besides two 

Africa. Anderson (Constitutions, 1738, p . 'German Lodges at Johannesburg. 

195) has recorded that in 1735 Richard' On the East Coast of the Dark Continent 

Hull, Esq., was appointed " Provincial Grand there are two Lodges at Nairobi, one of them 

Master at Gambay in West Africa," that in being English and the other Scotch, and there 

1736 David Creighton, M .D ., was appointed is also an English Lodge at Zanzibar . 

" Provincial Grand Master at Cape Coast ! [E. L . H .] 

Castle in Africa," and that in 1737 Capt . Will- ; Africa . In the French Rite of Adoption, 

iam Douglas was appointed " Provincial the south of the Lodge is called Africa .

AFRICAN 

AGATE 35 

African Architects, Order of. Sometimes 

called African Builders ; French, Architeetes 

de l'Afrique; German, AfricanischeBauherren 

. 

Of all the new sects and modern degrees of 

Freemasonry which sprang up on the continent 

of Europe during the eighteenth century, 

there was none which, for the time, maintained 

so high an intellectual position as the 

Order of African Architects, called by the 

French Architectes de l'Afrique, and by the 

Germans Africanische Bauherren . A Masonic 

sect of this name had originally been established 

in Germany in the year 1756, but it 

does not appear to have attracted much attention, 

or indeed to have deserved it ; and 

hence, amid the multitude of Masonic innovations 

to which almost every day was giving 

birth and ephemeral existence, it soon disappeared. 

But the society which is the subject of 

the present article, although it assumed the 

name of the original African Architects, was of 

a very different character . It may, however, be 

considered, as it was established only eleven 

years afterward, as a remodification of it . 

They admitted to membership those possessing 

high intellectual attainments rather 

than those possessing wealth or preferment . 

There was probably no real connection between 

this order and Freemasonry of Germany, 

even if they did profess kindly feelings 

for it. They based their order on the degrees 

of Masonry, as the list of degrees shows, but 

their work began in the Second Temple . 

While they had a quasi-connection with Freemasonry, 

we cannot call them a Masonic body 

according to the present day standards . 

The degrees were named and classified as 

follows : 

1 . Apprentice . 

2. Fellow-Craft . 

3 . Master Mason . 

FIRST TEMPLE 

SECOND TEMPLE 

4 . Architect, or Apprentice of Egyptian 

secrets [or Bosonien (Acta Latomorum, i ., 297)] . 

5 . Initiate into Egyptian secrets for 

Alethophilote (Acta Latomorum, i ., 292)] . 

6 . Cosmopolitan Brother . 

7 . Christian Philosopher [Thory calls this 

the Fourth Degree (A . L ., i., 332)] . 

8 . Master of Egyptian secrets . 

9 . Squire of the Order . 

10. Soldier of the Order . 

11 . Knight of the Order . 

The last three were called superior degrees, 

and were conferred only as a second or higher 

class, with great discrimination, upon those 

who had proved their worthiness of promotion . 

The assemblies of the brethren were called 

Chapters. The central or superintending 

power was styled a Grand Chapter, and it 

was governed by the following twelve officers : 

1 . Grand Master . 

2. Deputy Grand Master . 

3. Senior Grand Warden. 

4. Junior Grand Warden . 

5. Drapier. 

6. Almoner . 

7 . Tricoplerius, or Treasurer . 

8 . Graphiarius, or Secretary. 

9 . Seneschal . 

10 . Standard-Bearer. 

11 . Marshal . 

12 . Conductor. 

The African Architects was not the only 

society which in the eighteenth century sought 

to rescue Masonry from the impure hands of 

the charlatans into which it had well-nigh 

fallen. 

African Brother . One of the degrees of 

the Rite of the Clerks of Strict Observance, 

according to Thory (Actor Latomorum, i ., 291) ; 

but it is not mentioned in other lists of the 

degrees of that Rite . 

African Brothers. One of the titles 

given to the African Architects, which see. 

African Builders . (See African Architects .) 

African Lodge . (See Negro Lodges .) 

Agap.T . The agapae, or love-feasts, were 

banquets held during the first three centuries 

in the Christian Church. They were called 

" love-feasts," because, after partaking of the 

Sacrament, they met, both rich and poor, at a 

common feast-the former furnishing the provisions, 

and the latter, who had nothing, being 

relieved and refreshed by their more opulent 

brethren . Tertullian (Apologia, cap . xxxix. ) 

thus describes these banquets : " We do not 

sit down before we have first offered up prayers 

to God ; we eat and drink only to satisfy 

hunger and thirst, remembering still that we 

are to worship God by night : we discourse as 

in the presence of God, knowing that He hears 

us : then, after water to wash our hands, and 

lights brought in, every one is moved to sing 

some hymn to God, either out of the Scripture, 

or, as he is able, of his own composing . 

Prayer again concludes our feast, and we depart, 

not to fight and quarrel, or to abuse those 

we meet, but to pursue the same care of 

modesty and chastity, as men that have fed 

at a supper of philosophy and discipline, 

rather than a corporeal feast ." 

Dr . August Kestner, Professor of Theology, 

published in Jena, in 1819, a work in which 

he maintains that the agapae, established at 

Rome by Clemens, in the reign of Domitian, 

were mysteries which partook of a Masonic, 

symbolic, and religious character . 

In the Rosicrucian degrees of Mason 

find an imitation of these love-feasts the we 

primitive Christians ; and the ceremonies of 

the banquet in the degree of Rose Croix of the 

Ancient and Accepted Rite, especially as practised 

by French Chapters, are arranged with 

reference to the ancient agapae . Reghellini, 

indeed, finds an analogy between the tablelodges 

of modern Masonry and these lovefeasts 

of the primitive Christians . 

Agate. A stone varying in color, but of 

great hardness, being a variety of the flint . 

The agate, in Hebrew 1=7, SHeBO, was the 

center stone of tie third row in the breastplate

36 AGATE 

AGNOSTUS 

of the high priest . Agates often contain 

representations of leaves, mosses, etc ., depicted 

by the hand of nature . Some of the 

representations on these are exceedingly singular 

. Thus, on one side of one in the possession 

of Velschiua was a half moon, and on the 

other a star . Kircher mentions one which 

had a representation of an armed heroine ; 

another, in the church of St . Mark in Venice, 

which had a representation of a king's head, 

adorned with a diadem ; and a third which 

contained the letters I. N. R . I . (Oliver's Historical 

Landmarks, ii ., 522.) In the collections 

of antiquaries are also to be found many gems 

of agate on which mystical inscriptions have 

been engraved, the significations of which are, 

for the most part, no longer understood . 

Agate, Stone of . Among the Masonic 

traditions is one which asserts that the stone 

of foundation was formed of agate . This, 

like everything connected with the legend of 

the stone, is to be mystically interpreted . In 

this view, agate is a symbol of strength and 

beauty, a symbolism derived from the peculiar 

character of the agate, which is distinguished 

for its compact formation and the ornamental 

character of its surface . (See Stone of Foundation 

.) 

Agathopades . A liberal ecclesiastical 

order founded in Brussels in the sixteenth 

century . Revived and revised by Schayes in 

1846 . It had for its sacred sign the pentastigma 

Age, Lawful. One of the qualifications 

for candidates is that they shall be of " lawful 

age." What that age must be is not settled 

by any universal law or landmark of the Order . 

The Ancient Regulations do not express any 

determinate number of years at the expiration 

of which a candidate becomes legally entitled 

to apply for admission. The language used 

is, that he must be of " mature and discreet 

age ." But the usage of the Craft has differed 

in various countries as to the construction of 

the time when this eriod of maturity and 

discretion is suppose to have arrived . The 

sixth of the Regulations, which are said to 

have been made in 1663, prescribes that " no 

person shall be accepted a Freemason unless 

he be one and twenty years old or more" ; but 

the subsequent Regulations are less explicit . 

At Frankfort-on-the-Main, the age required 

is twenty ; in the Lodges of Switzerland, it has 

been fixed at twenty-one. The Grand Lodge 

of Hanover prescribes the age of twenty-five, 

but permits the son of a Mason to be admitted 

at eighteen. (See Lewis.) The Grand Lodge 

of Hamburg decrees that the lawful age for 

initiation shall be that which in any country 

has been determined by the laws of the land 

to be the age of majority . The Grand Orient 

of France requires the candidate to be twentyone, 

unless he be the son of a Mason who has 

performed some important service to the Order, 

or unless he be a young man who has served 

six months in the army, when the initiation 

may take place at the age of eighteen . In 

Prussia the required age is twenty-five . 

Under the Grand Lodge of England the Constitutions 

of 1723 provided that no man should 

be made a Mason under the age of twenty-five 

unless by dispensation from the Grand Master, 

and this remained the necessary age until 

it was lowered in the Constitutions of 1784 to 

twenty-one years, as at present, though the 

" Ancient " Masons still retained the requirement 

of twenty-five until the Union of 

1813 . Under the Scotch Constitution the age 

was eighteen until 1891, when it was raised 

to twenty-one . Under the Irish Constitution 

the age was twenty-one until 1741, when it 

was raised to twenty-five and so remained 

until 1817, when it was lowered again to 

twenty-one . In the United States, the usage 

is general that the candidate shall not be less 

than twenty-one years of age at the time of 

his initiation, and no dispensation can issue 

for conferring the degrees at an earlier period . 

Age, Masonic . In some Masonic Rites a 

mystical age is appropriated to each degree, 

and the initiate who has received the degree 

is said to be of such an age . Thus, the age of 

an Entered Apprentice is said to be three 

years ; that of a Fellow-Craft, five ; and that 

of a Master Mason, seven. These ages are 

not arbitrarily selected, but have a reference 

to the mystical value of numbers and their 

relation to the different degrees . Thus, three 

is the symbol of peace and concord, and has 

been called in the Pythagorean system the 

number of perfect harmony, and is appropriated 

to that degree, which is the initiation 

into an Order whose fundamental principles 

are harmony and brotherly love . Five is the 

symbol of active life, the union of the female 

principle two and the male principle three, and 

refers in this way to the active duties of man 

as a denizen of the world, which constitutes 

the symbolism of the Fellow-Craft's degree ; 

and seven, as a venerable and perfect number, 

is symbolic of that perfection which is supposed 

to be attained in the Master's degree . 

In a way similar to this, all the ages of the 

other degrees are symbolically and mystically 

explained . 

The Masonic ages are-and it will thus be 

seen that they are all mystic numbers-3, 5, 

7, 9, 15, 27, 63, 81 . 

Agenda. A Latin word meaning " things 

to be done ." Thus an " Agenda Paper " is a 

list of the matters to be brought before a 

meeting. 

Agla . One of the Kabbalistic names of God, 

which is composed of the initials of the words 

of the following sentence : '1~yK iT?y~7 77a 1'Idi, 

Atah Gibor Lolam Adonai, " thou art mighty 

forever, 0 Lord ." This name the Kabbalists 

arranged seven times in the center and at the 

intersecting points of two interlacing triangles, 

which figure they called the Shield of David, 

and used as a talisman, believing that it would 

cure wounds, extinguish fires, and perform 

other wonders . (See Shield of David.) 

Agnostus, Trenaeus . This is supposed by 

Moss (Bibliog ., Nos. 2442, 2497, etc .) to have 

been a nom de plume of Gotthardus Arthusius, 

a co-rector in the Gymnasium of Frankfort-

AGNUS 

AHIMAN 37 

on-the-Main, and a writer of some local 

celebrity in the beginning of the seventeenth 

century . (See Arthusius .) Under this assumed 

name of Irennus Agnostus, he published, 

between the years 1617 and 1620, many 

works on the subject of the Rosicrucian Fraternity, 

which John Valentine Andrea had 

about that time established in Germany . 

Among those works were the Fortalicium 

Scienti s, 1617 ; Clypeum Veritatis, 1618 ; 

Speculum Constantice, 1618 ; Fons Gratice, 

1619 ; Frater non Frater, 1619 ; Thesaurus Fidei 

1619 ; Port us Tranquillitatis, 1620, and several 

others of a similar character and equally 

quaint title . 

Agnus Del. The Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, 

also called the Paschal Lamb, or the Lamb 

offered in the paschal sacrifice, is one of the 

j 

ewels of a Commandery of Knights Templar 

in America, and is worn by the Generalissimo . 

The lamb is one of the earliest symbols of 

Christ in the iconography of the Church, and 

as such was a representation of the Savior, 

derived from that expression of St . John the 

Baptist (John i. 29), who, on beholdin g Christ, 

exclaimed, "Behold the Lamb of God ." 

"Christ," says Didron (Christ . Iconog., i., 

318), " shedding his blood for our redemption, 

is the Lamb slain by the children of Israel, and 

with the blood of which the houses to be preserved 

from the wrath of God were marked 

with the celestial tau . The Paschal Lamb 

eaten by the Israelites on the night preceding 

their departure from E gypt is the type of that 

other divine Lamb of whom Christians are to 

partake at Easter, in order thereby to free 

themselves from the bondage in which they 

are held by vice ." 

The earliest representation that is found in 

Didron of the Agnus Dei is of the sixth century, 

and consists of a lamb supporting in his right 

foot a cross. In the eleventh century we find 

a banneret attached to this cross, and the 

lamb is then said to support " the banner of 

the resurrection ." This is the modern form 

in which the Agnus Dei is represented . 

Ahabath Olam. Two Hebrew words signifying 

eternal love . The name of a prayer 

which was used by the Jews dispersed over 

the whole Roman Empire during the times of 

Christ. It was inserted by Dermott in his 

Ahiman Rezon (p . 45, ed . 1764) and copied 

into several others, with the title of "A 

Prayer repeated in the Royal Arch Lodge at 

Jerusalem ." The prayer was most probably 

adopted by Dermott and attributed to a Royal 

Arch Lodge in consequence of the allusion in 

it to the " holy, great, mighty, and terrible 

name of God ." 

Ahlah. So spelled in the common version 

of the Bible (1 Kings iv . 3), but according to 

the Hebrew orthography the word should be 

spelled and pronounced Achiah . • He and Elihoreph 

(or Elichoreph) were the sopherim, 

scribes or secretaries of King Solomon . In 

the ritual of the Seventh Degree of the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite according to the modern 

American ritual, these personages are represented 

by the two Wardens . 

Ahiman Rezon. The title given by Dermott 

to the Book of Constitutions of the 

Grand Lodge of " Ancient " Masons in England, 

which was established about the middle 

of the eighteenth century in opposition to the 

legitimate Grand Lodge and its adherents, 

who were called the " Moderns," and whose 

code of laws was contained in Anderson's 

work known as the Book of Constitutions . 

Many attempts have been made to explain the 

significance of this title ; thus, according to Dr . 

Mackey, it is derived from three Hebrew words, 

O'r ahim, " brothers" ; = , manah, "to 

a point," or " to select " (in the sense of being 

paced in a peculiar class see Isaiah liii . 12) ; 

and J21, ratzon, " the will, pleasure, or meaning" 

; and hence the combination of the three 

words in the title, Ahiman Rezon, signifies 

" the will of selected brethren "-the law of a 

class or society of men who are chosen or 

selected from the rest of the world as brethren . 

Dr. Dalcho (Ahim. Rez . of South Carolina, p . 

159, 2d ed .) derives it from ahi, " a brother," 

manah, " to prepare," and rezon, " secret " ; so 

that, as he says, " Ahiman Rezon literally 

means the secrets of a prepared brother ." But 

the best meaning of manah is that which conveys 

the idea of being placed in or appointed 

to a certain, exclusive class, as we find in 

Isaiah (liii . 12) " he was numbered (nimenah ) 

with the transgressors," placed in that class, 

being taken out of every other order of men . 

And although rezon may come from ratzon, " a 

will or law," it can hardly be elicited by any 

rules of etymology out of the Chaldee word 

raz, " a secret," the termination in on being 

wanting ; and besides the book called the 

Ahiman Rezon does not contain the secrets, 

but only the public laws of Masonry. The 

derivation of Dalcho seems therefore inadmissible 

. Not less so is that of Bro . W . S . 

Rockwell, who (Ahim . Rez . of Georgia, 1859, 

p . 3) thinks the derivation may be found in 

the Hebrew, 11nN, amun, " a builder" or 

" architect," and it1, rezon, as a noun 

" prince," and as an adjective, " royal," and 

hence, Ahiman Rezon, according to this etymology, 

will signify the "royal builder," or, 

symbolically, the " Freemason ." But to derive 

ahiman from amun, or rather amon, which 

is the masoretic pronunciation, is to place all 

known laws of etymology at defiance . Rockwell 

himself, however, furnishes the best argument 

against his strained derivation, when he 

admits that its correctness will depend on the 

antiquity of the phrase, which he acknowledges 

that he doubts. In this, he is right . The 

phrase is altogether a modern one, and has 

Dermott, the author of the first work bearing 

the title, for its inventor . Rockwell's conjectural 

derivation is, therefore, for this reason 

still more inadmissible than Dalcho's . 

But the most satisfactory explanation is as 

follows : In his prefatory address to the reader, 

Dermott narrates a dream of his in which the 

four men appointed by Solomon to be porters 

at the Temple (1 Chron . ix . 17) appear to him 

as sojourners from Jerusalem, and he tells 

them that he is writing a history of Masonry ;

38 AHIMAN 

AHIMAN 

upon which, one of the four, named Ahiman, 

says that no such history has ever yet been 

composed and suggests that it never can be . 

It is clear, therefore, that the first word of the 

title is the name of this personage . What 

then does "Rezon " signify? Now the 

Geneva or "Breeches" Bible, published in 

1560, contains a table giving the meanings of 

the Bible names and explains Ahiman as " a 

prepared brother " or " brother of the right 

hand " and Rezon as " a secretary," so that 

the title of the book would mean " Brother 

Secretary ." That Dermott used the Geneva 

Bible is plain from the fact that he quotes 

from it in his Address to the reader, and 

therefore it may fairly be assumed that 

he selected these names to suit his purpose 

from the list given in it, especially as he 

styles himself on his title-page merely " Secretary 

." 

But the history of the origin of the book is 

more important and more interesting than the 

history of the derivation of its title . 

The premier Grand Lodge of England was 

established in 1717 and ruled the Masons of 

London and the South of England without opposition 

until in 1751 when some Irish Masons 

established another body in London, who professed 

to work " according to the old institutions," 

and called themselves ` Antient " 

Masons and the members of the older Grand 

Lodge " Moderns " maintaining that they 

alone preserved the ancient usages of Masonry 

. 

The former of these contending bodies, the 

Grand Lodge of England, had, in the year 

1722, caused Dr . James Anderson to collect 

and compile all the statutes and regulations 

by which the Fraternity had in former times 

been governed ; and these, after having been 

submitted to due revision, were published in 

1723, by Anderson, with the title of The Constitutions 

of the Freemasons . This work, of 

which several other editions subsequently 

appeared, has always been called the Book 

of Constitutions, and contains the foundations 

of the written law by which the Grand 

Lodge of England and the Lodges deriving 

from it, both in that country and in America, 

are governed . But when the Irish Masons 

established their rival Grand Lodge, they 

found it necessary, also, to have a, Book of 

Constitutions ; and accordingly, Laurence 

Dermott, who was at one time their Grand 

Secretary, and afterward their Deputy 

Grand Master, compiled such a work, the first 

edition of which was published by James Bedford, 

at London, in 1756, with the following 

title : Ahiman Rezon : or a Help to a Brother; 

showing the Excellency of Secrecy, and the first 

cause or motive of the Institution of Masonry ; 

the Principles of the Craft ; and the Benefits 

from a strict Observance thereof, etc ., etc . ; also 

the Old and New Regulations, etc . To which is 

added the greatest collection of Masons' Songs, 

etc. By Bro . Laurence Dermott, Secretary . 8vo, 

20A 

p seecond edition was published in 1764 

with this title : Ahiman Rezon : or a help to 

all that are or would be Free and Accepted 

Masons ; containing the Quintessence of all 

that has been published on the Subject of Freemasonry, 

with many Additions, which renders 

this Work more useful than any other Book of 

Constitution now extant . By Lau. Dermott, Secretary 

. London, 1764 . 8vo . 224 pp . 

A third edition was published in 1778, with 

the following title : Ahiman Rezon : or a Help 

to all that are or would be Free and Accepted 

Masons, (with many Additions .) By Lau . Dermott, 

D.G .M. Printed for James Jones, Grand 

Secretary ; and Sold by Peter Shatwell, in the 

Strand. London, 1778 . 8vo, 232 pp . 

Five other editions were published : the 4th, 

in 1778 ; the 5th in 1787 ; the 6th in 1800 ; the 

7th in 1801 ; the 8th in 1807, and the 9th 

in 1813 . In this year, the Ancient Grand 

Lodge was dissolved by the union of the two 

Grand Lodges of England, and a new Book of 

Constitutions having been adopted for the 

united body, the Ahiman Rezon became useless, 

and no subsequent edition was ever published 

. 

The earlier editions of this work are among 

the rarest of Masonic publications, and are 

highly prized by collectors . 

In the year 1855, Mr . Leon Hyneman, of 

Philadelphia, who was engaged in a reprint of 

old standard Masonic works (an enterprise 

which should have received better patronage 

than it did), republished the second edition, 

with a few explanatory notes . 

As this book contains those principles of 

Masonic law by which, for three-fourths of a 

century, a large and intelligent portion of the 

Craft was governed ; and as it is now becoming 

rare and, to the generality of readers, inaccessible, 

some brief review of its contents may 

not be uninteresting . 

In the Preface or Address to the reader, 

Dermott pokes fun at the History of Freemasonry 

as written by Dr . Anderson and 

others, and wittily explains the reason why 

he has not published a history of Freemasonry 

. 

There is next a "Philacteria for such Gentlemen 

as may be inclined to become Freemasons 

." This article, which was not in the 

first edition, but appeared for the first time in 

the second, consists of directions as to the 

method to be pursued by one who desires to 

be made a Freemason . This is followed by an 

account of what Dermott calls "Modern 

Masonry," that is, the system pursued by the 

original Grand Lodge of England, and of the 

differences existing between it and " Ancient 

Masonry," or the system of his own Grand 

Lodge . He contends that there are material 

differences between the two systems ; that of 

the Ancients being universal and that of the 

Moderns not ; a Modern being able with 

safety to communicate all his secrets to an 

Ancient, while an Ancient cannot communicate 

his to a Modern ; a Modern having no 

right to be called free and accepted ; all of 

which, in his opinion, show that the Ancients 

have secrets which are not in the possession of 

the Moderns . This, he considers, a convinc-

AHIMAN 

AHIMAN 39 

ing proof that the Modern Masons were innovators 

upon the established system, and 

had instituted their Lodges and framed their 

ritual without a sufficient knowledge of the 

arcana of the Craft . But the Modern Masons 

with more semblance of truth, thought that 

the additional secrets of the Ancients were 

only innovations that they had made upon 

the true body of Masonry ; and hence, they 

considered their ignorance of these newly invented 

secrets was the best evidence of their 

own superior antiquity . 

In the later editions* Dermott has published 

the famous Leland MS ., together with the 

commentaries of Locke ; also the resolutions 

adopted in 1772 by which the Grand Lodges 

of Ireland and ~cotland agreed to maintain a 

" Brotherly Connexion and Correspondence " 

with the Grand Lodge of England (Ancients) . 

The Ahiman Rezon proper, then, begins 

with twenty-three pages of an encomium on 

Masonry, and an explanation of its principles . 

Many a modern Masonic address is better 

written, and contains more important and 

instructive matter than this prefatory discourse. 

Then follow " The Old Charges of the Free 

and Accepted Masons," taken from the 1738 

Edition of Anderson's Constitutions . Next 

come " A short charge to a new admitted 

Mason " " The Ancient manner of constituting 

a Lodge," a few prayers, and then the 

"General Regulations of the Free and Accepted 

Masons ." These are borrowed mainly 

from the second edition of Anderson with a 

few alterations and additions . After a comparison 

of the Dublin and London " Regulations 

for Charity," the rest of the book, comprising 

more than a hundred pages, consists 

of "A Collection of Masons' Songs," of the 

poetical merits of which the less said the better 

for the literary reputation of the writers . 

Imperfect, however, as was this work, it for 

a long time constituted the statute book of the 

" Ancient Masons" ; and hence those Lodges 

in America which derived their authority from 

the Dermott or Ancient Grand Lodge of England, 

accepted its contents as a true exposition 

of Masonic law ; and several of their Grand 

Lodges caused similar works to be compiled 

for their own government, adopting the title 

of Ahiman Rezon, which thus became the 

peculiar designation of the volume which contained 

the fundamental law of the "Ancients," 

while the original title of Book of Constitutions 

continued to be retained by the "Moderns," 

to designate the volume used by them 

for the same purpose . 

Of the Ahiman Rezons compiled and published 

in America, the following are the principal 

: 

1 . Ahiman Rezon abridged and digested ; 

as a help to all that are or would be Free and 

Accepted Masons, etc. Published by order 

of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania ; by William 

Smith, D. D. Philadelphia, 1783 . Anew 

Ahiman Rezon was published by the Grand 

Lodge of Penn sylvania in 1825 . 

2 . Charges and Regulations of the Ancient 

and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted 

Masons, extracted from the Ahiman Rezon, etc . 

Published by the consent and direction of the 

Grand Lodge of Nova Scotia . Halifax, 1786 . 

3 . The New Ahiman Rezon, containing the 

Laws and Constitution of Virginia, etc. By 

John K . Reade, present Deputy Grand Master of 

Virginia, etc . Richmond, 1791 . Another edition 

was published in 1818, by James Henderson 

. 

4 . The Maryland Ahiman Rezon of Free 

and Accepted Masons, containing the History 

• Masonry from the establishment of the Grand 

Lodge to the present time ; with their Ancient 

Charges, Addresses, Prayers, Lectures, Prologues, 

Epilogues, Songs, etc ., collected from the 

Old Records, Faithful Traditions and Lodge 

Books; by G. Keating . Compiled by order of 

the Grand Lodge of Maryland . Baltimore, 

1797 . 

5. The Ahiman Rezon and Masonic Ritual, 

published by the order of the Grand Lodge of 

North Carolina and Tennessee. Newbern, 

N . C ., 1805 . 

6 . An Ahiman Rezon, for the use of the 

Grand Lodge of South Carolina, Ancient York 

Masons, and the Lodges under the Register and 

Masonic Jurisdiction thereof . Compiled and 

arranged with considerable additions, at the 

request of the Grand Lodge, and published by 

their authority . By Brother Frederick Dalcho, 

M.D ., etc. Charleston, S . C ., 1807 . A second 

edition was published by the same author, in 

1822, and a third, in 1852, by Dr . Albert G . 

Mackey . In this third edition, the title was 

changed to that of The Ahiman Rezon, orBook 

• Constitutions, etc . And the work was in a 

great measure expurgated of the peculiarities 

of Dermott, and made to conform more closely 

to the Andersonian Constitutions . A fourth 

edition was published by the same editor, 

in 1871, in which everything antagonistic to 

the original Book of Constitutions has been 

omitted . 

7 . The Freemason's Library and General 

Ahiman Rezon ; containing a delineation of the 

true principles of Freemasonry, etc . ; by Samuel 

Cole. Baltimore, 1817. 8vo, 332 + 92 

pp. There was a second edition in 1826 . 

8 . Ahiman Rezon ; prepared under the 

direction of the Grand Lodge of Georgia ; by 

Wm . S . Rockwell, Grand Master of Masons 

• Georgia . Savannah, 1859 . 4to and 8vo, 

404 pp . But neither this work nor the third 

and fourth editions of the Ahiman Rezon of 

South Carolina have any connection in principle 

or theory with the Ahiman Rezon of 

Dermott. They have borrowed the name 

from the " Ancient Masons," but they derive 

all their law and their authorities from the 

" Moderns," or the legal Masons of the last 

century . 

9. The General Ahiman Rezon and Freemason's 

Guide, by Daniel Sickles . New 

York, 1866. 8vo, pp . 408 . This book like 

Rockwell's, has no other connection with the 

archetypal work of Dermott but the name . 

Many of the Grand Lodges of the United 

States having derived their existence and

40 AHIMAN 

AID 

authority from the Dermott Grand Lodge, 

the influence of his Ahiman Rezon was for a 

long time exercised over the Lodges of this 

country ; and, indeed, it is only within a comparatively 

recent period that the true principles 

of Masonic law, as expounded in the 

first editions of Anderson's Constitutions, 

have been universally adopted among American 

Masons. 

It must, however, be observed, in justice to 

Dermott, -who has been rather too grossly 

abused by Mitchell and a few other writers, 

that the innovations upon the old laws of 

Masonry, which are to be found in the Ahiman 

Rezon, are for the most part not to be charged 

upon him, but upon Dr . Anderson himself, 

who, for the first time, introduced them into 

the second edition of the Book of Constitutions, 

published in 1738 . It is surprising, and 

accountable only on the ground of sheer carelessness 

on the part of the supervising committee, 

that the Grand Lodge should, in 1738, 

have approved of these alterations made by 

Anderson, and still more surprising that it was 

not until 1756 that a new or third edition of 

the Constitutions should have been published, 

in which these alterations of 1738 were expunged, 

and the old regulations and the old 

language restored. But whatever may have 

been the causes of this oversight, it is not to be 

doubted that, at the time of the formation of 

the Grand Lodge of the Ancients, the edition 

of the Book of Constitutions of 1738 was considered 

as the authorized exponent of Masonic 

law by the original or regular Grand Lodge of 

England, and was adopted, with but little 

change, by Dermott as the basis of his Ahiman 

Rezon . How much this edition of 1738 

differed from that of 1723, which is now considered 

the only true authority for ancient 

law, and how much it agreed with Dermott's 

Ahiman Rezon, will be evident from the following 

specimens of the first of the Old 

Charges, correctly taken from each of the 

three works : 

First of the Old Charges in the Book of Constitutions, 

edit ., 1723 . 

" A Mason is obliged by his tenure to obey 

the moral law ; and if he rightly understands 

the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor 

an irreligious libertine . But though in ancient 

times Masons were charged, in every country, 

to be of the religion of that country or nation, 

whatever it was, yet it is now thought more 

expedient only to oblige them to that religion 

in which all men agree, leaving their particular 

opinions to themselves ; that is to be good men 

and true, or men of honour and honesty, by 

whatever denominations or persuasions they 

may be distinguished ; whereby Masonry becomes 

the centre of union, and the means of 

conciliating true friendship among persons 

that must have remained at a perpetual distance 

." 

First of the Old Charges in the Book of 

Constitutions, edit ., 1738 . 

" A Mason is obliged by his tenure to ob- 

never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious 

libertine, nor act against conscience . 

" In antient times, the Christian Masons 

were charged to comply with the Christian 

usages of each country where they travelled or 

worked. But Masonry being found in all nations, 

even of divers religions, they are now only 

charged to adhere to that religion in which all 

men agree, (leaving each brother to his own 

particular opinions;) that is, to be good men 

and true, men of honour and honesty, by 

whatever names, religions, or persuasions they 

may be distinguished ; for they all agree in the 

three great articles of Noah enough to preserve 

the cement of the Lodge . Thus, Masonry is the 

center of their union, and the happy means of 

conciliating persons that otherwise must have 

remained at a perpetual distance ." 

First of the Old Charges in Dermott's 

Ahiman Rezon . 

" A Mason is obliged by his tenure to observe 

the moral law, as a true Noachida ; and 

if he rightly understands the Craft, he will 

never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious 

libertine, nor act against conscience . 

" In ancient times, the Christian Masons 

were charged to comply with the Christian 

usages of each country where they travelled or 

worked; being found in all nations, even of 

divers religions . 

" They are generally charged to adhere to 

that religion in which all men agree, (leaving 

each brother to his own particular opinions ;) 

that is, to be good men and true, men of 

honour and honesty, by whatever names, religions, 

or persuasions they may be distinguished 

; for they all agree in the three great 

articles of Noah enough to preserve the cement 

of the Lodge . 

" Thus Masonry is the center of their union, 

and the happy means of conciliating persons 

that otherwise must have remained at a perpetual 

distance ." 

The italics in the second and third extracts 

will show what innovations Anderson made, 

in 1738, on the Charges as originally published 

in 1723, and how closely Dermott followed 

him in adopting these innovations . 

There is, in fact, much less difference between 

the Ahiman Rezon of Dermott and Anderson's 

edition of the Book of Constitutions, printed 

in 1738, than there is between the latter and 

the first edition of the Constitutions, printed 

in 1723 . But the great points of difference 

between the " Ancients " and the " Moderns," 

points which kept them apart for so man y 

years, are to be found in their work and ritual, 

for an account of which the reader is referred 

to the article Ancient Masons . [E . L. H.] 

Ahisar. See Achishar . 

Ahollab. A skilful artificer of the tribe 

of Dan, who was appointed, together with 

Bezaleel, to construct the tabernacle in the 

wilderness and the ark of the covenant . 

(Exodus xxxi . 6 .) He is referred to in the 

Royal Arch degree of the English and American 

systems . 

serve the moral law, as a true Noachida ; and Aid and Assistance . The duty of aiding 

if he rightly understands .the Craft, he will and assisting, not only all worthy distressed

AID 

AID 41 

Master Masons, but their widows and orphans 

also, "wheresoever dispersed over the face of 

the globe," is one of the most imp ortant 

obligations that is imposed upon every brother 

of the " mystic tie " by the whole scope and 

tenor of the Masonic Institution . The regulations 

for the exercise of this duty are few, 

but rational. In the first place, a Master 

Mason who is in distress has a greater claim, 

under equal circumstances, to the aid and 

assistance of his brother, than one who, being 

in the Order, has not attained that degree, or 

who is altogether a profane . This is strictly 

in accordance with the natural instincts of the 

human heart, which will always prefer a 

friend to a stranger, or, as it is rather energetically 

expressed in the language of Long 

Tom Coffin, " a messmate before a shipmate, 

a shipmate before a stranger, and a stranger 

before a dog " ; and it is also strictly in accordance 

with the teaching of the Apostle of 

the Gentiles, who has said : " As we have 

therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all 

men, esp ecially unto them who are of the 

household of faith." (Galatians vi . 10 .) 

But this exclusiveness is only to be practised 

under circumstances which make a selection 

imperatively necessary . Where the 

granting of relief to the profane would incapacitate 

us from granting similar relief to our 

brother, then must the preference be given 

to him who is " of the household ." But the 

earliest symbolic lessons of the ritual teach 

the Mason not to restrict his benevolence 

within the narrow limits of the Fraternity, 

but to acknowledge the claims of all men who 

need it, to assistance . Inwood has beautifully 

said : " The humble condition both of 

property and dress, of penury and want, in 

which you were received into the Lodge, should 

make you at all times sensible of the distresses 

of poverty, and all you can spare from the call 

of nature and the due care of your families, 

should only remain in your possessions as a 

ready sacrifice to the necessities of an unfortunate, 

distressed brother . Let the distressed 

cottage feel the warmth of your 

Masonic zeal, and, if possible, exceed even 

the unabating ardour of Christian charity . At 

your approach let the orphan cease to weep, 

and in the sound of your voice let the widow 

forget her sorrow ." (Sermons, p . 18 .) 

Another restriction laid upon this duty of 

aid and assistance by the obligations of Masonry 

is, that the giver shall not be lavish 

beyond his means in the disposition of his 

benevolence . What he bestows must be such 

as he can give " without material injury to 

himself or family." No man should wrong 

his wife or children that he may do a benefit 

to a stranger, or even to a brother. The obligations 

laid on a Mason to grant aid and 

assistance to the needy and distressed seem 

to be in the following gradations : first, to his 

family ; next, to his brethren ; and, lastly, to 

the world at large . 

So far this subject has been viewed in a 

general reference to that spirit of kindness 

which should actuate all men, and which it 

is the object of Masonic teaching to impress 

on the mind of every Mason as a common duty 

of humanity, and whose disposition Masonry 

only seeks to direct and guide . But there is 

another aspect in which this subject may be 

considered, namely, in that peculiar and technical 

one of Masonic aid and assistance due 

from one Mason to another . Here there is a 

duty declared, and a correlative right inferred ; 

for if it is the duty of one Mason to assist 

another, it follows that every Mason has the 

right to claim that assistance from his brother . 

It is this duty that the obligations of Masonry 

are especially intended to enforce ; it is 

this right that they are intended to sustain . 

The symbolic ritual of Maso nry which refers, 

as, for instance, in the First Degree, to the 

virtue of benevolence, refers to it in the general 

sense of a virtue which all men should 

practise . But when the Mason reaches the 

Third Degree, he discovers new obligations 

which restrict and define the exercise of this 

duty of aid and assistance . So far as his 

obligations control him, the Mason, as a Mason, 

is not legally bound to extend his aid 

beyond the just claimants in his own Fraternity. 

To do good to all men is, of course, 

inculcated and recommended ; to do good to 

the household is enforced and made compulsory 

by legal enactment and sanction . 

Now, as there is here, on one side, a duty, 

and on the other side a right, it is proper to 

inquire what are the regulations or laws by 

which this duty is controlled and this right 

maintained. 

The duty to grant and the right to claim 

relief Masonically is recognized in the following 

passage of the Old Charges of 1722 : 

"But if you discover him to be a true and 

genuine Brother, you are to respect him accordingly 

; and if he is in want, you must relieve 

him if you can, or else direct him how he 

may be relieved . You must employ him some 

days, or else recommend him to be employed . 

But you are not charged to do beyond your 

ability ; only to prefer a poor brother, that is a 

good man and true, before any other poor 

people in the same circumstances ." 

This written law agrees in its conditions and 

directions, so far as it goes, with the unwritten 

law of the Order, and from the two we may 

deduce the following principles : 

1 . The applicant must be a Master Mason . 

In 1722, the charitable benefits of Masonry 

were extended, it is true, to Entered Apprentices, 

and an Apprentice was recognized, in 

the language of the law, as " a true and genuine 

brother ." But this was because at that 

time only the First Degree was conferred in 

subordinate Lodges, Fellow-Crafts and Master 

Masons being made in the Grand Lodge . 

Hence the great mass of the Fraternity consisted 

of Apprentices, and many Masons never 

proceeded any further. But the Second and 

Third Degrees are now always conferred in 

subordinate Lodges, and very few initiates 

voluntarily stop short of the Master's Degree . 

Hence the mass of the Fraternity now consists 

of Master Masons, and the law which

42 AITCHISON'S 

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 

formerly applied to Apprentices is, under our 

present organization, made applicable only to 

those who have become Master Masons . 

2 . The applicant must be worthy . We are 

to presume that every Mason is " a good man 

and true " until a Lodge has pronounced to 

the contrary . Every Mason who is " in good 

standing," that is, who is a regularly contributing 

member of a Lodge, is to be considered 

as " worthy," in the technical sense of the 

term . An expelled, a suspended, or a nonaffiliated 

Mason does not meet the required 

condition of " a regularly contributing member 

." Such a Mason is therefore not 

" worthy," and is not entitled to Masonic 

assistance . 

3 . The giver is not expected to exceed his 

ability in the amount of relief . The written 

law says, " you are not charged to do beyond 

your ability " ; the ritual says, that your 

relief must be " without material injury to 

yourself or family ." The principle is the same 

in both . 

4 . The widow and orphans of a Master 

Mason have the claim of the husband and 

father extended to them . The written law 

says nothing explicitly on this point, but the 

unwritten or ritualistic law expressly declares 

that it is our duty "to contribute to the relief 

of a worthy, distressed brother, his widow and 

orphans ." 

5 . And lastly, in granting relief or assistance, 

the Mason is to be preferred to the profane 

. He must be placed " before any other 

poor people in the same circumstances ." 

These are the laws which regulate the doctrine 

of Masonic aid and assistance . They are 

often charged by the enemies of Masonry with 

a spirit of exclusiveness . But it has been shown 

that they are in accordance with the exhortation 

of the Apostle, who would do good " especially 

to those who are of the household," 

and they have the warrant of the law of nature 

; for everyone will be ready to say, with 

that kindest-hearted of men, Charles Lamb, 

" I can feel for all indifferently, but I cannot 

feel for all alike . I can be a friend to a worthy 

man, who, upon another account, cannot be 

my mate or fellow . I cannot like all people 

alike ." And so as Masons, while we should be 

charitable to all persons in need or in distress, 

there are only certain ones who can claim the 

aid and assistance of the Order, or of its disciples, 

under the positive sanction of Masonic 

law . 

Aitchison's - Haven Lodge (also spelled 

Atcheson, Achison ) . This was one of the 

oldest Operative Lodges consenting to the formation 

of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 

1736 . The age of this Lodge, like many or 

most of the oldest Lodges of Scotland, is not 

known. Some of its members signed the St . 

Clair Charters in 1600-1601 . The place of 

its meeting (Aitchison-Haven) is no longer on 

the map, but was in the county of Midlothian . 

The origin of the town was from a charter of 

James V., dated 1526, and probably the Lodge 

dated near that period . Aitchison's-Haven 

was probably the first meeting-place, but they 

seem to have met at Musselburgh at a later 

period . 

Lyon, in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh, 

speaks of trouble in the Grand Quarterly 

communication respecting representatives 

from this Lodge when (May, 1737) it was 

" agreed that Atcheson's Haven be deleted 

out of the books of the Grand Lodge, and no 

more called on the rolls of the Clerk's highest 

peril." It was restored to the roll in 1814, but 

becoming dormant, it was finally cut off in 

1866 . The Lodge of Edinburgh has long enjoyed 

the distinction of having the oldest preserved 

Lodge minute, which dated July, 1599 . 

Just recently Bro. R . E . Wallace-James has 

brought to light a minute-book bearing this 

title : The Buik of the Actis and Ordinans of 

the Nobile Maisteris and fellows of Craft of the 

Ludg of Aitchison's heavine, and contains a 

catalogue of the names of the fellows of Craft 

that are presently in the Zeir of God 1598 . 

The first page of this rare book bears in a 

bold hand the date, " 1598 ." 

The minute is as follows : 

The IX day of Januerie the Zeir of God 

upon ye quhilk day Robert Widderspone was 

maid fellow of Craft in ye presens of Wilzam 

Aytone Elder, Johne Fender being Warden, 

Johne Pedden Thomas Pettencrief John Crafurd 

George Aytone Wilzame Aytone younger 

Hendrie Petticrief all fellowis of Craft upon 

ve quhilk day he chois George Aytone Johne 

Pedden to be his intenders and instructouris 

and also ye said Robert hes payit his xx sh . 

and his gluffis to everie Maister as efferis . See 

vol. xxiv ., Trans. Quat. Cor . Lodge . 

[E. E . C .] 

Aitchison's-Haven Manuscript . One of 

the " Old Charges," or records of Masonry 

now in the custody of the Grand Lodge of 

Scotland, formerly preserved in the archives 

of the Aitchison-Haven Lodge, which met at 

Musselburgh in Scotland . The MS . is engrossed 

in the minute-book of Aitchison- 

Haven Lodge . The writer attests to his transcription 

in the following manner : " Insert by 

me undersub and the 19" of May, 1666, Jo . 

Auchinleck, clerk to the Masones of Achisones 

Lodge." 

It has been reproduced (with 24 lines in facsimile) 

by D . Murray Lyon in his History of 

the Lodge of Edinburgh . 

Aix-la-Chapelle . (In German, Aachen.) 

A city of Germany, remarkable in Masonic 

history for a persecution which took place in 

the eighteenth century, and of which Gadicke 

(Freimaur . Lex .) gives the following account : 

In the year 1779, Ludwig Grienemann, a 

Dominican monk, delivered a course of Lenten 

sermons, in which he attempted to prove that 

the Jews who crucified Christ were Freemasons, 

that Pilate and Herod were Wardens in a 

Mason's Lodge, that Judas, previous to his 

betrayal of his Master, was initiated into the 

Order, and that the thirty pieces of silver, 

which he is said to have returned, was only the 

fee which he paid for his initiation . Aix-la- 

Chapelle being a Roman Catholic city, the 

magistrates were induced, by the influence of

AKIROP 

ALARM 43 

Grienemann, to issue a decree, in which they 

declared that anyone who should permit a 

meeting of the Freemasons in his house should, 

for the first offense, be fined 100 florins, for 

the second 200, and for the third, be banished 

from the city. The mob became highly incensed 

against the Masons, and insulted all 

whom they suspected to be members of the 

Order. At length Peter Schuff, a Capuchin, 

jealous of the influence which the Dominican 

Grienemann was exerting, began also, with 

augmented fervor, to preach against Freemasonry, 

and still more to excite the popular 

commotion. In this state of affairs, the Lodge 

at Aix-la-Chapelle applied to the princes and 

Masonic Lodges in the neighboring territories 

for assistance and protection, which were immediately 

rendered . A letter in French was 

received by both priests, in which the writer, 

who stated that he was one of the former dignitaries 

of the Order, strongly reminded them 

of their duties, and, among other things, said 

that " many priests a pope, several cardinals, 

bishops, and even 'Dominican and Capuchin 

monks, had been, and still were, members of 

the Order." Although this remonstrance had 

some effect peace was not altogether restored 

until the neighboring free imperial 

states threatened that they would prohibit 

the monks from collecting alms in their territories 

unless they ceased to excite the popular 

commotion against the Freemasons . 

Akirop . The name given, in the ritual of 

the Ancient and Accepted Rite, to one of the 

ruffians celebrated in the legend of the Third 

Degree . The word is said in the ritual to signify 

an assassin . It might probably be derived 

from ]1'r), KaRaB, to assault orjoin battle; 

but is just as probably a word so corrupted by 

long oral transmission that its etymology can 

no longer be traced. (See Abiram.) 

Alabama . On August 29, 1811, while 

Alabama was yet a part of Mississippi Territory, 

the Grand Lodge of Kentucky granted a 

dispensation for Madison Lodge, No . 21, in 

Madison County . On August 28, 1812, a 

Charter was granted to this Lodge, locating it 

at Huntsville, and was issued the same day, 

and the Master was installed in Grand Lodge. 

When the Territory was divided and Mississippi 

admitted into the Union in 1817, the 

Grand Lodge of Mississippi had not been organized, 

so that it never claimed jurisdiction 

outside of that State, and this Lodge remained 

under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of 

Kentucky until the Grand Lodge of Alabama 

was formed . 

The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of 

Tennessee granted dispensations for Lodges 

in Alabama, as follows : Alabama Lodge, No . 

21, at Huntsville, April 6, 1818 ; Washington 

Lodge at Hazel Green, in 1818 ; Rising Virtue 

Lodge at Tuscaloosa, in 1819 ; Halo Lodge at 

Cahawba, April 4, 1820 ; Moulton Lodge at 

Moulton May 4, 1820 ; Franklin Lodge at 

Russellville, October 3, 1820 ; Tuscumbia 

Lodge at Courtland, March 3, 1821 ; and Farrar 

Lodge at Elyton, March 5, 1821 . Charters 

were granted to Alabama and Washington 

Lodges, October 6, 1818 ; to Rising Virtue 

Lodge, October 5, 1819 ; and to Moulton, 

October 3, 1820. 

A convention to organize a Grand Lodge 

was held at Cahawba, June 1, 1821, and was 

in session five days . 

The constitution, dated June 14, 1821, was 

published by itself ; it was signed by the 

Grand Officers and the Representatives of 

nine Lodges, viz . : Madison Lodge, Alabama 

Lodge at Huntsville, Alabama Lodge at Claiborne, 

Rising Virtue Lodge, Halo Lodge, 

Moulton Lge, Russellville Lodge, U. D., 

Farrar Lodge, U. D ., and St . Stephens Lodge . 

Thomas W . Farrar was elected Grand Master 

and Thomas A . Rogers Grand Secretary . 

The Grand Chapter of Alabama was organized 

on the 2d of June, 1827, at the town of 

Tuscaloosa, and at the same time and place a 

Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters 

was established . 

On the 27th of October, 1860, Sir Knt . 

B. B . French, Grand Master of the Grand 

Encampment of the United States, issued his 

mandate for the formation of a Grand Commandery 

of Alabama. 

Alapa. A Latin word signifying " a blow 

on the cheek with the open hand .' Such a 

blow was given by the master to his manumitted 

slave as a symbol of manumission, and 

as a reminder that it was the last unrequited 

indignity which he was to receive . Hence in 

medieval times, the same word was applied 

to the blow inflicted on the cheek of the newly 

created knight by the sovereign who created 

him, with the same symbolic signification . 

This was sometimes represented by the blow 

on the shoulder with the flat of a sword, which 

has erroneously been called the accolade. (See 

Knighthood.) 

Alarm . The verb "to alarm" signifies, 

in Freemasonry, " to give notice of the approach 

of some one desiring admission ." Thus, 

" to alarm the Lodge" is to inform the Lodge 

that there is some one without who is seeking 

entrance. As a noun, the word " alarm " has 

two significations . 1 . An alarm is a warning 

given by the Tiler, or other appropriate officer, 

by which he seeks to communicate with the 

interior of the Lodge or Chapter. In this sense 

the expression so often used, " an alarm at the 

door,' simply signifies that the officer outside 

has given notice of his desire to communicate 

with the Lodge . 2 . An alarm is also the 

peculiar mode in which this notice is to be 

given . In modern Masonic works, the number 

of knocks given in an alarm is generally 

expressed by musical notes. Thus, three distinct 

knocks would be designated thus, d 

two rapid and two slow ones thus, 

and three knocks three times repeated thus, 

m 

M M, etc . The word comes 

from the French " alarme," which in turn 

comes from the Italian " all'arme," literally a 

cry " to arms," uttered by sentinels surprised 

by the enemy. The legal meaning of to alarm 

is not to frighten, but to make one aware of the

44 ALASKA 

ALDWORTH 

necessity of defense or protection . And this 

is precisely the Masonic signification of the 

word . 

Alaska . Masonry in regular form was introduced 

into Alaska by the establishment of 

Gastineaux Lodge, No . 124, at Douglass, late 

in 1904, under a warrant from the Grand 

Lodge of Washington . This was followed by 

Anvil Lodge, No . 140, at Nome ; Mount Tuneau, 

No . 147, at Tuneau ; Tanan, No . 162, 

at Fairbanks ; Valdez, No . 168, at Valdez ; and 

Mount McKinley, No . 183, at Cordova ; all 

under warrants from the same Grand Lodge . 

[W . J . A.] 

Alban, St . (See Saint Alban .) 

Alberta (Canada) . This Grand Lodge was 

established in 1905, and in 1910 had 34 

Lodges and 2,380 brethren under its jurisdiction. 

Albertus Magnus . A scholastic philosopher 

of the Middle Ages, of great erudition, 

but who had among the vulgar the reputation 

of being a magician . He was born at Lauingen, 

in Swabia, in 1205, of an illustrious family, 

his subtitle being that of Count of Bollstadt . 

He studied at Padua, and in 1223 entered 

the Order of the Dominicans. In 1249, he 

became head-master of the school at Cologne 

. In 1260, Pope Alexander VI . conferred 

upon him the bishopric of Ratisbon . 

In 1262, he resigned the episcopate and returned 

to Cologne, and, devoting himself to 

philosophic pursuits for the remainder of his 

life, died there in 1280 . His writings were very 

voluminous, the edition published at Lyons, 

in 1651, amounting to twenty-one large folio 

volumes . Albertus has been connected with 

the Operative Masonry of the Middle Ages 

because he has been supposed by many to have 

been the real inventor of the German Gothic 

style of architecture . Heideloff, in his Bauhiitte 

des Mittelalters, says that " he recalled 

into life the symbolic language of the ancients, 

which had so long lain dormant, and adapted 

it to suit architectural forms ." The Masons 

accepted his instructions, and adopted in consequence 

that system of symbols which was 

secretly communicated only to the members of 

their own body, and served even as a medium 

of intercommunication . He is asserted to 

have designed the plan for the construction of 

the Cathedral of Cologne, and to have altered 

the Constitution of the Masons, and to have 

given to them a new set of laws . 

Albrecht, Heinrich Christoph . A German 

author, who published at Hamburg, in 

1792, the first and only part of a work entitled 

Materialen zu einer critischen Geschichte der 

Freimaurerei, i . e ., Collections towards a Critical 

History of Freemasonry. Moss says that 

this was one of the first attempts at a clear and 

rational history of the Order . Unfortunately, 

the author never completed his task, and only 

the first part of the work ever appeared . Albrecht 

was the author also of another work 

entitled GeheimeGeschichte eines Rosenkreuzers, 

or Secret History of a Rosicrucian, and of a 

series of papers which appeared in the Berlin 

Archiv . der Zeit, containing " Notices of Free- 

masonry In the first half of the Sixteenth 

Century." Albrecht adopted the theory 

first advanced by the Abbe Grandidier, that 

Freemasonry owes its origin to the Steinmetzen 

of Germany. 

Alchemy. The Neo-Platonicians introduced 

at an early period of the Christian era 

an apparently new science, which they called 

Mar-414n fhpd,. or the Sacred Science, which 

materially influenced the subsequent condition 

of the arts and sciences . In the fifth century 

arose, as the name of the science, alchemia, 

derived from the Arabic definite article al 

being added to chemia, a Greek word used in 

Diocletian's decree against Egyptian works 

treating of the X,tgta or transmutation of 

metals ; the word seems simply to mean " the 

Egyptian Art," Xngta, or the land of black earth 

being the Egyptian name for Egypt, and 

Julius Firmicius, in a work On the Influence of 

the Stars upon the Fate of Man, uses the phrase 

" scientia alchemiae ." From this time the 

study of alchemy was openly followed . In 

the Middle Ages, and up to the end of the seventeenth 

century, it was an important science, 

studied by some of the most distinguished philosophers, 

such as Avicenna, Albertus Magnus, 

Raymond Lulli, Roger Bacon, Elias Ashmole, 

and many others . 

Alchemy-called also the Hermetic Philosophy, 

because it is said to have been first 

taught in Egypt by Hermes Trismegistus . 

Freemasonry and alchemy have sought the 

same results (the lesson of Divine Truth and 

the doctrine of immortal life), and they have 

both sought it by the same method of symbolism. 

It is not, therefore, strange that in 

the eighteenth century, and perhaps before, 

we find an incorporation of much of the science 

of alchemy into that of Freemasonry . Hermetic 

rites and Hermetic degrees were common, 

and their relics are still to be found existing 

in degrees which do not absolutely trace 

their origin to alchemy, but which show some of 

its traces in their rituals . The Twenty-eighth 

Degree of the Scottish Rite, or the Knight of 

the Sun, is entirely a Hermetic degree, and 

claims its parentage in the title of " Adept of 

Masonry," by which it is sometimes known . 

Aldworth, the Hon . Mrs . This lady; 

who is well known as " the Lady Freemason,' 

was the Hon . Elizabeth St . Leger, daughter 

of Lord Doneraile of Doneraile Court, Co . 

Cork, Ireland . She was born in 1693, and married 

in 1713 to Richard Aldworth, Esq., of 

Newmarket Court, Co . Cork . There appears 

to be no doubt that while a girl she received 

the First and Second degrees of Freemasonry 

in Ireland, but of the actual circ um stances of 

her initiation several different accounts have 

been given . 

Of these the most authentic appears to be 

one issued at Cork, with the authority of the 

family, in 1811, and afterward republished in 

London . 

From this it appears that her father, Viscount 

Doneraile, together with his sons and 

a few friends, was accustomed to open a Lodge 

and carry on the ordinary ceremonies at Don-

ALDWORTH 

ALEXANDER 45 

eraile Court, and it was during one of these I 

meetings that the occurrence took place which 

is thus related : 

" It happened on this particular occasion 

that the Lodge was held in a room separated 

from another, as is often the case, by stud and 

brickwork . The y oung lady, being giddy and 

thoughtless and determined to gratify her curiosity, 

made her arrangements accordingly, 

and, with a pair of scissors, (as she herself related 

to the mother of our informant) removed 

a portion of a brick from the wall, and 

placed herself so as to command a full view of 

everything which occurred in the next room ; 

so placed, she witnessed the two first degrees 

in Masonry, which was the extent of the proceedings 

of the Lodge on that night . Becoming 

aware, from what she heard, that the 

brethren were about to separate, for the first 

time she felt tremblingly alive to the awkwardness 

and danger of her situation, and 

began to consider how she could retire without 

observation . She became nervous and agitated 

and nearly fainted, but so far recovered 

herself as to be fully aware of the necessity of 

withdrawing as quickly as possible ; in the act 

of doing so, being in the dark, she stumbled 

against and overthrew something, said to be a 

chair or some ornamental piece of furniture . 

The crash was loud ; and the Tiler, who was 

on the lobby or landing on which the doors 

both of the Lodge room and that where the 

Honorable Miss St. Leger was, opened, gave 

the alarm, burst open the door and, with a 

light in one hand and a drawn sword in the 

other, appeared to the now terrified and fainting 

lady . He was soon joined by the members 

of the Lodge present, and luckily ; for it is asserted 

that but for the prompt appearance of 

her brother,* Lord Doneraile, and other steady 

members, her life would have fallen a sacrifice 

to what was then esteemed her crime . The 

first care of his Lordship was to resuscitate 

the unfortunate lady without alarming the 

house, and endeavor to learn from her an explanation 

of what had occurred ; having done 

so, many of the members being furious at the 

transaction, she was placed under guard of 

the Tiler and a member, in the room where she 

was found. The members reassembled and 

deliberated as to what, under the circumstances 

was to be done, and over two long 

hours sbe could hear the angry discussion and 

her death deliberately proposed and seconded . 

At length the good sense of the majority succeeded 

in calming , in some measure, the angry 

and irritated feelings of the rest of the members, 

when, of ter much had been said and many 

things proposed, it was resolved to give her the 

op tion of submitting to the Masonic ordeal to 

the extent she had witnessed, (Fellow Craft,) 

and if she refused, the brethren were again to 

consult . Being waited on to decide, Miss St. 

Leger, exhausted and terrified by the storminess 

of the debate, which she could not avoid 

* This is a mistake ; her father, the first Lord 

Doneraile did not die until 1727, when his 

daughter had been married for fourteen years . 

partially hearing, and yet, notwithstanding 

all, with a secret pleasure, gladly and unhesitatingly 

accepted the offer. She was accordingly 

initiated ." 

A very different account is given in the 

Freemason's Quarterly Review for 1839 (p. 322) 

being reprinted from the Cork Standard of 

May 29, 1839 . 

According to this story Mrs . Aldworth was 

seized with curiosity about the mysteries of 

Freemasonry and set herself to discover them ; 

so she made friends with the landlady of an 

inn in Cork in which a Lodge used to meet, 

and with her connivance was concealed in a 

clockcase which was placed in the Lodge room ; 

however, she was unable to endure the discomfort 

of her confinement in such narrow quarters 

and betrayed herself b y a scream, on which 

she was discovered by the members of the 

Lodge and then and there initiated . 

It will be observed that accordin g to this version 

the lady was already married before she 

was initiated. The story is said to be supported 

by the testimon y of two members of 

Lodge 71, at Cork, in which Lod ge the initiation 

is said to have taken place ; this, however, 

can hardly be correct, for that Lodge did not 

meet at Cork until 1777, whereas, Mrs . Aidworth 

died in 1773 . 

If, however, the commoner version of the 

story is preferred, according to which Miss 

St . Leger was initiated as a young girl then 

the occurrence must have taken ace before 

her marriage in 1713, and therefore before the 

establishment of Grand Lodges and the introduction 

of warranted and numbered Lodges 

and it is therefore a proof of the existence oI 

at least one Lod g e of Speculative Masons in 

Ireland at an early period . 

After her marriage Mrs . Aldworth seems to 

have kept up her connection with the Craft, 

for her portrait in Masonic clothing, her apron 

and jewels, are still in existence, and her name 

occurs among the subscribers to Dassigny's 

Enquiry of 1744 • and it has even been stated 

that she presided as Master of her Lodge . 

The story has been fully discussed by Bros. 

Conder, Crawley, and others in the eighth volume 

(1895) of the Transactions of the Quatuor 

Coronati Lodge of London, to which the curious 

are referred for further information [E . L . H .) 

Alethophilote, Lover of Truth . Given 

by Thory as the Fifth Degree of the Order of 

African Architects . (Acts Latomorum, i ., 292 .) 

Alexander I ., Emperor of Russia . Alexander 

I . succeeded Paul I . in the year 1801 

and immediately after his accession renewed 

the severe prohibitions of his predecessor 

against all secret societies, and especially Freemasonry 

. In 1803, M . Boeber, counselor 

of state and director of the military school at 

St . Petersburg, resolved to remove, if possible, 

from the mind of the Emperor the prejudices 

which he had conceived against the Order . 

Accordingly, in an audience which he had solicited 

and obtained, he described the object 

of the Institution and the doctrine of its myateries 

in such a way as to lead the Emperor to

46 ALEXANDRIA 

ALLEGORY 

rescind the obnoxious decrees, and to add these 

words : "What you have told me of the Institution 

not only induces me to grant it my 

protection and patronage, but even to ask for 

initiation into its mysteries . Is this possible 

to be obtained? " M . Boeber replied : "Sire 

I cannot myself re ply to the question . But I 

will call together the Masons of your capital 

and make your Majesty's desire known ; and 

I have no doubt that they will be eager to 

comply with your wishes ." Accordingly Alexander 

was soon after initiated, and the Grand 

Orient of all the Russias was in consequence 

established, of which M . Boeber was elected 

Grand Master . (Acts Latomorum, i., 218.) 

Alexandria, School of . When Alexander 

built the city of Alexandria in Egypt, with the 

intention of making it the seat of his empire, 

he invited thither learned men from all nations, 

who brought with them their peculiar notions . 

The Alexandria School of Philosophy which 

was thus established, by the commingling of 

Orientalists, Jews, Egyptians, and Greeks, 

became eclectic in character, and exhibited a 

heterogeneous mixture of the opinions of the 

Egyptian priests, of the Jewish Rabbis of 

Arabic teachers, and of the disciples of Plato 

and P'thagoras . From this school we derive 

Gnosticism and the Kabbala and, above all, 

the system of symbolism and allegory which 

lay at the foundation of the Masonic philosophy 

. To no ancient sect, indeed, except 

perhaps the Pythagoreans, have the Masonic 

teachers been so much indebted for the substance 

of their doctrines, as well as the esoteric 

method of communicating them as to that of 

the School of Alexandria . Both Aristobulus 

and Philo the two most celebrated chiefs of 

this schoo'1, taught, although a century intervened 

between their births, the same theory, 

that the sacred writings of the Hebrews were, 

b y their system of allegories, the true source 

of all religious and philosopic doctrine, the 

literal meaning of which alone was for the 

common people, the esoteric or hidden meaning~being 

kept for the initiated. Freemasonry 

still carries into practise the same theor y . 

Alincourt, Francois d' . A French gentleman, 

who, in the year 1776, was sent with 

Don Oyres de Ornellas Pragao, a Portuguese 

nobleman, to prison, by the governor of the 

island of Madeira, for being Freemasons . 

The were afterward sent to Lisbon, and confine 

in a common jail for fourteen months, 

where they would have perished had not the 

Masons of Lisbon supported them, throw gh 

whose intercession with Don Martimo de 

Mello they were at last released . (Smith, Use 

and Abuse ofFreemasonry, p. 206 .) 

Allah. (Assyrian (Fig . 1), ilu; Aramaic, 

'*ii, elah; Hebrew, 't 'l{, dlbah.) The Arabic 

name of God, derived from (Fig . 2) ildh, od 

and the article (Fig . 3) al, expressing the 

by way of eminence . In the great profession 

of the Unity, on which is founded the religion 

of Islam, both terms are used, as, pronounced 

" IA ilaha ill' Allah," there is no god but God, 

the real meaning of the expression being, 

" There is only one God." Mohammed relates 

that in his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, 

on ascending through the seven heavens, 

he beheld above the throne of God this 

formula ; and the green standard of the 

(Fig. 1 .) (Fig . 2 .) (Fig. 3.) 

aJI, Si, 

Prophet was adorned with the mystic sentence . 

It is the first phrase lisped by the infant, and 

the devout Moslem utters the profession of the 

faith at all times, in joy, in sorrow, in praise, 

in prayer, in battle, and with his departing 

S3355S x ~ 

breath the words are wafted to heaven ; for 

among the peculiar virtues of these words is 

that they may be spoken without any motion 

of the lips . The mourners on their way to the 

grave continue the strain in melancholy tones . 

Around the supreme name is clustered the 

masbaha, or rosary, of the ninety-nine beautiful 

names of God, which are often repeated by 

the Mohammedan in his devotions . 

[W. S . Paterson .) 

Allegiance . Every Mason owes allegiance 

to. the Lodge, Chapter, or other body of which 

he is a member, and also to the Grand Lodge, 

Grand Chapter or other supreme authority 

from which that body has received its charter . 

But this is not a divided allegiance . If, for 

instance the edicts of a Grand and a Subordinate 

Lodge conflict, there is no question 

which is to be obeyed . Supreme or governing 

bodies in Masonry claim and must receive a 

paramount allegiance. 

Allegory. A discourse or narrative in 

which there is a literal and a figurative sense, a 

patent and a concealed meanin g , the literal or 

patent sense being intended, by analogy or 

comparison, to indicate the figurative or concealed 

one . Its derivation from the Greek, 

IxAos and ayopslEu', to say something different, 

that is, to stay something where the language is 

one thing andthetruemeaninganother,exactly 

expresses the character of an allegory . It has 

been said that there is no essential difference 

between an allegory and a symbol. There is 

not in design, but there is in their character . 

An allegory may be interpreted without any 

previous conventional agreement but a symbol 

cannot . Thus, the legend of the Third Degree 

is an allegory, evidently to be interpreted 

as teaching a restoration to life ; and this we 

learn from the leg end itself, without any previous 

understanding. The sprig of acacia 

is a symbol of the immortality of the soul . 

But this we know only because such meaning 

had been conventionally determined when the 

symbol was first established . It is evident, 

then that an allegory whose meaning is obscure 

is imperfect . The enigmatical meaning 

should be easy of interpretation ; and hence

ALLIANCE 

ALL-SEEING 47 

Lemikre, a French poe t, has said : " L'allegorie 

habits un palais diaphane "-Allegory 

lives in a transparent palace. All the legends 

of Freemasonry are more or less allegorical, 

and whatever truth there may be in some of 

them in an historical point of view it is only as 

allegories or legendary symbols that they are 

of importance . The English lectures have 

therefore very pro perly defined Freemasonry 

to be " a system of morality veiled in allegory 

and illustrated by symbols ." 

The allegory was a favorite figure among 

the ancients, and to the allegorizing spirit are 

we to trace the construction of the entire 

Greek and Roman mythology . Not less did 

it prevail among the older Aryan nations, and 

its abundant use is exhibited in the religions of 

Brahma and Zoroaster . The Jewish Rabbis 

were greatly addicted to it, and carried its 

employment as Maimonides intimates (More 

Nevochim, Ii I., xliii .), sometimes to an excess . 

Their Midrash or system of commentaries on 

the sacred book, is almost altogether allegorical 

. Aben Ezra, a learned Rabbi of the twelfth 

century, says, " The Scriptures are like bodies, 

and allegories are like the garments with which 

they are clothed. Some are thin like fine silk, 

and others are coarse and thick like sackcloth." 

Our Lord, to whom this spirit of the 

Jewish teachers in his day was familiar, inculcated 

many truths in parables all of which 

were allegories . The primitive Fathers of the 

Christian Church were thus infected ; and 

Origen (Epist. ad Dam .), who was especially 

addicted to the habit, tells us that all the 

Pagan philosophers should be read in this 

apirit : "hoc facere solemus quando philosophos 

legimus ." Of modern allegorizing writers, 

the most interesting to Masons are Lee, 

the author of The Temple of Solomon portrayed 

by Scri ure Light, and John Bunyan, 

who wrote So 's Temple Spiritualized . 

Alliance, Sacred . An organization of 

twenty-one brethrenpossessing the ultimate 

degree of the Scottish Rite formed id New 

York, September 19, 1872, who assemble annually 

on that day. One by one, in the due 

course of time, this Assembly is to decrease 

until the sad duty will devolve on some one to 

banquet alone with twenty draped chairs and 

covers occupied by the imajpnary presence of 

his fellows. It was instituted to commemorate 

the breaking of a dead-lock in the close corporation 

of the Supreme Council by the admission 

of four very prominent members of 

the Fraternity. 

Allied Masonic Degrees . A body has 

been formed in England called the Grand 

Council of the Allied Masonic D egrees, in 

order to govern various Degrees or Orders havin* 

no central authority of their own . The 

rmcipal degrees controlled by it are those of 

9t. Lawrence the Martyr, )Knight of Constantinople, 

Grand Tiler of Fing Solomon, Secret 

Monitor, Red Cross of Babylon, and Grand 

High Priest, besides a large number, perhaps 

about fift , of "side degrees," of which some 

are actively worked and some are not . 

Allooutlon . The address of the presiding 

officer of a Supreme Council of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite is sometimes so 

called . It was first used by the Council for 

the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, 

and is derived from the usage of the Roman 

Church, where certain addresses of the Pope to 

the Cardinals are called allocutions, and - this 

is to be traced to the customs of Pagan Rome, 

where the harangues of the Generals to their 

soldiers were called allocutions . 

Allowed . In the old manuscript Constitutions, 

this word is found in the now unusual 

sense of " accepted ." Thus, " Every Mason 

of the Craft that is Mason allowed, ye shall do 

to him as ye would be done unto yourself ." 

(Lansdowne MS ., circa 1600 .) Mason allowed 

means Mason accepted, that is, approved. Phillips, 

in his New World of Words (1690), defines 

the verb allow, " to g~ve or grant ; to approve 

of; to permit or suffer ." Latimer, in one 

of his sermons, uses it in this sense of a pproving 

or accepting, thus : " St. Peter, in forsakmg 

his old boat and nets was allowed as much 

before God as if he had forsaken all the riches 

in the world ." In a similar sense is the word 

used in the Office of Public Baptism of Infants, 

in the Common Prayer-Book of the 

Church of England . 

All-Seeing Eye. . An important symbol of 

the Supreme Being, borrowed by the Freemasons 

from the nations of antiquity . Both 

the Hebrews and the Egyptians appear to 

have derived its use from that natural mclmation 

of figurative minds to select an organ as 

the symbol of the function which it is intended 

peculiarly to discharge . Thus, the 

foot was often adopted as the symbol of swiftness, 

the arm of strength, and the hand of 

fidelity. On the same principle, the o pen eye 

was selected as the symbol of watchfulness, 

and the eye of God as the symbol of Divine 

watchfulness and care of the universe . The 

use of the symbol in this sense is repeatedly to 

be found in the Hebrew writers . Thus, the 

Psalmist says (Ps . xxxiv. 15) : "The eyes of 

the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears 

are open unto their cry," which explains a 

subsequent passage (Ps . cxxi . 4), in which it is 

said : " Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall 

neither slumber nor slee p . " 

In the Apocryphal Book of the Conversation 

of God with Moses on Mount Sinai, 

translated by the Rev . W . Cureton from an 

Arabic MS . of the fifteenth century, and published 

by the Philobiblon Society of London, 

the idea of the eternal watchfulness of God is 

thus beautifully alle gorized : 

" Then Moses said to the Lord 0 Lord dost 

thou sleep or not? The Lord said unto Noses, 

I never eep : but take a cup and fill it with 

water . Then Moses took a cup and filled it 

with water, as the Lord commanded him . 

Then the Lord cast into the heart of Moses the 

breath of slumber ; so he slept, and the cup fell 

from his hand, and the water which was 

therein wasspilled . Then Moses awoke from 

his sleep . Then said God to Moses, I declare 

by my power, and by my glory, that if I were 

to withdraw my providence from the heavens

48 ALL-SOULS', 

ALNWICK 

and the earth, for no longer a space of time 

than thou hast slept, they would at once fall to 

ruin and confusion, like as the cup fell from 

thy hand." 

On the same principle, the Egyptians represented 

Osiris, their chief deity, by the symbol 

of an open eye, and placed this hieroglyphic 

of him in all their temples . His 

symbolic name, on the monuments, was represented 

by the eye accompanying a throne, to 

which was sometimes added an abbreviated 

figure of the god, and sometimes what has been 

called a hatchet, but which may as correctly 

be supposed to be a representation of a square . 

The All-Seeing Eye may then be considered 

as a symbol of God manifested in his omnipresence-his 

guardian and preserving character-to 

which Solomon alludes in the Book 

of Proverbs (xv . 3) when he says : "The eyes 

of the Lord are in every place, beholding (or, 

as in the Revised Version, keeping watch 

upon) the evil and the good ." It is a symbol of 

the Omnipresent Deity . 

All-Souls' Day . The 2d of November . 

A festival in the Romish Church for prayers in 

behalf of all the faithful dead . It is kept as a 

feast day by Chapters of Rose Croix . 

Almanac, Masonic . Almanacs for the 

special use of the Fraternity are annually 

published in many countries of Europe, but 

the custom has not extended to America . As 

early as 1752 we find an Almanach des Francs- 

Macons en Icosse published at The Hague . 

This or a similar work, was continued to be 

published annually at the same place until the 

year 1778. (Moss, Bibliographic, Nos. 107-9 .) 

The first English work of the kind appeared in 

1775, under the title of The Freemason's Calendar, 

or an Almanac for the year 1775 containing, 

besides an accurate and useful Gtalendar 

of all remarkable occurrences for the year, 

many useful and curious particulars relating to 

Masonry . Inscribed to Lord Petre, G . M ., by 

a Society of Brethren. London, printed for 

the Society of Stationers. This work was 

without any official authority, but two years 

after the Freemason's Calendar for 1777 was 

published " under the sanction of the Grand 

Lodge of England." A Masonic Year Book 

is now issued annually by the Grand Lodge of 

England, and most of the English Provinces 

publish Masonic Almanacs . 

Almighty . In Hebrew IV ~X, El Shaddai. 

The name by which God was known to the 

patriarchs before he announced himself to 

Moses by his tetragrammatonic name of Jehovah. 

(See Exodus vi. 3 .) It refers to his 

power and might as the Creator and Ruler of 

the universe, and hence is translated in the 

Septuagint by ,rawrorcpdrwp, and in the Vulgate 

by omnipotens . 

Almond-Tree. When it is said in the passage 

of Scripture from the twelfth chapter of 

Ecclesiastes, sometimes read during the ceremonies 

of the Third Degree, " the almond-tree 

shall flourish," reference is made to the white 

flowers of that tree, and the allegoric signification 

is to old age, when the hairs of the head 

shall become gray. 

I Almoner . An officer elected or appointed 

in the continental Lodges of Europe to take 

charge of the contents of the alms-box, to 

carry into effect the charitable resolutions of 

the Lodge, and to visit sick and needy brethren 

. A physician is usually selected in preference 

to any other member for this office . An 

almoner may also be appointed among the 

officers of an English Loge . In the United 

States the officer does not exist, his duties 

being performed by a committee of charity . 

It is an important office in all bodies of the 


Alms-Box. A box which, toward the 

close of the Lodge, is handed around by an 

appropriate officer for the reception of such 

donations for general objects of charity as the 

brethren may feel disposed to bestow. This 

laudable custom is very generally practised 

in the Lodges of England, Scotland and Ireland, 

and universally in those of the continent. 

The newly initiated candidate is expected 

to contribute more liberally than the 

other members . Bro . Hyde Clarke says 

(Lon . Freem. Mag ., 1859, p . 1166) that " some 

brethren are in the habit, on an occasion of 

thanksgiving with them, to contribute to the 

box of the Lodge more than on other occasions 

." This custom has not been adopted in 

the Lodges of America, except in those of 

French origin and in those of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite . 

Almsgiving . Although almsgiving, or the 

pecuniary relief of the destitute was not one 

of the original objects for which the Institution 

of Freemasonry was established, yet, as 

in every society of men bound together by a 

common tie, it becomes incidentally, yet necessarily, 

a duty to be practised by all its 

members in their individual as well as in their 

corporate capacity . In fact, this virtue is intimately 

interwoven with the whole superstructure 

of the Institution, and its practise is a 

necessary corollary from all its principles . At 

an early period in his initiation the candidate 

is instructed in the beauty of charity by the 

most impressive ceremonies, which are not 

easily to be forgotten, and which, with the same 

benevolent design, are repeated from time to 

time during his advancement to higher degrees, 

in various forms and under different 

circumstances . " The true Mason," sa s 

Bro. Pike, " must be and must have a ri t 

to be, content with himself ; and he can be so 

only when he lives not for himself alone, but 

for others who need his assistance and have a 

claim upon his sympathy ." And the same 

eloquent writer lays down this rule for a Mason 

a almsgiving : " Give, looking for nothing 

again, without consideration of future advantages 

; give to children, to old men, to the unthankful, 

and the dying, and to those you shall 

never see again ; for else your alms or courtesy 

is not charity, but traffic and merchandise . 

And omit not to relieve the needs of your 

enemy and him who does you injury ." (See 

Exclusiveness of Masonry .) 

Alnwick Manuscript . This manuscript, 

which is now in the possession of th8 New-

formed 

AL-OM-JAH ALPHABET 49 

castle College of the " Societas Rosicruciana I writers, are ranged in the heavens in the form 

in Anglia," is written on twelve quarto pages ! of letters, and that it is possible to read 

as a preface to the minute-book of the " Com- I there whatsoever of importance is to happen 

pany and Fellowship of Freemasons of a i throughout the universe. And the great Eng- 

Lodge held at Alnwick," where it appears lish Hermetic philosopher, Robert Fludd, says, 

under the heading of " The Masons' Constitu- in his Apology for theBrethren of the Rosy Cross, 

tions ." The date of the document is September that there are characters in the heavens 

29, 1701, " being the general head meeting formed from the disposition of the stars, just 

day." It was first published in1871inHughan's' as geometric lines and ordinary letters are 

Masonic Sketches and Reprints (Amer, ed .), from points ; and he adds, that those 

and again in 1872 by the same author in his I to whom God has granted the hidden knowl- 

Otd Charges of the Brztash Freemasons . In this edge of reading these characters will also know 

latter work, Bro. Hughan says of the records of not only whatever is to happen, but all the 

this old Lodge that, " ranging from 1703 to secrets of philosophy. The letters thus arranged 

in the form of stars are called the An- 

1757 they mostly refer to indentures, fines, 

and initiations, the Lodge from first to last gels' Alphabet. They have the power and 

remaining true to its operative origin . The articulation but not the form of the Hebrew 

members were required annually to àppear at letters, and the Kabbalists say that in them 

the Parish Church of Alnwicke with their Moses wrote the tables of the law. The astrologers, 

and after them the alchemists, made 

approns on and common squares as aforesaid 

on St . John's Day in Christmas, when a sermon 

was provided and preached by some tion into any of the high degree rituals is an 

much use of this alphabet ; and its introduc- 

clergyman at their appointment.' A. D . evidence of the influence exerted on these degrees 

by the Hermetic philosophy . Agrippa in 

1708 ." The MS. has since been reproduced 

in facsimile by the Newcastle College of Rosicrucians 

in 1895 . 

pus Egyptiacus, and some other writers, have 

his Occult Philosophy, and Kircher in his (Edi- 

Al-om-Jah. In the Egyptian mysteries, given copies of this alphabet . It may also be 

this is said to have been the name given to found in Johnson's Typographia . But it is in 

the aspirant in the highest degree as the secret the mystical books of the Kabbalists that we 

name of the Supreme Being . In its component 

parts we may recognize the ~{\, AL or EL of Alphabet, Hebrew . Nearly all of the sig- 

must look for full instructions on this subject . 

the Hebrews, the Auras or triliteral name of 

the Indian mysteries, and the T' JAS of the 

Syrians. 

Aloyau, Societe de 1' . The word Aloyau 

is the French name for a sirloin of beef and 

hence the title of this society in English would 

be The Society of the Sirloin . It was a Masonic 

association, which existed in France before 

the revolution of 178 , until its members were 

dispersed at that time. They professed to be 

the possessors of many valuable documents 

relating to the Knights Templar and, besides, 

to be (ActaLatomorum, i ., 292) their successors . 

(See Temple, Order of the.) 

Alpha and Omega. The first and last letters 

of the Greek language, referred to in the 

Royal Master and some of the higher degrees . 

They are explained by this passage in Revelations, 

ch. xxii ., v . 13 . : " I am Alpha and 

Omega, the beginning and the end, the first 

and the last ." Alpha and Omega is, therefore, 

one of the appellations of God, equivalent 

to the beginning and end of all things, and 

so referred to in Isaiah xliv . 6, " I am the first 

and I am the last." 

Alphabet, Angels' . In the old rituals of 

the Fourth or Secret Master's Degree of the 

Scottish and some other Rites, we find this 

passage : " The seventy-two names, like the 

name of the Divinity, are to be taken to the 

Kabbalistic Tree and the Angels' Alphabet ." 

The Kabbalistic Tree is a name given by the 

Kabbalists to the arrangement of the ten Sephiroth 

(which see) . The Angels' Alphabet is 

called by the Hebrews OITh1 X17, chetab 

hamalachim, or the writing of the angels . Gaffarel 

says (Curios . Inouis . t ch . xiii ., 2) that the 

stars, according to the opinion of the Hebrew 

nificant words in the Masonic rituals are of 

Hebrew origin, and in writing them in the rituals 

the Hebrew letters are frequently used . 

For convenience of reference, that alphabet is 

here given . The Hebrews, like other ancient 

nations, had no figures, and therefore made 

use of the letters of their alphabet instead of 

numbers, each letter having a particular numerical 

value. They are, therefore, affixed in 

the following table : 

Aleph It A 1 

Beth B 2 

Gimel ] G 3 

Daleth "I D 4 

He ri H 5 

Vau 1 VorO 6 

Zain 7 Z 7 

Cheth 

ri CH 8 

Teth 

Yod 

Caph 

Lamed 

t9 T 9 

I or Y 10 

C or K 20 

L 30 

Mem 7] M 40 

Nun ] N 50 

Samech b S 60 

Ain 

y Guttural 70 

Pe 

D P 80 

Tsaddi Y Tz 90 

Koph 7 Q or K 100 

Resh I R 200 

Shin 10 SH 300 

Tau rl T 400 

Final Caph 1 C or K 500 

Final Mem C M 600 

Final Nun i N 700 

Final Pe P 800 

Final Tsaddi y TZ 900

50 ALPHABET 

ALTAR 

Alphabet, Masonic . See Cip her Writing . 

Alphabet, Number of Letters In . In 

the Sandwich Island alphabet there are 12 

letters ; the Burmese 19 ; Italian, 20 ; Bengalese, 

21 ; Hebrew, §yrian, Chaldee, Phoenician, 

and Samaritan, 22 each ; Latin, 23 

Greek, 24 ; French, 25 ; German, Dutch, and 

English, 26 each ; Spanish and Sclavonic, 27 

each, Persian and Coptic, 32 each ; Georgian, 

35 ; Armenian, 38 ; Russian, 41 ; Muscovite, 

43 ; Sanskrit and Japanese, 50 each ; Ethiopic 

and Tartarian, 202 each . 

Alphabet, Samaritan . It is believed by 

scholars that, previous to the captivity, the 

alphabet now called the Samaritan was employed 

by the Jews in transcribing the copies 

of the law, and that it was not, until their return 

from Babylon that they adopted, instead 

of their ancient characters, the Chaldee or 

square letters, now called the Hebrew, in 

which the sacred text, as restored by Ezra, 

was written . Hence, in the more recent rituals 

of the Scottish Rite, especially those used 

in the United States, the Samaritan character 

is beginning to be partially used . For convenience 

of reference, it is therefore here inserted . 

The letters are the same in number as the Hebrew, 

with the same power and the same 

names ; the only difference is in form . 

Aleph 

Lamed 

Beth 

Mem 

Gimel 

Nun 

Daleth q Samech 

He • Ayin 

Vau 

Pe 

Zain 

Tsade 

Cheth 

Koph 

Teth • Reach 

Yod 

Shin 

Kaph Tau 

c 

• 

Alpina . In 1836, and some years afterward, 

General Assemblies of the Masons of 

Switzerland were convened at Zurich, Berne, 

and Basle, which resulted in the union of the 

two Masonic authorities of that confederation, 

under the name of the Grand Lodge Alpina . 

The new Grand Lodge was organized at Zurich, 

h,4by fourteen Lodges, on the 24th of July, 

In 1910 it had 34 Lodges under its jurisdiction 

with a membership of 3,842 . 

Altar. The most important article of furniture 

in a Lodge room is undoubtedly the 

altar. It is worth while, then, to investigate 

its character and its relation to the altars of 

other religious institutions . The definition of 

an altar is very simple . It is a structure elevated 

above the ground, and appropriated to 

some service connected with worship, such as 

the offering of oblations, sacrifices, or prayers . 

Altars, among the ancients, were generally 

made of turf or stone . When permanently 

erected and not on any sudden emergency, 

they were generally built in regular courses of 

Masonry, and usually in a cubical form . Altars 

were erected long before temples . Thus, 

Noah is said to have erected one as soon as he 

came forth from the ark . Herodotus gives the 

Egyptians the credit of being the first among 

the heathen nations who invented altars . 

Among the ancients, both Jews and Gentiles, 

altars were of two kinds-for incense and 

for sacrifice . The latter were always erected 

in the open air, outside and in front of the 

Temple . Altars of incense only were permitted 

within the Temple walls . Animals were 

slain, and offered on the altars of burnt-offerings 

. On the altars of incense, bloodless sacrifices 

were presented and incense was burnt 

to the Deity . 

The Masonic altar, which, like everything 

else in Masonry, is symbolic, appears to combine 

the character and uses of both of these 

altars . It is an altar of sacrifice, for on it the 

candidate is directed to lay his passions and 

vices as an oblation to the Deity while he 

offers up the thoughts of a pure heart as a 

fitting incense to the Grand Architect of the 

Universe . The altar is, therefore, the most 

holy place in a Lodge . 

Among the ancients, the altar was always 

invested with peculiar sanctity . Altars were 

places of refuge, and the supplicants who fled 

to them were considered as having placed 

themselves under the protection of the Deity 

to whom the altar was consecrated, and to do 

violence even to slaves and criminals at the 

altar, or to drag them from it, was regarded as 

an act of violence to the Deity himself, and was 

hence a sacrilegious crime . 

The marriage covenant among the ancients 

• 

was always solemnized at the altar, and men 

• were accustomed to make all their solemn contracts 

and treaties by taking oaths at altars . 

• 

An oath taken or a vow made at the altar was 

considered as more solemn and binding than 

one assumed under other circumstances . 

• Hence, Hannibal's father brought him to the 

Carthaginian altar when he was about to make 

him swear eternal enmity to the Roman 

power. 

In all the religions of antiquity, it was the 

usage of the priests and the people to pass 

around the altar in the course of the sun, that 

is to say, from the east, by the way of the 

south, to the west, singing paeans or hymns of 

praise as a part of their worship . 

From all this we see that the altar in Masonr~ 

is not merely a convenient article of 

furniture, intended, like a table, to hold a 

Bible . It is a sacred utensil of religion, intended, 

like the altars of the ancient temples, 

for religious uses, and thus identifying Masonry, 

by its necessary existence in our Lodges, 

as a religious institution. Its presence should 

also lead the contemplative Mason to view the 

ceremonies in which it is employed with 

solemn reverence, as being part of a really 

religious worship . 

The situation of the altar in the French and 

Scottish Rites is in front of the Worshipful 

Master, and therefore, in the East . In the 

York Rite, the altar is placed in the center of

ALTENBERG 

AMENDMENT 51 

the room, or more properly a little to the East 

of the center . 

The form of a Masonic altar should be a 

cube, about three feet high, and of corresponding 

proportions as to length and width, having, 

in imitation of the Jewish altar, four horns, 

one at each corner . The Holy Bible with the 

Square and Compass should be spread open 

EAST. 

i ~!IiliiVi'llllill~illll 

III IIIIIIiil~lllllllllllllll1111111111111119flllllllllllllllllllll' 

WEST. 

upon it, while around it are to be placed three 

lights. These lights are to be in the East, 

West, and South, and should be arranged as in 

the annexed diagram . The stars show the position 

of the light in the East West, and South . 

The black dot represents the position North 

of the altar where there is no light, because in 

Masonry the North is the place of darkness . 

Altenburg, Congress of . Altenberg is a 

small place in the Grand Dukedom of Weimar, 

about two miles from the city of Jena. Here 

in the month of June 1764 the notorious 

Johnson, or Leucht, who called himself the 

Grand Master of the Knights Templar and the 

head of the Rite of Strict Observance, assembled 

a Masonic congress for the purpose of 

establishing this Rite and its system of Templar 

Masonry. But he was denounced and 

expelled by the Baron de Hund, who having 

proved Johnson to be an impostor and' charlatan, 

was himself proclaimed Grand Master of 

the German Masons by the congress . (See 

Johnson and Hund; also Strict Observance, 

Rite of.) 

Altenburg, Lodge at. One of the oldest 

Lodges in Germany is the Lodge of " Archimedes 

of the Three Tracing Boards" (Archimedes 

zu den drei Reissbreutern) in Altenburg . 

It was instituted January 31, 1742, by a deputation 

from Leipsic . In 1775 it joined the 

Grand Lodge of Berlin, but in 1788 attached 

itself to the Eclectic Union at Frankfort-onthe-Main, 

which body it left in 1801, and 

established a directory of its own, and installed 

a Lodge at Gera and another at Schneeberg 

. In the year 1803 the Lodge published a 

Book of Constitutions in a folio of 244 pages, a 

work which is now rare, and which Lenning 

says is one of the most valuable contributions 

to Masonic literature . Three Masonic journals 

were also produced by the Altenburg 

school of historians and students, one of which 

-theBruderbldtter continued to appear until 

1854 . In 1804 the Lodge struck a medal upon 

the occasion of erecting a new hall . In 1842 

it celebrated its centennial anniversary . 

Amal-sagghl. (Great labor.) The name 

of the 5th step of the mystic ladder of Kadosh, 

A. A . Scottish Rite . 

Amaranth . A plant well known to the 

ancients, the Greek name of which signifies 

" never withering ." It is the Celosia cristata 

of the botanists. The dry nature of the 

flowers causes them to retain their freshness for 

a very long time, and Pliny says, although incorrectly, 

that if thrown into water they will 

bloom anew . Hence it is a symbol of immortality, 

and was used by the ancients in their 

funeral rites . It is often placed on coffins at 

the present day with a like symbolic meaning, 

and is hence one of the decorations of a 

Sorrow Lodge. 

Amaranth, Order of the . Instituted by 

Queen Christina of Sweden in 1653, and numbering 

31, composed of 15 knights, 15 ladies, 

and the Queen as the Grandmistress . The 

insignia consisted of two letters A interlaced 

one being inverted, within a laurel crown, and 

bearing the motto, Dolce nella memoria. The 

annual festival of this equestrian Order was 

held at the Epiphany . A society of a similar 

name, androgynous in its nature, was instituted 

in 1883, under the supervision of Robert 

Macoy, of New York, to supplement the Order 

of the Eastern Star, having a social and 

charitable purpose, the ritual of which, as well 

as its constitutional government, has met with 

much commendation . 

Amax jah . Hebrew M"1TMR, God spake; 

a significant word in the high degrees of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite . 

Amen . Sometimes used as a response to a 

Masonic prayer, though in England the formula 

is " so mote it be ." The word Amen signifies 

in Hebrew verily, truly, certainly . "Its proper 

place," says Gesenius, " is where one person 

confirms the words of another, and adds his 

wish for success to the other's vows ." It is 

evident, then, that it is the brethren of the 

Lodge and not the Master or Chaplain, who 

should pronounce the word . Yet the custom 

in the United States is for the Master or 

Chaplain to say "Amen "and the brethren 

respond, " So mote it be ." It is a response to 

the prayer . The Tahnudists have many 

superstitious notions in respect to this word . 

Thus, in one treatise (Uber Musar), it is said 

that whosoever pronounces it with fixed attention 

and devotion, to him the gates of Paradise 

will be opened-and : again, whosoever enunciates 

the word rapidly, his days shall pass 

rapidly away, and whosoever dwells upon it, 

pronouncing it distinctly and slowly, his life 

shall be prolonged . 

Amendment . All amendments to the bylaws 

of a Lodge must be submitted to the 

Grand or Provincial or District Lodge for its 

approval. 

An amendment to a motion pending before 

a Lodge takes precedence of the original 

motion, and the question must be put upon the 

amendment first . If the amendment be lost, 

then the question will be on the motion ; if the 

amendment be adopted, then the question 

will be on the original motion as so amended ;

52 AMENDMENT 

AMERICAN 

and if then this question be lost, the whole 

motion falls to the ground . 

The principal Parliamentary rules in relation 

to amendments which are applicable to 

the business of a Masonic Lodge are the 

following : 

1. An amendment must be made in one of 

three ways : by adding or inserting certain 

words, by striking out certain words, or by 

striking out certain words and inserting others . 

2. Every amendment is susceptible of an 

amendment of itself, but there can be no 

amendment of the amendment of an amendment 

; such a piling of questions one upon 

another would tend to embarrass rather than 

to facilitate business . " The object which is 

proposed to be effected by such a proceeding 

must be sought by rejecting the amendment 

to the amendment, and then submitting the 

proposition in the form of an amendment of 

the first amendment in the form desired ." 

Cushing (Elem. Law and Pract . Leg . Ass ., 

§ 1306) illustrates this as follows : " If a proposition 

consists of AB, and it is proposed to 

amend by inserting CD, it may be moved to 

amend the amendment by inserting EF ; but 

it cannot be moved to amend this amendment, 

as, for example, by inserting G . The only 

mode by which this can be reached is to reject 

the amendment in the form in which it is presented, 

namely, to insert EF, and to move it 

in the form in which it is desired to be 

amended, namely, to insert EFG ." 

3 . An amendment once rejected cannot be 

again proposed . 

4. An amendment to strike out certain 

words having prevailed, a subsequent motion 

to restore them is out of order . 

5. An amendment may be proposed which 

will entirely change the character and substance 

of the original motion . The inconsistency 

or incompatibility of a proposed 

amendment with the proposition to be 

amended, though an argument, perhaps, from 

its rejection by the Lodge, is no reason for its 

suppression by the presiding officer . 

6 . An amendment, before it has been proposed 

to the body for discussion, may be withdrawn 

by the mover • but after it has once been 

in possession of the Lodge, it can only be withdrawn 

by leave of the Lodge. In the Congress 

of the nited States, leave must be obtained 

by unanimous consent ; but the usage in Masonic 

bodies is to require only a majority vote . 

7 . An amendment having been withdrawn 

by the mover, may be again proposed by 

another member. 

8 . Several amendments may be proposed 

to a motion or several amendments to an 

amendment, and the question will be put on 

them in the order of their presentation . But 

as an amendment takes precedence of a 

motion, so an amendment to an amendment 

takes precedence of the original amendment . 

9. An amendment does not require a 

seconder, although an original motion always 

does. 

There are many other rules relative to 

amendments which prevail in Parliamentary 

bodies, but these appear to be the only ones 

which regulate this subject in Masonic assemblies 

. 

Amenti . See Book of the Dead. 

American Mysteries. Among the many 

evidences of a former state of civilization among 

the Aborigines of America which seem to 

prove their origin from the races that inhabit 

the Eastern hemisphere, not the least remarkable 

is the existence of Fraternities bound 

by mystic ties, and claiming, like the Freemasons, 

to possess an esoteric knowledge, 

which they carefully conceal from all but the 

initiated . De Witt Clinton relates, on the 

authority of a respectable native minister, 

who had received the signs, the existence of 

such a society among the Iroquois . The 

number of the members was limited to fifteen, 

of whom six were to be of the Seneca tribe, 

five of the Oneidas, two of the Cayugas, and 

two of the St. Regis . They claim that their 

institution has existed from the era of the 

creation . The times of their meeting they 

keep secret, and throw much mystery over all 

their proceedings . 

Brinton tells us in his interesting and instructive 

work on The Myths of the New World 

(p . 285), that among the red race of America 

" the priests formed societies of different 

grades of illumination, only to be entered by 

those willing to undergo trying ordeals, whose 

secrets were not to be revealed under the 

severest penalties. The Algonkins had three 

such grades-the waubeno, the meda, and the 

jossakeed, the last being the highest . To this 

no white man was ever admitted . All tribes 

appear to have been controlled by these secret 

societies . Alexander von Humboldt mentions 

one, called that of the Botuto, or Holy 

Trumpet, among the Indians of the Orinoco, 

whose members must vow celibacy, and submit 

to severe scourgings and fasts . The 

Collahuayas of Peru were a guild of itinerant 

quacks and magicians, who never remained 

permanently in one spot ." 

American Rite. It has been proposed, 

and I think with propriety, to give this name 

to the series of degrees conferred in the 

United States . The York Rite, which is the 

name by which they are usually designated, 

is certainly a misnomer, for the York Rite 

properly consists of only the degrees of 

Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master 

Mason, including in the last degree the Holy 

Royal Arch . This was the Masonry that 

existed in England at the time of the revival 

of the Grand Lodge in 1717 . The abstraction 

of the Royal Arch from the Master's Degree, 

and its location as a separate degree, produced 

that modification of the York Rite which now 

exists in England, and which should properly 

be called the Modern York Rite, to distinguish 

it from the Ancient York Rite, which 

consisted of only three degrees . But in the 

United States still greater additions have been 

made to the Rite, through the labors of Webb 

and other lecturers, and the influence insensibly 

exerted on the Order by the introduction 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite

R 

AMERICAN AMIS 53 

into this country . The American modification 

of the York Rite, or the American Rite, 

consists of nine degrees, viz . : 

1 Entered Apprentice . Given in Symbolic 

Lodges, and 

2 Fellow-Craft . 

3 . Master Mason. 

under the control 

of Grand Lodges . 

4 Mark Master. Given in Chap- 

5 Past Master . ters, and under the 

6 . Most Excellent Master . control of Grand 

7 . Holy Royal Arch . Chapters . 

Given in Coun- 

8 . Royal Master. cils, and under the 

9. Select Master . control of Grand 

Councils. 

A tenth degree, called Super-Excellent 

Master, is conferred in some Councils as an 

honorary rather than as a regular degree ; but 

even as such it is repudiated by many Grand 

Councils . To these, perhaps, should be added 

three more degrees, namely, Knight of the 

Red Cross, Knight Templar, and Knight of 

Malta, which are given in Commanderies, and 

are under the control of Grand Command *es 

or, as they are sometimes called, Grand Encampments 

. But the degrees of the Commandery, 

which are also known as the degrees 

of Chivalry, can hardly be called a part of the 

American Rite. The possession of the Eighth 

and Ninth Degreesisnot considered anecessary 

qualification for receiving them . The true 

American Rite consists only of the nine degrees 

above enumerated . 

There is, or may be, a Grand Lodge Grand 

Chapter, Grand Council, and Grand Commandery 

in each State, whose jurisdiction is 

distinct and sovereign within its own territory . 

There is no General Grand Lodge, or Grand 

Lodge of the United States, though several 

efforts have been made to form one (see 

General Grand Lodge) ; there is a General 

Grand Chapter, but all Grand Chapters are not 

subject to it, and a Grand Encampment to 

which all Grand Commanderies of the States 

are subject . 

. In 

1776 six Master Masons, four Fellow-Crafts, 

andoneEntered Apprentice, all but one, officers 

in the Connecticut Line of the Continental 

aAmerican rmy in camp (Military) ~ at Roxbury, Union Mass ., Lodge petitioned 

ichard Gridley, Deputy Grand Master of 

St . John's Grand Lodge, for a warrant forming 

them into a regular Lodge . On the 15th of 

February, a warrant was issued to Joel Clark, 

appointing and constituting him First Master 

of American Union Lodge, " erected at Roxbury, 

or wherever your body shall remove on 

the Continent of America, provided it is where 

no Grand Master is appointed ." The Lodge 

was duly constituted and almost immediately 

moved to New York, and met on April 23, 

1776, b permission of Dr . Peter Middleton, 

Grand Master of Masons in the Province of 

New York. It was agreed at this meeting to 

petition him to confirm the Massachusetts 

warrant as, under its terms they were without 

authority to meet in New York. Dr. Middleton 

woud not confirm the warrant of Ameri- 

can Union Lodge, but in April, 1776, caused a 

new warrant to be issued to the same brethren, 

underthename of Military Union Lodge, No .1, 

without recalling the former warrant . They 

thus presented an anomaly of a Lodge holding 

warrants from and yielding obedience to two 

Grand Bodies in different jurisdictions . The 

spirit of the brethren, though, is shown in their 

adherence to the name American Union in 

their minutes, and the only direct acknowled_ 

.t ent of the new name is in a minute provi 

. . g that the Lodge furniture purchased by 

American Union " be considered only as lent 

to the Military Union Lodge ." 

This Lodge followed the Connecticut Line 

of the Continental army throughout the War 

of Independence . It was Gen . Samuel Holden 

Parsons of American Union who returned to 

the British army Lodge Unity, No . 18, their 

warrant, which had come into possession of 

the American army at the taking of Stony 

Point in 1779. American Union participated 

in a convention at Morristown, N . J ., January 

31, 1780, when it was proposed to nominate 

Gen. Washington as "Grand Master over the 

thirteen United States of America," and it was 

on the suggestion of Rev . Israel Evans, of 

American Union that the " Temple of Virtue," 

for the use of the army and the army 

Lodges, was erected at New Windsor (Newburgh), 

N . Y. during the winter of 1782-83 . 

The Lodge followed the army to the Northwest 

Territory after the Wax of Independence, 

and participated in the formation of the 

Grand Lodge of Ohio . Shortly afterward 

the Lodge withdrew from the Grand Lodge of 

Ohio and did not appear on the roll thereafter, 

but pursued an independent existence for 

some years. The present American Union 

Lodge at Marietta, Ohio, No. 1 on the roll of 

the Grand Lodge of Ohio, was organized by 

members of the old Lodge. The first minutebook, 

from the original constitution to Aril 

23, 1783, is in the library of the Grand Loge 

of New York . During the war many prominent 

patriots were members, and several 

times Washington was recorded as a visitor . 

[C . A. B .] 

Ameth . Properly, Emeth, which see. 

Amethyst. Hebrew "M- MX, achlemah . 

The ninth stone in the breastplate of the high 

priest . The amethyst is a stone in hardness 

next to the diamond, and of a deep red and 

blue color resembling the breast of a dove . 

Amicists, Order of. A secret association 

of students, once very extensively existing 

among the universities of Northern Germany . 

Thory (ActaLatomorum, i ., 292) says that this 

association was first established in the College 

of Clermont, at Paris . An account of it was 

published at Halle, in 1799, by F . C . Laukhard, 

under the title of Der Mosellaner-- oder Amid 

cisten-Orden nach seiner Entstehung, innern 

Verfassung and Verbreitung auf den deutschen 

Universitaten, &c . The Order was finally 

suppressed by the imperial government. 

Amis Reunis, Loge des . The Lodge of 

United Friends, founded at Paris in 1771, was 

distinguished for the talents of many of it8

54 AMMON 

ANAGRAM 

members, among whom was Savalette de 

Langes, and played for many years an important 

part in the affairs of French Masonry . 

In its bosom was originated, in 1775, the Rite 

of Philalethes. In 1784 it convoked the first 

Congress of Paris, which was held in 1785, for 

the laudable purpose of endeavoring to disentangle 

Freemasonry from the almost inextricable 

confusion into which it had fallen 

by the invention of so many rites and new 

d . The Lodge was in possession of a 

v uable library for the use of its members 

and had an excellent cabinet of the physical 

and natural sciences . Upon the death of 

Savalette, who was the soul of the Lodge, it 

fell into decay, and its books, manuscripts, 

and cabinet were scattered . (Clavel, p . 171 .) 

All of its library that was valuable was transferred 

to the archives of the Mother Lodge of 

the Philosophic Scottish Rite . Barruel gives 

a brilliant picture of the concerts, balls and 

suppers given by this Lodge in its halcyon 

days, to which " lea Cresus de la Maconnene " 

congregated, while a few superior members 

were engaged, as he says, in hatching political 

and revolutionary schemes, but really in plans 

for the elevation of Masonry as a philosophic 

institution. (Barruel, Memoires pour servir d 

l'Histoire du Jaeobinisme, iv ., 343.) 

Ammon. See Amun. 

Ammonitish War. A war to which 

allusion is made in the Fellow-Craft's Degree . 

The Ammonites were the descendants of the 

younger son of Lot, and dwelt east of the 

river Jordan, but originally formed no part of 

the land of Canaan, the Israelites having been 

directed not to molest them for the sake of 

their great progenitor, the nephew of Abraham . 

But in the time of Jephthah, their king having 

charged the Israelites with taking away a part 

of his territory the Ammonites crossed the 

river Jordan and made war upon the Israelites . 

Jephthah defeated them with great slaughter, 

and took an immense amount of spoil . It was 

on account of this spoil-in which they had no 

share-that the Ephraimites rebelled against 

Jephthah, and gave him battle . (SeeEphraimites 

.) 

Amor Honor et Justitla . A motto of the 

Grand Lodge of England used prior to the 

union of 1813, which is to be found graven on 

the " Masonic Token " of 1794, commemorative 

of the election of the Prince of Wales as 

M . W . Grand Master, November 24, 1790 . 

Amphibalus. See Saint Amphibalus. 

Ample Form. When the Grand Master 

is present at the opening or closing of the 

Grand Lodge, it is said to be opened or closed 

" in ample form . Any ceremony performed 

by the Grand Master is said to be done " in 

ample form"- when performed by the Deputy, 

it is said to 6 "in due form" ; and by any 

other temporarily presiding officer, it is "in 

form." (See Form .) 

Amru . The name given to the Phoenician 

carpenter, who is represented in some legends 

as one of the Assassins, Fanor and Metusael 

being the other two. 

Anishaspands . The name given in the Per- 

sian Avesta to the six good genii or powerful 

angels who continuously wait round the throne 

of Ormudz, or Ormazd . Also the name of the 

six summer months and the six productive 

working properties of nature . 

Amulet. See Talisman . 

Amun . The Supreme God among the 

Egyptians. He was a concealed god, and is 

styled " the Celestial Lord who sheds light on 

hidden things ." From him all things emanated, 

though he created nothing. He corresponded 

with the Jove of the Greeks, and, 

consequently, with the Jehovah of the Jews . 

His symbol was a ram, which animal was 

sacred to him. On the monuments he is 

represented with a human face and limbs free, 

having two tall straight feathers on his head, 

issuing from a red cap ; in front of the plumes a 

disk is sometimes seen. His body is colored a 

deep blue . He is sometimes, however, represented 

with the head of a ram, and the Greek 

and Roman writers in general agree in describing 

him as being ram-headed . There is 

some confusion on this point . Kenrick says 

that Nouf was in the majority of instances, 

the ram-headed god of the Egyptians ; but he 

admits that Amun may have been sometimes 

so represented . 

Anachronism. Ritual makers, especially 

when theyhave been ignorant anduneducated 

have often committed anachronisms by the 

introduction into Masonic ceremonies of 

matters entirely out of time. Thus, the use 

of a bell to indicate the hour of the night, 

practised in the Third Degree ; the placing of a 

celestial and a terrestrial globe on the summit 

of the pillars of the porch, in the Second 

Degree ; and quotations from the New Testament 

and references to the teachings of Christ, 

in the Mark Degree, are all anachronisms . 

But, although it were to be wished that these 

disturbances of the order of time had been 

avoided, the fault is not really of much importance 

. The object of the ritualist was 

simply to convey an idea, and this he has done 

in the way which he supposed would be most 

readily comprehended by those for whom the 

ritual was made. The idea itself is old, although 

the mode of conveying it may be new . 

Thus, the bell is used to indicate a specific 

point of time, the globes to symbolize the universality 

of Masonry, and passages from the 

New Testament to inculcate the practise of 

duties whose obligations are older than Christianity 

. 

Anagram. The manufacture of anagrams 

out of proper names or other words has always 

been a favorite exercise, sometimes to pay a 

compliment-as when Dr . Burney made 

Honor est a Nilo out of Horatio Nelson-and 

sometimes for purposes of secrecy, as when 

Roger Bacon concealed under an anagram one 

of the ingredients in his recipe for gunpowder, 

that the world might not too easily become 

acquainted with the composition of so dangerous 

a material. The same method was 

adopted by the adherents of the house of 

Stuart when they manufactured their system 

of high degrees as a political engine, and thus,

ANANIAH 

ANCIENT 55 

under an anagrammatic form, they made 

many words to designate their friends or, 

principally,theirenemiesof the opposite party . 

Most of these words it has now become impoasible 

to restore to their original form, 

but several are readily decipherable . Thus, 

among the Assassins of the Third Degree, who 

symbolized, with them, the foes of the monarchy, 

we recognize Romvel as Cromwell, and 

Hoben as Bohun, Earl of Essex. It is only 

thus that we can ever hope to trace the origin 

of such words in the high degrees as Tercy, 

Stolkin, Morphey, etc . To look for them in 

any Hebrew root would be a fruitless task . 

The derivation of many of them, on account 

of the obscurity of the persons to whom they 

refer, is, perhaps, forever lost ; but of others 

the research for their meaning may be more 

successful . 

Ananiah . The name of a learned Egyptian, 

who is said to have introduced the Order 

of Mizraim from Egypt into Italy . Dr . 

Oliver (Landm., ii., 75) states the tradition, 

but doubts its authenticity . It is in all probability 

apocryphal . (See Mizraim, Rite of.) 

Anchor and Ark. The anchor, as a symbol 

of hope, does not appear to have belonged 

to the ancient and classic system of symbolism . 

The Goddess Spes, or Hope, was among the 

ancients represented in the form of an erect 

woman, holding the skirts of her garments in 

her left hand, and in her right a flower-shaped 

cup. As an emblem of hope, the anchor is 

peculiarly a Christian and thence a Masonic, 

symbol . It is first found inscribed on the 

tombs in the catacombs of Rome, and the 

idea of using it is probably derived from the 

language of St. Paul (Heb. vi. 19), " which 

hope we have as an anchor 

of the soul both sure and 

steadfast ." The primitive 

Christians " looked upon 

life as a stormy voyage, and 

glad were the voyagers 

when it was done, and they 

had arrived safe in port . 

Of this the anchor was a 

symbol, and when their brethren carved it 

over the tomb, it was to them an expression 

of confidence that he who slept beneath had 

reached the haven of eternal rest ." (Kip, 

Catacombs of Rome, p . 112 .) The strict identity 

between this and the Masonic idea of the 

symbol will be at once observed . 

" The anchor " says Mrs. Jameson (Sac. 

andLegend, Art. I. 34), " is the Christian symbol 

of immovable firmness, hope, and patience ; 

and we find it very frequently in the catacombs, 

and on the ancient Christian gems ." 

It is the peculiar attribute of St . Clement, 

and is often inscribed on churches dedicated 

to him. 

But there is a necessary connection between 

an anchor and a ship, and hence, the latter 

image has also been adopted as a symbol of 

the voyage of life ; but, unlike the anchor, it 

was not confined to Christians, but was with 

the heathens also a favorite emblem of the 

close of life. Kip thinks the idea may have 

been derived from them by the Christian 

Fathers, who gave it a more elevated m 

The ship is in Masonry substituted b ty the 

Mrs . Jameson says (ut supra) that ` the Ark 

of Noah floating safe amid the deluge, in which 

all things else were overwhelmed, was an 

obvious symbol of the Church of Christ . . . . 

The bark of St. Peter tossed in the storm, and 

by the Redeemer guided safe to land, was also 

considered as symbolical ." 

These symbolical views have been introduced 

into Masonry, with, however, the more 

extended application which the universal 

character of the Masonic religious faith required 

. Hence, in the Third D , whose 

teachings all relate to life and deat , " the ark 

and anchor are emblems of a well-grounded 

hope and a well-spent life. They are emblematical 

of that Divine ark which safely 

wafts us over this tempestuous sea of troubles, 

and that anchor which shall safely moor us in a 

peaceful harbor where the wicked cease from 

troubling and the weary shall find rest ." Such 

is the language of the lecture of the Third 

Degree, and it gives all the information that 

is required on the esoteric meaning of these 

symbols . The history I have added of their 

probable origin will no doubt be interesting to 

the Masonic student . 

Anchor, Knight of the . See Knight of 

the Anchor. 

Anchor, Order of Knights and Ladles 

of the. A system of androgynous Masonry 

which arose in France in the year 1745. It 

was a schism which sprang out of the Order of 

Felicity, from which it differed only in being 

somewhat more refined . Its existence was 

not more durable than that of its predecessor . 

(Clavel, Hist. pitt. de la F. M., p. 111 .) (See 

Felicity, Order of.) 

Ancient and Accepted Rite. See Scottish 

Rite. 

Ancient Craft Masonry . This is the 

name given to the three symbolic degrees of 

Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master 

Mason . The degree of Royal Arch is not 

generally included under this appellation ; although, 

when considered (as it really is) a complement 

of the Third Degree, it must of course 

constitute a part of Ancient Craft Masonry . 

In the articles of union between the two Grand 

Lodges of England, adopted in 1813, it is declared 

that " pure Antient Masonry consists 

of three degrees and no more, viz . : those of the 

Entered Apprentice the Fellow Craft, and the 

Master Mason, including the Supreme Order 

of the Holy Royal Arch ." 

Ancient Free and Accepted Masons . 

The title most generally assumed by the English 

and American Grand Lodges . (See Titles 

of Grand Lodges .) 

Ancient or Antlent or Atholl Masons . 

In 1751 some Irish Masons in London established 

a body which they called the " Grand 

Lodge of England according to the Old Institutions," 

and they styled themselves " Ancients 

" and the members of the regular 

Grand Lodge, established in 1717 " Moderns." 

Thus Dermott, in his Ahiman 1'tezon, divide@

56 ANCIENT 

ANCIENT 

the Masons of England into two classes,, as 

follows : 

" The Ancients, under the name of Free and 

Accepted Masons, according to the old Institutions 

; the Moderns, under the name of 

Freemasons of England. And though a similarity 

of names, yet they differ exceedingly 

in makings, ceremonies, knowledge, Masonic 

language, and installations ; so much, that 

they always have been, and still continue to 

be, two distinct societies, totally independent 

of each other." (7th ed ., p. xxx .) 

The " Ancients " maintained that they 

alone preserved the ancient tenets and practises 

of Masonry, and that the regular Lodges 

had altered the Landmarks and made innovations, 

as they undoubtedly had done about the 

year 1730, when Prichard's Masonry Dissected 

appeared . 

For a long time it was supposed that the 

" Ancients " were a schismatic body of 

seceders from the Premier Grand Lodge of 

England, but Bro. Henry Sadler, in his Masonic 

Facts and Fictions, has proved that 

this view is erroneous, and that they were 

really Irish Masons who settled in London . 

In the year 1756, Laurence Dermott, then 

Grand Secretary, and subsequently the 

Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of 

the Ancients, published a Book of Constitutions 

for the use of the Ancient Masons, under 

the title of Ahiman Rezon, which work went 

through several editions, and became the 

code of Masonic law for all who adhered, 

either in England or America, to the Grand 

Lodge of the Ancients, while the Grand 

Lodge of the Moderns, or the regular Grand 

Lodge of England, and its adherents, were 

governed by the regulations contained in 

Anderson's Constitutions, the first edition of 

which had been published in 1723 . 

The dissensions between the two Grand 

Lodges of En gland lasted until the year 1813, 

when, as will be hereafter seen, the two bodies 

became consolidated under the name and title 

of the United Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons 

of England . Four years afterward 

a similar and final reconciliation took place in 

America, b y the union of the two Grand 

- Lodges in South Carolina . At this,day all 

distinction between the Ancients and Modems 

has ceased, and it lives only in the memory of 

the Masonic student . 

What were the precise differences in the rituals 

of the Ancients and the Moderns, it is 

now perhaps impossible to discover, as from 

their esoteric nature they were only orally 

communicated ; but some shrewd and near 

approximations to their real nature may be 

drawn by inference from the casual expressions 

which have fallen from the advocates of each 

in the course of their long and generally 

bitter controversies . 

It has already been said that the regular 

Grand Lodge is stated to have made certain 

changes in the modes of recognition, in consequence 

of the publication of Samuel Prichard's 

spurious revelation. These changes were, as 

we traditionally learn, a simple transposition 

of certain words, by which that which had 

originally been the first became the second, and 

that which had been the second became the first . 

Hence Dr . Daleho, the compiler of the original 

Ahiman Rezon of South Carolina, who was 

himself made in an Ancient Lodge, but was 

acquainted with both systems, says (Edit . 

1822, p . 193), " The real difference in point of 

importance was no greater than it would be to 

dispute whether the glove should be placed first 

upon the right or on the left ." A similar testimony 

as to the character of these changes is 

furnished by an address to the Duke of Atholl, 

the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of 

Ancients, in which it is said : " I would beg 

leave to ask, whether two persons standing in 

the Guildhall of London, the one facing the 

statues of Gog and Magog, and the other with 

his back turned on them, could, with any 

degree of propriety, quarrel about their stations 

; as Gog must be on the right of one, and 

Magog on the right of the other. Such then, 

and far more insignificant, is the disputatious 

temper of the seceding brethren, that on no 

better grounds than the above they choose to 

usurp a power and to aid in open and direct 

violation of the regulations they had solemnly 

engaged to maintain and by every artifice 

possible to be devised endeavored to increase 

their numbers." It was undoubtedly to the 

relative situation of the pillars of the porch, 

and the appropriation of their names in the 

ritual, that these innuendoes referred . As we 

have them now, they were made by the 

change effected by the Grand Lodge of Moderns, 

which trans po sed the original order in 

which they existed before the change, and in 

which order they are still preserved by the continental 

Lodges of Europe . 

It is then admitted that the Moderns did 

make innovations in the ritual ; and although 

Preston asserts that the changes were made 

by the regular Grand Lodge to distinguish its 

members from those made by the Ancient 

Lodges, it is evident, from the language of 

the address just quoted, that the innovations 

were the cause and not the effect of the schism, 

and the inferential evidence is that the changes 

were made in consequence of, and as a safeguard 

against, sp urious publications, and 

were intended, as has already been stated, to 

distinguish impostors from true Masons, and 

not schismatic or irregular brethren from 

those who were orthodox and regular . 

But outside of and beyond this transposition 

of words, there was another difference 

existing between the Ancients and the Modems 

. Dalcho, who was acquainted with both 

systems, says that the Ancient Masons were 

in possession of marks of recognition known 

only to themselves . His language on this 

subject is positive. " The Ancient York Masons," 

he says, " were certainly in possession 

of the original, universal marks, as they were 

known and given in the Lodges they had left, 

and which had descended through the Lodge 

of York, and that of England, down to their 

day . Besides these, we find they had peculiar 

marks of their own, which were unknown

ANCIENT 

ANDERSON 57 

to the body from which they had separated, 

and were unknown to the rest of the Masonic 

world . We hale, then, the evidence that 

they had two sets of marks ; viz . : those which 

they had brought with them from the original 

body, and those which they had, we must suppose, 

themselves devised .' (P . 192 .) 

Dermott, in his Ahiman Rezon, confirms 

this statement of Daicho, if, indeed, it needs 

confirmation . He says that " a Modern 

Mason may with safety communicate all his 

secrets to an Ancient Mason, but that an 

Ancient Mason cannot, with like safety, communicate 

all his secrets to a Modern Mason 

without further ceremony ." And he assigns 

as a reason for this, that "as a science comprehends 

an art (though an art cannot comprehend 

a science), even so Ancient Masonry 

contains everything valuable among the Moderns, 

as well as many other things that cannot 

be revealed without additional ceremonies ." 

Now, what were these "other things" 

known by the Ancients, and not known by 

the Moderns? What were these distinctive 

marks, which precluded the latter from visiting 

the Lodges of the former? Written history 

is of course silent as to these esoteric 

matters . But tradition, confirmed by, and at 

the same time explaining, the hints and casual 

intimations of contemporary writers, leads us 

to the almost irresistible inference that they 

were to be found in the different constructions 

of the Third, or Master's Degree, and the introduction 

into it of the Royal Arch element ; for, 

as Dr . Oliver (Hist. Eng. R. A ., p . 21) says, 

" the division of the third degree and the fabrication 

of the English Royal Arch appear, on 

their own showing, to have been the work of 

the Ancients." And hence the Grand Secretary 

of the regular Grand Lodge, or that of the 

Moderns, replying to the application of an 

Ancient Mason from Ireland for relief, says : 

" Our society (i . e ., the Moderns) is neither 

Arch, Royal Arch, nor Ancient, so that you 

have no right to partake of our charity ." 

This, then, is the solution of the difficulty . 

The Ancients, besides preserving the regular 

order of the words in the First and Second Degrees, 

which the Moderns had transposed (a 

transposition which has been retained in the 

Lodges of Britain and America, but which 

has never been observed by the continental 

Lodges of Europe, who continue the usage of 

the Ancients), also finished the otherwise imperfect 

Third Degree with its natural complement, 

the Royal Arch, a complement with 

which the Moderns were unacquainted, or 

which they, if they knew it once, had lost . 

The following is a list of t e Grand Masters 

of the Grand Lodge of Ancients from its organization 

to its dissolution : 1753, Robert 

Turner ; 1754-55, Edward Vaughan ; 1756-59, 

Earl of Blessington ; 1760-65, Earl of Kelly ; 

1766-70, The Hon . Thomas Matthew ; 1771- 

74, third Duke of Atholl ; 1775-81, fourth 

Duke of Atholl • 1782-90, Earl of Antrim ; 

1791-1813, fourth Duke of Atholl ; 1813, Duke 

of Kent, under whom the reconciliation of the 

two Grand Lodges was accomplished . 

The Grand Lodge of Ancient Masons was, 

shortly after its organization, recognized by 

the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland, 

and, through the ability and energy of its 

officers, but especially Laurence Dermott, at 

one time its Grand Secretary, and afterward 

its Deputy Grand Master, and the author of 

its Ahiman Rezon, or Book of Constitutions, 

it extended its influence and authority into 

foreign countries and into the British Colonies 

of America, where it became exceedingly popular, 

and where it organized several Provincial 

Grand Lodges, as, for instance, in Massachusetts, 

New York, Pennsylvania Virginia, 

and South Carolina, where the Loiges working 

under this authority were generally known 

as " Ancient York Lodges ." 

In consequence of this, dissensions existed, 

not only in the mother country, but also in 

America, for many years, between the Lodges 

which derived their warrants from the Grand 

Lodge of Ancients and those-which derived 

theirs from the regular or so-called Grand 

Lodge of Moderns . But the Duke of Kent 

having been elected, in 1813, the Grand Master 

of the Ancients, while his brother the 

Duke of Sussex, was Grand Master o1 the 

Moderns, a permanent reconciliation was 

effected between the rival bodies, and by mutual 

compromises the present "United Grand 

Lodge of Ancient Freemasons of England " 


Similar unions were consummated in America, 

the last being that of the two Grand 

Lodges of South Carolina, in 1817, and the 

distinction between the Ancients and the 

Moderns was forever abolished or remains 

only as a melancholy page in tune history of 

Masonic controversies . From their connection 

with the Dukes of Atholl, the "Ancient " 

Masons are sometimes known as "Atholl" 

Masons . [E . L. H .) 

Ancient Reformed Rite. A Rite differing 

very slightly from the French Rite, or Rite 

Modern, of which, indeed, it is said to be only 

a modification. It is practised by the Grand 

Lodge of Holland and the Grand Orient of 

Belgium . It was established in 1783 as one 

of the results of the Congress of Wilheimsbad . 

Ancient of Days. A title applied, in the 

visions of Daniel, to Jehovah, to signify that 

his days are beyond reckoning . Used by 

Webb in the Most Excellent Master's song. 

"Fulfilled is the promise 

By the ANCIENT of DAYS, 

To bring forth the cape-stone 

With shouting and praise." 

Ancients . See Ancient Masons . 

Ancient, The. The Third Degree of the 

German Union of Twenty-two . 

Ancient York Masons . One of the names 

assumed by the Lodges of Ancient Masons, 

which see. 

Anderson, James . The Rev. James Anderson, 

D .D ., is well known to all Masons 

as the compiler of the celebrated Book of Constitutions 

. The date and place of his birth 

have not yet been discovered with certainty,

58 ANDERSON 

ANDRE 

but the date was probably 1680, and the place 

Aberdeen in Scotland, ere he was educated 

and where he probably took the degrees of 

M .A. and D.D . At some unascertained 

period he migrated to London, and our first 

precise knowledge of him, derived from a document 

in the State Records, is that on February 

15, 1709-10, he as a Presbyterian minister, 

took over the ease of a chapel in Swallow 

Street, Piccadilly, from a congregation of 

French Protestants which desired to dispose 

of it because of their decreasing prosperity . 

During the following decade he published several 

sermons, and is said to have lost a considerable 

sum of money dabbling in the South 

Sea scheme. 

Where and when his connection with Freemasonry 

commenced has not yet been discovered, 

but he must have been a fairly prominent 

member of the Craft, because on September 

29, 1721, he was ordered by the Grand Lodge, 

which had been established in London in 1717, 

to " digest the old Gothic Constitutions in a 

new and better method ." On the 27th of 

December following, his work was finished, 

and the Grand Lodge appointed a committee 

of fourteen learned brethren to examine and 

report upon it. Their report was made on the 

25th of March, 1722 ; and, after a few amendments, 

Anderson's work was formally approved, 

and ordered to be printed for the 

benefit of the Lodges, which was done in 1723 . 

This is now the well-known Book of Constitutions, 

which contains the history of Masonry 

(or, more correctly architecture), the 

Ancient Charges, and the General Regulations, 

as the same were in use in many old Lodges . 

In 1738 a second edition was published. Both 

editions have become exceedingly rare, and 

copies of them bring fancy prices among the 

collectors of old Masonic books . Its intrinsic 

value is derived only from the fact that it contains 

the first printed copy of the Old Charges 

and also the General Regulations. The history 

of Masonry which precedes these, and 

constitutes the body of the work, is fanciful, 

unreliable, and pretentious to a de*ree that 

often leads to absurdity. The Craft is greatly 

indebted to Anderson for his labors in reorganizing 

the Institution, but doubtless it 

would have been better if he had contented 

himself with giving the records of the Grand 

Lodge from 1717 to 1738, which are contained 

in his second edition, and with pr 

for 

us the Charges and Regulations, whieh out 

his industry, might have been lost . No Mar 

sonic writer would now venture to quote Anderson 

as authority for the history of the 

Order anterior to the eighteenth century . It 

must also be added that in the republication 

of the Old Charges in the edition of 1738, he 

made several important alterations and interpolations, 

which justly gave some offense 

to the Grand Lodge, and which render the 

second edition of no authority in this respect . 

In the year 1723, when his first edition of 

the Constitutions appeared, he was Master 

of Lodge 17 and he was appointed Grand 

Warden, and also became Chaplain to the 

Earl of Buchan ; in 1732 he published a voluminous 

work entitled Royal , or the 

Genealogical Tables of Emperors, Kings and 

Princes, from Adam to these times ; in 1733 he 

issued a theological pamphlet on Unity in 

Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; in 1734 he removed 

with a part of his congregation from 

his chapel in Swallow Street to one in Lisle 

Street, Leicester Fields, in consequence of 

some difference with his people, the nature of 

which is unknown ; in 1735 he represented to 

Grand Lodge that a new edition of the Book of 

Constitutions was become necessary, and he 

was ordered to lay his materials before the 

present and former Grand Officers ; in 1738 the 

new Book of Constitutions was approved of 

by Grand Lodge and ordered to be printed . 

Anderson died on May 28, 1739, and was 

buried in Bunhill Fields with a Masonic funeral, 

which is thus reported in The Daily Post 

of June 2d : "Last night was interr d the 

corpse of Dr . Anderson, a Dissenting Teacher, 

in a very remarkable deep Grave. His Pall 

was supported by five Dissenting Teachers 

and the Rev. Dr . Desaguliers : It was followed 

by about a Dozen of Free-Masons who encircled 

the Grave ; and after Dr. Earle had 

harangued on the Uncertainty of Life, &c ., 

without one word of the Deceased, the Brethren 

in a most solemn dismal Posture, lifted up 

their Hands, sigh'd, and struck their aprons 

three times in Honour to the Deceased." 

Soon after his death another of his works, 

entitled News from Elysium or Dialogues of 

the Dead, was issued, and in 1742 there appeared 

the first volume of a Genealogical History 

of the House of Yvery, also from his pen. 

[E . L . H .) 

Anderson Manuscript . In the first edition 

of the Constitutions of the Freemasons, 

published by Dr . Anderson in 1723, the author 

quotes on pp . 32, 33 from "a certain record of 

Freemasons, written in the reign of King Edward 

IV." Preston also cites it in his Illustrations, 

(p .182, ed . 1788), but states that it is said 

to havebeen in the possessionof EliasAshmole, 

but was unfortunately destroyed, with other 

papers on the subject of Masonry, at the Revolution. 

Anderson makes no reference to 

Ashmole as the owner of the MS., nor to the 

fact of its destruction . If the statement of 

Preston was confirmed by other evidence its 

title would properly be the " Ashmole MS ." ; 

but as it was first mentioned by Anderson, Bro . 

Hughan has very properly called it the " Anderson 

Manuscript." It contains the Prince 

Edwin legend . 

Andre, Christopher Karl . An active 

Mason, who resided at Briinn, in Moravia, 

where, in 1798, he was the Director of the 

Evangelical Academy. He was very zealously 

employed, about the end of the last 

century, in connection with other distinguished 

Masons, in the propagation of the 

Order in Germany. He was the editor and 

author of a valuable periodical work, which 

was published in 5 numbers, 8vo, from 1793 to 

1796, at Gotha and Halle under the title of 

Der Freimaurer oder eompendiose Bibliothek

ANDREA 

ANDROGYNOUS 59 

alles Wissenswiirdigen uber geheime Gesellschaften 

("The Freemason, or a Compendious 

Library of everything worthy of notice 

in relation to Secret Societies") . Besidesvaluable 

extracts from contemporary Masonic 

writers, it contains several essays and treatises 

by the editor . 

Andrea, John Valentine . This distinguished 

philosopher and amiable moralist, 

who has been claimed by many writers as the 

founder of the Rosicrucian Order, was born 

on the 17th of August, 1586, at the small town 

of Herrenberg, in Wurttemberg, where his 

father exercised clerical functions of a respectable 

rank . After receiving an excellent education 

in his native province, he traveled extensively 

through the principal countries of 

Europe, and on his return home received the 

appointment, in 1614, of deacon in the town of 

Vaihingen . Four years after he was promoted 

to the office of superintendent at Kalw . 

In 1639 he was appointed court chaplain and a 

spiritual privy councilor, and subsequently 

Protestant prelate of Adelberg, and almoner 

of the Duke of Wurttemberg. He died on the 

27th of June, 1654, at the age of sixty-eight 

years. 

Andrea was a man of extensive acquirements 

and of a most feeling heart . By his 

great abilities he was enabled to elevate himself 

beyond the narrow limits of the prejudiced 

age in which he lived, and his literary labors 

were exerted for the reformation of manners, 

and for the supply of the moral wants of the 

times. His writings, although numerous, 

were not voluminous, but rather brief essays 

full of feeling, judgment, and chaste imagination, 

in which great moral, political, and religious 

sentiments were clothed in such a language 

of sweetness, and yet told with such 

boldness of spirit, that, as Herder says, he 

appears, in his contentious and anathematizing 

century, like a rose springing up among 

thorns. Thus, in his Menippus, one of the 

earliest of his works, he has, with great skill 

and freedom, attacked the errors of the 

Church and of his contemporaries . His Herculis 

Christiani Luctus, xxiv ., is supposed by 

some persons to have given indirectly, if not 

immediately, hints to John Bunyan for his 

Pilgrim's Progress . 

One of the most important of his works, 

however, or at least one that has attracted 

most attention, is his Fama Fraternitatis, published 

in 1615 . This and the Chemische Hochzeit 

Christiani Rosencreuz, or " Chemical Nuptials, 

by Christian Rosencreuz," which is also 

attributed to him, are the first works in which 

the Order of the Rosicrucians is mentioned. 

Arnold, in his Ketzergeschichte or "History of 

Heresy, "contends, from these works, that Andrea 

was the founder of the R osicrucian Order ; 

others claim a previous existence for it, and 

suppose that he was simply an annalist of the 

Order ; while a third party deny that any such 

Order was existing at the time, or afterward, 

but that the whole was a mere mythical rhapsody, 

invented by Andrea as a convenient 

vehicle in which to convey his ideas of reform . 

But the whole of this subject is more fully 

discussed under the head of Rosicrucianism, 

which see . 

Andrew, Apprentice and Fellow-Craft 

of St . (Fr., Apprenti et Compagnon de St . 

Andre ; Ger ., Andreas lehrling and Geselle .) 

The Fourth Degree of the Swedish Rite, which 

is almost precisely the same as the Elu Secret 

of the French Rite. 

Andrew, Cross of St . See Cross, St . Andrew's. 

Andrew, Favorite of St . (Fr ., Favori de 

St. Andre.) Usually called " Knight of the 

Purple Collar ." The Ninth Degree of the 

Swedish Rite . 

Andrew, Grand Scottish Knight of St . 

See Knight of St . Andrew . 

Androgynous Degrees . (From dw$e, a 

man, and yvvfi, a woman .) Those degrees of 

Masonry which are conferred on both men and 

women . Besides the degrees of the Adoptive 

Rite, which are practised in France, there are 

several of these degrees which are, as " side 

degrees," conferred in America. Such are 

the " Mason's Wife," conferred on the wives, 

daughters, sisters, and mothers of Master 

Masons, and the "Knight and Heroine of 

Jericho," conferred on the wives and daughters 

of Royal Arch Masons . A few years ago, 

Rob . Morris invented, and very generally 

promulgated through the Western States of 

this country, a series of androgynous degrees, 

which he called "The Star of the East ." 

There is another androgynous degree, sometimes 

conferred on the wives of Royal Arch 

Masons, known as the " Good Samaritan ." 

In some parts of the United States these 

degrees are very popular, while in other places 

they are never practised, and are strongly condemned 

as improper innovations . The fact 

is, that by their friends as well as by their enemies, 

these so-called degrees have been greatly 

misrepresented . When females are told that 

in receiving these degrees they are admitted 

into the Masonic Order, and are obtaining 

Masonic information under the name of " La, 

dies' Masonry," they are simply deceived . 

Every woman connected by ties of consanguinity 

to a Master Mason is peculiarly entitled 

to Masonic assistance and protection . 

If she is told this, and also told that by these 

androgynous degrees she is to be put in possession 

of the means of making her claims 

known by a sort of what may be called oral 

testimony, but that she is by their possession 

no nearer to the portals of Masonry than she 

was before, if she is honestly told this, then 

there is no harm, but the possibility of some 

good, in these forms if carefully bestowed and 

prudently preserved . But all attempts to 

make Masonry of them, and especially that 

anomalous thing called Co-Masonry, are wrong, 

imprudent, and calculated to produce opposition 

among the well-informed and cautious 

members of the Fraternity . 

Androgynous Masonry. That so-called 

Masonry which is dedicated to the cultivation 

of the androgynous degrees . The Adoptive 

Rite of France is Androgynous Masonry .

60 ANGEL 

ANNO 

Angel. Angels were originally in the Jewish 

theogony considered simply as messengers 

of God, as the name Malachim imports, and 

the word is thus continually used in the early 

Scriptures of the Old Testament. It was only 

after the captivity that the Jews brought from 

Babylon their mystical ideas of angels as instruments 

of creative ministration, such as the 

angel of fire, of water, of earth, or of air . 

These doctrines they learned from the Chaldean 

sages, who had probably derived them 

from Zoroaster and the Zendavesta . In time 

these doctrines were borrowed by the Gnostics, 

and through them they have been introduced 

into some of the high degrees ; such, for instance, 

as the Knight of the Sun, in whose ritual 

the angels of the four elements play an 

important part . 

Angelic Brothers. (Ger., Engelsbriider.) 

Sometimes called, after their founder, Gichtelites 

or Crichtelianer . A mystical sect of religious 

fanatics founded by one Gichtel, about 

the close of the seventeenth century, in the 

United Netherlands. After the death of their 

founder in 1710, they gradually became extinct, 

or were continued only in secret union 

with the Rosicrucians . 

Angels' Alphabet. See Alphabet, Angels' . 

Angerona. The name of a pagan deity 

worshiped among the Romans . Pliny calls 

her the goddess of silence, and calmness of 

mind . Hence her statue has sometimes been 

introduced among the ornaments of Masonic 

edifices. She is represented with her finger 

pressed upon her lips . See Harpocrates, for 

what is further to be said upon this symbol. 

Angle . The inclination of two lines meeting 

in a point . Angles are of three kindsacute, 

obtuse, and right angles. The right 

angle, or the angle of 90 degrees, is the only 

one recognized in Masonry, because it is the 

form of the trying square, one of the most important 

working tools of the profession, and 

the symbol of morality . 

Angular Triad . A name given by Oliver 

to the three presiding officers of a Royal Arch 

Chapter . 

Animal Worship. The worship of animals 

is a species of idolatry that was especially 

practised by the ancient Egyptians. Temples 

were erected by this people in their honor, 

in which they were fed and cared for during 

life ; to kill one of them was a crime punishable 

with death ; and after death, they were 

embalmed, and interred in the catacombs . 

This worship was derived first from the earlier 

adoration of the stars, to certain constellations 

of which the names of animals had been given ; 

next, from an Egyptian tradition that the gods 

being pursued by Typhon, had concealed 

themselves under the forms of animals ; and 

lastly, from the doctrine of the metempsychosis, 

according to which there was a continual 

circulation of the souls of men and animals . 

But behind the open and popular exercise of 

this degrading worship the priests concealed a 

symbolism full of philosophical conceptions . 

Mr . Gliddon says in his Otia Egyptiana (p . 

94) that " animal worship among the Egyp- 

tians was the natural and unavoidable consequence 

of the misconception, by the vulgar, 

of those emblematical figures invented by the 

priests to record their own philosophical conception 

of absurd ideas . As the pictures and 

effigies suspended in early Christian churches, 

to commemorate a person or an event, became 

in time objects of worship to the vulgar, so, in 

Egypt, the esoteric or spiritual meaning of the 

emblems was lost in the gross materialism of 

the beholder. This esoteric and allegorical 

meaning was, however, preserved by the 

priests, and communicated in the mysteries 

alone to the initiated, while the uninstructed 

retained only the grosser conception ." 

Anima Mundi . (Soul of the World .) A 

doctrine of the early philosophers, who conceived 

that an immaterial force resided in nature 

and was the source of all physical and sentient 

life, yet not intelligential. 

"Annales Chronologiques (Literairea et 

Historiques de la Magonnerie de la Pays-Bas, 

A dater de 1 Janvier, 1814," i . e ., Chronological, 

Literary, and Historical Annals of the 

Masonry of the Netherlands from the year 1814) . 

This work, edited by Bros . Melton and De 

Margny, was published at Brussels, in five 

volumes, during the years 1823-26 . It consists 

of an immense collection of French, 

Dutch, Italian, and English Masonic documents 

translated into French. Moss extols 

it highly as a work which no Masonic library 

should be without . Its publication was unfortunately 

discontinued in 1826 by the Belgian 

revolution . 

Annales Originis Magni Galliarum Orientis, 

etc. This history of the Grand Orient 

of France is, in regard to its subject, the 

most valuable of the works of C . A. Thory . It 

comprises a full account of the rise, progress, 

changes, and revolutions of French Freemasonry, 

with numerous curious and inedited 

documents, notices of a great number of rites, 

a fragment on Adoptive Masonry, and other 

articles of an interesting nature . It was published 

at Paris, in 1812, in one vol . of 471 pp ., 

8vo . (See Moss, No . 4,088 .) 

Anniversary . See Festivals . 

Anno Depositionis . In the Year of the 

Deposit ; abbreviated A : . Dep .' . The date 

used by Royal and Select Masters, which is 

found by adding 1000 to the Vulgar Era ; thus, 

1911 + 1000 = 2911 . 

Anno Egyptiano . In the Egyptian year. 

The date used by the Hermetic Fraternity, 

and found by adding 5044 to the Vulgar Era 

prior to each July 20th, being the number of 

years since the consolidation of the Egyptian 

monarchy under Menes . 

Anno Hebralco . In the Hebrew Year ; 

abbreviated A : . H .' . The same as Anno 

Mundi ; which see . 

Anno Inventionis . In the Year of the 

Discovery ; abbreviated A .' . I .'% or A .'. Inv.' . 

The date used by Royal Arch Masons . Found 

by adding 530 to the Vulgar Era ; thus, 1911 

530 = 2441 . 

Anno d ueis . In the Year of Light; abbreviated 

A: . L: . The date used in ancient Craft

ANNO 

ANSYREEH 61 

Masonry ; found by adding 4000 to the Vulgar 

Era ; thus, 1911 + 4000 = 5911 . 

Anno Mundl . In the Year of the World . 

The date used in the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite ; found by adding 3760 to the Vulgar Era 

until September . After September, add one 

year more ; this is because the year used is the 

Hebrew one, which begins in September . 

Thus, July, 1911 + 3760 = 5671, and October, 

1911 + 3760 + 1 = 5672 . 

Anno Ordinis . In the Year of the Order; 

abbreviated A : .O : . The date used by Knights 

Templars ; found by subtracting 1118 from the 

Vulgar Era ; thus, 1911 - 1118 = 793 . 

Annuaire. Some French Lodges publish 

annually a record of their most important proceedings 

for the past year, and a list of their 

members. This publication is called an Annuaire, 

or Annual . 

Annual Communication. All the Grand 

Lodges of the United States, except those of 

Massachusetts, Maryland, the District of 

Columbia, and Pennsylvania, hold only one 

annual meeting ; thus reviving the ancient 

custom of a yearly Grand Assembly. The 

Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, like that of 

England, holds Quarterly Communications . 

At these annual communications it is usual to 

pay the representatives of the subordinate 

Lodges a per diem allowance, which varies in 

different Grand Lodges from one to three dollars, 

and also their mileage or traveling expenses 

. 

Annual Proceedings. Every Grand 

Lodge in the United States publishes a full 

account of its proceedings at its Annual Communication, 

to which is also almost always 

added a list of the subordinate Lodges and 

their members . Some of these Annual Proceedings 

extend to a considerable size, and 

they are all valuable as giving an accurate and 

official account of the condition of Masonry in 

each State for the past year. They also frequently 

contain valuable reports of committees 

on questions of Masonic law . The 

reports of the Committees of Foreign Correspondence 

are especially valuable in these 

pamphlets . (See Committee on Foreign Correspondence 

.) 

Annuities . In England, one of the modes 

of distributing the charities of a Lodge is to 

grant annuities to aged members or to the 

widows and orphans of those who are deceased 

. In 1842 the" RoyalMasonic Annuity 

for Males " was established, which has since 

become the "Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution 

for Aged Freemasons and Their Widows," 

and grants annuities to both males and 

females, having also an asylum at Croydon in 

Surrey, England, into which the annuitants 

are received in the order of their seniority on 

the list . (See Asylum for Aged Freemasons .) 

[E . L . H .] 

Anointing. The act of consecrating any 

person or thing by the pouring on of oil . The 

ceremony of anointing was emblematical of a 

particular sanctification to a holy and sacred 

use . As such it was practised by both the 

Egyptians and the Jews, and many represen- 

tations are to be seen among the former of the 

performance of this holy Rite . Wilkinson informs 

us (Anc. Egypt., iv ., 280) that with the 

Egyptians the investiture to any sacred office 

was confirmed by this external sign ; and that 

priests and kings at the time of their consecration 

were, after they had been attired in 

their full robes, anointed by the pouring of oil 

upon the head . The Jewish Scriptures mention 

several instances in which unction was 

administered, as in the consecration of Aaron 

as high priest, and of Saul and David, of Solomon 

and Joash, as kings . The process of 

anointing Aaron is fully described in Exodus 

(xxix . 7) . After he had been clothed in all his 

robes, with the miter and crown upon his 

head, it is said, " then shalt thou take the 

anointing oil and pour it upon his head, and 

anoint him." 

The ceremony is still used in some of the 

high degrees of Masonry, and is always recognized 

as a symbol of sanctification, or the designation 

of the person so anointed to a sacred 

use, or to the performance of a particular 

function . Hence, it forms an important part 

of the ceremony of installation of a high priest 

in the order of High Priesthood as practised in 

America . 

As to the form in which the anointing oil 

was poured, Buxtorf (Lex . Talm ., p . 267) 

quotes the Rabbinical tradition that in the 

anointment of kings the oil was poured on the 

head in the form of a crown, that is, in a circle 

around the head ; while in the anointment of 

the priests it was poured in the form of the 

Greek letter X, that is, on the top of the head, 

in the shape of a St . Andrew's cross . 

Anonymous Society . A society formerly 

existing in Germany, which consisted of 72 

members, namely, 24 Apprentices, 24 Fellow- 

Crafts, and 24 Masters . It distributed much 

charity, but its real object was the cultivation 

of the occult sciences . Its members pretended 

that its Grand Master was one Tajo, and that 

he resided in Spain . (ActaLatomorum, i ., 294 . ) 

Ansyreeh . A sect found in the mountains 

of Lebanon, of Northern Syria. Like the 

Druses, toward whom, however, they entertain 

a violent hostility, and the Assassins, 

they have a secret mode of recognition and a 

secret religion, which does not appear to be 

well understood by them . " However," says 

Rev . Mr. Lyde, who visited them in 1852, 

" there is one in which they all seem agreed, 

and which acts as a kind of Freemasonry in 

binding together the scattered members of 

their body, namely, secret prayers which are 

taught to every male child of a certain age, 

and are repeated at stated times, in stated 

places, and accompanied with religious rites ." 

The Ansyreeh arose about the same time with 

the Assassins, and, like them, their religion 

appears to be an ill-digested mixture of Judaism, 

Christianity, and Mohammedanism . To 

the Masonic scholars these secret sects of 

Syria present an interesting study, because of 

their supposed connection with the Templars 

during the Crusades, the entire results of 

which are yet to be investigated .

62 ANTEDILUVIAN 

ANTI-MASONIC 

Antediluvian Masonry. Among the traditions 

of Masonry, which, taken literally, 

become incredible, but which, considered 

allegorically, may contain a profound meaning, 

not the least remarkable are those which relate 

to the existence of a Masonic system before 

the Flood . Thus, Anderson (Const., 1st 

ed ., p . 3) says : "Without regarding uncertain 

accounts, we may safely conclude the Old 

World, that lasted 1656 years, could not be ignorant 

of Masonry." Dr . Oliver has devoted 

the twenty-eighth lecture in his Historical 

Landmarks to an inquiry into " the nature and 

design of Freemasonry before the Flood " ; 

but he admits that any evidence of the existence 

at that time of such an Institution must 

be based on the identity of Freemasonry and 

morality. " We may safely assume," he says, 

"that whatever had for its object and 

end an inducement to the practice of that 

morality which is founded on the love of 

God, may be identified with primitive Freemasonry." 

The truth is, that antediluvian Masonry is 

alluded to only in what is called the " ineffable 

degrees" ; and that its only important 

tradition is that of Enoch, who is traditionally 

supposed to be its founder, or, at least, its 

great heirophant . (See Enoch .) 

Anthem . The anthem was originally a 

piece of church music sung by alternate voices . 

The word afterward, however, came to be 

used as a designation of that kind of sacred 

music which consisted of certain passages 

taken out of the Scriptures, and adapted to 

particular solemnities . In the permanent 

poetry and music of Masonry the anthem is 

very rarely used . The spirit of Masonic poetry 

is lyrical, and therefore the ode is almost 

altogether used (except on some special occasions) 

in the solemnities and ceremonials of 

the Order. There are really no Masonic anthems 

. 

Antient and Primitive Rite of Masonry, 

otherwise of Memphis . This rite claims a 

derivation from Egypt, and an organization 

from the High Grades which had entered 

Egypt before the arrival of the French Army, 

and it has been asserted that Napoleon and 

Kleber were invested with a ring at the hands 

of an Egyptian sage at the Pyramid of Cheops . 

However that may be, in 1814 the Disciples 

of Memphis were constituted as a Grand 

Lodge at Montauban in France by G. M . 

Marconis and others, being an incorporation 

of the various rites worked in the previous 

century and especially of the Primitive Rite of 

Philadelphes of Narbonne (q. v .) . In the political 

troubles that followed in France the 

Lodge of the Disciples of Memphis was put to 

sleep on March 7, 1816, and remained somnolent 

until July 7, 1838, when J . E . Marconis 

was elected Grand Hierophant and arranged 

the documents, which the Rite then possessed, 

into 90 degrees . The first Assembly of the 

Supreme Power was held on September 25, 

1838, and proclaimed on October 5th following 

. The father of the new Grand Hierophant 

seems to have been living and to have 

sanctioned the proceedings . Lodges were 

established in Paris and Brussels until the 

government of France forbade the meetings 

in 1841 ; however, in 1848 work was resumed 

and the Rite spread to Roumania, Egypt, 

America, and elsewhere . 

In 1862 J . E . Marconis united the Rite 

with the Grand Orient of France, retaining 

apparently the rank of Grand Hierophant ; 

and in 1865 a Concordat was executed between 

the two bodies by which the relative 

value of their different degrees was 

settled . 

In 1872 a Sovereign Sanctuary of the Rite 

was established in England by some American 

members with Bro . John Yarker as Grand 

Master General, and has since continued at 

work . 

An official journal entitled The Kneph was 

at one time issued by the authority of the 

Sovereign Sanctuary, from which we learn 

that the Antient and Primitive Rite of Masonry 

is " universal and open to every Master 

Mason who is in good standing under some 

constitutional Grand Lodge, and teaches the 

Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of 

Man." The degrees of the Rite are 95 in number, 

starting with the three Craft degrees, and 

divided into three series, and appear to have 

been rearranged and renamed at various 

times. [E . L. H .] 

Anti-Masonic Books . There is no country 

of the civilized world where Freeman 

sonry has existed, in which opposition to 

it has not, from time to time, exhibited 

itself ; although it has always been 

overcome by the purity and innocence 

of the Institution . The Roman Catholic 

religion has always been anti-Masonic, and 

hence edicts have constantly been promulgated 

by popes and sovereigns in Roman 

Catholic countries against the Order . The 

most important of these edicts is the bull 

of Pope Clement XII ., which was issued 

on the 24th of April, 1738, the authority of 

which bull is still in existence, and forbids 

any pious Catholic from uniting with a 

Masonic Lodge, under the severest penalties 

of ecclesiastical excommunication . 

In the United States, where there are neither 

popes to issue bulls nor kings to promulgate 

edicts, the opposition to Freemasonry 

had to take the form of a political party . 

Such a party was organized in this country in 

the year 1826, soon after the disappearance 

of one William Morgan . The object of this 

party was professedly to put down the Masonic 

Institution as subversive of good government, 

but really for the political aggrandizement 

of its leaders, who used the opposition to 

Freemasonry merely as a stepping-stone to 

their own advancement to office . But the public 

virtue of the masses of the American people 

repudiated a party which was based on such 

corrupt and mercenary views, and its ephemeral 

existence was followed by a total annihilation 

. 

A society which has been deemed of so 

much importance as to be the victim of so

ANTI-MASONIC 

ANTI-MASONIC 63 

many persecutions, must needs have had its 

enemies in the press. It was too good an 

Institution not to be abused . Accordingly, 

Freemasonry had no sooner taken its commanding 

position as one of the teachers` :of 

the world; than a host of adversaries sprang up 

to malign its character and to misrepresent its 

objects. Hence, in the catalogue of a Masonic 

library, the anti-Masonic books will form no 

small part of the collection. 

Anti-Masonic works may very properly be 

divided into two classes . 1 . Those written 

simply for the purposes of abuse, in which the 

character and objects of the Institution are 

misrepresented . 2 . Those written for the 

avowed purpose of revealing its ritual and 

esoteric doctrines . The former of these 

classes is always instigated by malignity, the 

latter by mean cupidity . The former class 

alone comes strictly within the category of 

" anti-Masonic books," although the two 

classes are often confounded ; the attack on 

the principles of Masonry being sometimes 

accompanied with a pretended revelation 

of its mysteries, and, on the other hand, 

the pseudo-revelations are not unfrequently 

enriched by the most liberal abuse of the Institution 

. 

The earliest authentic work which contains 

anything in opposition to Freemasonry is 

The Natural History of Staffordshire, by Robert 

Plot, which was printed at Oxford in the 

year 1686. It is only in one particular part 

of the work that Dr . Plot makes any invidious 

remarks against the Institution ; and we 

should freely forgive him for what he has said 

against it, when we know that his recognition 

of the existence, in the seventeenth century, of 

a society which was already of so much importance 

that he was compelled to acknowledge 

that he had " found persons of the most 

eminent quality that did not disdain to be of 

this fellowship," gives the most ample refutation 

of those writers who assert that no 

traces of the Masonic Institution are to be 

found before the beginning of the eighteenth 

century. A- triumphant reply to the attack 

of Dr. Plot is to be found in the third volume 

of Oliver's Golden Remains of the Early Masonic 

Writers. 

A still more virulent attack on the Order 

was made in 1730, by Samuel Prichard, which 

he entitled Masonry dissected, being an universal 

and genuine description of all its branches 

from the original to the present time . Toward 

the end of the year a reply was issued entitled 

A Defence of Masonry, occasioned by a pamphlet 

called Masonry Dissected . It was published 

anonymously, but it has recently been 

established that its author was Martin Clare 

A .M ., F.R.S ., a schoolmaster of London, who 

was a prominent Freemasonfrom 1734 to 1749 . 

(Ars Qualuor Coronatorum, iv ., 33-41 .) No 

copy of this Defence is known to exist, but it 

was reproduced in the Free Masons' Pocket 

Companion for 1738, and in the second edition 

of the Book of Constitutions, which was published 

in the same year . [E . L . IT .] 

It is a learned production, well worth peru- i 

sal for the information that it gives in reference 

to the sacred rites of the ancients, independent 

of its polemic character . About this 

time the English press was inundated by pretended 

revelations of the Masonic mysteries, 

published under the queerest titles, such as 

Jachin and Boaz ; or, An authentic key to the 

door of Freemasonry, both Ancient and Modern, 

published in 1762 ; Hiram, or the Grand Master 

Key to both Ancient and Modern Freemasonry, 

which appeared in 1764 ; The Three 

Distinct Knocks, published in 1760, and a 

host of others of a similar character, which 

were, however, rather intended, by ministering 

to a morbid and unlawful curiosity, to 

put money into the purses of their compilers, 

than to gratify any vindictive feelings against 

the Institution . 

Some, however, of these works were amiable 

neither in their inception nor in their 

execution, and appear to have been dictated 

by a spirit that may be characterized as being 

anything else except Christian . Thus, in the 

year 1768, a sermon was preached, we may 

suppose, but certainly published, at London, 

with the following ominous title : Masonry 

the Way to Hell ; a Sermon wherein is clearly 

proved, both from Reason and Scripture, that 

all who profess the Mysteries are in a State of 

Damnation . This sermon appears to have 

been a favorite with the ascetics, for in less 

than two years it was translated into French 

and German . But, on the other hand, it gave 

offense to the liberal-minded, and many replies 

to it were written and published, among 

which was one entitled Masonry the Turnpike- 

Road to Happiness in this Life, and Eternal 

Happiness Hereafter, which also found its 

translation into German . 

In 1797 appeared the notorious work of 

John Robison, entitled Proofs of a Conspiracy 

against all the Religions and Governments 

of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings 

of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies 

. Robison was a gentleman and a 

scholar of some repute, a professor of natural 

philosophy, and Secretary of the Royal Society 

of Edinburgh. Hence, although his 

theory is based on false premises and his reasoning 

fallacious and illogical, his language is 

more decorous and his sentiments less malignant 

than generally characterize the writers 

of anti-Masonic books . A contemporary 

critic in the Monthly Review (vol . xxv ., p . 315) 

thus correctly estimates the value of his work : 

" On the present occasion," says the reviewer, 

" we acknowledge that we have felt something 

like regret that a lecturer in natural philosophy, 

of whom his country is so justly proud, 

should produce any work of literature by 

which his high character for knowledge and 

for judgment is liable to be at all depreciated 

." Robison's book owes its preservation 

at this day from the destruction of time only 

to the permanency and importance of the Institution 

which it sought to destroy, Masonry, 

which it vilified, has alone saved it from the 

tomb of the Capulets . 

This work closed the labors of the anti-

64 ANTI-MASONIC 

ANTI-MASONIC 

Masonic press in England . No work abusive interdicted ." This work was published at 

of the Institution of any importance has ap- I Dantzic, in 1764, and was intended as a defense 

of the decree of the Council of Dantzic 

peared in that country since the attack of 

Robison . The Manuals of Richard Carlile against the Order. The Germans, however, 

and the Theologico-astronomical sermons of have given no such ponderous works in behalf 

of anti-Masonry as the capacious volumes 

the Rev . Robert Taylor are the productions of 

men who do not profess to be the enemies of of Barruel and Robison. The attacks on the 

the Order, but who have sought, by their Order in that country have principally been 

peculiar views, to give to Freemasonry an by pamphleteers . 

origin, a design, and an interpretation In the United States anti-Masonic writings 

different from that which is received as were scarcely known until they sprung out of 

the general sense of the Fraternity . The the 1VMorgan excitement in 1826 . The disappearance 

and alleged abduction of this individ- 

works of these writers, although erroneous, 

are not inimical . 

ual gave birth to a rancorous opposition to 

The French press was prolific in the production 

of anti-Masonic publications . Com- 

withant Masonicworks . Most of these were, 

Masonry, and the country was soon flooded 

mencing with La Grande Lumiere, which was however, merely pamphlets, which had only 

published at Paris, in 1734, soon after the an ephemeral existence and have long since 

modern introduction of Masonry into France, been consigned to the service of the trunkmakers 

or suffered a literary metempsychosis 

but brief intervals elapsed without the appearance 

of some work adverse to the Masonic in the paper-mill. Two only are worthy, from 

Institution. But the most important of these their size (their only qualification), for a place 

was certainly the ponderous effort of the Anbe in a Masonic catalogue . The first of these is 

Barruel, published in four volumes, in 1797, entitled Letters on Masonry and Anti-Masonry, 

under the title of Memoires pour servir a l'his- 

addressed to the Hon. John Quincy Adams . By 

toire du Jacobinisme . The French Revolution 

was at the time an accomplished fact . 

The Bourbons had passed away, and Barrucl, 

as a priest and a royalist, was indignant at 

the change, and, in the bitterness of his rage, 

he charged the whole inception and success of 

the political movement to the machinations of 

the Freemasons, whose Lodges, he asserted, 

were only Jacobinical clubs. The general 

scope of his argument was the same as that 

which was pursued by Professor Robison - 

but while both were false in their facts and 

fallacious in their reasoning, the Scotchman 

was calm and dispassionate, while the Frenchman 

was vehement and abusive . No work, 

perhaps, was ever printed which contains so 

many deliberate misstatements as disgrace 

the pages of Barruel. Unfortunately, the work 

was, soon after its appearance, translated into 

English . It is still to be found on the 

shelves of Masonic students and curious 

work collectors, as a singular specimen of 

the extent of folly and falsehood to which 

one may be led by the influences of bitter 

party prejudices . 

The anti-Masonic writings of Italy and 

Spain have, with the exception of a few translations 

from French and English authors, consisted 

only of bulls issued by popes and edicts 

pronounced by the Inquisition . The anti- 

Masons of those countries had it all their own 

way, and, scarcely descending to argument or 

even to abuse, contented themselves with 

practical persecution .' 

In Germany, the attacks on Freemasonry 

were less frequent than in England or France . 

Still there were some, and among them may be 

mentioned one whose very title would leave 

no room to doubt of its anti-Masonic character 

. It is entitled Beweiss dass die Freimaurer-Gesellschaft 

in alien Staaten, u . s . w ., 

that is, " Proofs that the Society of Freemasons 

is in every country not only useless, but, 

if not restricted, dangerous, and ought to be 

WilliamL . Stone. This work, which was published 

at New York in 1832, is a large octavo 

of 556 pages . 

The work of Mr . Stone, it must be acknowledged, 

is not abusive . If his arguments are 

illogical, they are at least conducted without 

malignity . If his statements are false, his 

language is decorous . He was himself a Mason, 

and he has been compelled, by the force of 

truth, to make many admissions which are 

favorable to the Order. The book was evidently 

written for a political purpose, and to 

advance the interests of the anti-Masonic 

party. It presents, therefore, nothing but 

partisan views, and those, too, almost entirely 

of a local character, having reference only 

to the conduct of the Institution as exhibited 

in what is called " the Morgan affair." Masonry, 

according to Mr . Stone, should be 

suppressed because a few of its members 

are supposed to have violated the laws in 

a village of the State of New York. As 

well might the vices of the Christians of 

Corinth have suggested to a contemporary 

of St . Paul the propriety of suppressing 

Christianity . 

The next anti-Masonic work of any prominence 

published in this country is also in the 

epistolary style, and is entitled Letters on the 

Masonic Institution . By John Quincy Adams . 

It is an octavo of 284 pages, and was published 

at Boston in 1847 . Mr . Adams, whose eminent 

public services have made his life a part 

of the history of his country, has very properly 

been described as "a man of strong 

points and weak ones, of vast reading and 

wonderful memory, of great credulity and 

strong prejudice." In the latter years of his 

life, he became notorious for his virulent opposition 

to Freemasonry . Deceived and excited 

by the misrepresentations of the anti-Masons, 

he united himself with that party, and threw 

all his vast energies and abilities into the political 

contests then waging . The result was this

ANTI-MASONIC 

ANTIQUITY 65 

series of letters, abusive of the Masonic Institution, 

which he directed to leading politicians 

of the country, and which were published 

in the public journals from 1831 to 1833 . 

These letters, which are utterly unworthy of 

the genius, learning, and eloquence of the 

author, display a most egregious ignorance of 

the whole design and character of the Masonic 

Institution . The " oath " and " the murder of 

Morgan " are the two bugbears which seem 

continually to float before the excited vision 

of the writer, and on these alone he dwells 

from the first to the last page . 

Except the letters of Stone and Adams, 

there is hardly another anti-Masonic book 

published in America that can go beyond the 

literary dignity of a respectably sized pamphlet 

. A compilation of anti-Masonic documents 

was published at Boston, in 1830, by 

James C . Odiorne, who has thus in part preserved 

for future reference the best of a bad 

class of writings. In 1831, Henry Gassett, of 

Boston, a most virulent anti-Mason, distributed, 

at his own expense, a great number of 

anti-Masonic books, which had been published 

during the Morgan excitement, to the 

principal libraries of the United States, on 

whose shelves they are probably now lying 

covered with dust ; and, that the memory of 

his good deed might not altogether be lost, he 

published a catalogue of these donations in 

1852, to which he has prefixed an attack on 

Masonry . 

Anti-Masonic Party . A party organized 

in the United States of America soon after the 

commencement of the Morgan excitement, 

professedly, to put down the Masonic Institution 

as subversive of good government, but 

really for the political aggrandizement of its 

leaders, who used the opposition to Freemasonry 

merely as a stepping-stone to their 

own advancement to office . The party held 

several conventions ; endeavored, sometimes 

successfully, but oftener unsuccessfully, to enlist 

'prominent statesmen in its ranks, and 

finally, in 1831, nominated William Wirt and 

Amos Ellmaker as its candidates for the Presidency 

and the Vice-Presidency of the United 

States . Each of these gentlemen received but 

seven votes, being the whole electoral vote of 

Vermont, which was the only State that voted 

for them . So signal a defeat was the deathblow 

of the party, that in the year 1833 it 

quietly withdrew from public notice, and now 

is happily no longer in existence . William L . 

Stone, the historian of anti-Masonry, has with 

commendable impartiality expressed his opinion 

of the character of this party, when he says 

that " the fact is not to be disguised-contradicted 

it cannot be-that anti-Masonry had 

become thoroughly political, and its spirit was 

vindictive towards the Freemasons without 

distinction as to guilt or innocence ." (Letters, 

xxxviii ., p . 418 .) Notwithstanding the opposition 

that from time to time has been exhibited 

to Freemasonry in every country, America 

is the only one where it assumed the form 

of a political party . This, however, may very 

justly be attributed to the peculiar nature of 

its popular institutions . There, the ballotbox 

is considered the most potent engine for 

the government of rulers as well as people, and 

is, therefore, resorted to in cases in which, in 

more despotic governments, the powers of the 

Church and State would be exercised . Hence, 

the anti-Masonic convention held at Philadelphia, 

in 1830, did not hesitate to make the 

following declaration as the cardinal principle 

of the party. " The object of anti-Masonry, 

in nominating and electing candidates for the 

Presidency and Vice-Presidency, is to deprive 

Masonry of the support which it derives from 

the power and patronage of the executive 

branch of the United States Government . To 

effect this object, will require that candidates 

besides possessing the talents and virtues 

requisite for such exalted stations, be known 

as men decidedly opposed to secret societies ." 

This issue having been thus boldly made was 

accepted by the people ; and as principles like 

these were fundamentally opposed to all the 

ideas of liberty, personal and political, into 

which the citizens of the country had been indoctrinated, 

the battle was made, and the 

anti-Masonic party was not only defeated for 

the time, but forever annihilated . 

Anti-Masonry. Opposition to Freemasonry. 

There is no country in which Masonry 

has ever existed in which this opposition has 

not from time to time exhibited itself ; although, 

in general, it has been overcome by 

the purity and innocence of the Institution . 

The earliest opposition by a government, of 

which we have any record, is that of 1425, 

in the third year of the reign of Henry VI ., of 

England, when the Masons were forbidden to 

confederate in Chapters and Congregations . 

This law was, however, never executed . Since 

that period, Freemasonry has met with no 

permanent opposition in England . The 

Roman Catholic religion has always been anti- 

Masonic, and hence edicts have always existed 

in the Roman Catholic countries against 

the Order . But the anti-Masonry which has 

had a practical effect in inducing the Church 

or the State to interfere with the Institution, 

and endeavor to suppress it, will come more 

properly under the head of Persecutions, to 

which the reader is referred . 

Antin, Duke d'. Elected perpetual Grand 

Master of the Masons of France, on the 24th 

of June, 1.738. He held the office until 1743, 

when he died, and was succeeded by the Count 

of Clermont . Clavel (Hist . Pittoresq ., p . 

141)' relates an instance of the fidelity and 

intrepidity with which, on one occasion, he 

guarded the avenues of the Lodge from the 

official intrusion of a commissary of police 

accompanied by a band of soldiers . 

Antipodeans . (Les Antipodiens.) The 

name of the Sixtieth Degree of the seventh 

series of the collection of the Metropolitan 

Chapter of France . (Acta Latomorum, i ., 

294 .) 

Antiquity, Lodge of. The oldest Lodge 

in England, and one of the four which concurred 

in February, 1717, in the meeting at 

the Apple-Tree Tavern, London, in the forma-

66 ANTIQUITY 

ANTIQUITY 

tion of the Grand Lodge of England . At that 

time, the Lodge of Antiquity met at the Goose 

and Gridiron, in St. Paul's Church-yard . 

This Lodge and three others met on St . John 

Baptist's Day (June 24), 1717, at the Goose 

and Gridiron Tavern, and by a majority of 

hands elected Mr . Anthony Sayer Grand 

Master, he being the oldest Master present. 

Capt. Joseph Elliot, and Mr . Jacob Lamball, 

carpenter, he elected Grand Wardens . This 

and the other three Lodges did not derive 

their warrants from the Grand Lodge, but 

" acted by immemorable Constitution ." 

Antiquity Manuscript . This celebrated 

MS . is now, and has long been, in the possession 

of the Lodge of Antiquity, at London . It 

is stated in the subscription to have been 

written, in 1686, by " Robert Padgett, Clearke 

to the Worshipful Society of the Freemasons 

of the city of London." The whole manuscript 

was first published by W . J. Hughan in 

his Old Charges of British Freemasons (p . 64), 

but a part had been previously inserted by 

Preston in his Illustrations (b . ii ., sect. vi.) . 

And here we have evidence of a criminal inaccuracy 

of the Masonic writers of the last 

century, who never hesitated to alter or interpolate 

passages in old documents whenever 

it was required to confirm a preconceived 

theory. Thus, Preston had intimated 

that there was before 1717 an Installation 

ceremony for newly elected Masters of Lodges 

(which is not true), and inserts what he calls 

" the ancient Charges that were used on this 

occasion," taken from the MS . of the Lodge 

of Antiquity. To confirm the statement, 

that they were used for this purpose, he cites 

the conclusion of the MS . in the following 

words : " These be all the charges and covenants 

that ought to be read at the installment 

of Master, or making of a Freemason or Freemasons 

." The words in italics are not to be 

found in the original MS ., but were inserted 

by Preston . Bro . E. Jackson Barron had an 

exact transcript made of this MS., which he 

carefully collated, and which was published 

by Bro. Hughan . Bro . Barron gives the followmg 

description of the document : 

" The MS . copy of the Charges of Freemasons 

is on a roll of parchment nine feet 

long by eleven inches wide, the roll being 

formed of four pieces of parchment glued together 

; and some few years ago it was partially 

mounted (but not very skilfully) on a 

backing of parchment for its better preservation. 

"The' Rolls are headed by an engraving of 

the Royal Arms, after the fashion usual in 

deeds of the period ; the date of the engraving 

in this case being fixed by the initials at the 

top, 

Under this engraving are emblazoned in 

separate shields the Arms of the city of London, 

which are two well known to require 

description, and the Arms of the Masons 

Company of London, Sable on a chevron between 

three castles argent, a pair of compasses 

of the first surrounded by appropriate mantling . 

"The writing is a good specimen of the 

ordinary law writing of the times, interspersed 

with words in text . There is a margin 

of about an inch on the left side, which is 

marked by a continuous double red ink line 

throughout, and there are similar double lines 

down both edges of the parchment. The 

letter U is used throughout the MS. for V, 

with but two or three exceptions ." (Hughan's 

Old Charges, 1872, p . 14.) 

Antiquity of Freemasonry . Years ago 

in writing an article on this subject under the 

impressions made upon me by the fascinating 

theories of Dr . Oliver, though I never completely 

accepted his views, I was led to place 

the organization of Freemasonry, as it now 

exists, at the building of Solomon's Temple . 

Many years of subsequent research have led 

me greatly to modify the views I had previously 

held . Although I do not rank myself 

among those modern iconoclasts who refuse 

credence to every document whose authenticity, 

if admitted, would give to the Order a 

birth anterior to the beginning of the last 

century, I confess that I cannot find any incontrovertible 

evidence that would trace Ma ; 

sonry, as now organized, beyond the Building 

Corporations of the Middle Ages . In this 

point of view I speak of it only as an architectural 

brotherhood, distinguished by signs, 

by words, and by brotherly ties which have 

not been essentially changed, and by symbols 

and legends which have only been developed 

and extended, while the association 

has undergone a transformation from an 

operative art to a speculative science . 

But then these Building Corporations did 

not spring up in all their peculiar organization 

-different, as it was, from that of other 

guilds-like Autochthones, from the soil . 

They, too, must have had an origin and an 

archetype, from which they derived their 

peculiar character . And I am induced, for 

that purpose, to look to the Roman Colleges 

of Artificers, which were spread over Europe 

by the invading forces of the empire. But 

these have been traced to Numa, who gave 

to them that mixed practical and religious 

character which they are known to have 

possessed, and in which they were imitated by 

the medieval architects . 

We must, therefore look at Freemasonry in 

two distinct points ofview : First, as it is-a 

society of Speculative Architects engaged in 

the construction of spiritual temples, and in 

this respect a development from the Operative 

Architects of the tenth and succeeding centuries, 

who were themselves offshoots from the 

Traveling Freemasons of Como, who traced 

their origin to the Roman Colleges of Builders . 

In this direction, I think, the line of descent is 

plain, without any demand upon our credulity 

for assent to its credibility . 

But Freemasonry must be looked at also 

from another standpoint . Not only does it 

present the appearance of a speculative 

science, based on an operative art, but it also 

very significantly exhibits itself as the symbolic 

expression of a religious idea . In other and 

plainer words, we see in it the important

ANTIQUITY 

ANTIQUITY 67 

lesson of eternal life, taught by a legend which, 

whether true or false, is used in Masonry as a 

symbol and an allegory . 

But whence came this legend? Was it invented 

in 1717 at the revival of Freemasonry 

in England? We have evidence of the 

strongest circumstantial character, derived 

from the Sloane Manuscript No . 3,329, recently 

exhumed from the shelves of the 

British Museum, that this very legend was 

known to the Masons of the seventeenth 

century at least . 

Then, did the Operative Masons of the 

Middle Ages have a legend also? The evidence 

is that they did. The Compagnons de 

la Tour, who were the offshoots of the old 

Masters' Guilds, had a legend . We know 

what the legend was, and we know that its 

character was similar to, although not in all 

the details precisely the same as, the Masonic 

legend. It was, however, connected with the 

Temple of Solomon . 

Again : Did the builders of the Middle Ages 

invent their legend, or did they obtain it from 

some old tradition? The question is interesting, 

but its solution either way would scarcely 

affect the Antiquity of Freemasonry . It is 

not the form of the legend, but its spirit and 

symbolic design, with which we have to do . 

This legend of the Third Degree as we now 

havee it, and as we have had it for a certain 

period of two hundred and fifty years, is intended, 

by a symbolic representation, to teach 

the resurrection from death, and the Divine 

dogma of eternal life . All Masons know its 

character, and it is neither expedient nor 

necessary to dilate upon it . 

But can we find such a legend elsewhere? 

Certainly we can . Not indeed the same 

legend ; not the same personage as its hero ; not 

the same details ; but a legend with the same 

spirit and design ; a legend funereal in character, 

celebrating death and resurrection, 

solemnized in lamentation and terminating in 

joy. Thus, in the Egyptian Mysteries of 

Osiris, the image of a dead man was borne in 

an argha, ark or coffin, by a procession of 

initiates ; and this enclosure in the coffin or 

interment of the body was called the aphanism, 

or disappearance, and the lamentation 

for him formed the first part of the Mysteries . 

On the third day after the interment, the 

priests and initiates carried the coffin, in which 

was also a golden vessel, down to the river 

Nile. Into the vessel they poured water from 

the river ; and then with a cry of Èvpfpcaµev 

ayaAAc eea, " We have found him, let us 

rejoice," they declared that the dead Osiris, 

who had descended into Hades, had returned 

from thence, and was restored again to life ; and 

the rejoicings which ensued constituted the 

second part of the Mysteries . The analogy 

between this and the legend of Freemasonry 

must be at once apparent . Now, just such a 

legend, everywhere differing in particulars, 

but everywhere coinciding in general character, 

is to be found in all the old religionsin 

sun worship, in tree worship in animal 

worship. It was often perverted, it is true, 

from the original design . Sometimes it was 

applied to the death of winter and the birth of 

spring, sometimes to the setting and the subsequent 

rising of the sun, but always indicating 

a loss and a recovery . 

Especially do we find this legend, and in a 

purer form, in the Ancient Mysteries. At 

Samothrace, at Eleusis, at Byblos-in all 

places where these ancient religions and mystical 

rites were celebrated-we find the same 

teachings of eternal life inculcated by the 

representation of an imaginary death and 

apotheosis. And it is this legend, and this 

legend alone, that connects Speculative Freemasonry 

with the Ancient Mysteries of Greece, 

of Syria, and of Egypt . 

The theory, then, that I advance on the 

subject of the Antiquity of Freemasonry is 

this : I maintain that, in its present peculiar 

organization, it is the successor, with certainty, 

of the Building Corporations of the 

Middle Ages, and through them, with less 

certainty but with great probability, of the 

Roman Colleges of Artificers . Its connection 

with the Temple of Solomon, as its birthplace, 

may have been accidental-a mere arbitrary 

selection by its inventors-and bears, therefore, 

only an allegorical meaning ; or it may be 

historical, and to be explained by the frequent 

communications that at one time took place 

between the Jews and the Greeks and the 

Romans. This is a point still open for discussion 

. On it I express no fixed opinion . 

The historical materials upon which to base 

an opinion are as yet too scanty . But I am 

inclined, I confess, to view the Temple of 

Jerusalem and the Masonic traditions connected 

with it as a part of the great allegory 


But in the other aspect in which Freemasonry 

presents itself to our view, and to which 

I have already adverted, the question of its 

antiquity is more easily settled . As a 

brotherhood, composed of symbolic Masters 

and Fellows and Apprentices, derived from an 

association of Operative Masters, Fellows, 

and Apprentices-those building spiritual 

temples as these built material ones-its age 

may not exceed five or six hundred years ; but 

as a secret association, containing within itself 

the symbolic expression of a religious idea, it 

connects itself with all the Ancient Mysteries, 

which, with similar secrecy, gave the same 

symbolic expression to the same religious 

idea . These Mysteries were not the cradles 

of Freemasonry : they were only its analogues . 

But I have no doubt that all the Mysteries 

had one common source, perhaps, as it has 

been suggested, some ancient body of priests ; 

and I have no more doubt that Freemasonry 

has derived its legend, its symbolic mode of instruction, 

and the lesson for which that instruction 

was intended, either directly or indirectly 

from the same source. In this view 

the Mysteries become interesting to the Mason 

as a study, and in this view only . And so, 

when I speak of the Antiquity of Masonry, I 

must say, if I would respect the axioms of 

historical science, that its body came out of

68 ANTON 

APOCALYPSE 

the Middle Ages, but that its spirit is to be 

traced to a far remoter period . 

Anton, Dr . Carl Gottlob von . A German 

Masonic writer of considerable reputation, 

who died at Gorlitz on the 17th of 

November, 1818 . He is the author of two 

historical works on Templarism, both of which 

are much esteemed . 1 . Versuch einer Geachichte 

des Tempelherren ordens (i . e ., An Essay 

on the Order of Knights Templars), Leipzig, 

1779 . 2 . Untersuchuny lime des Gi,nsass 

and die Gebrauche der Tempelherren 

(i . e ., An Inquiry into the Mystery and Usages 

of the Knights Templars), Dessau, 1782 . He 

also published at Gorlitz, in 1805, and again 

in 1819, A brief essay on the Culdees ( Ueber 

die Culdeer) . 

Anton Hieronymus . In the examination 

of a German " steinmetz," or STONEMASON, 

this is said to have been the name of the first 

Mason . It is unquestionably a corruption 

of Adon Hiram . 

Anubis or Anepu . Egyptian deity, son 

of Osiris and Nephthys . The Greek Hermes . 

Having the head of a jackal, with pointed ears 

and snout, which tile Greeks frequently 

changed to those of a dog . At times represented 

as wearing a double crown . His duty 

was to accompany the souls of the deceased to 

Hades (Amenthes), and assist Horns in weighing 

their actions under the inspection of Osiris . 

Ape and Lion, Knight of the . See 

Knight of the Ape and Lion . 

Apex, Rite of. See Sat B'hai, Order of . 

Aphanism . In the Ancient Mysteries, 

there was always a legend of the death or disappearance 

of some hero god, and the subsequent 

discovery of the body and its resurrection 

. The concealment of this body by those 

who had slain it was called the aphanism, 

from the Greek, a¢av&Cw, to conceal . As 

these Mysteries may be considered as a type 

of Masonry, as some suppose, and as, according 

to others, both the Mysteries and Masonry 

are derived from one common and ancient 

type, the aphanism, or concealing of the body, 

is of course to be found in the Third Degree . 

Indeed, the purest kind of Masonic aphanism 

is the loss or concealment of the worn . (See 

Mysteries, and Euresis .) 

Apis . The sacred bull, held in high reverence 

by the Egyptians as possessing Divine 

powers, especially the gift of prophecy . As it 

was deemed essential the animal should be 

peculiarly marked by nature, much difficulty 

was experienced in procuring it . The bull 

was required to be black, with a white triangle 

on its forehead, a white crescent on its side, 

and a knotted growth, like a searabaeus, under 

the tongue. Such an animal being found, it 

was fed for four months in a building facing 

the East . At new moon it was embarked on 

a special vessel, prepared with exquisite care, 

and with solemn ceremony conveyed to Heliopolis, 

where for forty days it was fed by 

priests and women . In its sanctified condition 

it was taken to Memphis and housed in 

a temple with two chapels and a court wherein 

to exercise . The omen was good or evil in 

accordance with which chapel it entered from 

the court . At the age of 25 years it was led 

to its death, amid great mourning and lamentations 

. The bull or apis was an important 

religious factor in the Isian worship, and was 

continued as a creature of reverence during 

the Roman domination of Egypt. 

Apocalypse, Masonry of the . The adoption 

of St . John the Evangelist as one of the 

patrons of our Lodges, has given rise, among 

the writers on Freemasonry, to a variety of 

theories as to the original cause of his being 

thus connected with the Institution . Several 

traditions have been handed down from remote 

periods, which claim him as a brother, 

among which the Masonic student will be 

familiar with that which represents him as 

having assumed the government of the Craft, 

as Grand Master, after the demise of John the 

Baptist. I confess that I am not willing to 

place implicit confidence in the correctness of 

this legend, and I candidly subscribe to the 

prudence of Dalcho's remark, that " it is unwise 

to assert more than we can prove, and to 

argue against probability." There must have 

been, however, in some way, a connection 

more or less direct between the Evangelist and 

the institution of Freemasonry, or he would 

not from the earliest times have been so 

universally claimed as one of its patrons . If 

it was simply a Christian feeling-a religious 

veneration-which gave rise to this general 

homage, I see no reason why St . Matthew 

St . Mark, or St . Luke might not as readily ant 

appropriately have been selected as one of the 

" lines parallel." But the fact is that there is 

something, both in the life and in the writings 

of St . John the Evangelist, which closely connects 

him with our mystic Institution. He 

may not have been a Freemason in the sense 

in which we now use the term ; but it will be 

sufficient, if it can be shown that he was 

familiar with other mystical institutions, 

which are themselves generally a dmitted to 

have been more or less intimately connected 

with Freemasonry by deriving their existence 

from a common origin . 

Such a society was the Essenian Fraternity 

-a mystical association of speculative philosophers 

among the Jews, whose organization 

very closely resembled that of the Freemasons, 

and who are even supposed by some to 

have derived their tenets and their discipline 

from the builders of the Temple. As Oliver 

observes, their institution " may be termed 

Freemasonry, retaining the same form but 

practised under another name." Now there 

is little doubt that St . John was an Essene . 

Calmet positively asserts it ; and the writings 

and life of St . John seem to furnish sufficient 

internal evidence that he was originally of 

that brotherhood . 

But it seems to me that St . John was more 

particularly selected as a patron of Freemasonry 

in consequence of the mysterious and 

emblematic nature of the Apocalypse, which 

evidently assimilated the mode of teaching 

adopted by the Evangelist to that practise 

by the Fraternity . If anyone who has in-

APOCALYPSE 

APOCALYPTIC 69 

vestigated the ceremonies performed in the 

Ancient Mysteries, the Spurious Freemasonry, 

as it has been called, of the Pagans, will compare 

them with the mystical machinery used 

in the Book of Revelations, he will find himself 

irresistibly led to the conclusion that 

St . John the Evangelist was intimately acquainted 

with the whole process of initiation 

into these mystic associations, and that he 

has selected its imagery for the ground-work 

of his prophetic book . Mr . Faber, in his 

Origin of Pagan Idolatry (vol . ii ., b . vi ., ch . 

6), has, with great ability and clearness, shown 

that St . John in the Apocalypse applies the 

ritual of the ancient initiations to a spiritual 

and prophetic purpose . 

" The whole machinery of the Apocalypse," 

says Mr . Faber, " from beginning to end, 

seems to me very plainly to have been borrowed 

from the machinery of the Ancient 

Mysteries ; and this, if we consider the nature 

of the subject, was done with the very strictest 

attention to poetical decorum . 

" St . John himself is made to personate an 

aspirant about to be initiated ; and, accordingly, 

the images presented to his mind's eye 

closely resemble the pageants of the Mysteries 

both in nature and in order of succession . 

" The prophet first beholds a door opened in 

the magnificent temple of heaven ; and into 

this he is invited to enter by the voice of one 

who plays the hierophant . Here he witnesses 

the unsealing of a sacred book, and forthwith 

he is appalled by a troop of ghastly apparitions, 

which flit in horrid succession before his eyes . 

Among these are preeminently conspicuous a 

vast serpent, the well-known symbol of the 

great father ; and two portentous wild beasts, 

which severally come up out of the sea and out 

of the earth. Such hideous figures correspond 

with the canine phantoms of the Orgies, which 

seem to rise out of the ground, and with the 

polymorphic images of the hero god who was 

universally deemed the offspring of the sea . 

" Passing these terrific monsters in safety, 

the prophet, constantly attended by his angel 

hierophant, who acts the part of an interpreter, 

is conducted into the presence of a female, who 

is described as closely resembling the great 

mother of pagan theology. Like Isis emerging 

from the sea and exhibiting herself to the 

aspirant Apuleius, this female divinity, upborne 

upon the marine wild beast, appears to 

float upon the surface of many waters . She is 

said to be an open and systematical harlot, just 

as the great mother was the declared female 

principle of fecundity ; and as she was always 

propitiated by literal fornication reduced to a 

religious system, and as the initiated were 

made to drink a prepared liquor out of a sacred 

goblet, so this harlot is represented as intoxicating 

the kings of the earth with the 

golden cup of her prostitution . On her forehead 

the very name of MYSTERY is inscribed ; 

and the label teaches us that, in point of character, 

she is the great universal mother of 

idolatry. 

" The nature of this mystery the of ciating 

hierophant undertakes to explain ; and an im- 

portant prophecy is most curiously and artfully 

veiled under the very language and 

imagery of the Orgies . To the sea-born great 

father was ascribed a threefold state-he lived, 

he died, and he revived ; and these changes of 

condition were duly exhibited in the Mysteries. 

To the sea-born wild beast is similarly 

ascribed a threefold state-he lives, he 

dies, he revives. While dead, he lies floating 

on the mighty ocean, just like Horns or Osiris, 

or Siva or Vishnu . When he revives again, 

like those kindred deities, he emerges from the 

waves ; and, whether dead or alive, he bears 

seven heads and ten horns, corresponding in 

number with the seven ark-preserved Rishis 

and the ten aboriginal patriarchs . Nor is this 

all : as the worshipers of the great father bore 

his special mark or stigma, and were distinguished 

by his name, so the worshipers of the 

maritime beast equally bear his mark and are 

equally decorated by his appellation . 

" At length, however, the first or doleful part 

of these sacred Mysteries draws to a close, and 

the last or joyful part is rapidly approaching . 

After the prophet has beheld the enemies of 

God plunged into a dreadful lake or inundation 

of liquid fire, which corresponds with the 

infernal lake or deluge of the Orgies, he is 

introduced into a splendidly-illuminated region, 

expressly adorned with the characteristics of 

that Paradise which was the ultimate scope of 

the ancient aspirants ; while without the holy 

gate of admission are the whole multitude of 

the profane, dogs, and sorcerors, and whoremongers, 

and murderers, and idolators, and whosoever 

loveth and maketh a lie ." 

Such was the imagery of the Apocalypse . 

The close resemblance to the machinery of the 

Mysteries, and the intimate connection between 

their system and that of Freemasonry, 

very naturally induced our ancient brethren 

to claim the patronage of an apostle so preeminently 

mystical in his writings, and whose 

last and crowning work bore so much of the 

appearance, in an outward form, of a ritual of 

initiation . 

Apocalypse, Order of the . An Order 

instituted about the end of the seventeenth 

century, by one Gabrino, who called himself 

the Prince of the Septenary Number or Monarch 

of the Holy Trinity . He enrolled a great 

number of artisans in his ranks who went 

about their ordinary occupations with swords 

at their sides. According to Thory, some of 

the provincial Lodges of France made a degree 

out of Gabrino's system . The arms of the 

Order were a naked sword and a blazing star . 

(ActaLatomorum, i ., 294 .) Reghellini (iii., 72) 

thinks that this Order was the precursor of the 

degrees afterward introduced by the Masons 

who practised the Templar system. 

Apocalyptic Degrees. Those degrees 

which are founded on the Revelation of St . 

John, or whose symbols and machinery of 

initiation are derived from that work, are 

called Apocalyptic degrees . Of this nature 

are several of the high degrees : such, for 

instance, as the Seventeenth, or Knight of 

the East and West of the Scottish Rite .

70 APORRHETA 

APPRENTICE 

Aporrheta . Greek, aa6ppnTa . The holy 

things in the Ancient Mysteries which were 

known only to the initiates, and were not to 

be disclosed to the profane, were called the 

aporrheta . What are the aporrheta of Freemasonry? 

what are the arcana of which there 

can be no disclosure? is a question that for 

some years past has given rise to much discussion 

among the disciples of the Institution . 

If the sphere and number of these aporrheta 

be very considerably extended, it is evident 

that much valuable investigation by public 

discussion of the science of Masonry will be 

prohibited . On the other hand, if the aporrheta 

are restricted to only a few points, much 

of the beauty, the permanency, and the efficacy 

of Freemasonry which are dependent on 

its organization as a secret and mystical association 

will be lost . We move between 

Scylla and Charybdis, and it is difficult for a 

Masonic writer to know how to steer so as, in 

avoiding too frank an exposition of the principles 

of the Order, not to fall by too much 

reticence, into obscurity . The European Masons 

are far more liberal in their views of the 

obligation of secrecy than the English or the 

American . There are few things, indeed, 

which a French or German Masonic writer 

will refuse to discuss with the utmost frankness. 

It is now beginning to be very generally 

admitted, and English and American 

writers are acting on the admission, that the 

only real aporrheta of Freemasonry are the 

modes of recognition, and the peculiar and 

distinctive ceremonies of the Order ; and to 

these last it is claimed that reference may be 

publicly made for the purpose of scientific 

investigation, provided that the reference be 

so made as to be obscure to the profane, and 

-intelligible only to the initiated . 

Appeal, Right of. The right of appeal is 

an inherent right belonging to every Mason, 

and the Grand Lodge is the appellate body 

to whom the appeal is to be made . 

Appeals are of two kinds : 1st, from the decision 

of the Master ; 2d, from the decision 

of the Lodge . Each of these will require a 

distinct consideration . 

1 . Appeals from the Decision of the Master . 

It is now a settled doctrine in Masonic law that 

there can be no appeal from the decision of a 

Master of a Lodge to the Lodge itself . But 

an appeal always lies from such decision to 

the Grand Lodge, which is bound to entertain 

the appeal and to inquire into the correctness 

of the decision . Some writers have endeavored 

to restrain the despotic authority of the 

Master to decisions in matters strictly relating 

to the work of the Lodge, while they contend 

that on all questions of business an appeal 

may be taken from his decision to the Lodge . 

But it would be unsafe, and often impracticable, 

to draw this distinction, and accordingly 

the highest Masonic authorities have rejected 

the theory, and denied the power in a Lodge 

to entertain an appeal from any decision of the 

presiding officer . 

The wisdom of this law must be apparent 

to anyone who examines the nature of the or- 

ganization of the Masonic Institution . The 

Master is responsible to the Grand Lodge for 

the good conduct of his Lodge. To him and 

to him alone the supreme Masonic authority 

looks for the preservation of order, and the 

observance of the Constitutions and the Landmarks 

of the Order in the body over which he 

presides. It is manifest, then, that it would 

be highly unjust to throw around a presiding 

officer so heavy a responsibility, if it were in 

the power of the Lodge to overrule his decisions 

or to control his authority . 

2 . Appeals from the Decisions of the Lodge . 

Appeals may be made to the Grand Lodge 

from the decisions of a Lodge, on any subject 

except the admission of members, or the election 

of candidates ; but these appeals are more 

frequently made in reference to conviction and 

punishment after trial. 

When a Mason, in consequence of charges 

preferred against him, has been tried, convicted, 

and sentenced by his Lodge, he has 

an inalienable right to appeal to the Grand 

Lodge from such conviction and sentence . 

His appeal may be either general or specific . 

That is, he may appeal on the ground, generally, 

that the whole of the proceedings have 

been irregular or illegal, or he may appeal 

specifically against some particular portion 

of the trial ; or lastly, admitting the correctness 

of the verdict, and acknowledging the 

truth of the charges, he may appeal from the 

sentence, as being too severe or disproportionate 

to the offense . 

Appendant Orders . In the Templar 

system of the United States, the degrees of 

Knight of the Red Cross and Knight of Malta 

are called Appendant Orders because they are 

conferred as appendages to that of Knight 

Templar, which is the principal degree of the 

Commandery . 

Apple-Tree Tavern . The place where the 

four Lodges of London met in 1717, and organized 

the Grand Lodge of England . It was 

situated in Charles Street, Covent Garden . 

Apprenti. French for Apprentice . 

Apprentice. See Apprentice, Entered . 

Apprentice Architect . (Apprenti Architecte 

.) A degree in the collection of Fustier . 

Apprentice Architect, Perfect . (Apprenti 

Architecte, Parfait .) A degree in the 

collection of Le Page . 

Apprentice Architect, Prussian . (Apprenti 

Architecte, Prussien .) A degree in the 


Apprentice Cohen . (Apprenti Coen.) A 

degree in the collection of the Archives of the 

Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Rite . 

Apprentice, Egyptian . (Apprenti, Egyptien.) 

The First Degree of the Egyptian Rite 

of Cagliostro . 

Apprentice, Entered . The First Degree 

of Freemasonry, in all the rites, is that of 

Entered Apprentice . In French, it is called 

apprenti ; in Spanish, aprendiz ; in Italian, 

apprendente ; and in German, lehrling: in all 

of which the radical meaning of the word is 

a learner . Like the lesser Mysteries of the 

ancient initiations, it is in Masonry. a pre-

APPRENTICE 

APPRENTICE 71 

liminary degree, intended to prepare the 

candidate for the higher and fuller instructions 

of the succeeding degrees. It is, therefore, 

although supplying no valuable historical 

information, replete, in its lecture, with instructions 

on the internal structure of the 

Order . Until late in the seventeenth century, 

Apprentices do not seem to have been considered 

as forming any part of the confraternity 

of Free and Accepted Masons ; for 

although they are incidentally mentioned in 

the Old Constitutions of the fifteenth, sixteenth, 

and seventeenth centuries, these 

records refer only to Masters and Fellows as 

constituting the Craft, and this distinction 

seems to have been one rather of position than 

of degree . The Sloane Manuscript, No . 

3,329, which Findel supposes to have been 

written at the end of the seventeenth century, 

describes a just and perfect Lodge as consisting 

of "two Interprintices, two Fellow Craftes, and 

two Masters," which shows that by that time 

the Apprentices had been elevated to a recognized 

rank in the Fraternity . In the Manuscript 

signedJ" Mark Kipling," which Hughan 

entitles "The York MS ., No . 4," the date of 

which is 1693, there is a still further recognition 

in what is there called " the Apprentice 

Charge," one item of which is, that " he shall 

keepe councell in all things spoken in Lodge or 

chamber by any Masons, Fellows, or Freemasons 

." This indicates that they were admitted 

to a closer communion with the members 

of the Craft . But notwithstanding these 

recognitions, all the manuscripts up to 1704 

show that only "Masters and Fellows" were 

summoned to the assembly . During all this 

time, when Masonry was in fact an operative 

art, there was but one degree in the modern 

sense of the word . Early in the eighteenth 

century, if not earlier, Apprentices must have 

been admitted to the possession of this degree ; 

for after what is called the revival of 1717, 

Entered Apprentices constituted the bulk of 

the Craft, and they only were initiated in the 

Lodges, the degrees of Fellow-Craft and 

Master Mason being conferred by the Grand 

Lodge . This is not left to conjecture . The 

thirteenth of the General Regulations, approved 

in 1721, says that " Apprentices must 

be admitted Masters and Fellow Crafts only 

in the Grand Lodge, unless by a dispensation." 

But this having been found very inconvenient, 

on the 22d of November, 1725, the Grand 

Lodge repealed the article, and decreed that 

the Master of a Lodge, with his Wardens 

and a competent number of the Lodge assembled 

in due form, can make Masters and 

Fellows at discretion . 

The mass of the Fraternity being at that 

time composed of Apprentices, they exercised 

a great deal of influence in the legislation of the 

Order ; for although they could not represent 

their Lodge in the Quarterly Communications 

of the Grand Lodge-a duty which could only 

be discharged by a Master or Fellow-yet 

they were always permitted to be present at 

the grand feast, and no General Regulation 

could be altered or repealed without their 

consent ; and, of course, in all the business of 

their particular Lodges, they took the most 

prominent part, for there were but few Masters 

or Fellows in a Lodge, in consequence of 

the difficulty and inconvenience of obtaining 

the degree, which could only be done at 

a Quarterly Communication of the Grand 

Lodge . 

But as soon as the subordinate Lodges were 

invested with the power of conferring all the 

degrees, the Masters began rapidly to increase 

in numbers and in corresponding influence . 

And now, the bulk of the Fraternity consisting 

of Master Masons, the legislation of the Order 

is done exclusively by them, and the Entered 

Apprentices and Fellow-Crafts have sunk into 

comparative obscurity, their degrees being 

considered only as preparatory to the greater 

initiation of the Master's Degree . 

Apprentice, Hermetic . (Apprenti Hermetique 

.) The Thirteenth Degree, ninth series, 

of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter 

of France . 

Apprentice, Kabbalistle . (Apprenti Cabalistique 

.) A degree in the collection of the 

Archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic 

Rite . 

Apprentice Mason . (Apprenti Magon.) 

The Entered Apprentice of French Masonry . 

Apprentice Masoness . (Apprentie Magonne 

.) The First Degree of the French Rite of 

Adoption . The word Masoness is a neologism, 

but it is in accordance with the genius of 

our language, and it is difficult to know how 

else to translate into English the French word 

Magonne, which means a woman who has 

received the degrees of the Rite of Adoption, 

unless by the use of the awkward phrase, 

Female Mason . To express this idea, we 

might introduce as a technicality the word 

Masoness. 

Apprentice Masoness, Egyptian . (Apprentie 

Magonne Egyptienne .) The First Degree 

of Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite of Adoption . 

Apprentice, Mystic . (Apprenti Mystique 

.) A degree in the collection of M . Pyron . 

Apprentice of Paracelsus . (Apprenti 

de Paracelse .) A degree in the collection of 

M . Peuvret . There existed a series of these 

Paracelsian degrees-Apprentice, Fellow- 

Craft, and Master . They were all most 

probably forms of Hermetic Masonry. 

Apprentice of the Egyptian Secrets . 

(Apprenti des secrets Egyptiens .) The First 

Degree of the Order of African Architects . 

Apprentice Philosopher, by the Number 

3. (Apprenti Philosophe par le Nombre 

3 .) A degree in the collection of M . Peuvret . 

Apprentice Philosopher, Hermetic . 

(Apprenti Philosophe Hermetique .) A degree 

in the collection of M . Peuvret . 

Apprentice Philosopher to the Number 

9. (Apprenti Philosophe au Nombre 9 .) A 

degree in the collection of M . Peuvret . 

Apprentice Pillar. See Prentice Pillar. 

Apprentice, Scottish . (Apprenti LScossais 

.) This degree and that of Trinitarian 

Scottish Apprentice (Apprenti Ecossais Trinitaire) 

are contained in the collection of Pyron .

72 APPRENTICE 

APRON 

Apprentice Theosophist. (Apprenti 

Theosophe .) The First Degree of the Rite of 

Swedenborg. 

Apron . There is no one of the symbols of 

Speculative Masonry more important in its 

teachings, or more interesting in its history, 

than the lambskin, or white leather apron . 

Commencing its lessons at an early period in 

the Mason's progress, it is impressed upon his 

memory as the first gift which he receives, the 

first symbol which is explained to him, and the 

first tangible evidence which he possesses of 

his admission into the Fraternity . Whatever 

may be his future advancement in the " royal 

art," into whatsoever deeper arcana his devotion 

to the mystic Institution or his thirst for 

knowledge may subsequently lead him, with 

the lambskin apron-his first investiture-he 

never parts . Changing, perhaps, its form and 

its decorations, and conveying, at each step, 

some new but still beautiful allusion, its substance 

is still there, and it continues to claim 

the honored title by which it was first made 

known to him, on the night of his initiation, 

as " the badge of a Mason ." 

If in less important portions of our ritual 

there are abundant allusions to the manners 

and customs of the ancient world, it is not to be 

supposed that the Masonic Rite of investiture 

-the ceremony of clothing the newly initiated 

candidate with this distinctive badge of his 

profession-is without its archetype in the 

times and practises long passed away . It 

would, indeed, be strange, while all else in 

Masonry is covered with the veil of antiquity, 

that the apron alone, its most significant symbol, 

should be indebted for its existence to the 

invention of a modern mind . 

On the contrary, we shall find the most 

satisfactory evidence that the use of the 

apron, or some equivalent mode of investiture, 

as a mystic symbol, was common to 

all the nations of the earth from the earliest 

periods . 

Among the Israelites the girdle formed a 

part of the investiture of the priesthood . In 

the mysteries of Mithras, in Persia, the candidate 

was invested with a white apron . In the 

initiations practised in Hindostan, the ceremony 

of investiture was preserved, but a sash, 

called the sacred zennar, was substituted for 

the apron . The Jewish sect of the Essenes 

clothed their novices with a white robe . The 

celebrated traveler Knmpfer informs us that 

the Japanese, who practise certain rites of 

initiation, invest their candidates with a white 

apron, bound round the loins with a zone or 

girdle . In the Scandinavian Rites, the military 

genius of the people caused them to substitute 

a white shield, but its presentation was 

accompanied by an emblematic instruction 

not unlike that which is connected with the 

Mason's apron . 

" The apron," says Dr . Oliver (S . and S ., 

Lect . X ., p. 196), " appears to have been, in 

ancient times, an honorary badge of distinction 

. In the Jewish economy, none but the 

superior orders of the priesthood were permitted 

to adorn themselves with ornamented 

Girdles, which were made of blue, purple, and 

crimson, decorated with gold, upon a ground 

of fine white linen ; while the inferior priests 

wore only plain white . The Indian, the Persian, 

the Jewish, the Ethiopian, and the Egyptian 

aprons, though equally superb, all bore a 

character distinct from each other. Some were 

plain white, others striped with blue, purple, 

and crimson ; some were of wrought gold, 

others adorned and decorated with superb 

tassels and fringes . In a word, though the 

principal honour of the Apron may consist in 

its reference to innocence of conduct and purity 

of heart, yet it certainly appears, through 

all ages, to have been a most exalted badge of 

distinction . In primitive times it was rather 

an ecclesiastical than a civil decoration, although 

in some cases the Apron was elevated 

to great superiority as a national trophy. The 

Royal Standard of Persia was originally an 

apron in form and dimensions . At this day 

it is connected with ecclesiastical honours ; for 

the chief dignitaries of the Christian church, 

wherever a legitimate establishment, with the 

necessary degrees of rank and subordination is 

formed, are invested with Aprons as a peculiar 

badge of distinction ; which is a collateral proof 

of the fact that Masonry was originally incorporated 

with the various systems of divine 

worship used by every people in the ancient 

world . Masonry retains the symbol or shadow ; 

it cannot have renounced the reality or substance 

." 

In the Masonic apron two things are essential 

to the due preservation of its symbolic 

character-its color and its material . 

1 . As to its color . The color of a Mason's 

apron should be pure unspotted white . This 

color has, in all ages and countries, been esteemed 

an emblem of innocence and purity . 

It was with this reference that a portion of 

the vestments of the Jewish priesthood was 

directed to be white . In the Ancient I\Iysteries 

the candidate was always clothed in 

white . " The priests of the Romans," says 

Festus, " were accustomed to wear white garments 

when they sacrificed ." In the Scandinavian 

Rites it has been seen that the shield 

presented to the candidate was white . The 

Druids changed the color of the garment presented 

to their initiates with each degree ; 

white, however, was the color appropriated 

to the last, or degree of perfection . And it 

was, according to their ritual, intended to 

teach the aspirant that none were admitted 

to that honor but such as were cleansed from 

all impurities both of body and mind . In 

the early ages of the Christian church a white 

garment was always placed upon the catechumen 

who had been newly baptized, to denote 

that he had been cleansed from his former sins, 

and was thenceforth to lead a life of purity . 

Hence it was presented to him with this solemn 

charge : " Receive the white and undefiled 

garment, and produce it unspotted before 

the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

that you may obtain eternal life ." From all 

these instances we learn that white apparel 

was anciently used as an emblem of purity,

APRON 

APRON 73 

and for this reason the color has been preserved 

in the apron of the Freemason. 

2 . As to its material . A Mason's apron 

must be made of lambskin . No other substance, 

such as linen, silk, or satin, could be 

substituted without entirely destroying the 

emblematic character of the apron, for the 

material of the Mason's apron constitutes one 

of the most important symbols of his profession 

. The lamb has always been considered 

as an appropriate emblem of innocence . And 

hence we are taught, in the ritual of the First 

Degree, that, " by the lambskin, the Mason is 

reminded of that purity of life and rectitude of 

conduct which is so essentially necessary to 

his gaining admission into the Celestial Lodge 

above, where the Supreme Architect of the 

Universe forever presides ." 

The true apron of a Mason must, then, be of 

unspotted lambskin, from 14 to 16 nches 

wide, from 12 to 14 deep, with a fall about 3 or 

4 inches deep, square at the bottom, and without 

device or ornament of any kind. The 

usage of the Craft in the United States of America 

has, for a few years past, allowed a narrow 

edging of blue ribbon in the symbolic degrees, 

to denote the universal friendship which constitutes 

the bond of the society, and of which 

virtue blue is the Masonic emblem . But this 

undoubtedly is an innovation, for the ancient 

apron was without any edging or ornament . 

In the Royal Arch Degree the lambskin is, of 

course, continued to be used, but, according 

to the same modern custom, there is an edging 

of red, to denote the zeal and fervency which 

should distinguish the possessors of that degree 

. All extraneous ornaments and devices 

are in bad taste, and detract from the symbolic 

character of the investiture . But the silk or 

satin a rons, bespangled and painted and 

embroidered, which have been gradually creeping 

into our Lodges, have no sort of connection 

with Ancient Craft Masonry . They are an 

innovation of our French brethren, who are 

never pleased with simplicity, and have, by 

their love of tinsel in their various newly 

invented ceremonies, effaced many of the most 

beautiful and impressive symbols of our Institution 

. A Mason who understands and 

appreciates the true symbolic meaning of his 

apron, would no more tolerate a painted or 

embroidered satin one than an artist would a 

gilded statue . By him, the lambskin, and the 

lambskin alone, would be considered as the 

badge " more ancient than the Golden Fleece, 

or Roman Eagle, and more honorable than the 

Star and Garter ." 

The Grand Lodge of England is precise in 

its regulations for the decorations of the apron 

which are thus laid down in its Constitution : 

"Entered Apprentices .-A plain white lambskin, 

from fourteen to sixteen inches wide, 

twelve to fourteen inches deep, square at bottom, 

and without ornament ; white strings . 

"Fellow Craft .-A plain white lambskin, 

similar to that of the Entered Apprentices, 

with the addition only of two sky-blue rosettes 

at the bottom . 

" Master Masons.-The same, with sky- 

'blue lining and edging, not more than two 

inches deep, and an additional rosette on the 

fall or flap, and silver tassels. No other colour 

or ornament shall be allowed except to 

officers and past officers of Lodges who may 

have the emblems of their offices in silver or 

white in the centre of the apron ; and except 

as to the members of the Prince of Wales' 

Lodge, No . 259, who are allowed to wear the 

internal half of the edging of garter-blue 

three-fourths of an inch wide . 

"Grand Stewards, present and past .-Aprons 

of the same dimensions lined with crimson, 

edging of the same colour three and a half 

inches, and silver tassels. Provincial and 

District Grand Stewards, present and past, 

the same, except that the edging is only two 

inches wide . The collars of the Grand Steward's 

Lodge to be crimson ribbon, four inches 

broad . 

"Grand Officers of the United Grand Lodge, 

present and past .-Aprons of the same dimensions, 

lined with garter-blue, edging three and 

a half inches, ornamented with gold, and blue 

strings ; and they may have the emblems of 

their offices, in gold or blue, in the centre . 

" Provincial Grand Officers, present and past . 

-Aprons of the same dimensions, lined with 

garter-blue, and ornamented with gold and 

with blue strings : they must have the emblems 

of their offices in gold or blue in the centre 

within a double circle, in the margin of 

which must be inserted the name of the Province 

. The garter-blue edging to the aprons 

must not exceed two inches in width . 

" The apron of the Deputy Grand Master 

to have the emblem of his office in gold embroidery 

in the centre, and the pomegranate 

and lotus alternately embroidered in gold on 

the edging . 

"The apron of the Grand Master is ornamented 

with the blazing sun embroidered in 

gold in the centre ; on the edging the pomegranate 

and lotus with the seven-eared wheat 

at each corner, and also on the fall ; all in gold 

embroidery ; the fringe of gold bullion . 

"The apron of the pro Grand Master the 

same. 

" The Masters and Past Masters of Lodges 

to wear, in the place of the three rosettes on 

the Master Mason's apron, perpendicular 

lines upon horizontal lines, thereby forming 

three several sets of two right angles ; the 

length of the horizontal lines to be two inches 

and a half each, and of the perpendicular 

lines one inch ; these emblems to be of silver 

or of ribbon, half an inch broad, and of the 

same colour as the lining and edging of the 

apron . If Grand Officers, similar emblems of 

garter-blue or gold ." 

In the United States, although there is evidence 

in some old aprons, still existing, that 

rosettes were formerly worn, there are now no 

distinctive decorations for the aprons of the 

different symbolic degrees . The only mark of 

distinction is in the mode of wearing ; and this 

differs in the different jurisdictions, some 

wearing the Master's apron turned up at the 

corner, and others the Fellow-Craft's . The

74 APRON 

ARCHETYPE 

authority of Cross, in his plate of the Royal 

Master's Degree in the older editions of his 

Hieroglyphic Chart, conclusively shows that 

he taught the former method, although the 

latter is now the more common usage . 

As we advance to the higher degrees, we 

find the apron varying in its decorations and 

in the color of its border, which are, however, 

always symbolical of some idea taught in the 

degree. 

Apron, Washington's . We here introduce 

a faithful representation of the emblems, 

wrought in needlework upon white satin by 

Madame Lafayette, for a Masonic apron, 

which the Marquis conveyed from Paris to 

General Washington at Mount Vernon . It 

was a cherished memorial, which after Washington's 

death was formally presented to the 

" Washington Benevolent Society," at Philadelphia 

. 

Arabici . An Arabian sect of the second 

century, who believed that the soul died with 

the body, to be again revived with it at the 

general resurrection . 

Aranyaka . An appendage to the Veda 

of the Indians supplementary to the Brahmanas, 

but giving more prominence to the 

Mystical sense of the rites of worship . 

Araunah . See Ornan . 

Arbitration. In the Old Charges, Masons 

are advised, in all cases of dispute or controversy, 

to submit to the arbitration of the Masters 

and Fellows, rather than to go to law . 

Arbroath, Abbey of (England) . Erected 

during the twelfth century . Rev. Charles Cor- 

-linet, in his description of the ruins of North 

Britain, has given an account of a seal of the 

Abbey Arbroath marked " Initiation ." The 

seal was ancient before the abbey had an existence, 

and contains a perfectly distinct characteristic 

of the Scottish Rite . 

Arcade de la Pelleterie . The name of 

derision given to the Orient of Clermont in 

France, that is to say, to the Old Grand 

Lodge, before the union in 1799 . 

Arcani Disciplina . The mode of initia- 

tion into the primitive Christian church . (See 

Discipline of the Secret .) 

Arch, Antiquity of the . Writers on architecture 

have, until within a few years, been 

accustomed to suppose that the invention of 

the arch and keystone was not anterior to the 

era of Augustus . But the researches of modern 

antiquaries have traced the existence of 

the arch as far back as 460 years before the 

building of King Solomon's Temple, and thus 

rescued Masonic traditions from the charge 

of anachronism . (See Keystone .) 

Arch, Catenarlan. See Catenarian Arch . 

Arch of Enoch . The Thirteenth Degree 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite is 

sometimes so called. (See Knight of the 

Ninth Arch .) 

Arch of Heaven. Job (xxvi . 11) compares 

heaven to an arch' supported by pillars . " The 

pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished 

at his reproof ." Dr . Cutbush, on this passage, 

remarks, " The arch in this instance is allegorical, 

not only of the arch of heaven, but of 

the higher degree of Masonry, commonly 

called the Holy Royal Arch. The pillars 

which support the arch are emblematical of 

Wisdom and Strength ; the former denoting 

the wisdom of the Supreme Architect, and the 

latter the stability of the Universe."-Am . 

Ed . Brewster's Encyc . 

Arch of Solomon, Royal. The Thirteenth 

Degree of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite is sometimes so called, by which it is 

distinguished from the Royal Arch Degree of 

the English and American systems . 

Arch of Steel . The grand honors are conferred, 

in the French Rite, by two ranks of 

brethren elevating and crossing their drawn 

swords . They call it voute d'acier . 

Arch of Zerubbabel, Royal. The Seventh 

Degree of the American Rite is sometimes so 

called to distinguish it from the Royal Arch 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, 

which is called the Royal Arch of Solomon . 

Arch, Royal . See Royal Arch Degree . 

Archeology. The science which is engaged 

in the study of those minor branches of antiquities 

which do not enter into the course of 

general history, such as national architecture, 

genealogies, manners, customs, heraldic subjects, 

and others of a similar nature . The 

archeology of Freemasonry has been made, 

within a recent period, a very interesting 

study, and is much indebted for its successful 

pursuit to the labors of Kloss and Findel in 

Germany, and to Thory and Ragon in France, 

and to Oliver, Lyon, Hughan, Gould, Sadler, 

Dr. Chetwode Crawley and others, in England 

. The scholars of this science have especially 

directed their attention to the collection 

of old records, and the inquiry into the condition 

and organization of Masonic and other 

secret associations during the Middle Ages . 

In America, the late William S . Rockwell was 

a diligent student of Masonic archeology, and 

several others in this country have labored 

assiduously in the same inviting field . 

Archetype. The principal type, figure, 

pattern, or example whereby and whereon

ARCHIMAGUS 

ARCHIVES 75 

a thing is formed . In the science of symbolism, 

the archetype is the thing adopted as a 

symbol, whence the symbolic idea is derived . 

Thus, we say the Temple is the archetype of 

the Lodge, because the former is the symbol 

whence all the Temple symbolism of the latter 

is derived . 

Archimagus . The chief officer of the 

Mithraic Mysteries in Persia . He was the 

representative of Ormudz, or Ormazd, the 

type of the good, the true, and the beautiful, 

who overcame Ahriman, the spirit of evil, of 

the base, and of darkness . 

Architect. In laying the corner-stones of 

Masonic edifices, and in dedicating them after 

they are finished, the architect of the building, 

although he maybe a profane, is required to 

take a part in the ceremonies . In the former 

case, the square, level, and plumb are delivered 

to him with a charge by the Grand Master 

; and in the latter case they are returned 

by him to that officer . 

Architect, African. See African Architects. 

Architect, Engineer and . An officer in 

the French Rite, whose duty it is to take 

charge of the furniture of the Lodge . In the 

Scottish Rite such officer in the Consistory has 

charge of the general arrangement of all preparatory 

matters for the working or ceremonial 

of the degrees . 

Architect by 3, b, and 7, Grand . (Grande 

Architects par 3, 5, et 7 .) A degree in the manuscript 

of Peuvret's collection . 

Architect, Grand. (Architecte, Grande .) 

1 . The Sixth Degree of the Rite of Martinism . 

2 . The Fourth Degree of the Rite of Elect Cohens. 

3 . The Twenty-third Degree of the Rite 

of Mizraim . 4 . The Twenty-fourth Degree 

of the third series in the collection of the 

Metropolitan Chapter of France . 

Architect, Grand Master . See Grand 

Master Architect . 

Architect, Little . (Archilecte, Petit.) 1 . 

The Twenty-third Degree of the third series of 

the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

France . 2 . The Twenty-second Degree of the 

Rite of Mizraim . 

Architect of Solomon . (Architects de 

Salomon.) A degree in the manuscript collection 

of M . Peuvret . 

Architect, Perfect. (Architects, Parfait .) 

The Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twentyseventh 

Degrees of the Rite of Mizraim are 

Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Perfect 

Architect . 

Architect, Perfect and Sublime, Grand. 

(Architecte, Parfait et Sublime Grande .) A degree 

in the collection of the Loge de Saint- 

Louis des Amis Reunis at Calais . 

Architectonicus. A Greek word, adopted 

in Latin, signifying "belonging to architecture 

." Thus, Vitruvius writes, "raìones 

architectonicx," the rules' of architecture . 

But as Architecton signifies a Master Builder, 

the Grand Lodge of Scotland, in some Latin 

inscriptions, has used the word architectonicus, 

to denote Masonic or relating to Freemasonry. 

In the inscription on the corner- 

stone of the Royal Exchange of Edinburgh, 

we find "fratres architectonici " used for 

Freemasons ; and in the Grand Lodge diploma, 

a Lodge is called "societas architectonica " ; 

but the usage of the word in this sense has not 

been generally adopted . 

Architecture . The art of constructing 

dwellings, as a shelter from the heat of summer 

and the cold of winter, must have been 

resorted to from the very first moment in 

which man became subjected to the power of 

the elements . Architecture is, therefore, not 

only one of the most important, but one of 

the most ancient of sciences . Rude and imperfect 

must however, have been the first 

efforts of the iuman race, resulting in the erection 

of huts clumsy in their appearance, and 

ages must have elapsed ere wisdom of design 

combined strength of material with beauty of 

execution . 

As Geometry is the science on which Masonry 

is founded, Architecture is the art from 

which it borrows the language of its symbolic 

instruction. In the earlier ages of the Order 

every Mason was either an operative mechanic 

or a superintending architect. And 

something more than a superficial knowledge 

of the principles of architecture is absolutely 

essential to the Mason who would either understand 

the former history of the Institution 

or appreciate its present objects . 

There are five orders of architecture : the 

Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, the Tuscan, 

and the Composite . The first three are the 

original orders, and were invented in Greece ; 

the last two are of later formation, and owe 

their existence to Italy . Each of these orders, 

as well as the other terms of architecture, so 

far as they are connected with Freemasonry 

will be found under its appropriate head 

throughout this work . 

The Books of Constitutions, commenced 

by Anderson and continued by Entick and 

Noorthouck, contain, under the title of a History 

of Freemasonry, in reality a history of the 

progress of architecture from the earliest ages . 

In the older manuscript Constitutions the 

science of geometry, as well as architecture, is 

made identical with Masonry ; so that he who 

would rightly understand the true history of 

Freemasonry must ever bear in mind the distinction 

between Geometry, Architecture, and 

Masonry, which is constantly lost sight of in 

these old records . 

Architecture, Piece of . (Morgeau d'architecture 

.) The name given in French Lodges 

to the minutes . 

Archives . This word means, properly, a 

place of deposit for records ; but it means also 

the records themselves . Hence the archives of 

a Lodge are its records and other documents . 

The legend in the Second Degree, that the pillars 

of the Temple were made hollow to contain 

the archives of Masonry, is simply a 

myth, and a very modern one. 

Archives, Grand Guardian of the. An 

officer in the Grand Council of Rites of Ireland 

who performs the duties of Secretary 

General . 

.

76 ARCHIVES 

ARK 

Archives, Grand Keeper of the. An 

officer in some of the bodies of the high degrees 

whose duties are indicated by the name . In 

the Grand Orient of France he is called Grand 

Garde des timbres et Sceaux, as he combines the 

duties of a keeper of the archives and a keeper 

of the seals . 

Archiviste. An officer in French Lodges 

who has charge of the archives . The Germans 

call him Archivar . 

Ardarel. A word in the high degrees, used 

as the name of the angel of fire . It is a distorted 

form of Adariel, the splendor of God . 

Arelim. A word used in some of the rituals 

of the high degrees . It is found in Isaiah 

(xxxiii . 7), where it is translated, in the A . V ., 

" valiant ones," and by Lowth, "mighty 

men." It is a doubtful word and is probably 

formed from ariel, the lion of God . D'Herbelot 

says that Mohammed called his uncle 

Hamseh, on account of his valor, the lion of 

God. In the Kabbala, Arelim is the angelic 

name of the third sephirah. 

Areopagus . The third apartment in a 

Council of Kadosh is so called . It represents 

a tribunal, and the name is derived from the 

celebrated court of Athens. 

Argonauts, Order of . A German androgynous 

Masonic society founded in 1775, 

by brethren of the Rite of Strict Observance . 

Much of the myth of the Argonauts was introduced 

into the forms and ceremonies, and 

many of the symbols taken from this source, 

such as meeting upon the deck of a vessel, the 

chief officer being called Grand Admiral and 

the nomenclature of parts of the vessel being 

used . The motto was Es Lebe die Freude, or 

Joy forever . 

Ariel. In the demonology of the Kabbala, 

the spirit of air ; the guardian angel of innocence 

and purity : hence the Masonic synonym 

. A name applied to Jerusalem ; a 

water spirit . 

Arithmetic. That science which is engaged 

in considering the properties and powers 

of numbers, and which, from its manifest 

necessity in all the operations of weighing, 

numbering, and measuring, must have had its 

origin in the remotest ages of the world . 

In the lecture of the degree of Grand Master 

Architect, the application of this science to 

Freemasonry is made to consist in its reminding 

the Mason that he is continually to add to 

his knowledge, never to subtract anything from 

the character of his neighbor, to multiply his 

benevolence to his fellow-creatures, and to 

divide his means with a suffering brother . 

Arizona, Grand Lodge of, was established 

in 1882, and in 1910 had 19 Lodges and 

1,410 brethren under its jurisdiction . 

Ark. In the ritual of the American Royal 

Arch Degree three arks are referred to : 1 . The 

Ark of Safety, or of Noah ; 2 . The Ark of the 

Covenant, or of Moses ; 3 . The Substitute 

Ark, or the Ark of Zerubbabel . In what is 

technically called " the passing of the veils," 

each of these arks has its commemorative illustration, 

and in the order in which they have 

been named . The first was constructed by 

Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah ; 

the second by Moses, Aholiab, and Bezaleel ; 

and the third was discovered by Joshua, Haggai, 

and Zerubbabel . 

Ark and Anchor. See Anchor and Ark . 

Ark and Dove . An illustrative degree, 

preparatory to the Royal Arch, and usually 

conferred, when conferred at all, immediately 

before the solemn ceremony of exaltation . 

The name of Noachite, sometimes given to it, 

is incorrect, as this belongs to a degree in the 

Ancient Scottish Rite. It is very probable 

that the degree, which now, however, has lost 

much of its significance, was derived from a 

much older one called the Royal Ark Mariners 

to which the reader is referred . The legend 

and symbolism of the ark and dove formed an 

important part of the spurious Freemasonry 

of the ancients . 

Ark Mariners . See Royal Ark Mariners . 

Ark, Noah's, or the Ark of Safety, constructed 

by Shem, Ham, and Japheth, under 

the superintendence of Noah, and in it, as a 

chosen tabernacle of refuge, the patriarch's 

family took refuge . It has been called by 

many commentators a tabernacle of Jehovah ; 

and Dr . Jarvis, speaking of the word 1,12, 

ZoHaR, which has been translated window, 

says that, in all other passages of Scripture 

where this word occurs, it signifies the meridian 

light, the brightest effulgence of day, and 

therefore it could not have been an aperture, 

but a source of light itself. He supposes it 

therefore to have been the Divine Shekinah, or 

Glory of Jehovah, which afterward dwelt between 

the cherubim over the Ark of the 

Covenant in the tabernacle and the Temple . 

(Church of the Redeemed, i., 20 .) 

Ark of the Covenant . The Ark of the 

Covenant or of the Testimony was a chest 

originally constructed by Moses at God's 

command (Exod . xxv. 10), in which were kept 

the two tables of stone, on which were engraved 

the Ten Commandments . It contained, 

likewise, a golden pot filled with 

manna, Aaron's rod, and the tables of the 

covenant . It was at first deposited in the 

most sacred place of the tabernacle and afterward 

placed by Solomon in the Sanctum 

Sanctorum of the Temple, and was lost upon 

the destruction of that building by the Chaldeans. 

The later history of this ark is buried 

in obscurity . It is supposed that, upon the 

destruction of the first Temple by the Chaldeans, 

it was carried to Babylon among the 

other sacred utensils which became the spoil 

of the conquerors . But of its subsequent 

fate all traces have been lost . It is, however, 

certain that it was not brought back to Jerusalem 

by Zerubbabel. The Talmudists say 

that there were five things which were the 

glory of the first Temple that were wanting in 

the second ; namely, the Ark of the Covenant, 

the Shekinah or Divine Presence, the 

Urim and Thummim, the holy fire upon the 

altar, and the spirit of prophecy. The Rev . 

Salem Towne, it is true, has endeavored to 

prove, by a very inge~nious argument, that the 

original Ark of the Covenant was concealed by

ARK 

ARK 

77 

Josiah, or by others, at some time previous to 

the destruction of Jerusalem, and that it was 

afterward, at the building of the second Temple, 

discovered and brought to light . But 

such a theory is entirely at variance with all 

the legends of the degree of Select Master and 

of Royal Arch Masonry . To admit it would 

lead to endless confusion and contradictions in 

the traditions of the Order . It is, besides, in 

conflict with the opinions of the Rabbinical 

writers and every Hebrew scholar. Josephus 

and the Rabbis allege that in the second 

Temple the Holy of Holies was empty, or contained 

only the Stone of Foundation which 

marked the place which the ark should have 

occupied . 

The ark was made of shittim wood, overlaid, 

within and without, with pure gold . It 

was about three feet nine inches long, two feet 

three inches wide, and of the same extent in 

depth . It had on the side two rings of gold, 

through which were placed staves of shittim 

wood, by which, when necessary, it was borne 

by the Levites . Its covering was of pure 

gold, over which was placed two figures called 

cherubim, with expanded wings. The covering 

of the ark was called kaphiret, from 

kaphar, " to forgive sin," and hence its English 

name of " mercy-seat," as being the place 

where the intercession for sin was made . 

The researches of archeologists in the last 

few years have thrown much light on the 

Egyptian mysteries . Among the ceremonies 

of that ancient people was one called the Procession 

of Shrines, which is mentioned in the 

Rosetta stone, and depicted on the Temple 

walls. One of these shrines was an ark, which 

was carried in procession by the priests, who 

supported it on their shoulders by staves passing 

through metal rings . It was thus brought 

into the Temple and deposited on a stand or 

altar that the ceremonies prescribed in the 

ritua1 might be performed before it . The 

contents of these arks were various, but always 

of a mystical character . Sometimes the ark 

would contain symbols of Life and Stability ; 

sometimes the sacred beetle, the symbol of 

the Sun ; and there was always a representation 

of two figures of the goddess Theme or 

Truth and Justice, which overshadowed the 

ark with their wings . These coincidences of 

the Egyptian and Hebrew arks must have 

been more than accidental . 

Ark, Substitute. The chest or coffer 

which constitutes a part of the furniture, and 

is used in the ceremonies of a Chapter of 

Royal Arch Masons, and in a Council of Select 

Masters according to the American system, 

is called by Masons the Substitute Ark, 

to distinguish it from the other ark, that which 

was constructed in the wilderness under the 

direction of Moses, and which is known as the 

Ark of the Covenant. This the Substitute Ark 

was made to represent under circumstances 

that axe recorded in the Masonic traditions, 

and especially in those of the Select Degree . 

The ark used in Royal Arch and Cr tic 

Masonry in this country is generally of tthis 

form : 

WNINAmnnnA/'/.y 1 1 , 11, 

ll El EU 

owmuuuumuuuwcwnuuweunumm~mut~munmmur 

Prideaux, on the authority of Lightfoot, 

contends that, as an ark was indispensable to 

the Israelitish worship, there was in the second 

Temple an ark which had been expressly made 

for the purpose of supplying the place of the 

first or original ark, and which, without possessing 

any . of its prerogatives or honors, was 

of precisely the same shape and dimensions, 

and was deposited in the same place . The 

Masonic legend, whether authentic or not, is 

simple and connected . It teaches that there 

was an ark in the second Temple, but that it 

was neither the Ark of the Covenant which 

had been in the Holy of Holies of the first 

Temple, nor one that had been constructed as 

a substitute for it after the building of the 

second Temple . It was that ark which was 

presented to us in the Select Master's Degree, 

and which being an exact copy of the Mosaical 

ark, and intended to replace it in case of its 

loss, which is best known to Freemasons as the 

Substitute Ark . 

Lightfoot gives these Talmudic legends, in 

his Prospect of the Temple in the following 

language : " It is fancied ly the Jews, that 

Solomon, when he built the Temple, foreseeing 

that the Temple should be destroyed, 

caused very obscure and intricate vaults 

under ground to be made, wherein to hide the 

ark when any such danger came ; that howsoever 

it went with the Temple, yet the ark, 

which was the very life of the Temple, might be 

saved. And they understand that passage in 

2 Chron . xxxv . 3 'Josiah said unto the Levites, 

Put the holy ark into the house which Solomon, 

the son of David, did build,' etc ., as if 

Josiah, having heard by the reading of Moses' 

manuscript, and by Huldah's prophecy of the 

danger that hung over Jerusalem, commanded 

to convey the ark into this vault, that it might 

be secured ; and with it, say they, they laid 

up Aaron's rod the pot of manna, and the 

anointing oil. 'For while the ark stood in its 

place upon the stone mentioned-they hold 

that Aaron's rod and the pot of manna stood 

before it ; but, now, were all conveyed into obscurity-and 

the stone upon which the ark 

stood lay over the mouth of the vault . But 

Rabbi Solomon, which useth not, ordinarily, 

to forsake such traditions, hath given a more 

serious gloss upon the place ; namely, that 

whereas Manasseh and Amon had removed 

the ark out of its habitation, and set up images 

and abominations there of their own- 

Joshua speaketh to the priests to restore it to 

its place again . What became of the ark, at 

the burning of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, 

we read not ; it is most likely it went to the 

fire also. However it sped, it was not in the 

second Temple ; and is one of the five choice

78 ARKANSAS 

ARMENBUCIISE 

things that the Jews reckon wanting there . 

Yet they had an ark there also of their own 

making, as they had a breastplate of judgment 

; which, ough they both wanted the 

glory of the former, which was giving of 

oracles, yet did they stand current as to the 

other matters of their worship as the former 

breastplate and ark had done . ;' 

The idea of the concealment of an ark and 

its accompanying treasures always prevailed 

in the Jewish church . The account even by 

the Talmudists is undoubtedly mythical• but 

there must, as certainly have been some foundation 

for the myth, for every myth has a 

substratum of truth. The Masonic tradition 

differs from the Rabbinical, but is in every way 

more reconcilable with truth, or at least with 

probability . The ark constructed by Moses, 

Abolish, and Bezaleel was burned at the destruction 

of the first Temple ; but there was 

an exact representation of it in the second . 

Arkansas . The modern school of historians, 

Masonic and profane, write history from 

original sources when possible, but in this 

case that method is no longer possible, as all 

the records of the Grand Lodge of this State 

were burned in 1864 and again in 1876 when 

all records gathered since 1864 were destroyed 

-depriving us of all early records. 

From what had been previously written several 

accounts have appeared, and from these 

this article is compiled . 

Passing over the tradition that the Spaniards 

had introduced Freemasonry into Arkansas 

about the time of the Revolution we 

find the first Lodge was established at Post 

Arkansas, under authority of a dispensation 

granted by the Grand Master of Kentucky 

November 29, 1819, and a charter was granted 

August 29, 1820, but was surrendered August 

28, 1822 . For several years Masonic matters 

were dormant . 

The Grand Master of Tennessee granted a 

dispensation for Washington Lodge in Fayetteville, 

December 24, 1835, and for some 

reason it was renewed November 12, 1836, and 

received a charter October 3, 1837 . The 

Grand Lodge of Tennessee granted a dispensation 

to Clarksville Lodge at Clarksville, October 

5 1838, and a charter October 12, 1839 . 

These hates are taken from Drummond and 

you will observe he says the Grand Master 

issued the dispensation to Washington Lodge, 

but that the Grand Lodge issued the dispensation 

to Clarksville Lodge . As we have 

noticed a similar statement from a Past Grand 

Secretary of Arkansas, they do not conform 

to the usual plan of the Grand Master issuing 

the dispensation and the Grand Lodge issuing 

the charter . However, this custom was quite 

general . 

The next attempt to form a Lodge at Post 

Arkansas was under the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, 

which granted a charter January 6 

1837, and a charter seems to have been gran 

to a Lodge at Little Rock on the same date, 

and when the capital was moved to Little 

Rock, Morning Star Lodge at Post Arkansas 

surrendered its charter . 

The Grand Master of Alabama granted a 

dispensation to Mt. Horeb Lodge at Washington 

in 1838 . 

Washington , No . R2, under a charter 

from the Grand L ge of Tennessee ; Western 

Star Lodge, No. 43, at Little Rock, under a 

charter of the Grand Lodge of Louisiana ; 

Morning Star Lodge, No . 42, at Post Arkansas, 

under a charter from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana 

; Mt . Horeb Lodge, U~ . D., under dispensation 

from the Grand Lodge of Alabama, met 

at Little Rock, November 21,1838 and formed 

the Grand Lodge of Arkansas . Ae combined 

membership is put at 100 . These Lodges took 

new charters and Washington Lodge became 

No . 1, Western Star No . 2, Morning Star No . 

3, and Mt. Horeb No. 4. The first two are in 

existence, but the last two are defunct . 

The Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons 

was organized April 28, 1851 by three Chapters 

located at Fayettville, Little Rock, and 

El 'Dorado, which had previously received 

charters from the General Grand Chapter of 

the United States . 

The Grand Council of Royal and Select 

Masters was established in the year 1860 . 

The Grand Commandery of the Order of 

the Temple was organized on March 23, 1872 . 

A Lodge, Council, Chapter, Council of 

Kadosh and Consistory of the Scottish Rite 

are established at Little Rock. 

Arklte Worship. The almost universal 

prevalence among the nations of antiquity of 

some tradition of a long past deluge, gave 

rise to certain mythological doctrines and religious 

ceremonies, to which has been given 

the name of arkite worship, which was very 

extensively diffused. The evidence of this is 

to be found in the sacred feeling which was 

entertained for the sacredness of high mountains, 

derived, it is supposed, from recollections 

of an Ararat, and from the presence in 

all the Mysteries of a basket, chest, or coffer, 

whose mystical character bore apparently a 

reference to the ark of Noah. On the subject 

of this arkite worship, Bryant, Faber, Higgins, 

Banier, and many other writers, have made 

learned investigations, which may be consulted 

with advantage by the Masonic archeologist 

. 

Ark Mariner, Royal, Jewel of. The 

jewel of this degree prefigures the teachings, 

which are unique, and draws their symbols 

from the sea, rain, ark, dove, olive-branch, 

and Rainbow . This last symbol, as El's sign, 

" overshadows " the ark, which really is the 

sign of Ishtar . The ark is said to have contained 

all the elements of Elohim's creative 

power, and in " about nine months and three 

days there came forth the pent-up energies of 

Maiya" ; her symbol is the dove with the 

mystic olive, which are sacred to her . The 

whole underlying thought is that of creation . 

See illustration on opposite page . 

Armenbiiehse. The poor-box; the name 

given by German Masons to the box in which 

collections of money are made at a Table- 

Lodge for the relief of poor brethren and their 

families .

ARMIES 

AROBA 79 

Armes. A corrupted form of Hermes 

found in the Lansdowne and some other old 

manuscripts . 

Armlger. 1 . A bearer of arms. The 

title given by heralds to the esquire who 

waited on a knight. 2 . The Sixth Degree of 

the Order of African Architects . 

on pivots. 

Arms of Masonry. Stow says that the 

Masons were incorporated as a company in 

the twelfth year of Henry IV ., 1412 . Their 

arms were granted to them, in 1472, by William 

Hawkesloe, Clarenceux King-at-Arms, 

and are azure 

castles argent ; 

on a chevron between three 

a pair of compasses somewhat 

extended, of the first . Crest, a castle of the 

second . They were adopted, subsequently 

by the Grand Lodge of England . The Atholl 

Armory. An apartment attached to the Grand Lodge objected to this as an unlawful 

asylum of a oommandery of Knights Templars, 

assumption by the Modern Grand Lodge of 

in which the swords and other parts of 

the costume of the knights are deposited for 

safe-keeping . 

Speculative Freemasons of the arms of the 

Operative Masons . They accordingly adopted 

another coat, which Dermott blazons as follows 

Armor. In English statutes, armor is 

: Quarterly per squares, counterchanged 

used for the whole apparatus of war ; offensive vert. In the first quarter, azure, a lion rampant, 

and defensive arms . In the Order of the or. In the second quarter, or, an ox passant 

Temple pieces of armor are used to a limited sable. In the third quarter, or, a man with 

extent. In the chivalric degrees of the Scottish 

Rite, in order to carry out the symbolism In the fourth quarter, azure, an eagle displayed 

hands erect proper, robed crimson and ermine. 

as well as to render effect to its dramas, armor or. Crest the holy ark of the covenant proper, 

pieces and articles for use of knights become supported by cherubim . Motto, Kodes la 

necessary, with mantling, crest, mottoes, etc . Adonai, that is, Holiness to the Lord. 

Some are herein enumerated : 

These arms are derived from the "tetrarchical" 

(as Sir Thos . Browne calls them), 

AILLETTES-Square shields for the shoulders 

. 

or general banners of the four principal tribes ; 

ANLACE-Short dagger worn at the girdle . for it is said that the twelve tribes, during their 

BALDRIC-Belt diagonally crossing the 

body. 

BATTLE-AxWeapon with ax-blade and 

spear-head . 

BEAVER-Front of helmet, which is raised 

to admit food and drink . 

BEAKER-The drinking-cup with mouthlip 

ḂELT-For body . Badge of knightly rank. 

BRAssART-Armor to protect the arm 

from elbow to shoulder. 

BUCKLER-A long shield for protecting the 

body . 

CORSELET-Breastplate . 

CREST-Ornament on helmet designating 

rank . 

CUIRAss-Backplate . 

FASCES-Armor for the thighs, hung from 

the corselet . 

GADLIxo--,.Sharp metallic knuckles on 

gauntlet. 

GAVNTL.r-Mailed gloves. 

GoRGET-Armor for the neck . 

HALBERD-Long-pole ax . 

HAUBERK-Shirt of mail, of rings or scales . 

HELMET or CASQUE--Armor for the head . 

JAMBEUx-Armor for the legs . 

JUroN-Sleeveless jacket, to the hips . 

LANcE-Long spear with metallic head and 

pennon . 

MACE-Heavy, short staff of metal, ending 

with spiked ball. 

MANTLE---Outer cloak . 

MoRIoN-Head armor without vizor . 

PENNON-A pennant, or short streamer, 

bifurcated . 

PLUME-The designation of knighthood . 

SALLET-Light helmet for foot-soldiers . 

SPEAR-Sword, spur, shield . 

VIZOR-Front of helmet (slashed), moving 

passage through the wilderness, were encamped 

in a hollow square, three on each side, 

as follows : Judah, Zebulun, and Issachar, in 

the East, under the general banner of Judah ; 

Dan, Asher, and Naphtali, in the North, under 

the banner of Dan ; Ephraim, Manasseh, 

and Benjamin, in the West, under the banner 

of Ephraim ; and Reuben, Simeon, and Gad, 

in the South, under Reuben . See Banners. 

Aroba . Pledge, covenant, agreement . 

(Latin, Arrhabo, a token or pledge . Hebrew, 

Arab, which is the root of Arubbah, surety, 

hostage .) This important word, in the Fourteenth 

Degree of the Scottish Rite, is used 

when the initiate partakes of the "Ancient 

Aroba," the pledge or covenant of friendship, 

by eating and drinking with his new companions 

. The word is of greater import than 

that in mere hospitality . The word 

"aroba 

implied 

nowhere in English works, 

and seems to have been omitted by Masonic 

writers. The root " arab " is one of the oldest

80 ARRAS 

ASCENSION 

in the Hebrew language, and means to interweave 

or to mingle, to exchange, to become 

surety for anyone, and to pledge even the 

life of one person for another, or the strongest 

pledge that can be given . Judah pleads with 

Israel to let Benjamin go with him to be presented 

in Egypt to Jose~ ph, as the latter had 

requested . He says : "Send the lad with me - 

I will be surety for him" (Gen. xliii . 9) ; and 

before Joseph he makes the same remark in 

Gen . xliv. 32. Job, in chap . xvii . 3, appealing 

to God, says : "Put me in a surety with 

thee ; who is he that will strike hands with 

me? " (See also 1 Sam . xvii . 18 .) In its pure 

form, the word " arubbah " occurs only once 

in the Old Testament (Prov . xvii . 18) : "A 

man void of understanding striketh hands, and 

becometh surety in the presence of his friend ." 

In Latin, Plautus makes use of the following 

phrase : "Hunt arrhabonem amorisame accipe ." 

Arras, Primordial Chapter of. Arras is 

a town in France in the department of Pas de 

Calais, where, in the year 1747, Charles 

Edward Stuart, the Pretender, is said to have 

established a Sovereign Primordial and Metropolitan 

Chapter of Rosicrucian Freemasons . A 

portion of the charter of this body is given by 

Ragon in his Orthodoxie Maconique . In 1853, 

the Count de Hamel, prefect of the department, 

discovered an authentic copy in parchment, 

of this document hearing the date of April 15 

1747, which he deposited in the departmental 

archives . This document is as follows : 

"We, Charles Edward, king of England, 

France, Scotland, and Ireland, and as such 

Substitute Grand Master of the Chapter of 

H ., known by the title of Knight of the Eagle 

and Pelican, and since our sorrows and misfortunes 

by that of Rose Croix, wishing to 

testify our gratitude to the Masons of Artois, 

and the officers of the city of Arras, for the 

numerous marks of kindness which they in 

conjunction with the officers of the garrison 

of Arras have lavished upon us, and their 

attachment to our person, shown during a 

residence of six months in that city, 

" We have in favor of them created and 

erected, and do create and erect by the present 

bull, in the aforesaid city of Arras, a Sovereign 

Primordial Chapter of Rose Croix, under the 

distinctive title of Scottish Jacobite, (tcosse 

Jacobite,) to be ruled and governed by the 

Knights Lagneau and Robesp ierre ; Avocats 

Hazard, and his two sons, physicians ; J . B. 

Lucet, our upholsterer, and Jer8me Cellier, 

our clock-maker, giving to them and to their 

successors the power not only to make knights, 

but even to create a Chapter in whatever town 

they may think fit, provided that two Chapters 

shall not be created in the same town 

however populous it may be . 

"And that credit may be given to our 

present bull, we have signed it with our hand 

and caused to be affixed thereunto the secret 

seal, and countersigned by the secretary of our 

cabinet, Thursday, 15th of the second month 

of the year of the incarnation, 1747 . 

"CHARLES EDWARD STUART. 

"Countersigned, BERKLEY ." 

This Chapter created a few others, and in 

1780 established one in Paris, under the distinctive 

title of Chapter of Arras, in the valley 

of Paris . It united itself to the Grand Orient 

of France on the 27th of December, 1801 . It 

was declared First Suffragan of the Scottish 

Jacobite Chapter, with the right to constitute 

others . The Chapter established at Arras 

by the Pretender was named the "Eagle and 

Pelican," and Oliver (Orig . of R . A ., p 22) 

from this seeks to find, perhaps justifiabl , a 

connection between it and the R . S . Y. C . S. 

of the Royal Order of Scotland . [The story 

of the establishment of this Chapter by the 

Pretender is doubted by some writers and it 

certainly lacks confirmation ; even his joining 

the Craft at all is disputed by several who have 

carefully studied the subject.-E . L . H .] 

Arrest of Charter. To arrest the charter 

of a Lodge is a technical phrase by which is 

meant to suspend the work of a Lodge, to 

prevent it from holding its usual communications, 

and to forbid it to transact any business 

or to do any work . A Grand Master cannot 

revoke the warrant of a Lodge ; but if, in his 

opinion, the good of Masonry or any other 

sufficient cause requires it, he may suspend 

the operation of the warrant until the next 

communication of the Grand Lodge, which 

body is alone competent to revise or approve of 

his action . 

Ars Quatuor Coronatorum is the name 

under which the Transactions of the Lodge 

Quatuor Coronati, No . 2076, London, the 

premier literary Lodge of the world, are published 

in annual volumes, commencing with 

1888 . 

Arthuslus, Gotthardus . A learned native 

of Dantzic, Rector of the Gymnasium at 

Frank fort-on-the-Main, who wrote many 

works on Rosicrucianism, under the assumed 

name of Irenmus Agnostus. (See Agnostus.) 

Artisan, Chief. An officer in the Council 

of Knights of Constantinople . 

Art, Royal . See Royal Art. 

Arts. In the Masonic phrase "arts, parts, 

and points of the Mysteries of Masonry " ; 

arts means the knowledge, or things made 

known, parts the degrees into which Masonry 

is divided, and points the rules and usA,ges . 

(See Parts, and also Points .) 

Arts, Liberal. See Liberal Arts and 

Sciences . 

Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of . 

Tradition places Arundel as the Grand Master 

of English Freemasons from 1633 to 1635 . This 

is in accordance with Anderson and Preston,, . 

Aryan . One of the three historical di-i 

visions of religion-the other two being the ! . 

Turanian and the Shemitic . It produced . 

Brahmanism, Buddhism, and the Code of 

Zoroaster. 

Asarota . A variegated pavement used for 

flooring in temples and ancient edifices . 

Ascension Day . Also called Holy Thursday 

. A festival of the Christian church held 

in commemoration of the ascension of our 

Lord forty days after Easter. It is celebrated 

as a feast day by Chapters of Rose Croix .

ASES ASHMOLE 81 

Ases. The twelve gods and as many god- Masons' company this present year ; Mr. 

desses in the Scandinavian mythology. Thomas Shorthofe, Mr . Thomas Shadbolt, 

Ashe, D.D ., Rev . Jonathan . A literary Waindsford Esq., Mr . Nicholas Young, 

plagiarist who resided in Bristol, England . In Mr John Shorthofe, Mr . William Hamon, 

1814 he published The Masonic Manual ; or, Mr . John Thompson, and Mr . William Stan- 

Lectures on Freemasonry. Ashe does not, it ton . We all dyned at the halfe Moone 

is true, pretend to originality, but abstains Taverne in Cheapeside, at a noble dinner prefrom 

giving credit to Hutchinson, from whom pared at the charge of the new Accepted 

he has taken at least two-thirds of his book . Masons ."* 

A second edition appeared in 1825, and in It is to be regretted that the intention ex- 

1843 an edition was published by Spencer, pressed by Ashmole to write a history of Freewith 

valuable notes by Dr . Oliver . masonry was never carried into effect . His 

Asher, Dr . Carl Wilhelm . The first laborious research as evinced in his exhaustive 

translator into German of the Halliwell or work on the Order of the Garter, would lead us 

" Regius " MS ., which he published at Ham- to have expected from his antiquarian pen a 

burg, in 1842, under the title of Aelteste Ur- record of the origin and early progress of our 

kunde der Freimaurerei in England . This Institution more valuable than any that we 

work contains both the original English docu- now possess . The following remarks on this 

ment and the German translation . 

subject, contained in a letter from Dr. Knipe, 

Ashlar. "Freestone as it comes out of the of Christ Church, Oxford, to the publisher of 

quarry ."Bailey . In Speculative Masonry Ashmole's Life, while it enables us to form 

we adopt the ashlar in two different states, as some estimate of the loss that Masonic literasymbols 

in the Apprentice's Degree. The ture has suffered, supplies interesting par- 

Rough Ashlar, or stone in its rude and un- ticulars which are worthy of preservation . 

polished condition, is emblematic of man in "As to the ancient society of Freemasons, 

his natural state-ignorant, uncultivated, and concerning whom you are desirous of knowing 

vicious . But when education has exerted its what may be known with certainty, I shall 

wholesome influence in expanding his intellect, only tell you, that if our worthy Brother, E . 

restraining his passions, and purifying his life, Ashmole, Esq ., had executed his intended 

he then is represented by the Perfect Ashlar, design, our Fraternity had been as much 

which, under the skilful hands of the workmen, obliged to him as the Brethren of the most 

has been smoothed, and squared, and fitted noble Order of the Garter . I would not have 

for its place in the building. In the older you surprised at this expression, or think it 

lectures of the eighteenth century the Perfect all too assuming. The sovereigns of that Order 

Ashlar is not mentioned, but its place was have not disdained our fellowship, and there 

supplied by the Broached Thurnel . 

have been times when emperors were also 

Ashmole, Ellas . A celebrated antiquary, Freemasons . What from Mr . E . Ashmole's 

and the author of, among other works, the collection I could gather was, that the report 

well-known History of the Order of the Garter, of our society's taking rise from a bull granted 

and founder of the Ashmolean Museum at by the Pope, in the reign of Henry III ., to 

Oxford . He was born at Litchfield, in Eng- some Italian architects to travel over all 

land, on the 23d of May, 1617, and died at Lon- Europe, to erect chapels, was ill-founded . 

don on the 18th of May,1692 . He was made a Such a bull there was, and those architects 

Freemason on the 16th of October, 1646, and were Masons ; but this bull, in the opinion of 

gives the following account of his reception in the learned Mr. Ashmole, was confirmative 

his Diary, p . 303. only, and did not by any means create our 

"1646 . Oct : 16 . 4 4 30' p . m ., I was Fraternity, or even establish them in this 

made a Freemason at Warrington, in Lanca- kingdom. But as to the time and manner of 

shire, with Colonel Henry Mainwaring, of that establishment, something I shall relate 

Karincham, in Cheshire . The names of those from the same collections . St . Alban the 

that were then of the Lodge, Mr. Richard Proto-Martyr of England, established Ma- 

Penket Warden Mr. James Collier Mr. sonry here ; and from his time it flourished 

Rich : Sankey, henry Littler, John hllam, more or less, according as the world went, 

Rich : Ellam and Hugh Brewer ." 

down to the days of King Athelstan, who, for 

In another place he speaks of his attendance the sake of his brother Edwin, granted the 

at a meeting (Diary, p . 362), and thirty-six Masons a charter under our Norman princes . 

years afterward makes the following entry : They frequently received extraordinary marks 

"1682. March 10 . About 5 H . m ., I of royal favor. There is no doubt to be made, 

received a summons to appear at a Lodge to that the skill of Masons, which was always 

be held the next day at Masons' Hall, London . transcendent, even in the most barbarous 

"11 . Accordingly, I went, and about times,-their wonderful kindness and attach- 

Noone were admitted into the Fellowship of ment to each other, how different soever in 

Freemasons, Sir William Wilson, knight, condition, and their inviolable fidelity in keep- 

Capt. Richard Borthwick, Mr . William Wood- ing religiously their secret,-must expose them 

man, Mr . William Wise . 

in ignorant, troublesome, and suspicious times 

"I was the senior fellow among them, (it 

being thirty-five years since I was admitted ;) *These entries have been reproduced in facthere 

was present besides myself the Fellowes 1 simile in vol . XI of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 

afternamed : Mr . Thomas Wise, Master of the 1(1898) .

82 ASIA 

ASSASSINS 

to a vast variety of adventures, according to 

the different fate of parties and other alterations 

in government . By the way, I shall 

note that the Masons were always loyal, which 

exposed them to great severities when power 

wore the trappings of justice, and those who 

committed treason punished true men as 

traitors . Thus, in the third year of the reign 

of Henry VI ., an act of Parliament was 

passed to abolish the society of Masons, and 

to hinder, under grievous penalties, the holding 

Chapters, Lodges, or other regular assemblies . 

Yet this act was afterwards repealed, and even 

before that, King Henry VI., and several of 

the principal lords of his court, became fellows 

of the Craft ." 

Asia. In the French Rite of Adoption, the 

East end of the Lodge is called Asia . 

Asia, Initiated Knights and Brothers 

of. This Order was introduced in Berlin, or, 

as some say, in Vienna, in the year 1780, by a 

schism of several members of the German 

Rose Croix . They adopted a mixture of 

Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan ceremonies, 

to indicate, as Ragon supposes, their 

entire religious tolerance . Their object was 

the study of the natural sciences and the 

search for the universal panacea to prolong 

life. Thory charges them with this ; but may 

it not have been, as with the Alchemists, 

merely a symbol of immortality? They forbade 

all inquiries into the art of transmutation 

of metals . The Grand Synedrion, properly 

the Grand Sanhedrim, which consisted of 

seventy-two members and was the head of the 

Order, had its seat at Vienna . The Order was 

founded on the three symbolic degrees, and 

attached to them nine others, as follows : 4. 

Seekers ; 5 . Sufferers ; 6 . Initiated Knights 

and Brothers of Asia in Europe ; 7. Masters 

and Sages ; 8 . Royal Priests, or True Brothers 

of Rose Croix ; 9 . Melchizedek. The Order no 

longer exists . Many details of it will be 

found in Luehet'sEssai sur les Illumines . 

Asia, Perfect Initiates of. A rite of very 

little importance, consisting of seven degrees, 

and said to have been invented at Lyons . A 

vervoluminous manuscript, translated from 

the - German, was sold at Paris, in 1821, to M . 

Bailleul, and came into the possession of 

Ragon, who reduced its size, and, with the 

assistance of Des Etangs, modified it. I 

have no knowledge that it was ever worked . 

Ask, Seek, Knock . In referring to the 

passage of Matthew vii . 7, "Ask, and it shall 

be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 

and it shall be opened unto you," Dr . Clarke 

says : "These three words-ask, seek, knockinclude 

the ideas of want, loss and earnestness." 

The application made to the passage theologically 

is equally appropriate to it in a Masonic 

Lodge . You ask for acceptance, you seek 

for light, you knock for initiation, which includes 

the other two . 

Aspirant . One who eagerly seeks to know 

or to attain something . Thus, Warburton 

speaks of "the aspirant to the Mysteries ." 

It is applied also to one about to be initiated 

into Masonry. There seems, however, to be 

a shade of difference in meaning between the 

words candidate and aspirant. The candidate 

is one who asks for admission ; so called from 

the Lat . candidatus "clothed in white," because 

candidates for office at Rome wore a 

white dress . The aspirant is one already 

elected and in process of initiation, and coming 

from aspiro, to seek eagerly, refers to the 

earnestness with which he prosecutes his 

search for light and truth . 

Assassins. The Ishmaelites, or Assassins, 

constituted a sect or confraternity, which was 

founded by Hassan Sabah, about the year 

1090, in Persia . The name is derived, it is 

supposed, from their immoderate use of the 

plant haschish, or henbane, which produced 

a delirious frenzy . The title given to the chief 

of the Order was Sheikh-el-.Jebel, which has 

been translated the "Old Man of the Mountain," 

but which Higgins has shown (Anacal ., 

i ., 700) to mean literally "The Sage of the 

Kabbala or Traditions ." Von Hammer has 

written a History of the Assassins, but his 

opposition to secret societies has led him to 

speak with so much prejudice that, although 

his historical statements are interesting, his 

philosophical deductions have to be taken 

with many grains of allowance . Godfrey 

Higgins has probably erred on the other side, 

and by a too ready adherence to a preconceived 

theory has, in his Anacalypsis, confounded 

them with the Templars, whom he 

considers as the precursors of the Freemasons . 

In this, as in most things, the middle course 

appears to be the most truthful . 

The Assassins were a secret society that is 

to say, they had a secret esoteric doctrine, 

which was imparted only to the initiated . 

Hammer says that they had a graduated 

series of initiations, the names of which he 

gives as Apprentices, Fellows, and Masters ; 

they had, too, an oath of passive obedience, 

and resembled, he asserts, in many respects, 

the secret societies that subsequently existed 

in Europe. They were governed by a Grand 

Master and Priors, and had regulations and 

a special religious code, in all of which Von 

Hammer finds a close resemblance to the Templars, 

the Hospitalers, and the Teutonic 

Knights . Between the Assassins and the 

Templars history records that there were 

several amicable transactions not at all consistent 

with the religious vows of the latter 

and the supposed religious faith of the former, 

and striking coincidences of feeling, of which 

Higgins has not been slow to avail himself in 

his attempt to prove the close connection, if 

not absolute identity, of the two Orders . It is 

most probable, as Sir John Malcolm contends, 

that they were a race of Sofis, the teachers 

of the secret doctrine of Mohammed . Von 

Hammer admits that they produced a great 

number of treatises on mathematics and 

jurisprudence ; and, forgetting for a time his 

bigotry and his prejudice, he attributes to 

Hassan, their founder, a profound knowledge 

of philosophy and mathematical and metaphysical 

sciences, and an enlightened spirit 

under whose influence the civilization of

ASSASSINS 

ASSOCIATES 83 

Persia attained a high degree ; so that during 

his reign of forty-six years the Persian literature 

attained a point of excellence beyond that 

of Alexandria under the Ptolemies, and of 

France under Francis I . The old belief that 

they were a confederacy of murderers-whence 

we have taken our English word assassinsmust 

now be abandoned as a figment of the 

credulity of past centuries, and we must be content 

to look upon them as a secret society of 

philosophers, whose political relations, however, 

merged them into a dynasty . If we 

interpret Freemasonry as a generic term, 

signifying a philosophic sect which teaches 

truth by a mystical initiation and secret symbols, 

then Higgms was not very far in error in 

calling them the Freemasons of the East . 

Assassins of the Third Degree . There 

is in Freemasonry a legend of certain unworthy 

Craftsmen who entered into a conspiracy 

to extort from a distinguished brother 

a secret of which he was the possessor . The 

legend is altogether symbolic, and when its 

symbolism is truly comprehended, becomes 

surpassingly beautiful . By those who look 

at it as having the pretension of an historical 

fact, it is sometimes treated with indifference, 

and sometimes considered an absurdity . But 

it is not thus that the legends and symbols of 

Masonry must be read, if we would learn 

their true spirit . To behold the goddess in 

all her glorious beauty, the veil that conceals 

her statue must be withdrawn . Masonic 

writers who have sought to interpret the symbolism 

of the legend of the conspiracy of the 

three assassins, have not agreed always in the 

interpretation, although they have finally 

arrived at the same result, namely, that it has 

a spiritual signification . Those who trace 

Speculative Masonry to the ancient solar 

worship, of whom Ragon may be considered as 

the exponent, find in this legend a symbol of 

the conspiracy of the three winter months to 

destroy the life-giving heat of the sun . Those 

who, like the disciples of the Rite of Strict 

Observance, trace Masonry to a Templar 

origin, explain the legend as referring to the 

conspiracy of the three renegade knights who 

falsely accused the Order, and thus aided King 

Philip and Pope Clement to abolish Templarism, 

and to slay its Grand Master. Hutchinson 

and Oliver, who labored to give a Christian 

interpretation to all the symbols of Masonry, 

referred the legend to the crucifixion of 

the Messiah, the type of which is, of course, 

the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain . 

Others, of whom the Chevalier Ramsay was 

the leader, sought to give it a political significance 

; and, making Charles I . the type 

of the Builder, symbolized Cromwell and 

his adherents as the conspirators. The Masonic 

scholars whose aim has been to identify 

the modern system of Freemasonry with the 

Ancient Mysteries, and especially with the 

Egyptian, which they supposed to be the germ 

as Ahriman contending against Ormuzd. And 

lastly, in the Philosophic degrees, the myth is 

interpreted as signifying the war of Falsehood, 

Ignorance, and Superstition against Truth . 

Of the supposed names of the three Assassins, 

there is hardly any end of variations, for they 

materially differ in all the principal rites. 

Thus, we have Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum in 

the York and American Rites . In the Adonhiramite 

system we have Romvel, Gravelot, 

and Abiram . In the Scottish Rite we find the 

names given in the old rituals as Jubelum 

Akirop, sometimes Abiram, Jubelo Romvel, 

and Jubela Gravelot . Schterke and Oterfiit 

are in some of the German rituals, while other 

Scottish rituals have Abiram, Romvel, and 

Hobhen. In all these names there is manifest 

corruption, and the patience of many 

Masonic scholars has been well-nigh exhausted 

in seeking for some plausible and 

satisfactory derivation . 

Assembly . The meetings of the Craft during 

the operative period in the Middle Ages, 

were called "assemblies," which appear to 

have been tantamount to the modern Lodges 

and they are constantly spoken of in the Old' 

Constitutions . The word assembly was also 

often used in these documents to indicate a 

larger meeting of the whole Craft, which was 

equivalent to the modem Grand Lodge, and 

which was held annually. The York MS ., 

No . 1, about the year 1600, says " that Edwin 

procured of ye King his father a charter and 

commission to hold every yeare ap assembly 

wheresoever they would within ye realm of 

England," and this statement, whether true 

or false, is repeated in all the old records . 

Preston says, speaking of that medieval 

period, that "a sufficient number of Masons 

met together within a certain district, with 

the consent of the sheriff or chief magistrate 

of the place, were empowered at this time to 

make Masons," etc . To this assembly, every 

Mason was bound, when summoned, to 

appear . Thus, in the Harleian MS ., circa 

1660, it is ordained that "every Master and 

Fellow come to the Assembly, if it be within 

five miles about him, if he have any warning ." 

The term "General Assembly," to indicate 

the annual meeting, is said to have been first 

used at the meeting, held on December 27, 

1663, as quoted by Preston . In the Old 

Constitutions printed in 1722 by Roberts 

and which claims to be taken from a MS . of 

the eighteenth century, the term used is 

"Yearly Assembly ." Anderson speaks of an 

Old Constitution which used the word 

"General ;" but his quotations are not always 

verbally accurate . 

Assistance. See Aid and Assistance . 

Associates of the Temple . During the 

Middle Ages, many persons of rank, who were 

desirous of participating in the spiritual advantages 

supposed to be enjoyed by the 

Templars in consequence of the good works 

of all the others, interpret the conspirators as done by the Fraternity, but who were unwilling 

to submit to the discipline of the brethren 

the symbol of the Evil Principle, or Typhon, 

slaying the Good Principle or Osiris ; or, when made valuable donations to the Order, and 

they refer to the Zoroastio'Mysteriea of Persia, were, in consequence, admitted into a sort of

84 ASSOCIATION 

ATHEIST 

spiritual connection with it. These persona 

were termed "Associates of the Temple ." 

The . custom was most probably confined to 

England, and many "of these Associates" 

had monuments and effigies erected to them 

in the Temple Church at London . 

Association . Although an association is 

properly the union of men into a society for 

a common purpose, the word is scarcely ever 

applied to the Order of Freemasonry . Yet 

its employment, although unusual, would not 

be incorrect, for Freemasonry is an association 

of men for a common purpose. Washington 

uses the term when he calls Freemasonry 

"an association whose principles lead 

to purity of morals, and are beneficial of 

action ." (Letter to G . L . of So. Ca.) 

Assyrian Architecture . The discovery in 

1882 of the remains of a town, close to, and 

north of, Nineveh, built by Sargon, about 721 

Bs cc in size about a mile square, with its 

angles facing the cardinal points, and the 

enclosure containing the finest specimens of 

their architecture, revived much interest in 

archeologists . The chief place of regard is 

the royal palace, which was like unto a city 

of itself, everything being on a colossal scale . 

The walls of the town were 45 feet thick . The 

inclined approach to the palace was flanked by 

strangely formed bulls from 15 to 19 feet high . 

There were terraces, courts, and passage-ways 

to an innermost square of 150 feet, surrounded 

by state apartments and temples. The Hall 

of Judgment was prominent, as also the astronomical 

observatory. All entrances to great 

buildings were ornamented by colossal animals 

and porcelain decorations and inscriptions . 

Astrwa . The Grand Lodge established in 

Russia on the 30th of August, 1815, assumed 

the title of the Grand Lodge of Astrxa . It 

held its Grand East at St . Petersburg, and 

continued in existence until 1822, when the 

Czar issued a Ukase, dated August 1, 1822, 

closing all Lodges in Russia and forbidding 

them to reopen at any future time . 

Astrology . A science demanding the 

respect of the scholar, notwithstanding its 

designation as a "black art," and, in a reflective 

sense, an occult science ; a system of divination 

foretelling results by the relative positions 

of the planets and other heavenly bodies 

toward the earth . Men of eminence have 

adhered to the doctrines of astrology as a 

science . It is a study well considered in, and 

forming an important part of, the ceremonies 

of the "Philosophus," or fourth grade of the 

First Order of the Society of Rosicrucians . 

Astrology has been deemed the twin science 

of astronomy, grasping knowledge from the 

heavenly bodies, and granting a proper understanding 

of many of the startling forces in 

nature . It is claimed that the constellations 

of the zodiac govern the earthly animals, and 

that every star has its peculiar nature, property, 

and function, the seal and character of 

which it impresses through its rays upon 

plants, minerals, and animal life. This science 

was known to the ancients as the "divine 

art." (See Magic .) 

Astronomy. The science which instructs 

us in the laws that govern the heavenly bodies . 

Its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity ; for 

the earliest inhabitants of the earth must have 

been attracted by the splendor of the glorious 

firmament above them, and would have 

sought in the motions of its luminaries for the 

readiest and most certain method of measuring 

time . With astronomy the system of 

Freemasonry is intimately connected . From 

that science many of our most significant 

emblems are borrowed. The Lodge itself is 

a representation of the world ; it is adorned 

with the images of the sun and moon, whose 

regularity and precision furnish a lesson of 

wisdom and prudence ; its pillars of strength 

and establishment have been compared to the 

two columns which the ancients placed at the 

equinoctial points as supporters of the arch 

of heaven ; the blazing star, which was among 

the Egyptians a symbol of Anubis, or the dogstar, 

whose rising foretold the overflowing of 

the Nile, shines in the East ; while the clouded 

canopy is decorated with the beautiful 

Pleiades . The connection between our Order 

and astronomy is still more manifest in the 

spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, where, the 

pure principles of our system being lost, the 

symbolic instruction of the heavenly bodies 

gave place to the corrupt Sabean worship of 

the sun, and moon, and stars-a worship 

whose influences are seen in all the mysteries 

of Paganism . 

Asylum. During the session of a Commandery 

of Knights Templars, a part of the 

room is called the asylum; the word has hence 

been adopted, by the figure synecdoche, to 

signify the place of meeting of a Commandcry. 

Asylum for Aged Freemasons . The 

Asylum for Aged and Decayed Freemasons is 

a magnificent edifice at Croydon in Surrey, 

England. The charity was established by 

Dr . Crucefix, after sixteen years of herculean 

toil, such as few men but himself could have 

sustained . He did not live to see it in full 

operation, but breathed his last at the very 

time when the cope-stone was placed on the 

building. (See Annuities .) 

Atelier. The French thus call the place 

where the Lodge meets, or the Lodge room . 

The word signifies a worksho or place where 

several workmen are assembled under the 

same master . The word is applied in French 

Masonry not only to the lace of meeting of a 

Lodge, but also to that ofpa Chapter, Council, 

or any other Masonic body . Bazot says 

(Man . Mason, 65) that atelier is more particularly 

applied to the Table-Lodge, or Lodge 

when at banquet, but that the word is also 

used to designate any reunion of the Lodge . 

Atheist . One who does not believe in the 

existence of God. Such a state of mind can 

only arise from the ignorance of stupidity or a 

corruption of principle, since the whole universe 

is filled with the moral and physical 

proofs of a Creator . He who does not look to 

a superior and superintending power as his 

maker and his judge, is without that coercive

ATITELSTAN 

AUFSEHER 85 

principle of salutary fear which should prompt 

him to do good and to eschew evil, and his 

oath can, of necessity, be no stronger than his 

word . Masons, looking to the dangerous 

tendency of such a tenet, have wisely discouraged 

it, by declaring that no atheist can 

be admitted to participate in their Fraternity ; 

and the better to carry this law into effect, 

every candidate, before passing through an 

of the ceremonies of initiation, is required, 

publicly and solemnly, to declare his trust in 

God . 

Athelstan . The grandson of the great 

Alfred ascended the throne of England in 

924, and died in 940. The Old Constitutions 

describe him as a great patron of Masonry . 

Thus, one of them, the Roberts MS ., printed 

in 1722, and claiming to be five hundred years 

old, says : "He began to build many Abbeys, 

Monasteries, and other religious houses, as 

also castles and divers Fortresses for defence 

of his realm. He loved Masons more than 

his father; he greatly study'd Geometry, and 

sent into many lands for men expert in the 

science. He gave them a very large charter 

to hold a yearly assembly, and power to correct 

offenders in the said science ; and the king 

himself caused a General Assembly of all 

Masons in his realm, at York, and there made 

many Masons, and gave them a deep charge 

for observation of all such articles as belonged 

unto Masonry, and delivered them the said 

Charter to keep ." 

Atholl Masons . The "Ancient" Masons 

are sometimes called "Atholl" Masons, because 

they were presided over by the Third 

Duke of Atholl as their Grand Master from 

1771 to 1774, and by the Fourth Duke from 

1775 to 1781, and also from 1791 to 1813 . 

(See Ancient Masons.) 

Atossa. The daughter of King Cyrus of 

Persia, Queen of Cambyses, and afterward of 

Darius Hystaspes, to whom she bore Xerxes . 

Referred to in the degree of Prince of Jerusalem, 

the Sixteenth of the Scottish Rite . 

Attendance . See Absence . 

Attouchement. The name given by the 

French Masons to what the English call the 

1 

Attributes. The collar and jewel appropriate 

to an officer are called his attributes . 

The working tools and implements of Masonry 

are also called its attributes . The word in 

these senses is much more used by French 

than by English Masons. 

Atwood, Henry C . At one time of considerable 

notoriety in the Masonic history of 

NewYork . He was born in Connecticut about 

the beginning of the present century, and removed 

to the city of New York about 1825, 

in which year he organized a Lodge for the 

purpose of introducing the system taught by 

Jeremy L . Cross, of whom Atwood was a 

pupil . This system met with great oppositipn 

from some of the most distinguished 

Masons of the State, who favored the ancient 

ritual, which had existed before the system of 

Webb had been invented, from whom Cross 

received his lectures . Atwood, by great smart- 

ness and untiring energy, succeeded in making 

the system which he taught eventually popular. 

He took great interest in MasonT and 

being intellectually clever, although not 

learned, he collected a great number of admirers, 

while the tenacity with which he maintained 

his opinions, however unpopular they 

might be, secured for him as many enemies . 

He was greatly instrumental in establishing, 

in 1837, the schismatic body known as the 

St . John's Grand Lodge, and was its Grand 

Master at the time of its union, in 1850, with 

the legitimate Grand Lodge of New York . 

Atwood edited a small Masonic periodical 

called The Sentinel, which was remarkable for 

the virulent and unmasonic tone of its articles . 

He was also the author of a Masonic Monitor 

of some pretensions. He died in 1860 . 

Atys. The Mysteries of Atys in Phrygia, 

and those of Cybele his mistress, like their 

worship, much resembled those of Adonis and 

Bacchus, Osiris and Isis . Their Asiatic origin 

is universally admitted, and was with great 

plausibility claimed by Phrygia, which contested 

the palm of antiquity with Egypt . 

They, more than any other people, mingled 

allegory with their religious worship, and were 

great inventors of fables ; and their sacred traditions 

as to Cybele and Atys, whom all admit 

to be Phrygian gods, were very various . In 

all, as we learn from Julius Firmicus, they 

represented by allegory the phenomena of 

nature, and the succession of physical facts 

under the veil of a marvelous history . 

Their feasts occurred at the equinoxes, 

commencing with lamentation, mourning, 

groans, and pitiful cries for the death of Atys, 

and ending with rejoicings at his restoration 

to life . 

" Audi, Vide, Tace ." (Hear, see, and be 

silent.) A motto frequently found on Masonic 

medals, and often appropriately used in 

Masonic documents . It was adopted as its 

motto by the United Grand Lodge of England 

at the union between the "Ancients" 

and the "Moderns " in 1813. 

Auditor. An officer in the Supreme Council 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite 

for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United 

States. His duty is, with the Committee on Finance, 

to examine and report on the accounts of 

the Inspector and other officers. This duty of 

auditing the accounts of the Secretary and 

Treasurer is generally entrusted, in Masonic 

bodies, to a special committee appointed for 

the purpose . In the Grand Lodge of England, 

the accounts are audited annually by a 

professional auditor, who must be a Master 

Mason . 

Auditors . The first class of the secret 

system adopted by the Christians in their 

early days. The second class were Catechumens, 

and the third were The Faithful . 

Aufseher. The German name for the 

Warden of a Lodge. The Senior Warden is 

called Erste Aufseher, and the Junior Warden, 

Zweite Aufseher. The word literally 

means an overseer. Its Masonic application 

is technical .

86 AUGER 

AUSTRIA 

Auger. An implement used as a symbol 

in the Ark Mariners Degree . 

Augustine, St . See Saint Augustine . 

Augustus William, Prince of Prussia . 

Born in 1722, died in 1758 . Brother of Frederick 

the Great, and father of King Frederick 

William II . A member of Lodge "Drei 

Weltkugeln " Berlin . 

Aum . A mystic syllable among the Hindus, 

signifying the Supreme God of Gods, 

which the Brahmans, from its awful and sacred 

meaning, hesitate to pronounce aloud, 

and in doing so place one of their hands before 

the mouth so as to deaden the sound . 

This triliteral name of God, which is as sacred 

among the Hindus as the Tetragrammatain 

is among the Jews is composed of three Sanskrit 

letters, souncfing AUM . The first letter, 

A, stands for the Creator ; the second, U, for 

the Preserver ; and the third, M, for the Destroyer, 

or Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva . Benfey, 

in his Sanskrit-English Dictionary, defines the 

word as "a particle of reminiscence " ; and 

this may explain the Brahmanical saying, 

that a Brahman beginning or ending the reading 

of a part of the Veda or Sacred Books, 

must always pronounce, to himself, the syllable 

AUM ; for unless that syllable precede, his 

learning will slip away from him, and unless 

it follow, nothing will be long retained . An 

old passage in the Parana says, "All the rites 

ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices to fire, 

and all sacred purifications, shall pass away, 

but the word AUM shall never pass away, for 

it is the symbol of the Lord of all things ." 

The word has been indifferently spelled, O'M, 

AOM, and AUM ; but the last is evidently the 

most proper, as the second letter is 00 = U 

in the Sanskrit alphabet . 

Aumont . Said to have been the successor 

of Molay as Grand Master, and hence called 

the Restorer of the Order of the Templars . 

There is a tradition, altogether fabulous, however, 

which states that he, with seven other 

Templars, fled, after the dissolution of the 

Order, into Scotland, disguised as Operative 

Masons, and there secretly and under another 

name founded a new Order ; and to preserve 

as much as possible the ancient name of Templars, 

as well as to retain the remembrance 

of the clothing of Masons, in which disguise 

they had fled, they chose the name of Freemasons, 

and thus founded Freemasonry . 

The society thus formed, instead of conquering 

or rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem, was to 

erect symbolical temples. This is one of the 

forms of the Templar theory of the origin of 

Freemasonry . 

Aurora . In Hebrew the light is called Aur, 

and in its dual capacity Aurim . Hence Urim, 

lights-as, Thme, Thummim perfections . 

Ra is the sun, the symbolic god of the Egyptians, 

and Ouro, royalty. Hence we have 

Aur, Ouro, Ra, which is the double symbolic 

capacity of "Light ." Referring to the Urim 

and Thummim, Re is physical and intellectual 

light, while Thme is the divinity of truth 

and justice . 

Aurora is the color of the baldrio worn by 

the brethren in the Sixteenth De of the 

Scottish Rite, which in the legend is ee said to 

have been presented by King Darius to the 

captive Zerubbabel on presentation of his 

liberty, and that of all his people, who had 

been slaves in Babylon for seventy years . 

Auserwahlten. German for Elu or Elect . 

Austin . See Saint Augustine. 

Australasia . The first Masonic Lodge 

in this region was held in 1803 at Sydney, 

but was suppressed by the Governor, and it 

was not until the year 1820 that the parent 

Lodge of Australasia was warranted to meet 

at Sydney by the Grand Lodge of Ireland ; it 

is now No . 1 on the New South Wales register 

and named the "Australian Social Mother 

Lodge." After that many Lodges were warranted 

under the three Constitutions of England, 

Scotland and Ireland, out of which in 

course of time no less than six independent 

Grand Lodges have been formed, viz ., South 

Australia (founded in 1884), New South Wales 

(1888), Victoria (1889), Tasmania (1890), 

New Zealand (1890), and Western Australia 

(1900) . [E . L. H .1 

Austria. Freemasonry was introduced 

into Austria in 1742, by the establishment at 

Vienna of the Lodge of the Three Cannons . 

But it was broken up by the government in 

the following year, and thirty of its members 

were imprisoned for having met in contempt 

of the authorities . Maria Theresa was an 

enemy of the Institution, and prohibited it in 

1764 . Lodges, however, continued to meet 

secretly in Vienna and Prague . In 1780, 

Joseph II . ascended the throne, and under his 

liberal administration Freemasonry, if not 

actually encouraged, was at least tolerated, 

and many new Lodges were established in 

Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Tram l- 

vania, under the authority of the Grand Lodge 

of Germany, in Berlin . Delegates from these 

Lodges met at Vienna in 1784, and organized 

the Grand Lodge of Austria, electing the 

Count of Dietrichstein, Grand Master . The 

attempt of the Grand Lodge at Berlin to make 

this a Provincial Grand Lodge was successful 

for only a short time, and in 1785 the Grand 

Lodge of Austria again proclaimed its independence. 

During the reign of Joseph II ., Austrian 

Masonry was prosperous. Notwithstanding 

the efforts of its enemies, the monarch could 

never be persuaded to prohibit it . But in 

1785 he was induced to issue instructions b 

which the number of the Lodges was reduce 

so that not more than three were permitted to 

exist in each city ; and he ordered that a list 

of the members and a note of the times of 

meeting of each Lodge should be annually delivered 

to the magistrates . 

Joseph died in 1790, and Leopold II . expressed 

himself as not unfriendly to the Fraternity, 

but his successor in 1792, Francis II ., 

yielded to the machinations of the anti-Masons, 

and dissolved the Lodges . In 1801 he 

issued a decree which forbade the employment 

of anyone in the public service who was 

attached to any secret society . Masonry is

AUTHENTIC 

AZAZEL $7 

in operation in Austria, as it is in most non- 

Masonic countries, but not in any public form 

as in other countries . The Catholics do not 

so persistently persecute it as they once did 

through royal sanction . 

Authentic. Formerly, in the science of 

Diplomatics, ancient manuscripts were 

termed authentic when they were originals, 

and in opposition to copies . But in modern 

times the acceptation of the word has been 

enlarged, and it is now applied to instruments 

which, although they may be copies, bear the 

evidence of having been executed by proper 

authority . So of the old records of Masonry, 

the originals of many have been lost, or at 

least have not yet been found . Yet the copies, 

if they can be traced to unsuspected 

sources within the body of the Craft and show 

the internal marks of historical accuracy, are 

to be reckoned as authentic . But if their 

origin is altogether unknown, and their statements 

or style conflict with the known character 

of the Order at their assumed date, their 

authenticity is to be doubted or denied . 

Authenticity of the Scriptures. A belief 

in the authenticity of the Scriptures of the 

Old and New Testament as a religious qualification 

of initiation does not constitute one 

of the laws of Masonry, for such a regulation 

would destroy the universality of the Institution, 

and under its action none but Christians 

could become eligible for admission. But in 

1856 the Grand Lodge of Ohio declared "that 

a distinct avowal of a belief in the Divine authorit 

of the Holy Scriptures should be req 

of every one who is admitted to the 

privileges of Masonry, and that a denial of 

the same is an offence against the Institution, 

calling for exemplary discipline ." It is hardly 

necessary to say that the enunciation of this 

principle met with the almost universal condemnation 

of the Grand Lodges and Masonic 

jurists of this country . The Grand Lodge of 

Ohio subsequently re aled the r ulation . 

In 1857, the Grand Loge of Texas opted a 

similar resolution; but the general sense of 

the Fraternity has rejected sII religious tests 

except a belief in God . 

Autopsy. (Greek, a"fa, a seeing with, 

one's own eyes .) The complete communication 

of the secrets in the Ancient Mysteries, 

when the aspirant was admitted into the sacellum, 

or most sacred place, and was invested 

by the hierophant with all the aporrheta, or 

sacred things which constituted the perfect 

knowledge of the initiate . A similar ceremony 

in Freemasonry is called the Rite of 

Intrusting . (See Mysteries .) 

Auxiliary Degrees . According to Oliver 

(Landm .t ii., 345), the Supreme Council of 

France, m addition to the thirty-three regular 

degrees of the Rite, confers six others, which 

he calls "Auxiliary Degrees ." They are, 1 . 

Btu de Perignan . 2 . Petit Architg.cte . 3 . 

Grand Architectee or Compagnon Ecossais . 

4. Maitre Ecossais. 5. Knight of the East . 

6. Knight Rose Croix . 

Avenue. Forming avenue is a ceremony 

sometimes practised in the lower degrees, 

but more generally in the higher ones, on certain 

occasions of paying honors to superior 

officers. The brethren form in two ranks 

facing each other . If the degree is one in 

which swords are used, these are drawn and 

elevated, being crossed each with the opposite 

sword. The swords thus crossed constitute 

what is called "the arch of steel ." The 

person to whom honor is to be paid passes 

between the opposite ranks and under the arch 

of steel. 

Avignon, Illuminati of. (Illumines 

d'Avignon .) A rite instituted by Pernetti at 

Avignon, in France, in 1770, and transferred 

in the year 1778 to Montpellier, under the 

name of the Academy of True Masons . The 

Academy of Avignon consisted of only four 

degrees, the three of syrpbolic or St. John's 

Masonry, and a fourth called the True Mason, 

which was made up of instructions, Hermetical 

and Swedenborgian. (See Pernetti .) 

Avouehment . See Vouching . 

Award . In law, the judgment pronounced 

by one or more arbitrators, at the request of 

two parties who are at variance. "If any 

complaint be brought," say the Charges published 

by Anderson, "the brother found guilty 

shall stand to the award and determination 

of the Lodge." (Constitutions, ed. 1723, p . 

54.) 

Ayes and Noes. It is not according to 

Masonic usage to call for the ayes and noes on 

any question pending before a Lodge. By a 

show of hands is the old and usual custom. 

Aynon. Aynon, Agnon, Ajuon, and Dyon 

are all used in the old manuscript Constitutions 

for one whom they call the son of the 

King of Tyre, but it is evidently meant for 

Hiram Abif . Each of these words is most 

probably a corruption of the Hebrew Adon or 

Lord so that the reference would clearly be 

to Adon Hiram or Adoniram, with whom 

Hiram was often confounded ; a confusion to 

be found in later times in the Adonbiramite 

Rite. 

Azarlah . The old French rituals have 

Azarias. A name in the high degrees signifying 

Helped of God . 

Azazel. "Scapegoat," the "demon of dry 

places ." Translated by others to be the fallen 

angel mentioned in the Book of Enoch, and 

identical with Sammael, the Angel of Death . 

Symmachus says, " the goat that departs " ; 

Josephus, "the averter of ills," "caper emissarius." 

Two he-goats, in all respects alike and equal, 

were brought forward for the day of atonement. 

The urn was shaken and two lots 

cast ; one was "For the Name," and the 

other "For Azazel ." A scarlet tongue-shaped 

piece of wood was twisted on the head of the 

goat to be sent away, and he was placed before 

the gate and delivered to his conductor . 

The high priest, placing his two hands on the 

goat, made confession for the people, and pronounced 

THE NAME clearly, which the people 

hearing, they knelt and worshiped, and fell 

on their faces and said, "Blessed be the Name . 

The Honor of His kingdom forever and ever ."

88 AZRAEL 

BABEL 

The goat was then led forth to the mountainside 

and rolled down to death . 

Longfellow's exquisite poem Azrael .) 

time for death was come . (See Henry W. 

Azrael . (Heb ., help of God .) In the Jewish 

and the Mohammedan mythology, the writings, it is alleged, has been discovered by 

Aztec Writings. The key to the Aztec 

name of the angel who watches over the dying Rev . Father Damago Soto, of Concordia,Vera 

and separates the soul from the body . Prior Cruz . 

to the intercession of Mohammed, Azrael inflicted 

the death-penalty visibly, by striking Cerulean. The appropriate color of the sym- 

Azure . The clear, blue color of the sky . 

down before the eyes of the living those whose bolic degrees sometimes termed Blue Degrees . 

B. (n, Beth .) A labial consonant standing 

second in most alphabets, and in the 

Hebrew or Phoenician signifies house, probably 

from its form of a tent or house, thus : 

n 

B 

and finally the Hebrew n, having the numerical 

value two . When united with the 

leading letter of the alphabet, n$, it signifies 

Ab, Father, Master, or the one in authority, 

as applied to Hiram the Architect . This is 

the root of Baal. The Hebrew name of the 

Deity connected with this letter is 11t1D, Bakhur 

. 

Baal. Hebrew, ~y1 He was the chief 

divinity among the Phcenicians, the Canaanites 

and the Babylonians . The word signifies 

in Hebrew lord or master . It was among the 

Orientalists a comprehensive term, denoting 

divinity of any kind without reference to class 

or to sex . The Sabaists understood Baal as 

the sun, and Baalim, in the plural, were the 

sun, moon, and stars, "the host of heaven ." 

Whenever the Israelites made one of their 

almost periodical deflections to idolatry, Baal 

seems to have been the favorite idol to whose 

worship they addicted themselves . Hence 

he became the especial object of denunciation 

with the prophets . Thus, in 1 Kings (xviii .), 

we see Elija showing, by practical demonstration, 

the difference between Baal and Jehovah. 

The idolaters, at his instigation, 

called on Baal, as their sun-god, to light the 

sacrificial fire, from morning until noon, because 

at noon he had acquired his greatest 

intensity . And after noon no fire having 

been kindled on the altar, they began to cry 

aloud, and to cut themselves in token of mortification, 

because as the sun descended there 

was no hope of his help . But Elijah, depending 

on Jehovah, made his sacrifice toward 

sunset, to show the greatest contrast between 

Baal and the true God . And when the people 

saw the fire come down and consume the offering, 

they acknowledged the weakness of their 

idol, and falling on their faces cried out, Jehovah 

hu hahelohim-" Jehovah, he is the God ." 

And Hosea afterward promises the people 

that they shall abandon their idolatry, and 

that he would take away from them the Shemoth 

hahbaalim, the names of the Baalim, so 

that they should be no more remembered by 

their names, and the people should in that 

day "know Jehovah." 

Hence we see that there was an evident antagonism 

in the orthodox Hebrew mind between 

Jehovah and Baal . The latter was, 

however, worshiped by the Jews, whenever 

they became heterodox, and by all the Oriental 

or Shemitic nations as a supreme divinity, 

representing the sun in some of his modifications 

as the ruler of the day . In Tyre, Baal 

was the sun, and Ashtaroth, the moon . Baalpeor, 

the lord of priapism, was the sun represented 

as the generative principle of nature, 

and identical with the phallus of other religions 

. Baal-gad was the lord of the multitude 

(of stars) that is, the sun as the chief of 

the heavenly host . In brief, Baal seems to 

have been wherever his cultus was established, 

a development or form of the old sun worship . 

Babel . In Hebrew, ~7] • which the writer 

of Genesis connects with 5 i7Z, balal, "to confound," 

in reference to the confusion of 

tongues ; but the true derivation is probably 

from BAB-EL, the "gate of El" or the "gate of 

God," because perhaps a temple was the first 

building raised by the primitive nomads . 

It is the name of that celebrated tower attempted 

to be built on the plains of Shinar, 

A.M . 1775, about one hundred and forty 

years. after the deluge which tower, Scripture 

nforms us, was c6troyed by a special 

interposition of the Almighty . The Noachite 

Masons date the commencement of 

their Order from this destruction, and much 

traditionary information on this subject is preserved 

in the degree of "Patriarch Noachite ." 

At Babel, Oliver says that what has been 

called Spurious Freemasonry took its origin . 

That is to say, the people there abandoned the 

worship of the true God, and by their dispersion 

lost all knowledge of his existence, and of

BABYLON 

BACON 89 

the principles of truth upon which Masonry 

is founded . Hence it is that the rituals speak 

of the lofty tower of Babel as the place where 

language was confounded and Masonry lost . 

This is the theory first advanced by Anderson 

in his Constitutions, and subsequently 

developed more extensively by Dr . Oliver in 

all his works, but especially in his Landmarks . 

As history, the doctrine is of no value, for it 

wants the element of authenticity . But in a 

symbolic point of view it is highly suggestive . 

If the tower of Babel represents the profane 

world of ignorance and darkness, and the 

threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite is the 

symbol of Freemasonry, because the Solomonic 

Temple, of which it was the site, is the 

prototype of the spiritual temple which Masons 

are erecting, then we can readily understand 

how Masonry and the true use of language 

is lost in one and recovered in the other, 

and how the progress of the candidate in his 

initiation may properly be compared to the 

progress of truth from the confusion and ignorance 

of the Babel builders to the perfection 

and illumination of the temple builders, which 

temple builders all Freemasons are . And 

so, when in the ritual the neophyte, being asked 

"whence he comes and whither is he travelling," 

replies, "from the lofty tower of Babel, 

where language was confounded and Masonry 

lost, to the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, 

where language was restored and Masonry 

found," the questions and answers 

become intelligible from this symbolic point 

of view. (See Ornan .) 

Babylon . The ancient capital of Chaldea, 

situated on both sides of the Euphrates, and 

once the most magnificent city of the ancient 

world. It was here that, upon the destruction 

of Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 

the year of the world 3394, the Jews of the 

tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who were the 

inhabitants of Jerusalem, were conveyed and 

detained in captivity for seventy-two years, 

until Cyrus, King of Persia, issued a decree for 

restoring them, and permitting them to rebuild 

their temple, under the superintendence 

of Zerubbabel, the Prince of the Captivity, 

and with the assistance of Joshua the High 

Priest and Haggai the Scribe . 

Babylon the Great, as the prophet Daniel 

calls it, was situated four hundred and seventyfive 

miles in a nearly due east direction from 

Jerusalem . It stood in the midst of a large 

and fertile plain on each side of the river 

Euphrates, which ran through it from north to 

south . It was surrounded with walls which 

were eighty-seven feet thick, three hundred 

and fifty in height, and sixty miles in compass . 

These were all built of large bricks cemented 

together with bitumen. Exterior to the walls 

was a wide and deep trench lined with the 

same material . Twenty-five gates on each 

side, made of solid brass, gave admission to 

the city. From each of these gates proceeded 

a wide street fifteen miles in length, and the 

whole was separated by means of other smaller 

divisions, and contained six hundred and seventy-six 

squares, each of which was two miles 

and a quarter in circumference. Two hundred 

and fifty towers placed upon the walls 

afforded the means of additional strength 

and protection . Within this immense circuit 

were to be found palaces and temples and 

other edifices of the utmost magnificence, 

which have caused the wealth, the luxury, and 

splendor of Babylon to become the favorite 

theme of the historians of antiquity, and 

which compelled the prophet Isaiah, even 

while denouncing its downfall, to speak of it 

as "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the 

Chaldees' excellency ." 

Babylon, which, at the time of the destruction 

of the Temple of Jerusalem, constituted a 

part of the Chaldean empire, was subsequently 

taken, s .c. 538, after a siege of two years, by 

Cyrus, King of Persia . 

Babylon, Red Cross of. Another name 

for the degree of Babylonish Pass, which see. 

Babylonish Captivity . See Captivity . 

Babylonish Pass . A degree given in 

Scotland by the authority of the Grand Royal 

Arch Chapter. It is also called the Red Cross 

of Babylon, and is almost identical with the 

Companion of the Red Cross conferred in 

Commanderies of Knights Templar in America 

as a preparatory degree . 

Back . Freemasonry, borrowing its symbols 

from every source, has not neglected to 

make a selection of certain parts of the human 

body. From the back an important lesson 

is derived, which is fittingly developed in the 

Third Degree. Hence, in reference to this 

symbolism, Oliver says : "It is a duty incumbent 

on every Mason to support a brother's 

character in his absence equally as though he 

were present ; not to revile him behind his back, 

nor suffer it to be done by others, without 

using every necessary attempt to prevent it ." 

And Hutchinson, referring to the same symbolic 

ceremony, says : "The most material 

part of that brotherly love which should subsist 

among us Masons is that of speaking well 

of each other to the world ; more especially it 

is expected of every member of this Fraternity 

that he should not traduce his brother . 

Calumny and slander are detestable crimes 

against society . Nothing can be viler than to 

traduce a man behind his back ; it is like the 

villainy of an assassin who has not virtue 

enough to give his adversary the means of 

self-defence, but, lurking in darkness, stabs 

him whilst he is unarmed and unsuspicious of 

an enemy." (Spirit of Masonry, p . 205.) 

(See Points of Fellowship .) 

Bacon, Francis. Baron of Verulam, commonly 

called Lord Bacon . Nicolai thinks 

that a great impulse was exercised upon the 

early history of Freemasonry by the New 

Atlantis of Lord Bacon . In this learned romance 

Bacon supposes that a vessel lands on 

an unknown island, called Bensalem, over 

which a certain King Solomon reigned in days 

of yore . This king had a large establishment, 

which was called the House of Solomon, or 

the college of the workmen of six days, namely, 

the days of the creation . He afterward describes 

the immense apparatus which was

00 BACON 

BACULUS 

there emplo in physical researches . There 

were, says e, deep grottoes and towers for 

the successful observation of certain phenomena 

of nature ; artificial mineral waters ; large 

buildings, in which meteors, the wind, thunder, 

and rain were imitated ; extensive botanic gardens 

; entire fields, in which all kinds of 

animals were collected, for the study of their 

instincts and habits ; houses filled with all the 

wonders of nature and art ; a great number of 

learned men, each of whom, in his own country, 

had the direction of these things ; they made 

journeys and observations ; they wrote, they 

collected, they determined results, and deliberated 

together as to what was proper to 

be published and what concealed . 

This romance became at once very popular, 

and everybody's attention was attracted by 

the allegory of the House of Solomon . But 

it also contributed to spread Bacon's views on 

experimental knowledge, and led afterward 

to the institution of the Royal Society, to 

which Nicolai attributes a common object 

with that of the Society of Freemasons, 

established he says, about the same time, the 

difference being only that one was esoteric 

and the other exoteric in its instructions . 

But the more immediate effect of the romance 

of Bacon was the institution of the Society 

of Astrologers, of which Elias Ashmole was a 

leading member. Of this society Nicolai, in 

his work on the Origin and History of Rosicrucianism 

and Freemasonry, says : 

"Its object was to build the House of 

Solomon, of the New Atlantis, in the literal 

sense, but the establishment was to remain as 

secret as the island of Bensalem-that is to 

say, they were to be engaged in the study of 

nature-but the instruction of its principles 

was to remain in the society in an esoteric 

form. These philosophers presented their 

idea in a strictly allegorical method . First, 

there were the ancient columns of Hermes, by 

which lamblichus pretended that he had enlightened 

all the doubts of Porphyry . You 

then mounted, by several steps, to a chequered 

floor, divided into four regions, to denote the 

four superior sciences ; after which came the 

types of the six days' work, which expressed 

the object of the society, and which were the 

same as those found on an engraved stone in 

my possession. The sense of all which was 

this : God created the world, and preserves it 

by fixed principles, full of wisdom- he who 

seeks to know these principles-tLat is to 

say the interior of nature-approximates to 

God, and he who thus approximates to God 

obtains from his grace the power of commanding 

nature ." 

This society, he adds met at Masons' Hall 

in Basinghall Street, because many of its 

members were also members of the Masons' 

Company, into which they all afterward 

entered and assumed the name of Free and 

Accepted Masons, and thus he traces the origin 

of the Order to the New Atlantis and the 

House of Solomon of Lord Bacon . It is only 

a theory, but it seems to throw some light 

on that long process of incubation which 

terminated at last, in 1717, in the production 

of the Grand Lodge of Fnglgnd. The connection 

of Ashmole with the Masons is a 

singular one, and has led to some controversy . 

The views of Nicolai, if not altogether correct, 

may suggest the possibility of an explanation . 

Certain it is that the eminent astrologers of 

England, as we learn from Ashmole's Diary, 

were on terms of intimacy with the Masons 

in the seventeenth century, and that many 

Fellows of the Royal Society were also prominent 

members of the early Grand Lodge of 

England which was established in 1717 . 

Bacon, Roger . An English monk who 

made wonderful discoveries in many sciences . 

He was born in Ilchester in 1214, educated at 

Oxford and Paris, and entered the Franciscan 

Order in his twenty-fifth year. He explored 

the secrets of nature, and made many discoveries, 

the application of which was looked 

upon as magic. He denounced the ignorance 

and immorality of the clergy, resulting in 

accusations, through revenge, and final imprisonment 

. He was noted as a Rosicrucian . 

Died in 1292 . 

Baculus . The staff of office borne by the 

Grand Master of the Templars . In ecclesiology, 

baculus is the name given to the 

pastoral staff carried by a bishop or an abbot 

as the ensign of his dignity and authority . 

In pure Latinity, baculus means a long stick 

or staff, which was commonly carried by 

travelers, by shepherds, or by infirm and 

aged persons, and afterward from affectation, 

by the Greek philosophers In early 

times, this staff, made a little longer, was 

carried by kings and persons in authority, as 

a mark of distinction, and was thus the origin 

of the royal scepter . The Christian church, 

borrowing many of its usages from antiquity, 

and alluding also, it is said, to the sacerdotal 

power which Christ conferred when he sent 

the apostles to preach, commanding them to 

take with them staves, adopted the pastoral 

staff, to be borne by a bishop, as symbolical 

of his power to inflict pastoral correction ; and 

Durandus says, "By the pastoral staff is likewise 

understood the authority of doctrine . 

For by it the infirm are supported, the wavering 

are confirmed, those going astray are 

drawn to repentance." Catalin also says 

that "the baculus, or episcopal staff is an 

ensign not only of honor, but also of dignity, 

power, and pastoral jurisdiction." 

Honorius, a writer of the twelfth century, 

in his treatise De Gemma Animas, gives to 

this pastoral staff the names both of baculus 

and virga. Thus he says, "Bishops bear the 

staff (baculum), that by their teaching they 

may strengthen the weak in their faith ; and 

they carry the rod (virgam), that by their power 

they may correct the unruly ." And this is 

strikingly similar to the language used by St . 

Bernard in the Rule which he drew up for the 

government of the Templars. In Artxviii 

he says, "The Master ought to hold the- stag 

and the rod (baculum et virgam) in his hand, 

that is to say, the staff (baculum), that he may 

support the infirmities of the weak, and the

BACULUS 

BADGE 91 

rod (virgam), that he may with the seal of reo. 

titude strike down the vices of delinquents ." 

The transmission of episcopal ensigns from 

bishops to the heads of ecclesiastical associa . 

tions was not difficult in the Middle Ages ; and 

hence it afterward became one of the insignia 

of abbots, and the heads of confraternities connected 

with the Church, as a token of the possession 

of powers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction . 

Now, as the Papal bull, Omne datum Optimum, 

invested the Grand Master of the 

Templars with almost episcopal jurisdiction 

over the priests of his Order, he bore the 

baculus, or pastoral staff, as a mark of that 

jurisdiction, and thus it became a part of the 

Grand Master's insignia of office . 

The baculus of the bishop, the abbot, and 

the confraternities was not precisely the same 

in form. The earliest episcopal staff terminated 

in a globular knob, or a tau cross . This 

was, however, soon replaced by the simplecurved 

termination, which resembles and is 

called a crook, in allusion to that used by 

shepherds to draw back and recall the sheep of 

their flock which have gone astray, thus symbolizing 

the expression of Christ, "I am the 

good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am 

known of mine ." 

The baculus of the abbot does not differ in 

form from that of a bishop, but as the bishop 

carries the curved part of his staff pointing 

forward, to show the extent of his episcopal 

jurisdiction, so the abbot carries his pointing 

backward, to signify that his authority is 

limited to his monastery . 

The baculi, or staves of the confraternities, 

were surmounted by small tabernacles, with 

images or emblems, on a sort of carved cap, 

having reference to the particular guild or 

confraternity by whom they were borne . 

The baculus of the Knights Templars, which 

was borne by the Grand Master as the ensign 

of his office, in allusion to his quasi-episcopal 

jurisdiction, is described and delineated in 

Muster, Burnes, Addison, and all the other 

authorities, as a staff, on the top of which is 

an octagonal figure, surmounted with a cross 

patee. The cross, of course, refers to the 

Christian character of the Order, and the octagon 

alludes, it is said, to the eight beatitudes 

of our Savior in his Sermon on the Mount . 

The pastoral staff is variously designated, by 

ecclesiastical writers, as virga, frules, cambutta, 

crocia, and pedum . From crocia, whose root 

is the Latin crux, and the Italian croce, a cross, 

we get the English crozier. 

Pedum, another name of the baculus, signifies, 

in pure Latinity, a shepherd's crook, and 

thus strictly carries out the symbolic idea of 

a pastoral charge . Hence, looking to the 

pastoral jurisdiction of the Grand Master of 

the Templars, his staff of office is described 

under the title of "pedum magistrate seu 

patriarchate," that is, a "magisterial or patriarchal 

staff," in the Statuta Commilitonum 

Ordinis Templi ; or the "Statutes of the 

Fellow-soldiers of the Order of the Temple," 

as apart of the investiture of the Grand Master, 

in the following words : 

"Pedum magistrate, see paffardlale, aureum, 

in eacumins ctvus crux Ordtnis super 

orbem exaltatur " ; that is, "A magisterial or 

patriarchal staff of gold, on the top of which 

is a cross of the Order, surmounting an orb or 

globe ." (Slat ., xxviii ., art, 358 .) But of all 

these names, baculus is the one more commonly 

used by writers to designate the 

Templar pastoral staff . 

In the year 1859 this staff of office was first 

adopted at Chicago by the Templars of the 

United States, during the Grand Mastership 

of Sir William B . Hubbard . But, unfortunately, 

at that time it received the name of 

abacus, a misnomer, which has continued to 

the present day, on the authority of a literary 

blunder of Sir Walter Scott, so that it has 

fallen to the lot of American Masons to perpetuate, 

in the use of this word, an error of 

the less great novelist, resulting from his too care- 

writing, at which he would himself have 

been the first to smile, had his attention been 

called to it. 

Abacus, in mathematics, denotes an instrument 

or table used for calculation, and in 

architecture an ornamental part of a column ; 

but it nowhere, in English or Latin, or any 

known language, signifies any kind of a staff . 

Sir Walter Scott, who undoubtedly was 

thinking of baculus, in the hurry of the moment 

and a not improbable confusion of words 

and thoughts, wrote abacus, when, in his novel 

of Ivanhoe, he describes the Grand Master 

Lucas Beaumanoir, as bearing in his hand 

" that singular abacus, or staff of office," 

committed a very gross, but not very uncommon, 

literary blunder, of a kind that is quite 

familiar to those who are conversant with the 

results of rapid composition, where the writer 

often thinks of one word and writes another . 

Baden . In 1778 the Lodge "Karl of 

Unity " was established in Mannheim, which 

at that time belonged to Bavaria . In 1785 an 

electoral decree was issued prohibiting all 

secret meetings in the Bavarian Palatinate and 

the Lodge was closed. In 1803 Mannheim 

was transferred to the Grand Duchy of Baden, 

and in 1805 the Lodge was reopened, and in 

the following year accepted a warrant from 

the Grand Orient of France and took the name 

of "Karl of Concord." Then it converted 

itself into the Grand Orient of Baden and was 

acknowledged as such by the Grand Orient 

of France in 1807 . 

Lodges were established at Bruchsal, 

Heidelberg, and Mannheim, and the Grand 

Orient of Baden ruled over them until 1813, 

when all secret societies were again prohibited, 

and it was not until 1846 that Masonic activity 

recommenced in Baden, when the Lodge 

"Karl of Concord " was awakened . 

There is no longer a Grand Orient of Baden, 

but the Lodges in the Duchy, of which several 

have been established, are under the Grand 

National Mother-Lodge "Zu den drei Weltkugein 

" (Of the three Globes) in Berlin . 

[E . L . H .] 

Badge. A mark, sign, token, or thing, 

says Webster, by which a person is distin-

92 BADGE 

BALDRICK 

guished in a particular place or employment, 

and designating his relation to a person or to a 

particular occupation . It is in heraldry the 

same thing as a cognizance : thus the followers 

and retainers of the house of I'ercy wore a 

silver crescent as a badge of their connection 

with that family ; the white lion borne on the 

left arm was the badge of the house of Howard, 

Earl of Surrey ; the red rose that of the house 

of Lancaster ; and the white rose, of York . 

So the apron, formed of white lambskin, is 

worn by the Freemason as a badge of his 

profession and a token of his connection with 

the Fraternity . (See Apron.) 

Badge of a Mason . The lambskin apron 

is so called . (See Apron .) 

Badge, Royal Arch . The Royal Arch 

badge is the triple tau, which see . 

Bafomet . See Baphomet . 

Bag . In the early days of the Grand Lodge 

of England the Secretary used to carry a Bag 

in processions - thus in the procession round 

the tables at tie Grand Feast of 1724 we find 

" Secretary Cowper with the Bag " ( Constitutions, 

ed. 1738, p . 117) ; and in 1729 Lord 

Kingston, the Grand Master, provided at his 

own cost "a fine Velvet Bag for the Secretary," 

besides his bade of "Two golden Pens 

a-cross on his Breast' (ibid. p . 124) ; and in 

the Procession of March from St. James' 

Square to Merchant Taylor's Hall on January 

29, 1730, there came "The Secretary 

alone with his Badge and Bag, clothed, in 

a Chariot." (Ibid ., p . 125 .) 

This practise continued throughout the 

Eighteenth century, for at the dedication of 

Freemasons' Hall in London in 1776 we find 

in the (Constitutions, procession "Grand Secretary with the 

bag ." 

1784, p . 318 .) But at the 

union of the two rival Grand Lodges in 1813 

the custom was changed, for in the order of 

procession at public ceremonies laid down in 

the Constitutions of 1815, we find "Grand 

Secretary with book of constitutions on a 

cushion " and "Grand Registrar with his 

bag " ; and the Grand Registrar of England 

still carries on ceremonial occasions a bag 

with the arms of the Grand Lodge embroidered 

on it . 

[E . L. H.) 

Bagulkal. A significant word in the high 

degrees. Lenning says it is a corruption of 

the HebrewBegoal-kol, "all is revealed." Pike 

says, Bagulkol, with a similar reference to a 

revelation . Rockwell gives in his MS ., Bekalkel, 

without any meaning . The old rituals interpret 

it as signifying "the faithful guardian 

of the sacred ark," a derivation clearly fanciful . 

Bahrdt, Karl Friederich. A German 

Doctor of Theology, who was born, in 1741, at 

Bischofswerda, and died in 1792 . He is 

described by one of his biographers as being 

"notorious alike for his bold infidelit and for 

his evil life ." We know not why Tory and 

Lenning have given his name a place in their 

vocabularies, as his literary labors bore no 

relation to Freemasonry, except inasmuch as 

that he was a Mason, and that in 1787, with 

several other Masons, he founded at Halle 

a secret society called the "German Union," 

or the "Two and Twenty," in reference to the 

original number of its members . The object 

of this society was said to be the enlightenment 

of mankind . It was dissolved in 1790, 

by the imprisonment of its founder for having 

written a libel against the Prussian Minister 

Woellner . It is incorrect to call this system 

of degree a Masonic Rite . (See German Union .) 

Baldachin . In architecture, a canopy 

supported by pillars over an insulated altar . 

In Masonry, it has been applied b7 some 

writers to the canopy over the Master a chair . 

The German Masons give this name to the 

covering of the Lodge, and reckon it therefore 

among the symbols . 

Balder or Baldur. The ancient Scandinavian 

or older German divinity . . The hero 

of one of the most beautiful and interesting 

of the myths of the Edda ; the second son of 

Odin an Frigga, and the husband of the 

maiden Nanna. In brief, the myth recites 

that Balder dreamed that his life was threatened 

which being told to the gods a council 

was held by them to secure his safety. The 

mother proceeded to demand and receive 

from every inanimate thing, iron and all 

metals, fire and water, stones, earth, plants, 

beasts birds, reptiles, poisons, and diseases, 

that they reptiles, injure Balder . Balder 

then became the subject of sport with the 

gods, who wrestled, cast darts, and in innumerable 

ways playfully tested his invulnerability . 

This finally displeased the mischievous, cunning 

Loki the Spirit of Evil, who, in the form 

of an oki woman, sought out the mother, 

Frigga, and ascertained from her that there 

had been excepted or omitted from the oath 

the little shrub Mistletoe . In haste Loki 

carried some of this shrub to the assembly of 

the gods, and gave to the blind Hoder, the 

god of war, selected slips, and directing his 

aim, Balder fell pierced to the heart . 

Sorrow among the gods was unutterable, 

and Frigga inquired who, to win her favor, 

would journey to Hades and obtain from the 

goddess Hel the release of Balder . The 

heroic Helmod or Hermoder, son of Odin, 

offered to undertake the journey . Hel consented 

to permit the return if all things animate 

and inanimate should weep for Balder . 

All living beings and all things wept, save 

the witch or giantess Thock (the stepdaughter 

of Loki), who refused to sympathize 

in the general mourning . Balder was therefore 

obliged to linger in the kingdom of Hel 

until the end of the world . 

Baldrlck. A portion of military dress, 

being a scarf passing from the shoulder over 

the breast to the hip In the dress regulations 

of the Grand Encampment of Knights 

Templar of the United States, adopted in 

1862, it is called a "scarf," and is thus 

described : "Five inches wide in the whole of 

white bordered with black, one inch on either 

side, a strip of navy lace one-fourth of an 

inch wide at the inner edge of the black . On 

the front centre of the scarf, a metal star of 

nine points, in allusion to the nine founders of 

the Temple Order, inclosing the Passion Cross,

BALDWYN 

BALKIS 93 

surrounded by the Latin motto, In hoc signo 

vines ; the star to be three and three-quarter 

inches in diameter. The scarf to be worn 

from the right shoulder to the left hip, with 

the ends extending six inches below the point 

of intersection ." 

Baldwyn II . The successor of Godfrey of 

Bouillon as King of Jerusalem . In his reign 

the Order of Knights Templar was instituted, 

to whom he granted a place of habitation 

within the sacred enclosure of the Temple on 

Mount Moriah . He bestowed on the Order 

other marks of favor, and, as its patron ; his 

name has been retained in grateful remembrance, 

and often adopted as a name of Commanderies 

of Masonic Templars . 

Baldwyn Encampment . There is at Bristol 

in England a famous Preceptory of Knights 

Templar, called the "Baldwyn," which claims 

to have existed from time immemorial, and 

of which no one has yet been able to discover 

the origin . This, together with the Chapter 

of Knights Ross; Crucis, is the continuation 

of the old Baldwyn Encampment, the name 

being derived from the Crusader, King of 

Jerusalem . 

The earliest record preserved by this Preceptory 

is an authentic and important document 

dated December 20, 1780, and headed 

"In the name of the Grand Architect of 

the Universe. 

"The Supreme Grand and Royal Encampment 

of the Order of Knights Templars of St . 

John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitallers and 

Knights of Malta, &c ., &c .," and commencing 

"Whereas by Charter of Compact our 

Encampment is constituted the Supreme 

Grand and Royal Encampment of this Noble 

Order with full Power when Assembled to 

issue, publish and make known to all our 

loving Knights Companions whatever may 

contribute to their knowledge not inconsistent 

with its general Laws . Also to constitute 

and appoint any Officer or Officers to make 

and ordain such laws as from time to time 

may appear necessary to promote the Honor 

of our Noble Order in general and the more 

perfect government of our Supreme degree in 

particular. We therefore the MOST EMI- 

NENT GRAND MASTER The Grand Master 

of the Order, the Grand Master Assistant 

General and two Grand Standard Bearers 

and Knights Companions for that purpose in 

full Encampment Assembled do make known ." 

Then follow twenty Statutes or Regulations 

for the government of the Order and 

the document ends with "Done at our dastle 

in Bristol 20th day of December 1780 ." 

It is not clear who were the parties to this 

"Compact," but it is thought probable that 

it was the result of an agreement between the 

Bristol Encampment and another ancient 

body at Bath (the Camp of Antiquity) to establish 

a supreme direction of the Order . 

However that may be, it is clear that the 

Bristol Encampment was erected into a Supreme 

Grand Encampment in 1780 . 

The earliest reference to the Knights 

Templar as yet discovered occurs in a Bristol 

newspaper of January 25, 1772, so it , may 

fairly be assumed that the Baldwyn Preceptory 

had been in existence before the date of 

the Charter of Compact . 

In 1791 the well-known Brother Thomas 

Dunckerley, who was Provincial Grand Master 

and Grand Superintendent of the Royal 

Arch Masons at Bristol, was requested by the 

Knights Templar of that city to be their 

Grand Master. He at once introduced great 

activity into the Order throughout 'England, 

and established the Grand Conclave in London 

-the forerunner of the Great Priory . 

The "seven degrees " of the Camp of Baldwyn 

at that time probably consisted of the 

three of the Craft and that of the Royal Arch 

(which were necessary qualifications of all 

candidates as set forth in the Charter of Compact), 

(5) Knights Templar of St . John of 

Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta, (6) 

Knights Rose Croix of Heredom, (7) Grand 

Elected Knights Kadosh . 

About the year 1813 the three degrees of 

"Nine Elect," "Kilwinning," and "East, 

Sword and Eagle" were adopted by the Encampment 

. The "Kadosh" having afterward 

discontinued, the five "Royal Orders of 

Masonic Knighthood," of which the Encampmentconsisted 

were : (1) Nine Elect, (2) Kilwinning, 

(3) 'East, Sword and Eagle, (4) 

Knight Templar, (5) Rose Croix . 

For many years the Grand Conclave in 

London was in abeyance, but when H.R.H . 

the Duke of Sussex, who had been Grand 

Master since 1813, died in 1843, it was revived, 

and attempts were made to induce the 

Camp of Baldwyn to submit to its authority, 

but without avail, and in 1857 Baldwyn reasserted 

its position as a Supreme Grand and 

Royal Encampment, and shortly afterward 

issued charters to six subordinate Encampments. 

The chief cause of difference with the 

London Grand Conclave was the question of 

giving up the old custom of working the Rose 

Croix Degree within the Camp At last, in 

1862, the Baldwyn was enrolled by virtue of a 

Charter of Compact "under the Banner of 

the Grand Conclave of Masonic Knights 

Templar of England and Wales ." It was 

arranged that the Baldw n Preceptory (as it 

was then called) should take precedence 

(with five others "of time immemorial ") of the 

other Preceptories ; that it should be constituted 

a Provincial Grand Commandery or 

Priory of itself ; and should be entitled to confer 

the degree of Knights of Malta . 

In 1881 a "Treaty of Union" was made 

with the Supreme Council of the 33°, whereby 

the Baldwyn Rose Croix Chapter retained its 

"time immemorial " position and was placed 

at the head of the list of Chapters . It also 

became a "District" under the Supreme 

Council of the 33° and is therefore placed 

under an "Inspector General" of its own . 

(The preceding article is contributed by Bro . 

Cecil Powell, joint-author of "Freemasonry in 

Bristol " published in 1910 .) 

Ball ls. The name given by the Orientalists 

to the Queen of Sheba, who visited King

94 BALLOT 

BALLOT 

Solomon, and of whom they relate a number of 

fables . (See Sheba, Queen of.) 

Ballot . In the election of candidates 

Lodges have recourse to a ballot of white and 

blackballs . Unanimity of choice, in this case, 

was originally require one black ball only 

being enough to reject a candidate, because as 

the Old Regulations say, " The members of a 

particular Lodge are the best judges of it ; 

and because, if a turbulent member should be 

imposed on them, it might spoil their harmony 

or hinder the freedom of their communication, 

or even break up and disperse the Lodge, 

which ought to be"avoided by all true and 

faithful ." (Constitutions, 1738, p . 155 .) 

"But it was found inconvenient to insist 

upon unanimity in several cases : and therefore 

the Grand Masters have allowed the 

Lodges to admit a member, if not above three 

Ballots are against him ; though some Lodges 

desire no such allowance ." (Ibid.) 

And this is still the rule under the English 

Constitution . (Rule 190 .) 

In balloting for a candidate for initiation, 

every member is expected to vote . No one 

cae excused from sharing the responsibility 

of adm ission or rejection except by the unanimous 

consent of the Lodge . Where a member 

has himself no personal or acquired knowledge 

of the qualifications of the candidate, he is 

bound to give faith to the recommendation of 

his brethren of the reporting committee, who, 

he is to presume, would not make a favorable 

report on the petition of an unworthy applicant. 

The most correct usage in balloting for candidates 

is as follows : 

The committee of investigation having 

reported favorably, the Master of the Lodge 

directs the Senior Deacon to prepare the ballot-box. 

The mode in which this is accomplished 

is as follows : The Senior Deacon 

takes the ballot-box, and, .opening it, places 

all the white and black balls indiscriminately 

in one compartment, leaving the other entirely 

empty . He then proceeds with the box to the 

Junior and Senior Wardens, who satisfy themselves 

by an inspection that no ball has been 

left in the compartment in which the votes are 

to be deposited . The box in this and the other 

instance to be referred to hereafter is presented 

to the inferior officer first, and then to 

his superior, that the examination and decision 

of the former may be substantiated and confirmed 

by the higher authority of the latter . 

Let it, indeed, be remembered, that in all such 

cases the usage of Masonic circumambulation 

is to be observed, and that, therefore, we must 

first pass the Junior's station before we can get 

to that of the Senior Warden . 

These officers having thus satisfied themselves 

that the box is in a proper condition for 

the reception of the ballots, it is then placed 

upon the altar by the Senior Deacon, who 

retires to his seat . The Master then directs 

the Secretary to call the roll, which is done 

by commencing with the Worshipful Master, 

and proceeding through all the officers down 

to the youngest member . As a matter of con- 

venience, the Secretary generally votes the 

last of those in the room, and then, if the Tiler 

is a member of the Lodge, he is called in, while 

the Junior Deacon tiles for him, and the name 

of the applicant having been told him, he is 

directed to deposit his ballot, which he does 

and then retires . 

As the name of each officer and member is 

called, he approaches the altar, and having 

made the proper Masonic salutation to the 

Chair, he deposits his ballot and retires to his 

seat . The roll should be called slowly, so that 

at no time should there be more than one person 

present at the box, for the great object of 

the ballot being secrecy, no brother should be 

permitted so near the member voting as to 

distinguish the color of the ball he deposits . 

The box is placed on the altar, and the ballot 

is deposited with the solemnity of a Masonic 

salutation, that the voters may be duly impressed 

with the sacred and responsible nature 

of the duty they are called on to discharge 

. The system of voting thus described, 

is, therefore, far better on this account than 

that sometimes adopted in Lodges, of handing 

round the box for the members to deposit 

their ballots from their seats . 

The Master having inquired of the Wardens 

if all have voted, then orders the Senior Deacon 

to "take charge of the ballot-box ." That 

officer accordingly repairs to the altar, and 

taking possession of the box, carries it, as before, 

to the Junior Warden, who examines the 

bali 

that t1 'the box is clear all 

he South," or, t if 

there is one or more black balls, that "the box 

is foul in the South." The Deacon then carries 

it to the Senior Warden, and afterward 

to the Master, who, of course, make the same 

report, according to the circumstance, with 

the necessary verbal variations of "West " 

and "East ." 

If the box is clear-that is, if all the ballots 

are white the Master then announces that 

the applicant has been duly elected, and the 

Secretary makes a record of the fact . But if 

the box is foul, the Master inspects the number 

of black balls ; if he finds only one, he so 

states the fact to the Lodge, and orders the 

Senior Deacon again to prepare the ballot-box . 

Here the same ceremonies are passed through 

that have already been described. The balls 

are removed into one compartment, the box 

is submitted to the inspection of the Wardens, 

it is placed upon the altar, the roll is called, 

the members advance and deposit their votes 

the box is scrutinized and the result declared 

by the Wardens and Master. If again one 

blackball be found, or if two or more appeared 

on the first ballot, the Master announces that 

the petition of the applicant has been rejected, 

and directs the usual record to be made by the 

Secretary and the notification to be given to 

the Grand Lodge . 

Balloting for membership or affiliation is 

subject to the same rules . In both cases 

"previous notice, one month before," must be 

given to the Lodge, "due inquiry into the reputation 

and capacity of the candidate " must

BALLOT-BOX 

BALTIMORE 95 

be made and "the unanimous consent of all 

the members then present " must be obtained. 

Nor can this unanimity be dispensed with in 

one case any more than it can in the other . It 

is the inherent privilege of every Lodge to 

judge of the qualifications of its own members, 

"nor is this inherent privilege subject to a dispensation 

." 

Ballot-Box . The box in which the ballots 

or little balls used in voting for a candidate 

are deposited . It should be divided into two 

compartments, one of which is to contain both 

black and white balls, from which each member 

selects one, and the other, which is closed 

with an aperture, to receive the ball that is to 

be deposited. Various methods have been 

devised by which secrecy may be secured so 

that a voter may select and deposit the ball he 

desires without the possibility of its being seen 

whether it is black or white . That now most 

in use in this country is to have the aperture 

so covered by a part of the box as to prevent 

the hand from being seen when the ball is deposited 

. 

Ballot, Reconsideration of the . See 

Reconsideration of the Ballot . 

Ballot, Secrecy of the . The secrecy of 

the ballot is as essential to its perfection as its 

unanimity or its independence . If the vote 

were to be given viva voce, it is impossible that 

the improper influences of fear or interest 

should not sometimes be exerted, and timid 

members be thus induced to vote contrary to 

the dictates of their reason and conscience . 

Hence, to secure this secrecy and protect the 

purity of choice, it has been wisely' established 

as a usage, not only that the vote shall in these 

cases be taken by a ballot, but that there shall 

be no subsequent discussion of the subject . 

Not only has no member a right to inquire 

how his fellows have voted, but it is wholly 

out of order for him to explain his own vote . 

And the reason of this is evident. If one 

member has a right to rise in his place and announce 

that he deposited a white ball, then 

every other member has the same right ; and 

in a Lodge of twenty members, where an application 

has been rejected by one black ball, 

if nineteen members state that they did not 

deposit it, the inference is clear that the 

twentieth Brother has done so, and thus the 

secrecy of the ballot is at once destroyed . The 

rejection having been announced from the 

Chair the Lodge should at once proceed to 

other business, and it is the sacred duty of the 

presiding officer peremptorily and at once to 

check any rising discussion on the subject . 

Nothing must be done to impair the inviolable 

secrecy of the ballot . 

Ballot, Unanimity of the . Unanimity 

in the choice of candidates is considered so 

essential to the welfare of the Fraternity, that 

the Old Regulations have expressly provided 

for its preservation in the following words : 

"But no man can be entered a Brother in 

any particular Lodge, or admitted to be a 

member thereof, without the unanimous consent 

of all the members of that Lodge then 

present when the candidate is proposed, and 

their consent is formally asked by the Master ; 

and they are to signify their consent or dissent 

in their own prudent way, either virtually 

or in form, but with unanimity ; nor is this 

inherent privilege subject to a dispensation ; 

because the members of a particular Lodge are 

the best judges of it ; and if a fractious member 

should be imposed on them, it might spoil 

their harmony, or hinder their freedom ; or 

even break and disperse the Lodge, which 

ought to be avoided by all good and true 

brethren ." (Constitutions, 1723, p . 59 .) 

The rule of unanimity here referred to is, 

however, applicable only to the United States 

of America, in all of whose Grand Lodges it is 

strictly enforced . Anderson tells us, in the second 

edition of the Constitutions, under the 

head of New Regulations (p . 155), that " it 

was found inconvenient to insist upon unanimity 

in several cases ; and, therefore, the 

Grand Masters have allowed the Lodges to 

admit a member if not above three ballots are 

against him ; though some Lodges desire no 

such allowance ." And accordingly, the present 

Constitution of the Grand Lodge of England, 

says : "No person can be made a Mason 

in or admitted a member of a Lodge, if, on the 

ballot, three black balls appear against him ; 

but the by-laws of a Lodge may enact that one 

or two back balls shall exclude a candidateand 

by-laws may also enact that a prescribed 

period shall elapse before any rejected candidate 

can be again proposed in that Lodge ." 

(Rule 190 .) The Grand Lodge of Ireland prescribes 

unanimity, unless there is a by-law of 

the subordinate Lodge to the contrary . (Law 

127.) The Constitution of Scotland provides 

that "Three black balls shall exclude a candidate 

. Lodges in the Colonies and in Foreign 

parts may enact that two black balls shall 

exclude ." (Rule 181 .) In the continental 

Lodges, the modern English regulation prevails 

. It is only in the Lodges of the United 

States that the ancient rule of unanimity is 

strictly enforced . 

Unanimity in the ballot is necessary to 

secure the harmony of the Lodge, which may 

be as seriously impaired by the admission of a 

candidate contrary to the wishes of one member 

as of three or more ; for every man has his 

friends and his influence . Besides, it is unjust 

to any member, however humble he may 

be, to introduce among his associates one 

whose presence might be unpleasant to him, 

and whose admission would probably compel 

him to withdraw from the meetings, or even 

altogether from the Lodge . Neither would 

any advantage really accrue to a Lodge by 

such a force admission ; for while receiving 

a new and untried member into its fold, it 

would be losing an old one . For these reasons, 

in this country, in every one of its jurisdictions, 

the unanimity of the ballot is expressly 

insisted on ; and it is evident, from what has 

been here said, that any less stringent regulation 

is a violation of the ancient law and usage . 

Balsamo, Joseph . See Cagliostro . 

Baltimore Convention. A Masonic 

Congress which met in the city of Baltimore on

96 BALUSTER 

BANNERS 

the 8th of May, 1843, in consequence of a recommendation 

made by a preceding convention 

which had met in Washington, D . C ., in March, 

1842 . It consisted of delegates from the 

States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New 

York, Maryland, District of Columbia, North 

Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia; Alabama, 

Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Missouri, and Louisiana. 

Its professed objects were to produce 

uniformity of Masonic work and to recommend 

such measures as should tend to the elevation 

of the Order . It continued in session 

for nine days, during which time it was principally 

occupied in an attempt to perfect the 

ritual, and in drawing up articles for the permanent 

organization of a Triennial Masonic 

Convention of the United States, to consist of 

delegates from all the Grand Lodges . In 

both of these efforts it failed, although several 

distinguished Masons took part in its proceedings 

; the body was too small (consisting, 

as it did, of only twenty-three members) to 

exercise any decided popular influence on the 

Fraternity . Its plan of a Triennial Convention 

met with very general opposition, and its 

proposed ritual, familiarly known as the "Baltimore 

work," has almost become a myth . Its 

only practical result was the preparation and 

publication of Moore's Trestle Board, a Monitor 

which has, however, been adopted only by 

a limited number of American Lodges. The 

"Baltimore work" did not materially differ 

from that originally established by Webb . 

Moore's Trestle Board professes to be an exposition 

of its monitorial part ; a statement 

which, however, is denied by Dr . Dove, who 

was the President of the Convention, and the 

controversy on this point at the time between 

these two eminent Masons was conducted 

with too much bitterness . 

Baluster . A small column or pilaster, 

corruptly called a bannister ; in French, balustre 

. Borrowing the architectural idea, the 

Scottish Rite Masons apply the word baluster 

to any official circular or other document issuing 

from a Supreme Council . 

Balzac, Louis Charles. A French architect 

of some celebrity, and member of the Institute 

of Egypt . He founded the Lodge of 

the Great Sphinx at Paris . He was also a 

poet of no inconsiderable merit, and was the 

author of many Masonic canticles in the 

French language, among them the well-known 

hymn entitled Taisons nous, plus de bruit, 

the music of which was composed by M . Riguel. 

He died March 31, 1820, at which time 

he was inspector of the public works in the prefecture 

of the Seine . 

Band. The neck ribbon bearing the jewel 

of the office in Lodge, Chapter, or Grand 

Lodge of various countries, and of the symbolic 

color pertaining to the body in which it is 

worn. 

Banner-Bearer. The name of an officer 

known in the higher degrees in the French 

Rite . One who has in trust the banner ; similar 

in station to the Standard-Bearer of a 

Grand Lodge, or . of a Supreme Body of the 


Banneret. A small banner . An officer 

known in the Order of the Knights Templar, 

who, with the Marshal, had charge of warlike 

undertakings . A title of an order known as 

Knight Banneret, instituted by Edward I . 

The banneret of the most ancient order of 

knighthood called Knight Bachelor was 

.(Fig . 1.) 

(Fig. 2.) (Fig. 3.) 

shaped like Fig . 1 . The Knights Banneret, 

next in age, had a pennon like Fig . 2. That 

of the Barons like Fig . 3. 

Banners, Royal Arch . Much difficulty 

has been experienced by ritualists in reference 

to the true colors and proper arrangements of 

the banners used in an American Chapter of 

Royal Arch Masons . It is admitted that they 

are four in number, and that their colors are 

blue, purple, scarlet, and white ; and it is known 

too, that the devices on these banners are a 

lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle ; but the doubt 

is constantly arising as to the relation between 

these devices and these colors, and as to 

which of the former is to be appropriated to 

each of the latter. The question, it is true, is 

one of mere ritualism, but it is important that 

the ritual should be always uniform, and 

hence the object of the present article is to 

attempt the solution of this question . 

The banners used in a Royal Arch Chapter 

are derived from those which are supposed to 

have been borne by the twelve tribes of Israel 

during their encampment in the wilderness, to 

which reference is made in the second chapter 

of the Book of Numbers, and the second verse : 

"Every man of the children of Israel shall 

pitch by his own standard ." But as to what 

were the devices on the banners, or what were 

their various colors, the Bible is absolutely 

silent. To the inventive genius of the Talmudists 

are we indebted for all that we know 

or profess to know on this subject . These 

mystical philosophers have given to us with 

wonderful precision the various devices which 

they have borrowed from the death-bed 

prophecy of Jacob, and have sought, probably 

in their own fertile imaginations, for the 

appropriate colors . 

The English Royal Arch Masons, whose 

system differs very much from that of their 

American Companions, display in their Chapters 

the twelve banners of the tribes in accordance 

with the Talmudic devices and colors . 

These have been very elaborately described 

by Dr . Oliver in his Historical Landmarks 

(ii ., 583-97), and beautifully exemplified by 

Companion Harris in his Royal Arch Tracing 

Boards . 

But our American Royal Arch Masons, as 

we have seen, use only four banners, being 

those attributed by the Talmudists to the four 

principal tribes-Judah, Ephraim, Reuben, 

and Dan. The devices on these banners are 

respectively a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle . 

As to this there is no question, all authorities,

BANQUET BARD 97 

such as they are, agreeing on this point . But, 

as has been before said, ere is some diversity 

of o inion as to the colors of each, and necesy 

as to the officers by whom they should 

be home. 

Some of the Targumists, or Jewish biblical 

commentators, say that the color of the banner 

of each tribe was analogous to that of the 

stone which represented that tribe in the 

breastplate of the High Priest . If this were 

correct, then the colors of the banners of the 

four leading tribes would be red and green, 

namely, red for Judah, Ephraim, and Reuben, 

and green for Dan ; these being the colors of 

the precious stones sardonyx, ligure, carbuncle, 

and chrysolite, by which these tribes were represented 

in the High Priest's breastplate . 

Such an arrangement would not, of course, at 

all suit the symbolism of the American Royal 

Arch banners . 

Equally unsatisfactory is the disposition of 

the colors derived from the arms of Speculative 

Masonry, as first displayed by Dermott in his 

Ahiman Rezon, which is familiar to all American 

Masons, from the copy published by Cross, 

in his Hieroglyphic Chart. In this piece of 

blazonry, the two fields occupied by Judah 

and Dan are azure, or blue, and those of 

Ephraim and Reuben are or, or golden yellow ; 

an appropriation of colors altogether uncongenial 

with Royal Arch symbolism . 

We must then, depend on the Talmudic 

writers solely for the disposition and arrangement 

of the colors and devices of these banners 

. From their works we learn that the 

color of the banner of Judah was white ; that 

of Ephraim, scarlet ; that of Reuben, purple , 

and that of Dan, blue ; and that the devices of 

the same tribes were respectively the lion, the 

ox the man, and the eagle . 

'Hence, under this arrangement-and it is 

the only one upon which we can depend-the 

four banners in a Chapter of Royal Arch 

Masons, working in the American Rite, must 

be distributed as follows among the bannerbearing 

officers : 

1st. An eagle, on a blue banner . This represents 

the tribe of Dan, and is borne by the 

Grand Master of the first veil . 

2d . A man, on a purple banner. This represents 

the tribe of Reuben, and is borne by 

the Grand Master of the second veil . 

3d . An ox, on a scarlet banner. This represents 

the tribe of Ephraim, and is borne by 

the Grand Master of the third veil. 

4th . A lion, on a white banner . This represents 

the tribe of Judah, and is borne by the 

Royal Arch Captain . 

Banquet. See Table-Lodge . 

Baphomet. The imaginary idol, or, rather, 

symbol which the Knights Templars were 

accused of employing in their mystic rights . 

The forty-second of the charges preferred 

against them by Pope Clement is in these 

words : Item quod ipsi per singulas provincias 

habeant idola : videlicet capita quorum 

aliqua habebant tres facies, et alia unum : et 

aliqua cranium humanism ha bebant . Also, 

that in all of the provinces they have idols, 

namely, heads, of which some had three faces, 

some one, and some had a human skull . Von 

Hammer, a bitter enemy of the Templars, in 

his book entitled The Mystery of Baphomet 

Revealed, revived this old accusation, and attached 

to the Baphomet an impious signification. 

He derived the name from the Greek 

words, $a, baptism, and µfjrts, wisdom, and 

thence supposed that it represented the admission 

of the initiated into the secret mysteriesof 

theOrder . Fromthisgratuitousassumption 

he deduces his theory, set forth even m 

the very title of his work, that the Templars 

were convicted, by their own monuments, of 

being guilty as Gnostics and Ophites of apostasy, 

idolatry, and impurity . Of this statement 

he offers no other historical testimony 

than the Articles of Accusation, themselves 

devoid of proof, but through which the Templars 

were made the victims of the jealousy of 

the Pope and the avarice of the King of France . 

Others again have thought that they could 

find in Baphomet a corruption of Mahomet, 

and hence they have asserted that the Templars 

had been perverted from their religious 

faith by the Saracens, with whom they 

had so much intercourse, sometimes as foes 

and sometimes as friends . Nicolai, who 

wrote an Essay on the Accusations brought 

against the Templars, published at Berlin, 

in 1782, supposes, but doubtingly, that the 

fi e of the Baphomet, figura Ba f'ometi, 

w ch was depicted on a bust representing the 

Creator, was nothing else but the Pythagorean 

pentagon, the symbol of health and prosperity, 

borrowed by the Templays from the Gnostics, 

who in turn had obtained it from the 

School of Pythagoras . 

King, in his learned work on the Gnostics, 

thinks that the Baphomet may have been a 

symbol of the Manicheans, with whose widespreading 

heresy in the Middle Ages he does 

not doubt that a large portion of the inquiring 

spirits of the Temple had been intoxicated . 

Amid these conflicting views, all merely 

speculative, it will not be uncharitable or unreasonable 

to suggest that the Baphomet, or 

skull of the ancient Templars, was, like the 

relic of their modern Masonic representatives, 

simply an impressive symbol teaching the 

lesson of mortality, and that the latter has 

really been derived from the former . 

Baptism, Masonic . The term "Masonic 

Baptism " has been recently applied in this 

country by some authorities to that ceremony 

which is used in certain of the high degrees, 

and which, more properly, should be called 

"Lustration." It has been objected that the 

use of the term is calculated to give needless 

offense to scrupulous persons who might suppose 

it to be an imitation of a Christian sacrament. 

But, in fact, the Masonic baptism has 

no allusion whatsoever, either in form or design, 

to the sacrament of the Church . It is 

simply a lustration or purification by water, a 

ceremony which was common to all the ancient 

initiations . (See Lustration .) 

Bard . A title of great dignity and importance 

among the ancient Britons, which was

print 

98 BASTARD 

BARRUEL 

conferred only upon men of distinguished rank 

in society and who filled a sacred office . It 

was the third or lowest of the three degrees 

into which Druidism was divided . (See Druidical 

Mysteries .) 

There is an officer of the Grand Lodge of 

Scotland called the "Grand Bard ." 

Bastard. The question of the ineligibility 

of bastards to be made Freemasons was first 

brought to the attention of the Craft by 

Brother Chalmers I. Paton, who, in several 

articles in The London Freemason, in 1869, 

contended that they were excluded from initiation 

by the Ancient Regulations . Subsequently, 

in his compilation entitled Freemasonry 

and its Jurisprudence published in 1872, 

he cites several of the Old Constitutions as 

explicitly declaring that the men made Masons 

shall be "no bastards ." This is a most nnwarrantable 

interpolation not to be justified in 

any writer on Jurisprudence ; for on a careful 

examination of all the old manuscript copies 

which have been published, no such words 

are to be found in any one of them . As an 

instance of this literary disingenuousness (to 

use no harsher term) I quote the following 

from his work (p . 60j : "The charge in this 

second edition [of Anderson's Constitutions] is 

in the following unmistakable words : `The 

men made Masons must be freeborn, no bastard 

(or no bondmen,) of mature age and of 

good report, hale and sound, not deformed or 

dismembered at the time of their making .' " 

Now, with a copy of this second edition 

lying open before me, I find the passage thus 

ed: "The men made Masons must be 

reeborn, (or no bondmen,) of mature age and 

of good report, hale and sound, not deformed 

or dismembered at the time of their making ." 

The words "no bastard " are Paton's interpolation. 

Again, Paton quotes from Preston the An- 

.cient Charges at makings, in these words : 

"That he that be made be able in all degrees ; 

that is, freeborn, of a good kindred, true, and 

no bondsman or bastard, and that he have his 

right limbs as a man ought to have ." 

But on referring to Preston (edition of 1775, 

and all subsequent editions) we find the passage 

to be correctly thus : "That he that be 

made be able in all degrees ; that is, freeborn, 

of a good kindred, true, and no bondsman, 

and that he have his limbs as a man ought to 

have ." 

Positive law authorities should not be thus 

cited, not merely carelessly, but with designed 

inaccuracy to support a theory . 

But although there is no regulation in the 

Old Constitutions which explicitly prohibits 

the initiation of bastards, it may be implied 

from their language that such prohibition did 

exist . Thus, in all the old manuscripts, we 

find such expressions as these : he that shall be 

made a Mason "must be freeborn and of good 

kindred" (Sloane MS ., No. 3323), or "come of 

good kindred" (Edinburgh Kilwinning MS .), 

or, as the Roberts Print more definitely has it, 

"of honest parentage." 

It is not, I therefore think, to be doubted 

that formerly bastards were considered as ineligible 

for initiation, on the same principle 

that they were, as a degraded class, excluded 

from the priesthood in the Jewish and the primitive 

Christian church. But the more liberal 

spirit of modern times has long since made the 

law obsolete, because it is contrary to the principles 

of justice to punish a misfortune as if it 

was a crime . 

Barbati Fratres . Bearded Brothers-at 

an earlier date known as the Conversi-craftsmen 

known among the Conventual Builders, 

admitted to the Abbey Corbey in the year 

851, whose social grade was more elevated 

than the ordinary workmen, and were freeborn 

. The Conversi were filiates in the Abbeys, 

used a quasi-monastic dress, could leave 

their profession whenever they chose and could 

return to civil life. Converts who abstained 

from secular pursuits as sinful and professed 

conversion to the higher life of the Abbe, 

without becoming monks . Schoke or guilds of 

such Operatives lodged within the convents . 

We are told by Bro. Geo . F . Fort (in his Critical 

Inquiry Concerning the Medicevat Conventual 

Builders, 1884) that the schoo of 

dextrous Barbati Fratres incurred the anger 

of their coreigionists, by their haughty deportment, 

sumptuous garb, liberty of movement 

and refusal to have their long, flowing 

beards shaven-hence their name-thus tending 

to the more fascinating attractions of civil 

life as time carried them forward through the 

centuries to the middle of the thirteenth, when 

William Abbott, of Premontre, attempted to 

enforce the rule of shaving the beard . "These 

worthy ancestors of our modern craft deliberately 

refused," and said, "if the execution of 

this order were pressed against them, `they 

would fire every cloister and cathedral in the 

country.' " The decretal was withdrawn . 

Barefeet. See Discalceation . 

Barruel, Abbe . Augustin Barruel, generally 

known as the Abbe Barruel, who was 

born, October 2, 1741, at Villeneuve de Berg, 

in France, and who died October 5, 1820, was 

an implacable enemy of Freemasonry . He 

was a prolific writer, but owes his reputation 

principally to the work entitled Memoires 

pour servir a l'Histoire du Jacobinisme, 4 vols ., 

8vo, published in London in 1797 . In this 

work he charges the Freemasons with revolutionary 

principles in politics and with infidelity 

in religion . He seeks to trace the origin 

of the Institution first to those ancient heretics, 

the Manicheans, and through them to the 

Templars, against whom he revives the old 

accusations of Philip the Fair and Clement 

V . His theory of the Templar origin of 

Masonry is thus expressed (ii ., 382) : " Your 

whole school and all your Lodges are derived 

from the Templars. After the extinction of 

their Order, a certain number of guilty knights, 

having escaped the proscription, united for 

the preservation of their horrid mysteries . To 

their impious code they added the vow of 

vengeance against the kings and priests who 

destroyed their Order, and against all religion 

which anathematized their dogmas. They

BARTOLOZZI 

BASLE 99 

made adepts, who should transmit from generation 

to generation the same mysteries of iniquity, 

the same oaths, and the same hatred of 

the God of the Christians, and of kings, and of 

priests. These mysteries have descended to 

you, and you continue to perpetuate their 

impiety, their vows, and their oaths . Such is 

your origin. The lapse of time and the change 

of manners have varied a part of your symbols 

and your frightful systems ; but the essence 

of them remains, the vows, the oaths, the 

hatred, and the conspiracies are the same ." 

It is not astonishing that Lawrie (History of 

Freemasonry, p . 50) should have said of the 

writer of such statements, that "that charity 

and forbearance which distinguish the Christian 

character are never exemplified in the 

work of Barruel ; and the hypocrisy of his pretensions 

is often betrayed by the fury of his 

zeal . The tattered veil behind which he attempts 

to cloak his inclinations often discloses 

to the reader the motives of the man 

and the wishes of his party ." Although the 

attractions of his style and the boldness of his 

declamation gave Barruel at one time a prominent 

place among anti-Masonic writers, his 

work is now seldom read and never cited in 

Masonic controversies, for the progress of 

truth has assigned their just value to its extravagant 

assertions . 

Bartolozzi, Francesco (1728-1813) . A 

famous engraver who lived for some time in 

London and engraved the frontispiece of the 

1784 edition of the Book of Constitutions . He 

was initiated in the Lodge of the Nine Muses 

in London on February 13 1777 (E. L . H .] 

Basilica. Literally and originally a royal 

palace . A Roman Pagan,basilica was a rectangular 

hall whose length was two or three 

times its breadth, divided by two or more lines 

of columns, bearing entablatures, into a broad 

central nave and side aisles . It was generally 

roofed with wood, sometimes vaulted. At one 

end was the entrance . From the center of the 

opposite end opened a semicircular recess as 

broad as the nave, called in Latin the "Tribuna" 

and in Greek the "Apsis ." The uses of 

the basilica were various and of a public character, 

courts of justice being held in them . 

Only a few ruins remain, but sufficient to establish 

the form and general arrangement . 

The significance of the basilica to Freemasons 

is that it was the form adopted for 

early Christian churches, and for its influence 

on the building guilds . 

For the beginning of Christian architecture, 

which is practically the beginning of Operative 

Masonry, we must seek very near the beginning 

of the Christian religion . For three centuries 

the only places in Pagan Rome where 

Christians could meet with safety were in 

the catacombs . When Constantine adopted 

Christianity in 324, the Christians were no 

longer forced to worship in the catacombs . 

They were permitted to worship in the basilica 

and chose days for special worship of the 

Saints on or near days of Pagan celebrations or 

feast days, so as not to attract the attention 

or draw the contempt of the Romans not 

Christians. Examples of this have come down 

to us, as, Christmas, St . John the Baptist 

Day, St. John the Evangelist Day, etc . 

The Christian basilicas spread over the 

Roman Empire, but in Rome applied specially 

to the seven principal churches founded by 

Constantine, and it was their plan that gave 

Christian churches this name . The first 

builders were the Roman Artificers, and after 

the fall of the Western Empire we find a decadent 

branch at Como (see Como) that developed 

into the Comacine Masters, who 

evolved, aided by Byzantine workmen and influence, 

Lombard architecture . 

Basket. The basket or fan was among the 

Egyptians a symbol of the purification of souls . 

The idea seems to have been adopted by other 

nations, and hence, "initiations in the Ancient 

Mysteries," says Mr . Rolle (Cults de Bacch ., i ., 

30) "being the commencement of a better life 

and the perfection of it, could not take place 

till the soul was purified . The fan had been 

accepted as the symbol of that purification 

because the mysteries purged the soul of sin, 

as the fan cleanses the grain ." John the Baptist 

conveys the same idea of purification when 

he says of the Messiah, "His fan is in his hand, 

and he will thoroughly purge his floor." The 

sacred basket in the Ancient Mysteries was 

called the AJKrov, and the one who carried it 

was termed the xucvdpopos, or basket-bearer . 

Indeed, the sacred basket, containing the first 

fruits and offerings, was as essential in all solemn 

processions of the mysteries of Bacchus 

and other divinities as the Bible is in the Masonic 

procession . As lustration was the symbol 

of purification by water, so the mystical 

fan or winnowing-basket was, according to 

Sainte Croix (Myst . du Pag., t . ii ., p . 81), the 

symbol in the Bacchic rites of a purification 

by air. 

Basle, Congress of . A Masonic Congress 

was held September 24,1848, at Basle, in Switzerland, 

consisting of one hundred and six 

members, representing eleven Lodges under the 

patronage of the Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina . 

The Congress was principally engaged upon 

the discussion of the question, "What can and 

what ought Freemasonry to contribute towards 

the welfare of mankind locally, nationally, 

and internationally? " The conclusion 

to which the Congress appeared to arrive upon 

this question was briefly this : "Locally, Freemasonry 

ought to strive to make every brother 

a good citizen, a good father, and a good 

neighbor ; whilst it ought to teach him to perform 

every duty of life faithfully. Nationally, 

a Freemason ought to strive to promote and to 

maintain the welfare and the honor of his 

native land, to love and to honor it himself, 

and, if necessary, to place his life and fortune 

at its disposal ; Internationally, a Freemason is 

bound to go still further : he must consider 

himself as a member of that one great family, 

-the whole human race,-who are all children 

of one and the same Father, and that it is 

in this sense, and with this spirit, that the 

Freemason ought to work if he would appear 

worthily before the throne of Eternal Truth

100 BATON 

BEAUSEANT 

and Justice." The Congress appears to have 

accomplished no practical result . 

Baton . The truncheon or staff of a Grand 

Marshal, and always carried by him in processions 

as the ensign of his office . It is a 

wooden rod about eighteen inches long . . In 

the militaryuaaga of England, the baton of 

the Earl Marshal was originally of wood, but 

in the reign of Richard II . it was made of gold, 

and delivered to him at his creation, a custom 

which is still continued . In the patent or 

commission granted by that monarch to the 

Duke of Surrey the baton is minutely described 

as "baculum aureum circa utramque 

finem de nigro annulatum," a golden wand, having 

black rings around each end-a description 

that will very well suit for a Masonic baton . 

Bats, Parliament of . The Parliament 

which assembled in England in the year 1426, 

during the minority of Henry VI., to settle 

the disputes between the Duke of Gloucester, 

the Regent, and the Bishop of Winchester, 

the guardian of the young king's 

person, and which was so called because the 

members, being forbidden by the Duke of 

Gloucester to wear swords, armed themselves 

with clubs or bats . It has been stated by 

Preston (Illustrations) that it was in this 

Parliament that the Act forbidding Masons 

to meet in Chapters or Congregations was 

passed ; but this is erroneous, for that act 

was passed in 1425 by the Parliament at 

Westminster, while the Parliament of Bats 

met at Leicester in 1426 . [E. L . H .] 

(See Laborers, Statutes of.) 

Battery. A given number of blows by the 

gavels of the officers, or by the hands of the 

Brethren, as a mark of approbation, admiration, 

or reverence, and at times accompanied 

by the acclamation. 

Bavaria. Freemasonry was introduced 

into Bavaria, from France, in 1737. The 

meetings of the Lodges were suspended in 

1784 by the reigning duke, Charles Theodore, 

and the Act of suspension was renewed in 1799 

and 1804 by Maximilian Joseph, the King of 

Bavaria . The Order was subsequently revived 

in 1812 and in 1817 . The Grand Lodge of 

Bayreuth was constituted in 1811 under the 

appellation of the "Grand Lodge zur Sonne ." 

In 1868 a Masonic conference took place of 

the Lodges under its jurisdiction, and a constitution 

was adopted, which guarantees to 

every confederated Lodge perfect freedom of 

ritual and government, provided the Grand 

Lodge finds these to be Masonic . 

Bay-Tree. An evergreen plant, and a 

symbol in Freemasonry of the immortal nature 

of Truth. By the bay-tree thus referred 

to in the ritual of the Companion of the Red 

Cross, is meant the laurel, which, as an evergreen, 

was among the ancients a symbol of 

immortality. It is, therefore, properly compared 

with truth, which Josephus makes Zerubbabel 

say is "immortal and eternal." 

Bazot, Etienne Frangols . A French Masonic 

writer, born at Nievre, March 31, 1782 . 

He published at Paris, in 1810, a Vocabulaire 

des Francs-Masons, which was translated into 

Italian, and in 1811 a Manuel du Franc-Mason 

which is one of the most judicious works of 

the kind published in France . He was also 

the author of Morale de la Franc-Magonnerie, 

and the Tuileur Expert des 33 degres, which is a 

complement to his Manuel . Bazot was distinguished 

for other literary writings on subjects 

of general literature, such as two volumes of 

Tales and Poems, A Eulogy on the Abbe de 

1'Epee, and as the editor of the Biographie Nouvelle 

des Contem~ poraires, in 20 volumes . 

B . D . S. P . ld . G . F. In the French rituals 

of the Knights of the East and West, these 

letters are the initials of Beaute, Divinit6, 

Sagesse, Puissance, Honneur, Gloire, Force, 

which correspond to the letters of the English 

rituals, B . D . W . P . H . G . S., which are the 

initials of equivalent words . 

Beadle. An officer in a Council of Knights 

of the Holy Sepulcher, corresponding to the 

Junior Deacon of a symbolic Lodge . The 

beadle, bedellus (DuCange), is one, says Junius, 

who proclaims and executes the will of 

superior powers . 

Beaton, Mrs . One of those fortunate females 

who are said to have obtained possession 

of the Masons' secrets. The following account 

of her is given in A General History of 

the County of Norfolk, published in 1829 (vol . 

2, p . 1304) . Mrs. Beaton, who was a resident 

of Norfolk, England, was commonly called the 

Freemason, from the circumstance of her having 

contrived to conceal herself, one evening, 

in the wainscoting of a Lodge-room, where she 

learned the secret-at the knowledge of which 

thousands of her sex have in vain attempted 

to arrive . She was, in many respects, a very 

singular character, of which one proof adduced 

is that the secret of the Freemasons died with 

her . She died at St . John Maddermarket, 

Norwich, July, 1802, aged eighty-five . 

Beaucenifer . From Beauseant, and fero, 

to carry. The officer among the old Knights 

Templar whose duty it was to carry the Beauseant 

in battle. The office is still retained in 

some of the high degrees which are founded on 

Templarism . 

Beauchalne . The Chevalier Beauchaine 

wasoneof the mostfanaticalof the irremovable 

Masters of the Ancient Grand Lodge of 

France . He had established his Lodge at the 

"Golden Sun " an inn in the Rue St. Victor, 

Paris, where he slept, and for six francs conferred 

all the degrees of Freemasonry . On 

August 17, 1747, he 

organized the Order of 

Fendeurs, or Woodcutters, 

at Paris . 

Beauseant . The 

vexillum belli, or warbanner 

of the ancient 

Templars, which is also 

used by the modern Masonic 

Order . The upper 

half of the banner was 

black, and the lower half 

white : black, to typify terror to foes, and white, 

fairness to friends . It bore the pious inscription, 

Non nobis, Domine non nobis, red nomini

amb 

BEAUTY 

BEEHIVE 101 

tuo da gloriam . It is frequently, says Barrington 

(Intro . to Her ., p . 121), introduced among 

the decorations in the Temple Church, and on 

one of the paintings on the wall, Henry I . is 

represented with this banner in his hand . As 

to the derivation of the word, there is some 

doubt among writers . Bauseant or Bausant 

was, in old French, a piebald or party-colored 

horse ; and the word Bawseant is used in the 

Scottish dialect with a similar reference to two 

colors . Thus, Burns says : 

"His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face," 

where Dr. Currie, in his Glossary of Burns, explains 

bawsent as meaning " having a white 

stripe down the face ." It is also supposed by 

some that the word bauseant may be only a 

form, in the older language, of the modern 

French word biensfant which signifies something 

decorous or handsome ; but the former 

derivation is preferable, in which beauseant 

would signify simply a party-colored banner . 

With regard to the double signification of the 

white and black banner, the Orientalists have 

a legend of Alexander the Great, which may be 

appropriately quoted on the present occasion, 

as given by Weil in his Biblical Legends 

(p . 70) . 

Alexander was the lord of light and darkness 

: when he went out with his army the 

light was before him, and behind him was the 

darkness, so that he was secure against all 

uscadesiilack 

standard he had also the 

and by means of a miraculous 

white and 

power to transform the clearest day into midnight 

and darkness, or black night into noonday, 

just as he unfurled the one or the other . 

Thus he was unconquerable, since he rendered 

his troops invisible at his pleasure, and came 

down suddenly upon his foes . Might there not 

have been some connection between the mythical 

white and black standard of Alexander 

and the Beauseant of the Templars? We know 

that the latter were familiar with Oriental 

symbolism . 

Beauseant was also the war-cry of the Ancient 

Templars . 

Beauty. Said to be symbolically one of 

the three supports of a Lodge. It is represented 

by the Corinthian column, because the 

Corinthian is the most beautiful of the ancient 

orders of Architecture ; and by the Junior 

Warden, because he symbolizes the meridian 

sun-the most beautiful object in the heavens . 

Hiram Abif is also said to be represented by 

the Column of Beauty because the Temple 

was indebted to his skip for its splendid decorations 

. The idea of Beauty as one of the supports 

of the Lodge is found in the earliest rituals 

of the eighteenth century, as well as the 

symbolism which refers it to the Corinthian 

column and the Junior Warden . Preston first 

introduced the reference to the Corinthian 

column and to Hiram Abif. Beauty, 111KD21, 

tiphiret, was the sixth of the Kabbalistic Sephiroth, 

and, with Justice and Mercy, formed the 

second Sephirotic triad ; and from the Kabbalists 

the Masons most probably derived the 

symbol. (See Supports of theLodge .) 

Beauty and Bands . The names of the 

two rods spoken of by the prophet Zechariah 

as symbolic of his pastoral office . This expression 

was in use in portions of the old Masonic 

ritual in England ; but in the system of Dr . 

Hemming, which was adopted at the union of 

the two Grand Lodges in 1813, this symbol, 

with all reference to it, was expunged, and, as 

Dr . Oliver says (Sym . Dic .), "it is nearly forgotten, 

except by a few old Masons, who may 

perhaps recollect the illustration as an incidental 

subject of remark among the Fraternity 

of that period ." 

Becker. See Johnson . 

Becker, Rudolph Zacharias . A very 

zealous Mason of Gotha, who published, in 

1786, an historical essay on the Bavarian Illuminati 

under the title of Grundsatze Verfassung 

and Schicksale des Illuminatens Order in 

Baiern . He was a very popular writer on educational 

subjects ; his Instructive Tales of Joy 

and Sorrow was so highly esteemed, that a 

half million copies were printed in German 

and other languages . He died in 1802 . 

B6darride, The Brothers . The Brothers 

Marc, Michel, and Joseph Bedarride were 

Masonic charlatans, notorious for their propagation 

of the Rite of Mizraim, having established 

in 1813, at Paris, under the partly real 

and partly pretended authority of Lechangeur, 

the inventor of the Rite, a upreme Puissance 

for France, and organized a large number 

of Lodges. Of these three brothers, who 

were Israelites, Michel, who assumed the most 

prominent position in the numerous controversies 

which arose in French Masonry on 

account of their Rite died February 16, 1856 . 

Marc died ten years iefore, in April, 1846 . Of 

Joseph, who was never very prominent, we 

have no record as to the time of his death . 

(See Mizraim, Rite of.) 

Beehive . The bee was among the Egyptians 

the symbol of an obedient peoplebecause, 

says Horapollo, of all insects, the bee 

alone had a king . Hence, looking at the regulated 

labor of these insects when congregated 

in their hive, it is not surprising that a 

beehive should have been deemed an appropriate 

emblem of systematized industry. Freemasonry 

has therefore adopted the beehive as 

a symbol of industry, a virtue taught in the 

ritual which says that a Master Mason 

"works that he may receive wages, the better 

to support himself and family, and contribute 

to the relief of a worthy, distressed brother 

his widow and orphans " ; and in the Old 

Charges, which tell us that "all Masons shall 

work honestly on working days, that they 

may live creditably on holidays ." There 

seems, however, to be a more recondite meaning 

connected with this symbol . The ark has 

already been shown to have been an emblem 

common to Freemasonry and theAncient Mysteries, 

as a symbol of regeneration-of the 

second birth from death to life . Now in the 

Mysteries, a hive was the type of the ark . 

"Hence," says Faber (Orig. of Pag. Idol ., vol . 

ii ., 133), "both the diluvian priestesses and 

the regenerated souls were called bees ; hence,

102 BEHAVIOR 

BENAC 

bees were feigned to be produced from the 

carcass of a cow, which also symbolized the 

ark ; and hence, as the great father was esteemed 

an infernal god, honey was much used 

both in funeral rites and in the Mysteries ."* 

Behavior. The subject of a Mason's behavior 

is one that occupies much attention in 

both the ritualistic and the monitorial instructions 

of the Order . In " the Charges of a Freemason," 

extracted from the ancient records 

and first published in the Constitutions of 

1723, the sixth article is exclusively appropriated 

to the subject of "Behavior." It is 

divided into six sections, as follows : 1 . Behavior 

in the Lodge while constituted . 2. Be 

havior after the Lodge is over and the Brethren 

not gone . 3 . Behavior when Brethren 

meet without strangers, but not in a Lodge 

formed. 4 . Behavior in presence of strangers 

not Masons. 5 . Behavior at home and 

in your neighborhood . 6 . Behavior toward 

a strange brother . The whole article 

constitutes a code of moral ethics remarkable 

for the purity of the principles it inculcates 

and is well worthy of the close attention olt 

every Mason . It is a complete refutation of 

the slanders of anti-Masonic revilers . As 

these charges are to be found in all the editions 

of the Book of Constitutions, and in many 

recent Masonic works, they are readily accessible 

to everyone who desires to read them . 

Behold Your Master . When, in the installation 

services, the formula is used, "Brethren, 

behold your master," the expression is not 

simply exclamatory, but is intended, as the 

original use of the word behold implies, to invite 

the members of the Lodge to fix their attention 

upon the new relations which have 

sprung up between them and him who has j ust 

been elevated to the Oriental Chair, and to 

impress upon their minds the duties which 

they owe to him and which he owes to them . 

In like manner, when the formula is continued, 

"Master, behold your brethren," the Master's 

attention is impressively directed to the 

same change of relations and duties . These 

are not mere idle words, but convey an important 

lesson, and should never be omitted 

in the ceremony of installation . 

Bel. 5? , Bel, is the contracted form of t1y5, 

Baal, and was worshiped by the Babylonians 

as their chief deity. The Greeks and Romans 

so considered and translated the word by Zeus 

and Jupiter . It has, with Jah and On, been introduced 

into the Royal Arch system as a 

representative of the Tetragrammaton, which 

it and the accompanying words have sometimes 

ignorantly been made to displace . At 

the session of the General Grand Chapter of 

the United States, in 1871, this error was corrected 

; and while the Tetragrammaton was 

declared to be the true omnific word, the other 

three were permitted to be retained as merely 

explanatory . 

Belenus. Belenus, the Baal of the Scripture, 

was identified with Mithras and with 

* Bee, Evans, Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical 

Architecture . 

Apollo, the god of the sun . A forest in the 

neighborhood of Lausanne is still known as 

Sauv ,belin, or the forest of Belenus, and traces 

of this name are to be found in many parts of 

En land . The custom of kindling fires about 

midnight on the eve of the festival of St . John 

the Baptist, at the moment of the summer 

solstice, which was considered by the ancients 

a season of rejoicing and of divination, is a 

vestige of Druidism in honor of this deity . It 

is a significant coincidence that the numerical 

value of the letters of the word Belenus, like 

those of Abraxas and Mithras, all representatives 

of the sun, amounts to 365, the exact 

number of the 'days in a solar year . (See 

Abraxas .) 

Belgium. Soon after the separation of 

Belgium from the Netherlands, an independent 

Masonic jurisdiction was demanded by 

the former . Accordingly, in May, 1833, the 

Grand Orient of Belgium was established, 

which has under itq jurisdiction twenty-one 

Lodges. There is also a Supreme Council of 

the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which 

was constituted in the year 1817 . 

Belief, Religious . The fundamental law 

of Masonry contained in the first of the Old 

Charges collected in 1723, and inserted in the 

Book of Constitutions published in that year, 

sets forth the true doctrine as to what the 

Institution demands of a Mason in reference 

to his religious belief in the following words : 

"A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey 

the moral law ; and if he rightly understands 

the art, he will never be a stupid atheist nor 

an irreligious libertine . But though in ancient 

times Masons were charged in every country 


whatever it was, yet it is now thought more 

expedient only to oblige them to that religion 

in which all men agree, leaving their particular 

opinions to themselves ." Anderson, in his 

second edition, altered this article, calling a 

Mason a true Noaohida, and saying that 

Masons "all agree in the three great articles of 

Noah," which is incorrect, since the Precepts 

of Noah were seven . (See Religion of Masonry .) 

Bells . The use of a bell in the ceremonies 

of the Third Degree, to denote the hour, is, 

manifestly, an anachronism, for bells were not 

invented until the fifth century. But Freemasons 

are not the only people who have 

imagined the existence of bells at the building 

of the Temple . Henry Stephen tells us 

(Apologie pour Herodote, ch . 39) of a monk 

who boasted that when he was at Jerusalem 

he obtained a vial which contained some of 

the sounds of King Solomon's bells . The 

blunders of a ritualist and the pious fraud of a 

relic-monger have equal claims to authenticity . 

The Masonic anachronism is, however, not 

worth consideration, because it is simply intended 

for a notation of time-a method of 

expressing intelligibly the hour at which a 

supposed event occurred . 

Benae. A significant word in Symbolic 

Masonry, obsolete in many of the modern 

systems, whose derivation is uncertain . (See 

Macbenac.)

BENAI 

BENEVOLENT 103 

Benal. See Bonaim. 

Benakar. The name of a cavern to which 

certain assassins fled for concealment . 

Bendekar. A significant word in the high 

degrees . One of the Princes or Intendants of 

Solomon, in whose quarry some of the traitors 

spoken of in the Third Degree were found . He 

is mentioned in the catalogue of Solomon's 

princes, given in 1 Kings iv. 9 . The Hebrew 

word is 1I7, the son of him who divides or 

pierces . In some old rituals we find a corrupt 

form, Bendac a. 

Benedict XIV. A Roman pontiff whose 

family name was Prosper Lambertini . He 

was born at Bologna in 1675, succeeded 

Clement X II. a s Pope in 1740, and died in 

1758 . He was distinguished for his learning 

and was a great encourager of the Arts and 

Sciences . He was, however, an implacable 

enemy of secret societies, and issued on the 

18th of May, 1751, his celebrated bull, renewing 

and perpetuating that of his predecessor 

which excommunicated the Freemasons . (See 

Bull .) 

Benediction . The solemn invocation of a 

blessing in the ceremony of closing a Lodge is 

called the benediction . The usual formula is 

as follows : 

"May the blessing of Heaven rest upon us, 

and all regular Masons ; may brotherly love 

prevail, and every moral and social virtue 

cement us ." The response is, "So mote it be . 

Amen " • which should always be audibly pronounced 

by all the Brethren . 

Beneficiary. One who receives the suprt 

or charitable donations of a Lodge . 

Those who are entitled to these benefits are 

affiliated Masons, their wives or widows, their 

widowed mothers, and their minor sons and 

unmarried daughters . Unaffiliated Masons 

cannot become the beneficiaries of a Lodge, 

but affiliated Masons cannot be deprived of its 

benefits on account of non-payment of dues . 

Indeed, as this non-paym ent of ten arises from 

poverty it thus furnishes a stronger claim for 

fraternal charity . 

Benefit Society, Masonic . In 1798, a 

society was established in London, under the 

patronage of the Prince of Wales, the Earl of 

Moira, and all the other acting officers of the 

Grand Lodge, whose object was "the relief of 

sick, aged, and imprisoned brethren, and for 

the protection of their widows, children, and 

orphans ." The payment of one guinea per 

annum entitled every member, when sick or 

destitute, or his widow and orphans in case of 

his death, to a fixed contribution . After a few 

years, however, the Society came to an end, as 

it was considered improper to turn Freemasonry 

into a Benefit Club . 

Benefit funds of this kind have been generally 

unknown to the Masons of America, 

although some Lodges have established a 

fund for the p 

The Lodge of Strict 

Observance in the City of New York, and 

others in Troy, Ballston Schenectady, etc ., 

some years ago, adopted benefit funds . In 

1844, several members of the Lodges in Louisville, 

Kentucky, organized a society under the 

title of the "Friendly Sons of St . John ." It 

was constructed after the model of the English 

society already mentioned . No member was 

received after forty-five years of age, or who 

was not a contributing member of a Lodge ; the 

per diem allowance to sick members was 

seventy-five cents ; fifty dollars were appropriated 

to pay the funeral expenses of a deceased 

member, and twenty-five for those of 

a member's wife ; on the death of a member a 

gratuity was given to his family ; ten per 

cent of all fees and dues was appropriated to 

an orphan fund ; and it was contemplated, if 

the funds would justify, to pension the widows 

of deceased members, if their circumstances 

required it . 

But the establishment in Lodges of such 

benefit funds is in opposition to the pure system 

of Masonic charity, and, they have, therefore, 

been very properly discouraged by 

several Grand Lodges, though several still 

exist in Scotland . 

Benevolence. Cogan, in his work On the 

Passions, thus defines Benevolence : "When 

our love or desire of good goes forth to others, 

it is termed good-will or benevolence . Benevolence 

embraces all beings capable of enjoying 

any portion of good ; and thus it becomes universal 

benevolence, which manifests itself by 

being pleased with the share of good every 

creature enjoys, in a disposition to increase it 

in feeling an uneasiness at their sufferings, and 

in the abhorrence of cruelty under every disguise 

or pretext." This spirit should pervade 

the hearts of all Masons, who are taught to 

look upon mankind as formed by the Great 

Architect of the Universe for the mutual 

assistance, instruction, and support of each 

other. 

Benevolence, Fund of. This Fund was 

established in 1727 by the Grand Lodge of 

England under the management of a Committee 

of seven members, to whom twelve 

more were added in 1730 . It was originally 

supported by voluntary contributions from 

the various Lodges, and intended for the relief 

of distressed Brethren recommended by 

the contributing Lodges. The Committee 

was called the Committee of Charity . 

The Fund is now derived partly from the 

fees of honor payable by Grand Officers, and 

the fees for dispensations, and partly from an 

annual payment of four shillings from each 

London Mason and of two shillings from each 

country Mason ; it is administered by the 

Board of Benevolence, which consists of all 

the present and past Grand Officers, all actual 

Masters of Lodges and twelve Past Masters . 

The Fund is solely devoted to charity, and 

during the year 1909 a sum of £15,275 was 

voted and paid to petitioners . 

In the United States of America there are 

several similar organizations known as "Boards 

of Relief ." (See Relief, Board of .) [E . L . H .] 

Benevolent Institutions, U . S. There 

are five institutions in the United States of an 

educational and benevolent character, deriving 

their existence in whole or in part 

from Masonic beneficence : 1 . Girard College,

104 BENGABEE 

BIBLE 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ; 2 . Masonic Widows' 

and Orphans' Home, Louisville Kentucky 

; 3 . Oxford Orphan Asylum, oxford, 

North Carolina ; 4 . St . John's Masonic College, 

Little Rock, Arkansas ; 5 . Masonic Female 

College, Covington, Georgia . 

Besides the Stephen Girard Charity Fund, 

founded over a half century ago in Philadelphia, 

the capital investment of which is 

$62,000, the annual interest being devoted 

"to relieve all Master Masons in good standin 

," there is a Charity Fund of $60,000 for the 

relief of the widows and orphans of deceased 

Master Masons, and an incorporated Masonic 

Home . The District of Columbia has an 

organized Masonic charity, entitled St . John's 

Mite Association . Idaho has an Orphan 

Fund, to which every Master Mason pays 

annually one dollar. Indiana has organized 

the Masonic Widows' and Orphans' Home 

Society . Maine has done likewise ; and Nebraska 

has an Orphans' School Fund, although 

no building has been proposed. 

Bengabee. Found in some old rituals of 

the high degrees for Bendekar, as the name of 

an Intendant of Solomon . It is Bengeber in the 

catalogue of Solomon's officers, 1 Kings iv . 13, 

the son of Geber, or the son of the strong man . 

Bengal. In 1728 a "Deputation " was 

granted by Lord Kingston, Grand Master of 

England, to Brother George Pomfret to constitute 

a Lodge at Bengal m East India, that 

had been requested by some Brethren residing 

there ; and in the following year a Deputation 

was granted to Captain Ralph Far Winter, to 

be Provincial Grand Master of East India at 

Bengal (Constitutions, 1738, p . 194) ; and in 

1730 a Lodge was established at the "East 

India Arms, Fort William, Calcutta, Bengal," 

and numbered 72 . There is a District Grand 

Lodge of Bengal with 74 subordinate Lodges 

and also a District Grand Chapter with 21 

subordinate Chapters . [E. L . H .] 

Benjamin. A significant word in several 

of the degrees which refer to the second 

Temple, because it was only the tribes of 

Judah and Benjamin that returned from the 

captivity to rebuild it. Hence, in the Masonry 

of the second Temple, Judah and Benjamin 

have superseded the columns of Jachin 

and Boaz ; a change the more easily made 

because of the identity of the initials . 

Benkhurim . Corruptly spelled benchorim 

in most of the old rituals . A significant word 

in the high degrees, probably signifying one 

that is freeborn, from DI11rr -ID, son of the freeborn 

. 

Benyah, or Beniah . Lenning gives this 

form, Benayah . The son of Jah, a significant 

word in the high degrees . 

Berith . Heb ., r"1], a covenant . A significant 

word in several of the high degrees . 

Berlin . The capital of the kingdom of 

Prussia, and the seat of three Grand Lodes, 

namely : the Grand National Mother Loge, 

founded in 1744 ; the Grand Lodge of Germany, 

founded in 1770 ; and the Grand Lodge 

of Royal York of Friendship, founded in 1798 . 

(See Germany .) 

Bernard, David. An expelled Mason, 

under whose name was published, in the year 

1829, a pretended exposition entitled Light on 

Masonry . It was one of the fruits of the anti- 

Masonic excitement of the day. It is a worthless 

production, intended as a libel on the 

Institution . 

Bernard, Saint . St. Bernard, born in 

France, in 1091, was the founder of the Order 

of Cistercian Monks . He took great interest 

in the success of the Knights Templar, whose 

Order he cherished throughout his whole life . 

His works contain numerous letters recommending 

them to the favor and protection of 

the great . In 1128, he himself drew up the Rule 

of the Order, and among his writings is to be 

found a Sermo exhortatorius ad Milites Templi, 

or an "Exhortation to the Soldiers of the 

Temple," a production full of sound advice . 

To the influence of Bernard and his untiring 

offices of kindness, the Templars were greatly 

indebted for their rapid increase in wealth and 

consequence . He died in the year 1153 . 

Beryl . Heb ., T 171n . A precious stone, 

the first in the fourth row of the high priest's 

breastplate. Its color is bluish-green . It was 

ascribed to the tribe of Benjamin . 

Beyerle, Fran ols Louis de . A French 

Masonic writer of some prominence toward 

the close of the eighteenth century. He was a 

leading member of the Rite of Strict Observance, 

in which his adopted name was Eques d 

Flore . He wrote a criticism on the Masonic 

Congress of Wilhelmsbad, which was published 

under the title of Oratio de Conventu 

generali Latomorum aped aquas Wilhelminas, 

prope Hanauviam . He also wrote an Essai 

sur la Franc-Magonnerie, ou du but essential et 

fondamental de la Franc-Maconnerie ; translated 

the second volume of Frederic Nicolai's 

essay on the crimes imputed to the Templars, 

and was the author of several other Masonic 

works of less importance. He was a member 

of the French Constitutional Convention of 

1792. He wrote also some political essays on 

finances, and was a contributor on the same 

subject to the Encyclop€die Methodique . 

Bezaleel. One of the builders of the Ark 

of the Covenant . (See Aholiab) 

Bible . The Bible is roperly called a 

greater light of Masonry, for from the center 

of the Loge it pours forth upon the East, the 

West, and the South its refulgent rays of Divine 

truth. The Bible is used among Masons as a 

symbol of the will of God, however it may be 

expressed . And, therefore, whatever to any 

people expresses that will may be used as a 

substitute for the Bible in a Masonic Lodge . 

Thus, in a Lodge consisting entirely of Jews, 

the Old Testament alone may be placed upon 

the altar, and Turkish Masons make use of 

the Koran . Whether it be the Gospels to the 

Christian, the Pentateuch to the Israelite, 

the Koran to the Mussulman, or the Vedas 

to the Brahman, it everywhere Masonically 

conveys the same idea-that of the symbolism 

of the Divine Will revealed to man . 

The history of the Masonic symbolism of 

the Bible is interesting . It is referred to in

BIBLE-BEARER 

BLACKBOARD 105 

the manuscripts before the revival as the book 

upon which the covenant was taken, but it 

was never referred to as a great light . In the 

old ritual, of which a copy from the Royal 

Library of Berlin is given by Krause (Drei 

alt. Kunsturk, i . 32) there is no mention of the 

Bible as one of the lights. Preston made it a 

part of the furniture of the Lodge ; but in 

rituals of about 1760 it is described as one of 

the three great lights. In the American system, 

the Bible is both a piece of furniture and 

a great light. 

Bible-Bearer . In Masonic processions the 

oldest Master Mason present is generally 

selected to carry the open Bible, Square, and 

Compasses on a cushion before the Chaplain . 

This brother is called the Bible-Bearer . The 

" Grand Bible-Bearer " is an officer of the 

Grand Lodge of Scotland . 

Bibliography . In French, we have a 

Bibliographie des Ouvrages, Opuscules Encycliques 

ou ccrits les plus remarquables, publics 

sur 1'histoire de la Franc-Maconnerie depuis, 

1723,,jusques en 1814 . It is by Thory, and is 

contained in the first volume of his Acta 

Latomorum. Though not full, it is useful, 

especially in respect to French works, and it 

is to be regretted that it stops at a period 

anterior to the Augustan age of Masonic 

literature . In German, we have the work of 

Dr . Georg Kloss entitled Bibliographie der 

Freimaurerei, published at Frankfort in 1844. 

At the time of its publication it was an almost 

exhaustive work, and contains the titles 

of about six thousand volumes . See also 

Bibliography in this work (vol . ii .) . 

Bielfeld, Jacob Frederick . Baron Bielfeld 

was born March 31, 1717, and died April 

5, 1770. He was envoy from the court of 

Prussia to The Hague, and a familiar associate 

of Frederick the Great in the youthful days of 

that Prince before he ascended the throne . 

He was one of the founders of the Lodge of 

the Three Globes in Berlin, which afterward 

became a Grand Lodge . Through his influence 

Frederick was induced to become a 

Mason . In Bielfeld's Freundschaftlicher Briefe, 

or "Familiar Letters," are to be found an account 

of the initiation of the Prince, and other 

curious details concerning Freemasonry . 

Birkhead, Matthew . A Mason who owes 

his reputation to the fact that he was the 

author of the universally known Entered 

Apprentice's song, beginning : 

"Come let us prepare, 

We Brothers that are 

Assembled on merry occasions ; 

Let's drink, laugh, and sing ; 

Our wine has a spring . 

Here's a health to an Accepted Mason ." 

This song first appeared in Read's Weekly 

Journal for December 1, 1722, and then was 

published in the Book of Constitutions in 1723, 

after the death of its author, which occurred on 

December 30, 1722 . 

Birkhead was a singer and actor at Drury 

Lane Theater in London, and was Master of 

Lodge V when Dr. Anderson was preparing 

his Constitutions . His funeral is thus described 

in Read's Weekly Journal for January 

12, 1723 : "Mr . Birkhead was last Saturday 

night carried from his Lodgings in Whichstreet 

to be interr'd at St . Clements Danes ; 

the Pall was supported by six Free-Masons 

belonging toDrury-Lane Play-house ; the other 

Members of that particular Lodge of which 

he was a Warden, with a vast number of other 

Accepted-Masons, followed two and two ; both 

the Pall-bearers and others were in their whiteaprons." 

(See Tune;Freemasons.) (E .L.H .) 

Black . Black, in the Masonic ritual, is 

constantly the symbol of grief . This is perfectly 

consistent with its use in the world, 

where black has from remote antiquity been 

adopted as the garment of mourning. 

In Masonry this color is confined to but a 

few degrees, but everywhere has the single 

meaning of sorrow. Thus in the French Rite, 

during the ceremony of raising a candidate to 

the Master's Degree, the Lodge is clothed in 

black strewed with tears, as a token of grief for 

the loss of a distinguished member of the Fraternity, 

whose tragic history is commemorated 

in that degree . This usage is not however, 

observed in the York Rite . The black of the' 

Elected Knights of Nine, the Illustrious Elect 

of Fifteen, and the Sublime Knights Elected, 

in the Scottish Rite, has a similar import . 

In the degree of Noachite, black appears to 

have been adopted as a symbol of grief, tempered 

with humility, which is the virtue 

principally dilated on in the degree . 

The garments of the Knights Templar were 

originally white, but after the death of their 

martyred Grand Master, James de Molay, 

the modern Knights assumed a black dress as 

a token of grief for his loss . The same reason 

led to the adoption of black as the appropriate 

color in the Scottish Rite of the Knights of 

Kadosh and the Sublime Princes of the Royal 

Secret. The modern American modification 

of the Templar costume destroys all reference 

to this historical fact . 

One exception to this symbolism of black is 

to be found in the degree of Select Master 

where the vestments are of black bordered 

with red, the combination of the two colors 

showing that the degree is properly placed 

between the Royal Arch and Templar degrees, 

while the black is a symbol of silence and 

secrecy, the distinguishing virtues of a Select 

Master . 

Blackball . The ball used in a Masonic 

ballot by those who do not wish the candidate 

to be admitted . Hence, when an applicant 

is rejected he is said to be "blackballed ." 

The use oi black balls may be traced as far 

back as the ancient Romans . Thus, Ovid 

says (Met ., xv. 41), that in trials it was the 

custom of the ancients to condemn the 

prisoner by black pebbles or to acquit him by 

white ones . 

" Mos erat antiquus, niveis atrisque lapillis, 

His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpes ." 

Blackboard . In German Lodges the 

Schwarze Tafel, or Blackboard, is that on

106 BLACK 

BLAZING 

which the names of applicants for admission 

are inscribed, so that every visitor may make 

the necessary in quiries whether they are or 

are not worthy of acceptance . 

Black Brothers, Order of the. Lenning 

says that the Schwarze Bri der was one of the 

College Societies of the German Universities . 

The members of the Order, however, denied 

this, and claimed an origin as early as 1675 . 

Thory (Act . Lat ., i ., 313) says that it was 

largely spread through Germany, having its 

seat for a long time at Giessen and at Marburg, 

and in 1783 being removed to Frankfort 

on the Oder . The same writer asserts that at 

first the members observed the dogmas and 

ritual of the Kadosh, but that afterward the 

Order, becoming a political society, gave rise 

to the Black Legion, which in 1813 was commanded 

by M . Lutzow . 

Blayney, Lord . Grand Master of the 

English Grand Lodge of the "Moderns," 

1764-6 . 

Blazing Star. The Blazing Star, which is 

not, however, to be confounded with the Five- 

Pointed Star, is one of the most important 

symbols of Freemasonry, and makes its appearance 

in several of the degrees. "It is," 

says Hutchinson, "the first and most exalted 

object that demands our attention in the 

Lodge." It undoubtedly derives this importance, 

first, from the repeated use that is 

made of it as a Masonic emblem ; and secondly, 

from its great antiquity as a symbol derived 

from other and older systems . 

Extensive as has been the application of 

this symbol in the Masonic ritual, it is not surprising 

that there has been a great difference 

of opinion in relation to its true signification . 

But this difference of opinion has been almost 

entirely confined to its use in the First Degree . 

In the higher degrees, where there has been 

less opportunity of innovation, the uniformity 

of meaning attached to the star has been carefully 

preserved . 

In the Twenty-eighth Degree of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite, the explanation 

given of the Blazing Star, is, that it is symbolic 

of a true Mason, who, by perfecting himself in 

the way of truth, that is to say, by advancing 

in knowledge, becomes like a blazing star, 

shining with brilliancy in the midst of darkness 

. The star is, therefore, in this degree, a 

symbol of truth . 

In the Fourth Degree of the same Rite, the 

star is again said to be a symbol of the light 

of Divine Providence pointing out the way 

of truth. 

In the Ninth Degree, this symbol is called 

"the star of direction" ; and while it primitively 

alludes to an especial guidance given 

for a particular purpose expressed in the 

degree, it still retains, in a remoter sense, its 

usual signification as an emblem of Divine 

Providence guiding and directing the pilgrim 

in his journey through life . 

When, however, we descend to Ancient 

Craft Masonry, we shall find a considerable 

diversity in the application of this symbol . 

In the earliest rituals, immediately after 

the revival of 1717, the Blazing Star is not 

mentioned, but it was not long before it was 

introduced . In the ritual of 1735 it is detailed 

as a part of the furniture of a Lodge, 

with the explanation that the "Mosaic Pavement 

is the Ground Floor of the Lodge, the 

Blazing Star, the Centre, and the Indented 

Tarsel, the Border round about it I" In a 

primitive Tracing Board of the Entered 

Apprentice, Copied by Oliver, in his Historical 

Landmarks (i., 133), without other date than 

that it was "published early in the last 

century," the Blazing Star occupies a prominent 

position in the center of the Tracing 

Board. Oliver says that it represented 

BEAUTY, and was called "the glory in the 

centre ." 

In the lectures subsequently prepared by 

Dunckerley, and adopted by the Grand Lodge, 

the Blazing Star was said to represent "the 

star which led the wise men to Bethlehem, 

proclaiming to mankind the nativity of the 

Son of God, and here conducting our spiritual 

progress to the Author of our redemption ." 

In the Prestonian lecture, the Blazing Star 

with the Mosaic Pavement and the Tesselateci 

Border, are called the Ornaments of the Lodge, 

and the Blazing Star is thus explained : 

"The Blazing Star, or glory in the centre, 

reminds us of that awful period when the 

Almighty delivered the two tables of stone, 

containing the ten commandments, to His 

faithful servant Moses on Mount Sinai, when 

the rays of His divine glory shone so bright 

that none could behold it without fear and 

trembling . It also reminds us of the omnipresence 

of the Almighty, overshadowing us 

with His divine love, and dispensing His blessings 

amongst us ; and by its being placed in the 

centre, it further reminds us, that wherever 

we may be assembled together, God is in the 

midst of us, seeing our actions, and observing 

the secret intents and movements of our 

hearts ." 

In the lectures taught by Webb, and very 

generally adopted in this country, the Blazing 

Star is said to be "commemorative of the star 

which appeared to guide the wise men of the 

East to the place of our Saviour's nativity," 

and it is subsequently explained as hieroglyphically 

representing Divine Providence . 

But the commemorative allusion to the Star 

of Bethlehem seeming to some to be objectionable, 

from its peculiar application to 

the Christian religion, at the revision of 

the lectures made in 1843 by the Baltimore 

Convention, this explanation was omitted, and 

the allusion to Divine Providence alone retained 

. 

In Hutchinson's system, the Blazing Star 

is considered a symbol of Prudence . "It is 

placed," says he, "in the centre, ever to be 

present to the eye of the Mason, that his 

heart may be attentive to her dictates and 

steadfast in her laws ;-for Prudence is the 

rule of all Virtues ; Prudence is the path which 

leads to every degree of propriety ; Prudence is 

the channel where self-approbation flows for 

ever ; she leads us forth to worthy actions, and,

BLAZING 

BLAZING 107 

as a Blazing Star, enlighteneth us through the 

dreary and darksome paths of this life ." (Sp . 

of Mas ., ed . 1775, Lect . V., p . 111 .) Hutchinson 

also adopted Dunckerley's allusion to the 

Star of Bethlehem, but only as a secondary 

symbolism . 

In another series of lectures formerly in use 

in America but which I believe is now abandoned, 

the blazing Star is said to be "emblematical 

of that Prudence which ought to appear 

conspicuous in the conduct of every Mason ; 

and is more especially commemorative of the 

star which- appeared in the east to guide the 

wise men to Bethlehem, and proclaim the 

birth and the presence of the Son of God ." 

The Masons on the Continent of Europe, 

speaking of the symbol, say : "It is no matter 

whether the figure of which the Blazing Star 

forms the centre be a square, triangle, or 

circle, it still represents the sacred name of 

God, as an universal sirit who enlivens our 

hearts, who purifies our- reason, who increases 

our knowledge, and who makes us wiser and 

better men ." 

And lastly, in the lectures revised b~y Dr . 

Hemming and adopted by the Grand Lodge 

of England at the union in 1813, and now 

constituting the authorized lectures of that 

jurisdiction, we find the following definition : 

"The Blazing Star, or glory in the centre, 

refers us to the sun, which enlightens the 

earth with its refulgent rays, dispensing its 

blessings to mankind at large, and giving 

light and life to all things here below." 

Hence we find that at different times the 

Blazing Star has been declared to be a symbol 

of Divine Providence, of the Star of Bethlehem, 

of Prudence, of Beauty, and of the Sun . 

Before we can attempt to decide upon these 

various opinions, and adopt the true signification, 

it is necessary to extend our investigations 

into the antiquity of the emblem, and 

inquire what was the meaning given to it by 

the nations who first established it as a symbol. 

Sabaism, or the worship of the stars, was 

one of the earliest deviations from the true 

system of religion . One of its causes was 

the universally established doctrine among 

the idolatrous nations of antiquity, that each 

star was animated by the soul of a hero god, 

who had once dwelt incarnate upon earth . 

Hence, in the hieroglyphical system, the star 

denoted a god . To this signification, allusion 

is made by the prophet Amos, when he says 

to the Israelites, while reproaching them for 

their idolatrous habits : "But ye have borne 

the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your 

images the star of your god, which ye made to 

yourselves." (Amos v . 26 .) 

This idolatry was early learned by the 

Israelites from their Egyptian taskmasters ; 

and so unwilling were they to abandon it, that 

Moses found it neceesA.ry strictly to forbid 

the worship of anything "that is in heaven 

above " ; notwithstanding which we find the 

Jews repeatedly committing the sin which 

had been so expressly forbidden . Saturn was 

the star to whose worship they were more 

particularly addicted under the names of 

Moloch and Chiun, already mentioned in the 

passage quoted from Amos. The planet 

Saturn was worshiped under the names of Moloch, 

Malcom or Milcom by the Ammonites, 

the Canaanites the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians, 

and' under that of Chiun by the 

Israelites in the desert . Saturn was worshiped 

among the Egyptians under the name 

of Raiphan, or, as it is called in the Septuagint, 

Remphan . St. Stephen, quoting the passage 

of Amos, says "ye took up the tabernacle of 

Moloch and the star of your god Remphan ." 

(Acts vii . 43.) 

Hale, in his Analysis of Chronology, says, in 

alluding to this passage : "There is no direct 

evidence that the Israelites worshipped the 

dog-star in the wilderness, except this passage ; 

but the indirect is very strong, drawn from 

the general prohibition of the worship of the 

sun, moon, and stars, to which they must have 

been prone. And this was peculiarly an Egyptian 

idolatry, where the dog-star was worshiped, 

as notifying by his heliacal rising, or 

emersion from the sun's ra s, the regular 

commencement of the periodical inundation 

of the Nile . And the Israelite sculptures at 

the cemetery of Kibroth-Hattaavah, or graves 

of lust in the neighborhood of Sinai, remarkably 

aliound in hieroglyphics of the dog-star, 

represented as a human figure with a dog's 

head . That they afterwards sacrificed to the 

dog-star, there is express evidence in Josiah's 

description of idolatry, where the Syriac 

Mazaloth (improperly termed planets) denotes 

the dog-star ; in Arabic, Mazaroth ." 

Fellows, in his Exposition of the Mysteries 

(p . 7), says that this dog-star, the Anubis of 

the Egyptians, is the Blazing Star of Masonry, 

and supposing that the latter is a symbol of 

Prudence, which indeed it was in some of the 

ancient lectures, he goes on to remark : "What 

connection can possibly exist between a star 

and prude , except allegorically in reference 

to the caution that was indicated to the 

Egyptians by the first appearance of this star 

which warned them of approaching danger .'; 

But it will hereafter be seen that he has totally 

misapprehended the true signification of the 

Masonic symbol. The work of Fellows, it 

may be remarked, is an unsystematic compilation 

of undigested learning ; but the 

student who is searching for truth must carefully 

eschew all his deductions as to the genius 

and spirit of Freemasonry . 

Notwithstanding a few discrepancies that 

may have occurred in the Masonic lectures, 

as arranged at various periods and by different 

authorities the concurrent testimony of the 

ancient religions, and the hieroglyphic lanage, 

prove that the star was a symbol of 

od. It was so used by the prophets of old 

in their metaphorical style, and it has so been 

generally adopted by Masonic instructors . 

The application of the Blazing Star as an emblem 

of the Savior, has been made by those 

writers who give a Christian explanation of 

our emblems, and to the Christian Mason such 

an application will not be objectionable . But

108 BLAZING 

BLUE 

those who desire to refrain from anything that 

may tend to impair the tolerance of our system, 

will be disposed to embrace a more 

universal explanation, which may be received 

alike by all the disciples of the Order, whatever 

may be their peculiar religious views . 

Such persons will rather accept the expression 

of Dr. Oliver, who, though much disposed to 

give a Christian character to our Institution, 

says "the great Architect of the Universe is 

therefore symbolized in Freemasonry by the 

Blazing Star, as the herald of our salvation," 

(Symb . Glory, p . 292 .) 

Before concluding, a few words may be said 

as to the form of the Masonic symbol . It is 

not an heraldic star or eatoile, for that always 

consists of six points, while the Masonic star 

is made with five points . This, perhaps, was 

with some involuntary allusion to the five 

Points of Fellowship . But the error has been 

committed in all our modern Tracing Boards 

of making the star with straight points which 

form, of course, does not represent a lazing 

star . Guillim (Disp . of Herald) says : "All 

stars should be made with waved points 

because our eyes tremble at beholding them,' # 

In the early Tracing Board already referred 

to, the star with five straight points is superimposed 

upon another of five waving points . 

But the latter are now abandoned, and we 

have in the representations of the present day 

the incongruous symbol of a blazing star with 

five straight points . In the center of the star 

there was always placed the letter G, which, 

like the Hebrew yod, was a recognized symbol 

of God, and thus the symbolic reference of the 

Blazing Star to Divine Providence is greatly 

strengthened . 

Blazing Star, Order of tbe. The Baron 

Tschoudy was the author of a work entitled 

The Blazing Star, (See T'schoudy .) On the 

principles inculcated in this work, he established, 

says Thory (Acta Latomerum, i ., 94), at 

Paris, in 1766, an order called "The Order of 

the Blazing Star," which consisted of degrees 

of chivalry ascending to the Crusades, after 

the Templar system of Ramsay . It never, 

however, assumed the prominent position of 

an active rite. 

Blesington, Earl of .. Grand Master of 

Ireland, 1738-9 ; also of the English Grand 

Lodge of the "Ancients," 1756-63 . 

Blessing. See Benedictian . 

Blind . A blind man cannot be initiated 

into Masonry under the operation of the old 

regulation, which requires physical perfection 

in a candidate . 

Blindness . Physical blindness in Masonry, 

as in the language of the Scriptures, is 

symbolic of the deprivation of moral and 

intellectual light . It is equivalent to the 

darkness of theAncient Mysteries in which the 

neophytes were enshrouded for periods varying 

from a few hours to many days . The 

Masonic candidate, therefore, represents one 

immersed in intellectual darkness, groping in 

the search for that Divine light and truth 

which are the objects of a Mason's labor . (See 

Darkness.) 

Blow . The three blows given to the 

Builder, according to the legend of the Third 

Degree, have been differently interpreted as 

symbols in the different systems of Masonry, 

but always with some reference to adverse or 

malignant influences exercised on humanity, 

of whom Hiram is considered as the type. 

Thus, in the symbolic degrees of Ancient 

Craft Masonry, the three blows are said to be 

typical of the trials and temptations to which 

man is subjected in youth and manhood, and 

to death, whose victim he becomes in old age. 

Hence the three Assassins are the three stages 

of human life . In the high degrees, such as 

the Kadoshes, which are founded on the 

Templar system of Ramsay, the reference is 

naturally made to the destruction of the Order, 

which was effected by the combined influences 

of Tyranny, Superstition, and Ignorance, 

which are therefore symbolized by the three 

blows ; while the three Assassins are also said 

sometimes to be represented by Squire de 

Floreau, Naffodei, and the Prior of Montfaucon, 

the three perjurers who swore away 

the lives of De Molay and his Knights, In 

the astronomical theory of freemasonry, 

which makes it a modern modification of the 

ancient sun-worship, a theory advanced by 

Ragon, the three blows are symbolic of the 

destructive influences of the three winter 

months, by which Hiram, or the Sun, is shorn 

of bis vivifying power . Des Etangs has 

generalized the Templar theory, and, supposing 

Hiram to be the symbol of eternal reason, 

interprets the blows as the attacks of those 

vices which deprave and finally destroy humanity 

. However interpreted for a special 

theory, Hiram the Builder always represents, 

in the science of Masonic symbolism, the 

principle of good ; and then the three blows are 

the contending principles of evil . 

Blue. This is emphatically the odor of 

Masonry. It is the appropriate tincture of 

the Ancient Craft degrees . It is to the Mason 

a symbol of universal friendship and benev- - 

olenoe, because, as it is the color of the vault 

of heaven, which embraces and covers the 

whole globe, we are thus reminded that in the 

breast of every brother these virtues should be 

equally as extensive. It is therefore the only 

odor, except white, which should be used in a 

Master's Lodge. Decorations of any other 

color would be highly inappropriate . 

Among the religious institutions of the Jews, 

blue was an important color. The robe of the 

high priest's ephod, the ribbon for his breastplate, 

and for the plate of the miter, were to he 

blue . The people were directed to wear a 

ribbon of this color above the fringe of their 

garments ; and it was the color of one of the 

veils of the tabernacle, where, Josephua says, 

it represented the element of air. The Hebrew 

word used on these occasions to designate the 

color blue is M'?SY1, tekelef; and this word 

seems to have a singular reference to the symbolic 

character of the color, for it is derived 

from a root signifying perfeetion ; now it is 

well known that, among the ancients, initiation 

into the mysteries and perfection were

BLUE 

BLUE 109 

synonymous terms ; and hence the appropriate 

color of the greatest of all the systems of 

initiation may well be designated by a word 

which also signifies perfection. 

This color also held a prominent position in 

the symbolism of the Gentile nations of antiquity 

. Among the Druids, blue was the 

symbol of truth, and the candidate, in the 

initiation into the sacred rites of Druidism, 

was invested with a robe composed of the 

three colors, white, blue, and green . 

The Egyptians esteemed blue as a sacred 

color, and the body of Amun, the principal 

god of their theogony, was painted light blue, 

to imitate, as Wilkinson remarks, "his peculiarly 

exalted and heavenly nature ." 

The ancient Babylonians clothed their idols 

in blue, as we learn from the prophet Jeremiah . 

The Chinese, in their mystical philosophy, 

represented blue as the symbol of the Deity, 

because, being, as they say, compounded of 

black and red, this color is a fit representation 

of the obscure and brilliant, the male and 

female, or active and passive principles . 

The Hindus assert that their god, Vishnu, 

was represented of a celestial blue, thus indicating 

that wisdom emanating from God 

was to be symbolized by this color . 

Among the medieval Christians blue was 

sometimes considered as an emblem of immortality, 

as red was of the Divine love . 

Portal says that blue was the symbol of perfection, 

hope, and constancy. "The color of 

the celebrated dome, azure," says Weale, in 

his treatise on Symbolic Colors, "was in divine 

language the symbol of eternal truth ; in consecrated 

language, of immortality; and in 

profane language, of fidelity ." 

Besides the three degrees of Ancient Craft 

Masonry, of which blue is the appropriate 

color, this tincture is also to be found in 

several other degrees, especially of the Scottish 

Rite, where it bears various symbolic signification, 

; all, however, more or less related to its 

original character as representing universal 

friendship and benevolence . 

In the degree of Grand Pontiff, the Nineteenth 

of the Scottish Rite, it is the predominating 

color, and is there said to be 

symbolic of the mildness, fidelity, and gentleness 

which ought to be the characteristics 

of every true and faithful brother . 

In the degree of Grand Master of all Symbolic 

Lodges, the blue and yellow, which are 

its appropriate colors, are said to refer to the 

appearance of Jehovah to Moses on Mount 

Sinai in clouds of azure and gold, and hence in 

this degree the color is rather an historical 

than a moral symbol . 

The blue color of the tunic and apron, 

which constitutes a part of the investiture of 

a Prince of the Tabernacle, or Twenty-fourth 

Degree in the Scottish Rite alludes to the 

whole symbolic character of the degree, whose 

teachings refer to our removal from this 

tabernacle of clay to "that house not made 

with hands, eternal in the heavens ." The 

blue in this degree is, therefore, a symbol of 

heaven, the seat of our celestial tabernacle . 

Blue Blanket. The Lodge of Journeymen, 

in the city of Edinburgh, is in possession 

of a blue blanket, which is used as a banner 

in Masonic processions . The history of it is 

thus given in the London Magazine : 

"A number of Scotch mechanics followed 

Allan, Lord Steward of Scotland, to the holy 

wars in Palestine, and took with them a 

banner, on which were inscribed the following 

words from the 51st Psalm, viz . : Ìn bona 

voluntate tua edificentur muri Hierosolymse .' 

Fighting under the banner, these valiant 

Scotchmen were present at the capture of 

Jerusalem, and other towns in the Holy Land ; 

and, on their return to their own country 

they deposited the banner which they styled 

`The Banner of the Holy Ghost,' at the altar of 

St . Eloi, the patron saint of the Edinburgh 

Tradesmen, in the church of St . Giles. It 

was occasionally unfurled, or worn as a mantle 

by the representatives of the trades in the 

courtly and religious pageants that in former 

times were of frequent occurrence in the 

Scottish capital . In 1482, James III., in consequence 

of the assistance which be had received 

from the Craftsmen of Edinburgh, in 

delivering him from the castle in which he was 

kept a prisoner, and paying a debt of 6 000 

Marks which he had contracted in mating 

preparations for the marriage of his son, the 

Duke of Rothsay, to Cecil, daughter of 

Edward IV., of England, conferred on the 

good town several valuable privileges, and 

renewed to the Craftsmen their favorite 

banner of `The Blue Blanket.' James's 

queen, Margaret of Denmark to show her 

gratitude and respect to the Grafts, painted 

on the banner, with her own hands, a St . 

Andrew's cross, a crown, a thistle, and a 

hammer, with the following inscription : 

`Fear God and honor the king ; grant him a 

long life and a prospe~rous reign, and we shall 

ever pray to be faithful for the defence of his 

sacred majesty's royal person till death .' 

The king decreed that in all time comin this 

fl should be the standard of the Crafts 

wi ' burgh, and that it should be unfurled 

in defence of their own rights, and in protection 

of their sovereign . The privilege of 

displaying it at the Masonic procession was 

granted to the journeymen, in consequence of 

their original connection with the Masons of 

Mary's Chapel, one of the fourteen incorporated 

trades of the city . 

"'The Blue Blanket was long in a very 

tattered condition ; but some years ago it was 

repaired by lining it with blue silk, so that it 

can be exposed without subjecting it to much 

injury . " 

An interesting little book was published with 

this title in 1722 and later editions describing 

the Operative Companies of Edinburgh . 

Blue Degrees. The first three degrees of 

Freemasonry are so called from the blue color 

which is peculiar to them . 

Blue Lodge. A Symbolic Lodge, in which 

the first three degrees of Masonry are conferred, 

is so called from the color of its decorations.

1 10 BLUE 

BOHEMIA 

Blue Masonry. The degrees of Entered 

Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason 

are called Blue Masonry . 

Blue Master. In some of the high degrees, 

these words are used to designate a Master 

Mason. 

Board of General Purposes . An organization 

attached to the Grand Lode of England, 

consisting of the Grand Master, Pro 

Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master, the 

Grand Wardens of the year, the Grand 

Treasurer, the Grand Registrar, the Deputy 

Grand Registrar a President, Past Presidents, 

the President of the Board of Benevolence, 

the Grand Director of Ceremonies, and twenty-four 

other members. The President and 

six of the twenty-four members are annually 

nominated by the Grand Master, and the 

remaining eighteen are elected by the Grand 

Lodge from the Masters and Past Masters of 

the Lodges. This board has authority to 

hear and determine all subjects of Masonic 

complaints, or irregularity respecting Lodges 

or individual Masons, when regularly brought 

before it, and generally to take cognizance of 

all matters relating to the' Craft . 

Board of Belief . See Relief, Board of . 

Boaz. The name of the left hand (or 

north) pillar that stood at the porch of King 

Solomon's Temple. It is derived from the 

Hebrew ] b, "in," and ty oaz, "strength," 

and signifies "in strength!' (See Pillars of 

the Porch.) 

Bochim. (O"», weepings .) A password 

in the Order of Ishmael . An angel spoke to 

Hagar as she wept at the well when in the 

wilderness with her son Ishmael . The angel 

is looked upon as a spiritual being, possibly 

the Great Angel of the Covenant, the Michael 

who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, 

or the Joshua, the captain of the hosts of Jehovah 

. 

Bode, Johann Joachim Christoph . 

Born in Brunswick, 16th of January, 1730 . 

One of the most distinguished Masons of his 

time . In his youth he was a professional 

musician, but in 1757 he established himself 

at Hamburg as a bookseller, and was initiated 

into the Masonic Order. He obtained 

much reputation by the translation of Sterne's 

Sentimental Journey and Tristram Shandy, of 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield ; Smollett's 

Humphrey Clinker ; and of Fielding's Tom 

Jones, from the English ; and of Montaigne's 

works from the French . To Masonic literature 

he made many valuable contributions ; 

among others, he translated from the French 

Bonneville's celebrated work entitled Les 

Jesuites chasse s de la Magonnerie et leur poignard 

brines par les Masons, which contains a 

comparison of Scottish Masonry with the 

Templarism of the fourteenth century . Bode 

was at one time a zealous promoter of the Rite 

of Strict Observance, but afterward became 

one of its most active opponents . In 1790 

he joined the Order of the Illuminati obtaining 

the highest degree in its second class, and 

at the Congress of Wilhelmsbad he advocated 

the opinions of Weishaupt . No man of 

his day was better versed than he in the history 

of Freemasonry or possessed a more valuable 

and extensive library ; no one was more 

diligent in increasing his stock of Masonic 

knowledge, or more anxious to avail himself 

of the rarest sources of learning . Hence, he 

has always held an exalted position among the 

Masonic scholars of Germany. The theory 

which he had conceived on the origin of Freemasonry-a 

theory, however, which the investigations 

of subsequent historians have 

proved to be untenable-was, that the Order 

was invented by the Jesuits, in the seventeenth 

century, as an instrument for the reestablishment 

of the Roman Church in England, 

covering it for their own purposes under 

the mantle of Templarism. Bode died at 

Weimar on the 13th of December, 1793 . 

Boeber, Johann. A Royal Councilor of 

State and Director of the School of Cadets at 

St . Petersburg during the reign of Alexander 

I . In 1805 he induced the emperor to revoke 

the edicts made by Paul I . and himself against 

the Freemasons. His representations of the 

true character of the Institution induced the 

emperor to seek and obtain initiation . Boeber 

may be considered as the reviver of Masonry 

in the Russian dominions, and was Grand 

Master of the Grand Lodge from 1811 to 1814 . 

Boehmen, Jacob. The most celebrated 

of the Mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

centuries, born near Gorlitz, in 1575 

and died in 1624 . His system attracted, and 

continued to attract long after his death, 

many disciples in Germany. Among these, in 

time, were several Freemasons, who sought 

to incorporate the mystical dogmas of their 

founder with the teachings of Freemasonry, 

so as to make the Lodges merely schools of 

theosophy. Indeed, the Theosophic Rites of 

Freemasonry, which prevailed to a great extent 

about the middle of the last century in 

Germany and France were indebted for 

most of their ideas to tie mysticism of Jacob 

Boehmen . 

Bohemann, Karl Adolf Anderson . Born 

in 1770, at J6nkbping in the south of Sweden . 

H was a very zealous member of the Order of 

Asiatic Brethren, and was an active promulgator 

of the high degrees. Invited to Sweden, 

in 1802, by the Duke of Sudermania, who was 

an ardent inquirer into Masonic science, he 

was appointed Court Secretary . He attempted 

to introduce his system of high degrees into 

the kingdom, but having been detected in the 

effort to intermingle revolutionary schemes 

with his high degrees, he was first imprisoned 

and then banished from the country, his society 

being interdicted. He returned to Germany, 

but is not heard of after 1815, when he 

published at Pyrmont a justification of himself 

. Findel (Hist., p . 560) calls him an impostor, 

but he seems rather to have been a 

Masonic fanatic, who was ignorant of or had 

forgotten the wide difference between Freemasonry 

and political intrigue . 

Bohemia . A Lodge named "The Three 

Stars " is said to have been established at 

Prague in 1726, and other Lodges were subse-

BOHMANN 

BOOK 

lfl 

quently constituted in Bohemia, but in consequence 

of the French Revolution they were 

closed in 1793 by the Austrian Government . 

Bohmann, F . Otto. A merchant in 

Stockholm (1695-1767), who left a legacy of 

100 000 Thalers to the Asylum for the Orphans 

of I'reemasons that was founded in Stockholm 

in 1753 . A medal wa struck in his 

honor in 1768 . (Marvin's Masonic Medals, 

p. 172 .) [E. L. H.] 

Bombay . The earliest Lodge in Bombay 

was established in 1758, followed by another 

in 1798, and by others until in 1861 ri District 

Grand Lodge of Bombay was established by 

the Grand Lodge of England, which has 33 

Lodges under it . There is also a District 

Grand Chapter with 13 subordinate Chapters ; 

and 9 Lodges owing allegiance to the Grand 

Lodge of Scotland . [E . L. H .] 

Bonalm . The word is really an incorrect 

transliteration of the Hebrew word for builders, 

which should be "Bonim" ; the construct 

form of which ("Bonai ") is used in 1 Kings 

v . 18 to designate a portion of the workmen 

on the Temple : "And Solomon's builders and 

Hiram's builders did hew them ." Oliver, in 

his Dictionary and in his Landmarks (i ., 402), 

gives a mythical account of them as Fellow- 

Crafts, divided into Lodges by King Solomon, 

but, by a grammatical blunder, he calls 

them Benai, substituting the Hebrew construct 

for the absolute case, and changing the participial 

o into e . The Bonaim seem to be distinguished 

by the author of the Book of Kings, 

from the 6ibalim, and the translators of the 

authorized version have called the former 

builders and the latter stone-squarers . It is 

probable that the Bonaim were an order of 

workmen inferior to the Gibalim . Anderson, 

in both of his editions of the Book of Constitutions, 

blunders grammatically, like Oliver, 

and calls them Bonai, saying that they were 

"setters, layers, or builders, or light Fellow 

Crafts, in number 80,000 ." This idea seems to 

have been perpetuated in the modern rituals . 

From this construct plural form "Bonai " 

some one has formed the slightly incorrect 

form "Bonaim ." [E. L . H .] 

Bondman . In the fourth article of the 

Halliwell or Regius MS., which is the earliest 

Masonic document known, it is said that the 

Master shall take good care that he make no 

bondman an apprentice, or, as it is in the 

original language : 

"The fourthe artycul thys moste be, 

That the Mayster hymn wel be-se, 

That he no bondemon prentys make ." 

The regulation is repeated in all the subsequent 

regulations, and is still in force. (See 

Freeborn) 

Bone. This word, which is now corruptly 

pronounced in one syllable, is the Hebrew 

word boneh, 111], "builder," from the verb 

banah, 1]7, "to build." It was peculiarly applied, 

as an epithet, to Hiram Abif, who superintended 

the construction of the Temple as its 

chief builder. Master Masons will recognize 

it as the terminal portion of a significant word . 

Its true pronunciation would be, in English 

letters, bonay ; but the corruption into one 

syllable as bone has become too universal ever 

to be corrected . 

Bone Box . In the early lectures of the last 

century, now obsolete, we find the following 

catechism : 

" Q . Have you any key to the secrets of a 

Mason? 

"A . Yes . 

"Q . Where do you keep it? 

" A . In a bone box that neither opens nor 

shuts but with ivory keys." 

The bone box is the mouth, the ivory keys 

the teeth . And the key to the secrets is afterward 

said to be the tongue . These questions 

were simply used as tests, and were subsequently 

varied . In a later lecture it is called 

the "bone-bone box." 

Bonneville, Chevalier de. On the 24th 

of November, 1754, he founded the Chapter 

of the high degrees known as the Chapter of 

Clermont . All the authorities assert this except 

Rebold (Hist. de trois G. L., p . 46), who 

says that he was not its founder but only the 

propagator of its degrees . 

Bonneville, Nicolas de. A bookseller 

and man of letters, born at Evreux, in France, 

March 13,1760 . He was the author of a work, 

published in 1788, entitled Les Jesuites chasses 

de la Magonnerie et leer poignard brisk par les 

Masons, divided into two parts, of the first 

of which the subtitle was La Maconnerie 

ecossaise comparee avec les trois professions et le 

Secret des Templiers du 14e Sieele ; and of the 

second, Mgmeti des quatre voeux de la Compagnie 

de S . Ignace, et desqu¢tre grades de la 

Mac nnerie de S. Je n . He also translated 

into French, Thoma, Paine's Essay on the 

Origin of Freemasonry; a work, by the way, 

which was hardly worth the trouble of translation. 

De B nneville had an exalted idea of 

the difficulties attendant upon writing a history 

of Freemasonry, for he says that, to compose 

such a work, supported by dates and authentic 

facts, it would require a period equal 

to ten times the age of man ; a statement 

which, although exaggerated, undoubtedly 

contains an element of truth . His Masonic 

theory was that the Jesuits had introduced 

into the symbolic degrees the history of the 

life and death of the Templars, and the doctrine 

of vengeance for the political and religious 

crime of their destruction ; and that they 

had imposed upon four of the higher degrees 

the four vows of their congregation . De 

Bonneville was imprisoned as a Girondist in 

1793 . He was the author of a History of Modern 

Europe, in 3 vols ., published in 1792 . He 

died in 1828 . 

Book of Charges. There seems, if we 

may judge from the references in the old records 

of Masonry, to have formerly existed a 

book under this title, containing the Charges 

of the Craft ; equivalent, probably, to the 

Book of Constitutions . Thus the Matthew 

Cooke MS. f the first half of tke fifteenth century 

(1 . 534) speaks of "othere chargys mo 

that ben wryten in the Boke of Chargys . "

1 12 BOOK 

BOOK 

Book of Constitutions . The Book of 

Constitutions is that work in which is contained 

the rules and regulations adopted for 

the government of the Fraternity of Freemasons 

. Undoubtedly, a society so orderly 

and systematic must always have been governed 

by a prescribed code of laws ; but, in 

the lapse of ages, the precise regulations which 

were adopted for the direction of the Craft in 

ancient times have been lost. The earliest 

record that we have of any such Constitutions 

is in a manuscript, first quoted, in 1723, by 

Anderson (Constitutions, 1723, pp . 32, 33), 

which he said was written in the reign of Edward 

IV. Preston (p 182, ed . 1788) quotes the 

same record, and adds, that "it is said to have 

been in the possession of the famous Elias 

Ashmole, and unfortunately destroyed," a 

statement which had not been previously 

made by Anderson . To Anderson, therefore, 

we must look in our estimation of the authenticity 

of this document ; and that we cannot 

too much rely upon his accuracy as a transcriber 

is apparent, not only from the internal 

evidence of style, but also from the 

fact that he made important alterations in 

his copy of it in his edition of 1738 . Such 

as it is, however, it contains the following 

particulars • 

"Though the ancient records of the Brotherhood 

in England were many of them destroyed 

or lost in the wars of the Saxons and Danes, 

yet King Athelstan (the grandson of King 

Alfrede the Great, a mighty Architect), the 

first anointed king of England, and who translated 

the Holy Bible into the Saxon tongue 

(A .n. 930), when he had brought the land 

into Rest and Peace, built many great works, 

and encourag'd many Masons from France, 

who were appointed Overseers thereof, and 

brought with them the Charges and Regulations 

of the Lodges preserv'd since the 

Roman times, who also prevail'd with the 

King to improve the Constitution of the English 

Lodges according to the foreign Model, 

and to increase the Wages of Working Masons . 

"The said king's youngest son, Prince 

Edwin, being taught Masonry, and taking 

upon him the Charges of a Master Mason, for 

the love he had to the said Craft and the honourable 

Principles whereon it is grounded, 

purchased a free charter of King Athelstan his 

Father, for the Masons having a Correction 

among themselves (as it was anciently express'd), 

or a Freedom and Power to regulate 

themselves, to amend what might happen 

amiss, and to hold a yearly Communication 

and General Assembly . 

"Accordingly, Prince Edwin summoned all 

the Masons in the Realm to meet him in a 

Congregation at York, who came and composed 

a General Lodge, of which he was Grand 

Master ; and having brought with them all 

the Writings and Records extant, some in 

Greek, some in Latin, some in French, and 

other languages, from the Contents thereof 

that Assembly did frame the Constitution and 

Charges of an En$lish Lodge, and made a law 

to preserve and obserpe the same in all time 

coming, and ordain'd good Pay for Working 

Masons, &c." 

Other records have from time to time been 

discovered, most of them recently, which 

prove beyond all doubt that the Fraternity of 

Freemasons was, at least in the fourteenth, 

fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, 

in possession of manuscript Constitutions contain 

mg the rules and regulations of the Craft . 

In the year 1717, Freemasonry which had 

somewhat fallen into decay in tie south of 

England, was revived by the organization of 

the Grand Lodge at London ; and in the next 

year, the Grand Master having desired, says 

Anderson, "any brethren to bring to the 

Grand Lodge any old writings and records 

concerning Masons and Masonry, in order to 

show the usages of ancient times, several old 

copies of the Gothic Constitutions were 

produced and collated ." (Constitutions, 1738, 

p . 110.) 

But these Constitutions having been found 

to be very erroneous and defective, probably 

from carelessness or ignorance in their frequent 

transcription, in September, 1721, the 

Duke of Montagu, who was then Grand Master, 

ordered Bro. James Anderson to digest 

them "in a new and better method ." (Ibid ., 

p . 113 .) 

Anderson having accordingly accomplished 

the important task that had been assigned 

him, in December of the same year a committee, 

consisting of fourteen learned Brethren, 

was appointed to examine the book ; and, 

in the March communication of the subsequent 

year, having reported their approbation 

of it, it was, after some amendments, 

adopted by the Grand Lodge and published, 

in 1723, under the title of h e Constitutions 

of the Freemasons, containing the History, 

Charges, Regulations, etc ., of that Most Ancient 

and Right Worshipful Fraternity . For the use 

of the Lodges . 

A second edition was published in 1738 

under the superintendence of a committee of 

GrandOfficers. (Ibid .,p . 133 .) But this edition 

contained so many alterations, interpolations, 

and omissions of the Charges and Regulations 

as they appeared in the first, as to show the 

most reprehensible inaccuracy in its composition, 

and to render it utterly worthless except 

as a literary curiosity. It does not seem 

to have been very popular, for the printers, to 

complete their sales, were compelled to commit 

a fraud, and to present what they pretended 

to be a new edition in 1746, but which 

was really only the edition of 1738, with a new 

title-page neatly pasted in, the old one being 

canceled . 

In 1754, Bro . Jonathan Scott presented a 

memorial to the Grand Lodge, "showing the 

necessity of a new edition of the Book of Constitutions." 

It was then ordered that the book 

"should be revised, and necessary alterations 

and additions made consistent with the laws 

and rules of Masonry" ; all of which would 

seem to show the dissatisfaction of the Fraternity 

with the errors of the second edition . 

Accordingly, a third edition was published is

CIIAPTER %Isf) CRA\D PURE m"RANDELoci: 

D' A G L E ITRRF

BOOK 

BOOK 113 

1756, under the editorship of the Rev . John 

Entick . The fourth edition, preared by a 

committee, was published in 1767 . In 1'769, 

G . Kearsly of London, published an unauthorized 

edition of the 1767 issue, with an 

appendix to 1769 ; this was also published by 

Thomas Wilkinson in Dublin in the same year, 

with several curious plates ; both issues are 

now very scarce . And an authorized supplement 

appeared in 1776 . 

In 1784, John Noorthouck_published by 

authority the fifth edition . This was well 

printed in quarto, with numerous notes, and 

is considered the most valuable edition ; it is 

the last to contain the Historical Introduction . 

After the union of the two rival Grand 

Lodges of England (see Ancient Masons) in 

1813, the sixth edition was issued in 1815 

edited by Bro. William Williams, Prov . Grand 

Master for Dorsetshire ; the seventh appeared 

in 1819, being the last in- quarto ; and the 

eighth in 1827 ; these were called the 

"Second Part," and contained only the Ancient 

Charges and the General Regulations . 

The ninth edition of 1841 contained no reference 

to the First or Historical Part, and may 

be regarded as the first of the present issue 

in octavo with the plates of jewels at the end . 

Numerous editions have since been issued . 

In the early days of the Grand Lodge of England 

in all processions the Book of Constitutions 

was carried on a cushion by the Master of 

the Senior Lodge (Constitutions 1738, pp 117, 

126), but this was altered at the time of the 

union and it is provided in the Constitutions 

of 1815 and in the subsequent issues that the 

Book of Constitutions on a cushion shall be carried 

by the Grand Secretary . L. H.) 

Book of Constitutions Guarded by the 

Tiler's Sword . An emblem painted on the 

Master's carpet and intended to admonish 

the Mason that lie should be guarded in all his 

words and actions preserving unsullied the 

Masonic virtues of silence and circumspection 

. Such is Webb's definition of the emblem 

(Freemasons' Monitor, ed . 1818, p . 69), which is 

a very modern one, and I am inclined to think 

was introduced by that lecturer . The interpretation 

of Webb is a very unsatisfactory one . 

The Book of Constitutions is rather the symbol 

of constituted law than of silence and circumspection, 

and when guarded by the Tiler's 

sword it would seem properly to symbolize 

regard for and obedience to law, a prominent 

Masonic duty . 

Book of Gold . In the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite, the book in which the 

transactions, statutes, decrees, balusters, and 

protocols of the Supreme Council or a Grand 

onsistory are contained . 

Book of the Law . The Holy Bible, which 

is always open in a Lodge as a symbol that its 

light should be diffused among the Brethren . 

The passages at which it is opened differ in 

the different degrees. (See Scriptures, Reading 

of the.) 

Masonically the Book of the Law is that 

sacred book which is believed by the Mason 

of any particular religion to contain the re- 

vealed will of God ; although, technically, 

among the Jews the Torah, or Book of the 

Law means only the Pentateuch or five books 

of loses. Thus, to the Christian Mason the 

Book of the Law is the Old and New Testaments; 

to the Jew, the Old Testament ; to the 

Mussulman, the Koran ; to the Brahman, the 

Vedas ; and to the Parsee, the Zendavesta . 

The Book of the Law is an important symbol 

in the Royal Arch Degree, concerning 

which there was a tradition among the Jews 

that the Book of the Law was lost during the 

captivity, and that it was among the treasures 

discovered during the building of the second 

Temple . The same opinion was entertained 

by the early Christian fathers, such, for instance, 

as Iennus, Tertullian, and Clemens 

Alexandrinus ; "for," says Prideaux, "they 

(the Christian fathers) hold that all the Scriptures 

were lost and destroyed in the Babylonish 

captivity, and that Ezra restored them all 

again by Divine revelation ." The truth of the 

tradition is very generally denied by Biblical 

scholars, who attribute its origin to the fact 

that Ezra collected together the copies of the 

law expurgated them of the errors which 

had crept into them during the captivity, 

and arranged a new and correct edition. But 

the truth or falsity of the legend does not 

affect the Masonic symbolism . The Book of 

the Law is the will of God, which, lost to us in 

our darkness, must be recovered as precedent 

to our learning what is TRUTH . As captives 

to error truth is lost to us; when freedom is 

restored, the first reward will be its discovery . 

Book of Mormon . This sacred book of 

the Mormons was first published in 1830 by 

Joseph Smith, who claimed to have translated 

it from gold plates which he had found under 

Divine guidance secreted in a stone box . The 

number of Mormons is estimated at about 

150,000 in the United States, and 50,000 in 

other countries . The seat of their church is 

at Salt Lake, Utah . 

Book of the Dead. By some translated the 

Book of the Master, containing the ancient 

Egyptian philosophy as to death and the resurrection 

. A portion of these sacred writings 

was invariably buried with the dead . The 

Book in facsimile has been published by Dr . 

Lepsius, and translated by Dr . Birch . The 

myth of the "Judgment of Amenti " forms a 

part of the Book of the Dead, and shadows 

forth the verities and judgments of the unseen 

world . 

The Amenti was the Place of Judgment of 

the Dead, situated in the West, where Osiris 

was presumed to be buried . There were fortytwo 

assessors of the amount of sin committed, 

who sat in judgment, and before whom the 

adjudged passed in succession . 

There seems to be a tie which binds Freemasonry 

to the noblest of the cults and mysteries 

of antiquity . The most striking exponent 

of the doctrines and language of the Egyptian 

Mysteries of Osiris is this Book of the 

Dead or Ritual of the Underworld, or Egyptian 

bible of 165 chapters, the Egyptian title 

of which was The Manifestation to Light,

114 BOOK 

BRAHMANISM 

or the Book Revealing Light to the Soul . Great 

dependence was had, as to the immediate 

attainment of celestial happiness, upon the 

human knowledge of this wonderful Book, 

especially of the principal chapters . On a 

sarcophagus of the eleventh dynasty (chronology 

of Prof . Lepsius, say B .C. 2420) is this 

inscription : "He who knows this book is one 

who, in the day of the resurrection of the underworld, 

arises and enters in ; but if he does not 

know this chapter, he does not enter in so soon 

as he arises." The conclusion of the first chapter 

says : "If a man knows this book thoroughly, 

and has it inscribed upon his sarcophagus, he 

will be manifested in the day in all the forms 

that he may desire, and entering into his 

abode will not be turned back " (Tiele's Hist. 

Egypttan Rel ., p . 25.) 

The Egyptian belief was that portions of 

the Book were written by the finger of Thoth, 

back in the mist of tune, B.C . 3000 . The 

one hundred and twenty-fifth chapter describes 

the last judgment . The oldest preserved 

papyrus is of the eighteenth dynasty 

(B.c . 1591, Lep .) . The most perfect copy of 

this Book is in the Turin Museum, where it 

covers one side of the walls, in four pieces, 

300 feet in length . 

The following extract is from the first chapter 

: 

"Says Thot to Osiris, King of Eternity, I 

am the great God in the divine boat ; I fight 

for tbee ; I am one of the divine chiefs who are 

the TRUE LIVING WORD of Osiris. I am Thot, 

who makes to be real the word of Horus 

against his enemies . The word of Osiris 

against his enemies made truth in Thot, and 

the order is executed by Thot . I am with 

Horns on the day of celebrating the festival of 

Osiris, the good Being, whose Word is truth ; 

I make offerings to Ra (the Sun) ; I am a simple 

priest in the underworld, anointing in 

Abydos, elevating to higher degrees of initiation 

; I am pro het in Abydos on the day of 

opening or upheaving the earth . I behold 

the mysteries of the door of the underworld ; 

I direct the ceremonies of Mendes ; I am the 

assistant in the exercise of their functions ; 

I A s GRAND MASTER OF THE CRAFrSZeEN 

WHO SET UP THE SACRED ARCH FOR A SUP- 

PORT ." (See Truth .) 

Book of the Fraternity of Stonemasons . 

Some years ago, a manuscript was discovered 

in the archives of the city of Cologne bearing 

the title of Bruderschaftsbuch der Steinmetzen, 

with records going back to the year 1396 . 

Steinbrenner ( . andEarly Hist. of Masonry, 

p . 104) says : "It fully confirms the conclusions 

to be derived from the German Constitutions, 

and those of the English and Scotch Masons, 

and conclusively proves the inauthenticity of 

the celebrated Carter of Cologne ." 

Books, Anti-Masonic. See Anti-Masonic 

Books . 

Border, Tesselated . See Tesselated Border . 

Bosonlen, The (or Bossonius) . The 

Fourth Degree of the African Architects also 

called the "Christian Philosopher." (Thory, 

A . L ., i ., 297 .) 

Boswell, John (of Auchinleck) . A Scottish 

laird of the family of the biographer of Dr . 

Johnson . His appearance in the Lodge of 

Edinburgh at a meeting held at Holyrood in 

June, 1600, affords the earliest authentic instance 

of a person being a member of the Masonic 

Fraternity who was not an architect or 

builder by profession. He signed his name 

and made his mark as did the Operatives . 

Bourn . A limit or boundary ; a word familiar 

to the Mason in the Monitorial Instructions 

of the Fellow-Craft's Degree, where he is 

directed to remember that we are traveling 

upon the level of time to that undiscovered 

country from whose bourn no traveler returns 

; and to the reader of Shakespeare, from 

whom the expression is borrowed, in the beautiful 

soliloquy of Hamlet : 

"Who would fardels bear, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life ; 

But that the dread of something after death- 

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 

No traveller returns-puzzles the will." 

Act III ., Scene 1 . 

Box of Fraternal Assistance . A box of 

convenient shape and size under the charge of 

the Hospitaler or Almoner, in the Modern 

French and A. A. Scottish Rites, wherein is 

collected the obligatory contributions of the 

duly assembled Brethren at every convocation, 

which collections can only be used for secret 

charitable purposes, first among the members, 

but if not there required, among worthy profane 

; the Master and the Hospitaler being 

the only ones cognizant of the name of the 

beneficiary, together with the brother who 

suggests an individual in need of the assistance 

. 

Box-Master . In the Lodges of Scotland 

the Treasurer was formerly sometimes so 

called . Thus, in the minutes of the Lodge of 

Journeymen Masons of Edinburgh, it was resolved, 

on December 27, 1726, that the Warden 

be instructed "to uplift and receive for the use 

of the society all such sum or sums of money 

which are due and indebted to them or their 

former Box-masters or his predecessors in 

office ." 

Boys' School . The Royal Masonic Institution 

for Boys is a charity of the Masons 

of England . It was founded in the year 1798, 

for clothing and educating the sons of indigent 

and deceased Brethren, according to the situation 

in life they are most probably destined to 

occupy, and inculcating such religious instruction 

as may be conformable to the tenets of 

their parents and ultimately apprenticing 

them to suitZle trades . It is still existing in 

a flourishing condition . Similar schools have 

been established by the Masons of France 

and Germany . 

Brahmanism . The religious system practised 

by the Hindus . It presents a profound 

.and spiritual philosophy, strangely blended 

with the basest superstitions. The Veda is 

the Brahmanical Book of the Law, although 

the older hymns springing out of the primitive 

Aryan religion have a date far anterior to that

BRANT 

BREADTH 115 

of comparatively modern Brahmanism . The 

"Laws of Menu " are really the text-book of 

Brahmanism ; yet in the Vedic hymns we find 

the expression of that religious thought that 

has been adopted by the Brahmans and the 

rest of the modern Hindus . The learned Brahmans 

have an esoteric faith, in which they 

recognize and adore one God without form or 

quality, eternal, unchangeable and occupying 

all space ; but confining this hidden doctrine 

to their interior schools, they teach, for the 

multitude, an open or esoteric worship, in 

which the incomprehensible attributes of the 

supreme and purely spiritual God are invested 

with sensible and even human forms . In the 

Vedic hymns all the powers of nature are personified, 

and become the objects of worship, 

thus leading to an apparent polytheism . But, 

as Mr . J. F . Clarke (Ten Great Religions, p. 90) 

remarks, "behind this incipient polytheism 

lurks the original monotheism ; for each of 

these gods, in turn, becomes the Supreme 

Bein .' And Max Miiller says (Chips, i., 2) 

that ìt would be easy to find in the numerous 

hymns of the Veda passages in which almost 

every important deity is represented as supreme 

and absolute." This most ancient 

re li ionbelieved in by one-seventh of the 

word's population that fountain from which 

has flowed so much of the stream of modern 

religious thought, abounding in mystical ceremonies 

and ritual prescriptions, worshiping, 

as the Lord of all, "the source of golden light, ' 

having its ineffable name, its solemn methods 

of initiation, and its symbolic rites-is well 

worth the serious study of the Masonic scholar, 

because in it he will find much that will be suggestive 

to him in the investigations of the dogmas 

of his Order . 

Brant, Joseph . A,Mohawk Indian, who 

was initiated in London in 1776. During the 

War of American Independence he was in command 

of some Indian troops on the British side 

by whom Captain McKinsty, of t e mte~ 

States Army, had been captured. The In d ians 

had tied their prisoner to a tree and were preparing 

to torture him, when he made the 

mystic appeal of a Mason in the hour of danger. 

Brant interposed and rescued his American 

brother from his impending fate, took 

him to Quebec, and placed him in the hands 

of some English_ Masons, who returned him, 

uninjured, to the American outposts . (Haw- 

: kin's Concise Cyclopmdia of F. M.) 

Clavel has illustrated the occurrence on 

p. 283 of his Histoire Pittoresque de la F . M. 

[E. L . H .1 

Brazen Laver . See Laver. 

Brazen Pillars. See Pillars of the Porch . 

Brazen Serpent . See Serpent and Cross. 

Brazen Serpent, Knight of the . See 

Knight of the Brazen Serpent . 

Brazil. The first organized Masonic authority 

at Brazil, the Grande Oriente do 

Brazil, was established in Rio de Janeiro, in 

the year 1821, by the division into three of a 

Lodge at Rio de Janeiro, which is said to have 

been established under a French warrant in 

1816. 

The Emperor, Dom Pedro I ., was soon 

after initiated in one of these Lodges, and 

immediately proclaimed Grand Master ; but 

finding that the Lodges of that period were 

nothing but political clubs, he ordered them 

to be closed in the following year, 1822 . 

After his abdication in 1831, Masonic meetings 

again took place, and a new authority, 

under the title of "Grande Oriente Brazileiro," 


Some of the old members of the "Grande 

Oriente do Brazil " met in November of the 

same year and reorganized that body ; so that 

two supreme authorities of the French Rite 

existed in Brazil . 

In 1832, the Visconde de Jequitinhonha, 

having received the necessary powers from the 

Supreme Council of Belgium, established a 

Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite- making thus a third contending body, 

to w~ich were soon added a fourth and fifth, 

by the illegal organizations of the Supreme 

Councils of their own, by the contending 

Grand Orientes. In 1835, disturbances broke 

out in the legitimate Supreme Council, some of 

its Lodges having proclaimed the Grand Master 

of the Grand Orient of Brazil their Grand 

Commander, and thus formed another Supreme 

Council. In 1842, new seeds of dissension 

were planted by the combination of 

this revolutionary faction with the Grande 

Oriente Brazileiro, which body then abandoned 

the French Rite, and the two formed a 

new Council, which proclaimed itself the only 

legitimate authority of the Scottish Rite in 

Brazil . But it would be useless as well as 

painful to continue the record of these dissension, 

which, like a black cloud, darkened 

for years the Masonic sky of Brazil . 

Things are now in a better condition, and 

Freemasonry in Brazil is united under the one 

head of the Grand Orient . 

Bread, Consecrated . Consecrated bread 

and wine that is to say, bread and wine used 

not simpiy for food, but made sacred by the 

purpose of symbolizing a bond of brotherhood, 

and the eating and drinking of which are 

sometimes called the "Communion of the 

Brethren," is found in some of the higher degrees, 

such as the Order of High Priesthood in 

the American Rite, and the Rose Croix of the 

French and Scottish Rites . 

It was in ancient times a custom religiously 

observed, that those who sacrificed to the gods 

should unite in partaking of a part of the food 

that had been offered . And in the Jewish 

church it was strictly commanded that the 

sacrificers should "eat before the Lord," and 

unite in a feast of joy on the occasion of their 

offerings By this common partaking of that 

which had been consecrated to a sacred purpose, 

those who partook of the feast seemed to 

give an evidence and attestation of the sincerity 

with which they made the offering ; 

while the feast itself was, as it were, the renewal 

of the covenant of friendship between 

the parties . 

Breadth of the Lodge. 

Lodge . 

See Form of the

116 BREAST 

BREASTPLATE 

Breast . In one of the Old Lectures, quoted 

by Dr. Oliver, it is said : "A Mason's breast 

should be a safe and sacred repository for all 

your just and lawful secrets. A brother's 

secrets, delivered to me as such, I would keep 

as my own ; as to betray that trust might be 

doing him the greatest injury he could sustain 

in this mortal life ; nay, it would be like the 

villany of an assassin who lurks in darkness to 

stab his adversary when unarmed and least 

prepared to meet an enemy ." 

It is true, that the secrets of a Mason, confided 

as such, should be as inviolate in the 

breast of him who has received them as the 

were in his own before they were confid 

But it would be wrong to conclude that in this 

a Mason is placed in a position different from 

that which is occupied by every honorable 

man . No man of honor is permitted to reveal 

a secret which he has received under the 

pledge of secrecy . But it is as false as it is 

absurd, to assert that either the man of honor 

or the Mason is bound by any such obligation 

to protect the criminal from the vindication 

of the law. It must be left to every man to 

determine by his own conscience whether he 

is at liberty to betray a knowledge of facts 

with which he could not have become acquainted 

except under Some such pledge . No 

court of law would attempt to extort a communication 

of facts made known by a penitent 

to his confessor or a client to his lawyer ; 

for such a communication would make the 

person communicating it infamous . In this 

case, Masonry supphes no other rule than 

that which is found m the acknowledged codes 

of Moral Ethics. 

Breastplate. Called in Hebrew j=, chosen, 

or T1£'27n IV)n, chosen mishpet, the breastplate 

of judgment, because through it the high 

priest received divine responses and uttered 

his decisions on all matters relating to the 

good of the commonwealth. It was a piece 

of embroidered cloth of gold, purple, scarlet, 

and fine white, twined linen . It was a span, 

or about nine inches square, when doubled, 

and made thus strong to hold the precious 

stones that were set in it . It had a gold ring 

at each corner, to the uppermost of which 

were attached golden chains, by which it was 

fastened to the shoulder-pieces of the ephod ; 

while from the two lowermost went two ribbons 

of blue, by which it was attached to the 

girdle of the ephod, and thus held secure in its 

place . In the breastplate were set twelve precious 

jewels, on each of which was engraved 

the name of one of the twelve tribes . The 

stones were arranged in four rows, three stones 

in each row . As to the order of arrangement 

and the names of the stones, there has been 

some difference among the authorities. The 

authorized version of the Bible gives them in 

this order : Sardius, topaz, carbuncle, emerald, 

sapphire, diamond, ligure, agate, amethyst, 

b 1, onyx, jasper . This is the pattern genera 

y followed in the construction of Masonic 

breastplates, but modern researches into the 

true meaning of the Hebrew names of the 

stones have shown its inaccuracy. Espe- 

cially must the diamond be rejected, as no 

engraver could have cut a name on this impenetrable 

gem, to say nothing of the pecuniary 

value of a diamond of a size to match the 

rest of the stones. Josephus (Ant ., III ., vii.) 

gives the stones in the following order : Sardonyx, 

topaz, emerald ; carbuncle, jasper, 

sapphire ; ligure, amethyst, agate ; chrysolite, 

onyx, beryl. Kalisch, in his Commentary on 

Exodus, gives a still different order : Cornelian 

(or sardius), topaz, smaragdus ; carbuncle, 

sapphire, emerald ; ligure, agate, amethyst 

; chrysolite, onyx, jasper. But perhaps 

the Vulgate translation is to be preferred as 

an authority, because it was made in the fifth 

century, at a time when the old Hebrew names 

of the precious stones were better understood 

than now. The order given in that version is 

shown in the following diagram : 

EMERALD. TOPAZ . SARDIIIS . 

JASPER . SAPPHIRE . CARBUNCLE . 

AMETHYST. AGATE. LIGIIRE. 

BERYL. ONYx . CHRYSOLITE . 

A description of each of these stones, with 

its symbolic signification, will be found under 

the appropriate head . 

On the Stones were engraved the names of 

the twelve tribes, one on each stone . The 

order in which they were placed, according to 

the Jewish Targums, was as follows, havin g a 

reference to the respective ages of the twelve 

sons of Jacob : 

LEVI . SIMEON. REIIBEN. 

ZEBIILIIN . ISSACHAR. JUDAH . 

GAD . NAPHTALI . DAN. 

BENJAMIN. JOSEPH. ASHER . 

The differences made by different writers in 

the order of the names of the stones arise only 

from their respective translations of the Hebrew 

words . These original names are detailed 

in Exodus (xxviii .), and admit of no 

doubt, whatever doubt there may be as to the 

gems which they were intended to represent . 

These Hebrew names axe given on opposite 

page . 

The breastplate which was used in the first 

Temple does not appear to have been returned 

after the Captivity, for it is not mentioned in 

the list of articles sent back by Cyrus. The 

stones, on account of their great beauty and 

value, were most probably removed from their

BREASTPLATE 

BRIDGE 117 

original arrangement and reset in various ornaments 

by their captors. A new one was 

made for the services of the second Temple, 

which, according to Josephus, when worn by 

the High Priest, shot forth brilliant rays of fire 

that manifested the immediate presence of 

Jehovah . But he adds that two hundred 

years before his time this miraculous power 

had become extinct in consequence of the impiety 

of the nation . It was subsequently 

n~~a 

w 

BA$arr. 

at 

Y&R&LOM . 

i 6 

Aom AMAa. 

rrit~h 

* 

Prrnin . 

at 

SAPmn. 

Inv 

Sn no. 

01K 

carried to Rome together with the other spoils 

of the Temple. Of the subsequent fate of 

these treasures, and among them the breastplate, 

there are two accounts : one, that they 

were conveyed to Carthage by Genseric after 

his sack of Rome, and that the ship containing 

them was lost on the voyage ; the other, and, 

as King thinks (Ant . Gems, p . 137), the more 

probable one, that they had been transferred 

long before that time to Byzantium, and deposited 

by Justinian in the treasury of St . 

Sophia. 

The breastplate is worn in American Chapters 

of the Royal Arch by the High Priest as an 

essential part of his official vestments . The 

symbolic reference of it, as given by Webb, is 

that it is to teach him always to bear in mind 

his responsibility to the laws and ordinances 

of the Institution, and that the honor and interests 

of his Chapter should be always near 

his heart . This does not materially differ from 

the ancient symbolism, for one of the names 

given to the Jewish breastplate was the "memorial 

" because it was designed to remind 

the High Priest how dear the . tribes whose 

names it bore should be to his heart . 

The breastplate does not appear to have 

been original with or peculiar to the Jewish 

ritual. The idea was, most probably, derived 

from the Egyptians. Diodorus Siculus says 

(1 . i., c . 75) that among them the chief judge 

bore about his neck a chain of gold, from which 

hung a figure or image (fgSSwr), composed of 

precious stones, which was called TRUTH, and 

the legal proceedings only commenced when 

the chief judge had assumed this image . 1Elian 

~ 

ODEM. 

~ 

NOPEOH. 

ovr 

Lrsmm. 

;-rb~" orw r "w r 

YASHPAIT. SnoaAM. TAnsamsn. 

(lib . 34) confirms this account by saying that 

the image was engraved on sapphire, and hung 

about the neck of the chief judge with a 

golden chain . Peter du Val says that he saw 

a mummy at Cairo, round the neck of which 

was a chain, to which a golden plate was suspended, 

on which the image of a bird was engraved 

. (See Urim and Thummim.) 

Breast, The Faithful . One of the three 

precious jewels of a Fellow-Craft . It symbolically 

teaches the initiate that the lessons 

which he has received from the instructive 

tongue of the Master are not to be listened to 

and lost, but carefully treasured in his heart, 

and that the precepts of the Order constitute 

a covenant which he is faithfully to observe . • 

Breast to Breast . See Points of Fellowship. 

Brethren. This word, being the plural of 

Brother in the solemn style, is more generally 

used in Masonic language, instead of the common 

plural, Brothers . Thus Masons always 

speak of "The Brethren of the Lodge," and 

not of "The Brothers of the Lodge ." 

Brethren of the Bridge . See Bridge 

Builders of the Middle Ages . 

Brethren of the Mystic Tie . The term 

by which Masons distinguish themselves as 

the members of a confraternity or brotherhood 

united by a mystical bond . (See Mystic 

Tie .) 

Brewster, Sir David . See Lawnis, Alexander 

. 

Bridge. A most significant symbol in the 

Fifteenth and Sixteenth Degrees of the Scottish 

Rite, at which an important event transpires 

. The characteristic letters which appear 

on the Bridge, L . o . P ., refer to that liberty 

of thought which is ever thereafter to be the inheritance 

of those who have been symbolically 

captive for seven weeks of years . It is 

the new era of the freedom of expression, the 

liberation of the former captive thought . 

Liberty, but not License . (See Lakak Deror 

Pessah; also Liber ; also Liberty of Passage.) 

It is also a symbol in the Royal Order . 

Bridge Builders of the Middle Ages . 

Before speaking of the Ponti/ . ces, or the " Fraternity 

of Bridge Builders,' whose history is 

closely connected with that of the Freemasons 

of the Middle Ages, it will be as well to say 

something of the word which they assumed as 

the title of their brotherhood . 

The Latin word pontifex, with its equivalent 

English ponti~', literally signifies "the builder 

of a bridge," from pons, " a bridge," and facere 

"to make." But this sense, which it must 

have originally possessed, it seems very speedily 

to have lost, and we, as well as the Romans, 

only recognize pontifex or pontiff as significant 

of a sacerdotal character . 

Of all the colleges of priests in ancient 

Rome, the most illustrious was that of the 

Pontiffs . The College of Pontiffs was established 

by Numa, and originally consisted of 

five, but was afterward increased to sixteen . 

The whole religious system of the Romans, 

the management of all the sacred rites, and the 

government of the priesthood, was under the 

I

118 BRIDGE 

BRIDGE 

control and direction of the College of Pontiffs, 

of which the Pontifex Maximus, or High Priest, 

was the presiding officer and the organ through 

which its decrees were communicated to the 

people . Hence, when the Papal Church established 

its seat at the city of Rome, its 

Bishop assumed the designation of Pontifex 

Maximus as one of his titles, and Pontiff and 

Pope are now considered equivalent terms . 

The question naturally arises as to what 

connection there was between religious rites 

and the building of bridges, and why a Roman 

priest bore the name which literally denoted a 

bridge builder . Etymologists have in vain 

sought to solve the problem, and, after all 

their speculation, fail to satisfy us . One of 

the most tenable theories is that of Schmitz, 

who thinks the Pontifices were so called because 

they superintended the sacrifices on a 

bridge, alluding to the Argean sacrifices on 

the Sublician bridge . But Varro gives a more 

probable explanation when he tells us that the 

Sublician bridge was built by the Pontifices ; 

and that it was deemed, from its historic association, 

of so sacred a character, that no repairs 

could be made on it without a previous 

sacrifice, which was to be conducted by the 

Chief Pontiff in person . The true etymology 

is, however, undoubtedly lost ; yet it may be 

interesting, as well as suggestive, to know that 

in old Rome there was, even in a mere title, 

supposing that it was nothing more, some sort 

of connection between the art or practise of 

bridge building and the mysterious sacerdotal 

rites established by Numa, a connection which 

was subsequently again developed in the Masonic 

association which is the subject of the 

present article . Whatever may have been 

this connection in Pagan Rome, we find, after 

the establishment of Christianity and in the 

Middle Ages, a secret Fraternity organized as 

a branch of the Traveling Freemasons of that 

period, whose members were exclusively devoted 

to the building of bridges, and who were 

known as Pontifices, or "Bridge Builders," 

and styled by the French les Freres Pontifes, 

or Pontifical Brethren, and by the Germans 

Bruckenbriider, or "Brethren of the Bridge." 

It is of this Fraternity that, because of their 

association in history with the early corporations 

of Freemasons, it is proposed to give a 

brief sketch . 

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the 

methods of intercommunication between different 

countries were neither safe nor convenient. 

Travelers could not avail themselves 

of the comforts of either macadamized roads 

or railways. Stage-coaches were unknown . 

He who was compelled by the calls of business 

to leave his home, trudged as a pedestrian 

wearily on foot, or as an equestrian, if his means 

permitted that mode of journeying ; made his 

solitary ride through badly constructed roads, 

where he frequently became the victim of robbers, 

who took his life as well as his purse, or 

submitted to the scarcely less heavy exactions 

of some lawless Baron, who claimed it as his 

high prerogative to levy a tax on every wayfarer 

who passed through his domains . Inns 

were infrequent, incommodious, and expensive, 

and the weary traveler could hardly 

have appreciated Shenstone's declaration, 

that 

"Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, 

Where'er his stages may have been, 

May sigh to think he still has found 

His warmest welcome at an inn." 

But one of the greatest embarrassments to 

which the traveler in this olden time was exposed 

occurred when there was a necessity to 

cross a stream of water . The noble bridges of 

the ancient Greeks and Romans had been 

destroyed by time or war, and the intellectual 

debasement of the dark ages had prevented 

their renewal . Hence, when refinement and 

learning began to awaken from that long sleep 

which followed the invasion of the Goths and 

Vandals and the decline and fall of the Roman 

Empire, the bridgeless rivers could only be 

crossed by swimming through the rapid current, 

or by fording the shallow places . 

The earliest improvement toward a removal 

of these difficulties consisted in the 

adoption of rafts or boats, and guilds or corporations 

of raftsmen and boatmen, under the 

names of Linuncularii, Lintrarii, and Utricularii, 

were formed to transport travelers and 

merchandise across rivers . But the times were 

lawless, and these watermen oftener plundered 

than assisted their patrons . Benevolent persons, 

therefore, saw the necessity of erecting 

hostelries on the banks of the rivers at frequented 

places, and of constructing bridges 

for the transportation of travelers and their 

goods . 

All the architectural labors of the period 

were, as is well known, entrusted to the guilds 

or corporations of builders who, under the 

designation of " Traveling Freemasons," 

passed from country to country, and, patronized 

by the Church, erected those magnificent 

cathedrals, monasteries, and other public edifices, 

many of which have long since crumbled 

to dust, but a few of which still remain to attest 

the wondrous ability of these Operative 

Brethren . Alone skilled in the science of architecture, 

from them only could be derived 

workmen capable of constructing safe and 

enduring bridges . 

Accordingly, a portion of these "Freemasons," 

withdrawing from the general body, 

united, under the patronage of the Church, 

into a distinct corporation of Freres Pontifes, 

or Bridge Builders . The name which they 

received in Germany was that of Briickenbriider, 

or Brethren of the Bridge . 

A legend of the Church attributes their 

foundation to Saint Benezet, who accordingly 

became the patron of the Order, as Saint John 

was of the Freemasons proper . Saint Benezet 

was a shepherd of Avilar, in France, who was 

born in the year 1165 . "He kept his mother's 

sheep in the country," says Butler, the historian 

of the saints, "being devoted to the 

practices of piety beyond his age ; when moved 

by charity to save the lives of many poor persons, 

who were frequently drowned in crossing

BRIDGE 

BRIGHT 119 

the Rhone, and, being inspired by God, he 

undertook to build a bridge over that rapid 

river at Avignon . He obtained the approbation 

of the Bishop, proved his mission by 

miracles, and began the work in 1177, which 

he directed during seven years . He died when 

the difficulty of the undertaking was over, in 

1184 . His body was buried upon the bridge 

itself, which was not completely finished till 

four years after his decease= the structure 

whereof was attended with miracles from the 

first laying of the foundations till it was completed, 

in 1188 ." 

Divesting this account, which Butler has 

drawn from the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, 

of the miraculous, the improbable, 

and the legendary, the naked fact remains 

that Benezet was engaged, as the principal 

conductor of the work, in the construction of 

the magnificent bridge at Avignon, with its 

eighteen arches . As this is the most ancient 

of the bridges of Europe built after the commencement 

of the restoration of learning, it is 

most probable that he was, as he is claimed 

to have been, the founder of that Masonic 

corporation of builders who, under the name 

of Brethren of the Bridge, assisted him in the 

undertaking, and who, on the completion of 

their task, were engaged in other parts of 

France, of Italy, and of Germany, in similar 

labors . 

After the death of Saint Benezet, he was 

succeeded by Johannes Benedictus, to whom, 

as "Prior of the Bridge," and to his brethren, a 

charter was granted in 1187, by which they 

obtained a chapel and cemetery, with a chaplain. 

In 1185, one year after the death of Saint 

Benezet, the Brethren of the Bridge commenced 

the construction of the Bridge of 

Saint Esprit, over the Rhone at Lyons. The 

completion of this work greatly extended the 

reputation of the Bridge Builders, and in 1189 

they received a charter from Pope Clement 

III . The city of Avignon continued to be 

their headquarters, but they gradually entered 

into Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, 

and Denmark. The Swedish chronicles mention 

one Benedict, between the years 1178 

and 1191, who was a Bishop and bridge 

builder at Skara, in that kingdom . Could he 

have been the successor, already mentioned, 

of Benezet, who had removed from Avignon 

to Sweden? As late as 1590 we find the Order 

existing at Lucca, in Italy where, in 1562, 

John de Medicis exercised t&e functions of its 

chief under the title of Magister, or Master . 

How the Order became finally extinct is not 

known ; but after its dissolution much of the 

property which it had accumulated passed 

into the hands of the Knights Hospitalers or 

Knights of Malta. 

The guild or corporation of Bridge Builders, 

like the corporation of Traveling Freemasons, 

from which it was an offshoot, was a religious 

institution, but admitted laymen into the society 

. In other words, the workmen, or the 

eat body of the guild, were of course secular, 

but the patrons were dignitaries of the Church . 

t 

When by the multiplication of bridges the 

necessity of their employment became less 

urgent, and when the numbers of the workmen 

were greatly increased, the patronage of 

the Church was withdrawn, and the association 

was dissolved, or soon after fell into decay ; 

its members, probably, for the most part, reuniting 

with the corporations of Masons from 

whom they had originally been derived . Nothing 

has remained in modern Masonry to preserve 

the memory of the former connection of 

the Order with the bridge builders of the Middle 

Ages, except the ceremony of opening a 

bridge, which is to be found in the rituals of 

the last century ; but even this has now become 

almost obsolete . 

Lenning, who has appropriated a brief article 

in his Encyclopddie der Freimaurerei to the 

Bruckenbriider, or Brethren of the Bridge, incorrectly 

calls them an Order of Knights . 

They took, he says, vows of celibacy and poverty, 

and also to protect travelers, to attend 

upon the sick, and to build bridges, roads, 

and hospitals . Several of the inventors of 

high degrees have, he thinks, sought to revive 

the Order in some of the degrees which they 

have established, and especially in the Knights 

of the Sword, which appears in the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite as the Fifteenth Degree, or 

Knights of the East ; but I can find no resemblance 

except that in the Knights of the 

Sword there is in the ritual a reference to a 

river and a bridge . I am more inclined to believe 

that the Nineteenth Degree of the same 

Rite, or Grand Pontiff, was once connected 

with the Order we have been considering ; and 

that, while the primitive ritual has been lost 

or changed so as to leave no vestige of a relationship 

between the two, the name which is 

still retained may have been derived from the 

FrPres Pontifes of the twelfth century . 

This, however, is mere conjecture, without 

any means of proof . All that we do positively 

know is, that the bridge builders of the Middle 

Ages were a Masonic association, and as such 

axe entitled to a place in all Masonic histories . 

Brief. The diploma or certificate in some 

of the high degrees is so called . 

Bright. A Mason is said to be "bright " 

who is well acquainted with the ritual, the 

forms of opening and closing, and the ceremonies 

of initiation . This expression does 

not, however, in its technical sense, appear to 

include the superior knowledge of the history 

and science of the Institution, and many 

bright Masons axe, therefore, not necessarily 

learned Masons ; and, on the contrary, some 

learned Masons are not well versed in the exact 

phraseology of the ritual. The one knowledge 

depends on a retentive memory, the other 

is derived from deep research . It is scarcely 

necessary to say which of the two kinds of 

knowledge is the more valuable . The Mason 

whose acquaintance with the Institution is 

confined to what he learns from its esoteric 

ritual will have but a limited idea of its science 

and philosophy . And yet a knowledge 

of the ritual as the foundation of higher 

knowledge is essential.

120 BRITHERING 

BROTHERIIOOI' 

Brithering. The Scotch term for Masonic 

initiation . 

British Columbia . The first Lodge established 

in this Province was Victoria, No . 

783, by the Grand Lodge of England, March 

19, 1859, and the first chartered by the 

Grand Lodge of Scotland was Vancouver 

Lodge in, 1862 . 

In 1871 the Grand Lodge of England had 

three Lodges in the Province, and the Grand 

Lodge of Scotland six Lodges . A convention 

was held on the 21st day of October, 1871, 

and the Grand Lodge of British Columbia 

duly organized . Eight out of the nine Lodges 

in the Province were represented . The Provincial 

Grand Master of Scotland and the 

District Grand Master of England both took 

an active interest in the formation of the new 

Grand Body, and M . W. Bro . Israel Wood 

Powell, M .D ., was unanimously elected Grand 

Master . 

[Will H . Whyte.] 

Broached Thurnel . In the lectures of 

the early part of the eighteenth century the 

Immovable Jewels of the Lodge are said to be 

"the Tarsel Board, Rough Ashlar, and 

Broached Thurnel " ; and in describing their 

uses it is taught that "the Rough Ashlar is for 

the Fellow Crafts to try their jewels on and 

the Broached Thurnel for the Entered Apprentices 

to learn to work upon ." Much difficulty 

has been met with in discovering what 

the Broached Thurnel really was . Dr. Oliver, 

most probably deceived by the use to which 

it was assigned, says (Diet. Symb . Mas.) that 

it was subsequently called the Rough Ashlar . 

This is evidently incorrect because a distinction 

is made in the original lecture between it 

and the Rough Ashlar, the former being for 

the Apprentices and the latter for the Fellow- 

Crafts. Krause (Kunsturkunden, i., 73) has 

translated it by Drehbank, which means a 

turning-lathe an implement not used by 

Operative Masons . Now what is the real 

meaning of the word? If we inspect an old 

tracing board of the Apprentice's Degree of 

the date when the Broached Thurnel was in 

use, we shall find depicted on it three symbols, 

two of which will at once be recognized as the 

Tarsel, or Trestle Board, and the Rough 

Ashlar, just as we have them at the present 

day ; while the third symbol will be that depicted 

in the margin, namely, a cubical stone 

with a pyramidal apex . This is the Broached 

Thurnel . It is the symbol which is still to be 

found, with precisely the same form, in all 

French tracing boa, under the name of the 

pierre cubique, or cubical stone, and which has 

been replaced in English and American tracing 

boards and rituals by the Perfect Ashlar . 

For the derivation of the words, we must go 

to old and now almost obsolete terms of architecture 

. On inspection, it will at once be seen 

that the Broached Thurnel has the form of a 

little square turret with a spire springing 

from it . Now, broach, or broche, says Parker 

(Gloss . of Terms in Architect ., p . 97), is "an old 

English term for a spire, still in use in some 

parts of the country, as in Leicestershire, 

where it is said to denote a spire springing 

from the tower without any intervening parapet 

. Thurnel is from the old French tournelle, 

a turret or little tower . The Broached Thurnel, 

then, was the Spired Turret. It was a 

model on which apprentices might learn the 

principles of their art, because it presented to 

them, in its various outlines, the forms of the 

square and the triangle, the cube and the 

pyramid ." 

[But in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (xii ., 205), 

Bro . G. W. Speth quotes from the Imperial 

Dictionary : 

"Broach, in Scotland, a term among masons, 

signifying to rough hew . Broached Work, in 

Scotland, a term among masons, signifying 

work or stones that are rough-hewn, and thus 

distinguished from Ashlar or polished work . 

Broaching-Thurmal, Thurmer, Turner, names 

given to the chisels by which broached work is 

executed ." 

And he suggests that the Broached Thurnel 

was really a chisel for the Entered Apprentices 

to learn to work with. 

The new English Dictionary explains 

"Broached " as a term used "of stone- chiselled 

with a broach," or narrow-pointed chisel 

used by masons ; but this still leaves it uncertain 

what a "Thurnel " is.-E . L. H .] 

Broken Column. Among the Hebrews, 

columns, or pillars, were used metaphorically 

to signify princes or nobles, as if they were 

the pillars of a state . Thus, in Psalm xi . 3, the 

passage, reading in our translation, "If the 

foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous 

do? " is, in the original, "when the columns 

are overthrown," i . e., when the firm 

supporters of what is right and good have perished 

. So the passage in Isaiah xix . 10 should 

read : "her (Egypt's) columns are broken 

down," that is, the nobles of her state . In 

Freemasonry, the broken column is, as Master 

Masons well know, the emblem of the fall of 

one of the chief supporters of the Craft. The 

use of the column or pillar as a monument 

erected over a tomb was a very ancient custom, 

and was a very significant symbol of the 

character and spirit of the person interred . 

It is accredited to Jeremy L. Cross that he 

first introduced the Broken Column into the 

ritual, but this may not be true. (See Monument.) 

Brother. The term which Freemasons 

apply to each other . Freemasons are Brethren, 

not only by common participation of the 

human nature, but as professing the same 

faith ; as being jointly engaged in the same 

labors, and as being united by a mutual covenant 

or tie, whence they are also emphatically 

called "Brethren of the Mystic Tie ." 

(See Companion .) 

Brotherhood . When our Savior designated 

his disciples as his brethren, he implied 

that there was a close bond of union existing 

between them, which idea was subsequently 

carried out by St . Peter in his direction to 

"love the brotherhood ." Hence the early 

Christians designated themselves as a brotherhood, 

a relationship unknown to the Gentile 

religions ; and the ecclesiastical and other con-

BROTHERLY 

BRUCE 121 

fraternities of the Middle Ages assumed the 

same title to designate any association of men 

engaged in the same common object, governed 

by the same rules, and united by an identical 

interest. The association or Fraternity of 

Freemasons is, in this sense, called a brotherhood 

. 

Brotherly Kiss. See Kiss . Fraternal. 

Brotherly Love. At a very early period 

in the course of his initiation, a candidate for 

the mysteries of Freemasonry is informed that 

the great principles of the Order are BROTH- 

ERLY LOVE, RELIEF, and TRUTH . These virtues 

are illustrated, and their practise recommended 

to the aspirant, at every step of his 

progress ; and the instruction, though continually 

varied in its mode, is so constantly repeated, 

as infallibly to impress upon his mind 

their absolute necessity in the constitution of a 

good Mason . 

BROTHERLY LOVE might very well be supposed 

to be an ingredient in the organization 

of a society so peculiarly constituted as that 

of Freemasonry. But the Brotherly Love 

which we inculcate is not a mere abstraction, 

nor is its character left to any general and careless 

understanding of the candidate, who 

might be disposed to give much or little of it 

to his brethren, according to the peculiar constitution 

of his own mind, or the extent of his 

own generous or selfish feelings . It is, on the 

contrary, closely defined ; its object plainly 

denoted ; and the very mode and manner of 

its practise detailed in words, and illustrated 

by symbols, so as to give neither cause for 

error nor apology for indifference . 

Every Mason is acquainted with the Five 

Points of Fellowship-he knows their symbolic 

meaning-he can never forget the interesting 

incidents that accompanied their 

explanation ; and while he has this knowledge, 

and retains this remembrance, he can be 

at no loss to understand what are his duties, 

and what must be his conduct, in relation to 

the principle of Brotherly Love. (See Points 

of Fellowship .) 

Brothers of the Bridge . See Bridge 

Builders of the Middle Ages . 

Brothers of the Rosy Cross . See Rosicrucianism 

. 

Brown, Dr. John. See Latin Lodge. 

Browne, John. In 1798 John Browne 

published, in London, a work entitled The 

Master Key through all the Degrees of a Free- 

Mason's Lodge, to which is added, Eulogiums 

and Illustrations upon Freemasonry . In 1802, 

he published a second edition under the title of 

Browne's Masonic Master Key through the 

three degrees, by way of polyglot . Under the 

sanction of the Craft in general, containing the 

exact mode of working, initiation, passing and 

raising to the sublime degree of a Master . Also, 

the several duties of the Master, officers, and 

brethren while in the Lodge, with every requisite 

to render the accomplished Mason an explanation 

of all the hieroglyphics . The whole interspersed 

with illustrations on Theology, Astronomy, 

Architecture, Arts, Sciences, &c ., many of 

which are by the editor . Browne had been, he 

says, the Past Master of six Lodges, and wrote 

his work not as an offensive exposition, but as 

a means of giving Masons a knowledge of the 

ritual . It is considered to be a very complete 

representation of the Prestonian lectures, and 

as such was incorporated by Krause in his 

drei altesten Kunsturkunden. The work is 

printed in a very complicated cipher, the key 

to which, and without which the book is 

wholly unintelligible, was, by way of caution, 

delivered only personally and to none but 

those who had reached the Third Degree . 

The explanation of this "mystical key," as 

Browne calls it, is as follows : The word 

Browne supplies the vowels, thus, b r o w n e~ 

aeiouy 

and these six vowels in turn represent six let- 

a e i o u y. 

ters, 

Initial capitals are of 

' kcolnu 

no value, and supernumerary letters are often 

inserted . The words are kept separate, but 

the letters of one word are often divided between 

two or three . Much therefore is left to 

the shrewdness of the decipherer . The initial 

sentence of the work may be adduced as a 

specimen . Ubs Rplrbsrt wbss ostm ronwprn 

Pongth Mrlwdgr, which is thus deciphered : 

Please to assist me in opening the Lodge. The 

work is now exceedingly rare . 

Bru. See Vielle Bru, Rite of. 

Bruce, Robert . The introduction of Freemasonry 

into Scotland has been attributed 

by some writers to Robert, King of Scotland, 

commonly called Robert Bruce, who is said to 

have established in 1314 the Order of Herodom, 

for the reception of those Knights Templars 

who had taken refuge in his dominions 

from the persecutions of the Pope and the King 

of France . Thory (Act. Lat ., i ., 6) copies the 

following from a manuscript in the library 

of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophical 

Rite : 

"Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, under the 

name of Robert the First, created, on the 

24th June, 1314, after the battle of Bannockburn, 

the Order of St. Andrew of the Thistle, 

to which has been since united that of Herodom 

(H-D-M) for the sake of the Scotch Masons, 

who composed a part of the thirty thousand 

men with whom he had conquered an 

army of a hundred thousand Englishmen . 

He reserved, in perpetuity, to himself and his 

successors, the title of Grand Master. He 

founded the Royal Grand Lodge of the Order 

of H-D-M at Kilwinning, and died, full of 

glory and honours, the 9th of July, 1329 ." 

Dr. Oliver (Landm ., ii ., 13), referring to the 

abolition of the Templar Order in England, 

when the Knights were compelled to enter 

the Preceptories of the Knights of St . John, as 

dependents, says : 

" In Scotland, Edward, who had overrun 

the country at the time, endeavoured to pursue 

the same course ; but, on summoning the 

Knights to appear, only two, Walter de Clifton, 

the Grand Preceptor, and another, came 

forward . On their examination, they confessed 

that all the rest had fled ; and as Bruce

122 BRUN 

BUHLE 

was advancing with his army to meet Edward, 

nothing further was done. The Templars, 

being debarred from taking refuge either in 

England or Ireland, had no alternative but 

to join Bruce, and give their active support to 

his cause . Thus, after the battle of Bannockburn, 

in 1314, Bruce granted a charter of 

lands to Walter de Clifton, as Grand Master of 

the Templars for the assistance which they 

rendered on that occasion . Hence the Royal 

Order of H-R-D-M was frequently practised 

under the name of Templary ." 

Lawrie, or the author of Lawrie's History of 

Freemasonry, who is excellent authority for 

Scottish Masonry, does not appear, however, 

to give any credit to the narrative . Whatever 

Bruce may have done for the higher degrees, 

there is no doubt that Ancient Craft Masonry 

was introduced into Scotland at an earlier 

period. But it cannot be denied that Bruce 

was one of the patrons and encouragers of 

Scottish Freemasonry- 

Bran, Abraham Van . A wealthy Mason 

of Hamburg, who died at an advanced age in 

1748. For many years he had been the soul 

of the "Societe des anciens Rose-Croix" in 

Germany, which soon after his death was dissolved. 

(Thory, Act. Lat., ii ., 295 .) 

Brunswick, Congress of . It was convoked, 

in 1775, by Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick. 

Its object was to effect a fusion of the 

various Rites ; but it terminated its labors, 

after a session of six weeks, without success . 

Buchanan MS . This parchment roll 

one of the "Old Charges "-is so named because 

it was presented to the Grand Lodge of 

England in 1880 by Mr . George Buchanan, of 

Whitby, by whom it was found amongst the 

papers of a partner of his father's . It is considered 

to be of the latter part of the seventeenth 

century-say from 1660 to 1680 . 

It was first published at length in Gould's 

History of Freemasonry (vol . i ., p . 93), being 

adopted as an example of the ordinary class 

of text and since has been reproduced in facsimile 

Ly the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of London 

in vol. iv., of their Masonic re rents . 

FE. L. H.] 

Buddhism. The religion of the disciples 

of Buddha. It prevails over a great extent 

of Asia, and is estimated to be equally popular 

with any other form of faith among mankind. 

Its founder, Buddha-a word which 

seems to be an appellative as it signifies the 

enlightened-lived about five hundred years 

before the Christian era, and established his 

religion as a reformation of Brahmanism . 

The moral code of Buddhism is very perfect, 

surpassing that of any other heathen 

religion. But its theology is not so free from 

objection . Max Miiller admits that there is 

not a single passage in the Buddhist canon 

of scripture which presupposes the belief in a 

personal God or a Creator, and hence he concludes 

that the teaching of Buddha was pure 

atheism. Yet Upham (Hist . and Dect. of 

Bud ., p . 2) thinks that, even if this be capable 

of proof, it also recognizes "the operation of 

Faith (called Damata), whereby much of the 

necessary process of conservation or government 

is mused into the system ." 

The doctrine of Nirvana, according to Burnouf, 

taught that absolute nothing or annihilation 

was the highest aim of virtue, and hence 

the belief in immortality was repudiated . 

Such, too, has been the general opinion of 

Oriental scholars ; but Muller (Science of Religion 

: p . 141) adduces evidence, from the 

teachings of Buddha, to show that Nirvana 

may mean the extinction of many thins-of 

selfishness, desire, and sin-without going so 

far as the extinction of subjective consciousness 

. 

The sacred scripture of Buddhism is the 

Tripitaka, literally, the Three Baskets . The 

first, or the Vinaya, comprises all that relates 

to morality ; the second, or the Sitras, contains 

the discourses of Buddha ; and the third, 

or Abhidharma, includes all works on metaphysics 

and dogmatic philosophy . The first 

and second Baskets also receive the general 

name of Dharma, or the Law. The principal 

seat of Buddhism is the island of Ceylon, but 

it has extended into China, Japan, and many 

other countries of Asia . (See Aranyaka, Atthakatha, 

Mahabharata, Pitaka, Puranas, 

Ramayana, Shaster, Sruti, Upanishad, Upadevas, 

Vedas, and Vedanga .) 

Buenos Ayres . A Lodge was chartered in 

this city, and named the Southern Star, by 

the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1825 . 

Others followed, but in 1846 in consequence of 

the unsettled state of affairs their labors were 

suspended . A revival occurred in 1852, when 

a Lodge named " L'Ami des Naufrag6s " was 

established in Buenos Ayres by the Grand 

Orient of France ; and in 1853 the Grand 

Lodge of England erected a Lodge named 

" Excelsior" (followed in 1859 by the "Teutonia," 

which worked in German and was 

erased in 1872), and in 1864 by the "Star of the 

South ." In 1856 there was an irregular body 

working in the Ancient and Accepted Rite 

which claimed the prerogatives of a Gran d . 

Lodge, but it was never recognized, and soon 

ceased to exist. On September 13, 1858, a 

Supreme Council and Grand Orient was established 

by the Supreme Council of Uruguay . 

In 1861 a treaty was concluded between the 

Grand Lodge of England and the Grand Orient 

of the Argentine Republic, which empowered 

the former to establish Lodges in La 

Plata and to constitute a District Grand 

Lodge therein, which has 13 Lodges under 

its rule, while 108 acknowledge the authority 

of the "Supreme Council and Grand Orient 

of the Argentine Republic in Buenos Ayres," 

which was formed in 1895 by combination 

of the Grand Orient and Supreme Council . 

[E . L. H.] 

Buh . A monstrous corruption, in the 

American Royal Arch, of the word Bel . Up to 

a recent period, it was combined with another 

corrup tion, Lun, in the mutilated form of 

Buh-Lun, under which disguise the words Bel 

and On were presented to the neophyte . 

Buhle, Johann Gottlieb . Professor of 

Philosophy in the University of G6ttingeu,

BUILDER 

BUNYAN 123 

who, not being himself a Mason, published, 

in 1804, a work entitled Ueber den Ursprung 

and die vornehmsten Schicksale des Orders der 

Rosenkreuzer and Freimaurer, that is, "On the 

Origin and the Principal Events of the Orders 

of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry ." This 

work, illogical in its arguments, false in many 

of its statements, and confused in its arrangement, 

was attacked by Frederick Nicolai in a 

critical review of it in 1806, and is spoken of 

very slightingly even by De Quincey, himself 

no very warm admirer of the Masonic Institution, 

who published, in 1824, in the London 

Magazine (vol . ix .), a loose translation of it, 

"abstracted, re-arranged, and improved," 

under the title of Historicocritical Inquiry into 

the Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons. 

Buhle's theory was that Freemasonry 

was invented in the year 1629, by John Valentine 

Andrea . Buhle was born at Brunswick 

in 1753, became Professor of Philosophy at 

Gottingen in 1787, and, having afterward 

taught in his native city, died there in 1821 . 

Builder. The chief architect of the Temple 

of Solomon is often called "the Builder ." 

But the word is also applied generally to the 

Craft ; for every speculative Mason is as 

much a builder as was his operative predecessor. 

An American writer (F. S. Wood) 

thus alludes to this symbolic idea : "Masons 

are called moral builders . In their rituals, 

they declare that a more noble and glorious 

purpose than squaring stones and hewing 

timbers is theirs, fitting immortal nature for 

that spiritual building not made with hands, 

eternal in the heavens." And he adds, "The 

builder builds for a century; Masons for eternity." 

In this sense, "the Builder" is the 

noblest title that can be bestowed upon a 

Mason . 

Builder, Smitten. See Smitten Builder. 

Builders, Corporations of. See Stone- 

Masons of the Middle Ages . 

Bul . Oliver says that this is one of the 

names of God among the ancients . (Landmarks, 

ii ., 551 .) It is also said to be an Assyrian 

word signifying " Lord " or "Powerful ." 

Bul . The primitive designation of the 

month Marchesvan. (See Zif.) 

Bull, Papal. An edict or proclamation 

issued from the Apostolic Chancery, with the 

seal and signature of the Pope, written in 

Gothic letters and upon coarse parchment . 

It derives its name from the leaden seal which 

is attached to it by a cord of hemp or silk, and 

which in medieval Latin is called ulla . Several 

of these bulls have from time to time been 

fulminated against Freemasonry and other 

secret societies, subjecting them to the heaviest 

ecclesiastical punishments, even to the 

greater excommunication . According to these 

bulls a Freemason is ipso facto excommunicated 

by continuing his membership in the 

society, and is thus deprived of all spiritual 

privileges while living, and the rites of burial 

when dead . 

The several important Bulls which have 

been issued by the Popes of Rome intended to 

affect the Fraternity of Freemasons are as fol- 

Iowa : the Bull In Eminenti of Clement XII ., 

dated 24th of April, 1738. This Bull was confirmed 

and renewed by that beginning Providas, 

of Benedict XIV ., 18th of May, 1751- 

then followed the edict of Pius VII . 13th of 

September, 1821 ; the apostolic edict Quo 

Graviora of Leo XII ., 13th of March, 1825 ; that 

of Pius VIII ., 21st of May, 1829 ; that of Gregory 

XVI ., 15th of August, 1832 ; Pius IX . in 

1846 and 1865 ; and finally that of Leo XIII ., 

who ascended to the papacy in 1878, and issued 

his Bull, or encyclical letter, Humanum 

Genus, on April 20, 1884 . 

Whatever may have been the severity of 

the Bulls issued by the predecessors of Leo 

XIII ., he with great clearness ratifies and 

confirms them all in the following language : 

"Therefore, whatsoever the popes our predecessors 

have decreed to hinder the designs and 

attempts of the sect of Freemasons ; whatsoever 

they have ordained to deter or recall persons 

from societies of this kind, each and all do 

we ratify and confirm by our Apostolic authority." 

At the same time acknowledging that 

this "society of men are most widely spread 

and firmly established ." 

This letter of the Roman hierarchy thus 

commences : "The human race, after its most 

miserable defection, through the wiles of the 

devil, from its Creator God, the giver of celestial 

gifts, has divided into two different and 

opposite factions, of which one fights ever for 

truth and virtue, the other for their opposites . 

One is the kingdom of God on earth . . . the 

other is the kingdom of Satan." 

That, "by accepting any that present them 

selves, no matter of what religion, they (the 

Masons) gain their purpose of urging that 

great error of the present day viz ., that questions 

of religion ought to be left undetermined, 

and that there should be no distinction made 

between varieties. And this policy aims at the 

destruction of all religions, especially at that of 

the Catholic religion, which, since it is the only 

true one, cannot be reduced to equality with . 

the rest without the greatest injury ." 

"But, in truth, the sect grants great license 

to its initiates, allowing them to defend either 

position that there is a God, or that there is 

no God." 

Thus might we quote continuous passages, 

which need only to be stated to proclaim their 

falsity, and yet there are those who hold to the 

doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope . 

Bulletin. The name given by the Grand 

Orient of France to the monthly publication 

which contains the official record of its proceedings 

. A similar work is issued by the Supreme 

Council of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the 

United States of America, and by several 

other Supreme Councils and Grand Orients . 

Bunyan, John. The well-known author 

of the Pilgrim's Progress . He lived in the 

seventeenth century, and was the most celebrated 

allegorical writer of England . His 

work entitled Solomon's Temple Spiritualized 

will supply the student of Masonic symbolism 

with many valuable suggestions .

124 BURDENS 

BURNS 

Burdens, Bearers of . A class of workmen 

at the Temple mentioned in 2 Chron . ii . 

18, and referred to by Dr. Anderson (Const ., 

1738, p . 11) as the Ish Sabbal, which see . 

Burt or Bure. The first god of Norse 

mythology. In accordance with the quaint 

cosmogony of the ancient religion of Germany 

or that of Scandinavia, it was believed that 

before the world came into existence there was 

a great void, on the north side of which was a 

cold and dark region, and on the south side 

one warm and luminous. In Niflheim was a 

well, or the "seething caldron," out of which 

flowed twelve streams into the great void and 

formed a huge giant . In Iceland the first 

great giant was called Ymir, by the Germans 

Tuisto (Tacitus, Germania, ch . 2), whose 

three grandchildren were regarded as the 

founders of three of the German races . 

Cotemporary with Ymir, and from the 

great frost-blocks of primeval chaos, was produced 

a man called Buri, who was wise, 

strong, and beautiful . His son married the 

daughter of another giant, and their issue were 

the three sons Odin, Wili, and We, who ruled 

as gods in heaven and earth . 

By some it is earnestly believed that upon 

these myths and legends many symbols of 

Masonry were founded . 

Burial . The right to be buried with the 

ceremonies of the Order is one that, under certain 

restrictions, belongs to every Master Mason 

. 

None of the ancient Constitutions contain 

any law upon this subject, nor can the exact 

time be now determined when funeral processions 

and a burial service were first admitted 

as regulations of the Order . 

The first official notice, however, that we 

have of funeral processions is in November, 

1754. A regulation was then adopted which 

prohibited any Mason from attending a funeral 

or other procession clothed in any of the 

jewels or clothing of the Craft, except by dispensation 

of the Grand Master or his deputy . 

(Constitutions, 1756, p . 303.) 

There are no further regulations on this subject 

in any of the editions of the Book of Constitutions 

previous to the modern code which 

is now in force in the Grand Lodge of England. 

But Preston gives us the rules on this 

subject, which have now been adopted by 

general consent as the law of the Order, in the 

following words : 

"No Mason can be interred with the formalities 

of the Order unless it be by his own 

special request communicated to the Master 

of the Lodge of which he died a member, foreigners 

and sojourners excepted ; nor unless he 

has been advanced to the third degree of Masonry, 

from which restriction there can be no 

exception . Fellow Crafts or Apprentices are 

not entitled to the funeral obsequies ." (Illustrations, 

1792, p . 118 .) 

The only restrictions prescribed by Preston 

are, it will be perceived, that the deceased 

must have been a Master Mason, that he had 

himself made the request, and that he was affiliated, 

which is implied by the expression 

that he must have made the request for burial 

of the Master of the Lodge of which he was a 

member . 

The regulation of 1754, which requires a 

dispensation from the Grand Master for a 

funeral procession, is not considered of force 

in the United States of America, where, accordingly, 

Masons have generally been permitted 

to bury their dead without the necessity 

of such dispensation . 

Burning Bush . In the third chapter of 

Exodus it is recorded that, while Moses was 

keeping the flock of Jethro on Mount Horeb, 

"the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a 

flame of fire out of the midst of a bush," and 

there communicated to him for the first time 

his Ineffable Name . This occurrence is commemorated 

in the "Burning Bush" of the 

Royal Arch Degree . In all the systems of antiquity, 

fire is adopted as a symbol of Deity ; 

and the "Burning Bush," or the bush filled 

with fire which did not consume, whence came 

forth the Tetragrammaton, the symbol of Divine 

Light and Truth, is considered, in the 

higher degrees of Masonry, like the "Orient" 

in the lower, as the great source of true Masonic 

light ; wherefore Supreme Councils of 

the Thirty-third Degree date their balustres, 

or official documents, "near the B . B .' .," or 

"Burning Bush," to intimate that they are, in 

their own rite, the exclusive source of all 

Masonic instruction . 

Burnes, Sir James . A distinguished 

Mason, and formerly Provincial Grand Master 

of Western India under the Grand Lodge 

of Scotland (1836-46) . In 1846 he was appointed 

Grand Master of Scottish Freemasons 

in India . He returned home in 1849, 

and died in 1862, after serving for thirty years 

in the Indian Medical Service . He was the 

author of an interesting work entitled a 

Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars 

. By James Burnes, LL.D ., F .R .S ., 

Knight of the Royal Hanoverian G'uelphie 

Order ; published at London, in 1840, in 74 

60 pages in small quarto . 

Burns, Robert . The celebrated Scottish 

poet, of whose poetry William Pitt has said, 

"that he could think of none since Shakespeare's 

that had so much the appearance of 

sweetly coming from nature," was born at 

Kirk Alloway, near the town of Ayr, on the 

25th of January, 1759, and died on the 22d of 

July, 1796 . He was initiated into Freemasonry 

in St . David's Lodge, Tarbolton, on July 4, 

1781, and was at one time the Master of a Lodge 

at Mauchline, where he presided with great 

credit to himself, as appears from the following 

remarks of the philosophic Dugald Stewart . 

"In the course of the same season, I was led 

by curiosity to attend for an hour or two a 

Masonic Lodge in Mauchline, where Burns 

presided . He had occasion to make some 

short, unpremeditated compliments to different 

individuals from whom he had no reason 

to expect a visit, and everything he said was 

happily conceived and forcibly as well as fluently 

expressed." The slanderous charge that 

he acquired the habits of dissipation, to which

BUSINESS 

CABIRIC 125 

he was unfortunately addicted, at the festive 

meetings of the Masonic Lodges, has been triumphantly 

refuted by a writer in the London 

Freemasons' Magazine (vol . v ., 1? . 291), and by 

the positive declarations of his brother Gilbert, 

who asserts that these habits were the 

result of his introduction, several years after 

his attendance on the Lodges, to the hospitable 

literary society of the Scottish metropolis . 

Burns consecrated some portion of his wonderful 

poetic talent to the service of the Masonic 

Order, to which he appears always to 

have been greatly attached . Among his Masonic 

poetic effusions every Mason is familiar 

with that noble farewell to his Brethren of 

Tarbolton Lodge, commencing, 

"Adieu! a heart-warm, fond adieu! 

Dear brothers of the mystic tie! " 

On the 25th of January, 1820, a monument 

was erected to his memory, by public subscription, 

at his birthplace ; the corner-stone 

of which was laid with appropriate Masonic 

honors b the Deputy Grand Master of the 

Ancient Mother Lodge Kilwinning, assisted 

by all the Masonic Lodges in Ayrshire . 

Business. Everything that is done in a 

Masonic Lodge, relating to the initiation of 

candidates into the several degrees, is called 

its work or labor ; all other transactions such as 

are common to other associations come under 

the head of business, and they are governed 

with some peculiar differences by rules of 

order, as in other societies. (See Order, Rules 

of.) 

Byblos. An ancient city of Phoenicia, celebrated 

for the mystical worship of Adonis, 

who was slain by a wild boar . It was situated 

on a river of the same name, whose waters, 

becoming red at a certain season of the year by 

the admixture of the clay which is at its source, 

were said by the celebrants of the mysteries of 

Adonis to be tinged with the blood of that 

t 

od . This city, so distinguished for the celeration 

of these mysteries, was the Gebal of 

the Hebrews, the birthplace of the Giblemites, 

or stone-squarers, who wrought at the building 

of King Solomon's Temple ; and thus those 

who have advanced the theory that Freemasonry 

is the successor of the Ancient Mysteries, 

think that they find in this identity of 

Byblos and Gebal another point of connection 

between these Institutions . 

By-Laws. Every subordinate Lodge is 

permitted to make its own by-laws, provided 

they do not conflict with the regulations of 

the Grand Lodge, nor with the ancient usages 

of the Fraternity . But of this, the Grand 

Lodge is the only judge, and therefore the 

original by-laws of every Lodge, as well as all 

subsequent alterations of them, must be submitted 

to the Grand Lodge for approval and 

confirmation before they can become valid, 

having under the English Constitution previously 

been approved by the Provincial or 

District Grand Master . 

C . The third letter of the English alphabet, 

which was not known in the Hebrew, 

Phoenician, or early Aryan languages . 

Caaba or Kaaba . (Arabic, Ka'abah, cubic 

building .) The square building or temple in 

Mecca . More especially the small cubical 

oratory within, held in adoration by the Mohammedans, 

as containing the black stone 

said to have been given by an angel to Abraham 

. (See Allah .) 

The inner as well as the outer structure receives 

its name from Ka'ab, cube . 

Cabala. Now more correctly and generally 

written Kabbala, which see . 

Cabirlc Mysteries . The Cabiri were gods 

whose worship was first established in the 

island of Samothrace, where the Cabiric Mysteries 

were practised . The gods called the Cabiri 

were originally two, and afterward four, 

in number, and are supposed by Bryant (Anal . 

Ant. Myth., iii ., 342) to have referred to Noah 

and his three sons, the Cabiric Mysteries 

being a modification of the arkite worship . 

In these mysteries there was a ceremony called 

the "Cabiric Death," in which was represented 

amid the groans and tears and subsequent 

rejoicings of the initiates, the death and 

C 

restoration to life of Cadmillus, the youngest 

of the Cabiri . The legend recorded that he 

was slain by his three brethren, who afterward 

fled with his virile parts in a mystic 

basket. His body was crowned with flowers, 

and was buried at the foot of Mount Olympus . 

Clement of Alexandria speaks of the legend as 

the sacred mystery of a brother slain by his 

brethren, "frater trucidatus A fratribus ." 

There is much perplexity connected with the 

subject of these mysteries, but it is generally 

supposed that they were instituted in honor 

of Atys, the son of Cybele or Demeter, of 

whom Cadmillus was but another name . According 

to Macrobius, Atys was one of the 

appellations of the sun, and we know that the 

mysteries were celebrated at the vernal equinox. 

They lasted three days, during which 

they represented in the person of Atys, or 

Cadmillus, the enigmatical death of the sun 

in winter, and his regeneration in the spring . 

In all probability, in the initiation, the candidate 

passed through a drama, the subject of 

which was the violent death of Atys . The 

"Cabiric Death " was, in fact, a type of the 

Hiramic, and the legend, so far as it can be 

understood from the faint allusions of ancient

126 CABLE 

CADUCEUS 

authors, was very analogous in spirit and design 

to that of the Third Degree of Freemasonry 

. 

Many persons annually resorted to Samothrace 

to be initiated into the celebrated mysteries, 

among whom are mentioned Cadmus, 

Orpheus, Hercules, and Ulysses . Jamblichus 

says, in his Life of Pythagoras, that from those 

of Lemnos that sage derived much of his wisdom 

. The mysteries of the Cabiri were much 

respected among the common people, and 

great care was taken in their concealment . 

The priests made use of a language peculiar 

to the Rites . 

The mysteries were in existence at Samothrace 

as late as the eighteenth year of the 

Christian era, at which time the Emperor 

Germanicus embarked for that island, to be 

initiated, but was prevented from accomplishing 

his purpose by adverse winds . 

Cable Tow. The word "tow" signifies, 

properly, a line wherewith to draw . Richardson 

(Dict.) defines it as " that which tuggeth, 

or with which we tug or draw ." A cable tow 

is a rope or line for drawing or leading . The 

word is purely Masonic, and in some of the 

writers of the early part of the last century we 

find the expression" cable rope ." Prichard so 

uses it in 1730. The German word for a cable 

or rope is kabeltau, and thence our cable tow is 

probably derived . 

In its first inception, the cable tow seems to 

have been used only as a physical means of 

controlling the candidate, and such an interpretation 

is still given in the Entered Apprentice's 

Degree . But in the Second and Third 

degrees a more modern symbolism has been 

introduced, and the cable tow is in these 

grades supposed to symbolize the covenant by 

which all Masons are tied, thus reminding us 

of the passage in Hosea (xi . 4), "I drew them 

with cords of a man, with bands of love ." 

Cable Tow's Length . Gfidicke says 

that, "according to the ancient laws of Freemasonry, 

every brother must attend his Lodge 

if he is within the length of his cable tow ." 

The old writers define the length of a cable 

tow, which they sometimes called "a cable's 

length," to be three miles for an Entered Apprentice 

. But the expression is really symbolic, 

and, as it was defined by the Baltimore 

Convention in 1842, means the scope of a 

man's reasonable ability . 

Cabul. A district containing twenty cities 

which Solomon gave to Hiram, King of Tyre, 

for his assistance in the construction of the 

Temple . Clark (Comm .) thinks it likely that 

they were not given to Hiram so that they 

should be annexed to his Tyrian dominions, 

but rather to be held as security for the money 

which he had advanced . This, however, is 

merely conjectural . The district containing 

them is Placed by Josephus in the northwest 

part of Galilee, adjacent to Tyre . Hiram does 

not appear to have been satisfied with the gift ; 

why, is uncertain. Kitto thinks because they 

were not situated on the coast . A Masonic 

legend says because they were ruined and 

dilapidated villages, and in token of his dis- 

satisfaction, Hiram called the district Cabul. 

The meaning of this word is not known . Josephus, 

probably by conjecture from the context, 

says it means "unpleasing ." Hiller 

(Onomast .) and, after him, Bates (Dict .) suppose 

that X17: is derived from the particle :, 

as, and ~ :, nothing. The Talmudic derivation 

from CBL, tied with fetters, is Talmudically 

childish. The dissatisfaction of Hiram 

and its results constitute the subject of the 

legend of the degree of Intimate Secretary in 

the Scottish Rite . 

Cadet-Gassicourt, Charles Louis . The 

author of the celebrated work entitled Le 

Tombeau de Jacques Molay, which was published 

at Paris, in 1796, and in which he attempted, 

like Barruel and Robison, to show 

that Freemasonry was the source and instigator 

of all the political revolutions which at 

that time were convulsing Europe . Cadet- 

Gassicourt was himself the victim of political 

persecution, and, erroneously attributing his 

sufferings to the influences of the Masonic 

Lodges in France, became incensed against 

the Order, and this gave birth to his libelous 

book . But subsequent reflection led him to 

change his views, and he became an ardent 

admirer of the Institution which he had formerly 

maligned. He sought initiation into 

Freemasonry, and in 1805 was elected as 

Master of the Lodge 1'Abeille in Paris . He 

was born at Paris, January 23, 1769, and died 

in the same city November 21, 1821 . 

Cadmillus. The youngest of the Cabiri, 

and as he is slain in the Cabiric Mysteries, he 

becomes the analogue of the Builder in the 

legend of Freemasonry . 

Caduceus. The Caduceus was the magic 

wand of the god Hermes . It was an olive staff 

twined with fillets, which were gradually converted 

to wings and serpents. Hermes, or Mercury, 

was the messenger of Jove. Among his 

numerous attributes, one of the most important 

was that of conducting disembodied 

spirits to the other world, and, on necessary 

occasions, of bringing them back . He was 

the guide of souls, and the restorer of the dead 

to life. Thus, Horace, in addressing him, says : 

"Unspotted spirits you consign 

To blissful seats and joys divine, 

And powerful with your golden wand 

The light unburied crowd command ." 

Virgil also alludes to this attribute of the 

magic wand when he is describing the flight of 

Mercury on his way to bear Jove's warning 

message to .news : 

"His wand he takes ; with this pale ghost he calls 

From Pluto's realms, or sends to Tartarus' 

shore." 

And Statius, imitating this passage, makes 

the same allusion in his Thebaid (i., 314), thus 

translated by Lewis : 

"He grasps the wand which draws from hollow 

graves, 

Or drives the trembling shades to Stygian 

waves ; 

With magic power seals the watchful eye 

In slumbers soft or causes sleep to fly ."

CAMENTARIUS 

CAGLIOSTRO . 127 

The history of this Caduceus, or magic wand, 

will lead us to its symbolism . Mercury, who 

had invented the lyre, making it out of the 

shell of the tortoise, exchanged it with Apollo 

for the latter's magical wand . This wand was 

simply an olive branch around which were 

placed two fillets of ribbon . Afterward, when 

Mercury was in Arcadia, he encountered two 

serpents engaged in deadly combat . These he 

separated with his wand ; hence the olive wand 

became the symbol of peace, and the two fillets 

were replaced by the two serpents, thus giving 

to the Caduceus its well-known form of a staff, 

around which two serpents are entwined . 

Such is the legend ; but we may readily see 

that in the olive, as the symbol of immortality, 

borne as the attribute of Mercury, the giver of 

life to the dead, we have a more ancient and 

rofounder symbolism. The serpents, symls 

also of immortality, are appropriately 

united with the olive wand . The legend also 

accounts for a later and secondary symbolism 

-that of peace. 

The Caduceus then-the original meaning 

of which word is a herald's staff-as the attribute 

of a life-restoring God, is in its primary 

meaning the symbol of immortality ; so in 

Freemasonry the rod of the Senior Deacon, or 

the Master of Ceremonies, is but an analogue 

of the Hermean Caduceus . This officer, as 

leading the aspirant through the forms of initiation 

into his new birth orMasonic regeneration, 

and teaching him in the solemn ceremonies 

of the Third Degree the lesson of eternal 

life, may well use the magic wand as a representation 

of it, which was the attribute of that 

ancient deity who brought the dead into life . 

Cwmentarlus. Latin . A builder of walls, 

a mason, from ccementum, a rough, unhewn 

stone as it comes from the quarry . In medieval 

Latin, the word is used to designate an 

Operative Mason . Du Cange cites Magister 

Caimentariorum as used to designate him who 

presided over the building of edifices, that is, 

the Master of the works. It has been adopted 

by some modern writers as a translation of the 

word Freemason . Its employment for that 

purpose is perhaps more correct than that of 

the more usual word latomus, which owes its 

use to the authority of Thory . 

Cagllostro. Of all the Masonic charlatans 

who flourished in the eighteenth century 

the Count Cagliostro was most prominent, 

whether we consider the ingenuity of his 

schemes of deception, the extensive field of his 

operations through almost every country of 

Europe, or the distinguished character and 

station of many of those whose credulity made 

them his victims. The history of Masonry in 

that century would not be complete without a 

reference to this prince of Masonic impostors . 

To write the history of Masonry in the eighteenth 

century and to leave out Cagliostro, 

would be like enacting the play of Hamlet and 

leaving out the part of the Prince of Denmark . 

And yet Carlyle has had occasion to complain 

of the paucity of materials for such a work . 

Indeed, of one so notorious as Cagliostro comparatively 

little is to be found in print . The 

only works upon which he who would write 

his life must depend are aLife of him published 

in London, 1787 ; Memoirs, in Paris, 1786 ; 

and Memoirs Authentiques, Strasburg, 1786 ; 

a Life, in Germany, published at Berlin, 

1787 ; another in Italian, published at Rome in 

1791 ; and a few fugitive pieces, consisting 

chiefly of manifestoes of himself and his disciples 

. 

Joseph Balsamo, subsequently known as 

Count Cagliostro, was the son of Peter Balsamo 

and Felicia Braconieri, both of mean 

extraction, and was born on the 8th of June, 

1743, in the city of Palermo . Upon the death 

of his father, he was taken under the protection 

of his maternal uncles, who caused to 

be instructed in the elements of religion and 

learning, by both of which he profited so little 

that he eloped several times from the Seminary 

of St . Roch, near Palermo, where he had 

been placed for his instruction . At the age of 

thirteen he was carried to the Convent of the 

Good Brotherhood at Castiglione . There, 

having assumed the habit of a novice, he was 

placed under the tuition of the apothecary, 

from whom he learned the principles of chemistry 

and medicine . His brief residence at the 

convent was marked by violations of many 

of its rules ; and finally, abandoning it altogether, 

he returned to Palermo . There he continued 

his vicious courses, and was frequently 

seized and imprisoned for infractions of the 

law . At length, having cheated a goldsmith, 

named Marano, of a large amount of gold, he 

was compelled to flee from his native country . 

He then repaired to Messina, where he became 

acquainted with one Altotas, who pretended 

to be a great chemist . Together they 

proceeded to Alexandria in Egypt, where, by 

means of certain chemical, or perhaps rather 

by financial, operations, they succeeded in 

collecting a considerable amount of money . 

In 1776 Cagliostro appeared in London . During 

this visit, Cagliostro became connected 

with the Order of Freemasonry . In the month 

of April he received the degrees in Esperance 

Lodge, No . 289, which then met at the King's 

Head Tavern . Cagliostro did not join the 

Order with disinterested motives, or at least 

he determined in a very short period after his 

initiation to use the Institution as an instrument 

for the advancement of his personal interests 

. Here he is said to have invented, in 

1777, that grand scheme of imposture under 

the name of "Egyptian Masonry," by the 

propagation of which he subsequently became 

so famous as the great Masonic charlatan of 

his age . 

London did not fail to furnish him with a 

fertile field for his impositions, and the English 

Masons seemed noway reluctant to become 

his dupes ; but, being ambitious for the extension 

of his Rite, and anxious for the greater 

income which it promised, he again passed 

over to the Continent, where he justly anticipated 

abundant success in its propagation . 

This Egyptian Masonry constituted the 

great pursuit of the rest of his life, and was the 

instrument which he used for many years to

128 CAHIER 

CALENDAR 

make dupes of thousands of credulous persons 

. 

During Cagliostro's residence in England, 

on his last visit, he was attacked by the editor 

Morand, in the Courier de l'Europe, in a series 

of abusive articles, to which Cagliostro replied 

in a letter to the English people. But, 

although he had a few Egyptian Lodges in 

London under his government, he appears, 

perhaps from Morand's revelations of his 

character and life, to have lost his popularity, 

and he left England permanently in May, 

1787. 

He went to Savoy, Sardinia, and other 

places in the south of Europe, and at last, in 

Ma , 1789, by an act of rash temerity, proce 

ed to Rome, where he organized an 

Egyptian Lodge under the very shadow of the 

Vatican . But this was more than the Church, 

which had been excommunicating Freemasons 

for fifty years, was willing to endure . 

On the 27th of December of that year, on the 

festival of St . John the Evangelist, to whom 

he had dedicated his Lodges, the Holy Inquisition 

arrested him, and locked him up in 

the castle of San Angelo . There, after such a 

trial as the Inquisition is wont to give to the 

accused-in which his wife is said to have been 

the principal witness against him-he was 

convicted of having formed "societies and 

conventicles of Freemasonry." His manuscript 

entitled Maconnerie Egyptienne was 

ordered to be burned by the public executioner, 

and he himself was condemned to 

death ; a sentence which the Pope subsequently 

commuted for that of perpetual 

imprisonment. Cagliostro appealed to the 

French Constituent Assembly, but of course 

in vain . Thenceforth no more is seen of 

him . For four years this adventurer, who had 

filled during his life so large a space in the 

world's history-the associate of princes, 

prelates, and philosophers ; the inventor of 

a spurious Rite, which had, however, its thousands 

of disciples-languished within the 

gloomy walls of the prison of St . Leo, in the 

Duchy of Urbino, and at length in the year 

1795, in a fit of apoplexy, bade the world 

adieu . 

Cahler. French . A number of sheets of 

parchment or paper fastened together at one 

end . The word is used by French Masons to 

designate a small book printed, or in manuscript, 

containing the ritual of a degree . The 

word has been borrowed from French history, 

where it denotes the reports and proceedings 

of certain assemblies, such as the clergy, the 

States-General, etc . 

Cairns. Celtic, earns . Heaps of stones of 

a conical form erected by the Druids . Some 

suppose them to have been sepulchral monuments, 

others altars. They were undoubtedly 

of a religious character, since sacrificial fires 

were lighted upon them, and processions were 

made around them. These processions were 

analogous to the circumambulations in Masonry, 

and were conducted, like them, with 

reference to the apparent course of the sun .l 

Thus, Toland, in his Letters on the Celtic Re-I 

ligion (Let . II ., xvii.), says of these mystical 

processions, that the people of the Scottish 

islands "never come to the ancient sacrificing 

and fire-hallowing Carns but they walk three 

times round them from east to west, according 

to the course of the sun . This sanctified tour, 

or round by the south, is called Deaseal, as 

the unhallowed contrary one by the north, 

Tuapholl" ; and he says that Deaseal is derived 

from "Deas, the right (understanding 

hand), and soil, one of the ancient names of 

the sun, the right hand in this round being 

ever next the heap ." In all this the Mason will 

be reminded of the Masonic ceremony of circumambulation 

around the altar and the rules 

which govern it . 

Calatrava, Military Order of . Instituted 

1158, during the reign of Sancho III ., 

King of Castile, who conquered and gave the 

Castle of Calatrava, an important fortress of 

the Moors of Andalusia, to the Knights Templars, 

who subsequently relinquished their 

possession of it to the king . The king, being 

disappointed in the ability of the Templars to 

retain it, then offered the defense of the place 

to Don Raymond of Navarre, Abbot of St . 

Mary of Hitero, a Cistercian convent, who 

accepted it . Don Raymond being successful, 

the king gave the place to him and his companions, 

and instituted the Order of Calatrava 

. A Grand Master was appointed and 

approved of by the Pope, Alexander III ., 

1164, which was confirmed by Innocent III . 

in 1198 . The knights had been granted the 

power of electing their own Grand Master ; 

but on the death of Don Garcias Lopez de 

Pardella, 1489, Ferdinand and Isabella annexed 

the Grand Mastership to the Crown of 

Castile, which was sanctioned by Pope Innocent 

VIII . 

Calcott, Wellins . A distinguished Masonic 

writer of the eighteenth century, and the 

author of a work published in 1769, under the 

title of A Candid Disquisition of the Principles 

and Practices of the Most Ancient and 

Honourable Society of Free and Accepted 

Masons; together with some Strictures on the 

Origin, Nature, and Design of that Institution, 

in which he has traced Masonry from its 

origin, explained its symbols and hieroglyphics, 

its social virtues and advantages, 

suggested the propriety of building halls for 

the peculiar and exclusive practise of Masonry, 

and reprehended its slanderers with 

great but judicious severity . This was the 

first extended effort to illustrate philosophically 

the science of Masonry, and was followed, 

a few years after, by Hutchinson's admirable 

work ; so that Oliver justly says that "Calcott 

opened the mine of Masonry, and Hutchinson 

worked it ." 

Calendar . Freemasons, in affixing dates 

to their official documents, never make use of 

the Common Epoch or Vulgar Era, but have 

one peculiar to themselves, which, however, 

varies in the different rites . Era and epoch 

are, in this sense, synonymous . 

Masons of the York, American, and French 

Rites, that is to say, the Masons of England,

CALENDAR 

CALLING 129 

Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, and 

America date from the creation of the world, 

calling it "Anno Lucis," which they abbreviate 

A .- . L .' ., signifying in the Year of Light. 

Thus with them the year 1872 is A .' . L . • . 

5872 . This they do, not because they believe 

Freemasonry to be coeval with the creation, 

but with a symbolic reference to the light of 

Masonry. 

In the Scottish Rite, the epoch also begins 

from the date of the creation, but Masons of 

that Rite, using the Jewish chronology, would 

call the year 1872 A .' . M . • . or Anno Mundi 

(in the Year of the World) 5632 . They sometimes 

use the initials A .' . H.- ., signifying Anno 

Hebraico, or, in the Hebrew year . They have 

also adopted the Hebrew months, and the 

year, therefore, begins with them in the middle 

of Septembr . (See Months, Hebrew .) 

Masons of the York and American Rites 

begin the year on the 1st of Januar, , but 

in the French Rite it commences on the 1st 

of March, and instead of the months receiving 

their usual names, they are designated numerically, 

as first, second, third, etc . Thus, the 

1st of January, 1872, would be styled, in a 

French Masonic document, the "1st day of 

the 11th Masonic month, Anne Lucis, 5872 ." 

The French sometimes, instead of the initials 

A .- . L.- ., use Pan de la V .' . L .' ., or Vraie Lumiere, 

that is, Year of True Light . 

Royal Arch Masons commence their epoch 

with the year in which Zerubbabel began to 

build the second Temple, which was 530 years 

before Christ . Their style for the year 1872 is, 

therefore, A .' . Inv . - ., that is, Anno Inventionis, 

or, in the Year of the Discovery, 

2402 . 

Royal and Select Masters very often make 

use of the common Masonic date, Anno Lucis, 

but properly they should date from the year 

in which Solomon's Temple was completed ; 

and their style would then be, Anne Depositionis, 

or, in the Year of the Deposite, and 

they would date the year 1872 as 2872 . 

Knights Templars use the epoch of the organization 

of their Order in 1118. Their style 

for the year 1872 is A .' . 0 .%, Anno Ordinis, or, 

in the Year of the Order, 754 . 

We subjoin, for the convenience of reference, 

the rules for discovering these different 

dates. 

1 . To find the Ancient Craft date . Add 4000 

to the Vulgar Era . Thus 1872 and 4000 are 

5872 . 

2 . To find the date of the Scottish Rite . Add 

3760 to the Vulgar Era . Thus 1872 and 3760 

are 5632 . After September add one year 

more. 

3. To find the date of Royal Arch Masonry . 

Add 530 to the Vulgar Era. Thus 530 and 1872 

are 2402 . 

4 . To find the Royal and Select Masters' date . 

Add 1000 to the Vulgar Era . Thus 1000 and 

1872 are 2872. 

5. To find the Knights Templars' date . Subtract 

1118 from the Vulgar Era . Thus 1118 

from 1872 is 754. 

The following will show, in one view, the 

date of the year 1872 in all the branches of the 

Order : - 

Year of the Lord, A .D . 1872-Vulgar Era . 

Year of Light, A .' . L .' . 5872-Ancient Craft 

Masonry . 

Year of the World, A .' . M .' . 5632-Scottish 

Rite . 

Year of the Discovery, A .' . I .' . 2402-Royal 

Arch Masonry . 

Year of the Deposite, A .' . Dep .' . 2872- 

Royal and Select Masters . 

Year of the Order, A .' . O .' . 754-Knights 

Templars . 

California . The Grand Lodge of California 

was organized on the 19th of April, 

1850, in the city of Sacramento, by the delegates 

of three legally constituted Lodges 

working, at the time, under charters from the 

Grand Lodges of the District of Columbia, 

Connecticut, and Missouri . Its present seat 

is at San Francisco, and there are 308 Lodges 

under its jurisdiction . The Grand Chapter and 

Grand Commandery were organized in 1854 . 

Calling Off . A technical term in Masonry, 

which signifies the temporary suspension of 

labor in a Lodge without passing through the 

formal ceremony of closing . The full form of 

the expression is to call from labor to refreshment, 

and it took its rise from the former custom 

of dividing the time spent in the Lodge 

between the work of Masonry and the moderate 

enjoyment of the banquet . The banquet 

formed in the last century an indispensable 

part of the arrangements of a Lodge meeting . 

"At a certain hour of the evening," says 

Brother Oliver, "with certain ceremonies, the 

Lodge was called from labor to refreshment, 

when the brethren enjoyed themselves with 

decent merriment ." That custom no longer 

exists ; and although in England almost always, 

and in this country occasionally, the 

labors of the Lodge are concluded with a banquet 

; yet the Lodge is formally closed before 

the Brethren proceed to the table of refreshment. 

Calling off in American Lodges is now 

only used, in a certain ceremony of the Third 

Degree, when it is desired to have another 

meeting at a short interval, and the Master 

desires to avoid the tediousness of closing 

and opening the Lodge . Thus, if the business 

of the Lodge at its regular meeting has so accumulated 

that it cannot be transacted in one 

evening, it has become the custom to call off 

until a subsequent evening, when the Lodge, 

instead of being opened with the usual ceremony, 

is simply "called on," and the latter 

meeting is considered as only a continuation 

of the former . This custom is very generally 

adopted in Grand Lodges at their Annual Communications, 

which are opened at the beginning 

of the session, called off from day to day, 

and finally closed at its end . I do not know 

that any objection has ever been advanced 

against this usage in Grand Lodges, because it 

seems necessary as a substitute for the adjournment, 

which is resorted to in other legislative 

bodies, but which is not admitted in 

Masonry. But much discussion has taken 

place in reference to the practise of calling off

130 CALLING 

CAMPE 

in Lodges, some authorities sustaining and 

others condemning it . Thus, twenty years 

ago, the Committee of Correspondence of the 

Grand Lodge of Mississippi proposed this 

question : "In case of excess of business, cannot 

the unfinished be laid over until the next 

or another day, and must the Lodge be closed 

in form, and opened the next, or the day designated 

for the transaction of that business? " 

To this question some authorities, and among 

others Brother C. W . Moore (Mag., vol . xii ., 

No . 10), reply in the negative, while other 

equally good jurists differfromthem in opinion . 

The difficulty seems to be in this, that if the 

regular meeting of the Lodge is closed in form, 

the subsequent meeting becomes a special 

one, and many things which could be done at 

a regular communication cease to be admissible 

. The recommendation, therefore of 

Brother Moore, that the Lodge should be 

closed, and, if the business be unfinished, that 

the Master shall call a special meeting to complete 

it, does not meet the difficulty, because 

it is a well-settled principle of Masonic law 

that a special meeting cannot interfere with 

the business of a preceding regular one . 

As, then, the mode of briefly closing by adjournment 

is contrary to Masonic law and 

usage, and cannot, therefore, be resorted to, 

as there is no other way except by calling off 

to continue the character of a regular meeting, 

and as, during the period that the Lodge is 

called off it is under the government of the 

Junior Warden, and Masonic discipline is 

thus continued, I am clearly of opinion that 

calling off from day to day for the purpose of 

continuing work or business is, as a matter of 

convenience, admissible. The practise may 

indeed be abused. But there is a well-known 

legal maxim which says, Ex abusu non arguitur 

in usum. "No argument can be drawn 

from the abuse of a thing against its use ." 

Thus, a Lodge cannot be called off except for 

continuance of work and business, nor to an 

indefinite day, for there must be a good reason 

for the exercise of the practise, and the Brethren 

present must be notified before dispersing 

of the time of reassembling ; nor can a Lodge 

at one regular meeting be called off until the 

next, for no regular meeting of a Lodge is permitted 

to run into another, but each must be 

closed before its successor can be opened . 

Calling On. When a Lodge that is called 

off at a subsequent time resumes work or business, 

it is said to be "called on ." The full 

expression is " called on from refreshment to 

labor ." 

Calumny . See Back. 

Calvary . Mount Calvary is a small hill or 

eminence, situated due west from Mount 

Moriah, on which the Temple of Solomon was 

built . It was originally a hillock of notable 

eminence, but has, in more modern times, 

been greatly reduced by the excavations made 

in it for the construction of the Church of the 

Holy Sepulcher . There are several coincidences 

which identify Mount Calvary with 

the small hill where the "newly-made grave," 

referred to in the Third Degree, was discovered 

by the weary brother . Thus, Mount Calvary 

was a small hill ; it was situated in a westward 

direction from the Temple, and near Mount 

Moriah ; and it was on the direct road from 

Jerusalem to Joppa, and is the very spot where 

a weary brother, traveling on that road, would 

find it convenient to sit down to rest and refresh 

himself; it was outside the gate of the 

Temple ; it has at least one cleft in the rock, or 

cave, which was the place which subsequently 

became the sepulcher of our Lord . Hence 

Mount Calvary has always retained an important 

place in the legendary history of Freemasonry, 

and there are many traditions connected 

with it that are highly interesting in 

their import . 

One of these traditions is, that it was the 

burial-place of Adam, in order, says the old 

legend, that where he lay, who effected the 

ruin of mankind, there also might the Savior 

of the world suffer, die, and be buried . 

Sir R. Torkington, who published a pilgrimage 

to Jerusalem in 1517, says that "under the 

Mount of Calvary is another chapel of our 

Blessed Lady and St. John the Evangelist, 

that was called Golgotha ; and there, right 

under the mortise of the cross, was found the 

head of our forefather, Adam ." Golgotha, it 

will be remembered, means, in Hebrew, "the 

place of a skull " ; and there may be some connection 

between this tradition and the name 

of Golgotha by which, the Evangelists inform 

us, in le time of Christ Mount Calvary 

was known . Calvary, or Calvaria, has the 

same signification in Latin . 

Another tradition states that it was in the 

bowels of Mount Calvary that Enoch erected 

his nine-arched vault, and deposited on the 

foundation-stone of Masonry that Ineffable 

Name, whose investigation, as a symbol of 

Divine truth, is the great object of Speculative 

Masonry. 

A third tradition details the subsequent discovery 

of Enoch's deposit, by King Solomon, 

whilst making excavations in Mount Calvary 

during the building of the Temple . 

On this hallowed spot was Christ the Redeemer 

slain and buried . It was there that, 

rising on the third day from his sepulcher, he 

gave, by that act, the demonstrative evidence 

of the resurrection of the body and the immortality 

of the soul . 

And it is this spot that has been selected, 

in the legendary history of Freemasonry, to 

teach the same sublime truth, the development 

of which by a symbol evidently forms 

the design of the Third or Master's Degree . 

Camp . A portion of the paraphernalia 

decorated with tents, flags, and pennons of a 

Consistory of Sublime Princes of the Royal 

Secret, or Thirty-second Degree of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite . It constitutes 

the tracing board, and is worn on the apron of 

the degree . It is highly symbolic, and represents 

an imaginary Masonic camp . Its symbolism 

is altogether esoteric . 

Campe, Joachim Heinrich. A Doctor 

of Theology, and Director of Schools in Dessau 

and Hamburg, who was born in 1740

CANADA 

CANOPY 131 

and died October 22, 1818 . He was the author 

of many works on philosophy and education, 

and was a learned and zealous Mason, as is 

shown in his correspondence with Leasing . 

Canada. Upon the advent of Confederation, 

July 1, 1867, local control in each Province 

for the government of the Masonic Fraternity 

of the Dominion took a strong hold as 

a predominant idea, and prevailed . Each 

Province has now a Grand Lodge, and in order 

of their organization are as follows : Canada, 

having jurisdiction only in Ontario, 1855 ; 

Nova Scotia, 1866 ; New Brunswick, 1867 ; 

Quebec, 1869 ; British Columbia, 1871 ; Manitoba, 

1875 ; Prince Edward Island, 1875 ; 

Alberta, 1905 ; Saskatchewan, 1906 . The 

first marks of the Ancient Craftsman have 

been found in Nova Scotia . A mineralogical 

survey in 1827 found on the shore of Goat 

Island in the Annapolis Basin, partly covered 

with sand, a slab of rock 23 X 2 feet, bearing 

on it those well-known Masonic emblems, 

"the Square and Compasses," and the date 

1606 . Who were the Craftsmen and how 

the stone came there, must be left to conjecture 

. [Will H . Whyte, P . G . M . . . K . T . 

of Canada .] 

Cancellarlus. An office of high rank and 

responsibility among the Knights Templar 

of the Middle Ages, performing the duties of, 

or similar to, the Chancellor . 

Candidate. An applicant for admission 

into Masonry is called a candidate . The Latin 

candidates means clothed in white, candidis 

vestibus indutus. In ancient Rome, he who 

sought office from the people wore a white 

shining robe of a peculiar construction, flowing 

open in front, so as to exhibit the wounds 

he had received in his breast . From the color 

of his robe or toga candida, he was called candidatus, 

whence the word candidate . The derivation 

will serve to remind the Mason of the 

purity of conduct and character which should 

distinguish all those who are candidates for 

admission into the Order . The qualifications 

of a candidate in Masonry are somewhat 

peculiar . He must be free-born (under the 

English Constitution it is enough that he is a 

freeman), under no bondage, of at least twentyone- 

years of age, in the possession of sound 

senses, free from any physical defect or dismemberment, 

and of irreproachable manners, 

or, as it is technically termed, "under the 

tongue of good report ." No Atheist, eunuch, 

or woman can be admitted . The requisites as 

to age, sex, and soundness of body have reference 

to the operative character of the Institution 

. We can only expect able workmen 

in able-bodied men . The mental and religious 

qualifications refer to the duties and obligations 

which a Freemason contracts. An 

idiot could not understand them, and an Atheist 

would not respect them. Even those who 

possess all these necessary qualifications can 

be admitted only under certain regulations 

which differ under different Masonic Constitutions. 

Candidates, Advancement of . See 

Advancement, Hurried . 

Candlestick, Golden . The golden candlestick 

of seven branches, which is a part of 

the furniture of a Royal Arch Chapter, is derived 

from "the holy candlestick " which 

Moses was instructed to construct of beaten 

gold for the use of the tabernacle . Smith (Diet. 

of the Bible) thus abbreviates Lightfoot's explanation 

of the description given in Exodus : 

"The foot of it was gold, from which went up 

a shaft straight, which was the middle light . 

Near the foot was a golden dish wrought 

almondwise ; and a little above that a golden 

knop, and above that a golden flower . Then 

two branches one on each side bowed,-and 

coming up as high as the middle shaft . On 

each of them were three golden cups placed 

almondwise, in sharp, scallop-ahell fashion ; 

above which was a golden knop, a golden 

flower, and the socket . Above the branches 

on the middle shaft was a golden boss, above 

which rose two shafts more ; above the coming 

out of these was another boss and two more 

shafts, and then on the shaft upwards were 

three golden scallop-cups, a knop and a 

flower ; so that the heads of the branches stood 

an equal height ." In the tabernacle, the candlestick 

was placed opposite the table of shewbread, 

which it was intended to illumine in an 

oblique position, so that the lamps looted to 

the east and south. What became of the 

candlestick between the time of Moses and 

that of Solomon is unknown ; but it does not 

appear to have been present in the first Temple, 

which was lighted by ten golden candlesticks 

similarly embossed, which were connected 

by golden chains and formed a sort of 

railing before the veil . 

These ten candlesticks became the spoil of 

the Chaldean conqueror at the time of the 

destruction of the Temple, and could not have 

been among the articles afterward restored 

by Cyrus ; for in the second Temple, built by 

Zerubbabel, we find only a single candlestick 

of seven branches, like that of the tabernacle . 

Its form has been perpetuated on the Arch of 

Titus, on which it was sculptured with other 

articles taken by that monarch, and carried 

to Rome as spolia opima, after he had destroyed 

the Herodian Temple. This is the 

candlestick which is represented as a decoration 

in a Royal Arch Chapter . 

In Jewish symbolism, the seven branches 

were supposed by some to refer to the seven 

planets and by others to the seventh day or 

Sabbath . The primitive Christians made it 

allusive to Christ as the "light of the world" 

and in this sense it is a favorite symbol in 

early Christian art . In Masonry it seems to 

have no symbolic meaning, unless it be the 

general one of light ; but is used in a Royal 

Arch Chapter simply to indicate that the room 

is a representation of the tabernacle erected 

near the ruins of the first Temple, for the purpose 

of temporary worship during the building 

of the second, and in which tabernacle this 

candlestick is supposed to have been present . 

Canopy. Oliver says that in the Masonic 

processions of the Continent the Grand Master 

walks under a gorgeous canopy of blue,

132 CANOPY 

CAPITULAR 

purple, and crimson silk, with gold fringes and 

tassels, borne upon staves, painted purple 

and ornamented with gold, by eight of the oldest 

Master Masons present ; and the Masters 

of private Lodges walk under canopies of 

light blue silk with silver tassels and fringes, 

borne by four members of their own respective 

companies . The canopies are in the form 

of an oblong square, and are in length six feet, 

in breadth and height three feet, having a 

semicircular covering . The framework should 

be of cedar, and the silken covering ought to 

hang down two feet on each side . This is, 

properly speaking, a Baldachin . (See Baldachin 

.) 

Canopy, Celestial. Ritualists seem divided 

in the use of the terms "Clouded Canopy 

" and "Celestial Canopy" in the First 

Degree. (For the former, see Canopy, Clouded, 

and Covering of the Lodge .) It would seem 

that the unclouded grandeur of . the heavens 

should not be without advocates . 

Sir John Lubbock gives the following description 

of the heavens filled with stars in 

connection with the latest discoveries : "Like 

the sand of the sea, the stars of heaven are 

used as a symbol of numbers . We now know 

that our earth is but a fraction of one part of, 

at least 75,000,000 worlds .- But this is not all . 

In addition to the luminous heavenly bodies, 

we cannot doubt there are countless others 

invisible to us from their great distance, 

smaller size, or feebler light ; indeed, we know 

that there are many dark bodies which now 

emit no light, or comparatively little . Thus 

the floor of heaven is not only `thick inlaid 

with patines of bright gold,' but studded also 

with extinct stars, once probably as brilliant 

as our own sun ." 

Canopy, Clouded . The clouded canopy, 

or starry-decked heaven, is a symbol of the 

First Degree, and is of such important significance 

that Lenning calls it a "fundamental 

symbol of Freemasonry ." In the lectures of 

the York Rite, the clouded canopy is described 

as the covering of the Lodge, teaching 

us, as Krause says, "that the primitive Lodge 

is confined within no shut up building, but 

that it is universal, and reaches to heaven, 

and especially teaching that in every clime 

under heaven Freemasonry has its seat ." 

And Gadicke says, "Every Freemason knows 

that by the clouded canopy we mean the 

heavens, and that it teaches how widely extended 

is our sphere of usefulness . There is 

no portion of the inhabited world in which 

our labor cannot be carried forward, as there 

is no portion of the globe without its clouded 

canopy." Hence, then, the German interpretation 

of the symbol is that it denotes the universality 

of Freemasonry, an interpretation 

that does not precisely accord with the English 

and American systems, in which the doctrine 

of universality is symbolized by the form 

and extent of the Lodge . The clouded canopy 

as the covering of the Lodge seems rather to 

teach the doctrine of aspiration for a higher 

sphere ; it is thus defined in this work under 

the head of Covering of the Lodge, which see. 

Canzler, Carl Christian . A librarian of 

Dresden, born September 30, 1733, died October 

16, 1786 . He was an earnest, learned 

Freemason, who published in a literary journal, 

conducted by himself and A . G . Meissner at 

Leipsic, in 1783-85, under the title of Fur 

altere Litteratur and neuere Lecture, many 

interesting articles on the subject of Freemasonry 

. 

Cape-Stone, or, as it would more correctly 

be called, the cope-stone (but the 

former word has been consecrated to us by 

universal Masonic usage), is the topmost 

stone of a building . To bring it forth, therefore, 

and to place it in its destined position, 

is significative that the building is completed, 

which event is celebrated, even by the Operative 

Masons of the present day, with great 

signs of rejoicing . Flags are hoisted on the 

top of every edifice by the builders engaged in 

its construction, as soon as they have reached 

the topmost post, and thus finished their 

labors . This is the "celebration of the capestone"-the 

celebration of the completion of 

the building-when tools are laid aside, and 

rest and refreshment succeed, for a time, 

labor . This is the event in the history of the 

Temple which is commemorated in the degree 

of Most Excellent Master, the sixth in the 

American Rite . The day set apart for the 

celebration of the cape-stone of the Temple is the 

day devoted to rejoicing and thanksgiving for 

the completion of that glorious structure . 

Hence there seems to be an impropriety in the 

ordinary use of the Mark Master's keystone 

in the ritual of the Most Excellent Master . 

That keystone was deposited in silence and 

secrecy ; while the cape-stone, as the legend 

and ceremonies tell us, was placed in its position 

in the presence of all the Craft . 

Capitular Degrees . The degrees conferred 

under the charter of an American Royal 

Arch Chapter, which are Mark Master, Past 

Master, Most Excellent Master, and Royal 

Arch Mason . The capitular degrees are almost 

altogether founded on and composed of 

a series of events in Masonic history. Each 

of them has attached to it some tradition or 

legend which it is the design of the degree to 

illustrate, and the memory of which is preserved 

in its ceremonies and instructions . 

Most of these legends are of symbolic signification 

. But this is their interior sense . In 

their outward and ostensible meaning, they 

appear before us simply as legends . To retain 

these legends in the memory of Masons appears 

to have been the primary design in the 

establishment of the higher degrees ; and as 

the information intended to be communicated 

in these degrees is of an historical character, 

there can of course be but little room for 

symbols or for symbolic instruction ; the profuse 

use of which would rather tend to an 

injury than to a benefit, by complicating the 

purposes of the ritual and confusing the mind 

of the aspirant . These remarks refer exclusively 

to the Mark and Most Excellent Master's 

Degree of the American Rite, but are not 

so applicable to the Royal Arch, which is

CAPITULAR 

CAPTIVITY 133 

eminently symbolic. The legends of the second 

Temple, and the lost word, the peculiar 

legends of that degree, are among the most 

prominent symbols of the Masonic system . 

Capitular Masonry . The Masonry conferred 

in a Royal Arch Chapter of the York 

and American Rites. There are Chapters in 

the Ancient and Accepted, Scottish, and in the 

French and other Rites ; but the Masonry 

therein conferred is not called capitular . 

Capitular Statistics . See Statistics of 

Capitular Masonry . 

Capripede Ratter et Lucifuge . A burlesque 

dining degree, mentioned in the collection 

of Fustier . (Thory, Acta Latomorum, 

i ., 298.) 

Captain-General . The third officer in a 

Commandery of Knights Templar . He presides 

over the Commandery in the absence of 

his superiors, and is one of its representatives 

in the Grand Commandery . His duties are 

to see that the council chamber and asylum 

are duly prepared for the business of the meetings, 

and to communicate all orders issued by 

the Grand Council. His station is on the left 

of the Grand Commander, and his jewel is a 

level surmounted by a cock . (See Cock .) 

Captain of the Guard . The sixth officer 

in a Council of Royal and Select Masters . In 

the latter degree he is said to represent Azariah, 

the son of Nathan, who had command of 

the officers of the king's household . (1 Kings 

iv . 5 .) His duties correspond in some measure 

with those of a Senior Deacon in the primary 

degrees . His post is, therefore, on the right of 

the throne, and his jewel is a trowel and battleax 

within a triangle . 

Captain of the Host. The fourth officer 

in, a Royal Arch Chapter . He represents the 

general or leader of the Jewish troops who returned 

from Babylon, and who was called 

"Sar el hatzaba," and was equivalent to a 

modern general. The word Host in the title 

means army. He sits on the right of the 

Council in front, and wears a white robe and 

cap or helmet, with a red sash, and is armed 

with a sword . His jewel is a triangular plate, 

on which an armed soldier is engraved . 

Captivity. The Jews reckoned their national 

captivities as four :-the Babylonian, 

Medean, Grecian, and Roman . The present 

article will refer only to the first, when there 

was a forcible deportation of the inhabitants 

of Jerusalem by Nebuzaradan, the general of 

King Nebuchadnezzar, and their detention at 

Babylon until the reign of Cyrus, which alone 

is connected with the history of Masonry, and 

is commemorated in the Royal Arch Degree . 

Between that portion of the ritual of the 

Royal Arch which refers to the destruction of 

the first Temple, and that subsequent part 

which symbolizes the building of the second, 

there is an interregnum (if we may be allowed 

the term) in the ceremonial of the degree, 

which must be considered as a long interval 

in history, the filling up of which, like the 

interval between the acts of a play, must be 

left to the imagination of the spectator . 

This interval represents the time passed in 

the captivity of the Jews at Babylon . That 

captivity lasted for seventy years-from the 

reign of Nebuchadnezzar until that of Cyrus 

-although but fifty-two of these years are 

commemorated in the Royal Arch Degree . 

This event took place in the year 588 n .e . It 

was not, however, the beginning of the "seventy 

years' captivity," which had been foretold 

by the prophet Jeremiah, which commenced 

eighteen years before . The captives 

were conducted to Babylon . What was the 

exact number removed we have no means of 

ascertaining. We are led to believe, from certain 

passages of Scripture, that the deportation 

was not complete. Calmet says that 

Nebuchadnezzar carried away only the principal 

inhabitants, the warriors and artisans of 

every kind, and that he left the husbandmen, 

the laborers, and, in general, the poorer classes, 

that constituted the great body of the people . 

Among the prisoners of distinction, Josephus 

mentions the high priest, Seraiah, and Zephaniah, 

the priest that was next to him, with 

the three rulers that guarded the Temple, the 

eunuch who was over the armed men, seven 

friends of Zedekiah, his scribe, and sixty other 

rulers . Zedekiah, the king, had attempted to 

escape previous to the termination of the siege, 

but being pursued, was captured and carried 

to Riblah, the headquarters of Nebuchadnezzar, 

where, having first been compelled to 

behold the slaughter of his children, his eyes 

were then put out, and he was conducted in 

chains to Babylon . 

A Masonic tradition informs us that the 

captive Jews were bound by their conquerors 

with triangular chains, and that this was done 

by the Chaldeans as an additional insult, because 

the Jewish Masons were known to esteem 

the triangle as an emblem of the sacred 

name of God, and must have considered its 

appropriation to the form of their fetters as a 

desecration of the Tetragrammaton . 

Notwithstanding the ignominious mode of 

their conveyance from Jerusalem and the vindictiveness 

displayed by their conqueror 'in 

the destruction of their city and Temple, they 

do not appear, on their arrival at Babylon, to 

have been subjected to any of the extreme 

rigors of slavery . They were distributed into 

various parts of the empire, some remaining in 

the city, while others were sent into the provinces. 

The latter probably devoted themselves 

to agricultural pursuits, while the former were 

engaged in commerce or in the labors of architecture 

. Smith says that the captives were 

treated not as slaves but as colonists . They 

were permitted to retain their personal property, 

and even to purchase lands and erect 

houses . Their civil and religious government 

was not utterly destroyed, for they kept up a 

regular succession of kings and high priests, 

one of each of whom returned with them, as 

will be seen hereafter, on their restoration . 

Some of the principal captives were advanced 

to offices of dignity and power in the royal 

palace, and were permitted to share in the 

councils of state . Their prophets, Daniel and 

Ezekiel, with their associates, preserved

134 CAPUCHIN 

CARDINAL 

among their countrymen the pure doctrines 

of their religion . Although they had neither 

place nor time of national gathering, nor temple, 

and therefore offered no sacrifices, yet 

they observed the Mosaic laws with respect 

to the rite of circumcision . They preserved 

their tables of genealogy and the true succession 

to the throne of David. The rightful 

heir being called the Head of the Captivity, 

Jehoiachin, who was the first king of Judea 

carried captive to Babylon, was succeeded by 

his son Shealtiel, and he by his son Zerubbabel, 

who was the Head of the Captivity, or 

nominal prince of Judea at the close of the 

captivity .. The due succession of the highpriesthood 

was also preserved, for Jehosadek, 

who was the high priest carried by Nebuchadnezzar 

to Babylon, where he died during the 

captivity, was succeeded by his eldest son, 

Joshua . The Jewish captivity terminated in 

the first year of the reign of Cyrus, B .c. 536. 

Cyrus, from his conversations with Daniel 

and the other Jewish captives of learning and 

piety, as well as from his perusal of their sacred 

books, more especially the prophecies of 

Isaiah, had become imbued with a knowledge 

of true religion, and hence had even publicly 

announced to his subjects his belief in the God 

"which the nation of the Israelites worshipped 

." He was consequently impressed 

with an earnest desire to fulfil the prophetic 

declarations of which he was the subject, and 

to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem . Cyrus 

therefore issued a decree by which the Jews 

were permitted to return to their country . 

According to Milman, 42,360 besides servants 

availed themselves of this permission, and returned 

to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel their 

prince and Joshua their high priest, and thus 

ended the first or Babylonian captivity, the 

only one which has any connection with the 

legends of Freemasonry as commemorated in 

the Royal Arch Degree . 

Capuchin. One of the monks of the Order 

of St . Francis . They went barefooted, were 

long-bearded, and wore a gown or cloak of 

dark color made like a woman's garment with 

a hood . 

Carauslus . A Roman emperor, who assumed 

the purple A.D. 287. Of him Preston 

gives the following account, which may or 

may not be deemed apocryphal, according to 

the taste and inclination of the reader : "By 

assuming the character of a Mason, he acquired 

the love and esteem of the most enlightened 

part of his subjects . He possessed 

real merit, encouraged learning and learned 

men, and improved the country in the civil 

arts . In order to establish an empire in Britain, 

he brought into his dominions the best 

workmen and artificers from all parts ; all of 

whom, under his auspices, enjoyed peace and 

tranquillity . Among the first class of his 

favorites he enrolled the Masons : for their 

* So says the Talmud, but Smith (Diet. of the 

Bible) affirms that the assertion is unsupported 

by proof. The Masonic legends conform to the 

Talmudic statement . 

tenets he professed the highest veneration, and 

appointed Albanus, his steward, the princi al 

superintendent of their assemblies . Under s 

patronage, Lodges and conventions of the 

Fraternity were formed, and the rites of Mar 

sonry regularly practised . To enable the 

Masons to hold a general council, to establish 

their own government and correct errors 

among themselves, he granted to them a charter, 

and commanded Albanus to preside over 

them in person as Grand Master ." (Illustrations, 

ed. 1812, p. 142 .) Anderson also gives 

the legend of Carausius in the second edition 

of his Constitutions, and adds that "this is 

asserted by all-the old copies of the Constitutions, 

and the old' English Masons firmly 

believed it." (Constitutions, 1738, p . 57 .) 

But the fact is that Anderson himself does not 

mention the tradition in his first edition, published 

in 1723, nor is any reference to Carausius 

to be found in any of the old manuscripts 

now extant . The legend is, it is true, inserted 

in Krause's Manuscript ; but this document is 

of very little authority, having been, most 

probably, a production of the early part of the 

eighteenth century, and of a contemporary of 

Anderson, written perhaps between 1723 and 

1738, which would account for the omission of 

it in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions, 

and its insertion in the second. The 

reader may hence determine for himself what 

authenticity is to be given to the Carausiun 

legend . 

Carbuncle. In Hebrew, I171~, baraketh, 

the third stone in the first row of the high 

priest's breastplate, according to the authorized 

version, but the first stone in the 

second row, according to the Septuagint . 

Braun, a writer on the sacerdotal vestments 

of the Hebrews (Amsterdam, 1680), supposes 

that the baraketh was a smaragdus or 

emerald, which view is sustained by Kalisch, 

and is in accordance with the Septuagint 

translation. The Talmudists derive baraketh 

from a word signifying " to shine with 

the brightness of fire," which would seem to 

indicate some stone of a coruscant color, and 

would apply to the bright green of the emerald 

as well as to the bright red of the carbuncle . 

The stone, whatever it was, was referred to 

the tribe of Judah . The carbuncle in Christian 

iconography signifies blood and suffering, 

and is symbolical of the Lord's passion. Five 

carbuncles placed on a cross symbolize the 

five wounds of Christ . 

Cardinal Points . The north, west, east, 

and south are so called from the Latin cardo, 

a hinge, because they are the principal points 

of the compass on which all the others hinge 

or hang . Each of them has a symbolic signification 

in Masonry, which will be found 

under their respective heads . Dr . Brinton, 

in an interesting Treatise on the Symbolism and 

Mythology of the Red Race of 'America, has a 

chapter on the sacred number four ; the only 

one, he says, that has any prominence in the 

religions of the red race, and which he traces 

to the four cardinal points. The reason, he 

declares, is to be "found in the adoration of

CARDINAL 

CASTING 135 

the cardinal points " ; and he attributes to this 

cause the prevalence of the cross as a symbol 

among the aborigines of America, the existence 

of which so surprised the Catholic missionaries 

that they "were in doubt whether to 

ascribe the fact to the pious labors of St . 

Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan ." 

The arms of the cross referred to the cardinal 

points, and represented the four winds, the 

ringers of rain . The theory is an interesting 

one, and the author supports it with many ingenious 

illustrations . In the symbolism of 

Freemasonry each of the cardinal points has a 

mystical meaning. The East represents Wisdom 

; the West, Strength ; the South, Beauty ; 

and the North, Darkness . 

Cardinal Virtues . The preeminent or 

principal virtues on which all the others hinge 

or depend . They are temperance, fortitude, 

prudence, and justice . They are referred to in 

the ritual of the First Degree, and will be found 

in this work under their respective heads . 

Oliver says (Revelations of a Square, ch . i .) 

that in the eighteenth century the Masons 

delineated the symbols of the four cardinal 

virtues by an acute angle variously disposed . 

Thus, suppose you face the east, 'the angle 

symbolizing temperance will point to the 

south, > . It was called a Guttural. Fortitude 

was denoted by a saltire, or St . Andrew's 

Cross, X . This was the Pectoral . The symbol 

of prudence was an acute angle pointing 

toward the southeast, >, and was denominated 

a Manual ; and justice had its angle toward 

the north,

136 CATACOMB 

CATECHISM 

p . 61 .) From this law has arisen the universal 

usage of giving to the Master of the Lodge a 

casting vote in addition to his own when there 

is a tie . The custom is so universal, and has 

been so long practised, that, although I can 

find no specific law on the subject, the right 

may be considered as established by prescription 

. It may be remarked that the Masonic 

usage is probably derived from the custom of 

the London Livery Companies or Guilds, where 

the casting vote has always been given by the 

presiding officers in all cases of equality, a rule 

that has been recognized by Act of Parliament 

. 

Catacomb . A grotto for burial ; a sepulchral 

vault . A subterranean place for the 

burial of the dead, consisting of galleries or 

passages with recesses excavated at their 

sides for tombs . Later applied in the plural 

to all the subterranean cemeteries lying 

around Rome which, after having been long 

covered up and forgotten, were fortuitously 

discovered in 1578 . They are found elsewhere, 

as, at Naples, at Syracuse, in Egypt, at Paris, 

etc . (See Oxford Dictionary for full definitions 

.) 

The term is chiefly applied to those lying 

about Rome, the principal ones lying along 

the Appian Way . The following engraving 

shows a small portion of the Northern section 

of the Catacomb of St . Calixtus. 

THE NORTHERN SECTION OF THE CATACOMB 

OF CALIXTUS 

There seems to have been no plan for these 

excavations, for they shoot off in the most 

unexpected directions,, forming such a labyrinth 

of connected passages that persons often 

have been lost for several days at a time, giving 

the monk attendants much trouble . They 

are several miles in extent . Those about Rome 

are under the care of various monks of the 

church, and are a source of considerable revenue 

from tourists . 

They are now entered by narrow passages 

and some (St . Calixtus) descend to considerable 

depth . Along the passages are small 

chambers at the sides for tombs, one above 

another, each of which generally closed by a 

slab of stone on which was placed the letters 

D . M . (Deo Maximo) or X . P ., the Greek 

letters for Christ . Tombs of saints bore inscriptions 

of identification . 

The passages are generally three or four feet 

wide and were at intervals along their course 

enlarged into chambers, usually square or 

rectangular, that were used for worship . One 

in St . Calixtus was an irregular semicircle and 

about 32 feet in diameter . In these chambers 

is usually found a stone bench or chair for the 

bishop or teacher. They were ventilated and 

partially lighted by shafts that extended to 

the surface of the ground . Some frescoes were 

found on the walls. 

Many catacombs were destroyed and traces 

of them lost when the Goths, Lombards, and 

others besieged Rome at various times . 

The foregoing would not justify a place in a 

work of this character, were it not for the influence 

it sheds on the beginning of Christian 

architecture, as for three centuries Pagan 

Rome would not permit Christians to meet 

above ground . 

The Twenty-sixth Degree in the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite refers to catacombs . 

[E . E . C.] 

Catafalque . A temporary structure of 

wood, appropriately decorated with funereal 

symbols and representing a tomb or cenotaph 

. It forms a part of the decorations of a 

Sorrow Lodge, and is also used in the ceremonies 

of the Third Degree in Lodges of the 

French Rite . 

Catch Questions . Questions not included 

in the Catechism, but adopted from an 

early period to try the pretensions of a stranger, 

such as this used by American Masons : 

"Where does the Master hang his hat? " and 

by the French, "Comment etes vous entry 

dans le Temple de Salomon? " Such as these 

are of course unsanctioned by authority . But 

Dr . Oliver, in an essay on this subject preliminary 

to the fourth volume of his Golden 

Remains, gives a long list of these "additional 

tests," which had been reduced to a kind of 

system, and were practised by the English 

Masons of the eighteenth century. Among 

them were such as these : "What is the punishment 

of a rowan? " "What does this stone 

smell of? " "If a brother were lost, where would 

you look for him?" "How blows a Mason's 

wind? " and many others of the same kind . Of 

these tests or catch questions, Dr . Oliver says 

"that they were something like the conundrums 

of the present day-difficult of comprehension 

; admitting only of one answer, which 

appeared to have no direct correspondence 

with the question, and applicable only in consonance 

with the mysterious terms and symbols 

of the Institution ." Catch questions in 

this country, at least, seem to be getting out 

of use, and some of the most learned Masons 

at the present day would find it difficult to 

answer them . 

Catechism . From the earliest times the 

oral instructions of Masonry have been communicated 

in a catechetical form . Each degree 

has its peculiar catechism, the knowledge 

of which constitutes what is called a "bright 

Mason." The catechism, indeed, should be 

known to every Mason, for every aspirant 

should be thoroughly instructed in that of the 

degree to which he has attained before he is 

permitted to make further progress . The rule, 

however, is not rigidly observed ; and many 

Masons, unfortunately, are very ignorant of

CATECHUMEN 

CAVERN 137 

all but the rudimentary parts of their catechism, 

which they derive only from hearing 

portions of it communicated at the opening 

and closing of the Lodge . 

Catechumen. One who had attained the 

Second Degree of the Essenian or early Christian 

Mysteries and assumed the name of 

Constans. There were three degrees in the 

ceremonies, which, to a limited extent, resembled 

the Pagan services . Of the three classes, 

the first were Auditors, the second Catechumens, 

and the third the Faithful. The Auditors 

were novices, prepared by ceremonies 

and instruction to receive the dogmas of 

Christianity. A portion of these dogmas was 

made known to the Catechumens, who, after 

particular purifications, received baptism, or 

the initiation of the theogenesis (Divine regeneration) 

; but in the grand mysteries of that 

religion-the incarnation, nativity, passion, 

and resurrection of Christ-none was initiated 

but the Faithful . The Mysteries were divided 

into two parts-the first, styled the Mass of 

the Catechumens ; the second, the Mass of 

the Faithful . 

Many beautiful ceremonies and much instruction 

touching these matters will be found 

in that most enticing degree called Prince of 

Mercy, and known as the Twenty-sixth in the 

Scottish Rite services. 

Catenarian Arch. If a rope be suspended 

loosely by its two ends, the curve into which it 

falls is called a catenarian curve, and this 

inverted forms the catenarian arch, which is 

said to be the strongest of all arches. As the 

form of a symbolic Lodge is an oblong square, 

that of a Royal Arch Chapter, according to 

the English ritual, is a catenarian arch . 

Catharine II . Catharine the Great, 

Empress of Russia, in 1762, prohibited by an 

edict all Masonic meetings in her dominions . 

But subsequently better sentiments prevailed, 

and having learned the true character of the 

Institution, she not only revoked her order of 

prohibition, but invited the Masons to reestablish 

their Lodges and to constitute new 

ones, and went so far in 1763 as to proclaim 

herself the Protectress of the Order and 

"Tutrice " of the Lodge of Clio, at Moscow . 

(Thory, ActaLatomorum, i ., 82 .) During the 

remainder of her reign Freemasonry was in a 

flourishing condition in Russia, and many of 

the nobles organized Lodges in their palaces . 

But in 1794 her feelings changed and she 

became suspicious that the Lodges of Moscow 

were intriguing against the Court and the 

Ministers ; this idea, coupled with the horrors 

of the French Revolution and other crimes 

said to be due to secret societies, caused her 

to cease to protect the Order, and without any 

express prohibition emanatin from her, the 

Lodges ceased to work . (Ibid ., i ., 195 .) 

She died November 6 1796, and in 1797 her 

successor, Paul I ., forbade all secret societies 

in Russia. 

Caution. It was formerly the custom to 

bestow upon an Entered Apprentice, on his 

initiation, a new name, which was "caution ." 

The custom is now very generally discontin- 

ued, although the principle which it inculcated 

should never be forgotten. 

The Old Charges of 1723 impress upon a 

Mason the necessity, when in the presence of 

strangers not Masons, to be "cautious in your 

words and carriage, that the most penetrating 

stranger shall not be able to discover or find 

out what is not proper to be intimated " ; as 

these Charges were particularly directed to 

Apprentices, who then constituted the great 

body of the Fraternity, it is evident that the 

" new name " gave rise to the Charge, or, more 

likely, that the Charge gave rise to the " new 

name." 

Cavern . In the Pagan mysteries of antiquity 

the initiations were often performed 

in caverns, of which a few, like the cave of 

Elephants in India, still remain to indicate 

by their form and extent the character of the 

rites that were then performed . The cavern 

of Elephanta, which was the most gorgeous 

temple in the world, is one hundred and thirty 

feet square, and eighteen feet high . It is supported 

by four massive pillars, and its walls 

are covered with statues and carved symbolic 

decorations . The sacellum, or sacred place, 

which contained the phallic symbol, was in 

the western extremity, and accessible only to 

the initiated . The caverns of Salsette greatly 

exceeded in magnitude that of Elephanta, 

being three hundred in number, all adorned 

with symbolic figures, among which the phallic 

emblems were predominant, which were 

placed in the most secret caverns, accessible 

only by private entrances. In every cavern 

was a basin to contain the consecrated water of 

ablution, on the surface of which floated the 

sacred lotus flower . All these caverns were 

places of initiation into the Hindu mysteries, 

and every arrangement was made for the performance 

of the most impressive ceremonies . 

Faber (Mys . Cab ., ii ., 257) says that "wherever 

the Cabiric Mysteries were practised, 

they were always in some manner or other 

connected with caverns " ; and he mentions, 

among other instances, the cave Zirinthus, 

within whose dark recesses the most mysterious 

Rites of the Samothracian Cabiri were 

performed . 

Maurice (Ind. Ant., iii ., 536) speaking of 

the subterrranean passages of tine Temple of 

Isis, in the island of Phile in the river Nile, 

says "it was in these gloomy caverns that the 

grand and mystic arcana of the goddess were 

unfolded to the adoring aspirant, while the 

solemn hymns of initiation resounded through 

the long extent of these stony recesses ." 

Many of the ancient oracles, as, for instance, 

that of Trophonius in Bceotia, were delivered 

in caves . Hence, the cave-subterranean, 

dark, and silent-was mingled in the ancient 

mind with the idea of mystery . 

In the ceremonies of Masonry, we find the 

cavern or vault in what is called the Cryptic 

Masonry of the American Rite, and also in the 

high degrees of the French and Scottish Rites, 

in which it is a symbol of the darkness of i 

norance and crime impenetrable to the 

of truth. 

' t

138 CEDARS 

CENSOR 

In reference to the practical purposes of the 

cavern, as recorded in the legend of these 

degrees, it may be mentioned that caverns, 

which abounded in Palestine in consequence 

of the geological structure of the country, are 

spoken of by Josephus as places of refuge for 

banditti ; and Mr. Phillott says, in Smith's 

Dictionary, that it was the caves which lie 

beneath and around so many of the Jewish 

cities that formed the last hiding-places of the 

Jewish leaders in the war with the Romans . 

Cedars of Lebanon . In Scriptural symbology, 

the cedar-tree, says Wemyss (Symb . 

Lang . Scrip.), was the symbol of eternity, 

because its substance never decays nor rots . 

Hence, the Ark of the Covenant was made of 

cedar ; and those are said to utter things 

worthy of cedar who write that which no time 

ought to obliterate . 

The Cedars of Lebanon are frequently 

referred to in the legends of Masonry, especially 

in the higher degrees ; not, however, on 

account of any symbolical signification, but 

rather because of the use made of them by 

Solomon and Zerubbabel in the construction 

of their respective Temples . Mr . Phillott 

(Smith's Bible Diet .) thus describes the grove 

so celebrated in Scriptural and Masonic his- 

The grove of trees known as the Cedars 

of Lebanon consists of about four hundred 

trees, standing quite alone in a depression of 

the mountain with no trees near, about six 

thousand four hundred feet above the sea, 

and three thousand below the summit . About 

eleven or twelve are very large and old, twentyfive 

large, fifty of middle size, and more than 

three hundred younger and smaller ones . 

The older trees have each several trunks and 

spread themselves widely round, but most of 

the others are of cone-like form, and do not 

send out wide lateral branches . In 1550, 

there were twenty-eight old trees, in 1739, 

Pococke counted fifteen, but the number of 

trunks makes the operation of counting uncertain. 

They are regarded with much reverence 

by the native inhabitants as living records 

of Solomon's power, and the Maronite 

patriarch was formerly accustomed to celebrate 

there the festival of the Transfiguration 

at an altar of rough stones ." 

Celebration . The Third Degree of Fessler's 

Rite . (See Fessler, Rite of.) 

Celestial Alphabet . See Alphabet, Angels' 

. 

Celtic Mysteries . See Druidical Mysteries 

. 

Celts . The early inhabitants of Italy, 

Gaul, Spain, and Britain . They are supposed 

to have left Asia during one of the 

Aryan emigrations, and, having traveled in a 

westerly direction, to have spread over these 

countries of Europe . The Celtic Mysteries 

or the Sacred Rites which they instituted are 

known as Druidical Mysteries, which see . 

Cement. The cement which in Operative 

Masonry is used to unite the various parts of 

a building into one strong and durable mass, is 

borrowed by Speculative Masonry as a sym- 

bol to denote that brotherly love which binds 

the Masons of all countries in one common 

brotherhood . As this brotherhood is recognized 

as being perfected among Master 

Masons only, the symbol is very appropriately 

referred to the Third Degree . 

Cemeteries, Masonic . The desire to 

select some suitable spot wherein to deposit 

the remains of our departed kindred and 

friends seems almost innate in the human 

breast. The stranger's field was bought with 

the accursed bribe of betrayal and treason, and 

there is an abhorrence to depositing our loved 

ones in places whose archetype was so desecrated 

by its purchase-money . The churchyard, 

to the man of sentiment, is as sacred as 

the church itself . The cemetery bears a hallowed 

character, and we adorn its graves with 

vernal flowers or with evergreens, to show that 

the dead, though away from our presence 

visibly, still live and bloom in our memories . 

The oldest of all the histories that time has 

saved to us contains an affecting story of this 

reverence of the living for the dead, when it 

tells us how Abraham, when Sarah, his beloved 

wife, had died in a strange land, reluctant 

to bury her among strangers, purchased 

from the sons of Heth the cave of Machpelah 

for a burial-place for his people . 

It is not, then, surprising that Masons, 

actuated by this spirit, should have been 

desirous to consecrate certain spots as restingplaces 

for themselves and for the strange 

Brethren who should die among them . A 

writer in the London Freemason's Magazine 

for 1858 complained that there was not in 

England a Masonic cemetery, nor portion of 

an established cemetery especially dedicated 

to the interment of the Brethren of the Craft . 

This neglect cannot be charged against the 

Masons of America, for there is scarcely a 

city or town of considerable size in which the 

Masons have not purchased and appropriated 

a suitable spot as a cemetery to be exclusively 

devoted to the use of the Fraternity . These 

cemeteries are often, and should always be, 

dedicated with impressive ceremonies ; and it 

is to be regretted that our rituals have provided 

no sanctioned form of service for these occasions 

. 

Censer. A small vessel of metal fitted to 

receive burning coals from the altar, and on 

which the incense for burning was sprinkled 

by the priest in the Temple . Among the furniture 

of a Royal Arch Chapter is to be found 

the censer, which is placed upon the altar of 

incense within the sanctuary, as a symbol of 

the pure thoughts and grateful feelings which, 

in so holy a place, should be offered up as a 

fitting sacrifice to the great I AM . In a similar 

symbolic sense, the censer, under the name of 

the "pot of incense," is found among the emblems 

of the Third Degree. (See Pot of Incense 

.) The censer also constitutes a part of 

the Lodge furniture in many of the high degrees 

. 

Censor . Gadicke says he is not an officer 

but is now and then introduced into some of 

the Lodges of Germany . He is commonly

CENSURE 

CERTIFICATE 139 

found where the Lodge has its own private 

house, in which, on certain days, mixed assemblies 

are held of Freemasons and their 

families and friends. Of those assemblies the 

Censor has the superintendence . 

Censure . In Masonic law, the mildest 

form of punishment that can be inflicted, and 

may be defined to be a formal expression of 

disapprobation, without other result than the 

effect produced upon the feelings of him who 

is censured . It is adopted by a resolution of 

the Lodge on a motion made at a regular communication 

; it requires only a bare majority 

of votes, for its passage does not affect the 

Masonic standing of the person censured, and 

may be revoked at any subsequent regular 

communication . 

Centaine, Order of. A mystical society 

of the last century which admitted females . 

It was organized at Bordeaux, in 1735 . (Thory, 

Acta Latomorum, i ., 298 .) 

Centennial. That which happens every 

hundred years. Masonic bodies that have 

lasted for that period very generally celebrate 

the occasion by a commemorative festival . 

On the 4th of November, 1852, almost all of 

the Lodges of the United States celebrated the 

centennial anniversary of the initiation of 

George Washington as a Freemason . 

Centralists . A society which existed in 

Europe from 1770 to 1780. It made use of 

Masonic forms at its meetings simply to conceal 

its secrets . Lenning calls it an alchemical 

association, but says that it had religious and 

political tendencies . Gadicke thinks that its 

object was to propagate Jesuitism . 

Central Point. See Point within a 

Circle. 

Center, Opening on the. In the English 

ritual, a Master Mason's Lodge is said to be 

opened on the center, because the Brethren 

present, being all Master Masons, are equally 

near and equally distant from that imaginary 

central point which among Masons constitutes 

perfection . Neither of the preliminary 

degrees can assert the same conditions, because 

the Lodge of an Entered Apprentice 

may contain all the three classes, and that of a 

Fellow-Craft may include some Master Masons 

; and therefore the doctrine of perfect 

equality is not carried out in either. An attempt 

was made, but without success, in the 

Trestle Board, published under the sanction of 

the Baltimore Masonic Convention, to introduce 

the custom into the American Lodges . 

Cephas . A word which in the Syriac signifies 

a rock or stone, and is the name which 

was bestowed by Christ upon Simon, when 

he said to him, "Thou art a rock," which the 

Greeks rendered by n€-rpos, and the Latins 

by Petrus, both words meaning "a rock." It 

is used in the degree of Royal Master, and 

there alludes to the Stone of Foundation, which 

see . 

Ceremonies. The outer garments which 

cover and adorn Freemasonry as clothing does 

the human body. Although ceremonies give 

neither life nor truth to doctrines or principles, 

yet they have an admirable influence, since by 

their use certain things are made to acquire a 

sacred character which they would not otherwise 

have had ; and hence, Lord Coke has 

most wisely said that "prudent antiquity 

did, for more solemnity and better memory 

and observation of that which is to be done, 

express substances under ceremonies ." 

Ceremonies, Master of. See Master of 

Ceremonies . 

Ceres . Among the Romans, the goddess 

of agriculture ; but among the more poetic 

Greeks she was worshiped under the name of 

Demeter, as the symbol of the prolific earth . 

To her is attributed the institution of the 

Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece, the most popular 

of all the ancient initiations . 

Ceridwen. The Isis of the Druids . 

Cerneau, Joseph . A French jeweler, 

born at Villeblerin, in 1763, who in the be inning 

of the nineteenth century remove to 

the City of New York, where in 1807 he established 

a spurious body under the title of 

"Sovereign Grand Consistory of the United 

States of America, its Territories and Dependencies 

." This Masonic charlatan, who 

claimed the right to organize bodies of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was 

expelled and his pretensions denounced, in 

1813, by the legal Supreme Council sitting at 

Charleston, South Carolina. Cerneau and his 

adherents gave much trouble in the Scottish 

Rite for many years, and the bodies which he 

had formed were not entirely dissolved until 

long after the establishment of a legal Supreme 

Council for the Northern Jurisdiction . 

Certificate . A diploma issued by a Grand 

Lodge or by a subordinate Lodge under its 

authority, testifying that the holder thereof 

is a true and trusty Brother, and recommending 

him to the hospitality of the Fraternity 

abroad . The character of this instrument 

has sometimes been much misunderstood. 

It is by no means intended to act 

as a voucher for the bearer, nor can it be 

allowed to supersede the necessity of a strict 

examination . A stranger, however, having 

been tried and proved by a more unerring 

standard, his certificate then properly comes in 

as an auxiliary testimonial, and will be permitted 

to afford good evidence of his correct 

standing in his Lodge at home ; for no body of 

Masons, true to the principles of their Order, 

would grant such an instrument to an unworthy 

Brother, or to one who, they feared, 

might make an improper use of it . But though 

the presence of a Grand Lodge certificate 

be in general required as collateral evidence 

of worthiness to visit, or receive aid, its accidental 

absence, which may arise in various 

ways, as from fire, captivity, or shipwreck, 

should not debar a strange Brother from the 

rights guaranteed to him by our Institution, 

provided he can offer other evidence of his 

good character . The Grand Lodge of New 

York has, upon this subject, taken the proper 

stand in the following regulation : "That no 

Mason be admitted to any subordinate Lodge 

under the jurisdiction of this Grand Lodge, or 

receive the charities of any Lodge, unless he

140 CHAILLOU 

CHALDEAN 

shall, on such application, exhibit a Grand 

Lodge certificate, duly attested by the proper 

authorities, except he is known to the Lodge to 

be a worthy brother." 

The certificate system has been warmly discussed 

by the Grand Lodges of the United 

States, and considerable opposition to it has 

been made by some of them on the ground 

that it is an innovation . If it is an innovation, 

it certainly is not one of the present day, 

as we may learn from the Regulations made in 

General Assembly of the Masons of En gland, 

on St . John the Evangelist's day, 1663, during 

the Grand Mastership of the Earl of St . 

Albans, one of which reads as follows : 

"That no person hereafter who shall be 

accepted a Freemason shall be admitted into 

any Lodge or Assembly, until he has brought 

a certificate of the time and place of his acceptation 

from the Lodge that accepted him, 

unto the Master of that limit or division where 

such Lodge is kept ." (Constitutions, 1738, p . 

101 .) 

ChaWou de Joinville. He played an 

important part in the Freemasonry of France 

about the middle of the last century, especially 

during the schisms which at that time 

existed in the Grand Lodge . In 1761, he was 

an active member of the Council of Emperors 

of the East and West, or Rite of Perfection, 

which had been established in 1758 . 

Under the title of "Substitute General of the 

Order, Ven . Master of the First Lodge in 

France, called St . Anthony's, Chief of the 

Eminent Degrees, Commander, and Sublime 

Prince of the Royal Secret, etc ., etc ., etc .," 

he signed the Patent of Stephen Morin, authorizing 

him to extend the Royal Order in 

America, which was the first step that subsequently 

led to the establishment of the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite in the United States . 

In 1762, the Prince of Clermont, Grand Master 

of the Grand Lodge of France, removed 

the dancing-master Lacorne, whom he had 

previously appointed his Substitute General, 

and who had become distasteful to the respectable 

members of the Grand Lodge, and 

put Chaillou de Joinville in his place. This 

action created a schism in the Grand Lodge, 

during which De Joinville ap pears to have 

acted with considerable energy, but eventually 

he became almost as notorious as his predecessor, 

by issuing irregular charters and de putations 

. On the death of the Prince of Clermont, 

in 1771, the Lacornists regained much of 

their influence, and De Joinville appears 

quietly to have passed away from the field of 

French Masonry and Masonic intrigues . 

Chain, Mystic . To form the mystic chain 

is for the Brethren to make a circle, holding 

each other by the hands, as in surrounding a 

grave, etc . Each Brother crosses his arms in 

front of his body, so as to give his right hand 

to his left-hand neighbor, and his left hand to 

his right-hand neighbor . The French call it 

chaine d'union . It is a symbol of the close connection 

of all Masons in one common brotherhood 

. 

Chain of Flowers. In French Masonry, 

when a Lodge celebrates the day of its foundation, 

or the semicentennial membership of 

one of the Brethren, or at the initiation of a 

louveteau (q . v .) the room is decorated with 

wreaths of flowers called "chaine de fleurs ." 

Chain of Union . See Chain, Mystic . 

Chain, Triangular. One of the legends 

of Freemasonry tells us that when the Jewish 

Masons were carried as captives from Jerusalem 

to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar they 

were bound by triangular chains, which was 

intended as an additional insult, because to 

them the triangle, or delta, was a symbol of 

the Deity, to be used only on sacred occasions . 

The legend is of course apocryphal, and is 

worth nothing except as a legendary symbol . 

Chair. A technical term signifying the 

office of Master of a Lodge . Thus "he is eligible 

to the chair " is equivalent to "he is eligible 

to the office of Master ." The word is 

ap lied in the same sense to the presiding 

officer in other Masonic bodies . 

Chairman. The presiding officer of a 

meeting or committee . In all committees of a 

Lodge, the Worshipful Master, if he chooses to 

attend, is ex-officio chairman ; as is the Grand 

Master of any meeting of the Craft when he is 

present . 

Chair, Master in the . The German 

Masons call the Worshipful Master "der 

Meister im Stuhl," or the Master in the 

Chair. 

Chair, Oriental . The seat or office of the 

Master of a Lodge is thus called-sometimes, 

more fully, the "Oriental Chair of King Solomon 

." 

Chair, Passing the . The ceremony of 

inducting the Master-elect of a Lodge into his 

office is called "passing the chair ." He who 

has once presided over a Lodge as its Master 

is said to have "passed the chair," hence the 

title "Past Master ." 

Chaldea. A large tract of country, lying 

in a nearly northwest and southeast direction 

for a distance of four hundred miles along the 

course of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, 

with an average width of one hundred miles . 

The kingdom of Chaldea, of which Babylon 

was the chief city, is celebrated in Masonic 

history as the place where the Jewish captives 

were conducted after the destruction of Jerusalem 

. At that time Nebuchadnezzar was the 

king. His successors during the captivity, 

were Evilmerodach, N'eriglissar, Labosordacus 

and Belshazzar. In the seventeenth year ol 

his reign, the city of Babylon was taken and 

the Chaldean kin gdom subverted by Cyrus, 

King of Persia, who terminated the captivity 

of the Jews, and restored them to their native 

countr y 

Chaldean Cylinder . The cylinder so 

recently discovered by Mr . Rassam in the 

course of his excavations in Babylonia, which 

has greatly attracted the attention of the London 

Society of Biblical Archeology, is one of the 

most remarkable yet made known, by reason 

of the lig ht it throws upon the ancient chronology 

of the Chaldean Empire . It dates from 

the time of Nabonides, and records, among

CHALDEANS 

CHAPEAU 141 

various things, that this sovereign, digging 

under the foundations of the Temple of the 

Sun-god at Sippara, forty-five years after the 

death of King Nebuchadnezzar, came upon a 

cylinder of Naramsin, the son of Nargon, 

which no one had seen for "3200 years ." This 

gives as the date of the ancient sovereign 

named 3750 B.c . This, and the fact pointed 

out by Prof . Oppert, that there was in those 

early days already "lively intercourse between 

Chaldea and Egypt," will have to be taken 

into account by future Bible critics . This 

destroys the conception of Abraham, the 

founder of the Jews, as a wanderer or nomad, 

and establishes the existence of two highly 

civilized, as well as cultured, empires in Eg ypt 

and Chaldea more than 5,500 years ago ; that 

the highroad between them lay direct through 

Southern Palestine, and that Abraham was a 

native of the one great empire and an honored 

visitor in the other. Thus has been opened up 

a new field for investigation in the matter of 

Akkad and Akkadian civilization . 

Chaldeans or Chaldees . The ancient- 

Diodorus Siculus says the "most ancient "- 

inhabitants of Babylonia . There was among 

them, as among the Egyptians, a true priestly 

caste, which was both exclusive and hereditary ; 

for although not every Chaldean was a priest, 

yet no man could be a priest among them unless 

he were a Chaldean. "At Babylon," 

says Dr . Smith (Anc . Hist . of the East, p . 

398), "they were in all respects the ruling 

order in the body politic, uniting in themselves 

the characters of the English sacerdotal and 

military classes . They filled all the highest 

offices of state under the king, who himself 

belonged to the order ." The Chaldean priests 

were famous for their astronomical science, the 

study of which was particularly favored by 

the clear atmosphere and the cloudless skies 

of their country, and to which they were probably 

urged by their national worship of the 

sun and the heavenly hosts. Diodorus Siculus 

says that they passed their whole lives in meditating 

questions of philosophy, and acquired 

a great reputation for their astrology . They 

were addicted especiall y to the art of divination, 

and framed predictions of the future . 

They sought to avert evil and to insure good 

by purifications, sacrifices, and enchantments . 

They were versed in the arts of prophesying 

and explaining dreams and prodigies . All this 

learning among the Chaldeans was a family 

tradition ; the son inheriting the profession 

and the knowledge of the priesthood from his 

father and transmitting it to his descendants . 

The dhaldeans were settled throughout the 

whole country, but there were some special 

cities, such as Borsippa, Ur, Sippera, and 

Babylon, where they had regular colleges . 

The reputation of the Chaldeans for prophetic 

and magical knowledge was so great, that 

astrologers, and conjurers in general, were 

styled Babylonians and Chaldeans, just as the 

wandering fortune-tellers of modern times are 

called Egyptians or gipsies, and Ars Chald¢orum 

was the name given to all occult sciences. 

Chalice. A cup used in religious rites. It 

forms a part of the furniture of a Commandery 

of Knights Templar, and of some of the higher 

degrees of the French and Scottish Rites. It 

should be made either of silver or of gilt metal . 

The stem of the chalice should be about four 

inches high and the diameter from three to 

six. 

Chalk, Charcoal, and Clay . By these 

three substances are beautifully symbolized 

the three qualifications for the servitude of an 

Entered Apprentice-freedom, fervency, and 

zeal. Chalk is the freest of all substances, because 

the slightest touch leaves a trace behind . 

Charcoal, the most fervent, because to it, 

when ignited, the most obdurate metals yield ; 

and clay, the most zealous, because it is constantly 

employed in man's service, and is as 

constantly reminding us that from it we all 

came, and to it we must all return . In the 

earlier lectures of the last century, the symbols, 

with the same interpretation, were given 

as "Chalk, Charcoal, and Earthen Pan ." 

Chamber, Middle . See Middle Chamber . 

Chamber of Reflection . In the French 

and Scottish Rites, a small room adjoining the 

Lodge, in which, preparatory to initiation the 

candiate is enclosed for the purpose o? indulging 

in those serious meditations which its 

somber appearance and the gloomy emblems 

with which it is furnished are calculated to 

produce . It is also used in some of the high 

degrees for a similar purpose. Its employment 

is very appropriate, for, as Gadicke well observes, 

"It is only in solitude that we can 

deeply reflect upon our present or future 

undertakings, and blackness darkness, or 

solitariness, is ever a symbol of death . A 

man who has undertaken a thing after mature 

reflection seldom turns back." 

Chancellor . An officer in a Council of 

Companions of the Red Cross, corresponding 

in some respects to the Senior Warden of a 

Symbolic Lodge . 

Chancellor, Grand . An officer in the 

Supreme Councils and Grand Consistories of 

the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, 

whose duties are somewhat similar to those 

of a Corresponding Secretary . 

Chaos . A confused and shapeless mass, 

such as is supposed to have existed before God 

reduced creation into order . It is a Masonic 

symbol of the ignorance and intellectual 

darkness from which man is rescued by the 

light and truth of Masonry . Hence, ordo ab 

chao, or, "order out of chaos," is one of the 

mottoes of the Institution . 

Chaos Disentangled . One of the names 

formerly given to the Twenty-eighth Degree 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, or 

Knight of the Sun . It is likewise found in the 

collection of M . Pyron . Discreet and Wise 

Chaos are the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth degrees 

of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Chapeau . The cocked hat worn in this 

country by Knights Templar. The regulations 

of the Grand Encampment of the United 

States, in 1862, prescribe that it shall be "the 

military chapeau, trimmed with black binding,

142 CHAPEL 

CHARACTERISTICS 

one white and two black plumes, and appropriate 

cross on the left side ." 

Chapel. The closets and anterooms so 

necessary and convenient to a Lodge for various 

purposes are dignified by German Masons 

with the title of "Capellen," or chapels . 

Chapel, Mary's (or the Lodge of Edinburgh) 

. The oldest Lodge in Edinburgh, 

Scotland, whose minutes extend as far back as 

the year 1599 . This long stood as the oldest 

minute, but in 1912 one was found of Aitchison's-Haven 

Lodge dated 1598 . (See Aitchison's-Haven.) 

They show that John Boswell, 

Esq ., of Auchinleck, was present in the 

Lodge in the year 1600, and that the Hon . 

Robert Moray, Quartermaster-General of the 

Army of Scotland, was created a Master 

Mason in 1641 at Newcastle by some members 

of the Lodge of Edinburgh who were 

present there with the Scotch Army . These 

facts show that at that early period persons 

who were not Operative Masons by profession 

were admitted into the Order . The Lodge of 

Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) is No . 1 on the 

roll of the Grand Lodge of Scotland ; the date 

of its formation is unknown, and at one time it 

stood first on the roll, but in 1807 the Mother 

Kilwinning Lodge was placed before it as No. 

0. It met at one time in a chapel dedicated 

to the Virgin Mary ; hence comes the second 

part of its name . Its history was published in 

1873 by D. M . Lyon . [E . L . H .] 

Chapiter . The uppermost part of a column, 

pillar, or pilaster, serving as the head or 

crowning, and placed immediately over the 

shaft and under the entablature . The pillars 

which stood in front of the porch of King 

Solomon's Temple were adorned with chapiters 

of a peculiar construction, which are 

largely referred to, and their symbolism explained, 

in the Fellow-Craft's Degree. (See 

Pillars of the Porch .) 

Chaplain . The office of Chaplain of a 

Lodge is one which is not recognized in the 

ritual of the United States of America, although 

often conferred by courtesy . The Master 

of a Lodge in general performs the duties 

of a Chaplain . 

Chaplain, Grand . An office of very modern 

date in a Grand Lodge . It was first instituted 

on the 1st of May, 1775, on the occasion 

of the laying of the foundation of the 

Freemasons' Hall in London . It is stated in 

the English Constitutions of 1784 (p . 314) 

that the office "which had been discontinued 

for several years, was this day revived," but 

there is no record of any appointment to it 

before the date given . This office is now universally 

recognized by the Grand Lodges of 

America. His duties are confined to offering 

up rayer at the communications of the Grand 

Loge, and conducting its devotional exercises 

on public occasions . 

Chapter. In early times the meetings of 

Masons were called not only Lodges, but 

Chapters and Congregations . Thus, the statute 

enacted in the third year of the rei gn of 

Henry VI ., of England, A.D. 1425, declares 

that "Masons shall not confederate in Chapi- 

ters and Congregations ." The word is now 

exclusively appropriated to designate the 

bodies in which degrees higher than the symbolic 

are conferred . Thus there are Chapters 

of Royal Arch Masons in the York and American 

Rites and Chapters of Rose Croix Masons 

in the Ancient and Accepted . 

Chapter, General Grand . See General 

Grand Chapter . 

Chapter, Grand . See Grand Chapter. 

Chapter Mason. A colloquialism denoting 

a Royal Arch Mason . 

Chapter Masonry . A colloquialism intended 

to denote the degrees conferred in a 

Royal Arch Chapter . 

Chapter of R. Arch Masons, An Old. 

There is in Boston, Mass ., a Chapter of Royal 

Arch Masons which was holden in St . Andrew's 

Lodge and formed about the year 

1769. (See Royal Arch Masons, Massachusetts 

; also, Pennsylvania .) 

Chapter, Rose Croix . See Rose Croix, 

Prince of . 

Chapter, Royal Arch . A convocation 

of Royal Arch Masons is called a Chapter . 

In Great Britain, Royal Arch Masonry is connected 

with and practically under the same 

government as the Grand Lodge ; but in 

America the jurisdictions are separate . In 

America a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons is 

empowered to give the preparatory degrees of 

Mark, Past, and Most Excellent Master ; 

although, of course, the Chapter, when meeting 

in either of these degrees, is called a Lodge . 

In some Chapters the degrees of Royal and 

Select Master are also given as preparatory 

degrees ; but in most of the States, the control 

of these is conferred upon separate bodies, 

called "Councils of Royal and Select Masters ." 

The presiding officers of a Chapter are the 

High Priest, King, and Scribe, who are, respectively, 

representatives of Joshua, Zerubbabel, 

Haggai, and son of Josedech. In the 

English Chapters, these officers are generally 

styled either by the founders' names, as above, 

or as First, Second, and Third Principals . In 

the Chapters of Ireland the order of the officers 

is King, High Priest, and Chief Scribe . Chapters 

of Royal Arch Masons in America are 

primarily under the jurisdiction of State 

Grand Chapters, as Lodges are under Grand 

Lodges ; and secondly, under the General 

Grand Chapter of the United States, whose 

meetings are held triennially, and which exercises 

a general supervision over this branch 

of the Order throughout the Union . (See 

Royal Arch Degree .) 

Chapters, Irish . See Irish Chapters. 

Characteristic Name. See Order Name . 

Characteristics . The prefix to signatures 

of brethren of the A . A . Scottish Rite is as follows 

: To that of the Sovereign Grand Commander, 

the triple cross crosslet, as in (1), in 

red ink . To that of an Inspector-General 

other than a Commander (2), in red ink . To 

that of a Brother of the Royal Secret, 

Thirty-second Degree (3), in red ink . In the 

Northern Jurisdiction of the U . S ., a Rose 

Croix Knight will suffix a triangle our-

CHARCOAL 

CHARITY 143 

mounted by a cross in red ink, as in (4) . 

In all cases, it is usual to place the degree 

rank in a triangle after the name . 

1 2 3 4 

Charcoal. See Chalk, Charcoal, and Clay . 

Charge. So called from the "Old Charges," 

because like them, it contains an epitome of 

duty. i t is the admonition which is given by 

the presiding officer, at the close of the ceremon 

y of initiation, to the candidate, and 

which the latter receives standing, as a token 

of respect . There is a charge for each degree, 

which is to be found in all the monitors and 

manuals from Preston onward . 

Charges, Old . The Masons' Constitutions 

are old records, containing a history, 

very often somewhat apocryphal, of the origin 

and progress of Masonry, and regulations for 

the government of the Craft . These regulations 

are called Charges, and are generally 

the same in substance, although they differ in 

number, in the different documents . These 

charges are divided into " Articles " and 

"Points" ; although it would be difficult to 

say in what the one section differs in character 

from the other, as each details the rules which 

should govern a Mason in his conduct toward 

his "lord," or employer, and to his 

brother workmen. The oldest of these charges 

is to be found in the York Constitutions (if 

they are authentic), and consists of Fifteen 

Articles and Fifteen Points . It was required 

by the Constitutions of the time of Edward 

III., "that, for the future, at the making or 

admission of a brother, the constitutions and 

charges should be read ." This regulation is 

still preserved in form, in modern Lodges, by 

the reading of the charge by the Master to 

a candidate at the close of the ceremony of his 

reception into a degree . (For a list of the 

Old Charges, see Manuscripts, Old .) 

Charges of 1722 . The Fraternity had 

long been in possession of many records, containing 

the ancient regulations of the Order ; 

when, in 1722, the Duke of Montague being 

Grand Master of England, the Grand Lodge 

finding fault with their antiquated arrangement 

it was directed that they should be collected' 

, and after being properly digested, be 

annexed to the Book of Constitutions, then in 

course of publication under the superintendence 

of Dr . James Anderson. This was accordingly 

done, and the document now well 

known under the title of The Old Charges of the 

Free and Accepted Masons, constitutes, by universal 

consent a part of the fundamental law 

of our Order . Yhe charges are divided into six 

general heads of duty, as follows : 1 . Concerning 

God and religion. 2 . Of the civil magistrate 

supreme and subordinate . 3 . Of Lodges. 

Masters Wardens, Fellows, and Apprentices 

. 5 . df the management of the Craft 

in working . 6 . Of behavior under different 

circumstances and in various conditions . 

These charges contain succinct directions for 

the proper discharge of a Mason's duties, in 

whatever position he may be placed, and are 

as modern researches have shown, a collation 

of the charges contained in the Old Records 

and from them have been abridged, or by them 

suggested, all those well-known directions 

found in our monitors, which Masters are 

accustomed to read to candidates on their 

reception . (See Records, Old.) 

Charity. "Though I speak with the 

tongues of men and of angels, and have not 

charity, I am become as soundin g brass, or a 

tinkling cymbal . And though I have the gift 

of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and 

all knowledge ; and though I have all faith, 

so that I could remove mountains, and have 

not charity, I am nothing ." (1 Corinth . xiii . 

1, 2 .) 'Such was the language of an eminent 

apostle of the Christian church, and such is 

the sentiment that constitutes the cementing 

bond of Freemasonry . The apostle, in comparing 

it with faith and hope, calls it the 

greatest of the three, and hence in Masonry it 

is made the topmost round of its mystic ladder . 

We must not fall into the too common error 

that charity is only that sentiment of commiseration 

which leads us to assist the poor with 

pecuniary donations . Its Masonic, as well as its 

Christian application is more noble and more 

extensive. The word used by the apostle is, 

in the original, kyd r l, or love, a word denoting 

that kindly state of mind which renders a person 

full of good-will and affectionate regard 

toward others . John Wesley expressed his 

regret that the Greek had not been correctly 

translated as love instead of charity, so that the 

apostolic triad of virtues would have been, 

not "faith hope, and charity," but "faith, 

hope and 'ove . 'Then would we have understood 

the comparison made by St . Paul, when 

he said, "Though I bestow all my goods to 

feed the poor, and though I give my body to 

be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me 

nothing ." Guided by this sentiment, the true 

Mason will "suffer long and be kind." He will 

be slow to anger and easy to forgive . He will 

stay his falling brother by gentle admonition, 

and warn him with kindness of approaching 

danger. He will not op en his ear to his slanderers, 

and will close his lips against all reproach. 

His faults and his follies will be 

locked in his breast, and the prayer for mercy 

will ascend to Jehovah for his brother's sins . 

Nor will these sentiments of benevolence be 

confined to those who are bound to him by 

ties of kindred or worldly friendship alone ; 

but, extending them throughout the globe, he 

will love and cherish all who sit beneath the 

broad canopy of our universal Lodge . For it 

is the boast of our Institution, that a Mason, 

destitute and worthy, may find in every clime 

a brother, and in every land a home . 

Charity, Committee on . See Committee 

of Charity . 

Charity Fund . Many Lodges and Grand 

Lodges have a fund esp ecially appropriated to 

charitable purposes, which is not used for thg

144 CHARLATAN 

CHARTERED 

disbursement of the current expenses, but 

which is appropriated to the relief of indigent 

brethren, their widows, and orphans . The 

charity fund of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 

which was bequeathed to it by Stephen 

Girard, and which is the largest in America, 

considerably exceeds fifty thousand dollars . 

Charlatan. A charlatan is a babbling 

mountebank, who imposes on the populace 

by large pretensions and high-sounding words . 

A charlatan in Masonry is one who seeks by 

a display of pompous ceremonial, and often 

by claims to supernatural powers, to pervert 

the Institution of Masonry to the acquisition 

of gain, or the gratification of a paltry ambition 

. Every man, says a distinguished writer, 

is a charlatan who extorts money by charging 

for sixpenny trash the amount that should only 

be paid for works of science, and that, too, 

under the plea of conveying knowledge that 

cannot otherwise be obtained . (Lond. Freem. 

Mag., 1844, p. 505 .) The eighteenth century 

presented many examples of these Masonic 

charlatans, of whom by far the greatest was 

Cagliostro ; nor has the nineteenth century 

been entirely without them . 

Charlemagne . The great Charles, King 

of France, who ascended the throne in the 

year 768, is claimed by some Masonic writers 

as a patron of Masonry. This is perhaps 

because architecture flourished in France during 

his reign, and because he encouraged the 

arts by inviting the architects and traveling 

Freemasons, who were then principally confined 

to Italy, to visit France and engage 

in the construction of important edifices. 

The claim has been made that at his castle 

at Aix-la-Chapelle he set apart a room or 

rooms in which the seven liberal arts and sciences 

were taught . This comprised a liberal 

education for that period . [E . E. C .j 

Charles Martel . He was the founder 

of the Carlovingian dynasty, and governed 

France with supreme power from 720 to 741, 

under the title of Duke of the Franks, the 

nominal kings being only his puppets . He 

is claimed by the authors of the Old Records 

as one of the patrons of Masonry . Thus, the 

Lansdowne MS. says: "There was one of 

the Royall Line of France called Charles 

Marshall, and he was a man that loved well 

the said Craft and took upon him the Rules 

and Manners, and after that BY THE GRACE OF 

GOD he was elect to be the King of France, 

and when he was in his Estate he helped to 

make those Masons that were now, and sett 

them on Work and gave them Charges and 

Manners and good pay as he had learned of 

other Masons, and confirmed them a Charter 

from yeare to yeare to hold their Assembly 

when they would, and cherished them right 

well, and thus came this Noble Craft into 

France and England." 

Rebold (Hist. Gen.) has accepted this legend 

as authentic, and says : "In 740, Charles 

Martel, who reigned in France under the title 

of Mayor of the Palace, at the request of the 

Anglo-Saxon kings, sent many workmen and 

Masters into England ." 

Charles I . and II. For their supposed 

connection with the origin of Freemasonry, 

see Stuart Masonry. 

Charles XIII. The Duke of Siidermanland 

was distinguished for his attachment to Masonry. 

In 1809 he ascended the throne of 

Sweden under the title of Charles XIII . Having 

established the Masonic Order of Knighthood 

of that name, he abdicated in favor of 

Charles John Bernadotte, but always remained 

an active and zealous member of the 

Order. There is no king on record so distinguished 

for his attachment to Freemasonry as 

Charles XIII., of Sweden, and to him the 

Swedish Masons are in a great measure indebted 

for the high position that the Order 

has maintained during the present century in 

that country . 

Charles XIII., Order of. An order of 

knighthood instituted in 1811 by Charles 

XIII ., King of Sweden, which was to be conferred 

only on the principal dignitaries of the 

Masonic Institution in his dominions. In the 

manifesto establishing the Order, the king 

says : "To give to this society (the' Masonic) 

a proof of our gracious sentiments towards it, 

we will and ordain that its first dignitaries to 

the number which we may determine, shall in 

future be decorated with the most intimate 

proof of our confidence, and which shall be 

for them a distinctive mark of the highest dignity 

." The number of Knights are twentyseven, 

all Masons, and the King of Sweden is 

the perpetual Grand Master . The color of the 

ribbon is red, and the jewel a maltese cross 

pendant from an imperial crown . 

Charleston. A city in the United States 

of America, and the metropolis of the State of 

South Carolina. It was there that the first 

Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite was established in 1801, whence 

all other Supreme Councils have emanated 

directly or indirectly. Hence, it has assume 

the title of "Mother Council of the world." 

Its seat was removed in 1870 to the city of 

Washington . (See Scottish Rite .) 

Charms, Magical . See Talisman. 

Chart . 1 . A map on which is delineated 

the emblems of a degree, to be used for the 

instruction of candidates, formerly called a 

carpet, which see . 2 . The title given by 

Jeremy L . Cross to his Hieroglyphic Monitor, 

which acquired on its first appearance in the 

Lodges of America a popularity that it has not 

yet entirely lost . ence the word chart is 

still sometimes used colloquially and improperly 

to designate any other Masonic manual 

of monitorial instruction . 

Charter. Often used for Warrant of Constitution, 

which see . 

Chartered Lodge. A Lodge working under 

the authority of a Charter or Warrant of 

Constitution issued by a Grand Lodge as distinguished 

from a Lodge working under a 

dispensation issued by a Grand Master . Chartered 

Lodges only are entitled to representation 

in the Grand Lodge . They alone can 

make by-laws, elect members, or have their 

officers installed . They are the constituent

CHARTER 

CHERUBIM 145 

bodies of a jurisdiction, and by their representatives 

compose the Grand Lodge . 

Charter Member. A Mason whose name 

is attached to the petitiou upon which a Charter 

or Warrant of Constitution has been 

granted to a Lodge, Chapter, or other subordinate 

body. 

Charter of CologMe . See Cologne, Charter 

Of. 

Charter of WTansmission . See Transmission, 

Charter of. 

Chasidim . In Hebrew, C I-1`bM, meaning 

saints. T>; le name of a sect which existed in 

the time of the Maccabees, and which was 

organized for the purpose of opposing innovatioris 

upon the Jewish faith. Their, essential 

principles were to observe all the ritual laws 

of purification, to meet frequently for devotion, 

to submit to acts of self-denial and mortification, 

to have all things in common, and 

sometimes to withdraw from society and to 

devote themselves to contemplation . Lawrie, 

who seeks to connect them with the Masonic 

Institution as a continuation of the Masons of 

the Solomonic era, describes them under the 

name of "Kasideans" as "a religious Fraternity, 

or an order of the KNIGHTS OF THE 

TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM, who bound themselves 

to adorn the porches of that magnificent 

structure, and to preserve it from injury and 

decay . This association was composed of the 

gr eatest men of Israel, who were distinguished 

Poor their charitable and peaceful dispositions, 

and always signalized themselves by their 

ardent zeal for the purity and preservation of 

the Temple ." (History of Freemasonry, p . 

38.) 

Chastanler, Benedict . 

A French surgeon, 

who in the year 1767 introduced into 

England a modification of the Rite of Pernetty, 

in nine degrees, and established a 

Lodge in London under the name of the "Illuminated 

Theosophists" ; which, however, 

according to Lenning, soon abandoned the 

Masonic forms, and was converted into a mere 

theosophic sect, intended to propagate the 

religious system of Swedenborg . Mr. White, 

in his Life of Emanuel Swedenborg (Lend ., 

1868, p . 683), gives an account of "The Theosophical 

Society, instituted for the purpose 

of promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the 

New Jerusalem by translating., printing, and 

publishing the theological writings of Emanuel 

Swedenborg ." This society was formed in 

1784, and met on Sundays and Thursdays at 

chambers in New Court, Middle Temple, for 

the discussion of Swedenborg's writings . 

Among the twenty-five persons mentioned by 

White as having either joined the society or 

sympathized with its object, we find the name 

of "Benedict Chastanier, French Surgeon, 62 

Tottenham Court ." The nine degrees of Chastanier's 

Rite of Illuminated Theosophists are 

as follows : 1, 2, and 3, Symbolic degrees ; 4, 

5, 6, Theosophic Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, 

and Master ; 7, Sublime Scottish Mason, or 

Celestial Jerusalem ; 8, Blue Brother ; and 9, 

Red Brother. 

Chastity . In the Regius or Halliwell MS . 

of the Constitutions of Masonry, wfltten not 

later than the latter part of the fourteenth 

century, the seventh point is in these words : 

"Thou schal not by thy maystres wyf ly . 

NY by thy felows yn no manner wyse, 

Lest the Craft wolde the despyse ; 

Ny by thy felows concubyne, 

No more thou woldest he dede by tbyne .'.' 

Again, in the Constitutions known as the 

Matthew Cooke MS., the date of which is 

about the latter part of the fifteenth century, 

the same regulation is enforced in these words : 

"The 7th Point . That he covet not the 

ne the daughter of his masters, nother of 

fellows but if [unless] hit be in maryage ." 

So all through the Old Constitutions and 

Charges, we find this admonition to respect 

the chastity of our brethren's wives and daughters 

; an admonition which, it is scarcely necessary 

to say, is continued to this day. 

Chasuble . The outer dress which is worn 

by the priest at the altar service, and is an 

imitation of the old Roman toga . It is a circular 

cloth, which falls down over the body so 

as completely to cover it, with an aperture in 

the center for the head to pass through . It is 

used in the ceremonies of the Rose Croix Degree 

. 

Checkered Floor. See Mosaic Pavement 

. 

Chef-d'oeuvre. It was a custom among 

many of the guilds, and especially among the 

Compagnons du Devoir, who sprang up in the 

sixteenth century in France, on the decay of 

Freemasonry in that kingdom, and as one of 

its results, to require every Apprentice, before 

be could be admitted to the freedom of 

the guild, to present a piece of finished work as 

a proof of his skill in the art in which he had 

been instructed . The piece of work was called 

his chef-d'oeuvre, or masterpiece . 

Chereau, Antoine Gui liaume. A painter 

in Paris, who published, in 1806, two hermetico-philosophical 

brochures entitled Explication 

de la Pierre Cubique, and Explication 

de la Croix Philosophique ; or Explanations of 

the Cubical Stone and of the Philosophical 

Cross. These works are brief, but give much 

interesting information on the ritualism and 

symbolism of the high degrees. They - 

have 

been republished by Tessier in his anuel 

General, without, however, any acknowledgment 

to the original author . 

Cherubim . The second order of the angelic 

hierarchy, the first being the seraphim . 

The two cherubim that overtopped the mercyseat 

or covering of the ark, in the holy of holies, 

were placed there by Moses, in obedience 

to the orders of God : "And thou shalt make 

two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt 

thou make them, in the two ends of the mercyseat. 

And the cherubims, shall stretch forth 

their wings on high, covering the mercy-seat 

with their wings, and their faces shall look one 

to another ; towards the mercy-seat shall the 

faces of the cherubims be." (Exod . xxv. 18, 

20.) It was between these cherubim that the 

Shekinah or Divine presence rested, and from

146 CHERUBIM 

CHERUBIM 

which issued the Bathkol or voice of God . Of 

the form of these cherubim, we are ignorant . 

Josephus says, that they resembled no known 

creature, but that Moses made them in the 

form in which he saw them about the throne 

of God ; others, deriving their ideas from what 

is said of them by Ezekiel, Isaiah, and St . 

John, describe them as having the face and 

breast of a man, the wings of an eagle, the 

belly of a lion, and the legs and feet of an ox, 

which three animals, with man, are the symbols 

of strength and wisdom . But all agree in 

this, that they had wings, and that these 

wings were extended . The cherubim were 

purely symbolic . But although there is great 

diversity of opinion as to their exact signification, 

yet there is a very general agreement 

that they allude to and symbolize the protecting 

and overshadowing power of the Deity . 

Reference is made to the extended wings of the 

cherubim in the degree of Royal Master . 

* Much light has been thrown upon the 

plastic form of these symbols during the past 

few years, not only as to the Cherubim of the 

Ark of the Covenant spoken of in Exodus, 

Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, but those of 

Chaldeo-Assyrian art which beautified the 

gates of the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh, 

and other structures . 

The Kirubi of the Assyrian type, in the 

shape of bulls with extended wings, in nowise 

meet the description given above . The figures 

which can be found in various places upon 

Egyptian monuments, placed face to face on 

either side of the Naos of the gods, and stretching 

out their arms, furnished with great wings, 

as though to envelop them (Wilkinson, Manners 

and Customs of Ancient Egyptians, 1878, 

vol . iii.), more fully meet the idea-in fact, it is 

convincing, when we remember the period, 

and note that all else about the sacred furnishings 

of the Tabernacle, or Ohel-mo'ed, are 

exclusively Egyptian in form, as well as the 

sacerdotal costumes . (See L'Egypte et Moise, 

by Abbe Ancessi, Paris, 1875 .) Furthermore, 

this was most natural, since the period was 

immediately after the exodus . The Kerubim 

of the Ark were remodeled by Solomon after 

designs furnished by his father, David . (1 

Chron . xxviii . 18 .) 

THE ISMIAN CAR. 

At this epoch, says Fran ois Lenormant, 

Professor of Archeology at the National Library 

of France, in his Beginnings of History, 

1882, the Egyptian influence was no longer 

supreme in its sway over the Hebrews ; that 

the Assyro-Babylonian influence balanced it ; 

that the new Kerubim, then executed, may 

(* From this point the article is from the pen of 

C . T . McClenachan .) 

have been different from the ancient ones as 

described in Exodus ; in fact, Kirubi after the 

Assyrian type, which formed a Merhbbh (a 

chariot, 1 Chron . xxviii . 18), upon which Yahveh 

was seated . In the Egyptian monuments 

the gods are often represented between the 

forward-stretching wings of sparrow-hawks or 

THE ARK OF PHILE . 

vultures, placed face to face, and birds of this 

kind often enfold with their wings the divine 

Naos . 

The adornment of the Tabernacle, as mentioned 

in Exodus, excluded every figure susceptible 

of an idolatrous character, which is 

far from being the case in what we know of the 

Temple of Solomon . In the matter of plastic 

images, none was admitted save only the Kerubim 

which were not only placed upon the 

Ark, but whose representations are woven into 

the hangings of the Mishk&n and the veil 

which separates the Holy Place from the Holy 

of Holies . It is therefore most probable that 

the Kerubim of Exodus were great eagles or 

birds-Kurubi-while under the remodeling 

by Solomon these were changed to Kirubi 

with human faces . 

The prophet Ezekiel describes four haqy8th 

or Kerubim, two and two, back to back, 

and going "each one straight forward " toward 

the four quarters. The Kerubim of the 

Merkhbgh of Ezekiel have four wings-two 

lifted up and two covering their back-and 

four human faces set in pairs, to the right and 

to the left, one of a man, one of a bull, one of a 

lion, and one of an eagle-the faces of creatures 

which combine all the emblems of 

strength depicted by the Chaldeo-Assyrian 

bull . Ezekiel (Yehezqel) thus describes the 

Kerubim with several faces which, alternately 

with the palm-trees, decorated the frieze 

around the interior of the temple at Jerusalem 

: "Each Kerub had two faces, a man's 

face turned one way toward the palm-tree, 

and a lion's face turned the other way toward 

the other palm-tree ; and it was in this 

wise all around the house ." 

The following information, furnished by 

Prof . Lenormant, on the subject of Cherubim, 

is important : "Deductions were formerly 

made from the Aryan theory to sup port primitive 

tradition as to origin and form, but 

these have been overthrown, and the Semitic 

interpretation made manifest through finding 

the name of the Kerubim in the cuneiform 

inscriptions ; that in place of referring the 

Hebrew word kerub to the Aryan root grabh,

CHESED 

CHINA 147 

'to seize,' the word is more properly of Semitic 

origin, from the root kdrab, signifying `bull,' 

or a creature strong and powerful 

Referring to the prophet Ezekiel i. 10 and x . 

14, the two parallel passages use the word 

kerzlb interchangeably with shor, 'bull,' the 

'face of a bull' and 'face of a cherub,' which 

are synonymous expressions . Since we have 

come to know those colossal images of winged 

bulls with human faces, crowned with the 

lofty cidaris, decorated with several pairs of 

horns, which flanked the gateways of the Assyrian 

palaces, a number of scholars, intimately 

acquainted with antique sculpture, 

have been zealous in associating them with the 

Kerubim of the Bible . . . . The winged bull 

with a human head figures in a bas-relief in the 

palace of Khorsabad as a favoring and protecting 

genius, which watches over the safe 

navigation of the transports that carry the 

wood of Lebanon by sea . The bulls whose 

images are placed at the gateways of the palaces 

and temples, as described in the above 

ideographic group, are the guardian genii, who 

are looked upon as living beings . As the result 

of a veritable magical operation, the supernatural 

creature is supposed to reside within 

these bodies of stone .' 

In a bilingual document, Akkadian with an 

Assyrian version, we read invocations to the 

two bulls who flanked the gate of the infernal 

abode, which were no longer simulacra of 

stone, but living beings, like the bulls at the 

gates of the celestial palaces of the gods . The 

following is one of the unique expressions 

made in the ears of the bull which stands to 

the right of the bronze enclosure : 

"Great Bull, most great Bull, stamping before 

the holy gates, he opens the interior ; director 

of Abundance, who supports the god 

Nirba, he who gives their glory to the cultivated 

fields, my pure hands sacrifice toward 

thee." 

Similar expressions were then made in the 

bull's left ear . 

These genii, in the form of winged bulls 

with human countenances, were stationed as 

guardians at the portals of the edifices of 

Babylonia and Assyria, and were given the 

name of Kirubi ; thus, Kirubu damqu lippaqid, 

"May the propitious Kirub guard ." Numerous 

authorities may be given to show that 

the Chaldeo-Assyrians' Kirub, from the tenth 

to the fifth century before our era, whose 

name is identical with the Hebrew Kerub, 

was the winged bull with a human head . The 

Israelites, during the times of the Kings and 

the Prophets, pictured to themselves the Kerubim 

under this form .* 

Chesed. A word which is most generally 

corrupted into Hesed . It is the Hebrew ÌDi1, 

and signifies mercy . Hence, it very appropriately 

refers to that act of kindness and compassion 

which is commemorated in the degree 

of Select Master of the American system. It 

* "The figures of the Cherubim are said to 

have defeated Dante's power of constructive 

imagination." 

is the fourth of the Kabbalistic Sephiroth, and 

is combined in a triad with Beauty and Justice. 

Chevalier. Employed by the French 

Masons as the equivalent of Knight in the 

name of any degree in which the latter word is 

used by English Masons, as Chevalier du Soleil 

for 'Knight of the Sun, or Chevalier de l'Orient 

for Knight of the East . The German word is 

Ritter . 

Chlbbelum . A significant word used in 

the rituals of the last century, which define 

it to mean "a worthy Mason .' It is a corruption 

of Giblim . 

Chicago, Congress of. A convention of 

distinguished Masons of the United States, 

held at the city of Chicago in September, 

1859, during the session of the Grand Encampment 

and General Grand Chapter, for the purpose 

of establishing a General Grand Lodge, 

or a Permanent Masonic Congress . Its results 

were not of a successful character ; and 

the death of its moving spirit, Cyril Pearl, 

which occurred soon after, put an end to all 

future attempts to carry into effect any of its 

preliminary proceedings . 

Chief of the Tabernacle . The Twentythird 

Degree in the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite . It commemorates the institution 

of the order of the priesthood in Aaron 

and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar. Its principal 

officers are three, a Sovereign Sacrificer 

and two High Priests, now called by the Supreme 

Councils of America the Most Excellent 

High Priest and Excellent Priests and the 

members of the "Hierarchy " or "court," as 

the Lodge is now styled, are called Mites . 

The apron is white, lined with deep scarlet and 

bordered with red, blue, and purple ribbon . A 

golden chandelier of seven branches is painted 

or embroidered on the center of the apron. 

The jewel, which is a thurible, is worn from a 

broad yellow, purple, blue, and scarlet sash 

from the left shoulder to the right hip . 

Chief of the Twelve Tribes . (Chef des 

douze Tribes.) The Eleventh Degree of the 

Chapter of Emperors of the East and West . 

It is also called Illustrious Elect . 

Chiefs of Masonry. A title formerly 

given in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite to Princes of Jerusalem . It seems now 

to be more appropriate to Inspectors-General 

of the Thirty-third Degree . 

Chill . Freemasonry was introduced into 

Chili, in 1841, by the Grand Orient of France . 

Lodges were subsequently organized in 1850 

and 1851 by the Grand Lodges of Massachusetts 

and California . On the 24th of May, 

1862, a Grand Lodge was formed . 

China. Masonry was introduced into China 

by the Grand Lodge of England in the Eighteenth 

century . There are two District Grand 

Lodges under the Grand Lodge of England : 

1 . That of Hong Kong and South China with 

7 Lodges . 2 . That of Northern China with 

11 Lodges. There are also Chapters and an 

Encampment of Knights Templars, under the 

English authority . 

A secret society, akin to Masonry and in-

148 CHINESE 

CHRISTIANIZATION 

digenous to China, is the "Most Ancient 

Order of Suastica," or the Brotherhood of the 

Mystic Cross, said to have been founded 1027 

B .c. by Fohi, and introduced into China 975 

B .c. It contains three degrees : Apprentice 

Brothers, Tao Sze (or Doctors of Reason), and 

Grand Master. The Apprentice wears the 

Jaina Cross, worked on a blue silk ribbon ; the 

Tao Sze wears a cross of silver ; and the Grand 

Master one in gold. The meetings are called 

"Tents ." 

Chinese Classics and Symbolism . Mr . 

Giles, well versed in matters pertaining to 

Chinese literature, customs, and archeology, 

is the authority for stating that in the written 

language of the Chinese many curious expressions 

were in use seven hundred years before 

the Christian era, or only about two hundred 

years after the death of King Solomon, bearing 

close proximity to those used prominently in 

Masonry. The following quotation from the 

works of Mencius, the great disciple of Confucius, 

is given in illustration : "A Master 

Mason, in teaching his apprentices, makes 

use of the compasses and the square . Ye who 

are engaged in the pursuit of wisdom must 

also make use of the compasses and the 

square ." These two words, "compasses" and 

"square," in the Chinese language represent 

"order, regularity, and propriety ." Mr. Giles 

points out that in the oldest of the Chinese 

classics, "which embraces a period from the 

twenty-fourth to the seventh century before 

Christ, there are distinct allusions to this 

particular symbolism ." 

Chinese Secret Societies . In China, as 

in all other countries, secret societies have existed, 

such as the Tien-tee-whee, or Association 

of Heaven and Earth, and the Tien-lee, 

or Society of Celestial Reason . But the attempt 

to trace any analogy between them and 

Freemasonry is a mistaken one . These societies 

have in general been of a political character, 

with revolutionary tendencies, and as 

such, have been prohibited by the government, 

sometimes under the penalty of the death or 

banishment of their members . Their similarity 

to Masonry consists only in these points : 

that they have forms of initiation, an esoteric 

instruction, and secret modes of recognition . 

Beyond these all further resemblance fails . 

Chisel. In the American Rite the chisel is 

one of the working tools of a Mark Master, 

and symbolizes the effects of education on the 

human mind . For as the artist, by the aid of 

this instrument, gives form and regularity to 

the shapeless mass of stone, so education, by 

cultivating the ideas and by polishing the rude 

thoughts, transforms the ignorant savage into 

the civilized being . 

In the English ritual, the chisel is one of the 

working tools of the Entered Apprentice . 

With the same reference to the advantages of 

education. Preston (B . II., Sect . vi .) thus elaborates 

its symbolism as one of the implements 

of Masonry : "The chisel demonstrates the 

advantages bf discipline and education . The 

mind, like the diamond in its original state, is 

unpolished ; but as the effects of the chisel on 

the external coat soon present to view the 

latent beauties of the diamond, so education 

discovers the latent virtues of the mind and 

draws them forth to range the large field of 

matter and space, in order to display the summit 

of human knowledge, our duty to God and 

to man ." (Illustrations, ed . 1812, p . 86, footnote.) 

But the idea is not original with Preston. 

It is found in Hutchinson, who, however, 

does not claim it as his own . It formed, 

most ~robably, a portion of the lectures of the 

period . In the French system, the chisel is 

placed on the tracing board of the Fellow- 

Craft as an implement with which to work 

upon and polish the Rough Ashlar . It has, 

therefore, there the same symbolic signification. 

Chivalry. The origin of chivalry is involved 

in very great obscurity . Almost every 

author who has written on this subject has 

adopted an hypothesis of his own . Some derive 

the institution from the equestrian order 

of ancient Rome, while others trace it to the 

tribes who, under the name of Northmen, 

about the ninth century, invaded the southern 

parts of Europe . Warburton ascribes the 

origin of chivalry to the Arabians ; Pinkerton, 

Mallet, and Percy, to the Scandinavians . 

Clavel derives it from the secret societies of 

the Persians, which were the remains of the 

mysteries of Mithras . In Christendom, it 

gave rise to the orders of knighthood, some of 

which have been incorporated into the Masonic 

system. (See Knighthood .) 

Christ, Order of. After the overthrow 

of the Order of Knights Templars throughout 

Europe, Dennis I ., King of Portugal, in 1317 

solicited of Pope John XXII. permission to 

reestablish the Order of the Temple in his 

dominions under the name of the Order of 

Christ, and to restore to it the possessions 

which had been wrested from the Templars . 

The Pope consented, approved the statutes 

which had been submitted to him, and, in 

1319, confirmed the institution, reserving to 

himself and to his successors the right of creating 

knights, which has given rise to the pontifical 

branch of the Order which exists at 

Rome . The knights follow the rule of St . Benedict, 

and conform in all points to the statutes 

of the Order of the Temple . The Grand Mastership 

is vested in the King of Portugal, and 

the Order having been secularized in 1789, the 

members were divided into the three classes of 

six Grand Crosses, four hundred and fifty 

Commanders, and an unlimited number of 

knights . It was designated the Most Noble 

Order, and none but those nobly descended, of 

unsullied character, could be admitted . That 

the grandfather had been a mechanic was an 

impediment to the exaltation even of knights 

of the third class . The Grand Crosses and 

Commanders had generally valuable grants 

and great privileges ; the latter were also enjoyed 

by the knights, with pensions with reversion 

to their wives . 

Christianization of Freemasonry . The 

interpretation of the symbols of Freemasonry 

from a Christian point of view is a theory

CHRISTIANIZATION 

CHROMATIC 149 

adopted by some of the most distinguished 

Masonic writers of England and this country, 

but one which I think does not belong to the 

ancient system. Hutchinson, and after him 

Oliver-profoundly philosophical as are the 

Masonic speculations of both-have, I am 

constrained to believe, fallen into a great 

error in calling the Master Mason's Degree a 

Christian institution . It is true that it embraces 

within its scheme the great truths of 

Christianity upon the subject of the immortality 

of the soul and the resurrection of the 

body ; but this was to be presumed, because 

Freemasonry is truths and all truth must be 

identical. But the origin of each is different ; 

their histories are dissimilar . The principles 

of Freemasonry preceded the advent of Christianity 

. Its symbols and its legends are derived 

from the Solomonic Temple and from 

the people even anterior to that . Its religion 

comes from the ancient priesthood ; its faith 

was that primitive one of Noah and his immediate 

descendants . If Masonry were simply a 

Christian institution, the Jew and the Moslem, 

the Brahman and the Buddhist, could 

not conscientiously partake of its illumination . 

But its universality is its boast . In its language 

citizens of every nation may converse ; 

at its altar men of all religions may kneel ; to 

its creed disciples of every faith may subscribe. 

Yet it cannot be denied that since the advent 

of Christianity a Christian element has 

been almost imperceptibly infused into the 

Masonic system, at least among Christian 

Masons . This has been a necessity ; for it is 

the tendency of every predominant religion to 

pervade with its influence all that surrounds 

it or is about it, whether religious, political, or 

social . This arises from a need of the human 

heart. To the man deeply imbued with the 

spirit of his religion, there is an almost unconscious 

desire to accommodate and adapt all 

the business and the amusements of lifethe 

labors and the employments of his everyday 

existence-to the indwelling faith of his 

soul . 

The Christian Mason, therefore, while acknowledging 

and appreciating the great doctrines 

taught in Masonry, and also while 

grateful that these doctrines were preserved 

in the bosom of his ancient Order at a time 

when they were unknown to the multitudes 

of the surrounding nations, is still anxious to 

give to them a Christian character ; to invest 

them, in some measure, with the peculiarities 

of his own creed, and to bring the interpretation 

of their symbolism more nearly home to 

his own religious sentiments . 

The feeling is an instinctive one belonging 

to the noblest aspirations of our human nature 

; and hence we find Christian Masonic 

writers indulging in it to an almost unwarrantable 

excess, and, by the extent of their 

sectarian interpretations, materially affecting 

the cosmopolitan character of the Institution . 

This tendency to Christianization has, in 

some instances, been so universal, and has prevailed 

for so long a period, that certain sym- 

bola and myths have been, in this way, so 

deeply and thoroughly imbued with the Christian 

element as to leave those who have not 

penetrated into the cause of this peculiarity, 

m doubt whether they should attribute to the 

symbol an ancient or a modern and Christian 

origin 

Chromatic Calendar. "The Five 

Points ." In the great Temple, usually 

known as the Ocean Banner Monastery, at 

Honam, a suburb of Canton, China, we find 

four colossal idols occupying a large porch, 

each image being painted a different color . 

Ch'i-kwoh, who rules the north and grants 

pro itious winds, is dark ; Kwang-muh is red, 

and to him it is given to rule the south and 

control the fire, air, and water ; To-man' 

rules the west, and grants or withholds rain, 

his color being white ; while Chang-tsang, 

whose color is green, rules the winds and keeps 

them within their proper bounds, his supreme 

control being exercised over the east . The old 

custom of associating colors with the four 

quarters of the globe has probably led to the 

habit of describing the winds from these respective 

points as possessed of the same colors . 

The fifth, the earth, the central remaining 

point, still is conjectural . Thus, we also find 

m China a set of deities known as the five 

rulers ; their colors, elements, and points may 

be thus represented : 

1 . Black. Water. North . Back. 

2. Red . Fire . South. Breast . 

3. Green . Wood . East . Mouth . 

4. White . Metal. West. Knee . 

5. Yellow. Earth . Middle. Foot . 

These again are in turn associated with the 

planets, and the study of Chinese and Babylonian 

planet-colors is full of curious points of 

similarity . 

BLACK, typifying the north, has two direct 

opponents m symbolic colors, and these are 

red and white . The first as implying ignorance 

arising from evil passions, the second indicating 

ignorance of mind. Red-black is called in 

Hebrew G11, Heum, from which comes Heume, 

an enclosing wall . Black from white, in Hebrew, 

is 1710, sehher, signifying the dawn of 

light to the mid of the Masonic profane . The 

hand to back, as the words of wisdom are about 

to be spoken . 

In the Egyptian, the black Osiris appears 

at the commencement of the Funereal Ritual, 

representing the state of the soul which passes 

into the world of light . Anubis, one of the sons 

of Osiris, who weighs the soul in the scales of 

Amenti, and is the god of the dead, is black . 

The Conductor, or Master of Ceremonies, 

Thoth Psychopompe, has the head of the 

black Ibis . (See Truth .) 

RED. In Hebrew, the fire of love, which 

burns in the south, is 1 , are, to burn. On 

Egyptian monuments, and in their temples, 

the flesh of men is painted red, and that of 

women, yellow . The same difference exists 

between the gods and goddesses, except where 

specially otherwise defined. Man's name in 

Hebrew signifies red, and as the image of fire

150 CHURCH 

CIPHER 

is love, it is the universal tie of beings from 

breast to breast . 

GREEN . 71~, Irq, viridis, verdure. Y 1 1)1, the 

firmament, also the winds . Green designates 

the beginning, the creation, the birth, as the 

world was called into being in the wisdom of 

God by his word of mouth, and Light was to 

appear in the East. Phtha was the Egyptian 

Creator of the world ; he was at times represented 

with his flesh painted green, and holding 

a scepter of four colors, red, blue, green, and 

yellow : fire, air, water, and earth. The god 

Lunus, the Moon, in Hebrew 71`, irhe, is 

formed of one of the roots of green, signifying 

to found or set in order . Green is the symbol 

of Victory as well as Hope, in the symbolic 

colors . (See Green .) 

WarrE . 11ri, Heur, to be white ; C'11 i, 

Heurim, to be noble and pure. The Egyptian 

spirits of the dead were clothed in white, like 

the priests . Phtha, the creator and regenerator, 

was frequently robed in a white vestment, 

symbol of the egg from which he was born, enveloped 

in the white or albumen . The head of 

Osiris was draped in a white tunic. While the 

Chinese metaphorically represented Metal by 

this color, the Egyptians and Hebrews made it 

the symbol of Earth . Its reference to the West 

would imply the first point whereat the profane 

bent the knee in supplication to the Deity . 

YELLOW . ]'13, Tseb, gold color, designates a 

radiation of light, signifying to shine, to be 

resplendent . Man, or the male principle, symbolized 

by ardent fire, was represented by red, 

and the female principle, identified with the 

idea of light or flame, represented by yellow 

or light-colored earth, over which the swiftfooted 

messenger bears the tidings of a Mason's 

distress and the return of obligatory succor . 

This light of the fire, the female of Divine 

beauty, the Egyptian Venus, was called Athor, 

signifying dwelling of Horus, and was thus 

represented . 

Church, Freemasons of the . An Architectural 

College was organized in London, in 

the year 1842, under the name of "Freemasons 

of the Church for the Recovery, Maintenance, 

and Furtherance of the True Principles and 

Practice of Architecture ." The founders announced 

their objects to be "the rediscovery 

of the ancient principles of architecture ; the 

eauction of good principles of building, and 

the condemnation of bad ones ; the exercise of 

scientific and experienced judgment in the 

choice and use of the most proper materials ; 

the infusion, maintenance, and advancement 

of science throughout architecture* and eventually, 

by developing the powers of the College 

upon a just and beneficial footing, to reform 

the whole practice of architecture, to raise it 

from its present vituperated condition, and to 

bring around it the same unquestioned honor 

which is at present enjoyed by almost every 

other profession ." (TheBuilder, vol . i., p . 23 . 

One of their own members has said that 

"the title was not intended to express any conformity 

with the general body of Freemasons, 

but rather as indicative of the professed views 

of the College, namely, the recovery, maintenance, 

and furtherance of the free principles 

and practice of architecture ." And that, in 

addition, they made it an object of their exertions 

to preserve or effect the restoration of 

architectural remains of antiquity threatened 

unnecessarily with demolition or endangered 

by decay . But it is evident, from the close 

connection of modern Freemasonry with the 

building guilds of the Middle Ages that any 

investigations into the condition of" medieval 

architecture must throw light on Masonic 

history. 

Cipher Writing . Cryptography, or the 

art of writing in cipher, so as to conceal the 

meaning of what is written from all except 

those who possess the key, may be traced to 

remote antiquity. De la Guilletiere (Lacedcemon) 

attributes its origin to the Spartans, 

and Polybius says that more than two thousand 

years ago . Eneas Tacitus had collected 

more than twenty different kinds of cipher 

which were then m use. Kings and generals 

communicated their messages to officers in 

distant provinces, by means of a preconcerted 

cipher- and the system has always been employed 

wherever there was a desire or a necessity 

to conceal from all but those who were 

entitled to the knowledge the meaning of a 

written document . 

The Druids, who were not permitted by the 

rules of their Order to commit any part of 

their ritual to ordinary writing, preserved the 

memory of it by the use of the letters of the 

Greek alphabet. The Kabbalists concealed 

many words by writing them backward : a 

method which is still pursued by the French 

Masons. The old alchemists also made use of 

cipher writing, in order to conceal those processes 

the knowledge of which was intended 

only for the adepts . Thus Roger Bacon, who 

discovered the composition of gunpowder, is 

said to have concealed the names of the ingredients 

under a cipher made by a transposition 

of the letters . 

Cornelius Agrippa tells us, in his Occult 

Philosophy, that the ancients accounted it 

unlawful to write the mysteries of God with 

those characters with which profane and vulgar 

things were written ; and he cites Porphyry 

as saying that the ancients desired to 

conceal God, and divine virtues, by sensible 

figures which were visible, yet signified invie-

CIPHER 

CIRCLES 151 

ible things, and therefore delivered their great 

mysteries in sacred letters, and explained them 

by symbolical representations. Porphyry here 

undoubtedly, referred to the invention and 

use of hieroglyphics by the Egyptian priests ; 

but these hieroglyphic characters were in fact 

nothing else but a form of cipher intended to 

conceal their instructions from the uninitiated 

profane . 

Peter Aponas, an astrological writer of the 

thirteenth century, gives us some of the old 

ciphers which were used by the Kabbalists, 

and among others one alphabet called "the 

passing of the river," which is referred to in 

some of the high degrees of Masonry . 

But we obtain from Agrippa one alphabet 

in cipher which is of interest to Masons, and 

which he says was once in great esteem among 

the Kabbahsts, but which has now, he adds, 

become so common as to be placed among 

profane things . He describes this cipher as 

follows (Philos . Occult., lib. iii ., cap . 3) : The 

twenty-seven characters (including the finals) 

of the Hebrew alphabet were divided into 

three classes of nine in each, and these were 

distributed into nine squares, made by the intersection 

of two horizontal and two vertical 

lines, forming the following figure : 

6 15 14 

9 18 17 

In each of these compartments three letters 

were placed - as, for instance, in the first compartment, 

tie first, tenth, and nineteenth letters 

of the alphabet ; in the second compartment, 

the second, eleventh, and twentieth, 

and so on. The three letters in each compartment 

were distingut'shed from each other by 

dots or accents . Thus, the first compartment, 

or L, represented the first letter or K ; the 

same compartment with a dot, thus, L, represented 

the tenth letter, or :) ; or with two 

dots, thus, L, it represented the nineteenth 

letter, or 7 ; and so with the other compartments 

; the ninth or last representing the 

ninth, eighteenth, and twenty-seventh letters, 

to, 2, or y, accordingly as it was figured ,, 1 

or '.1, without a dot in the center or with one 

or two. 

About the middle of the last century, the 

French Masons adopted a cipher similar to 

this in principle, but varied in the details, 

among which was the addition of four compartments, 

made by the oblique intersection 

of two lines in the form of a St . Andrew's 

Cross. This cipher was never officially adopted 

by the Masons of any other country, but was 

at one time assumed by the American Royal 

Arch ; although it is now becoming obsolete 

there . It is, however, still recognized in all the 

"Tuilleurs" of the French Rite . It has become 

so common as to be placed, as Agrippa 

said of the original scheme, "among profane 

things ." Its use would certainly no longer 

subserve any purpose of concealment . Rockwell 

openly printed it in his Ahiman Rezon 

of Georgia; and it is often used by those who 

are not initiated, as a means of amusement . 

There is, therefore, really no recognized 

cipher in use in Ancient Craft Masonry . 

Browne and Finch, who printed rituals intended 

only for the use of Masons, and not as 

expositions, invented ciphers for their own 

use, and supplied their initiated readers with 

the key. Without a key, their works are unintelligible, 

except by the art of the decipherer. 

Although not used in symbolic Masonry, 

the cipher is common in the high degrees, of 

which there is scarcely one which has not its 

peculiar cipher . But for the purposes of concealment, 

the cipher is no longer of 'any practical 

use . The art of deciphering has been 

brought to so great a state of perfection that 

there is no cipher so complicated as to bid 

defiance for many hours to the penetrating 

skill of the experienced decipherer . Hence, the 

cipher has gone out of use in Masonry as it 

has among diplomatists, who are compelled to 

communicate with their respective countries 

by methods more secret than any that can be 

supplied by a dispatch written in cipher . 

Edgar A . Poe has justly said, in his story of 

The Gold Bug, that "it may well be doubted 

whether human ingenuity can construct an 

enigma of the kind, which human ingenuity 

may not, by proper application resolve ." 

Cipriani, Jean Baptiste. 1727--85 .) A 

famous Florentine artist, who came to England 

in 1755, and cooperated with Bartolozzi 

in the production of the frontispiece of the 

1784 Edition of the Book of Constitutions. 

Circle. The circle being a figure which 

returns into itself, and having therefore 

neither beginning nor end, has been adopted 

in the symbology of all countries and times as 

a symbol sometimes of the universe and sometimes 

of eternity . With this idea in the Zoroastrian 

mysteries of Persia, and frequently in 

the Celtic mysteries of Druidism, the temple 

of initiation was circular . In the obsolete lectures 

of the old English system, it was said 

that "the circle has ever been considered symbolical 

of the Deity ; for as a circle appears to 

have neither beginning nor end, it may be 

justly considered a type of God, without 

either beginning of days or ending of years . 

It also reminds us of a future state, where we 

hope to enjoy everlasting happiness and joy ." 

But whatever refers especially to the Masonic 

symbolism of the circle will be more appropriately 

contained in the article on the Point 

within a Circle . 

Circles (Kranzchen) . There are in Germany 

many small Masonic clubs, or Circles, 

which are formed in subordination to some 

Lodge which exercises a supervision over them 

and is responsible for their good behavior to 

the Grand Lodge, by whose permission they 

have been established . The members devote

152 CIRCUIT 

CIRCUMAMBULATION 

themselves to Masonic work organize lectures, 

etc., and acquire a Masonic library . 

(ArsQuatuorCoronatorum, ix ., 66.) [E . L. H .] 

Circuit. Fort, in his Early History and 

Antiquities of Freemasonry, says : "Northern 

kings, immediately upon acceding to the 

throne, made a `gait or procession about 

their realms. According to the Scandinavian 

laws, when real property was sold, granted, or 

conveyed, the transfer of possession was incomplete 

until a circuit was made around the 

estate by the buyer and vendor, in which tour 

all the inhabitants of the nearest hamlet 

united. . . " 

"During the installation ceremonies of the 

Master of a Masonic Lodge, a procession of all 

the Craftsmen march around the room before 

the Master, to whom an appropriate salute is 

tendered . This Circuit is designed to signify 

that the new incumbent reduces the Lodge 

to his possession in this symbolic manner ." 

(P . 320.) 

Circular Temples . These were used in 

the initiations of the religion of Zoroaster . 

Like the square temples of Masonry, and the 

other mysteries, they were symbolic of the 

world ; and the symbol was completed by 

making the circum ference of the circle a representation 

of the zodiac . In the mysteries of 

Druidism also, the temples were sometimes 

circular . 

Circumambulation, Rite of. Circumambulation 

is the name given by sacred archeologists 

to that religious rite in the ancient 

initiations which consisted in a formal procession 

around the altar, or other holy and 

consecrated object . The same Rite exists in 

Freemasonry . 

In ancient Greece, when the priests were 

engaged in the rite of sacrifice, they and the 

people always walked three times round the 

altar while singing a sacred hymn . In making 

this procession great care was taken to move 

in imitation R the course of the sun . For 

this purpose, they commenced at the east, 

and passing on by the way of the south to the 

west and thence by the north, they arrived at 

the east again .* By this means, as it will be 

observed, the right hand was always placed to 

the altar . t 

This ceremony the Greeks called moving, 

1K aeilas eis S€liav, from the right to the 

right, which was the direction of the motion, 

and the Romans applied to it the term dextrovorsum, 

or dextrorsum, which signifies the 

same thing . Thus, Plautus (Curcul., I., i. 70) 

makes Palinurus, a character in his comedy of 

Curculio, say : "If you would do reverence to 

the gods, you must turn to the right hand ." 

Si deos salutas dextroversum censeo . Gronovius, 

* The strophe of the ancient hymn was sung in 

going from the east to the west ; the antistrophe 

in returning to the east, and the epode while 

standing still . 

t "After this," says Potter, "they stood about 

the altar, and the priest, turning towards the 

right hand, went round it and sprinkled it with 

meal and holy water." (Antiquities of Greece, 

B. II ., ch . iv ., p . 206.) 

in commenting on this passage of Plautus, 

says : "In worshiping and praying to the gods, 

they were accustomed to turn to the right 

hand ." 

A hymn of Callimachus has been preserved, 

which is said to have been chanted by the 

priests of Apollo at Delos, while performing 

this ceremony of circumambulation, the substance 

of which is "we imitate the example of 

the sun, and follow his benevolent course ." 

Among the Romans, the ceremony of circumambulation 

was always used in the rites 

of sacrifice, of expiation or purification. Thus, 

Virgil (ZEn ., vi ., 229) describes Corynwus as 

purifying his companions at the funeral of 

Misenus, by passing three times around them 

while aspersing them with the lustral waters ; 

and to do so conveniently, it was necessary 

that he should have moved with his right hand 

toward them. 

Idem ter soeios pura circumtulit undo, 

Spargens rore levi et ramo felicis olive . 

That is : 

"Thrice with pure water compass'd he the crew, 

Sprinkling, with olive branch, the gentle dew ." 

In fact, so common was it to unite the ceremony 

of circumambulation with that of expiation 

or purification, or, in other words, to 

make a circuitous procession in performing the 

latter rite, that the term lustrare, whose primitive 

meaning is "to purify," came at last to be 

synonymous with circumire, to walk round 

anything, and hence a purification and a circumambulation 

were often expressed by the 

same word . 

Among the Hindus, the same Rite of Circumambulation 

has always been practised . 

As an instance, we may cite the ceremonies 

which are to be performed by a Brahman, 

upon first rising from bed in the morning, an 

accurate account of which has been given by 

Mr. Colebrooke in the sixth volume of the 

Asiatic Researches . The priest having first 

adored the sun, while directing his face to the 

east, then walks toward the west by the way 

of the south, saying, at the same time, "I 

follow the course of the sun," which he thus 

explains : "As the sun in his course moves 

round the world by way of the south, so do I 

follow that luminary, to obtain the benefit 

arising from a journey round the earth by the 

way of the south ." 

Lastly, we may refer to the preservation of 

this Rite among the Druids, whose "mystical 

dance" around the cairn, or sacred stones, was 

nothing more nor less than the Rite of Circumambulation. 

On these occasions, the priest 

always made three circuits from east to west, 

by the right hand, around the altar or cairn, 

accompanied by all the worshipers . And so 

sacred was the rite once considered, that we 

learn from Toland (Celt . Rel . and Learn ., II ., 

xvii.) that in the Scottish Isles, once a principal 

seat of the Druidical religion, the people 

"never come to the ancient sacrificing and 

fire-hallowing cairns, but they walk three 

times around them, from east to west, accord-

CIRCUMSPECTION 

CLANDESTINE 153 

fng to the course of the sun ." This sanctified 

tour, or round by the south, he observes, is 

called Deaseal, as the contrary, or unhallowed 

one by the north, is called Tuapholl . And, he 

further remarks, that this word Deaseal was 

derived "from Deas, the right (understanding 

hand) and soil, one of the ancient names of the 

sun ; the right hand in this round being ever 

next the heap ." 

This Rite of Circumambulation undoubtedly 

refers to the doctrine of sun-worship, 

because the circumambulation was always 

made around the sacred place, just as the sun 

was supposed to move around the earth ; and 

although the dogma of sun-worship does not 

of course exist in Freemasonry; we find an 

allusion to it in the Rite of Circumambulation, 

which it preserves, as well as in the position 

of the officers of a Lodge and in the symbol 

of a point within a circle . 

Circumspection . A necessary watchfulness 

is recommended to every man, but in a 

Mason it becomes a positive duty, and the 

neglect of it constitutes a heinous crime . On 

this subject, the Old Charges of 1722 (vi ., 4) 

are explicit. "You shall be cautious in your 

words and carriage that the most penetrating 

stranger shall not J,e able to discover or find 

out what is not proper to be imitated ; and 

sometimes you shall divert a discourse and 

manage it prudently for the Honour of the 

Worshipful Fraternity." (Constitutions, 1723, 

p . 55 .) 

City of David . A section in the southern 

part of Jerusalem, embracing Mount Zion, 

where a fortress of the Jebusites stood, which 

David reduced, and where he built a new palace 

and city, to which he gave his own name . 

City of the Great King . Jerusalem, so 

called in Psalm xlviii . 2, and by the Savior 

in Matt. v . 35 . 

Civilization and Freemasonry. Those 

who investigate in the proper spirit the history 

of Speculative Masonry will be strongly 

impressed with the peculiar relations that 

exist between the history of Masonry and 

that of civilization . They will find these facts 

to be patent : that Freemasonry has ever been 

the result of civilization ; that in the most 

ancient times the spirit of Masonry and the 

spirit of civilization have always gone together 

; that the progress of both has been with 

equal strides ; that where there has been no 

appearance of civilization there has been no 

trace of Masonry ; and, finally, that wherever 

Masonry has existed in any of its forms, there 

it has been surrounded and sustained by civilization, 

which social condition it in turn elevated 

and purified . 

Speculative Masonry, therefore, seems to 

have been a necessary result of civilization . 

It is, even in its primitive and most simple 

forms, to be found among no barbarous or 

savage people. Such a state of society has 

never been capable of introducing or maintaining 

its abstract principles of Divine truth . 

But while Speculative Masonry is the result 

of civilization, existing only in its bosom and 

never found among barbarous or savage races, 

it has by a reactionary law of sociology, 

prove the means of extending and elevating 

the civilization to which it originally owed its 

birth. Civilization has always been progressive 

. That of Pelasgic Greece was far behind 

that which distinguished the Hellenic period 

of the same country. The civilization of the 

ancient world was inferior to that of the modern, 

and every century shows an advancement 

in the moral, intellectual, and social condition 

of mankind. But in this progress from imperfection 

to perfection the influence of those 

speculative systems that are identical with 

Freemasonry has always been seen and felt . 

Let us, for an example, look at the ancient 

heathen world and its impure religions . While 

the people of Paganism bowed, in their ignorance, 

to a many-headed god, or, rather, worshiped 

at the shrines of many gods, whose 

mythological history and character must have 

exercised a pernicious effect on the moral purity 

of their worshipers, Speculative Philosophy, 

in the form of the "Ancient Mysteries," 

was exercising its influence upon a large class 

of neophytes and disciples, by giving this true 

symbolic interpretation of the old religious 

myths. In the adyta of their temples in Greece 

and Rome and Egypt, in the sacred caves of 

India, and in the consecrated groves of Scandinavia 

and Gaul and Britain, these ancient 

sages were secretly divesting the Pagan faith 

of its polytheism and of its anthropomorphic 

deities, and were establishing a pure monotheism 

in its place, and illustrating, by a peculiar 

symbolism, the great dogmas-since 

taught in Freemasonry-of the unity of God 

and the immortality of the soul . And in modern 

times, when the religious thought of mankind 

under a better dispensation, has not 

required this purification, Masonry still, in 

other ways, exerts its influence in elevating 

the tone of civilization ; for through its working 

the social feelings have been strengthened, 

the amenities and charities of life been refined 

and extended, and, as we have had recent 

reason to know and see, the very bitterness of 

strife and the blood-guiltiness of war have 

been softened and oftentimes obliterated . 

We then arrive at these conclusions, namely, 

that Speculative Masonry is a result of civilization, 

for it exists in no savage or barbarous 

state of society, but has always appeared with 

the advent in any country of a condition of 

civilization, "grown with its growth and 

strengthened with its strength" ; and, in 

return, has proved, by a reactionary influence, 

a potent instrument in extending, elevatin*, 

and refining the civilization which gave it 

birth, by advancing its moral, intellectual, 

and religious character . 

Clandestine . The ordinary meaning of 

this word is secret, hidden. The French word 

clandestin, from which it is derived, is defined 

by Boiste to be something "fait en cachette et 

contre les loin," done in a hiding-place and 

against the laws, which better suits the Masonic 

signification, which is illegal, not authorized 

. Irregular is often used for small 

departures from custom .

154 CLANbESTINE 

CLEAN 

Clandestine Lodge . A body of Masons 

uniting in a Lodge without the consent of a 

Grand Lodge, or, although originally legally 

constituted, continuing to work after its charter 

has been revoked, is styled a "Clandestine 

Lodge ." Neither Anderson nor Entick employ 

the word. It was first used in the Book of 

Constitutions in a note b Noortbouck, on 

page 239 of his edition. (Constitutions, 1784 .) 

regular Lodge would be the better term. 

Clandestine Mason . One made in or 

affiliated with a clandestine Lodge . With 

clandestine Lodges or Masons, regular Masons 

are forbidden to associate or converse on Masonic 

subjects. 

Clare, Martin . A London schoolmaster 

and a celebrated Mason of England in the last 

century . He was a man of some distinction in 

literary circles, for he was a Fellow of the 

Royal Society. He was a Grand Steward in 

1734, Junior Grand Warden in 1735, and in 

1741, Deputy Grand Master. He was distinguished 

for zeal and intelligence in Mar 

sonry and it has been pretty well established 

that he was the author of A Defence of Masonry, 

which was issued in 1730 in answer to 

Prichard's Masonry Dissected, and which was 

reproduced in the 1738 Edition of the Constitutions 

. (Ars Quatuor Coronatorum vol . 

iv ., 33-41 .) He translated into English a 

work which had been published the preceding 

year, in Dublin, under the title of Relation 

Apologa',que et Historique de la Socltte des 

Franc-Macons . In 1735, he delivered an address 

before the Grand Lodge, which was 

translated into French and German . He died 

in 1751 . 

[E . L. H.] 

Clarence, H. R. H. the Duke of, afterward 

King William IV., was initiated in 

Lodge 86, Plymouth, on March 9, 1796. 

Classification of Masons . Oliver says, in 

his Dictionary of Symbolical Masonry (s. v. 

Classes), that ancient Masonic tradition informs 

us that the Speculative and Operative 

Masons who were assembled at the building 

of the Temple were arranged in nine classes, 

under their respective Grand Masters ; viz ., 

30,000 Entered Apprentices, under their 

Grand Master Adoniram 80,000 Fellow- 

Crafts, under Hiram Abif ; 2,000 Mark Men, 

under Stolkyn ; 1,000 Master Masons, under 

Mohabin ; 600 Mark Masters, under Ghiblim ; 

24 Architects, under Joabert ; 12 Grand Architects, 

under Adoniram ; 45 Excellent Masons, 

under Hiram Abif • 9 Super-Excellent 

Masons, under Tito Zacdok ; besides the Ish 

Sabbal or laborers. The tradition is, however 

rather apocryphal. 

davel, F . T . Begue . An abbe . A French 

Masonic writer, who published, in 1842, a 

Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Magonnerie et 

des Socittes Secretes Anciennes et Modernes . 

This work contains a great amount of interesting 

and valuable information, notwithstandmany 

historical inaccuracies, especially in 

erence to the Ancient Accepted Scottish 

Rite, of which the author was an adversary . 

For the publication of the work without authority 

he was suspended by the Grand Orient 

for two months and condemned to pay a fine . 

Clavel appealed' to the intelligence of the Fraternity 

against thiss sentence . In 1844, he commenced 

the publication of a Masonic Journal 

called the Grand Orient, the title of which he 

subsequently changed to the Orient. As he 

had not obtained the consent of the Grand 

Orient, he was again brought before that body, 

and the sentence of perpetual exclusion from 

the Grand Orient pronounced against him . 

Rebold says that it was the act of a ,faction, 

and obtained by unfair means . It was not 

sustained by the judgment of the Craft in 

France, with whom Clavel gained reputation 

and popularity . Notwithstanding the Mar 

sonic literary labors of Clavel, an account of 

the time of his birth or of his death, appears 

to be obscure . His desire seemed to be to establish 

as history, by publication, those views 

which he personally entertained and formed ; 

gathered from sources of doubtful character, 

he desired they should not be questioned in 

the future, semel pro semper . 

Clay . See Chalk, Charcoal, and Clay. 

Clay Ground . In the clay ground between 

Succoth and Zeredatha Hiram Abif cast all 

the sacred vessels of the 'Temple, as well as the 

pillars of the porch . This spot was about 

thirty-five miles in a northeast direction from 

Jerusalem ; and it is supposed that Hiram 

selected it for his foundry because the clay 

which abounded there was,'by its great tenacity, 

peculiarly fitted for making molds . The 

Masonic tradition on this subject is sustained 

by the authority of Scripture . (See 1 Kings vii . 

46, and 2 Chron. iv . 17.) Morris, in his Freemasonry 

in the Holy Land, gives the following 

interesting facts in reference to this locality . 

"A singular fact came to light under the investigations 

of my assistant at Jerusalem . 

He discovered that the jewellers of that city, at 

the present day, use a particular species of 

brown, arenaceous clay in making moulds for 

casting small pieces in brass, etc . Inquiring 

whence this clay comes they reply, `From 

Seikoot about two days' journey north-east of 

Jerusalem.' Here, then, is a satisfactory reply 

to the question, Where was the `clay ground' 

of Hiram's foundries? It is the best matrixclay 

existing within reach of Hiram Abif, and 

it is found only in `the clay ground between 

Succoth and Zeredatha' ; and considerable as 

was the distance, and extremely inconvenient 

as was the locality, so important did that 

master-workman deem it, to secure a sharp 

and perfect mould for his castings, that, as 

the Biblical record informs us, he established 

his furnaces there ." 

Clean Hands. Clean hands are a symbol 

of purity. The psalmist says "that he only 

shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or shall 

stand in his holy place, who hath clean hands 

and a pure heart ." Hence, the washing of the 

hands is an outward sign of an internal purification 

; and the psalmist says in another 

place, "I will wash my hands in innocence . 

And I will encompass thine altar, Jehovah ." 

In the Ancient Mysteries the washing of the 

hands was always an introductory ceremony

CLEAVE 

CLERMONT 1,55 

to the initiation ; and, of course, it was used 

symbolically to indicate the necessity of purity 

from crime as a qualification of those who 

sought admission into the sacred rites ; and 

hence, on a temple in the Island of Crete, this 

inscription was placed : "Cleanse your feet, 

wash your hands, and then enter." Indeed, 

the washing of hands, as symbolic of purity, 

was among the ancients a peculiarly religious 

rite. No one dared to pray to the gods until he 

had cleansed his hands . Thus, Homer makes 

Hector say : 

" xepai 8' avi,rrow v Alt Aetsety ateoaa oivov 

"Atoµat." (Iliad, vi., 266 .) 

"I dread with unwashed hands to bring 

My incensed wine to Jove an offering ." 

In a similar spirit of reli ion, 1Eneas, when 

leaving burning Troy, reuses to enter the 

Temple of Ceres until his hands, polluted by 

recent strife, had been washed in the living 

stream . 

Me hello e tanto digressum et `cede recenti, 

Attrectare nefas, donee me flumine vivo 

Abluero." (,'n., ii., 718.) 

"In me, now fresh from war and recent strife, 

'T is impious the sacred things to touch, 

Till in the living stream myself I bathe ." 

The same practise prevailed among the 

Jews, and a striking instance of the symbolism 

is exhibited in that well-known action of 

Pilate who, when the Jews clamored for Jesus 

that they might crucify him, appeared before 

the people, and, having taken water, washed 

his hands, saying at the same time, Ì am innocent 

of the blood of this just man, see ye to 

it." 

The white gloves worn by Masons as a part 

of their clothing, alluded to this symbolizing 

of clean hands ; and what in some of the high 

degrees has been called "Masonic Baptism" 

is nothing else but the symbolizing, by a ceremony, 

this doctrine of clean hands as the sign 

of a pure heart . 

Cleave. The word to cleave is twice used 

in Masonry, and each time in an opposite 

sense . First, in the sense of adhering, where 

the sentence in which it is employed is in the 

Past Master's Degree, and is taken from the 

137th Psalm : "Let my tongue cleave to the 

roof of my mouth" ; second, in the Master's 

Degree, where, in the expression "The flesh 

cleaves from the bone," it has the intransitive 

meaning of to separate, and is equivalent to 

"the flesh parts, or separates, itself from the 

bone ." In this latter use the word is obsolete, 

and used only technically as a Masonic term . 

Cleche . A cross charged with another of 

the same figure, but whose color is that of the 

field . 

Clefts of the Rocks . The whole of Palestine 

is very mountainous, and these mountains 

abound in deep clefts or eaves, which 

were anciently places of refuge to the nhabitants 

in time of war, and were often used as 

lurking places for robbers . It is, therefore, 

strictly m accordance with geographical truth 

that the statement, in relation to the concealment 

of certain persons in the clefts of the 

rocks, is made in the Third Degree . (See the 

latter part of the article Caverns .) 

Clement XU . A Pope who assumed the 

pontificate on the 12th of August, 1730, and 

died on the 6th of February, 1740 . On the 

24th of April, 1738, he published his celebrated 

bull of excommunication, entitled In 

Eminenti Apostolatus Specula, in which we 

find these words : "For which reason the temporal 

and spiritual communities are enjoined, 

in the name of holy obedience, neither to enter 

the society of Freemasons, to disseminate its 

principles, to defend it, nor to admit nor conceal 

it within their houses or palaces, or elsewhere, 

under pain of excommunication ipso 

facto, for all acting in contradiction to this, 

and from which the pope only can absolve the 

dying." Clement was a bitter persecutor of 

the Masonic Order, and hence he caused his 

Secretary of State, the Cardinal Firrao, to 

issue on the 14th of January, 1739, a still 

more stringent edict for the Papal States, in 

which death and confiscation of property, 

without hope of mercy, was the penalty, or, as 

the original has it, "sotto Pena della morte, e 

confiscazione de beni da incorressi, i remissibilmente 

senz a speranza di grazia ." 

Clerks of Strict - Observance . Known 

also as the Spiritual Branch of the Templars, 

or Clerici Ordinis Templarii . This was a 

schism from the Order or Rite of Strict Observance, 

and was founded by Starck in 1767 . 

The members of this Rite established it as a 

rival of the latter system . They claimed a 

preeminence not only over the Rite of Strict 

Observance, but also over all the Lodges of 

ordinary Masonry, and asserted that they alone 

possessed the true secrets of the Order, and 

knew the place where the treasures of the 

Templars were deposited . (For a further history 

of this Rite, see Starck.) The Rite consisted 

of seven degrees, viz . : 1, 2 and 3 . Symbolic 

Masonry. 4 . Junior Scottish Mason, or 

Jungschotte . 5 . Scottish Master, or Knight 

of St . Andrew . 6 . Provincial Capitular of the 

Red Cross . 7 . Magus, or Knight of Purity 

and Light . Clavel (Histoire Pittoresque, p . 

186) gives different names to some of the 

degrees. This last was subdivided into five 

sections, as follows : I . Knight Novice of the 

third year. II . Knight Novice of the fifth 

year. III . Knight Novice of the seventh year . 

IV. Levite, and V . Priest . Ragon errs in calling 

this the Rite of Lax Observance . 

Clermont, Chapter of. On the 24th of 

November 1754, the Chevalier de Bonneville 

established in Paris a Chapter of the high 

degrees under this name, which was derived 

from the Jesuitical Chapter of Clermont . 

This society was composed of many distinguished 

persons of the court and city, who, 

disgusted with the dissensions of the Parisian 

Lodges, determined to separate from them . 

They adopted the Templar system, which had 

been created at Lyons, m 1743, and their Rite 

consisted at first of but six degrees, viz . : 1 2 

3 . St. John's Masonry . 4. Knight of !&'

156 CLERMONT 

CLOUDED 

Eagle . 5 . Illustrious Knight or Templar. 6 . 

Sublime Illustrious Knight . But soon after 

the number of these degrees was greatly extended 

. The Baron de Hund received the high 

degrees in this Chapter, and derived from them 

the idea of the Rite of Strict Observance, 

which he subsequently established in Germany. 

Clermont, College of. A college of 

Jesuits in Paris, where James II ., after his 

flight from England, in 1688, resided until his 

removal to St . Germains. During his residence 

there, he is said to have sought the establishment 

of a system of Freemasonry, the 

object of which should be the restoration of 

the House of Stuart to the throne of England . 

Relics of this attempted system are still to be 

found in many of the high degrees, and the 

Chapter of Clermont, subsequently organized 

in Paris, appears to have had some reference 

to it . 

Clermont, Count of. Louis of Bourbon, 

prince of the blood and Count of Clermont, 

was elected by sixteen of the Paris Lodges perpetual 

Grand Master, for the purpose of correcting 

the numerous abuses which had crept 

into French Masonry. He did not, however, 

fulfil the expectations of the French Masons ; 

for the next year he abandoned the supervision 

of the Lodges, and new disorders arose . 

He still, however, retained the Grand Mastership, 

and died in 1771, being succeeded by his 

nephew, the Duke of Chartres. 

Clinton, De Witt . A distinguished statesman, 

who was born at Little Britain, New 

York, March 2, 1769 and died on the 11th of 

February, 1828 . Ve entered the Masonic 

Order in 1793, and the next year was elected 

Master of his Lodge . In 1806, he was elevated 

to the position of Grand Master of the Grand 

Lodge of New York, and in 1814, to that of 

Grand Master of the Grand Encampment . 

In 1816, he was elected General Grand High 

Priest of the General Grand Chapter of the 

United States . In 1813, he became unwittingly 

complicated with the Spurious Consistory, 

established by Joseph Cerneau in the 

city of New York, but he took no active part 

in its proceedings, and soon withdrew from all 

connection with it. When the anti-Masonic 

excitement arose in this country in 1826, in 

consequence of the affair of William Morgan, 

whom the Masons were accused of having put 

to death, Mr. Clinton was Governor of the 

State of New York, and took all the necessary 

measures for the arrest of the supposed criminals 

. But, although he offered a liberal reward 

for their detection he was charged by 

the anti-Masons with official neglect and indifference, 

charges which were undoubtedly 

false and malicious . Spenser, the special 

attorney of the State, employed for the prosecution 

of the offenders, went so far as to 

resign his office, and to assign, as a reason for 

his resignation, the want of sympathy and 

support on the part of the Executive . But all 

of the accusations and insinuations are properly 

to be attributed to political excitement, 

anti-Masonry having been adopted soon after 

its origin by the politicians as an engine for 

their advancement to office. Clinton was an 

honorable man and a true patriot . He was 

also an ardent and devoted Mason . 

Closing . The duty of closing the Lodge 

is as imperative, and the ceremony as solemn, 

as that of opening ; nor should it ever be 

omitted through negligence, nor hurried over 

with haste but everything should be performed 

with order and precision so that no 

brother shall go away dissatisfied. From the 

very nature of our Constitution, a Lodge cannot 

properly be adjourned. It must be closed 

either in due form, or the brethren called off 

to refreshment . But an adjournment on motion, 

as in other societies, is unknown to the 

Order . The Master can alone dismiss the 

brethren, and that dismission must take place 

after a settled usage . In Grand Lodges which 

meet for several days successively, the session 

is generally continued from day to day, by 

calling to refreshment at the termination of 

each day's sitting . 

Clothed . A Mason is said to be properly 

clothed when he wears white leather gloves, a 

white apron, and the jewel of his Masonic 

rank . The gloves are now often, but improperly, 

dispensed with, except on public occasions 

. "No Mason is permitted to enter a 

Lodge or join in its labors unless he is properly 

clothed ." Lenning, speaking of Continental 

Masonry, under the article Kleidung 

in his Lexicon, says that the clothing of a 

Freemason consists of apron, gloves, sword, 

and hat . In the York and American Rites, the 

sword and hat are used only in the degrees of 

chivalry . In the catechisms of the early eighteenth 

century the Master of a Lodge was described 

as clothed in a yellow jacket and a blue 

pair of breeches, in allusion to the brass top 

and steel legs of a pair of compasses . After the 

middle of the century, he was said to be 

"clothed in the old colors, viz ., purple, crimson, 

and blue" ; and the reason assigned for it 

was "because they are royal, and such as the 

ancient kings and princes used to wear ." The 

actual dress of a Master Mason was, however, 

a full suit of black, with white neck-cloth, 

apron, gloves, and stockings ; the buckles 

being of silver, and the jewels being suspended 

from a white ribbon by way of collar . (For the 

clothing and decorations of the different degrees, 

see Regalia .) 

Clothing the Lodge. In the "Generat 

Regulations," approved by the Grand Lodge 

of England in 1721, it is provided in article 

seven that "Every new Brother at his making 

is decently to cloath the Lodge, that is, all the 

Brethren present ; and to deposit something 

for the relief of indigent and decayed Brethren 

." By "clothing the Lodge" was meant 

furnishing the Brethren with gloves and 

aprons. The regulation no longer exists . It is 

strange that Oliver should have quoted as the 

authority for this usage a subsequent regulation 

of 1767. In Scotland this was practised 

in several Lodges to a comparatively recent 

date . 

Clouded Canopy. 

See Canopy, Clouded.

CLOUD 

COLE 157 

Cloud, Pillar of. See Pillars of Cloud and 

Fire . 

Cloudy. A word sometimes improperly 

used by the Wardens of a Lodge when reporting 

an unfavorable result of the ballot . The 

proper word is foul. 

Clubs . The eighteenth century was distinguished 

in England by the existence of 

numerous local and ephemeral associations 

under the name of clubs, where men of different 

classes of society met for amusement and 

recreation . Each profession and trade had its 

club, and "whatever might be a man's character 

or disposition," says Oliver, "he would find 

in London a club that would square with his 

ideas." Addison, in his paper on the origin of 

clubs (Spectator, No . 9), remarks : "Man is 

said to be a social animal, and as an instance of 

it we may observe that we take all occasions 

and pretences of forming ourselves into those 

little nocturnal assemblies which are comm 

known by the name of clubs . When a 

set omen find themselves agree in any particular, 

though never so trivial, they establish 

themselves into a kind of fraternity and meet 

once or twice a week, upon the account of such 

a fantastic resemblance ." Hard drinking was 

characteristic of those times, and excesses too 

often marked the meetings of these societies . 

It was at this time that the Institution of 

Freemasonry underwent its revival commonly 

known as the revival of 1717, and it is 

not strange that its social character was somewhat 

affected by the customs of the day . The 

Lodges therefore assumed at that time too 

much of a convivial character, derived from 

the customs of the existing clubs and coteries ; 

but the moral and religious principles upon 

which the Institution was founded prevented 

any undue indulgence ; and although the 

members were permitted the enjoyment of 

decent refreshment, there was a standing law 

which provided against all excess . 

Coat of the Tiler . In olden times it was 

deemed proper that the Tiler of a Lodge, like 

the beadle of a parish-whose functions were 

in some respects similar-should be distinguished 

by a tawdry dress . In a schedule of 

the regalia, records, etc ., of the Grand Lodge 

of all England, taken at York in 1779, to be 

found in Hughan's Masonic Sketches and Repnnts 

(p 33), we find the following item : "a 

blue cloth coat with a red collar for the Tyler ." 

Cochleus. A very corrupt word in the 

Fourth Degree of the Scottish Rite ; there said 

to signify in the form of a screw, and to be the 

name of the winding staircase which led to the 

middle chamber. The true Latin word is 

cochlea. But the matter is so historically 

absurd that the word ought to be and is rejected 

in the modern rituals . 

Cock. The ancients made the cock a 

symbol of courage, and consecrated him to 

Mars, Pallas, and Bellona, deities of war . 

Some have supposed that it is in reference to 

this quality that the cock is used in the jewel 

of the Captain-General of an Encampment of 

Knights Templar. 

Reghellini, however, gives a different ex- 

planation of this symbol. He says that the 

cock was the emblem of the sun and of life, 

and that as the ancient Christians allegorically 

deplored the death of the solar orb in 

Christ, the cock recalled its life and resurrection 

. The cock, we know, was a symbol 

among the early Christians, and is repeatedly 

to be found on the tombs in the catacombs of 

Rome . Hence it seems probable that we 

should give a Christian interpretation to the 

jewel of a Knights Templar as symbolic of the 

resurrection. . 

Cockade . Some few of the German 

Lodges have a custom of permitting their 

members to wear a blue cockade in the hat as 

a symbol of equality and freedom-a symbolism 

which, as Lenning says, it is difficult to 

understand, and the decoration is inappropriate 

as a part of the clothing of a Mason . Yet 

it is probable that it was a conception of this 

kind that induced Cagliostro to prescribe the 

cockade as a part of the investiture of a female 

candidate in the initiation of his Lodges 

Clavel says the Venerable or Master of a 

French Lodge wears a black cockade . 

Cockle-Shell . The cockle-shell was worn 

by ilgrims in their hats as a token of their 

profession ; now used in the ceremonies of 

Templarism . 

Caetus . Latin. An assembly. It is incorrectly 

used in some old Latin Masonic 

diplomas for a Lodge . It is used by Laurence 

Dermott in a diploma dated September 10 

1764, where he signs himself "Sec . M . Ceetus,'1 

or Secretary of the Grand Lodge . 

Coffin. In the Ancient Mysteries the 

aspirant could not claim a participation in 

the highest secrets until he had been placed in 

the Pastos, bed or coffin . The placing him in 

the coffin was called the symbolical death of 

the mysteries, and his deliverance was termed 

a raising from the dead . "The mind," says an 

ancient writer, quoted by Stobaeus, "is affected 

in death just as it is in the initiation into 

the mysteries . And word answers to word, as 

well as thing to thing ; for TEXEVra' is to die, 

and rEA&neat, to be initiated ." The coffin in 

Masonry is found on tracing boards of the 

early part of the last century, and has always 

constituted a part of the symbolism of the 

Third Degree, where the reference is precisely 

the same as that of the Pastos in the Ancient 

Mysteries. 

Cohen . 1'c . A Hebrew word signifying 

a priest. The French Masonic writers, indulging 

in a Gallic custom of misspelling all names 

derived from other languages, universally spell 

it coen. 

Cohens, Elected . See Paschalis, Martinez. 

Cole, Benjamin . He published at London, 

in 1728, and again in 1731, the Old Constitutions, 

engraved on thirty copper plates, 

under the title of A Book of the Ancient Constitutions 

of the Free and Accepted Masons . In 

1751, Cole printed a third edition with the 

title of The Ancient Constitutions and Charges 

of Freemasons, with a true representation of 

their noble Art in several Lectures or Speeches .

158 COLE 

COLLOCATIO 

Subsequent editions were published up to 

1794. Bro . Richard Spencer, the wellknown 

Masonic bibliographer, says that Cole engraved 

his plates from a MS . which he calls 

the Constitutions of 1726, or from a similar 

MS . by the same scribe . Bro. Hughan published 

in 1869 in his Constitutions of the 

Freemasons, in a limited edition of seventy 

copies, a lithograph facsimile of the 1729 

Edition of Cole, and in 1897 a facsimile 

of the 1731 Edition, which was limited to 

200 copies was published by Mr . Richard 

Jackson of Leeds, with an introduction by 

Bro. Hughan . 

Cole, Samuel. He was at one time the 

Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Maryland, 

and the author of a work entitled The 

Freemason's Library, or General Ahiman Rezon, 

the first edition of which appeared in 1817, 

and the second in 1826 . It is something more 

than a mere monitor or manual of the degrees, 

and greatly excels in literary pretensions the 

contemporary works of Webb and Cross. 

Cole's Manuscript . The MS . from which 

Cole is supposed to have made his engraved 

Constitutions, now known as the Spencer MS . 

It was in the possession of Bro . Richard Spencer, 

who published it in 1871, under the title 

of A Book of the Ancient Constitutions of the 

Free and Accepted Masons . Anno Dom ., 1786. 

The subtitle is The Beginning and First 

Foundation of the Most Worthy Craft of Masonry, 

with the charges thereunto belonging. In 

1875 it was bought by Mr . E . T . Carson of 

Cincinnati, U . S. A . 

Collar. An ornament worn around the 

neck by the officers of Lodges, to which is suspended 

a jewel indicative of the wearer's rank . 

The color of the collar varies in the different 

grades of Masonry . That of a symbolic Lodge 

is blue ; of a Past Master, purple ; of a Royal 

Arch Mason, scarlet ; of a Secret Master, 

white bordered with black ; of a Perfect Master, 

green, etc . These colors are not arbitrary, 

but are each accompanied with a symbolic 

signification . 

In the United States, the collar worn by 

Grand Officers in the Grand Lodge is, properly, 

pur le edged with gold . In the Grand Lodge 

of England, the Grand Officers wear chains of 

gold or metal gilt instead of collars, but on 

other occasions, collars of ribbon, garter blue, 

four inches broad, embroidered or plain . 

The-use of the collar in Masonry, as an 

official decoration, is of very old date . It is a 

regulation that its form should be triangular ; 

that is, that it should terminate on the breast 

in a point. The symbolical reference is evident 

. The Masonic collar is derived from the 

practises of heraldry ; collars are worn not 

only by municipal officers and officers of State, 

but also by knights of the different orders as a 

part of their investiture . 

College. The regular Convocation of the 

subordinate bodies of the Society of Rosicrucians 

is called an Assemblage of the College, 

at which their mysteries are celebrated by initiation 

and advancement, at the conclusion 

of which the Mystic Circle is broken . 

Colleges, Irish . These Were established 

in Paris between 1730 and 1740, and were 

rapidly being promulgated over France, when 

they were superseded by the Scottish Chapters. 

Colleges, Masonic . There was atone time 

a great disposition exhibited by the Fraternity 

of the United States to establish colleges, to 

be placed under the supervision of Grand 

Lodges . The first one ever endowed in this 

country was that at Lexington, in Missouri, 

established by the Grand Lodge of that State, 

in October, 1841, which for some time pursued 

a prosperous career. Other GrandLodges, such 

as those of Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas, 

North Carolina, Florida, and a few others, 

subsequently either actually organized or took 

the preliminary steps for organizing Masonic 

colleges in their respective jurisdictions. But 

experience has shown that there is an incongruity 

between the official labors of a Grand 

Lodge as the Masonic head of the Order and 

the superintendence and support of a college . 

Hence, these institutions have been very generally 

discontinued, and the care of providing 

for the education of indigent children of the 

Craft has been wisely committed to the subordinate 

Lodges. 

The late Thomas Brown, the distinguished 

Grand Master of Florida, thus expressed the 

following correct views on this subject : 

"We question if the endowment of colleges 

and large seminaries of learning, under the 

auspices and patronage of Masonic bodies, be 

the wisest plan for the accomplishment of the 

great design, or is in accordance with the 

character and principles of the Fraternity . 

Such institutions savor more of pageantry 

than utility ; and as large funds, amassed for 

such purposes, must of necessity be placed 

under the control and management of comparatively 

few, it will have a corrupting influence, 

promote discord, and bring re roach 

upon the Craft. The principles of Masonry 

do not sympathize with speculations in stock 

and exchange brokerage . Such, we fear, will 

be the evils attendant on such institutions, to 

say nothing of the questionable right and 

policy of drawing funds from the subordinate 

Lodges, which could be appropriated by their 

proper officers more judiciously, economically, 

and faithfully to the accomplishment of the 

same great and desirable object in the true 

Masonic spirit of charity, which is the bond of 

peace ." 

Collegla Artifleum . Colleges of Artif. 

icers . (See Roman Colleges of Artificers .) 

Collegium. In Roman jurisprudence, a 

collegium, or college, expressed the idea of 

several persons united together in any office 

or for any common purpose . It required not 

less than three to constitute a college, according 

to the law maxim, "Tree faciunt 

collegium" (Three make a college), and 

hence, perhaps, the Masonic rule that not 

fewer than three Master Masons can form a 

Lodge . 

Collocatio. The Greek custom of exposing 

the corpse on a bier over night,

COLOGNE 

COLOGNE 159 

near the threshold, that all might be convinced 

of the normal death. 

Cologne, Cathedral of. The city of 

Cologne, on the banks of the Rhine, is memorable 

in the history of Freemasonry for the 

connection of its celebrated Cathedral with the 

labors of the Steinmetzen of Germany, whence 

it became the seat of one of the most important 

Lodges of that period . It has been asserted 

that Albertus Magnus designed the 

plan, and that he there also altered the Constitution 

of the Fraternity, and gave it a new 

code of laws . It is at least clear that in this 

Cathedral the symbolic principles of Gothic 

architecture, the distinguishing style of the 

Traveling Freemasons, were carried out in 

deeper significance than in any other building 

of the time. Whether the document known as 

the Charter of Cologne be authentic or not, and 

it is fairly well established that it is not, the 

fact that it is claimed to have emanated from 

the Lodge of that place, gives to the Cathedral 

an importance in the views of the Masonic 

student . 

The Cathedral of Cologne is one of the most 

beautiful religious edifices in the world, and 

the vastest construction of Gothic architecture. 

The primitive Cathedral, which was 

consecrated in 873, was burned in 1248 . The 

present one was commenced in 1249, and the 

work upon it continued until 1509 . But during 

that long period the labors were often interrupted 

by the sanguinary contests which 

raged between the city and its archbishops, so 

that only the choir and the chapels which surrounded 

it were finished . In the eighteenth 

century it suffered much from the ignorance 

of its own canons, who subjected it to unworthy 

mutilations, and during the French 

Revolution it was used as a military depot . 

In 1820, this edifice, ravaged by men and mutilated 

by time, began to excite serious anxieties 

for the solidity of its finished portions . 

The debris of the venerable pile were even 

about to be overthrown, when archeologic 

zeal and religious devotion came to the rescue 

. Societies were formed for its restoration 

by the aid of permanent subscriptions, which 

were liberally supplied ; and it was resolved to 

finish the gigantic structure according to the 

original plans which had been conceived by 

Gerhard de Saint Trond, the ancient master 

of the works . The works were renewed under 

the direction of M . Zwiner . The building is 

now completed ; Mr. Seddon says (Ramb. on 

the Rhine, p . 16), "It is without question, one 

of the most stupendous structures ever conceived 

." 

There is a story, that may be only a tradition, 

that there was a book written by 

Albertus Magnus called Liber Constructionum 

Alberti, which contained the secrets of the 

Operative Masons, and particularly giving 

directions of how to lay the foundations of 

cathedrals . 

Even though these builders had a special 

treatise on laying the foundations of cathedrals, 

they had not made provision for inventions 

which carte later. It has been shown 

that lately the foundations of the Cathedral 

were being loosened by the constant shaking 

from the railway trains that now run near, so 

that they became unsafe and seriously threat . 

ened the destruction of this wonderful master . 

piece of Gothic architecture . The German 

Government came to the relief and saved the 

structure . [E . E . C .] 

Cologne, Charter of . This is an interesting 

Masonic document, originally written in 

Latin, and purporting to have been issued in 

1535. Its history, as given by those who first 

offered it to the public, and who claim that it 

is authentic, is as follows : From the year 

1519 to 1601, there existed in the city of Amsterdam, 

in Holland, a Lodge whose name was 

Het Vredendall, or The Valley of Peace . In 

the latter year, circumstances caused the 

Lodge to be closed, but in 1637 it was revived, 

by four of its surviving members, under the 

name of Frederick's Vredendall, or Frederick's 

Valley of Peace. In this Lodge, at the time of 

its restoration, there was found a chest, bound 

with brass and secured by three locks and 

three seals, which, according to a protocol 

published on the 29th of January, 1637, contained 

the following documents : 

1 . The original warrant of constitution of 

the Lodge Het Vredendall, written in the 

English language. 2. A roll of all the members 

of the Lodge from 1519 to 1601 . 3 . The 

original charter given to the Brotherhood at 

the city of Cologne, and which is now known 

among Masonic historians as the Charter of 

Cologne. 

It is not known how long these documents 

remained in possession of the Lodge at Amsterdam. 

But they were subsequently remitted 

to the charge of Bro . James Van 

Vasner, Lord of Opdem, whose signature is 

appended to the last attestation of The Hague 

register, under the date of the 2d of February, 

16y38 . After his death, they remained among 

the papers of his family until 1790, when M . 

Walpenaer, one of his descendants, presented 

them to Bro. Van Boetzelaer, who was then 

the Grand Master of the Lodges of Holland. 

Subsequently they fell into the hands 

of some person whose name is unknown, but 

who, in 1816, delivered them to Prince Frederick. 

There is a story that the Prince received 

these documents accompanied by a letter, 

written in a female hand, and signed "C ., 

child of V . J." In this letter the writer states 

that she had found the documents among the 

papers of her father, who had received them 

from Mr . Van Boetzelaer. It is suspected that 

the authoress of the letter was the daughter 

of Bro . Van Jeylinger, who was the successor 

of Van Boetzelaer as Grand Master of 

Holland . 

There is another version of the history 

which states that these documents had long 

been in the possession of the family of Wassenaer 

Van Opdem, by a member of which 

they were presented to Van Boetzelaer, who 

subsequently gave them to Van Jeylinger, 

with strict injunctions to preserve them until

160 COLOGNE 

COLORADO 

the restitution of the Orange regency . The 

originals are now, or were very lately, deposited 

in the archives of a Lodge at Namur, 

on the Meuse ; but copies of the charter were 

given to the Fraternity under the following 

circumstances : 

In the year 1819, Prince Frederick of Nassau, 

who was then the Grand Master of the 

National Grand Lodge of Holland, contemplating 

a reformation in Masonry, addressed 

a circular on this subject to all the Lodges 

under his jurisdiction, for the purpose of enlisting 

them in behalf of his project, and accompanied 

this circular with copies of the 

charter which he had caused to be taken in 

facsimile, and also of the register of the Amsterdam 

Lodge, Valley of Peace, to which I 

have already referred as contained in the 

brass-mounted chest . A transcript of the 

charter in the original Latin, with all its errors, 

was published, in 1818, in the Annales Magonniques. 

The document was also presented to 

the public in a German version, in 1819, by 

Dr . Fred. Heldmann ; but his translation has 

been proved, by Lenning and others, to be exceedingly 

incorrect . In 1821, Dr. Krause published 

it in his celebrated work entitled The 

Three Oldest Masonic Documents . It has been 

frequently published since in a German translation, 

in whole or in part, but is accessible to 

the English reader only in Burnes' Sketch of 

the History of the Knights Templars (London, 

1840) ; in the English translation of Findel's 

History of Freemasonry, and in the American 

Quarterly Review of Freemasonry, where it was 

published with copious notes by the author of 

the present work. P . J. Schouten, a Dutch 

writer on the history of Freemasonry, who had 

undoubtedly seen the original document, describes 

it as being written on parchment in 

Masonic cipher, in the Latin language, the 

characters uninjured by time, and the subscription 

of the names not in cipher, but in the 

ordinary cursive character . The Latin is that 

of the Middle Ages, and is distinguished by 

many incorrectly spelled words, and frequent 

grammatical solecisms. Thus, we find "bagistri" 

for "magistri," "trigesimo" for "tricesimo," 

"ad nostris ordinem" for "ad nostrum 

ordinem," etc . 

Of the authenticity of this document, it is 

but fair to say that there are well-founded 

doubts among many Masonic writers . The 

learned antiquaries of the University of Le - 

den have testified that the paper on which the 

register of the Lodge at The Hague is written, 

is of the same kind that was used in Holland at 

the commencement of the seventeenth century, 

which purports to be its date, and that the 

characters in which it is composed are of the 

same period . This register, it will be remembered, 

refers to the Charter of Cologne as 

existing at that time ; so that if the learned 

men of Leyden have not been deceived, the 

fraud--supposing that there is one in the 

charter-must be more than two centuries old . 

Dr. Burnes professes to have no faith in the 

document, and the editors of the Hermes at 

once declare it to be surreptitious. But the 

condemnation of Burnes is too sweeping in its 

character, as it includes with the charter all 

other German documents on Freemasonry ; 

and the opinion of the editors of the Hermes 

must be taken with some grains of allowance, 

as they were at the time engaged in a controversy 

with the Grand Master of Holland, and 

in the defense of the high degrees, whose 

claims to antiquity this charter would materially 

impair . Dr. Oliver, on the other hand, 

quotes it unreservedly, in his Landmarks, as 

an historical document worthy of credit ; and 

Reghellini treats it as authentic . In Germany, 

the Masonic authorities of the highest reputation, 

such as Heldermann, Morsdorf, Moss, 

and many others, have repudiated it as a 

spurious production, most probably of the 

beginning of the present century . oss objects 

to the document, that customs are referred 

to in it that were not known in the rituals 

of initiation until 1731 ; that the higher 

degrees were nowhere known until 1725 ; that 

none of the eighteen copied documents have 

been found ; that the declaimer against Templar 

Masonry was unnecessary in 1535, as no 

Templar degrees existed until 1741 ; that some 

of the Latin expressions are not such as were 

likely to have been used ; and a few other objections 

of a similar character . Bobrik, who 

published, in 1840, the Text, Translation, and 

Examination of the Cologne Document, also 

advances some strong critical arguments 

against its authenticity . On the whole, the 

arguments to disprove the genuineness of the 

charter appear to be very convincing, and are 

strong enough to throw at least great doubt 

upon it as being anything else but a modern 

forgery. [See Gould's History of Freemasonry 

(i ., 496), where the question of the authenticity 

of the document is examined, and it is 

classed among Apocryphal Manuscripts .- 

E . L . H .] 

Cologne, Congress of. A Congress which 

is said to have been convened in 1525, by the 

most distinguished Masons of the time, in 

the city of Cologne, as the representatives of 

nineteen Grand Lodges, who are said to have 

issued the celebrated manifesto, in defense of 

the character and aims of the Institution, 

known as the Charter of Cologne. Whether 

this Congress was ever held is a moot point 

among Masonic writers, most of them contending 

that it never was, and that it is simply 

an invention of the early part of the present 

century . (See Cologne, Charter of .) 

Colonial Lodges . Lodges in the colonies 

of Great Britain are under the immediate 

supervision and jurisdiction of District Grand 

Lodges, to which title the reader is referred . 

Colorado. Freemasonry was introduced 

into the territory of Colorado in 1860, in which 

year the Grand Lodge of Kansas chartered 

Golden City Lodge at Golden City . In 1861 

two other Lodges, Rocky Mountain at Gold 

Hill and Summit Lodge at Parkville, were 

chartered by the Grand Lodge of Nebraska . 

On August 2, 1861, representatives from these 

three Lodges met in convention at Golden 

City, and organized the Grand Lodge of Col-

COLORED 

COMACINE 161 

orado, the Grand East of which was placed at 

Denver. J. M . Chivington was elected first 

Grand Master . Chapters of Royal Arch 

Masons and a Commandery of Knights Templar 

were subsequently introduced . 

Colored Fraternities . The secret societies 

of negroes claiming to be Masonic are 

quite extensive, embracing Grand Lodges in 

practically every State . (See Negro Masonry.) 

Colors, Symbolism of. Wemyss, in his 

Clavis Symbolica, says : "Color, which is outwardly 

seen on the habit of the body, is symbolically 

used to denote the true state of the 

person or subject to which it is applied, according 

to its nature ." This definition may 

appropriately be borrowed on the present occasion, 

and applied to the system of Masonic 

colors . The color of a vestment or of a decoration 

is never arbitrarily adopted in Freemasonry 

. Every color is selected with a view to 

its power in the symbolic alphabet, and it 

teaches the initiate some instructive moral 

lesson, or refers to some important historical 

fact in the .system . 

Frederic Portal, a French archeologist, has 

written a valuable treatise on the symbolism 

of colors, under the title of Des Couleurs Symboliques 

dans l'antiquite, le moyen dge et les 

temps modernes, which is well worth the attention 

of Masonic students . The Masonic 

colors are seven in number, namely : 1, blue ; 

2, purple ; 3 red ; 4, white; 5, black ; 6, 

green ; 7, yellow ; 8, violet. (See those respective 

titles .) 

Columbia, District of. The Grand 

Lodge of the District of Columbia was organized 

December 11, 1810, by Lodges having 

warrants from Maryland and Virginia, and 

Valentine Reintzel was elected Grand Master . 

It has 27 Lodges under it. The Grand 

Chapter formed, originally, a component 

part of the Grand Chapter of Maryland and 

the District of Columbia ; but the connection 

was dissevered in 1867, and an independent 

Grand Chapter formed, which has now 

five Chapters under its jurisdiction . There is 

neither a Grand Commandery nor Grand 

Council in the Territory, but several Commanderies 

subordinate to the Grand Encampment 

of the United States and a Council of 

Royal and Select Masters chartered by the 

Grand Council of Massachusetts . The Scottish 

Rite has also been successfully cultivated, 

and there are in operation a Lodge of 

Perfection and a Chapter of Rose Croix . 

Column. Around ~pillar made to supporas 

well as to adorn a building, whose construction 

varies in the different orders of architect 

ture. In Masonry, columns have a symbolic 

signification as the supports of a Lodge, and 

are known as the Columns of Wisdom, 

Strength, and Beauty. The broken column is 

also a symbol in Masonry . (See the titles 

Supports of the Lodge and Broken Column .) 

Comacine Masters . It has long been a 

theory of some writers, secular and Masonic, 

that there was a direct succession of the operative 

gilds from the Roman Colleges to those 

who merged into Speculative Masonry in 

1717, and as investigation proceeded, the 

proofs became stronger and stronger until 

now it can no longer reasonably be doubted . 

At first it was not attempted to prove the 

succession it was only inferred, but recently 

more careful investigators have come to view, 

whose results go far in establishing the direct 

succession from Roman Colleges to Speculative 

Masonry . 

The principal purpose of this article is to 

put a link in the chain of operative gilds and 

establish a continuous connection from the 

oldest gild formation (Roman Colleges which 

see) through the Lombard period and lztenaissance 

to the formation of Speculative Masonry 

by the English gilds . 

Before beginning the description of the 

Comacine Masters, which, from the controversial 

character of the subject, must of necessity 

be kindred to a discussion resting heavily 

on citations and quoted authorities who 

have worked in this special field, it will be 

necessary to draw a fair picture of the Roman 

possessions and civilization at this period . 

When Rome had passed the zenith of her 

power and had begun to decline from internal 

and external causes, it is but natural to suppose 

that her neighboring enemies noticed 

this, and as they had long looked upon Italy 

with avaricious eyes, felt the time had arrived 

for them to attain what they had most desired 

. The year 476 A.D., when the last of 

the nominal Cmsars ceased to rule in the 

West, is usually taken by historians as marking 

the fall of the Roman Empire. However 

true that may be, the falling began when Constantine 

established the seat of his empire 

at Constantinople, in 327 and drew much 

strength from Rome, thereby making it easier 

for the Vandals and Goths to renew their attacks. 

For five centuries horde after horde 

of barbarians flung themselves against the 

Roman frontiers, each striking deeper than 

the last, and being repelled with greater and 

greater difficulty, the Empire sinking beneath 

internal decay more than from her external 

enemies . 

When the Western Empire ceased in the 

fifth century and Europe was plunged into 

what has been called "The Dark Ages" and 

all progress in letters and the arts of peace is 

supposed to have ceased, it is refreshing to 

quote what John Fiske said in Old and New 

Ways of Treating History, when speaking of 

that period : "In truth the dull ages which no 

Homer has sung or Tacitus described, have 

sometimes been critical ages for human 

progress . . This restriction of the views to 

literary ages has had much to do with the popular 

misconception of the 1,000 years that 

elapsed between the reign of Theodoric the 

Great and the Discovery of America . For 

many reasons that period might be called the 

Middle Ages ; but the popular mind is apt to 

lump these ten centuries together, as if they 

were all alike, and apply to them the misleading 

epithet `Dark Ages .' A portion of the 

darkness is in the minds of those who use 

the epithet."

162 COMACINE 

COMACINE 

I, also, wish to take exception to theirpo sition 

and conclusions, for in the success of my 

exceptions lies the potency and possibility of 

my subject, the Comacine Masters, who lived 

and built at this period, having descended 

from branches of the Roman Colleges of Artificers 

who had come to Como as colonists or 

had fled to this free republic for safety during 

barbaric invasions, creating and developing 

what is called Lombard architecture, and 

forming a powerful gild which later not only 

influenced, but had a connection with the 

gilds of France and Germany at the Re-' 

naissance, thereby establishing a direct line of 

descent of Rbman Colleges to the operative 

gilds that grew into Speculative Masonry . 

It can be understood bow a tribe or a small 

section of people may, from various causes, 

recede in letters, science and civilization, but 

how the world could do so is difficult to comprehend, 

yet the historians and literature 

attempted to confirm this in describing the 

"gloom when the sun of progress was in a 

total or partial eclipse from the fifth to the 

twelfth centuries," or, between the period of 

ancient Classic Art of Rome and that early 

rise of Art in the twelfth century, which led 

to the Renaissance . Leder Scott says that 

"this hiatus is supposed to be a time when Art 

was utterly dead and buried, its corpse in Byzantine 

dress lying embalmed in its tomb at 

Ravenna. But all death is nothing but the 

germ of new life . Art was not a corpse ; it 

was only a seed laid in Italian soil to germinate 

and it bore several plants before the great 

reflowering period of the Renaissance ." 

Those who produced these several plants 

which it bore before the great Cathedral 

Building period that followed the Renaissance, 

will furnish the subject of this article, 

and trust it will be as interesting and important 

to the Masonic student as it is new in 

the literature of Masonry. 

Most things will I trust, become more and 

more clear as we follow up the traces of the 

Comacine Gild from the chrysalis state, in 

which Roman Art hibernated during the dark 

winter of the usually called Dark Ages, as 

Scott says "through the grub state of the 

Lombard period to the glorious winged flight 

of the full Gothic of the Renaissance ." 

Many historians, Masonic and profane, who 

wrote as long as a generation ago, are inclined 

to give the impression that there was but little 

or nothing that transpired during the so-called 

Dark Ages which was essential to the world's 

progress at the time, or worthy of contemplation 

at present . Had their views of the importance 

of historical matter prevailed, we 

would now know very little of what transpired 

from the Fall of the Western part of the 

Roman Empire to the Renaissance . We know 

that many cities in Italy were rebuilt after 

they had been sacked and partly destroyed 

by the Goths and Huns . Many cathedrals 

were built during this period, some of which 

work lasts till to-day, and is worthy workmanship. 

The historical architects have approached 

this period from another angle and 

the results of their efforts now make this article 

possible and open up a new and important 

field for Masonic students . 

Toward the end of the fifth century a new 

wave of barbaric invasions swept over the 

West. North and East Gaul-all not previously 

held by the Visigoths-fell into the 

hands of the Franks (486) . Theodoric and the 

Ostrogoths wrested Italy from Odoacer and 

established the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy, 

with its capital at Ravenna. This kingdom 

was established and governed on exceptionally 

enlightened lines. Theodoric, often called TJie 

Great, was the most broad-minded and advanced 

of all the German conquerors. He was 

a man of culture, yet some have said that he 

could not read . He had been educated from 

his eighth to his eighteenth year at Constantinople. 

His rule was, therefore, more like 

the revival of Roman ideas than a barbarous 

conquest. Accordingly we need not be surprised 

to find him decorating his capital city, 

Havenna, during the period of his occupation, 

(493-526) with a series of monuments which, 

although strongly tinctured with Byzantine 

influence, yet constitute, perhaps, the finest 

examples we possess of the early Christian 

style . Theodoric was an Aryan and opposed 

to the Bishop of Rome. This fact and his 

education at Constantinople are sufficient to 

explain the strong Byzantine elements so 

noticeable even in those monuments at Ravenna, 

which antedate the Byzantine conquest . 

Charles A . Cummings in his History of Architecture 

in Italy says : "One of the earliest acts 

of Theodoric after his accession to the throne 

was the appointment of an architect to have 

charge of all the public buildings-including 

the aqueducts and the city walls-of Ravenna 

and Rome putting at his disposal for this purpose, 

yearly, twelve hundred pounds of gold 

two hundred and fifty thousand bricks, and 

the income of the Lucrine Haven . A remarkable 

letter from Theodoric to this official on 

his appointment is preserved by Cassiodorus, 

who was the minister of the Empire. `These 

excellent buildings,' he says, àre my delight . 

They are the noble image of the power of the 

Empire, and bear witness to its grandeur and 

glory . The palace of the sovereign is shown 

to ambassadors as a monument worthy of 

their admiration, and seems to declare to them 

his greatness. It is then a great pleasure for 

an enlightened prince to inhabit a palace 

where all the perfections of art are united, and 

to find there relaxation from the burden of 

public affairs . . I give you notice that our 

intelligence and talents have determine me 

to confide to your hands the care of my palace . 

It is my wish that you preserve in its original 

splendor all which is ancient, and that whatever 

you add to it may be conformable to it in 

style. It is not a work of small importance 

which I place in your hands, since it will be 

your duty to fulfill by your art the lively desire 

which I feel to illustrate my reign by 

many new edifices ; so that whether the matter 

in hand be the rebuilding of a city, the 

construction of new castles, or the building of

COMACINE 

a Pretorium: it will be for you to translate 

my projects into accomplished realities . And 

this is a service highly honorable and worthy 

of any man's ambition :-to leave to future ages 

the monuments which shall be the admiration 

of new generations of men . It will be your 

duty to direct the mason, the sculptor, the 

painter, the worker in stone, in bronze, in 

plaster, in mosaic. What they know not, you 

will teach them . The difficulties which they 

find in their work, you will solve for them . But 

behold what various knowledge you must possess, 

thus to instruct artificers of so many 

sorts . But if you can direct their work to a 

good and satisfactory end, their success will be 

your eulogy, and will form the most abundant 

and flattering reward you could desire ."' 

From this it may be seen that an architect of 

those days was a complete Master of the art 

of building . He was required to be able to 

construct a building from foundation to roof 

and also to be able to decorate it with sculpture 

and painting, mosaics and bronzes . This 

broad education prevailed in all the schools 

or Lodges up to 1335, when the painters seceded, 

which was followed by other branches 

separating themselves into distinct gilds . 

It is a well-known fact that when the barbarians 

were sacking and carrying away the 

riches of many Italian cities and particularly 

of Rome, people fled to more secure places for 

the better protection of their lives and property 

. Of the various places to which they 

fled onl one interests us in this article . Como 

was a tree republic and many fled there for 

the protection it afforded . Rome had previously 

colonized many thousands in Como before 

the Christian Era . (See Como.) 

The first we hear of the Comacines was 

that they were living on an island called Isola 

Comacina in Lake Como, that most beautiful 

of lakes . They were so well fortified that it 

was years before the island was captured and 

then only by treachery . Their fortifications 

and buildings were similar to those built by 

the Colleges of Artificers at Rome, which gave 

rise to the belief that they were the direct 

descendants from these Roman builders, who 

had built for the Roman Empire for several 

centuries . 

In offering the form of building as best evidence 

of the descent of the Comacines from the 

Roman Colleges, it is appreciated how recorded 

literature, which is usually the word 

and opinions of one person, can be biased, 

changed and often wrong . But all who have 

studied a people in their social, political or religious 

aspects, know how permanent these 

things are and how subject to slow changes . 

Their forms of dress, songs, folk-lore and language 

undergo changes but slowly, climate, 

unsuccessful wars and amalgamation proving 

the most disastrous . But probably none of 

these change so slowly as forms of building, 

unless the latter be subjected to a marked 

change of climate from migration . Architecture 

is one of the noblest and most useful of 

arts and one of the first to attract the attention 

of barbarous people when evoluting into 

COMACINE 168 

a higher civilization, and is at all times an as 

curate measure of a people's standing in civilization 

. 

A law we learn from biology in the morphology 

of animals is that nature never makes a 

new organ when she can modify an old one so 

as to perform the required functions. New 

styles of architecture do not spring from 

human intellect as "creations ." Cattaneo 

says : "Monuments left by a people are truer 

than documents, which often prove fallacious 

and mislead and prove no profit for those who 

blindly follow them . The story of a people 

or a nation, if not known by writings might 

be guessed through its monuments and works 

of art." 

The Lombards who had come from northern 

Germany and settled in northern Italy in 

568, at once began to develop along many 

lines which made Lombardy known all over 

Europe-the result of which influence Europe 

feels to-day . They developed along lines 

which in our every-day parlance may be called 

business . They were not primarily architects 

or builders and they employed the Comacines 

for this kind of work and it was the Comacines 

who developed what is known to-day 

as Lombard architecture, covering a period 

that we may roughly put as from the seventh 

century to the Renaissance . 

The first to draw attention to the name 

Magistri Comacini was the erudite Muratori, 

that searcher out of ancient manuscripts, who 

unearthed from the archives an edict, dated 

November 22, 643, signed by Rotharis, in 

which are included two clauses treating of the 

Magistri Comacini and their colleagues. The 

two clauses, Nos. 143 and 144, out of the 388 

inscribed in cribbed Latin, says Leder Scott, 

are, when anglicized, to the following intent : 

Àrt. 143. Of the Magister Comacinus . If 

the Comacine Master with his colleagues shall 

have contracted to restore or build a house of 

any person whatsoever, the contract for payment 

being made, and it chances that someone 

shall die by the fall of the said house, or any 

material or stone from it the owner of said 

house shall not be cited by the Master Comacinus 

or his brethren to compensate them 

for homicide or injury ; because having for 

their own gain contracted for the payment of 

the building, they just sustain the risk and 

injuries thereof . 

"Art . 144 . Of the engaging and hiring of 

Magistri . If any person has engaged or hired 

one or more of the Comacine Masters to design 

a work, or to daily assist his workmen in 

building a palace or a house, and it shall happen 

by reason of the house some Comacine 

shall be killed, the owner of the house is not 

considered responsible ; but if a pole or stone 

shall injure some extraneous person, the Master 

builder shall not bear the blame, but the 

person who hired him shall make compensation 

." 

Charles A . Cummings says : "The code of 

Luitprand, eighty years later, contains further 

provisions regulating the practice of Comacim, 

which had now become much more

164 COMACINE 

COMACINE 

numerous and important . Fixed rates of payment 

were established for their services, varying 

according to the kind of building on which 

they were engaged • definite prices being allowed 

for walls of various thicknessea, for 

arches and vaults, for chimney a, plastering 

and joiners' work. The difficulty which these 

early builders found in the construction of 

vaults is indicated by the allowance of a charge 

per superficial foot, from fifteen to eighteen 

times as great as in the case of a wall. The 

price of provisions and wine furnished to the 

workmen is also determined and is counted as 

part of their pay ." 

Scott maintains that "these laws prove that 

in the seventh century the Magistri Comacini 

were a compact and powerful gild capable 

of asserting their rights, and that the gild 

was properly organized, having degrees of different 

ranks ; that the higher orders were entitled 

Magistri, and could `design' or 'undertake' 

a work ; 1 . e ., act as architects ; and that 

the colligantes or colleagues worked under, or 

with, them. In fact, a powerful organization 

altogether --so powerful and so solid that it 

spoke of a very ancient foundation . Was it a 

surviving branch of a Roman Collegium? Or 

a decadent group of Byzantine artists stranded 

in Italy?" 

Professor Merzario says : "In this darkness 

which extended all over Italy, only one small 

lamp remained alight, making a bright spark 

in the vast Italian metropolis . It was from the 

Magistri Comacini . Their respective names 

are unknown, their individual work unspecialized, 

but the breath of their spirit might 

be felt all through those centuries and their 

names collectively is legion. We may safely 

say that of all the works of art between A.D . 

800 and 1000, the greater and better part are 

due to that brotherhood-always faithful and 

often secret-of the Magistri Comacini . The 

authority and judgment of learned men justify 

the assertion ." 

Quaternal de Quincy, in his Dictionary of 

Architecture, under the headinomacines, 

remarks that "to these men W10 , were both 

designers and executors, architects sculptors 

and mosaicists, may be attributed the Renaissance 

of art and its propagation in the 

southern countries, where it marched with 

Christianity. Certain it is that we owe to 

them that the heritage of antique ages was not 

entirely lost, and it is only by their tradition 

and imitation that the art of building was kept 

alive, producing works which we still admire 

and which become surprising when we think 

of the utter ignorance of all science in those 

Dark Ages ." 

Hope, in his well-balanced style, draws 

quite a picture of the gilds at this period 

which upon the whole, is fairly accurate . He 

says : 1'When Rome, the Eternal City, was first 

abandoned for Milan, Ravenna and other 

cities in the more fertile North, which became 

seats of new courts and the capitals of new 

kingdoms, we find in northern Italy a rude 

and barbarous nation-The Lombards-in the 

space of two short centuries, producing in 

trade, in legislation, in finance, in industry of 

every description, new developments so great, 

that from them, and from the regions to which 

they attach their names, has issued the whole 

of that ingenious and complex system of bills 

of exchange, banks, insurance, double-entry 

bookkeeping, commercial and marine laws 

and public loans, since adopted all over Europe-all 

over Europe retaining, in their peculiar 

appellations the trace and landmarks 

of their origin-and all over Europe affording 

to capital and commerce an ease of captivity 

and a security unknown before . 

"To keep pace with this progress, kings, 

lesser lords and the municipalities that by 

degrees arose, were induced, at one time from 

motives of public policy, at others, of private 

advantage, to encourage artificers of different 

professions. Thus of their own accord, they 

granted licenses to form associations possessed 

of the exclusive privilege of exercising their 

petmliar trades, and making them an object of 

profit ; of requiring that youths anxious to be 

associated with their body, and ultimately to 

be endowed with the mastery of the profession, 

should submit to a fixed and often severe 

course of study, under the name of apprenticeship, 

for their master's profit, and in addition 

should frequently be compelled to pay a 

considerable premium ; and of preventing any 

individual not thus admitted into their body, 

from establishing a competition against them . 

These associations were called Corporations 

or Gilds . 

"These bodies in order to enjoy exclusive exercise 

of their profession, and that its profits 

should be secure to them, not only by law, but 

by the inability of others to violate it, by degrees 

made their business, or craft, as they 

called it, a profound mystery from the world 

at large and only suffered their own apprentices 

to be initiated in its higher branches and 

improvements, most gradually ; and in every 

place where a variety of paths of industry and 

art were struck out, these crafts, these corporations, 

these masterships and these mysteries 

became so universally prevalent, that not only 

the arts of a wholly mechanical nature, but 

even those of the most exalted and intellectual 

nature-those which in ancient times had been 

considered the exclusive privilege . of freemen 

and citizens, and those dignified with the name 

liberal-were submitted to all those narrow 

rules of corporations and connected with all 

the servile offices of apprenticeship ." While 

Hope and writers of his time recognized that 

some well-organized body of workers had 

dominated the building trades at the Lombard 

period of history, they never attempted to 

trace their genealogy. Later historical critics 

of architecture have given some attention to 

origin and succession of these building crafts . 

One of the latest Italian students, Rivoiri, has 

devoted a separate chapter to the Comacine 

Masters . As his extensive work on Lombard 

Architecture Its Origin, Development andDerivatives 

may be accessile to ew, I shall 

give a generous quotation from him for the 

importance of his sound conclusions : "The

COMACINE 

COMACINE 165 

origin of the Comacine Masters in the diocese 

of Como is explained quite naturally, according 

to De Dartein, Merzario, and others, by 

the custom, which has always existed among 

the craftsmen and workmen of that region, of 

leaving their native places in order to betake 

themselves in gangs wherever building works 

are about to be or have been begun, urged 

thereto by their barren mountain soil, pecuniary 

gain, their innate ability and enterprising 

character. Another explanation is to be found 

in the presence on the shores of the lakes of 

Como, Lugano and the Maggiore of numerous 

atones, marble and timber yards which furnished 

building material for the cities of the 

plains. These yards gave scope for the practice 

of the crafts of carver, carpenter, builder, 

etc. ; and these, in their turn, by constant 

practice and continuous progress, ultimately 

developed architects and sculptors . 

" And here we may naturally feel surprise at 

the appearance, amid the darkness of the early 

centuries of the Middle Ages, of a corporation 

of craftsmen who, though of Roman origin, 

none the less enjoyed Lombard citizenship 

and the rights belonging to it ; while the 

Roman or Italian subjects of Lombard rule 

were, if not slaves, nothing better than 'aldi,' 

that is to say, midway between freedmen and 

serfs, manumitted on the condition of performing 

the manual tasks assigned them by the 

manumittor . A corporation, too, which had a 

legal monopoly of public and private building 

work within the territories occupied by the 

Lombards, as the code of Rotharis proves, and 

can claim the honor of filling up the ga which 

for so long was believed, especially by non- 

Italian writers, to exist between the incorporated 

artisans of the Roman epoch, su posed 

to have vanished with the fall of the Empire, 

and the gilds of craftsmen which sprang up so 

luxuriantly in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries . 

Such surprise, however, may easily be allayed 

if we consider that in reality the fraternity 

of craftsmen, in Italy at least, by no 

means came to an end with the Barbarian invasions, 

and particularly that of the Lombards, 

who actually preserved those Roman 

institutions which best fulfilled their aim of 

keeping the conquered people in subjection . 

Accordingly, they would have maintained the 

corporation of artisans in order to make the 

exaction of tribute easier and at the same time 

to be able to keep a hold over the individuals 

composing them . 

" Hence we have good grounds for inferring 

that the corporation of 'Comacini,' who a 

parently were neither more nor less than the 

successors of the Master Masons who in the 

days of the Empire had directed the operations 

of the collegia specially devoted to building, 

survived the barbarian invasions which 

were so disastrous to Italy in the centuries 

preceding the accession of Rotharis to the 

Lombard throne . This view is confirmed by 

the undoubted fact that from this time onwards 

the `Comacini' formed a very important 

gild, as is shown by the need which he 

felt of making regulations for it in his laws . 

This gild cannot have sprung into existence 

full grown and, as it were, by magic, just 

when the (5ode of Rotharis made its appearance 

in 643 . It must have already been in 

existence and have attained some degree of 

importance well before Alboin's descent on 

Italy (568) . Troya, in fact, remarks that when 

the Lombards of the time of Autharis (583- 

590) and of Agilulf and Theodelinda (590- 

625) wanted to erect buildings, they must 

have made use of it • and that everything leads 

one to think that before the promulgation of 

the Code of Rotharis, some of the members 

(i .e . those of the highest capacity and reputation) 

had already been enfranchised by 

'impans' or express grace of the King . However 

that may be, the mention of the associations 

of Comacini in the reign of Rotharis and 

Luitprand is one of the earliest in the Barbarian 

world, and earlier than that of any gild 

of architects or builders belonging to the Middle 

Ages . . . . Whatever may have been the 

organization of the Comacme or Lombard 

gilds, and however these may have been affected 

by outward events, they did not cease 

to exist in consequence of the fall of the Lombard 

kingdom . With the first breath of municipal 

freedom, and with the rise of the new brotherhoods 

of artisans, they, too, perhaps, may 

have reformed themselves like the latter, who 

were nothing but the continuation of the 

'collegium' of Roman times preserving, its 

existence through the barbarian ages and 

transformed little by little into the mediaeval 

corporation . The members may have 

found themselves constrained to enter into 

a more perfect unity of thought and sentiment, 

to bind themselves into a more compact 

body, and thus put themselves in a condition 

to maintain their ancient supremacy in 

carrying out the most important building 

works in Italy. But we cannot say anything 

more . And even putting aside all tradition, 

the monuments themselves are there to 

confirm what we have said . 

"Finally, toward the end of the Xlth century, 

the Comacine brotherhoods began to 

relax their bonds of union, to make room 

gradually for personality, and for artistic 

and scientific individuality, till at length 

they vanish at the close of the XVth century, 

with the disappearance of the Lombardic 

style which they had created, and the rise 

of the architecture of the Renaissance." 

Leder Scott has reasonably inferred : "1 . 

That the architects of the same gild worked 

at Rome and in Ravenna in the early centuries 

after Christ . 2 . That though the 

architects were Roman, the decorations up 

to the fourth century were chiefly Byzantine, 

or had imbibed that style, as their paintings 

show. 3 . That in the time when Rome lay 

in a heap of ruins under the barbarians the 

Collegium, or a Collegium, I know not which, 

fled to independent Como and there in after 

centuries they were employed by the Lombards, 

and ended in again becoming a powerful 

gild ." 

There was the greatest similarity in form

166 COMACINE 

COMACINE 

of the cathedrals of this period and when 

charges were introduced they became general, 

thereby creating a unity of purpose and an 

interchange of ideas which spoke the existence 

of some kind of gild or fraternity with 

a perfected organization . That the Comacines 

received ideas which somewhat influenced 

their building art is probably true, 

particularly their decorations . On the latter 

question Miiller in his Archceology der 

Kunst says : "From Constantinople as a 

center of mechanical skill, a knowledge of art 

radiated to distant countries, and corporations 

of builders of Grecian birth were permitted 

to exercise a judicial government 

among themselves) according to the laws of 

the country to which they owed allegiance ." 

This was the age when more symbolism 

was made use of than at any other period, 

the reason being that the Christian religion 

having so lately supplanted Paganism, and 

as most converts could not read, the Bible 

was spread over the front of the cathedrals in 

the form of sculptured saints, animals and 

symbolic figures. Hope says : "Pictures 

can always be read by all people and when 

symbolic uses are made and once explained 

will be ever after understood ." 

The Eastern branch of the Church at 

Constantinople prohibited imagery and other 

forms of adornment of their churches, and 

like disputants, when one denies, the other 

affirms, the Western branch of Rome espoused 

the carving of images and beautiful 

sculpture . This caused the Eastern sculptors 

to come to Italy, where they were welcomed 

by the Roman branch of the Church . 

That policy of the Roman branch was carried 

throughout the cathedral building period 

that followed in Europe for several centuries 

and to this day is a dominant element with 

them, for they still believe that to properly 

epread their religion, noble architecture, 

fine sculpturing and painting, and inspiring 

music are prime requisites . We Speculative 

Masons should give full credit to the Roman 

Catholic Church for employing and fostering 

our Operative Brethren through many 

centuries and making possible Speculative 

Freemasonry of to-day, even though the 

Church is now our avowed enemy . 

Combining some arguments that have been 

reasonably put forward for the maintenance 

of this theory, and adding others, it may 

be pointed out that the identical form of 

Lodges in different cities is a strong argument 

that the same ruling body governed 

them all . An argument equally strong is 

the ubiquity of the members. We find the 

same men employed in one Lodge after another, 

as work required. Not only were 

these changes or migrations from one cathedral 

to another accomplished in Italy, but 

we have many examples of Masters and 

special workmen going into France, Germany 

and other countries . Unfortunately, no 

documents exist of the early Lombard times, 

but the archives of the Opera which in most 

cities have been faithfully kept since the 

thirteenth century, would, if thoroughly 

examined, prove to be valuable stores from 

which to draw a history of the Masonic 

Gild. They have only begun to examine 

carefully these records, and when completed 

we may reasonably expect to learn much 

concerning this period. Leder Scott has 

examined several and gives continuous lists 

of Masters of the School or Lodge in different 

cities. In Sienese School, a list of 

sixty-seven Masters in continuous succession 

from 1259 to 1423 ; at Florence Lodge, 

seventy-eight Masters from 1258 to 1418 ; 

at Milan Lodge, seventy-nine Masters from 

1387 to 1647 . She (for Leder Scott was a 

woman, whose real name was Mrs . Lucy 

Baxter) gives headings of laws for these 

Lodges, and it may be interesting to glance 

over the headings of statutes of these Masonic 

Gilds, which will throw light on all the 

organizations . The Sienese Gild is a typical 

one and will serve our purpose . There 

are forty-one chapters, but the headings of 

only twelve will be selected : 

C .1 . One who curses God or the Saints . 

A fine of 25 lira. 

C .2 . One who opposes the Signora of city . 

A fine of 25 lira . 

C.5 . How to treat underlings (sottoposti or 

apprentices) . 

C.11 . That no one take work from another 

Master. 

C.13. How the feast of the Four Holy Martyrs 

is to be kept . Feast of the Dead, 

November. Two half-pound candles and 

offering ; grand fete of the Gild in June . 

C.16. The camerlingo shall hand all receipts 

to Grand Master . 

C.19 . One who is sworn to another Gild 

cannot be either Grand Master or camerlingo 

. 

C.22 . How members are to be buried . 

C.23 . How to insure against risks . 

C.24. No argument or business discussion to 

be held in public streets . 

C.30 . That no Master shall undertake a 

second work till the first has been paid . 

C .34 . On those who lie against others. 

These statutes are very fair and well 

composed and must certainly have been 

made from long experience in the Gild . 

The genealogy of the styles of architecture 

has baffled many . Leder Scott believes 

this to be the line of descent : First, the 

Comacines continued Roman traditions, 

as the Romans continued Etruscan ones ; 

next, they orientalized their style by their 

connection with the East through Aquileia, 

and the influx of the Greek exiles into the 

Gild . Later came a different influence 

through the Saracens into the South, and 

the Italian-Gothic was born . In the old times 

(sixth to the tenth centuries) before the painters 

and sculptors, and after them the metal 

workers, split off and formed companies of 

their own, every kind of decoration was 

practised by the Masters, as the letter of 

Theodoric plainly shows. A church was not

COMACINE 

complete unless it was adorned in its whole 

height and breadth with sculpture on the outside 

mosaics or paintings on the inside, and 

in its completeness formed the peoples' Bible 

and dogma of religious belief, and this from 

the very early times of Constantine and his 

Byzantine mosaicists, and of Queen Theolinda 

and her fresco-painters, up to the revival of 

mosaics by the Cosmati and the frescopainting 

in the Tuscan schools, but never were 

these arts entirely lost . 

For the first, we have the identity of form 

and ornamentation in their works and the 

similarity of nomenclature and organization 

between the Roman Collegio and the Lombard 

Gild of Magistri . Besides this, the 

well-known fact that the free republic of 

Como was used as a refuge by Romans who 

fled from barbaric invasions makes a strong 

argument. For the second, we may plead 

again the same identity of form and organization 

and a like similarity of ornamentation 

and nomenclature . Just as King 

Luitprand's architects were called Magistri, 

and the Grand Master the Gadtaldo, so 

we have the great architectural Gilds in 

Venice, in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth 

centuries, using the very same titles 

and having the very same laws. 

Again the hereditary descent is marked 

by the patron saints of the Lombard and 

Tuscan Lodges, being the Four Martyr 

Brethren from a Roman Collegio . (See Four 

Crowned Martyrs.) 

All these and other indications are surely 

as strong as documental proof, and are 

practically the summary of the conclusions 

of Leder Scott and are not overdrawn, being 

amply borne out by facts already known . 

Older writers recognized the presence of a 

compact gild in the work, but did not 

connect them with the builders of the Renaissance 

. More recent writers, such as 

Rivoira Porter, and others declare the connection 

. this connection is probably without 

the field of historical architects, whose work 

is the study of the product of the workmen, 

and not the workmen themselves, while our 

interest is centered on the workmen and their 

relations to those who follow them in connected 

sequence and not on the product of 

their work, further than to show and prove 

relationships of the building crafts . 

There are many most interesting and important 

things pertaining to the Comacines 

that must be omitted in a cyclopedic article . 

Their rich, varied and curious symbolism, 

which even Ruskin failed to understand, would 

furnish matter for a fair-sized volume . 

While it is recognized that history should 

always be written from as nearly original 

sources as is possible, it has not been realized 

in this instance, as I have had to rely solely 

on those who have made their investigations 

at first-hand, and while some liberties have 

been taken, no violence has been done to 

their conclusions . 

The reader will find a rich field in the 

following bibliography : 

COMBINATION 167 

The Cathedral Builders, The Story of a Great 

Masonic Guild, by Leder Scott . 

The Comacines, Their Predecessors and their 

Successors, by W . Ravencroft . 

Lombard Architecture, Its Origin, Development 

and Derivatives, by G . T . Rivoira . 

A History of Architecture in Italy, from the 

Time of Constantine to the Dawn of the Renaissance, 

by Charles A . Cummings. 

Medieval Architecture, by A . K . Porter . 

Architecture in Italy from the Sixth to the 

Eleventh Century, Historical and Critical Researches, 

by Raffaele Cattaneo. 

Historical Essay on Architecture, by Thomas 

Hope. 

These are English works or have been trans. 

lated into English . From them an extensive 

bibliography embracing other languages will 

be found . [E. E . C .] 

Combination of Masons. The combination 

of the Freemasons in the fourteenth and 

fifteenth centuries to demand a higher rate of 

wages, which eventually gave rise to the enactment 

of the Statutes of Laborers, is thus 

described by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine 

(January, 1740, p . 17) : "King Edward 

III. took so great an affection to Windsor, the 

place of his birth, that he instituted the Order 

of the Garter there, and rebuilt and enlarged 

the castle, with the church and chapel of St . 

George . This was a great work and required a 

great many hands ; and for the carrying of it 

on writs were directed to the sheriffs of severall 

counties to send thither, under the penalty of 

£100 each, such a number of masons by a day 

appointed . London sent forty, so did Devon, 

Somerset, and several other counties ; but several 

dying of the plague, and others deserting 

the service, new writs were issued to send up 

supplies. Yorkshire sent sixty, and other 

counties proportionably, and orders were 

given that no one should entertain any of 

these runaway masons, under pain of forfeiture 

of all their goods . Hereupon, the Masons 

entered into a combination not to work, unless 

at higher wages . They agreed upon tokens, 

etc ., to know one another by, and to assist 

one another against being impressed, and not 

to work unless free and on their own terms . 

Hence they called themselves Freemasons ; 

and this combination continued during the 

carrying on of these buildings for several years . 

The wars between the two Houses coming on 

in the next reign, the discontented herded together 

in the same manner, and the gentry also 

underhand supporting the malcontents, occasioned 

several Acts of Parliament against 

the combination of Masons and other persons 

under that denomination, the titles of which 

Acts are still to be seen in the printed statutes 

of those reigns." Ashmole in his History 

of the Order of the Garter (p . 801, confirms the 

fact of the impressment of workmen by 

Edward ; and the combination that follow 

seems but a natural consequence of this oppressive 

act ; but the assertion that the origin 

of Freemasonry as an organized institution of 

builders is to be traced to such a combination, 

is not supported by the facts of history, and,

168 COMMANDER 

COMMITTEE 

indeed, the writer himself admits that the 

Masons denied its truth . 

Commander. 1 . The presiding officer in 

a Commandery of Knights Templar. His 

style is "Eminent," and the jewel of his office 

is a cross, from which issue rays of light . In 

England and Canada he is now styled "Preceptor 

." 2. The Superintendent of a Commandery, 

as a house or residence of the Ancient 

Knights of Malta, was so called . 

Commander, Grand. See Grand Commander 

. 

Commander-in-Chief . The presiding 

officer in a Consistory of Sublime Princes of 

the Royal Secret in the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite. His style is "Illustrious." In 

a Grand Consistory the presiding officer is a 

Grand Commander-in-Chief, and he is styled 

"Very Illustrious ." 

Commandery. 1 . In the United States 

all regular assemblies of Knights Templar are 

called Commanderies, and must consist of the 

following officers : Fminent Commander, 

Generalissimo, Captain-General, Prelate, 

Senior Warden Junior Warden, Treasurer, 

Recorder, Warder, Standard-Bearer, Sword- 

Bearer, and Sentinel . These Commanderies 

derive their warrants of Constitution from a 

Grand Commandery, or, if there is no such 

body in the State in which they are organized, 

from the Grand Encampment of the United 

States. They confer the degrees of Companion 

of the Red Cross, Knight Templar, and 

Knight of Malta . 

In a Commandery of Knights Templars, the 

throne is situated in the East. Above it are 

suspended three banners : the center one 

bearing a cross, surmounted by a glory; the 

left one having inscribed on it the emblems of 

the Order, and the right one, a paschal lamb . 

The Eminent Commander is seated on the 

throne ; the Generalissimo, Prelate, and Past 

Commanders on his right ; the Captain-General 

on his left- the Treasurer and Recorder, 

as in a Symbolic Lodge ; the Senior Warden 

at the southwest angle of the triangle, and 

upon the right of the first division ; the Junior 

Warden at the northwest angle of the triangle, 

and on the left of the third division ; the 

Standard-Bearer in the West, between the 

Sword-Bearer on his right, and the Warder on 

his left ; and in front of him is a stall for the 

initiate . The Knights are arranged in equal 

numbers on each side, and in front of the 

throne. In England and Canada a body of 

Knights Templars is called a "Preceptory" 

2. The houses or residences of the Knights 

of Malta were called Commanderies, and the 

aggregation of them in a nation was called a 

Priory or Grand Priory . 

Commandery, Grand . When three or 

more Commanderies are instituted in a State, 

they may unite and form a Grand Commandery 

under the regulations prescribed by 

the Grand Encampment of the United States . 

They have the superintendence of all Command 

eriea of KnightsTemplars thatare holden 

in their respective jurisdictions . 

A Grand Commandery meets at least an- 

nually, and its officers consist of a Grand Commander, 

Deput Grand Commander, Grand 

Generalissimo, (rand Captain-General, Grand 

Prelate, Grand Senior and Junior Warden, 

Grand Treasurer, Grand Recorder, Grand 

Warder, Grand Standard-Bearer, and Grand 

Sword-Bearer . 

Committee. To facilitate the transaction 

of business, a Lodge or Grand Lodge often 

refers a subject to a particular committee for 

investigation and report . By the usages of 

Masonry, committees of this character are 

always appointed by the presiding officer ; and 

the Master of a Lodge, when present at the 

meeting of a committee, may act, if he thinks 

proper, as its chairman ; for the Master presides 

over any assemblage of the Craft in his 

jurisdiction. 

Committee, General . By the Constitution 

of the Grand Lodge of England, all matters 

of business to be brought under the consideration 

of the Grand Lodge must previously 

be presented to a General Committee, consisting 

of the President of the Board of Benevolence, 

the Present and Past Grand Officers, 

and the Master of every regular Lodge, who 

meet on the fourteenth day immediately preceding 

each quarterly communication. No 

such regulation exists in any of the Grand 

Lodges of America . 

Committee of Charity. In most Lodges 

there is a standing Committee of Charity, 

appointed at the beginning of the year, to 

which, in general, a plications for relief are 

referred by the Loge. In cases where the 

Lodge does not itself take immediate action, 

the committee is also invested with the power 

to grant relief to a limited amount during the 

recess of the Lodge . 

Committee of Finance. In many Lodges 

the Master, Wardens, Treasurer, and Secretary 

constitute a Committee of Finance, to 

which is referred the general supervision of the 

finances of the Lodge . 

Committee on Foreign Correspondence. 

In none of the Grand Lodges of this 

country, forty years ago, was such a committee 

as that on foreign correspondence ever appointed 

. A few of them had corresponding 

secretaries, to whom were entrusted the duty 

of attending to the correspondence of the 

body : a duty which was very generally neglected 

. A report on the proceedings of other 

bodies was altogether unknown. Grand 

Lodges met and transacted the local business 

of their own jurisdictions without any reference 

to what was passing abroad . 

But within the last twenty or thirty years, 

improvements in this respect began to show 

themselves. Intelligent Masons saw that it 

would no longer do to isolate themselves from 

the Fraternity in other countries, and that, if 

any moral or intellectual advancement was to 

be expected, it must be derived from the intercommunication 

and collision of ideas ; and the 

first step toward this advancement was the 

appointment in every Grand Lodge of a committee, 

whose duty it should be to collate the 

proceedings of other jurisdictions, and to elim-

COMMITTEE 

COMMITTEE 169 

irate from them the most important Items . 

These committees were, however, very slow in 

assuming the functions which devolved upon 

them, and in coming up to the full measure of 

their duties . At first their reports were little 

more than "reports of progress ." No light was 

derived from their collation, and the bodies 

which had appointed them were no wiser after 

their reports had been read than they were 

before. 

As a specimen of the first condition and subsequent 

improvement of these committees on 

foreign correspondence, let us take at random 

the transactions of any Grand Lodge old 

enough to have a history and intelligent 

enough to have made any progress ; and, for 

this purpose, the proceedings of the Grand 

Lodge of Ohio, two volumes of which lie conveniently 

at hand will do as well as any other . 

The Grand Lodge of Ohio was organized in 

January, 1808 . From that time to 1829, its 

proceedings contain no reference to a committee 

on correspondence ; and except, I think, a 

single allusion to the Washington Convention, 

made in the report of a special committee, the 

Masons of Ohio seem to have had no cognizance, 

or at least to have shown no recognition, 

of any Masonry which might be outside 

of their own jurisdiction . 

But in the year 1830, for the first time, a 

committee was appointed to report on the 

foreign correspondence of the Grand Lodge . 

This committee bore the title of the "Committee 

on Communications from Foreign 

Grand Lodges," etc ., and made during the 

session a report of eight lines in length, which 

contained just the amount of information 

that could be condensed in that brief space, 

and no more . In 1831, the report was fifteen 

lines long- in 1832, ten lines ; in 1833, twelve 

lines ; and so on for' several years, the reports 

being sometimes a little longer and sometimes 

a little shorter ; but the length being 

always measured by lines, and not y pages, 

until, in 1837, there was a marked falling off, 

the report consisting only of one line and a 

half. Of this report, which certainly cannot 

be accused of verbosity, the following is an 

exact copy : "Nothing has been presented for 

the consideration of your committee requiring 

the action of the Grand Lodge ." 

In 1842, the labors of the committee began 

to increase, and their report fills a page of the 

proceedings . Things now rapidly improved . 

1843, the report was three pages long ; in 

1845 four pages ; in 1846 seven; in 1848, 

nearly thirteen ; in 1853, ourteen ; in 1856 

thirty; and in 1857, forty-six. Thenceforward 

there is no more fault to be found. The reports 

of the future committees were of full growth, 

and we do not again hear such an unmeaning 

phrase as "nothing requiring the action of the 

Grand Lodge ." 

The history of these reports in other Grand 

Lodges is the same as that in Ohio . Beginning 

with a few lines, which announced the absence 

of all matters worthy of consideration, they 

have grown up to the full stature of elaborate 

essays, extending to one hundred and some- 

times to one hundred and fifty pages, in which 

the most important and interesting subjects 

of Masonic history, philosophy, and 'urisprudence 

are discussed, generally with much 

ability. 

At this day the reports of the committees 

on foreign correspondence in all the Grand 

Lodges of this country constitute an important 

portion of the literature of the Institution 

. The chairmen of these committees-for 

the other members fill, for the most part, only 

the post of "sleeping partners "-are generally 

men of education and talent, who, by the very 

occupation in which they are employed, of 

reading the published proceedings of all the 

Grand Lodges in correspondence with their 

own, have become thoroughly conversant 

with the contemporary history of the Order, 

while a great many of them have extended 

their studies in its previous history. 

The "reportorial corps," as these hardlaboring 

brethren are beginning to call themselves, 

exercise, of course, a not trifling influence 

in the Order . These committees 

annually submit to their respective Grand 

Lodges a mass of interesting information, 

which is read with great avidity by their 

brethren. Gradually-for at first it was not 

their custom-they have added to the bare 

narration of facts their comments on Masonic 

law and their criticisms on the decisions 

made in other jurisdictions . These comments 

and criticisms have very naturally their 

weight, sometimes beyond their actual worth ; 

and it will not therefore be improper to take 

a glance at what ought to be the character 

of a report on foreign correspondence . 

In the first place, then, a reporter of foreign 

correspondence should be, in the most literal 

sense of Shakespeare's words, "a brief chronicler 

of the times ." His report should contain 

a succinct account of everything of importance 

that is passing in the Masonic world, so 

far as his materials supply him with the information 

. But, remembering that he is writing 

for the instruction of hundreds, perhaps 

thousands, many of whom cannot spare much 

time, and many others who have no inclination 

to spare it, he should eschew the sin of 

tediousness, never forgetting that "brevity is 

the soul of wit ." He should omit all details 

that have no special interest ; should husband 

his space for important items, and be exceedingly 

parsimonious in the use of unnecessary 

expletives, whose only use is to add to the 

length of a line. In a word, he should remember 

that he is not an orator but an historian . 

A rigid adherence to these principles would 

save the expense of many printed pages to his 

Grand Lodge, and the waste of much time to 

his readers. These reports will form the germ 

of future Masonic history . The collected mass 

will be an immense one, and it should not be 

unnecessarily enlarged by the admission of 

trivial items . 

In the next place, although I admit that 

these "brethren of the reportorial corps" 

have peculiar advantages in reading the opinions 

of their contemporaries on subjects of 

q

170 COMMITTEE 

COMMUNICATION 

Masonic jurisprudence they would be mistaken 

in supposing tint these advantages 

must necessarily make them Masonic lawyers . 

Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius . It is not 

every man that will make a lawyer . A peculiar 

turn of mind and a habit of close reasoning, 

as well as a thorough acquaintance with 

the law itself, are required to fit one for the 

investigation of questions of jurisprudence . 

Reporters, therefore, should assume the task 

of adjudicating points of law with much diffidence. 

They should not pretend to make a 

decision ex cathedra, but only to express an 

opinion ; and that opinion they should attempt 

to sustain by arguments that may convince 

their readers. Dogmatism is entirely 

out of place in a Masonic report on foreign 

correspondence. 

But if tediousness and dogmatism are displeasing, 

how much more offensive must be 

rudeness and personality . Courtesy is a Masonic 

as well as a knightly virtue, and the 

reporter who takes advantage of his official 

position to speak rudely of his brethren, or 

makes his report the vehicle of scurrility and 

abuse, most strangely forgets the duty and 

respect which he owes to the Grand Lodge 

which he represents and the Fraternity to 

which he addresses himself . 

And, lastly, a few words as to style . These 

reports, I have already said, constitute an 

important feature of asonic literature . It 

should be, then, the object and aim of everyone 

to give to them a tone and character 

which shall reflect honor on the society whence 

they emanate, and enhance the reputation of 

their authors. The style cannot always be 

scholarly, but it should always be chaste ; it 

may sometimes want eloquence, but it should 

never be marked by vulgarity . Coarseness of 

language and slang phrases are manifestly out 

of place in a paper which treats of subjects 

such as naturally belong to a Masonic document. 

Wit and humor we would not, of course, 

exclude . The Horatian maxim bids us sometimes 

to unbend, and old Menander thought 

it would not do always to appear wise. Even 

the solemn Johnson could sometimes perpetrate 

a joke, and Sidney Smith has enlivened 

his lectures on moral philosophy with numerous 

witticisms . There are those who delight in 

the stateliness of Coleridge ; but for ourselves 

we do not object to the levity of Lamb, though 

we would not care to descend to the vulgarity 

of Rabelais . 

To sum up the whole matter in a few 

words, these reports on foreign correspondence 

should be succinct and, if you please, elaborate 

chronicles of all passing events in the Masonic 

world ; they should express the opinions 

of their authors on points of Masonic law, not 

as judicial dicta, but simply as opinions, not 

to be dogmatically enforced, but to be sustained 

and supported by the best arguments 

that the writers can produce ; they should not 

be made the vehicles of personal abuse or 

vituperation ; and, lastly, they should be 

clothed in language worthy of the literature of 

the Order . 

Committee, Private. The well-known 

regulation which forbids private committees 

in the Lodge, that is, select conversations between 

two or more members, in which the 

other members are not permitted to join, is 

derived from the Old Charges : "You are not 

to hold private committees or separate conversation, 

without leave from the Master, nor 

to talk of anything impertinent or unseemly, 

nor to interrupt the Master or Wardens, or 

any brother speaking to the Master:" (Constitutions, 

1723, p. 53 .) 

Committee, Report of. See Report of a 

Committee . 

Common Gavel . See Gavel. 

Communication . The meeting of a 

Lodge is so called . There is a peculiar significance 

in this term . "To communicate," 

which in the Old English form, was "to common,' 

originally meant to share in common 

with others . The great sacrament of the Christian 

church, which denotes a participation in 

the mysteries of the religion and a fellowship 

in the church, is called a "communion," 

which is fundamentally the same as a "communication," 

for he who partakes of the communion 

is said "to communicate." Hence, the 

meetings of Masonic Lodges are called communications, 

to signify that it is not simply 

the ordinary meeting of a society for the transaction 

of business, but that such meeting is the 

fellowship of men engaged in a common pursuit, 

and governed by a common principle, 

and that there is therein a communication or 

participation of those feelings and sentiments 

that constitute a true brotherhood . 

The communications of Lodges are regular 

or stated and special or emergent . Regular 

communications are held under the provision 

of the by-laws, but special communications 

are called by order of the Master . It is a 

regulation that no special communication can 

alter amend, or rescind the proceedings of a 

re ar communication . 

Communication, Grand . The meeting 

of a Grand Lodge. 

Communication of Degrees . When the 

peculiar mysteries of a degree are bestowed 

upon a candidate by mere verbal description 

of the bestower, without his being made to 

pass through the constituted ceremonies, the 

degree is technically said to be communicated . 

This mode is, however, entirely confined in 

America to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite . The degrees may in that Rite be thus 

conferred in any place where secrecy is secured 

; but the prerogative of communicating 

is restricted to the presiding officers 

of bodies of the Rite, who may communicate 

certain of the degrees upon candidates who 

have been previously duly elected, and to 

Inspectors and Deputy Inspectors-General of 

the Thirty-third Degree, who may communicate 

all the degrees of the Rite, except the 

last, to any persons whom they may deem 

qualified to receive them . 

Communication, Quarterly . Anciently 

Grand Lodges, which were then called General 

Assemblies of the Craft, were held annually .

COMMUNION 

COMPAGNONAGE 171 

But it is said that the Grand Master Inigo 

Jones instituted quarterly communications 

at the beginning of the seventeenth century 

(Constitutions, 1738, p . 99), which were continued 

by his successors, the Earl of Pembroke 

and Sir Christopher Wren, until the infirmities 

of the latter compelled him to neglect 

them . On the revival in 1717, provision was 

made for their resumption ; and in the twelfth 

of the thirty-nine Regulations of 1721 it was 

declared that the Grand Lodge must have 

a quarterly communication about Michaelmas, 

Christmas, and Lady-Day . (Constitutions, 

1723, p . 61 .) These quarterly communications 

are still retained by the Grand Lodge 

of England, and in America by the Grand 

Lodge of Massachusetts, but all other American 

Grand Lodges have adopted the old system 

of annual communications . 

Communion of the Brethren . See 

Bread, Consecrated . 

Como. Capital of the Province of Como 

in northern Italy, situated at S . end of W . 

branch of Lake of Como, about thirty miles 

from Milan, and to-day is an industrial city . 

Its interest to Masons is on account of it 

being the center from which radiated the Comacme 

Masters, who descended from the 

Roman Colleges of Artificers and who built 

for the Lombards and others during their 

reign and carried their Art and influence into 

the Cathedral building of the Renaissance . 

(See Comacine Masters .) 

The archeologists have determined the form 

of the older city of Roman times to have been 

rectangular, enclosed by walls. Towers were 

constructed on 

walls in the 

twelfth century 

. Portions 

of the walls are 

now to be seen 

in the garden 

of Liceo Volta . 

Baths common 

in all Roman 

cities have 

been discov- 

PARAPET OF THE OLD CHURCH 

OF ST. ABBONDIO. MILAN, 

NINTH CENTURY. 

ered . Fortifications 

erected 

previous to 

1127 were 

largely constructed 

with 

Roman inscribed 

sepulchral 

urns and 

other remains, 

in which most 

all Roman 

cities were unusually 

rich . 

It is usual 

to record that 

Como was the 

birthplace of 

the elder and younger Pliny . The younger 

Pliny had a villa here called Comedia and 

was much interested in building the city, 

having founded baths, a library, and aided in 

charity for the support of orphan children . 

Of the many letters of the younger Pliny 

that remain, one is to his builder, Mustio, a 

Comacine architect, commissioning him to 

restore the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, in 

which, after explaining the form of design he 

wished it to take, he concludes : " . . at least, 

unless you think of something better, you, 

whose Art can always overcome difficulties 

of position." 

There was an early church of SS . Peter and 

Paul in the fifth century that stood outside 

of the town, and the site is now occupied 

by the Romanesque church of St . Abbondio, 

founded 1013, and consecrated 1095 . There 

are found many interesting intrecci remains 

of early carvings of the Comacine or Solomon's 

Knob . (See cut .) 

On a site of an earlier church stands the 

present Cathedral of Como, which is built 

entirely of marble . It was begun in 1396, but 

was altered in 1487-1526 into Renaissance . 

Authors disagree as to whether the church was 

restored or rebuilt. The facade, 1457-86, follows 

in its lines the old Lombard form but 

the dividing pilasters are lavishly enriched, 

being perpendicular niches with a statue in 

each. 

Scott says that "During the years from 

1468 to [492, the books of the Lodge, preserved 

in the archives, abound in names of 

Magistri from the neighborhood of Como, 

both architects and sculptors, and among 

them was Tommaso Rodari, who entered the 

Lodge in 1490, with a letter of recommendation 

from the Duke, advising that he be 

specially trained in the Art of Sculpture . 

He and four others were sent to Rome to remain 

ten years, and perfect themselves in 

sculpture, to study the antique, and to return 

to the laborerium as fully qualified masters ." 

Rodari returned and sculptured a most beautiful 

North door of the Cathedral in rich ornate 

Renaissance style, although the lions 

are still under the columns, thus preserving a 

Comacine symbol so universally common in 

earlier times of pure Lombard style. 

The history of Como as a city with her various 

fortunes and defeats during the invasions 

of barbarians and her long conflicts with her 

old enemy, Milan, may be found elsewhere . 

What interests us is the early colonization by 

Rome and her subsequent relations to Architecture 

at the Renaissance . 

Soon after 89 B .c . Rome sent 3,000 colonists 

to Como, and Artificers were certainly 

among them, and in 59 B .C. Caesar sent 5,000 

more, and the place received the name Novum 

Comum and received Latin rights . (See 

Comacine Masters .) 

Compagnon . In French Masonry, a Fellow-Craft 

is so called, and the grade du Compagnon 

is the degree of Fellow-Craft . 

Compagnonage. This is the name which 

is given in France to certain mystical associations 

formed between workmen of the same 

or an analogous handicraft, whose object 

is to afford mutual assistance to the mem-

172 COMPAGNONAGE 

COMPAGNONAGE 

hers. It was at one time considered among 

handicraftsmen as the Second Degree of the 

novitiate, before arriving at the maitrise, or 

mastership, the first being, of course, that of 

apprentice ; and workmen were admitted into 

it only after five years of apprenticeship, and on 

the production of a skilfully constructed piece 

of work, which was called their chef-d'auvre. 

Tradition gives to Compagnonage a Hebraic 

origin, which to some extent assimilates it 

to the traditional history of Freemasonry as 

springing out of the Solomonic Temple . It is, 

however, certain that it arose, in the twelfth 

century, out of a part of the corporation of 

workmen . These, who prosecuted the labors 

of their Craft from province to province, could 

not shut their eyes to the narrow policy of the 

gilds or corporations, which the masters were 

constantly , seeking to make more exclusive . 

Maitre Jacques over their disciples . They 

parted, and the former landed at Bordeaux, 

and the latter at Marseilles . 

One day, Maitre Jacques, being far away 

from his disciples, was attacked b ten of those 

of Pere Soubise. To save himself, he fled into 

a marsh, where he sustained himself from 

sinking by holding on to the reeds, and was 

eventually rescued by his disciples . He then 

retired to St. Baume, but being soon after 

betrayed by a disciple, named, according to 

some, Jeron, and according to others, Jamais, 

he was assassinated by five blows of a dagger, 

in the forty-seventh year of his age, four years 

and nine days after his departure from Jerusalem 

. On his robe was subsequently found a 

reed which he wore in memory of his having 

been saved in the marsh, and thenceforth his 

disciples adopted the reed as the emblem of 

Thence y perceived the necessity of forming 

for themselves associations or confra- 

Pere Soubise is not generally accused of 

their Order . 

ternities, whose protection should accompany having taken any part in the assassination . 

them in all their laborious wanderings, and The tears which he shed over the tomb of his 

secure to them employment and fraternal colleague removed in part the suspicions 

intercourse when arriving in strange towns . which had at first rested on him . The traitor 

The Compagnons de la Tour, which is the who committed the crime, subsequently, in a 

title assumed by those who are the members of moment of deep contrition, cast himself into a 

the brotherhoods of Compagnonage, have well which the disciples of Maitre Jacques 

legends, which have been traditionally transmitted 

from age to age, by which, like the were long preserved in a sacred chest, and, 

filled up with stones . The relics of the martyr 

Freemasons, they trace the origin of their association 

to the Temple of King Solomon . different crafts, his hat was given to the hat- 

when his disciples afterward separated into 

These legends are three in number, for the ters, his tunic to the stone-cutters, his sandals 

different societies of Compagnonage recognize to the locksmiths, his mantle to the Joiners, 

three different founders, and hence made his girdle to the carpenters, and his staff to the 

three different associations, which are : 

cartwrights . 

1 . The Children of Solomon . 

According to another tradition Maitre 

2 . The Children of Maitre Jacques . 

Jacques was no other than Jacques Je Molay, 

3 . The Children of Pere Soubise . 

the last Grand Master of the Templars, who 

These three societies or classes of the Compagnons 

are irreconcilable enemies and re- 

Children of Solomon that had separated from 

had collected under his banner some of the 

proach each other with the imaginary contests 

of their supposed founders . 

ferred upon them a new devoir or gild. Pere 

the parent society, and who, about 1268, con- 

The Children of Solomon pretend that Soubise is said, in the same legend, to have 

King Solomon gave them their devoir, or gild, been a Benedictine monk, who gave to the 

as a reward for their labors at the Temple, carpenters some special statutes . This second 

and that he had there united them into a legend is generally recognized as more truthful 

brotherhood . 

than the first. From this it follows that the 

The Children of Maitre Jacques say that division of the society of Compagnonage into 

their founder, who was the son of a celebrated three classes dates from the thirteenth century, 

and that the Children of Maitre Jacques 

architect named Jacquain, or Jacques, was one 

of the chief Masters of Solomon, and a colleague 

of Hiram. He was born in a small city Children of Solomon, from whom they were a 

and of Pere Soubise are more modern than the 

of Gaul named Carte, and now St . Romille, dismemberment . 

but which we should in vain look for on the The organization of these associations of 

ma s. 

Compagnonage reminds one very strongly of 

om the age of fifteen he was employed in the somewhat similar organi zation of the 

stone-cutting . He traveled in Greece, where Stonemasons of Germany and of other countries 

in the Middle Ages. To one of these 

he learned sculpture and architecture ; afterward 

went to Egypt, and thence to Jerusalem, 

where he constructed two pillars with so expected to attach himself . There was an initi- 

classes every handicraftsman in France was 

much skill that he was immediately received ation, and a system of degrees which were four 

as a Master of the Craft . Maitre Jacques and in number : the Accepted Companion, the 

his colleague Pere Soubise, after the labors of Finished Companion, the Initiated Companion, 

and, lastly, the Affiliated Companion . 

the Temple were completed, resolved to go 

together to Gaul, swearing that they would 

never separate ; but the union did not last 

very lo. 

There were also signs and words as modes of 

recognition, and decorations, which varied in 

in consequence of the jealousy excited 

in ere Soubise by the ascendency et and compasses was a common symbol 

the different devoirs ; but to all, the square 

.

COMPAGNONAGE 

COMPASSES 173 

As soon as a Craftsman had passed through 

his apprenticeship, he joined one of these 

gilds, and commenced his journey over 

France, which was called the tour de France, in 

the course of which he visited the principal 

cities, towns, and villages, stopping for a 

time wherever he could secure employment . 

In almost every town there was a house of 

call, presided over always by a woman, who 

was affectionately called "la Mere," or the 

Mother, and the same name was given to the 

house itself . There the Compagnons held 

their meetings and annually elected their 

officers, and traveling workmen repaired there 

to obtain food and lodging, and the necessary 

information which might lead to employment . 

When two Companions met on the road, 

one of them addressed the other with the 

topage, or challenge, being a formula of words, 

the conventional reply to which would indicate 

that the other was a member of the same 

devoir . If such was the case, friendly greetings 

ensued . But if the reply was not satisfactory, 

and it appeared that they belonged to different 

associations, a war of words, and even of 

blows, was the result . Such was formerly the 

custom, but through the evangelic labors of 

Agricol Perdiquier, a journeyman joiner of 

Avignon, who traveled through France inculcating 

lessons of brotherly love, a better 

spirit now exists . 

In each locality the association has a chief, 

who is annually elected by ballot at the General 

Assembly of the Craft . He is called the 

First Compagnon of Dignity . He presides over 

the meetings, which ordinarily take place on 

the first Sunday of every month, and represents 

the society in its intercourse with other 

bodies, with the Masters, or with the municipal 

authorities. 

Compagnonage has been exposed at various 

periods, to the persecutions of the i%urch and 

the State, as well as to the opposition of the 

Corporations of Masters, to which, of course, 

its designs were antagonistic, because it opposed 

their monopoly. Unlike them, and particularly 

the Corporation of Freemasons, it 

was not under the protection of the Church . 

The practise of its mystical receptions was 

condemned by the Faculty of Theology at 

Paris, in 1655, as impious. But a hundred 

years before, in 1541 a decree of Francis I . 

had interdicted the (iompagnons de la Tour 

from binding themselves by an oath, from 

wearing swords or canes, from assembling in a 

greater number than five outside of their Masters' 

houses, or from having banquets on any 

occasion . During the sixteenth, seventeenth, 

and eighteenth centuries, the parliaments 

were continually interposing their power 

against the associations of Compagnonage, as 

well as against other fraternities . The effects 

of these persecutions, although embarrassing, 

were not absolutely disastrous . In spite 

of them, Compagnonage was never entirely 

dissolved, although a few of the trades abandoned 

their devoirs • some of which, however 

---such as that of the shoemakers-were subsequently 

renewed. And at this day the gilds 

of the workmen still exist in France having 

lost, it is true, much of their original code of 

religious dogmas and symbols and, although 

not recognized by the law, always tolerated 

by the municipal authorities and undisturbed 

by the police . To the Masonic scholar the 

history of these devoirs or gilds is pecu1iarl 

interesting . In nearly all of them the Temp 

of Solomon prevails as a predominant symbol, 

while the square and compass, their favorite 

and constant device, would seem, in some way, 

to identify them with Freemasonry so far as 

respects the probability of a common origin . 

Compagnons de la Tour . The title assumed 

by the workmen in France who belong 

to the different gilds of Compagnonage, which 

see. 

Companion . A title bestowed by Royal 

Arch Masons upon each other, and equivalent 

to the word brother in Symbolic Lodges . It 

refers, most probably, to the companionship 

in exile and captivity of the ancient Jews, 

from the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar 

to its restoration by Zerubbabel, 

under the auspices of Cyrus . In using this title 

in a higher degree, the Masons who adopted 

it seem to have intimated that there was a 

shade of difference between its meaning and 

that of brother. The latter refers to the universal 

fatherhood of God and the universal 

brotherhood of mani but the former represents 

a companionship or common pursuit of 

one object-the common endurance of suffering 

or the common enjoyment of happiness . 

Companion represents a closer tie than Brother . 

The one is a natural relation shared by all men ; 

the other a connection, the result of choice 

and confined to a few . All men are our brethren, 

not all our companions . 

Companions, The Twelve. George F . 

Fort says that the "twelve Companions of 

Master Hiram correspond unquestionably to 

the twelve zodiacal signs, or the twelve months 

of the year . The ground-work of this tradition 

is a fragment of ancient natural religion, 

common to both Oriental and European nationsi 

or, more properly, was derived from 

identical sources . The treacherous Craftsmen 

of Hiram the Good are the three winter 

months which slew him. He is the sun surviving 

during the eleven consecutive months, but 

subjected to the irresistible power of three 

ruffians, the winter months ; in the twelfth 

and last month, that luminary, Hiram, the 

good, the beauteous, the bright, the sun god, 

is extinguished ." (The Early History and 

Antiquities of Freemasonry, p . 408.) 

Compasses. As in Operative Masonry, 

the compasses are used for the admeasurement 

of the architect's plans, and to enable 

him to give those just proportions which will 

ensure beauty as well as stability to his work ; 

so, in Speculative Masonr this important 

implement symbolic of that LIT even tenor of 

deportment, that true standard of rectitude 

which alone can bestow happiness here and 

felicity hereafter. Hence are the compasses 

the most prominent emblem of virtue, the 

true and only measure of a Mason's life and

174 COMPOSITE 

CONNECTICUT 

conduct. As the Bible gives us light on our 

duties to God, and the square illustrates our 

duties to our neighborhood and brother, so 

the compasses give that additional light which is 

to instruct us in the duty we owe to ourselves 

-the great, imperative duty of circumscribing 

our passions, and keeping our desires 

within due bounds. "It is ordained," says 

the philosophic Burke, "in the eternal constitution 

of things, that men of intemperate 

passions cannot be free ; their passions forge 

their fetters." Those brethren who delight to 

trace our emblems to an astronomical origin, 

find in the compasses a symbol of the sun, the 

circular pivot representing the body of the 

luminary, and the diverging legs his rays . 

In the earliest rituals of the last century, 

the compasses are described as a part of the 

furniture of the Lodge, and are said to belong 

to the Master . Some change will be found in 

this respect in the ritual of the present day . 

(See Square and Compasses .) 

Composite. One of the five orders of 

architecture introduced by the Romans, and 

compounded of the other four, whence it derives 

its name. Although it combines strength 

with beauty, yet, as it is a comparatively 

modern invention, it is held in little esteem 

among Freemasons . 

Concealment of the Body . See Aphanism. 

Conclave . Commanderies of Knights Templars 

in England and Canada were called Conclaves, 

and the Grand Encampment, the 

Grand Conclave, but the terms now in use 

are "Preceptory" and "Great Priory" respectively. 

The word is also applied to the 

meetings in some other of the high degrees . 

The word is derived from the Latin con, 

"with," and clavis, "a key," to denote the idea 

of being locked up in seclusion, and in this 

sense was first applied to the apartment in 

which the cardinals are literally locked up 

when met to elect a Pope . 

Concordists. A secret order established 

in Prussia, by M . Lang, on the wreck of the 

Tugendverein, which latter body was instituted 

in 1790 as a successor of the Illuminati, 

and suppressed in 1812 by the Prussian 

Government, on account of its supposed political 

tendencies . 

Confederacies . A title given to the 

yearly meetings of the Masons in the time of 

Henry VI ., of England, and used in the celebrated 

statute passed in the third year of his 

reign, which begins thus : "Whereas, by the 

yearly congregations and confederacies made 

by the Masons in their General Chapiters assembled, 

etc ." (See Laborers, Statutes of .) 

Conference Lodges. Assemblies of the 

members of a Lodge sometimes held in Germany 

. Their object is the discussion of the 

financial and other private matters of the 

Lodge . Lodges of this kind held in France are 

said to be "en famille ." There is no such arrangement 

in English or American Masonry . 

Conferring Degrees . When a candidate is 

initiated into any degree of Masonry in due 

form, the degree is said to have been conferred, 

in contradistinction to the looser mode of imparting 

its secrets by communication . 

Confusion of Tongues . The Tower of 

Babel is referred to in the ritual of the Third 

Degree as the place where language was confounded 

and Masonry lost . Hence, in Masonic 

symbolism, as Masonry professes to possess 

a universal language, the confusion of 

tongues at Babel is a symbol of that intellectual 

darkness from which the aspirant is seeking 

to emerge on his passage to that intellectual 

light which is imparted by the Order . 

(See Threshing Floor .) 

Congregations . In the Old Records and 

Constitutions of Masonry the yearly meetings 

of the Craft are so called . Thus in the Halliwell 

or Regius MS. it is said, "very Master 

that is a Mason must be at the General Congregation 

." (Line 107 .) What are now called 

"Communications of a Grand Lodge" were 

then called "Congregations of the Craft ." 

(See Assembly .) 

Congresses, Masonic . At various times 

in the history of Freemasonry conferences 

have been held, in which, as in the General 

Councils of the Church, the interests of the 

Institution have been made the subject of 

consideration . These conferences have received 

the name of Masonic Congresses . 

Whenever a respectable number of Masons 

invested with deliberative powers, assemble as 

the representatives of different countries and 

jurisdictions, to take into consideration matters 

relating to the Order, such a meeting will 

be properly called a Congress . Of these Congresses 

some have been productive of little or 

no effect, while others have undoubtedly left 

their mark ; nor can it be doubted, that if a 

General or Ecumenical Congress, consisting 

of representatives of all the Masonic powers 

of the world, were to meet, with an eye single 

to the great object of Masonic reform, and 

were to be guided by a liberal and conciliatory 

spirit of compromise, such a Congress might at 

the present day be of incalculable advantage . 

The most important Congresses that have 

met since the year 926 are those of York, 

Strasburg, Ratisbon, Spire, Cologne, Basle, 

Jena, Altenberg, Brunswick, Lyons, Wolfenbuttel, 

Wilhehnsbad, Paris, Washington, Baltimore, 

Lexington, and Chicago . (See them 

under their respective titles .) 

Connecticut. The first Lodge organized 

in Connecticut was Hiram Lodge, at New 

Haven, which was warranted by the Grand 

Lodge of the "Moderns" on November 12, 

1750 ; it remained on the English register until 

the formation of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut 

in 1789, when it became No . 1 on the roll 

of that Grand Lodge. Other Lodges were instituted, 

some by authority from Massachusetts, 

others from that derived from New 

York . A convention of delegates from twelve 

Lodges assembled at New Haven, July 8, 

1789, and organized the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, 

Pierpont Edwards being elected 

Grand Master . 

In 1796, there were three Royal Arch Chapters 

in Connecticut . In 1797, these Chapters

CONSECRATION 

CONSTITUTIONS 175 

had entered into an association, probably 

with the idea of establishing a Grand Chapter . 

On January 24, 1798, a convention of delegates 

from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 

Connecticut, and New York was held at 

Hartford, when a conference was had on the 

subject of the two conventions, the delegates 

from Connecticut uniting with those from the 

other States in forming the "Grand Royal 

Arch Chapter of the Northern States of America." 

By the Constitution then adopted, the 

"Deputy Grand Chapter" of Connecticut was 

established . The title was changed in the subsequent 

year for that of "Grand Chapter ." 

Webb gives the precise date of the organization 

of the Grand Chapter as May 17, 1798 . 

(See Royal Arch Grand Bodies in America.) 


Masters was organized in 1819 . 

The Grand Encampment of Knights Templar 

was organized September 13, 1827, but is 

now known as the Grand Commandery . 

Consecration. The appropriating or dedicating, 

with certain ceremonies, anything to 

sacred purposes or offices by separating it 

from common use . Hobbes, in his Leviathan 

(p. iv ., c . 44), gives the best definition of this 

ceremony . "To consecrate is, in Scripture, to 

offer, give, or dedicate, in pious and decent 

language and gesture, a man, or any other 

thin, to God, by separating it from common 

use .' Masonic Lodges, like ancient temples 

and modern churches, have always been consecrated. 

The rite of consecration is performed 

by the Grand Master, when the Lodge is said 

to be consecrated in ample form; by the Deputy 

Grand Master, when it is said to be consecrated 

in due form ; or by the proxy of the 

Grand Master, when it is said to be consecrated 

in form. The Grand Master, accompanied 

by his officers, proceeds to the hall of 

the new Lodge, where, after the performance 

of those ceremonies which are described in all 

manuals and monitors, he solemnly consecrates 

the Lodge with the elements of corn, 

wine, and oil, after which the Lodge is dedicated 

and constituted, and the officers installed 

. 

Consecration, Elements of. Those 

things, the use of which in the ceremony as 

constituent and elementary parts of it, are 

necessary to the perfecting and legalizing of 

the act of consecration . In Freemasonry, these 

elements are corn, wine, and oil, which see . 

Conservators of Masonry. About the 

year 1859, a Mason of some distinction in 

Ame*ica professed to have discovered, by his 

researches, what he called "the true Preston- 

Webb Work," and attempted to introduce it 

into various jurisdictions, sometimes in opposition 

to the wishes of the Grand Lodge and 

leading Masons of the State . To aid in the 

propagation of this ritual, he communicated it 

to several persons, who were bound to use all 

efforts-to some, indeed, of questionable propriety-to 

secure its adoption by their respective 

Grand Lodges. These Masons were 

called by him "Conservators," and the order 

or society which they constituted was called 

the "Conservators' Association ." This association, 

and the efforts of its chief to extend 

his ritual, met with the very general disapproval 

of the Masons of the United States, 

and in some jurisdictions led to considerable 

disturbance and bad feeling . 

Conservators, Grand . See Grand Conservators 

. 

Consistory.- The meetings of members of 

the Thirty-second Degree, or Sublime Princes 

of the Royal Secret in the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite, are called Consistories . 

The elective officers are, according to the ritual 

of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United 

States, a Commander-in-Chief, Seneschal, 

Preceptor, Chancellor, Minister of State, 

Almoner, Registrar, and Treasurer. In the 

Northern Jurisdiction it is sli*htly different, 

the second and third officers being called Lieutenant-Commanders 

. A Consistory confers 

the Thirty-first and Thirty-second degrees of 

the Rite. 

Consistory, Grand . See Grand Consisto 

Constable, Grand . The fourth officer in a 

Grand Consistory . It is the title which was 

formerly given to the leader of the land forces 

of the Knights Templars . 

Constantine. See Red Cross of Rome and 

Constantine . 

Constituted, Legally . The phrase, a 

legally constituted Lodge, is of ten used Masonically 

to designate any Lodge working 

under proper authority, which necessarily 

includes Lodges working under dispensation ; 

although, strictly, a Lodge cannot be legally 

constituted until it has received its warrant 

or charter from the Grand Lodge . But so far 

as respects the regularity of their work 

Lodges under dispensation and warranted 

Lodges have the same standing . 

Constitution of a Lodge . Any number of 

Master Masons, not less than seven, being desirous 

of forming a new Lodge, having previously 

obtained a dispensation from the 

Grand Master, must apply by petition to the 

Grand Lodge of the State in which they reside, 

praying for a Charter, or Warrant of Constitution, 

to enable them to assemble as a regular 

Lodge . Their petition being favorably received, 

a warrant is immediately granted, and 

the Grand Master appoints a day for its consecration 

and for the installation of its officers . 

The Lodge having been consecrated, the 

Grand Master, or person acting as such, declares 

the brethren "to be constituted and 

formed into a regular Lodge of Free and Accepted 

Masons," after which the officers of 

the Lodge are installed. In this declaration of 

the Master, accompanied with the appropriate 

ceremonies, consists the constitution of the 

Lodge . Until a Lodge is thus legally constituted, 

it forms no component of the constituency 

of the Grand Lodge, can neither elect 

officers nor members, and exists only as a 

Lodge under dispensation at the will of the 

Grand Master . 

Constitutions of 1762 . This is the name 

of one of that series of Constitutions, or Reg

176 CONSTITUTIONS 

CONSTITUTIONS 

ulations, which have always been deemed of 

importance in the history of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite ; although the Constitutions 

of 1762 have really nothing to do with 

that Rite, having been adopted long before its 

establishment. In the year 1758, there was 

founded at Paris a Masonic body which assumed 

the title of the Chapter, or Council, of 

Emperors of the East and West and which 

organized a Rite known as the 'Rite of Perfection, 

consisting of twenty-five degrees, and 

in the same year the Rite was carried to Berlin 

by the Marquis de Bernez . In the following 

year, a Council of Princes of the Royal Secret, 

the highest degree conferred in the Rite, was 

established at Bordeaux . On September 21, 

1762, nine Commissioners met and drew up 

Constitutions for the government of the Rite 

of Perfection, which have been since known 

as the Constitutions of 1762 . Of the place 

where the Commissioners met, there is some 

doubt . Of the two copies, hereafter to be 

noticed, which are in the archives of the 

Southern Supreme Council, that of Delay 

hogue refers to the Orients of Paris and Berlin, 

while that of Aveilh6 says that they were 

made at the Grand Orient of Bordeaux . 

Thory also (Act. Lat ., i ., 79) names Bordeaux 

as the place of their enactment, and so does 

Ragon (Orthod. Mag ., 133) ; although he 

doubts their authenticity, and says that there 

is no trace of any such document at Bordeaux, 

nor any recollection there of the Consistory 

which is said to have drawn up the Constitutions 

. To this it may be answered, that in the 

Archives of the Mother Supreme Council at 

Charleston there are two manuscript copies 

of these Constitutions-one written by Jean 

Baptiste Marie Delahogue in 1798, which is 

authenticated by Count de Grasse, under the 

seal of the Grand Council of the Princes of the 

Royal Secret, then sitting at Charleston- and 

another, written by Jean Baptiste Aveili6 in 

1797 . This copy is authenticated by Long, 

Delahogue, De Grasse, and others . Both documents 

are written in French, and are almost 

substantially the same . The translated title 

of Delahogue's copy is as follows : 

"Constitutions and Regulations drawn 

up by nine Commissioners appointed by the 

Grand Council of the Sovereign Princes of the 

Royal Secret at the Grand Orients of Paris and 

Berlin by virtue of the deliberation of the 

fifth day of the third week of the seventh 

month of the Hebrew Era, 5662, and of the 

Christian Era, 1762. To be ratified and observed 

by the Grand Councils of the Sublime 

Knights and Princes of Masonry as well as by 

the articular Councils and Grand Inspectors 

ly constituted in the two Hemisp 

eres . ' The title of Aveilh6's manuscript 

differs in this, that it says the Constitutions 

were enacted "at the Grand Orient of Bordeaux," 

and that they were "transmitted to 

our Brother Stephen Morin, Grand Inspector 

of all the Lodges in the New World." Probably 

this is a correct record, and the Constitutions 

were prepared at Bordeaux . 

The Constitutions of 1762 consist of thirty- 

five articles, and are principally occupied in 

providing for the government of the Rite established 

by the Council of Emperors of the 

East and West and of the bodies under it . 

The Constitutions of 1762 were published 

at Paris, in 1832, in the Recueil des Actes du 

Supreme Conseil de France . They were also 

published, in 1859, in America; but the best 

rimed exemplar of them is that published in 

ench and E lish in the Book of Grand Constitutions, 

edited by Bro . Albert Pike, which is 

illustrated with copious and valuable annotations 

by the editor, who was the Sovereign 

Grand Commander of the Southern Supreme 

Council . 

Constitutions of 1786 . These are regarded 

by the members of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite as the fundamental law 

of their Rite. They are said to have been established 

by Frederick II ., of Prussia, in the 

last year of his life - a statement, however, 

that has been denied by some writers (see 

Findel's History of Freemasonry under "Declaration 

of the Grande Lodge of the Three 

Globes at Berlin" ; also Gould's History of 

Freemasonry under "The Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite "), and the controversies 

as to their authenticity have made them a 

subject of interest to all Masonic scholars . 

Bro. Albert Pike, the Grand Commander of 

the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction 

of the United States, published them, 

in 1872, in Latin, French, and English ; and 

his exhaustive annotations are valuable because 

he has devoted to the investigation of 

their origin and their authenticity more elaborate 

care than any other writer . 

Of these Constitutions, there are two exemplars 

one in French and one in Latin, between 

which there are, however, some material 

differences. For a long time the French exemplar 

only was known in this country. It is 

supposed by Bro. Pike that it was brought to 

Charleston by Count de Grasse, and that 

under its provisions he organized the Supreme 

Council in that place. They were accepted by 

the Southern Supreme Council, and are still 

regarded by the Northern Council as the only 

authentic Constitutions . But there is abundant 

internal evidence of the incompleteness 

and incorrectness of the French Constitution, 

of whose authenticity there is no 

proof, nor is it likely that they were made at 

Berlin and approved by Frederick, as they 

profess. 

The Latin Constitutions were probably not 

known in France until after the Revolution . 

In 1834, they were accepted as authentic by 

the Supreme Council of France, and published 

there m the same year . A copy of this was 

published in America, in 1859, by Bro . Pike . 

These Latin Constitutions of 1786 have been 

recently accepted by the Supreme Council of 

the Southern Jurisdiction in preference to the 

French version . Most of the other Supreme 

Councils-those, namel 

, of England and 

Wales, of Italy, and of South America-have 

adopted them as the law of the Rite, repudiating 

the French version as of no authority .

CONSTITUTIONS 

CONVENTIONS 177 

The definite and well-authorized conclusions 

to which Bro. Pike has arrived on the 

subject of these Constitutions have been expressed 

by that eminent Mason in the followmg 

language : 

"We think we may safely say, that the 

charge that the GrandConstitutums were forged 

at Charleston is completely disproved, and 

that it will be contemptible hereafter to 

repeat it. No set of speculating Jews constituted 

the Supreme Council established there ; Speculative Masonry.) 

and those who care for the reputations of Colonel 

Mitchell, and Doctors Dalcho, Auld, and 

Continental Lodges . 

Moultrie, may well afford to despise the scurrilous 

libels of the Ragons, Clavels, and Folgers. 

"And, secondly, that it is not by any 

means proven or certain that the Constitutions 

were not really made at Berlin as the 

purport to have been, and approved by Fr 

Brick. We think that the preponderance of sense. 

the evidence, internal and external, is on the Contumacy. 

side of their authenticity, apart from the positive 

evidence of the certificate of 1832 . 

"And, thirdlq, that the Supreme Council 

at Charleston had a perfect right to adopt 

them as the law of the new Order ; no matter 

where, when or by whom they were made, 

as Andersonls Constitutions were adopted in 

Symbolic Masonry ; that they are and always 

have been the law of the Rite, because they 

were so adopted; and because no man has ever 

lawfully received the degrees of the Rite Convention . 

without swearing to maintain them as its 

supreme law ; for as to the articles themselves, 

there is no substantial difference between the 

French and Latin copies . 

"And, fourthly, that there is not one particle 

of proof of any sort, circumstantial or historical, 

or by argument from improbability, 

that they are not genuine and authentic . In 

law, documents of great age, found in the possession 

of those interested under them, to whom 

they rightfully belong, and with whom they 

might naturally be expected to be found, are 

admitted in evidence without proof, to establish 

title or facts . They prove themselves, 

and to be avoided must be disproved by evidence 

. There is no evidence against the genuineness 

of these Grand Constitutions ." 

Constitutions, Old . See Records, Old . 

Consummatum est . Latin . It is finished 

. A phrase used in some of the higher 

degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite . It is borrowed from the expression used 

by our Lord when he said, on the cross, "It is 

finished," meaning that the work which had 

been given him to do had been executed . It is, 

therefore, appropriately used in the closing 

ceremonies to indicate that the sublime work 

of the degrees is finished, so that all may retire 

in peace . 

Contemplative . To contemplate is, literally, 

to watch and inspect the Temple . The 

augur among the Romans, having taken his 

stand on the Capitoline Hill, marked out with 

his wand the space in the heavens he intended 

to consult . This space he called the templum. 

Having divided his templum into two parts 

from top to bottom, he watched to see what 

would occur . The watching of the templum 

was called contemplating ; and hence those 

who devoted themselves to meditation upon 

sacred subjects assumed this title . Thus, 

among the Jews, the Essenes and the Therapeutists, 

and, among the Greeks, the school 

of Pythagoras, were contemplative sects . 

Among the Freemasons, the word speculative 

is used as equivalent to contemplative . (See 

This expression is 

used throughout this work, as it constantly is 

by English writers to designate the Lodges on 

the Continent of hurope which retain many 

usages which have either been abandoned by, 

or never were observed in, the Lodges of England, 

Ireland, and Scotland, as well as the 

United States of America . The words Continental 

Masonry are employed in the same 

In civil law it is the refusal 

or neglect of a party accused' to ap ax and 

answer to a charge preferred against in a 

court of justice . In Masonic jurisprudence, it 

is disobedience of or rebellion against superior 

authority, as when a Mason refuses to obey 

the edict of his Lodge, or a Lodge refuses to 

obe that of the Grand Master or the Grand 

ge. The punishment, in the former case, is 

generally suspension or expulsion ; in the latter, 

arrest of charter or forfeiture of warrant . 

In a State or Territory 

where there is no Grand Lodge, but three or 

more Lodges holding their Warrants of Constitution 

from Grand Lodges outside of the 

Territory, these Lodges may meet together by 

their representatives-who should properly be 

the first three officers of each Lodge-and take 

the necessary steps for the organization of a 

Grand Lodge in that State or Territory. 

This preparatory meeting is called a Convention. 

A President and Secretary are chosen, 

and a Grand Lodge is formed by the election 

of a Grand Master and other proper officers, 

when the old warrants are returned to the 

Grand Lodges, and new ones taken out from 

the newly formed Grand Lodge . Not less 

than three Lodges are required to constitute a 

Convention . The first Convention of this kind 

ever held was that of the four old Lodges of 

London, which met at the Apple-Tree Tavern, 

in 1716, and in the following year formed the 

Grand Lodge of England. 

Convention Night . A title sometimes 

given in the minutes of English Lodges to a 

Lodge of emergency . Thus, in the minutes of 

Constitution Lodge, No . 390 (London), we 

read : "This being a Convention Night to 

consider the state of the Lodge," etc . (Sadler's 

History and Records of the Lodge of Emulation, 

p . 64 .) 

Conventions or Congresses of Masons in 

chronological order : 

926 . York, under Prince Edwin of England 

. 

1275. Strasburg, under Edwin Von Steinbach 

. 

1459. Ratisbon, under Jost Dolzinger.

178 CONVERSATION 

CORNER-STONE 

1464 . Ratisbon, under Grand Lodge of 

Strasburg . 

1469. Spire, under Grand Lodge of Strasburg. 

1535 . Cologne, by Hermann, Bishop of 

Cologne. 

1563 . Basle, by Grand Lodge of Strasburg . 

1717 . London, by the Four Old Lodges . 

Organization of Grand Lodge . 

1730 . Dublby the Dublin Lodges . 

1736 . Edinburgh. Organization and institution 

of Grand Lodge. 

1756. The Hague, by the Royal Union 

Lodge. 

1762 . Paris and Berlin, by nine commissioners 

nominated by the Sov. G. Council of 

P. of Masonry . 

1763 . Jena, by the Lodge of Strict Observance 

. 

1764. Jena, by Johnson or Beeker, denounced 

by Baron Hund . 

1765. Altenberg, a continuation wherein 

Hund was elected G. M . of Rite of Strict Observance. 

1772 . Kohl, by Ferdinand of Brunswick 

and Baron Hund, without success. 

1775 . Brunswick, by Ferdinand, Duke of 

Brunswick . 

1778 . Lyons, by Lodge of Chevaliers Bienfaisants 

. 

1778 . Wolfenbiittel, by Duke of Brunswick 

. 

1782 . Wilhelmsbad, an impotent session for 

purification . 

1784 . Paris, a medley of Lovers of Truth 

and United Friends . 

1786 . Berlin, alleged to have been convened 

by Frederick II of Prussia . 

1822. Washington, a mutual assemblage 

of American Lodges . 

1843. Baltimore, a mutual assemblage of 

American Lodges . 

1847. Baltimore, a mutual assemblage of 

American Lodges . 

1853 . Lexington, Ky ., a mutual assemblage 

of American Lodges . 

1855 . Paris, by Grand Orient of France . 

1859. Chicago . A volunteer assemblage . 

1875 . Lausanne . A convention of the Supreme 

Councils of the Scottish Rite of the 

World, which subsequently led to an eternal 

bond of unity both offensive and defensive . 

Conversation. Conversation among the 

brethren during Lodge hours is forbidden by 

the Charges of 1722 in these words : "You are 

not to hold private committees or separate 

conversation without leave from the Master ." 

(Constitutions, 1723, p. 53 .) 

Convocation . The meetings of Chapters 

of Royal Arch Masons are so called from the 

Latin convocatio, a calling together . It seems 

very properly to refer to the convoking of the 

dispersed Masons at Jerusalem to rebuild the 

second Temple, of which every Chapter is a 

representation. 

Convocation, Grand . The meeting of a 

Grand Chapter is so styled . 

Cooke's Manuscript. The old document 

commonly known among Masonic scholars 

as Matthew Cooke's Manuscript, because it 

was first given to the public by that distinguished 

Brother, was published by him, in 

1861, from the original in the British Museum, 

which institution purchased it, on the 14th of 

October, 1859, from Mrs. Caroline Baker . 

It was also published in facsimile by the 

Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No . 2076, London, 

in 1890. Its principal value is derived from the 

fact, as Bro . Cooke remarks, that until its 

appearance "there was no prose work of such 

undoubted antiquity known to be in existence 

on the subject ." 

Bro . Cooke gives the following account 

of the MS . in his preface to its republication : 

"By permission of the Trustees of the British 

Museum, the following little work has been 

allowed to be copied and published in its entire 

form . The original is to be found among 

the additional manuscripts in that national 

collection, and is numbered 23,198 . 

"Judging from the character of the handwriting 

and the form of contractions employed 

by the scribe, it was most probably written 

in the latter portion of the fifteenth century, 

and may be considered a very clear specimen 

of the penmanship of that period . 

"By whom or for whom it was originally 

penned there is no means of ascertaining ; but 

from the style, it may be conjectured to have 

belonged to some Master of the Craft, and to 

have been used in assemblies of Masons as a 

text-book of the traditional history and laws 

of the Fraternity ." 

Cope-Stone. See Cape-Stone. 

Cord, Hindu Sacred . See Zennaar . 

Cord, Silver. See Silver Cord. 

Cord, Threefold . See Threefold Cord . 

Cordon. The Masonic decoration, which 

in English is called the collar, is styled by the 

French Masons the cordon . 

Corinthian Order . This is the lightest 

and most ornamental of the pure orders, and 

possesses the highest degree of richness and 

detail that architecture attained under the 

Greeks. Its capital is its great distinction, and 

is richly adorned with leaves of acanthus, 

olive, etc ., and other ornaments . The column 

of Beauty which supports the Lodge is of the 

Corinthian order, and its appropriate situation 

and symbolic officer are in the South . 

Corner, Northeast. See Northeast 

Corner. 

Corner-Stone, Symbolism of the . The 

corner-stone is the stone which lies at the 

corner of two walls and forms the corner of 

the foundation of an edifice. In Masonic 

buildings it is now always placed in the Northeast 

; but this rule was not always formerly 

observed . As the foundation on which the 

entire structure is supposed to rest it is considered 

by Operative Masons as the most important 

stone in the edifice . It is laid with 

impressive ceremonies ; the assistance of 

Speculative Masons is often, and ought always 

to be, invited to give dignity to the occasion 

; and for this purpose Freemasonry has 

provided an especial ritual which is to govern 

the proper performance of that duty.

CORNER-STONE 

CORNUCOPIA 179 

Among the ancients the corner-stone of 

important edifices was laid with impressive 

ceremonies. These are well described by Tacitus 

in the history of the rebuilding of the Capitol. 

After detailing the preliminary ceremonies, 

which consisted of a procession of 

vestals, who with chaplets of flowers encompassed 

the ground and consecrated it by libations 

of living water, he adds that, after solemn 

prayer, Helvidius Priscus, to whom the 

care of rebuilding the Capitol had been committed, 

"laid his hand upon the fillets that 

adorned the foundation stone, and also the 

cords by which it was to be drawn to its place . 

In that instant the magistrates, the priests, 

the senators, the Roman knights, and a number 

of citizens, all acting with one effort and 

general demonstrations of joy, laid hold of the 

ropes and dragged the ponderous load to its 

destined spot . They then threw in ingots of 

gold and silver, and other metals which had 

never been melted in the furnace, but still 

retained, untouched by human art, their first 

formation in the bowels of the earth ." (Histories, 

iv., 53 .) 

The symbolism of the corner-stone when • 

duly laid with Masonicerites is full of significance, 

which refers to its form, to its situation, 

to its permanence, and to its consecration . 

As to its form, it must be perfectly square 

on its surfaces, and in its solid contents a 

cube . Now the square is a symbol of morality, 

and the cube, of truth . In its situation it lies 

between the north, the place of darkness, and 

the east, the place of light ; and hence this position 

symbolizes the Masonic progress from 

darkness to light, and from ignorance to knowledge 

. The permanence and durability of the 

corner-stone, which lasts long after the building 

in whose foundation it was placed has 

fallen into decay, is intended to remind the 

Mason that, when this earthly house of his 

tabernacle shall have passed away, he has 

within him a sure foundation of eternal life-a 

corner-stone of immortality-an emanation 

from that Divine Spirit which pervades all 

nature, and which, therefore, must survive 

the tomb, and rise, triumphant and eternal, 

above the decaying dust of death and the 

grave . 

The stone, when deposited in its appropriate 

place, is carefully examined with the necessary 

implements of Operative Masonry-the 

square, the level, and the plumb, themselves 

all symbolic in meaning-and is then declared 

to be "well formed, true, and trusty ." Thus 

the Mason is taught that his virtues are to be 

tested by temptation and trial, by suffering 

and adversity, before they can be pronounced 

by the Master Builder of souls to be materials 

worthy of the spiritual building of eternal life, 

fitted, "as living stones, for that house not 

made with hands, eternal in the heavens ." 

And lastly, in the ceremony of depositing 

the corner-stone, the elements of Masonic 

consecration are produced, and the stone is 

solemnly set apart by pouring corn, wine, and 

oil upon its surface, emblematic of the Nourishment, 

Refreshment, and Joy which are to 

be the rewards of a faithful performance of 

duty. 

The corner-stone does not appear to have 

been adopted by any of the heathen nations, 

but to have been as the eben pinah, peculiar 

to the Jews, from whom it descended to the 

Christians . In the Old Testament, it seems 

always to have denoted a prince or high personage, 

and hence the Evangelists constantly 

use it in reference to Christ, who is called the 

"chief corner-stone ." In Masonic symbolism, 

it signifies a true Mason, and therefore it is 

the first character which the Apprentice is 

made to represent after his initiation has been 

completed . 

Corn of Nourishment . One of the three 

elements of Masonic consecration . (See Corn, 

Wine, and Oil .) 

Corn, Wine, and Off . Corn, wine, and 

oil are the Masonic elements of consecration . 

The adoption of these symbols is supported by 

the highest antiquity . Corn, wine, and oil 

were the most important productions of Eastern 

countries ; they constituted the wealth of 

the people, and were esteemed as the supports 

of life and the means of refreshment . David 

enumerates them among the greatest blessings 

that we enjoy, and speaks of them as "wine 

that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil 

to make his face to shine, and bread which 

strengtheneth man's heart ." (Ps. civ . 15 .) In 

devoting anything to religious purposes, the 

anointing with oil was considered as a necessary 

part of the ceremony, a rite which has 

descended to Christian nations . The tabernacle 

in the wilderness, and all its holy vessels 

were, by God's express command, anointed 

with oil ; Aaron ands two sons were set apart 

for the priesthood with the same ceremony ; 

and the prophets and kings of Israel were consecrated 

to their offices by the same rite . 

Hence, Freemasons' Lodges, which are but 

temples to the Most High, are consecrated 

to the sacred purposes for which they were 

built by strewing corn, wine, and oil upon the 

"Lodge," the emblem of the Holy Ark . Thus 

does this mystic ceremony instruct us to be 

nourished with the hidden manna of righteousness, 

to be refreshed with the Word of the 

Lord, and to rejoice with joy unspeakable in 

the riches of divine grace . "Wherefore, my 

brethren," says the venerable Harris (Disc., 

iv ., 81), "wherefore do you carry corn, wine, 

and oil in your processions, but to remind you 

that in the pilgrimage of human life you are to 

impart a portion of your bread to feed the 

hungry, to send a cup of your wine to cheer the 

sorrowful, and to pour the healing oil of your 

consolation into the wounds which sickness 

hath made in the bodies, or affliction rent in 

the hearts, of your fellow-travellers?" 

In processions, the corn alone is carried in a 

golden pitcher, the wine and oil are placed in 

silver vessels, and this is to remind us that the 

first, as a necessity and the "staff of life," is of 

more importance and more worthy of honor 

than the others, which are but comforts . 

Cornucopia . The horn of plenty. The 

old Pagani myth tells us that Zeus was nour-

180 CORONET 

COUNCIL 

ished during his infancy in Crete by the daughters 

of Melissus, with the milk of the goat 

Amalthea . Zeus, when he came to the empire 

of the world, in gratitude placed Amalthea in 

the heavens as a constellation, and gave one of 

her horns to his nurses, with the assurance 

that it should furnish them with a never-failing 

supply of whatever they might desire . Hence 

it is a symbol of abundance, and as such has 

been adopted as. the jewel of the Stewards of a 

Lodge, to remind them that it is their duty to 

see that the tables are properly furnished at 

refreshment, and that every brother is suitably 

provided for . Among the deities whose images 

are to be found in the ancient Temples at 

Elora, in Hindustau, is the goddess Ana 

Puma, whose name is compounded of Ana, 

signifying corn, and Puma, meaning plenty. 

She holds a corn measure in her band, and the 

whole therefore very clearly has the same allusion 

as the Masonic Horn of plenty . 

Coronet, Ducal . (Italian, Coronetta .) An 

inferior crown worn by noblemen ; that of a 

British duke is adorned 

with strawberry leaves ; 

that of a marquis has 

leaves with pearls interposed 

; that of an earl 

has the pearls above the 

leaves ; that of a viscount 

is surrounded with 

pearls only ; that of a 

baron has only four 

pearls . The ducal coronet is a prominent 

symbol in the Thirty-third Degree of the 

A. A. Scottish Rite . 

Correspondence. See Committee on Foreign 

Correspondence . 

Corresponding Grand Secretary. An 

officer of a Grand Lodge to whom was formerly 

entrusted, in some Grand Lodges, the Foreign 

Correspondence of the body. The office is 

now disused, being retained only in the Grand 

Lodge of Massachusetts . 

Corybantes, Mysteries of . Rites instituted 

in Phrygia in honor of Atys, the lover of 

Cybele. The goddess was supposed first to 

bewail the death of her lover, and afterward 

to rejoice for his restoration to life . The ceremonies 

were a scenical representation of this 

alternate lamentation and rejoicing, and of 

the sufferings of Atys, who was placed in an 

ark or coffin during the mournful part of the 

orgies . If the description of these rites, given 

by Sainte-Croix from various ancient authorities, 

be correct, they were but a modification 

of the Eleusinian mysteries . 

Cosmist. A religious faith of late rec- 

'tion having for its motto, "Deeds, not 

eeds,' ; and for its principle the service of 

humanity is the supreme duty . The design of 

Cosmism is to join all men and women into one 

family, in which the principle of equality, together 

with that of brotherly love (that is, 

love of the human race), is the predominant 

one, and the moral and material welfare of all 

the sole aim and purpose . 

The Cosmists are enjoined to act as follows : 

To give one another encouragement and aid, 

both material and moral ; to cultivate all their 

faculties ; to contemplate all mankind as 

brethren ; to be courteous and forbearing to 

each and all ; to practise charity without publicity 

or ostentation . 

Freemasonry is an intensely theistical institution 

; but its principles could scarcely be 

better expressed than those above enumerated 

as the foundation of the Cosmistic faith ; 

more especially in the motto, "Deeds, not 

Creeds .' 

There is an observable difference between 

Cosmists and Secularists, Collectivists and 

Positivists . 

Cosmopolite. The Third Degree of the 

Second Temple of the Rite of African Architects 

(q. v .) . 

Council. In several of the high degrees of 

Masonry the meetings are styled Councils ; as, 

a Council of Royal and Select Masters, or 

Princes of Jerusalem, or Companions of the 

Red Cross . 

Council Chamber. A part of the room in 

which the ceremonies of the Companions of 

the Red Cross are performed . 

Council, Grand . See Grand Council . 

Council of Allied Masonic Degrees . An 

organization formed in England in 1880 to 

embosom, protect, and promulgate all side 

degrees of a Masonic or other secret character, 

and those otherwise unclaimed that may appear 

as waifs. The central organization is 

termed the "Grand Council of Allied Masonic 

Degrees ." 

Council of Companions of the Red 

Cross . A body in which the First Degree of 

the Templar system in this country is conferred 

. It is held under the Charter of a Commandery 

of Knights Templar, which, when 

meeting as a council, is composed of the following 

officers : A Sovereign Master, Chancellor, 

Master of the Palace, Prelate, Master 

of Despatches, Master of Cavalry, Master 

of Infantry, Standard-Bearer, Sword-Bearer, 

Warder, and Sentinel . 

Council of Royal and Select Masters. 

The united body in which the Royal and Select 

degrees are conferred . In some jurisdictions 

this Council confers also the degree of 

Super-Excellent Master . 

Council of Royal Masters . The body in 

which the degree of Royal Master, the eighth 

in the American Rite, is conferred . It receives 

its Charter from a Grand Council of Royal 

and Select Masters, and has the following 

officers : Thrice Illustrious Grand Master, 

Illustrious Hiram of Tyre, Principal Conductor 

of the Works, Master of the Exchequer, Master 

of Finances, Captain of the Guards, Conductor 

of the Council, and Steward . 

Council of Select Masters . The body in 

which the degree of Select Masters, the ninth 

in the American Rite, is conferred . It receives 

its Charter from a Grand Council of Royal 

and Select Masters . Its officers are : Thrice 

Illustrious Grand Master, Illustrious Hiram 

of Tyre, Principal Conductor of the Works, 

Treasurer, Recorder, Captain of the Guards, 

Conductor of the Council, and Steward.

COUNCIL 

COUSTOS 181 

Council of the Trinity . An independent 

Masonic jurisdiction, in which are conferred 

the degrees of Knight of the Christian Mark, 

and Guard of the Conclave, Knight of the 

Holy Sepulcher, and the Holy and Thrice Illustrious 

Order of the Cross . They are conferred 

after the Encampment degrees . They 

are Christian degrees, and refer to the crucifixion 

. 

Council, Supreme . See Supreme Council 

Ċourtesy . Politeness of manners, as the 

result of kindness of disposition, was one of 

the peculiar characteristics of the knights of 

old . "No other human laws enforced," says 

M . de St. Palaye, "as chivalry did, sweetness 

and modesty of temper, and that politeness 

which the word courtesy was meant perfectly 

to express ." We find, therefore, in the ritual 

of Templarism, the phrase "a true and courteous 

knight" ; and Knights Templars are in 

the habit of closing their letters to each other 

with the expression, Yours in all knightly 

courtesy . Courtesy is also a Masonic virtue, 

because it is the product of a feeling of kindness 

; but it is not so specifically spoken of in 

the symbolic degrees, where brotherly love assumes 

its place, as it is in the orders of knighthood. 

Coustos, John . The sufferings infected, 

in 1743, by the Inquisition at Lisbon, on John 

Coustos, a Freemason, and the Master of a 

Lodge in that city ; and the fortitude with 

which he endured the severest tortures, rather 

than betray his trusts and reveal the secrets 

that had been confided to him, constitute an 

interesting episode in the history of Freemasonry. 

Coustos, after returning to England, 

published, in 1746, a book, detailing his sufferings, 

from which the reader is presented with 

the following abridged narrative . 

John Coustos was born at Berne in Switzerland, 

but emigrated in 1716, with6father to 

England, where he became a naturalized subject. 

In 1743 he removed to Lisbon, in Portugal, 

and began the practise of his profession, 

which was that of a lapidary, or dealer in precious 

stones . 

In consequence of the bull or edict of Pope 

Clement XII . denouncing the Masonic institution, 

the Lodges at Lisbon were not held at 

public houses, as was the custom in England 

and other Protestant countries, but privately, 

at the residences of the members . Of one of 

these Lodges, Coustos, who was a zealous 

Mason, was elected the Master . A female, 

who was cognizant of the existence of the 

Lodge over which Coustos presided, revealed 

the circumstance to her confessor, declaring 

that, in her opinion, the members were "monsters 

in nature, who perpetrated the most 

shocking crimes." In consequence of this information, 

it was resolved, by the Inquisition, 

that Coustos should be arrested and subjected 

to the tender mercies of the "Holy Office ." 

He was accordingly seized, a few nights afterward, 

in a coffee-house-the public pretense 

of the arrest being that he was privy to the 

stealing of a diamond, of which they had 

falsely accused another jeweler, the friend and 

Warden of Coustos, whom also they had a 

short time previously arrested . 

Coustos was then carried to the prison 

of the Inquisition, and after having been 

searched and deprived of all his money, 

papers, and other things that he had about 

him, he was led to a lonely dungeon, in which 

he was immured, being expressly forbidden to 

speak aloud or knock against the walls, but if 

he iequired anything, to beat with a padlock 

that hung on the outward door, and which he 

could reach b ay thrusting his arm through the 

iron grate. ' It was there," says he, "that, 

struck with the horrors of a place of which I 

had heard and read such baleful descriptions, 

I plunged at once into the blackest melancholy 

; especially when I reflected on the dire 

consequences with which my confinement 

might very possibly be attended ." 

On the next day he was led, bareheaded, 

before the President and four Inquisitors, who, 

after having made him reply on oath to several 

questions respecting his name, his parentage, 

his place of birth, his religion, and the 

time he had resided in Lisbon, exhorted him to 

make a full confession of all the crimes he had 

ever committed in the whole course of his life ; 

but, as be refused to make any such confession, 

declaring that from his infancy, he had been 

taught to confess not to man but to God, he 

was again remanded to his dungeon . 

Three days after, be was again brought before 

the Inquisitors, and the examination was 

renewed . This was the first occasion on which 

the subject of Freemasonry was introduced 

and there Coustos for the first time learned 

that he had been arrested and imprisoned 

solely on account of his connection with the 

forbidden Institution . 

The result of this conference was that 

Coustos was conveyed to a deeper dungeon, 

and kept there in close confinement for several 

weeks, during which period he was taken 

three times before the Inquisitors . In the first 

of these examinations they again introduced 

the subject of Freemasonry, and declared that 

if the Institution was as virtuous as their 

prisoner contended that it was, there was 

no occasion for concealing so industriously the 

secrets of it. Coustos did not reply to this 

objection to the Inquisitorial satisfaction, 

and he was remanded back to his dungeon, 

where a few days after he fell sick . 

After his recovery, he was again taken before 

the Inquisitors, who asked him several 

new questions with regard to the tenets of 

Freemasonry-among others, whether he, 

since his abode in Lisbon, had received any 

Portuguese into the society? He replied that 

he had not. 

When he was next brought before them, 

"they insisted," he says, "upon my letting 

them into the secrets of Freemasonry ; threatening 

me in case I did not comply." But 

Coustos Armly and fearlessly refused to violate 

his obligations . 

After several other interviews, in which the 

effort was unavailingly made to extort from

182 COUSTOS 

COUVRIR 

him a renunciation of Masonry, he was subjected 

to the torture, of which he gives the following 

account : 

"I was instantly conveyed to the tortureroom, 

built in form of a square tower, where no 

light appeared but what two candles gave ; 

and to prevent the dreadful cries and shocking 

groans of the unhappy victims from reaching 

the ears of the other prisoners, the doors are 

lined with a sort of quilt . 

"The reader will naturally suppose that I 

must be seized with horror, when, at my entering 

this infernal place, I saw myself, on a sudden, 

surrounded by six wretches, who, after 

preparing the tortures, stripped me naked, 

(all to linen drawers,) when, laying me on my 

back, they began to lay hold of every part of 

my body . First, they put round my neck an 

iron collar, which was fastened to the scaffold ; 

they then fixed a ring to each foot ; and this 

being done, they stretched my limbs with all 

their might. They next wound two ropes 

round each arm, and two round each thigh, 

which ropes passed under the scaffold, through 

holes made for that purpose, and were all 

drawn tight at the same time, by four men, 

upon a signal made for this purpose . 

"The reader will believe that my pains must 

be intolerable, when I solemnly declare that 

these ropes, which were of the size of one's 

little finger, pierced through my flesh quite to 

the bone, making the blood gush out at eight 

different places that were thus bound . As I 

persisted in refusing to discover any more than 

what has been seen in the interrogatories 

above, the ropes were thus drawn together 

four different times. At my side stood a physician 

and a surgeon, who often felt my temples, 

to judge of the danger I might be in-by 

which means my tortures were suspended, at 

intervals, that I might have an opportunity 

of recovering myself a little . 

"Whilst I was thus suffering, they were so 

barbarously unjust as to declare, that, were I 

to die under the torture, I should be guilty, by 

my obstinacy, of self-murder . In fine, the last 

time the ropes were drawn tight, I grew so 

exceedingly weak, occasioned by the blood's 

circulation being stopped, and the pains I 

endured, that I fainted quite away ; insomuch 

that I was carried back to my dungeon, without 

perceiving it. 

"These barbarians, finding that the tortures 

above described could not extort any further 

discovery from me ; but that, the more they 

made me suffer, the more fervently I addressed 

my supplications, for patience, to heaven ; 

they were so inhuman, six weeks after, as to 

expose me to another kind of torture, more 

grievous, if possible, than the former . They 

made me stretch my arms in such a manner 

that the palms of my hands were turned outward 

; when, by the help of a rope that fastened 

them together at the wrist, and which 

they turned by an engine, they drew them 

gently nearer to one another behind, in such a 

manner that the back of each hand touched, 

and stood exactly parallel one to another ; 

whereby both my shoulders were dislocated, 

and a considerable quantity of blood issued 

from my mouth . This torture was repeated 

thrice ; after which I was again taken to my 

dungeon, and put into the hands of hysi- 

and surgeons, who, in setting my b ones, 

cians 

put me to exquisite pain . 

"Two months after, being a little recovered 

I was again conveyed to the torture-room, and 

there made to undergo another kind of punishment 

twice . The reader may judge of its 

horror, from the following description thereof . 

"The torturers turned twice around my 

body a thick iron chain, which, crossing upon 

my stomach, terminated afterwards at my 

wrists . They next set my back against a thick 

board, at each extremity whereof was a pulley, 

through which there ran a rope, that catched 

the ends of the chains at my wrists . The tormentors 

then stretched these ropes, by means 

of a roller, pressed or bruised my stomach, in 

proportion as the means were drawn tighter . 

They tortured me on this occasion to such a 

degree, that my wrists and shoulders were put 

out of joint . 

"The surgeons, however, set them presently 

after ; but the barbarians not yet having 

satiated their cruelty, made me undergo this 

torture a second time, which I did with fresh 

sins, though with equal constancy and reso- 

I was then remanded back to my Fution. dungeon, 

attended by the surgeons, who dressed 

by bruises ; and here I continued until their 

auto-dafe, or gaol delivery ." 

On that occasion, he was sentenced to work 

at the galleys for four years . Soon, however, 

after he had commenced the degrading occupation 

of a galley slave, the injuries which he 

had received during his inquisitorial tortures 

having so much impaired his health, that he 

was unable to undergo the toils to which he 

had been condemned, he was sent to the infirmary, 

where he remained until October, 

1744, when he was released upon the demand 

of the British minister, as a subject to the King 

of England . He was, however, ordered to 

leave the country . This, it may be supposed, 

he gladly did, and repaired to London, where 

he published the account of his sufferings in a 

book entitled The Sufferings of John Coustos 

forFreemasonry, and for refusing to turn Roman 

Catholic, in the Inquisition at Lisbon, etc ., etc. 

London, 1746 ; 8vo, 400 pages . (Reprinted at 

Birmingham, 1790 .) Such a narrative is well 

worthy of being read . John Coustos has not, 

by his literary researches, added anything to 

the learning or science of our Order ; yet, by 

his fortitude and fidelity under the severest 

sufferings, inflicted to extort from him a 

knowledge he was bound to conceal, he has 

shown that Freemasonry makes no idle boast 

in declaring that its secrets "are locked up in 

the depository of faithful breasts ." 

Couvreur. The title of an officer in a 

French Lodge, equivalent to the English Tiler . 

Couvrir le Temple . A French expression 

for the English one to close the Lodge. But it 

has also another signification . "To cover the 

Temple to a brother," means, in French Masonic 

language, to exclude him from the Lodge.

COVENANT 

COWAN 183 

Covenant of Masonry . As a covenant is 

defined to be a contract or agreement between 

two or more parties on certain terms, there 

can be no doubt that when a man is made a 

Mason he enters into a covenant with the Institution. 

On his part he promises to fulfil 

certain promises, and to discharge certain 

duties, for which, on the other part, the Fraternity 

bind themselves by an equivalent 

covenant of friendship, protection, and support 

. This covenant must of course be repeated 

and modified with every extension of 

the terms of agreement on both sides . The 

covenant of an Entered Apprentice is different 

from that of a Fellow-Craft, and the 

covenant of the latter from that of a Master 

Mason . As we advance in Masonry our obligations 

increase, but the covenant of each 

degree is not the less permanent or binding because 

that of a succeeding one has been superadded. 

The second covenant does not impair 

the sanctity of the first. 

This covenant of Masonry is symbolized 

and sanctioned by the most important and 

essential of all the ceremonies of the Institution 

. It is the very foundation-stone which 

supports the whole edifice, and, unless it be 

properly laid, no superstructure can with any 

safety be erected . It is indeed the covenant 

that makes the Mason . 

A matter so important as this, in establishing 

the relationship of a Mason with the 

Craft-this baptism, so to speak, by which a 

member is inaugurated into the Institutionmust 

of course be attended with the most 

solemn and binding ceremonies . Such has 

been the case in all countries . Covenants have 

always been solemnized with certain solemn 

forms and religious observances which gave 

them a sacred sanction in the minds of the 

contracting parties . The Hebrews, especially, 

invested their covenants with the most imposing 

ceremonies . 

The first mention of a covenant in form that 

is met with in Scripture is that recorded in the 

fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where, to confirm 

it, Abraham, in obedience to the Divine command, 

took a heifer, a she-goat, and a ram, 

"and divided them in the midst, and laid each 

piece one against another ." (v . 10 .) This dividing 

a victim into two parts, that the covenanting 

parties might pass between them, 

was a custom not confined to the Hebrews, 

but borrowed from them by all the heathen 

nations . 

In the Book of Jeremiah it is again alluded 

to, and the penalty for the violation of the 

covenant is also expressed . 

"And I will give the men that have transgressed 

my covenant, which have not performed 

the words of the covenant which they 

had made before me, when they cut the calf in 

twain, and passed between the parts thereof, 

"The princes of Judah, and the princes of 

Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and 

all the people of the land, which passed between 

the parts of the calf ; 

"I will even give them into the hand of their 

enemies, and into the hand of them that seek 

their life : and their dead bodies shall be for 

meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the 

beasts of the earth ." (Jeremiah xxxiv. 18, 19, 

20.) 

These ceremonies, thus briefly glluded to 

in the passages which have been quoted, were 

performed in full, as follows . The attentive 

Masonic student will not fail to observe the 

analogies to those of his own Order . 

The parties entering into a covenant first 

selected a proper animal, such as a calf or a 

kid among the Jews, a sheep among the 

Greeks, or a pig among the Romans . The 

throat was then cut across, with a single blow, 

so as to completely divide the windpipe and 

arteries, without touching the bone. This was 

the first ceremony of the covenant . The seeend 

was to tear open the breast, to take from 

thence the heart and vitals, and if on inspection 

the least imperfection was discovered, 

the body was considered unclean, and thrown 

aside for another . The third ceremony was to 

divide the body in twain, and to place the 

two parts to the north and south, so that the 

parties to the covenant might pass between 

them, coming from the east and going to the 

west . The carcass was then left as a prey to 

the wild beasts of the field and the vultures of 

the air, and thus the covenant was ratified . 

Covering of the Lodge . As the lectures 

tell us that our ancient brethren met on the 

highest hills and lowest vales, from this it is 

inferred that, as the meetings were thus in the 

open air, the only covering must have been 

the overarching vault of heaven . Hence, in 

the symbolism of Masonry the covering of the 

Lodge is said to be "a clouded canopy or starrydecked 

heaven ." The terrestrial Lodge of 

labor is thus intimately connected with the 

celestial Lodge of eternal refreshment . The 

symbolism is still further extended to remind 

us that the whole world is a Mason's Lodge, 

and heaven its sheltering cover. 

Cowan . This is a purely Masonic term, 

and signifies in its technical meaning an intruder, 

whence it is always coupled with the 

word eavesdropper. It is not found in any of 

the old manuscripts of the English Masons 

anterior to the eighteenth century, unless we 

suppose that lowen, met with in many of them, 

is a clerical error of the copyists . It occurs in 

the Schaw manuscript, a Scotch record which 

bears the date of 1598, in the following passage 

: "That no Master or Fellow of Craft receive 

any cowans to work in his society or 

company, nor send none of his servants to 

work with cowans." In the second edition of 

Anderson's Constitutions, published in 1738, 

we find the word in use among the English 

Masons, thus : "But Free and Accepted 

Masons shall not allow cowans to work with 

them ; nor shall they be employed by cowans 

without an urgent necessity ; and even in that 

case .they must not teach cowans, but must 

have a separate communication ." (P . 146 .) 

There can be but little doubt that the word, as 

a Masonic term, comes to us from Scotland, 

and it is therefore in the Scotch language that 

we must look for its signification .

184 CRAFT 

CREED 

Now, Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, 

gives us the following meanings of the word : 

"CownN, s . 1 . A term of contempt ; applied 

to one who does the work of a Mason, 

but has not been regularly bred. 

"2 . Also used to denote one who builds dry 

walls, otherwise denominated a dry-diker . 

"3 . One unacquainted with the secrets of 

Freemasonry ." 

And he gives the following examples as his 

authorities : 

"À boat-carpenter, joiner, cowan (or 

builder of stone without mortar), get 18 . at 

the minimum and good maintenance .' P . 

Morven, Argyles. Statistic . Acct. ! X ., 267 . N . 

"`Cowans . Masons who build dry-stone 

dikes or walls.' P. Halkirk, Carthn . Statistic . 

Acct., XIX ., 24. N ." 

In the Rob Roy of Scott, the word is used by 

Allan Inverach, who says : 

"She does not value a Cawmil mair as a 

cowan ." 

The word has therefore, I think, come to 

the English Fraternity directly from the Operative 

Masons of Scotland, among whom it 

was used to denote a pretender, in the exact 

sense of the first meaning of Jamieson . 

There is no word that has given Masonic 

scholars more trouble than this in tracing its 

derivation . By some it has been considered to 

come from the Greek ec4wv, kuon a dog ; and 

referred to the fact that in the early ages of the 

Church, when the mysteries of the new religion 

were communicated only to initiates under 

the veil of secrecy, infidels were called "dogs," 

a term probably suggested by such passages 

as Matthew vii . 6, "Give not that which is 

holy unto the dogs" ; or, Philip. iii . 2, "Beware 

of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the 

concision ." This derivation has been adopted 

by Oliver, and many other writers . Jamieson's 

derivations are from the old Swedish 

kujon, kuzhjohn, a silly fellow, and the French 

coion, coyon, a coward, a base fellow. No 

matter how we get the word, it seems always 

to convey an idea of contempt . The attempt 

to derive it from the chouans of the French Revolution 

is manifestly absurd, for it has been 

shown that the word was in use long before 

the French Revolution was even meditated . 

[Dr . Murray in the New En~lish Dictionary 

says that the derivation of the word is unknown.-E 

. L . H .] 

Craft. It is from the Saxon craft, which 

indirectly signifies skill or dexterity in any 

art. In reference to this skill, therefore, the 

ordinary acceptation is a trade or mechanical 

art, and collectively, the rsons practg it . 

Hence, "the raft" in Speculative Masonry, 

signifies the whole 'body of Freemasons, wherever 

dispersed . 

Craft Masonry, Ancient . See Ancient 

Craft Masonry . 

Craft Statistics . See Statistics of Craft 

Masonry. 

Crafted. A word sometimes colloquially 

used, instead of the Lodge term "passed," to 

designate the advancement of a candidate to 

the Second Degree . 

Craftsman . A Mason . The word originally 

meant anyone skilful in his art, and is 

so used by our early writers. Thus Chaucer, 

in his Knights' Tale, v. 1897, says : 

"For in the land there was no craftesman, 

That geometry or arsmetrike can, 

Nor pourtrayor, nor carver of images, 

That Theseus ne gave him meat and wages . 

The theatre to make and to devise ." 

Crata Repoa . See Egyptian Priests, Initiations 

of the. 

Create. In chivalry when anyone received 

the order of knighthood, he was said 

to be created a knight . The word "dub" had 

also the same meaning . The word created is 

used in Commanderies of Knights Templar to 

denote the elevation of a candidate to that 

degree . (See Dub .) 

Creation . Preston (Illust ., B . I . Sect. 3) 

says : "From the commencement of the world, 

we may trace the foundation of Masonry. 

Ever since symmetry began, and harmony displayed 

her charms, our Order has had a 

being." Language like this has been deemed 

extravagant, and justly, too, if the words are 

to be taken in their literal sense . The idea 

that the Order of Masonry is coeval with the 

creation is so absurd that the pretension cannot 

need refutation. But the fact is, that Anderson, 

Preston, and other writers who have 

indulged in such statements, did not mean by 

the word Masonry anything like an organized 

Order or Institution bearing any resemblance 

to the Freemasonry of the present day . They 

simply meant to indicate that the great moral 

principles on which Freemasonry is founded, 

and by which it professes to be guided, have 

always formed a part of the Divine government 

and been presented to man from his first 

creation for his acceptance . The words quoted 

from Preston are unwise, because they are liable 

to misconstruction . But the symbolic 

idea which they intended to convey, namely, 

that Masonry is truth, and that truth is coexistent 

with man's creation, is correct, and 

cannot be disputed . 

Creed, A Mason's. Although Freemasonry 

is not a dogmatic theology, and is tolerant in 

the admission of men of every religious faith, it 

would be wrong to suppose that it is without a 

creed . On the contrary it has a creed, the 

assent to which it rigidly enforces, and the 

denial of which is absolutely incompatible 

with membership in the Order . This creed 

consists of two articles : First, a belief in God, 

the Creator of all things, who is therefore 

recognized as the Great Architect of the Universe 

; and secondly, a belief in the eternal 

life, to which this present life is but a preparatory 

and probationary state . To the first of 

these articles assent is explicitly required as 

soon as the threshold of the Lge is crossed . 

The second is expressively taught by legends 

and symbols, and must be implicitly assented 

to by every Mason, ~especially by those who 

have received the Third Degree, which is altogether 

founded on the doctrine of the resurrection 

to a second life.

CRESSET 

CROMLECH 185 

At the revival of Masonry in 1717, the 

Grand Lodge of England set forth the law, as 

to the religious creed to be rewired of a 

Mason, in the following words, to 

found in 

the Charges approved by that body. 

"In ancient times, Masons were charged 

in every country to be of the religion of that 

country or nation, whatever it was ; yet it 

is now thought more expedient 

only to oblige them to that religion 

in which all men agree, leaving 

their particular opinions to 

themselves." (Constitutions, 1723, 

P . 50.) 

This is now considered universally 

as the recognized law on 

the subject. 

Cresset . An open lamp 

formerly having a cross-piece 

filled with combustible material 

such as naphtha, and recognized 

as the symbol of Light and 

Truth. 

Creuzer, Georg Friederich . George 

Frederick Creuzer, who was born in Germany 

in 1771 and was a professor at the University 

of Heidelberg, devoted himself to the study of 

the ancient religions, and, with profound learning, 

established a peculiar system on the subject 

. His theory was, that the religion and 

mythology of the ancient Greeks were borrowed 

from a far more ancient people-a body 

of priests coming from the East-who received 

them as a revelation . The myths and traditions 

of this ancient people were adopted by 

Hesiod, Homer, and the later poets, although 

not without some misunderstanding of them ; 

and they were finally preserved in the Mysteries, 

and became subjects of investigation 

for the philosophers. This theory Creuzer has 

developed in his most important work, entitled 

Symbolik and Arehaologie der alters 

Volker, besonders der Griechen, which was published 

at Leipsic in 1819-21 . There is no 

translation of this work into English ; but 

Guigniaut published at Paris, in 1829, a 

paraphrastic translation of it, under the title 

of Religions de l'AntiquitE eonsiderees principalement 

dane leur Formes Symboliques et 

Mythologiques . Creuzer's views throw much 

light on the symbolic history of Freemasonry . 

He died in 1858 . 

Crimes, Masonie. In Masonry, every offense 

is a crime, because, in every violation of 

a Masonic law there is not only sometimes an 

infringement of the rights of an individual, but 

always, superinduced upon this, a breach and 

violation of public rights and duties, which 

affect the whole community of the Order considered 

as a community . 

The first class of crimes which are laid down 

in the Constitutions, as rendering their perpetrators 

liable to Masonic jurisdiction, are 

offenses against the moral law . "Every 

Mason," say the Old Charges of 1722, "is 

obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law." 

The same charge continues the precept by asserting, 

that if he rightly understands the art, 

he will never be a stupid atheist, nor an irre- 

ligious libertine . Atheism, therefore, which 

is a rejection of a supreme, superintending 

Creator, and irreligious libertinism, which in 

the language of that day, signified a denim of 

all moral responsibility, are offensesagainst 

the moral law, because they deny its validity 

and contemn its sanctions ; and hence they are 

to be classed as Masonic crimes . 

Again : the moral law inculcates love of 

God, love of our neighbor, and duty to ourselves. 

Each of these embraces other incidental 

duties which are obligatory on every 

Mason, and the violation of any one of which 

constitutes a Masonic crime . 

The love of God implies that we should 

abstain from all profanity and irreverent use 

of his name . Universal benevolence is the necessary 

result of love of our neighbor. Cruelty 

to one's inferiors and dependents, uncharitableness 

to the poor and needy, and a general 

misanthropical neglect of our duty as men to 

our fellow-beings, exhibiting itself in extreme 

selfishness and indifference to the comfort or 

happiness of all others, are offenses against 

the moral law, and therefore Masonic crimes . 

Next to violations of the moral law, in the 

category of Masonic crimes, are to be considered 

the transgressions of the municipal law, or 

the law of the land . Obedience to constituted 

authority is one of the first duties which is 

impressed upon the mind of the candidate 

and hence he who transgresses the laws of 

the government under which he lives violates 

the teachings of the Order, and is guilty 

of a Masonic crime . But the Order will take 

no cognizance of ecclesiastical or political offenses 

. And this arises from the very nature of 

the society, which eschews all controversies 

about national religion or state policy . Hence 

apostasy, heresy, and schisms, although considered 

in some governments as heinous offenses, 

and subject to severe punishment, are 

not viewed as Masonic crimes . Lastly, violations 

of the Landmarks and Regulations of 

the Order are Masonic crimes . Thus, disclosure 

of any of the secrets which a Mason has 

promised to conceal ; disobedience and want of 

respect to Masonic superiors ; the bringing of 

"private piques or quarrels" into the Lge; 

want of courtesy and kindness to the brethren 

; speaking calumniously of a Mason bebind 

his back, or in any other way attempting 

to injure him, as by striking him except in 

self-defense, or violating his domestic honor, 

is each a crime in Masonry . Indeed, whatever 

is a violation of fidelity to solemn engagements, 

a neglect of prescribed duties, or a transgression 

of the cardinal principles of friendship, 

morality, and brotherly love, is a Masonic 

crime . 

Crimson. (Crimoysin, O. Eng.) A deepred 

color tinged with blue, emblematical of 

ferventy and zeal ; belonging to several degrees 

of the Scottish Rite as well as to the 

Holy Royal Arch. 

Cromlech . A large stone resting on two 

or more stones, like a table . Cromlechs are 

found in Brittany, Denmark, Germany, and 

some other parts of Europe, and are sup-

186 CROMWELL 

CROSS 

posed to have been used in the Celtic Mysteries 

. 

that is connected with its rise and rogress . 

of the Institution, or in the authentic history 

Cromwell . The Abb6 Larudan published Crosier. The staff surmountedby a cross 

at Amsterdam, in 1746, a hook entitled Les carried before a bishop on occasions of solemn 

Francs-Magors Ecrases, of which Kioss says 

(Bibliog . der Freimaurerei, No . 1874) that it is 

the armory from which all the abuse of Freemasonry 

by its enemies has been derived . 

Larudan was the first to advance in this book 

the theory that Oliver Cromwell was the 

founder of Freemasonry . He says that Cromwell 

established the Order for the furtherance 

of his political designs ; adopting with this 

view, as its governing principles, the doctrines 

of liberty and equality, and bestowed upon its 

members the title of Freemasons, because his 

object was to engage them in the building of a 

new edifice, that is to say, to reform the human 

race by the extermination of kings and all 

regal powers. He selected for this purpose the ceremony . They are generally gilt, and made 

design of rebuilding the Temple of Solomon . light ; frequently of tin, and hollow . The pastoral 

staff has a circular head . 

This Temple, erected by Divine command, had 

been the sanctuary of religion . After years of Cross . We can find no symbolism of the 

glory and magnificence, it had been destroyed 

by a formidable army . The people who there 

worshiped had been conveyed to Babylon, 

whence, after enduring a rigorous captiviy, 

they had been permitted to return to Jerusalem 

and rebuild the Temple . This history of the 

Solomonic Temple Cromwell adopted, says 

Larudan, as an allegory on which to found 

his new Order . The Temple in its original 

magnificence was man in his primeval state 

of purity ; its destruction and the captivity 

of its worshipers typified pride and ambition, 

which have abolished equality and introduced 

dependence among men ; and the 

Chaldean destroyers of the glorious edifice 

are the kings who have trodden on an oppressed 

people . 

It was, continues the Abbe, in the year 

1648 that Cromwell, at an entertainment 

given by him to some of his friends, proposed 

to them, in guarded terms, the establishment 

of a new society, which should secure a true 

worship of God, and the deliverance of man 

from oppression and tyranny. The proposition 

was received with unanimous favor ; and 

a few days after, at a house in King Street, 

and at six o'clock in the evening (for the Abbe 

is particular as to time and place), the Order 

of Freemasonry was organized, its degrees established, 

its ceremonies and ritual prescribed, 

and several of the adherents of the future 

Protector initiated. The Institution was used 

by Cromwell for the advancement of his 

projects, for the union of the contending parties 

in England, for the extirpation of the monarchy, 

and his own subsequent elevation to 

supreme power . It extended from England 

into other countries, but was always careful to 

preserve the same doctrines of equality and 

liberty among men, and opposition to all 

monarchical government . Such is the theory 

of the Abbe Larudan, who, although a bitter 

enemy of Masonry, writes with seeming fairness 

and mildness . But it is hardly necessary 

to say that this theory of the origin of Freemasonry 

finds no support either in the legends 

cross in the primitive degrees of Ancient 

Craft Masonry. It does not appear among 

the symbols of the Apprentice, the Fellow- 

Craft, the Master, or the Royal Arch . This is 

undoubtedly to be attributed to the fact that 

the cross was considered, by those who invented 

those degrees, only in reference to its 

character as a Christian sign . The subsequent 

archeological investigations that have 

given to the cross a more universal place in 

iconography were unknown to the rituals . 

It is true, that it is referred to, under the name 

of the rode or rood, in the manuscript of the 

fourteenth century, published by Halliwell ; 

this was, however, one of the Constitutions of 

the Operative Freemasons, who were fond of 

the symbol, and were indebted for it to their 

ecclesiastical origin, and to their connection 

with the Gnostics, among whom the cross was a 

much used symbol . But on the revival in 1717, 

when the ritual was remodified, and differed 

very greatly from that meager one in practise 

among the medieval Masons, all allusion to 

the cross was left out, because the revivalists 

laid down the principle that the religion of 

Speculative Masonry was not sectarian but 

universal. And although this principle was in 

some points, as in the "lines parallel," neglected, 

the reticence as to the Christian sign 

of salvation has continued to the present day ; 

so that the cross cannot be considered as a 

symbol in the primary and original degrees of 

Masonry . 

But in the high degrees, the cross has been 

introduced as an important symbol. In some 

of them-those which axe to be traced to the 

Temple system of Ramsay-it is to be viewed 

with reference to its Christian origin and 

meaning. Thus, in the original Rose Croix 

and Kadosh-no matter what may be the 

modern interpretation given to it-it was 

simply a representation of the cross of Christ . 

In others of a philosophical character, such as 

the Ineffable degrees, the symbolism of the 

cross was in all probability borrowed from the 

usages of antiquity, for from the earliest

CROSS 

CROSS 187 

times and in almost all countries the cross has 

been a sacred symbol. It is depicted on the 

oldest monuments of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, 

and Hindustan . It was, says Faber (Cabir ., 

ii ., 390), a symbol throughout the Pagan 

world long previous to its becoming an object 

of veneration to Christians . In ancient symbology 

it was a symbol of eternal life . M . de 

Mortillet, who, in 1866, published a work entitled 

Le Signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme, 

found in the very earliest epochs three 

principal symbols of universal occurrence : 

viz ., the circle, the pyramid, and the cross. 

Leslie (Man's Origin and Destiny, p . 312), 

quoting from him in reference to the ancient 

worship of the cross, says : "It seems to have 

been a worship of such a peculiar nature as to 

exclude the worship of idols ." This sacredness 

of the crucial symbol may be one reason 

why its form was often adopted, especially by 

the Celts, in the construction of their temples. 

Of the Druidical veneration of the cross, 

Higgins quotes from the treatise of Schedius 

(De Moribus Germanorum, xxiv .) the following 

remarkable paragraph : 

"The Druids seek studiously for an oaktree, 

large and handsome, growing up with 

two principal arms in the form of a cross, bebeside 

the main, upright stem . If the two 

horizontal arms are not sufficiently adapted 

to the figure, they fasten a cross beam to it . 

This tree they consecrate in this manner . 

Upon the right branch they cut in the bark, in 

fair characters, the word HESUS ; upon the 

middle or upright stem, the word TARAMIS ; 

upon the left branch, BELENUS ; over this, 

above the going off of the arms, they cut the 

name of God, THAU. Under all the same 

repeated, THAU. This tree, so inscribed, they 

make their kebla in the grove, cathedral, or 

summer church, towards which they direct 

their faces in the offices of religion ." 

Mr. Brinton, in his interesting work entitled 

Symbolism; The Myths of the New World, 

has the following remarks : 

"The symbol that beyond all others has 

fascinated the human mind, THE CROSS, finds 

here its source and meaning . Scholars have 

pointed out its sacredness in many natural 

religions, and have reverently accepted it as a 

mystery, or offered scores of conflicting, and 

often debasing, interpretations . It is but 

another symbol of the four cardinal points, the 

four winds of heaven . This will luminously 

appear by a study of its use and meaning in 

America ." (P . 95 .) And Mr . Brinton gives 

many instances of the religious use of the 

cross by several of the aboriginal tribes of this 

continent, where the allusion, it must be confessed, 

seems evidently to be to the four cardinal 

points, or the four winds, or four spirits 

of the earth. If this be so, and if it is probable 

that a similar reference was adopted by 

the Celtic and other ancient peoples, then we 

would have in the cruciform temple as much 

a symbolism of the world, of which the four 

cardinal points constitute the boundaries, as 

we have m the square, the cubical, and the 

circular . 

Cross, Double . See Cross, Patriarchal . 

Cross, Jerusalem. A Greek cross between 

four crosslets . It was adopted by Baldwyn 

as the arms of the 

kingdom of Jerusalem, 

and has since been 

deemed a symbol of the 

Holy Land . It is also 

the jewel of the Knights 

of the Holy Sepulcher . 

Symbolically, the four 

small crosses typify the 

four wounds of the Savior 

in the hands and 

feet, and the large central cross shows forth 

his death for that world to which the four extremities 

point . 

Cross, Maltese . 

worn by the Knights 

of Malta. It is heraldically 

described as 

"a cross pattt;e, but 

the extremity of each 

pattee notched at a 

A cross of eight points, 

deep angle ." The 

fA 

eight points are said 

to refer symbolically 

to the eight beatitudes 

. 

Cross of Constantine. See Labarum . 

Cross of Salem . Called also the Pontifical 

Cross, because it is borne before the 

Pope. It is a cross, the upright 

piece being crossed by 

three lines, the upper and 

lower shorter than the middle 

one . It is the insignia of the 

Grand Master and Past 

Grand Masters of the Grand 

Encampment of Knights Templar 

of the United States, and 

also of the Sovereign Grand 

Commander of the Supreme 

Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite . 

Cross, Passion . The cross on which 

Jesus suffered crucifixion . It is 

the most common form of the 

cross . When rayonnant, or having 

rays issuing from the point 

of intersection of the limbs, it is 

the insignia of the Commander of 

a Commandery of Knights Tem- . 

play, according to the American 

system . 

Cross, Patriarchal . A cross, the upright 

piece being twice crossed, the upper arms 

shorter than the lower . 

It is so called because it 

is borne before a Patriarch 

in the Roman Church . 

It is the insignia of the 

officers of the Grand Encampment 

of Knights Templars 

of the United States, 

and of 

essors of the 

Thirty-third egree in the 

Ancient a"pot and Accepted 


11

188 CROSS 

CROSS 

Cross, St . Andrew's. A saltier or cross 

whose decussation is in the form of the letter 

X . Said to be the form of 

cross on which St. Andrew 

suffered martyrdom . As he is 

the patron saint of Scotland, 

the St. Andrew's cross forms a 

part of the jewel of the Grand 

Master of the Grand Lodge of 

Scotland which is "a star set 

with brilliants having in the 

centre a field azure, charged 

with St . Andrew on the cross, gold ; this is 

pendant from the upper band of the collar, 

while from the lower band is pendant the 

jewel proper, the Compasses extended, with 

the Square and Segment of a Circle of 90° ; 

the points of the Compasses resting on the 

Segment, and in the centre, the Sun between 

the Square and Compasses." The St. Andrew's 

cross is also the jewel of the Twentyninth 


Scottish Rite, or Grand Scottish Knight of St . 

Andrew. 

Cross, Tau . The cross on which St . Anthony 

is said to have suffered martyrdom . It 

is in the form of the letter T . 

(See Tau .) 

Cross, Templar. Andr6 

Favin, a French heraldic writer, 

says that the original badge 

of the Knights Templar was 

a Patriarchal Cross, and 

Clarke, in his History of 

Knighthood, states the same 

fact ; this but is an error . 

At first, the Templars wore 

a white mantle without any cross . But in 

1146 Pope Eugenius III . prescribed for them 

a red cross on the 

breast, as a symbol 

of the martyrdom to 

which they were constantly 

exposed . The 

cross of the Hospitalers 

was white on a 

black mantle, and 

that of the Templars 

was different in color 

but of the same form, 

namely, a cross pattee . In this it differed 

from the true Maltese Cross, worn by the 

Knights of Malta, which was a cross pattt ;e, 

the limbs deeply notched so as to make a 

cross of eight points . Sir Walter Scott, with 

his not unusual heraldic inaccuracy, and 

Higgins, who is not often inaccurate, but only 

fanciful at times, both describe the Templar 

cross as having eight points, thus confounding 

it with the cross of Malta . In the statutes of 

the Order of the Temple, the cross prescribed 

is that depicted in the Charter of Transmission, 

and is a cross pattee. 

Cross, Teutonic . The cross formerly 

worn by the Teutonic Knights . It is described 

in heraldry as "a cross potent, sable, (black,) 

charged with another cross double potent or, 

(gold,) and surcharged with an escutcheon 

argent (silver,) bearing a double-headed eagle 

(sable) ." It has been adopted as the jewel 

of the Kadosh of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite in the 

United States but the 

original jewe' of the 

degree was a Latin or 

Passion Cross. 

Cross, Thrice Illustrious 

Order of 

the. Adegreeformerly 

conferred in this country 

on Knights Templar, 

but now extinct. Its meetings were called 

Councils, and under the authority of a body 

which styled itself the Ancient Council of the 

Trinity . The degree is no longer conferred . 

Cross, Triple . See Cross of Salem . 

Cross-Bearing Men . (Viri Crucigeri .) 

A name sometimes assumed by the Rosicrucians 

. Thus, in the Miracula Natures (Anno 

1619), there is a letter addressed to the Fraternity 

of the Rosy Cross. which begins : 

"Philosophi Fratres, Vin Crucigeri "- 

Brother Philosophers, CrossBearing Men . 

Cross, Jeremy L . A teacher of the Masonic 

ritual, who, during his lifetime, was extensively 

known, and for some time very 

popular . He was born June 27, 1783, at Haverhill, 

New Hampshire, and died at the same 

place in 1861 . Cross was admitted into the 

Masonic Order in 1808, and soon afterward 

became a pupil of Thomas Smith Webb, whose 

modifications of the Preston lectures and of 

the higher degrees were generally accepted by 

the Masons of the United States . Cross, having 

acquired a competent knowledge of 

Webb's system, began to travel and disseminate 

it throughout the country . In 1819 be 

published The True Masonic Chart or Hieroglyphic 

Monitor, in which he borrowed liberally 

from the previous work of Webb . In fact, 

the Chart of Cross is, in nearly all its parts, a 

mere transcript of the Monitor of Webb, the 

first edition of which was published in 1797 . 

Webb, it is true, took the same liberty with 

Preston, from whose Illustrations of Masonry 

he borrowed largely . The engraving of the 

emblems constituted, however, an entirely new 

and original feature m the Hieroglyphic Chart, 

and, as furnishing aids to the memory, rendered 

the book of Cross at once very popular ; 

so much so, indeed, that for a long time it almost 

altogether superseded that of Webb . In 

1820 Cross published The Templars' Chart, 

which, as a monitor of the degrees of chivalry, 

met with equal success . Both of these 

works have passed through numerous editions . 

Cross received the appointment of Grand 

Lecturer from many Grand Lodges, and traveled 

for many years very extensively through 

the United States, teaching his system of lectures 

to Lodges, Chapters, Councils, and Encampments 

. 

He possessed little or no scholarly attainments, 

and his contributions to the literature 

of Masonry are confined to the two compilations 

already cited . In his latter years he became 

involved in an effort to establish a Supreme 

Council of the Ancient and Accepted

CROSSES 

CROWNS 189 

Rite. But he soon withdrew his name, and 

retired to the place of his nativity, where he 

died at the advanced age of seventy-eight . 

Although Cross was not a man of any very 

original genius, yet a recent writer has announced 

the fact that the symbol of the monument 

in the Third Degree, the broken column, 

unknown to the system of either Preston or 

Webb, was invented by him . (See Monument.) 

Crosses. In referring to the philosophic 

triads and national crosses, there will be found 

in a work entitled The Celtic Druids, by Godfrey 

Higgins, the following : "Few causes have 

been more powerful in producing mistakes in 

ancient history than the idea, hastily formed 

by all ages, that every monument of antiquity 

marked with a cross, or with any of those symbols 

which they conceived to be monograms of 

Christ the Saviour, was of Christian origin . 

The cross is as common in India as in Egypt 

or Europe ." The Rev . Mr . Maurice remarks 

(Indian Antiquities) : " Let not the piety of 

the Catholic Christian be offended at the assertion 

that the cross was one of the most usual 

symbols of Egypt and India . The emblem of 

universal nature is equally honored in the 

Gentile and Christian world . In the Cave of 

Elephanta, in India, over the head of the 

principal figure may be seen the cross, with 

other symbols ." Upon the breast of one of the 

Egyptian mummies in the museum of the London 

University is a cross upon a Calvary or 

mount . People in those countries marked 

their sacred water-jars, dedicated to Canopus, 

with a Tau cross, and sometimes even that 

now known as the Teutonic cress . The fertility 

of the country about the river Nile, in 

Egypt, was designated, in distance on its 

banks from the river proper, by the Nilometer, 

in the form of a cross. The erudite Dr. G . L . 

Ditson says : "The Rabbins say that when 

Aaron was made High Priest he was marked 

in the forehead by Moses with a cross in the 

shape of that now known as St . Andrew's ." 

Proselytes, when admitted into the religious 

mysteries of Eleusis, were marked with a cross . 

Crossing the River . The Kabbalists have 

an alphabet so called, in allusion to the crossing 

of the river Euphrates by the Jews on their 

return from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild 

the Temple. It has been adopted in some of 

the high degrees which refer to that incident . 

Cornelius Agrippa gives a copy of the alphabet 

in his Occult Philosophy . 

Cross-Legged Knights . In the Middle 

Ages it was the custom to bury the body of a 

Knights Templar with one leg crossed over 

the other ; and on many monuments in the 

churches of Europe, the effigies of these 

knights are to be found, often in England, of 

a diminutive size, with the legs placed in this 

position . The cross-legged posture was not 

confined to the Templars, but was appropriated 

to all persons who had assumed the cross 

and taken a vow to fight in defense of the 

Christian religion . The posture, of course, 

alluded to the position of the Lord while on the 

cross . 

Cross-Legged Masons . A name given to 

the Knights Templar, who, in the sixteenth 

century, united themselves with the Masonic 

Lodge at Sterling, in Scotland. The allusion is 

evidently to the funeral posture of the Templars, 

so that a "cross-legged Mason" must 

have been at the time synonymous with a 

Masonic Knights Templar . 

Crotona . One of the most prominent cities 

of the Greek colonists in Southern Italy, 

where, in the sixth century, Pythagoras established 

his celebrated school . As the early 

Masonic writers were fond of citing Pythagoras 

as a brother of their Craft, Crotona became 

connected with the history of Masonry, 

and was often spoken of as one of the most 

renowned seats of the Institution . Thus, in 

the Leland MS., whose authenticity is now, 

however, doubted, it is said that Pythagoras 

"framed a grate Lodge at Groton, and maked 

many Maconnes," in which sentence Groton, it 

must be remarked, is an evident corruption of 

Crotona. 

Crow . An iron implement used to raise 

heavy stones. It is one of the working-tools of 

a Royal Arch Mason, and symbolically teaches 

him to raise his thoughts above the corrupting 

influence of worldly-mindedness . 

Crown. A portion of Masonic regalia worn 

by officers who represent a king, more especially 

King Solomon . In Ancient Craft Masonry, 

however, the crown is dispensed with, 

the hat having taken its place . 

Crown, Knight of the . See Knight of 

the Crown. 

Crown, Princesses of the. (Princesses de 

la Couronne.) A species of androgynous Masonry 

established in Saxony in 1770 . (Thory, 

Acta Latomorum, i ., 303 .) It existed for only 

a brief period. 

Crowned Martyrs. See Four Crowned 

Martyrs . 

Crowning of Masonry. Le couronnement 

de la Maconnerie . The Sixty-first Degree 7th 

series, of the collection of the Metropolitan 

Chapter of France. (Thory, Acta Latomorum, 

i ., 303 .) 

Crowns. As the result of considerable 

classification, Bro. Robert Macoy presents 

nine principal crowns recognized in heraldry 

and symbolism : 1st . The Triumphal 

crown, of which there were three kinds-a 

laurel wreath, worn by a General while in the 

act of triumph ; a golden crown, in imitation 

of laurel leaves ; and the presentation golden 

crown to a conquering General . 2d . The 

Blockade crown of wild flowers and grass, presented 

by the army to the Commander breaking 

and relieving a siege . 3d . The Civic 

crown of oak leaves, presented to a soldier 

who saved the life of his comrade. 4th . The 

Olive crown, conferred upon the soldiery or 

commander who consummated a triumph . 

5th. The Mural crown, which rewarded the 

soldier who first scaled the wall of a besieged 

city. 6th . The Naval crown presented to 

the Admiral who won a nava' victory . 7th. 

The Vallary crown, or circlet of gold, bestowed 

on that soldier who first surmounted the

190 CRUCEFIX 

CRUSADES 

stockade and forced an entrance into the 

enemy's camp . 8th . The Ovation crown, or 

chaplet of myrtle, awarded to a General who 

had destroyed a despised enemy and thus obtained 

the honor of an ovation . 9th . The 

Eastern or Radiated crown, a golden circle 

set with projecting rays . 

The crown of Darius, used in Red Cross 

knighthood and in the Sixteenth Degree, Scottish 

Rite, was one of seven points, the central 

front projection being more prominent than 

the other six in size and height . 

Crucefix, Robert T . An English Mason, 

distinguished for his services to the Craft . 

Robert Thomas Crucefix, M .D ., LL .D ., was 

born in Holborn, Eng ., in the year 1797, and 

received his education at Merchant Tailors' 

School. After leaving school, he became the 

pupil of Mr. Chamberlayne, a general and celebrated 

practitioner of his day, at Clerkenwell ; 

he afterward became a student at St. Bartholomew's 

Hospital and was a pupil of the 

celebrated Abernethy . On receiving his diploma 

as a member of the Royal College of 

Surgeons, in 1810, he went out to India, where 

he remained but a short time ; upon his return 

he settled in London, and be continued to 

reside there till the year 1845, when he removed 

to Milton-on-Thames, where he spent 

the rest of his life till within a few weeks before 

his decease, when he removed, for the benefit 

of his declining health, to Bath, where he expired 

February 25, 1850 . Dr. Crucefix was initiated 

into Masonry in 1829, and during the 

greater part of his life discharged the duties of 

important offices in the Grand Lodge of England, 

of which he was a Grand Deacon, and in 

several subordinate Lodges, Chapters, and 

Encampments. He was an earnest promoter 

of all the Masonic charities of England, of one 

of which, the "Asylum for Aged and Decrepit 

Freemasons," he was the founder . In 1834, he 

established the Freemasons' Quarterly Review, 

and continued to edit it for six years, during 

which period he contributed many valuable 

articles to its pages . 

In 1840 hrough the machinations of his 

enemies (For' he was too great a man not to 

have had some), he incurred the displeasure 

of the ruling powers ; and on charges which, 

undoubtedly, were not sustained by sufficient 

evidence, he was suspended by the Grand 

Lodge for six months, and retired from active 

Masonic life. But he never lost the respect 

of the Craft, nor the affection of the leading 

Masons who were his contemporaries . On his 

restoration, he again began to labor in behalf 

of the Institution, and spent his last days in 

advancing its interests . To his character, his 

long-tried friend, the venerable Oliver, pays 

this tribute : "Dr . Crucefix did not pretend to 

infallibility, and, like all other public men, he 

might be sometimes wrong ; but his errors 

were not from the heart, and always leaned to 

the side of virtue and beneficence . He toiled 

incessantly for the benefit of his brethren, and 

was anxious that all inestimable blessings 

shouldbe conveyed by Masonry on mankind . 

In sickness or in health he was ever found at 

his post, and his sympathy was the most 

active in behalf of the destitute brother, the 

widow, and the orphan. His perseverance 

never flagged for a moment ; and he acted as 

though he had made up his mind to live and 

die in obedience to the calls of duty ." 

Crucifix. A cross with the image of the 

Savior suspended on it . A part of the furniture 

of a Commandery of Knights Templar 

and of a Chapter of Princes of Rose Crojx . 

Crusades. There was between Freemasonry 

and the Crusades a much more intimate 

relation than has generally been supposed . 

In the first place, the communications frequently 

established by the Crusaders, and especially 

the Knights Templar, with the Saracens, 

led to the acquisition, by the former, of 

many of the dogmas of the secret societies of 

the East, such as the Essenes, the Assassins, 

and the Druses . These were brought by the 

knights to Europe, and subsequently, on the 

establishment by Ramsay and his contemporaries 

and immediate successors of Templar 

Masonry, were incorporated into the high 

degrees, and still exhibit their influence . Indeed, 

it is scarcely to be doubted that many 

of these degrees were invented with a special 

reference to the events which occurred in 

Syria and Palestine. Thus, for instance, the 

Scottish degree of Knights of the East and 

West must have originally alluded, as its name 

imports, to the legend which teaches a division 

of the Masons after the Temple was finished, 

when the Craft dispersed-a part remaining 

in Palestine, as the Assideans, whom Lawrie, 

citing Scaliger, calls the "Knights of the Temple 

of Jerusalem," and another part passing 

over into Europe, whence they returned on the 

breaking out of the Crusades . This, of course, 

is but a legend, yet the influence is felt in the 

invention of the higher rituals. 

But the influence of the Crusades on the 

Freemasons and the architecture of the Middle 

Ages is of a more historical character . In 1836, 

Mr. Westmacott, in a course of lectures on art 

before the Royal Academy, remarked that the 

two principal causes which materially tended 

to assist the restoration of literature and the 

arts in Europe were Freemasonry and the Crusades 

. The adventurers, he said, who returned 

from the Holy Land brought back some ideas 

of various improvements, particularly in architecture, 

and, along with these, a strong 

desire to erect castellated, ecclesiastical, and 

palatial edifices, to display the taste they had 

acquired ; and in less than a century from the 

first Crusade above six hundred buildings of 

the above description had been erected in 

Southern and Western Europe . This taste was 

spread into almost all countries by the establishment 

of the Fraternity of Freemasons, who 

it appears, had, under some peculiar form of 

brotherhood, existed for an immemorial period 

in Syria and other parts of the East, from 

whence some bands of them migrated to Europe, 

and after a time a great efflux of these 

ingenious men - Italian German, French, 

Spanish, etc .-had spread themselves in communities 

through all civilized Europe ; and in

CRUX CUNNING 19 1 

all countries where they settled we find the 

same style of architecture from that period, 

but differing in some points of 

treatment, as suited the climate . 

Crux Ansata. This signifies, 

in Latin, the cross with a handle . 

It is formed by a Tau cross surmounted 

by a circle or, more properly, 

an oval. It was one of the 

most significant of the symbols of 

the ancient Egyptians, and is depicted 

repeatedly on their monuments 

borne in the hands of their 

deities, and especially Phtha. Among them 

it was the symbol of life, and with that meaning 

it has been introduced into some .of the 

higher degrees of Masonry . The Crux Ansata, 

surrounded by a serpent in a circle, is the 

symbol of immortality, because the cross was 

the symbol of life, and the serpent of eternity . 

Crypt . From the Greek, rcp6mrw (to hide) . 

A concealed place, or subterranean vault . 

The caves, or cells underground, in which the 

primitive Christians celebrated their secret 

worship, were called cryptw ; and the vaults 

beneath our modern churches receive the 

name of crypts . The existence of crypts or 

vaults under the Temple of Solomon is testified 

to by the earliest as well as by the most 

recent topographers of Jerusalem . Their connection 

with the legendary history of Masonry 

is more fully noticed under the head of Vault 

Secret . 

Cryptic Degrees. The degrees of Royal 

and Select Master. Some modern ritualists 

have added to the list the degree of Superexcellent 

Master ; but this, although now 

often conferred in a Cryptic Council, is not 

really a Cryptic degree, since its legend has 

no connection with the crypt or secret vault . 

Cryptic Masonry. That division of the 

Masonic system which is directed to the investigation 

and cultivation of the Cryptic 

degrees . It is, literally, the Masonry of the 

secret vault . 

Cteis. Greek, rrrels . The female personification 

of the productive principle . It generally 

accompanied the phallus, as the Indian 

yoni did the lingam ; and as a symbol of the 

prolific powers of nature, was extensively venerated 

by the nations of antiquity . (See 

Phallic Worship .) 

Cubical Stone . This symbol is called by 

the French Masons, pierce cubique, and by the 

German, cubik stein . It is the Perfect Ashlar 

of the English and American systems . (See 

Ashlar .) 

Cubit. A measure of length originally 

denoting the distance from the elbow to the 

extremity of the middle finger, or the fourth 

part of a well-proportioned man's stature . 

The Hebrew cubit, according to Bishop Cumberland, 

was twenty-one inches ; but only 

eighteen according to other authorities . There 

were two kinds of cubits, the sacred and profane-the 

former equal to thirty-six, and the 

latter to eighteen inches . It is by the common 

cubit that the dimensions of the various parts 

of the Temple are to be computed . 

Culdees. When St . Augustine came over, 

in the beginning of the sixth century, to Britain, 

for the purpose of converting the natives 

to Christianity, he found the country already 

occupied by a body of priests and their disciples, 

who were distinguished for the pure and 

simple apostolic religion which they professed . 

These were the Culdees, a name said by some 

to be derived from Cultores Dei, or worshipers 

of God ; but by others, with perhaps more 

plausibility, from the Gaelic, Cuildich, which 

means a secluded corner, and evidently alludes 

to their recluse mode of life . The Culdees 

are said to have come over into Britain with 

the Roman legions ; and thus it has been conjectured 

that these primitive Christians were 

in some way connected with the Roman Colleges 

of Architects, branches of which body, it 

is well known, everywhere accompanied the 

legionary armies of the empire . The chief seat 

of the Culdees was in the island of Iona where 

St . Columba, coming out of Ireland ; with 

twelve brethren, in the year 563, established 

their principal monastery . At Avernethy, the 

capital of the kingdom of the Picts, they 

founded another in the year 600, and subsequently 

other principal seats at Dunkeld, St . 

Andrew's, Brechin, Dunblane, Dumferline, 

Kirkaldy, Melrose, and many other places in 

Scotland . A writer in the London Freemasons' 

Quarterly Review (1842, p . 36) says they were 

little solicitous to raise architectural structures, 

but sought chiefly to civilize and socialize 

mankind by imparting to them the knowledge 

of those pure principles . which they 

taught in their Lodges . Lenning and Gadicke, 

however, both state that the Culdees had organized 

within themselves, and as a part of 

their social system, Corporations of Builders ; 

and that they exercised the architectural art 

in the construction of many sacred edifices in 

Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and even in other 

countries of Northern Europe . Gadicke also 

claims that the York Constitutions of the 

tenth century were derived from them . But 

neither of these German lexicographers has 

furnished us with authorities upon which these 

statements are founded . It is, however, undeniable, 

that Masonic writers have always 

claimed that there was a connection-it might 

be only a mythical one-between these apostolic 

Christians and the early Masonry of Ireland 

and Scotland . The Culdees were opposed 

and persecuted by the adherents of St . 

Au ine, and were eventually extinguished 

in Scotland . But their complete suppression 

did not take place until about the fourteenth 

century . 

Cumulation of Rites . The practise by a 

Lodge of two or more Rites, as the American 

or York and the Ancient Accepted Scottish, or 

the Scottish and French Modern Rites . This 

cumulation of Rites has been practised to a 

considerable extent in France, and in Louisiana 

in the United States . 

Cunning. Used by old English writers 

in the sense of skilful. Thus, in 1 Kings 

vii . 14, it is said of the architect who was sent 

by the King of Tyre to assist King Solomon in

192 CUP 

CYRUS 

the construction of his Temple, that he was 

"cunning to work all works in brass ." 

Cup of Bitterness . (Calice d'Amertume .) 

A ceremony in the First Degree of the French 

Rite . It is a symbol of the misfortunes and 

sorrows that assail us in the voyage of life, and 

which we are taught to support with calmness 

and resignation . 

Curetes. Priests of ancient Crete, whose 

mysteries were celebrated in honor of the 

Mother of the Gods, and bore, therefore, some 

resemblance to the Eleusinian Rites . The neophyte 

was initiated in a cave, where he remained 

closely confined for thrice nine days . 

Porphyry tells us that Pythagoras repaired 

to Crete to receive initiation into their rites. 

Curiosity . It is a very general opinion 

among Masons that a candidate should not be 

actuated by curiosity in seeking admission into 

the Order . But, in fact, there is no regulation 

nor landmark on the subject . An idle curiosity 

is, it is true, the characteristic of a weak mind . 

But to be influenced by a laudable curiosity to 

penetrate the mysteries of an Institution venerable 

for its antiquity and its universality, is 

to be controlled by a motive which is not reprehensible 

. There are, indeed, in legends of 

the high degrees, some instances where curiosity 

is condemned ; but the curiosity, in these 

instances, led to an intrusion into forbidden 

places, and is very different from the curiosity 

or desire for knowledge which leads a profane 

to seek fairly and openly an acquaintance 

with mysteries which he has already learned 

to respect. 

Curious. Latin, curiosus, from cura, care. 

An archaic expression for careful . Thus in 

Masonic language, which abounds in archaisms, 

an evidence, indeed, of its antiquity 

Hiram Abif is described as a "curious and 

cunning workman," that is to say, "careful 

and skilful." 

Customs, Ancient . See Usages. 

Cynocephalus . The figure of a man with 

the head of a dog. A very general and important 

hieroglyphic among the ancient Egyptians. 

It was with them a symbol of the sun 

and moon ; and in their mysteries they taught 

that it had indicated to Isis the place where 

the body of Osiris lay concealed . The possessor 

of the high degrees of Masonry will be 

familiar with the symbol of a dog, which is 

used in those degrees because that animal is 

said to have pointed out on a certain occasion 

an important secret . Hence the figure of a dog 

is sometimes found engraved among the symbols 

on old Masonic diplomas. 

Cyrus . Cyrus, King of Persia, was a great 

conqueror, and after having reduced nearly 

all Asia, he crossed the . Euphrates, and laid 

siege to Babylon, which he took by diverting 

the course of the river which ran through it . 

The Jews, who had been carried away by 

Nebuchadnezzar on the destruction of the 

Temple, were then remaining as captives in 

Babylon. These Cyrus released A.M . 3466, 

or B.c . 538, and sent back to Jerusalem to 

rebuild the house of God under the care of 

Joshua, Zerubbabel, and Haggai. Hence, 

from this connection of Cyrus with the history 

of Masonry, he plays an important part 

in the rituals of many of the high degrees. 

But from late discoveries of inscriptions pertaining 

to Cyrus, as mentioned in the excellent 

little London work called Fresh Light from the 

Ancient Monuments (pp . 166-186), A . H . 

Sayce, M .A ., it would appear that this king 

was a polytheist, and that he was not a king of 

Persia, although he acquired that country 

after his conquest of Astyages, B .c . 559, between 

the sixth and ninth years of Nabomdos . 

Cyrus was king of Elam. The empire he 

founded was not a Persian one ; Darius, the 

son of Hystaspes, at a subsequent period, was 

the real founder of that kingdom . Prof . Sayce 

continues : "It was only as the predecessor of 

Darius, and for the sake of intelligibility to 

the readers of a later day, that Cyrus could be 

called a king of Persia." (Ezra i . 2 .) The original 

words of his proclamation, "King of 

Elam," have been changed into the more familiar 

and intelligible "King of Persia ." Elsewhere 

in the Bible (Isa. xxi . 1-10), when the 

invasion of Babylon is described, there is no 

mention of Persia, only of Elam and Media, 

the ancestral dominions of Cyrus . This is in 

strict accordance with the revelations of the 

Monuments, and testifies to the accuracy of 

the Old •Testament records . 

Cyrus never besieged Babylon, a city fifteen 

miles square . It opened its gates to his general 

without battle, B .C . 538 . The description by 

Herodotus belongs to the reign of Darius . Mr . 

Bosanquet asserts that the Darius of the Book 

of Darnel is Darius the son of Hystaspes . 

Cyrus had learned that a disaffected conquered 

people imported into a kingdom was 

a constant menace and danger, and he returned 

the Jewish exiles to Jerusalem to rebuild 

their city and be a fortress and check 

upon Egypt . The nations which had been 

brought from East and West were restored to 

their lands along with their gods . So it was 

with the captives of Judah. His dominions extended 

from the Hellespont almost to India . 

Cyrus was a worshiper of Merodach, 

originally the Sun-god, who is mentioned an 

intended by the name Bel, and Nebo, his 

prophet . (Isa. xlvi . 1 .) His first act after acquiring 

Babylonia was to restore the Babylonian 

gods to their shrines, from which they had 

been removed by Nabonidos, and further asks 

for their intercession . The theory that Cyrus 

believed in but one supreme god-Ormudzmust 

be abandoned . God consecrated Cyrus 

to be His instrument in restoring His chosen 

people to their land, not because the King of 

Elam was a Monotheist, but because the 

period of prophecy, "ten weeks of years," was 

drawing to a close . 

These statements are made upon the authority 

of the three inscriptions among the 

clay documents lately discovered in Babylonia 

by Mr . Rassam, and translated by Sir 

Henry Rawlinson and Mr . Pinches. The first 

of these is a cylinder, inscribed by order of 

Cyrus ; the second a tablet, which describes 

the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrusi while

CYRUS 

DAGRAN 193 

the third is an account given by Nabonidos of 

his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god 

at Haran, and of the temples of the Sun-god 

and of Anunit at Sepharvaim . 

Cyrus ascended the throne B.c . 559, and 

was slain in battle against the MassagetEe, 

B.c . 529 . He was followed by Cambyses (son) 

until B.c . 521, when he was succeeded by 

Smerdis, a Magian usurper, who reigned seven 

months. Darius I ., son of Hystaspes, a nobleman, 

conspired with six others and murdered 

Smerdis, when, by device, Darius obtained 

the throne over his companions B .c. 521 . 

The celebrated siege of Babylon lasted two 

years ; the city finally succumbed to the strategy 

of General Zopyrus, 516 . Darius reigned 

36 years, died B .c . 485 . (C. T . McClenachan, 

Zendavesta.) 

D . The fourth letter of the Phoenician, the 

Hebrew, the Greek, the Roman, and of nearly 

all alphabets . In Hebrew it is 1, Daleth, signifying 

the door of life, a representation of 

which was probably its original hieroglyph, 

thus : 

1 

1 shows the approximation to the Hebrew 

Daleth ; 2, the Greek Delta, resembling the 

opening of a tent . The numerical value of 'i 

is four ; as a Roman numeral it stands for 500 . 

The Divine name in Hebrew connected with 

this letter is 51a1, Daghul, Insignia . 

Da Costa, Hippolyto Joseph . A native 

of Colonia-do-Sacramento, on the river La 

Plata. He was made a Freemason in Philadelphia 

in the United States and afterward 

settled in Lisbon . He was subsequently persecuted 

by the Inquisition, and was rescued 

only in time to save his life by the aid of English 

brethren who got him uner the protection 

of the English flag . He then passed over into 

England, where he lived for several years, becoming 

a zealous Mason and devoting himself 

to Masonic literature . In 1811, he published 

in London a Narrative of his persecution in 

Lisbon, by the Inquisition, for the pretended 

crime of Freemasonry, in 2 vols., 8vo. He 

wrote also a History of the Dionysian Artificers, 

in which he attempts to connect Freemasonry 

with the Dionysian and other mysteries of the 

ancients. He begins with the Eleusinian mysteries, 

assuming that Dionysus, Bacchus, 

Adonis, Thammuz, and Apollo were all various 

names for the sun, whose apparent movements 

are represented by the death and resurrection 

referred to in the ceremonies . But as the sun 

is typified as being dead or hidden for three 

months under the horizon, be thinks that these 

mysteries must have originated in a cold climate 

as far north as latitude 66°, or among a 

people living near the polar circle. He therefore 

attributes the invention of these mys- 

2 

D 

teries to the ancient Scythians or Massagette, 

of whom he confesses that we know nothing . 

He afterward gives the history of the Dionysiae 

or Orphic mysteries of Eleusis, and draws 

a successful parallel between the initiation 

into these and the Masonic initiation . His 

disquisitions are marked by much learning, 

although his reasoning may not always carry 

conviction. 

Daetyf . Priests of Cybele, in Phrygia, of 

whom there were five, which number could not 

be exceeded, and alluded to the salutation and 

blessing by the five fingers of the hand . 

Daduchos. A torch-bearer . The title 

given to an officer in the Eleusinian mysteries, 

who bore a torch in commemoration of the 

torch lit by Ceres at the fire of Mt . Etna, and 

carried by her through the world in her search 

for her daughter . 

Daedalus. A famous artist and mechanician 

whose genealogy is traced in the Greek 

myths as having sprung from the old Athenian 

race of kings, the Erechtheidm. He is said 

to have executed the Cretan labyrinth, the 

reservoir near Megaris in Sicily, the Temple of 

Apollo at Capua, and the celebrated altar 

sculptured with lions on the Libyan coast . He 

is said to be the inventor of a number of the 

"Working Tools" used in the various degrees 

of Masonry, the plumb-line and the ax, most 

of the tools used in car entry, and of glue . 

Of him is told the fable of~his flying safely over 

the fEgean by means of wings made by himself 

. His nephew, Perdix: is the reputed inventorof 

the third Great Light in Masonry, the 

Compasses, which are dedicated to the Craft . 

Through envy Da dalus is said to have hurled 

his nephew, Perdix, from the Temple Athene . 

Dagger. In the high degrees a symbol 

of Masonic vengeance, or the punishment of 

crime . (See Vengeance.) 

Dagrain, Louis . A writer in the Amsterdam 

Journal of November 3, 1735, of an article 

on the subject of Freemasonry, which caused 

an edict from the States General forbidding 

Masonic gatherings throughout the country . 

(Thory, ActaLat ., ii ., 306.) 

Dagran, Louis . President of a General 

Assembly of thirty Lodges held on St . John's 

Day, 1756, at The Hague, for the formation of

194 DAIS 

DALCHO 

the Grand Lodge of Holland . It was at this 

December meeting that Baron Van Aerssen 

Beyeren Van Ho erheide was appointed 

Grand Master. (Tory, Acta Lat ., i ., 72 .) 

Dais. From the French dais, a canopy. 

The raised floor at the head of a banqueting 

room, designed for guests of distinction ; so 

called because it used to be decorated with a 

canopy. In Masonic language, the dais is the 

elevated portion of the eastern part of the 

Lodge room, which is occupied by Past Masters 

and the dignitaries of the Order. This should 

be elevated three steps above the floor . The 

station of the Junior Warden is raised one, and 

that of the Senior two . 

Dakota . The first Lodge organized in 

Dakota was St. John's Lodge, at Yankton, 

which received from the Grand Lodge of Iowa, 

December 5, 1862, a dispensation, and afterward 

a Charter, dated June 3, 1863 ; Incense 

Lodge, at Vermillion, received a dispensation, 

January 14, 1869, and a Charter, June 2, 1869 ; 

Elk Point Lodge, at Elk Point, received a dispensation, 

March 23, 1870, and a Charter, 

June 8,1871 ; Minnehaha Lodge, at Sioux Falls 

received a dispensation, July 13, 1873, and a 

Charter, June 3, 1874 ; Silver Star Lodge, at 

Canton, received a dispensation, February 6, 

1875, and a Charter, June 2, 1875 ; and Mount 

Zion Lodge, at Springfield, received a dispensation, 

February 16, 1875, and a Charter, 

June 2, 1875 . All of the above warrants were 

granted by authority of the Grand Lodge of 

Iowa . A dispensation was issued by the Grand 

Master of Minnesota, November 22, 1872, for 

S!iiloh Lodge, at Fargo, and a Charter was 

issued January 14, 1874 . He also issued a 

dispensation to Bismarck Lodge in 1874, and 

again in 1875, and on January 12, 1876, the 

Lodge received a Charter . 

June 21, 1875, a convention was held of the 

representatives of St . John's, Incense, Elk 

Point, Minnehaha, and Silver Star Lodges . 

Those of Mt . Zion Lodge, U . D ., were present 

but did not participate in the proceedings, the 

Lodge not having a Charter . A constitution 

was adopted and they elected their Grand 

Officers. 

July 21, 1875, the convention met again and 

the Grand Officers were installed in public, by 

Illustrious Brother Theodore S . Parvin, P. G . 

Master and Grand Secretary of the Grand 

Lodge of Iowa . 

This Grand Lodge continued until the session 

of June 11-13, 1889, when by Act of Congress, 

approved February 22, 1889, the division 

of the Territory of Dakota into North and 

South Dakota was likely to be accomplished 

within a few months. The report of a committee 

on division of the Grand Lodge was 

adopted, and certain Lodges located in North 

Dakota were permitted to organize a Grand 

Lodge of North Dakota . 

A Grand Chapter of Dakota was constituted 

in 1885, which was divided in 1890 into 

the Grand Chapters of North and South Dakota 

. On May 14, 1884, a Grand Commandcry 

of Knights Templar was organized, with 

five Commanderies . 

Dalcho, Frederick, M .D. One of the 

founders of the Supreme Council of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite for the 

Southern Jurisdiction of the United States . 

He was born in the city of London in the year 

1770, of Prussian, parents . His father had been 

a distinguished officer under Frederick the 

Great, and, having been severely wounded, 

was permitted to retire to England for his 

health. He was a very earnest Mason, and 

transmitted his sentiments to his son. At his 

death, this son was sent for by an uncle, who 

had a few years before emigrated to Baltimore . 

Here he obtained a good classical education, 

after which he devoted himself successfully 

to the study of medicine, including a more 

extensive course of botany than is common 

in medical schools . 

Having received his degree of Doctor of 

Medicine, he took a commission in the medical 

department of the American army . With his 

division of the army he came to South Carolina, 

and was stationed at Fort Johnson, in 

Charleston harbor . Here some difficulty arose 

between Dr . Dalcho and his brother officers, in 

consequence of which he resigned his place in 

the army in 1799 . He then removed to 

Charleston, where he formed a partnership in 

the practise of physic with Isaac Auld, and he 

became a member of the Medical Society, 

and a trustee of the Botanic Garden, established 

through its influence . 

On the 12th of June, 1818, Dr. Dalcho was 

admitted to the priesthood of the Protestant 

Episcopal Church . On the 23d of Februar , 

he was elected assistant minister of St . MYchael's 

Church, in Charleston . He died on the 

24th of November, 1836, in the sixty-seventh 

year of his age, and the seventeenth of his 

ministry in St. Michael's Church . 

The principal published work of Dr . Dalcho 

is, An Historical Account of the Protestant 

Episcopal Church in South Carolina . He also 

published a work entitled The Evidence from 

Prophecy for the Truth of Christianity and the 

Divinity of Christ ; besides several sermons 

and essays, some of which were the result of 

considerable labor and research . He was also 

the projector, and for a long time the principal 

conductor, of the Gospel Messenger, then the 

leading organ of the Episcopal Church in 

South Carolina. 

The Masonic career of Dr . Dalcho closely 

connects him with the history of York Masonry 

in South Carolina, and with that of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite throughout 


He was initiated in a York or Atholl Lodge 

at the time when the jurisdiction of South 

Carolina was divided by the existence and the 

dissensions of two Grand Lodges, the one deriving 

its authority from the Grand Lodge of 

Free and Accepted Masons of England, and 

the other from the rival Atholl Grand Lodge . 

His constant desire appears, however, to 

have been to unite these discordant elements, 

and to uproot the evil spirit of Masonic rivalry 

and contention which at that time prevaileda 

wish which was happily gratified, at length,

DALCHO 

DAMES 195 

by the union of the two Grand Lodes of 

South Carolina in 1817, a consummation to 

which he himself greatly contributed . 

In 1801 Dr. Dalcho received the Thirtythird 

and ultimate degree, or Sovereign Grand 

Inspector of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite ; and May 31, 1801, he became instrumental 

in the establishment at Charleston 

of the Supreme Council for the Southern Jurisdiction 

of the United States, of which body he 

was appointed Grand Secretary, and afterward 

Grand Commander ; which latter position he 

occupied until 1823, when he resigned . 

September 23, 1801, he delivered an oration 

before the Sublime Grand Lodge in Charleston. 

This and another delivered March 21, 

1803, before the same body, accompanied by a 

learned historical appendix, were published in 

the latter year under the general name of 

Dalcho's Orations . The work was soon after 

republished in Dublin by the Grand Council 

of Heredom, or Prince Masons of that city ; 

and McCosh says that there were other editions 

issued in Europe, which, however, I have 

never seen. The oration of 1803 and the appendix 

furnish the best information that up to 

that day, and for many years afterward, was 

accessible to the Craft in relation to the history 

of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite in this country . 

In 1807, at the request of the Grand Lodge 

of York Masons of South Carolina, he published 

an Ahiman Rezon, which was adopted 

as the code for the government of the Lodges 

under the jurisdiction of that body . T 

work, as was to be expected from the character 

of the Grand Lodge which it represented, was 

based on the previous book of Laurence Dermott. 

In 1808 he was elected Corresponding 

Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Ancient 

York Masons, and from that time directed 

the influences of his high position to the 

reconciliation of the Masonic difficulties in 

South Carolina . 

In 1817 the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted 

Masons and that of Ancient York 

Masons of South Carolina became united 

under the name of "the Grand Lodge of Ancient 

Freemasons of South Carolina ." Dr. 

Dalcho took a very active part in this reunion, 

and at the first annual communication he was 

elected Grand Chaplain . The duties of this 

office he faithfully performed, and for many 

years delivered a public address or sermon on 

the Festival of St . John the Evangelist . 

In 1822 he prepared a second edition of the 

Ahiman Rezon, which was published the following 

year, enriched with many notes . Some 

of these notes he would have hardly written, 

with the enlarged experience of the present 

day ; but on the whole the second edition was 

an improvement on the first . Although retaining 

the peculiar title which had been introduced 

by Dermott, it ceased in a great 

measure to follow the principles of the 'Ancient 

Masons ." 

In 1823 Dalcho became involved in an unpleasant 

controversy with some of his Masonic 

associates, in consequence of difficulties and 

dissensions which at that time existed in the 

Scottish Rite ; and his feelings were so 

wounded by the unmasonic spirit which 

seemed to actuate his antagonists and former 

friends, that he resigned the office of Grand 

Chaplain, and retired for the remainder of his 

life from all participation in the active duties 


Dalmatic . A robe worn by deacons in 

some Christian churches . Originally made of 

linen, as shown by early Christian paintings 

on the walls of the catacombs at Rome, but 

now generally made of heavy woolen or silk 

material, as the planets worn by the priest . 

This article of dress has become quite common 

in many of the degrees of various Rites . 

Damascus. An ancient and important 

city of Syria, situated on the road between 

Babylon and Jerusalem, and said in Masonic 

tradition to have been one of the restingplaces 

of the Masons who, under the proclamation 

of Cyrus, returned from the former to 

the latter city to rebuild the Temple. An attempt 

was made in 1868 to introduce Freemasonry 

into Damascus, and a petition, 

signed by fifteen applicants, for a charter for a 

Lodge was sent to the Grand Lodge of England 

; but the petition was rejected on the 

ground that all the petitioners were members 

of Grand Lodges under other Grand Lodge 

jurisdictions . 

Dambool . The vast rock temple of the 

Buddhists in Ceylon, containing a profusion of 

carvings, figures of Buddha of extraordinary 

magnitude. Monuments of this deity are, in 

the common Singhalese term, called Dagoba, 

but the more general name is Stupa or Tope. 

(See Topes.) 

Dame. In the York Roll No. 4 and some 

of the other old manuscripts, we find the 

direction to the Apprentice that he shall not 

so act as to bring harm or shame, during 

his apprenticeship, "either to his Master or 

Dame." It is absurd to suppose that this gives 

any color to the theory that in the ancient 

Masonic gilds women were admitted . The 

word was used in the same sense as it still is in 

the public schools of England, where the old 

lady who keeps the house at which the pupils 

board and lodge, is called "the dame .' The 

Compagnons de la Tour in France called her 

"h3, mere," or the mother. It must, however, 

be acknowledged, that women, under the title 

of sisters, were admitted as members, and 

given the freedom of the company, in the old 

Livery Companies of London-a custom 

which Herbert (Hilt. Liv. Comp ., i ., 83) thinks 

was borrowed, on the reconstitution of the 

companies by Edward III., from the religious 

gilds . (See this subject discussed under the 

title Sisters of the Gild.) 

Dames of Mt. Tabor. An androgynous 

Masonic society, established about the year 

1818, under the auspices of the Grand Orient 

of France . Its design was to give charitable 

relief to destitute females . 

Dames of the Order of St. John . Religious 

ladies who, from its first institution, had

196 DAMOISEL 

DARKNESS 

been admitted into the Fraternity of Knights 

Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem . The 

rules for their reception were similar to those 

for the Knights, and the proofs of noble descent 

which were required of them were sometimes 

more rigid . They had many conventual 

establishments in France, Italy, and Spain . 

Damoisel. A name given in the times of 

chivalry to a page or candidate for knighthood. 

Dan . One of the twelve tribes of Israel, 

whose blue banner charged with an eagle is 

borne by the Grand Master of the First Veil in 

a Royal Arch Chapter . 

Danger. In all the old Constitutions and 

Charges Masons are taught to exercise 

brotherly love, and to deal honestly and truly 

with each other, whence results the duty incumbent 

upon every Mason to warn his 

Brother of approaching danger. That this 

duty may never be neglected, it is impressed 

upon every Master Mason by a significant 

ceremony. 

Daniel. The countersign with "Darius" 

for Monday in the Thirty-second Degree, 

Scottish Rite. A Hebrew prophet, contemporary 

of Ezekiel, about 600 B .c . Carried 

captive to Babylon in the fourth year of 

Jehoiakim, but selected for instruction in all 

the learning of the Chaldeans by order of the 

Court . His skill in the interpretation of 

dreams was famed. He became Governor of 

Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar, and the first 

ruler of the whole Medo-Persian Empire, inferior 

only to Darius, the king . Under Cyrus 

he had been Grand Master of the Palace and 

Interpreter of Visions, as narrated in the 

Fifteenth Degree, Scottish Rite . He did not 

return with his countrymen to Judea when 

granted their liberty . It is a dispute as to 

when he died, or where, but the majority 

favor Sushan, in Persia, when he was 90 years 

of age. At the present day a tomb is shown in 

this ancient city bearing his name ; in fact, 

it is the only standing structure there. Daniel 

was noted and famed for his piety, and as well 

for his worldly possessions . 

Dannebrog. The banner of Denmark containing 

a red cross . It is founded upon the 

tradition, which reminds us of that of Con- 

't antine, that Waldemar II., of Denmark, in 

1219 saw in the heavens a fiery cross, which 

betokened his victory over the Esthonians . 

Dantzie . In the year 1768, on the 3d of 

October, the burgomaster and magistrates of 

the city of Dantzie commenced a persecution 

against Freemasonry, which Institution they 

charged with seeking to undermine the foundations 

of Christianity, and to establish in its 

place the religion of nature . Hence, they issued 

a decree forbidding every citizen, inhabitant, 

and even stranger sojourning in the 

city, from any attempt to reestablish the 

society of Freemasons, which was thenceforth 

to be regarded "as forever abolished," under 

penalties of fine and imprisonment . 

Dao . The Zend name for light, from Daer, 

to shine . 

Darakiel. A responsive word in the 

Twenty-third Degree of the Scottish Rite . 

Latin, Directio Dei . 

Darius . The successor of Cyrus on the 

throne of Persia, Babylon, and Medea. He 

pursued the friendly policy of his predecessor 

in reference to the Jews, and confirmed the 

decrees of that monarch by a new edict . In 

the second year of his reign, Haggai and Zechariah, 

encouraged by this edict, induced their 

countrymen to resume the work of restoring 

the Temple, which was finished four years 

afterward . Darius is referred to in the degrees 

of Princes of Jerusalem, the Sixteenth of 

the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and 

the Companion of the Red Cross in the American 

Rite . 

Darkness. Darkness has, in all the systems 

of initiation, been deemed a symbol of 

ignorance, and so opposed to light, which is 

the symbol of knowledge . Hence the rule, that 

the eye should not see until the heart has conceived 

the true nature of those beauties which 

constitute the mysteries of the Order . In the 

Ancient Mysteries, the aspirant was always 

shrouded in darkness, as a preparatory step to 

the reception of the full light of knowledge . 

The time of this confinement in darkness and 

solitude varied in the different mysteries . 

Among the Druids of Britain the period was 

nine days and nights ; in the Grecian Mysteries 

it was three times nine days ; while 

among the Persians, according to Porphyry 

it was extended to the almost incredible period 

of fifty days of darkness, solitude, and fasting . 

Because, according to all the cosmogonies, 

darkness existed before light was created, 

darkness was originally worshiped as the firstborn, 

as the progenitor of day and the state of 

existence before creation . The apostrophe of 

Young to Night embodies the feelings which 

gave origin to this debasing worship of darkness 

: 

" O majestic night! 

Nature's great ancestor! day's elder born! 

And fated to survive the transient sun! 

By mortals and immortals seen with awel" 

Freemasonry has restored darkness to its 

proper place as a state of preparation ; the 

symbol of that antemundane chaos from 

whence light issued at the Divine command ; 

of the state of nonentity before birth, and of 

ignorance before the reception of knowledge . 

Hence, in the Ancient Mysteries, the release 

of the aspirant from solitude and darkness was 

called the act of regeneration, and he was said 

to be born again, or to be raised from the dead . 

And in Masonry, the darkness which envelops 

the mind of the uninitiated being removed by 

the bright effulgence of Masonic light, Masons 

are appropriately called "the sons of light ." 

In Dr . Oliver's Signs and Symbols there is a 

lecture "On the Mysterious Darkness of the 

Third Degree ." This refers to the ceremony of 

enveloping the room in darkness when that 

degree is conferred-a ceremony once always 

observed, but now, in this country at least, 

frequently but improperly omitted . The darkness 

here is a symbol of death, the lesson

DARMSTADT 

DEACON 197 

taught in the degree, while the subsequent 

renewal of light refers to that other and subsequent 

lesson of eternal life . 

Darmstadt, Grand Lodge of. The 

Grand Lodge of Darmstadt, in Germany, 

under the distinctive appellation of the Grand 

Lodge zur Eintracht (of Concord), was established 

on the 22d of March, 1846, by three 

Lodges, in consequence of a dissension between 

them and the Eclectic Union . The latter body 

had declared that the religion of Freemasonry 

was universal, and that Jews could be admitted 

into the Order . Against this liberal declaration 

a Lodge at Frankfort had protested, 

and had been erased from the roll for contumacy 

. Two other Lodges, at Mainz and at 

Darmstadt, espoused its cause, and united 

with it in forming a new Grand Lodge for 

southern Germany, founded on the dogma 

"that Christian principles formed the basis on 

which they worked ." It was, in fact, a dispute 

between tolerance and intolerance . Nevertheless, 

the body was taken under the patronage 

of the Grand Duke of Hesse, and was recognized 

by most of the Grand Lodges of Germany 

. It has eight Lodges under its jurisdiction 

. 

Dassigny, Fifleld, M .D. A Mason of 

Dublin, Ireland, who published, in 1744, at 

Dublin, A Serious and Impartial Enquiry into 

the Cause of the present Decay of Freemasonry 

in the Kingdom of Ireland. It contained an 

abstract of the history of Freemasonry, and 

an allusion to the Royal Arch Degree, on account 

of which it has been cited by Dermott 

in his Ahiman Rezon . The work is important 

on account of its reference to Royal Arch 

Masonry, but is very scarce, only three copies 

of it being known to exist, of which one belongs 

to the Grand Lodge of Iowa, and one 

to the West Yorkshire Masonic Library of 

which a facsimile was published in 1893, while 

a third copy was discovered in 1896. The 

writer's name is spelled D'Assigny or Dassigny, 

but is given in the latter form on the title-page 

of the Serious Enquiry . Dr . W. J . Chetwode 

Crawley has investigated the history of the 

D'Assigny family . (Comentaria Hibernica. 

Fasc. II .) [E . L . H .] 

Dates, Masonic . See Calendar . 

Dathan . A Reubenite who, with Korah 

and Abiram, revolted against Moses and unlawfully 

sought the priesthood . In the first 

chapter of the Book of Numbers, where the 

whole account is given, it is said that as a punishment 

the earth opened and swallowed them 

up . The incident is referred to in the Order 

of High Priesthood, an honorary degree of the 

American Rite, which is conferred upon the 

installed High Priests of Royal Arch Chapters. 

Daughter, Mason's . See Mason's Wife 

and Daughter. 

Daughter of a Mason . The daughter of a 

Mason is entitled to certain peculiar privileges 

and claims upon the Fraternity arising 

from her relationship to a member of the 

Craft. There has been some difference of 

opinion as to the time and manner in which the 

privileges cease. Masonic jurists, however, 

very generally incline to the opinion that they 

are terminated by marriage . If a Mason's 

daughter marries a profane, she absolves her 

connection with the Fraternity . If she marries 

a Mason, she exchanges her relation of a 

Mason's daughter for that of a Mason's wife . 

David . David has no place in Masonic 

history, except that which arises from the 

fact that he was the father of King Solomon, 

and his predecessor on the throne of Israel . 

To him, however, were the Jews indebted for 

the design of a Temple in Jerusalem, the building 

of which was a favorite object with him . 

For this purpose he purchase Mt. Moriah, 

which had been the threshing-floor of Ornan 

the Jebusite ; but David had been engaged in 

so many wars, that it did not seem good to 

the Lord that he should be permitted to construct 

so sacred an edifice . This duty, therefore, 

he left to his son, whom, before dying, he 

furnished with plans and with means to accomplish 

the task. Though David is a favorite 

subject among the Kabbalists and the 

Mussulmans, who relate many curious traditions 

concerning him, he is not alluded to in 

the legends or symbolism of Masonry, except 

incidentally as the father of Solomon . 

David, Shield of. See Shield of David . 

Dazard, Michel Frangols. Born at 

Chateaudun, in France, May 2, 1781 . He was 

a devoted student of Masonry, and much occupied 

in the investigation of the high degrees 

of all the Rites . He was an opponent of the 

Supreme Council, against which body he 

wrote, in 1812, a brochure of forty-eight pages 

entitled Extrait des colonnes gravees du Pbre de 

Famille, vallee d'Angers . Moss calls it an important 

and exhaustive polemic document . 

It attempts to expose, supported by documents, 

what the author and his party called 

the illegal pretensions of the Supreme Council, 

and the arrogance of its claim to exclusive 

jurisdiction in France. Dazard was the author 

of several other interesting discourses on Masonic 

subjects . 

Deacon . In every Symbolic Lodge, there 

are two officers who are called the Senior and 

Junior Deacons . In America the former is 

appointed by the Master and the latter by 

the Senior Warden ; in England both are appointed 

by the Master . It is to the Deacons 

that the introduction of visitors should be 

properly entrusted . Their duties comprehend, 

also, a general surveillance over the security 

of the Lodge, and they are the proxies of the 

officers by whom they are appointed . Hence 

their jewel, in allusion to the necessity of circumspection 

and justice is a square and compasses 

. In the center, the Senior Deacon 

wears a sun, and the Junior Deacon a moon, 

which serve to distinguish their respective 

ranks. In the English system, the jewel of 

the Deacons is a dove, in allusion to the dove 

sent forth by Noah . In the Rite of Mizraim 

the Deacons are called acolytes . 

The office of Deacons in Masonry appears 

to have been derived from the usages of the 

primitive church . In the Greek church, the

198 DEACON'S 

DECALOGUE 

Deacons were always the rvxwpol, pylori or 

doorkeepers, and in the Apostolical Constitutions 

the Deacon was ordered to stand at the 

men's door, and the Subdeacon at the women's, 

to see that none came in or went out during 

the oblation . 

In the earliest rituals of the last century, 

there is no mention of Deacons, and the 

duties of those officers were discharged partly 

by the Junior Warden and partly by the 

Senior and Junior Entered Apprentices, and 

they were not generally adopted in England 

until the Union of 1813 . 

Deacon's Rod . See Rod, Deacon's. 

Deaf and Dumb. Deaf mutes, as imperfect 

men, come under the provisions of the 

Old Constitutions, and are disqualified for initiation. 

Some years ago, however, a Lodge 

in Paris, captivated by the eclat of the 

proceeding, and unmindful of the ancient landmark, 

initiated a deaf mute, who was an intelligent 

professor in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. 

All the instructions were given through 

the medium of the language of the deaf mutes . 

It scarcely need be said that this cannot be 

recognized as a precedent . 

Death . The Scandinavians, in their Edda, 

describing the residence of Death in Hell, 

where she was cast by her father, Loke, say 

that she there possesses large apartments, 

strongly built, and fenced with gates of iron . 

Her hall is Grief ; her table, Famine ; Hunger, 

her knife ; Delay, her servant ; Faintness, 

her porch ; Sickness and Pain, her bed ; and 

her tent, Cursing and Howling . But the 

Masonic idea of death, like the Christian's, is 

accompanied with no gloom, because it is represented 

only as a sleep, from whence we 

awaken into another life . Among the ancients, 

sleep and death were fabled as twins . Old 

Gorgias, when dying, said, "Sleep is about to 

deliver me up to his brother" ; but the death 

sleep of the heathen was a sleep from which 

there was no awaking. The popular belief was 

annihilation, and the poets and philosophers 

fostered the people's ignorance, by describing 

death as the total and irremediable extinction 

of life . Thus Seneca says-and he was too 

philosophic not to have known better- 

"that after death there comes nothing" ; 

while Virgil, who doubtless had been initiated 

into the Mysteries of Eleusis, nevertheless calls 

death "an iron sleep, an eternal night" : yet 

the Ancient Mysteries were based upon the 

dogma of eternal life, and their initiations 

were intended to represent a resurrection . 

Masonry, deriving its system of symbolic 

teachings from these ancient religious associations, 

presents death to its neophytes as 

the gate or entrance to eternal existence. To 

teach the doctrine of immortality is the great 

object of the Third Degree . In its ceremonies 

we learn that life here is the time of labor, and 

that, working at the construction of a spiritual 

temple, we are worshiping the Great Architect, 

for whom we build that temple . But we 

learn also that, when that life is ended, it 

closes only to open upon a newer and higher 

one, where, in a second temple and a purer 

Lodge, the Mason will find eternal truth . 

Death, therefore, in Masonic philosophy, is 

the symbol of initiation completed, perfected, 

and consummated . 

Death of the Mysteries . Each of the 

ancient religious Mysteries, those quasi-Masonic 

associations of the heathen world was 

accompanied by a legend-which was always 

of a funereal character-representing the 

death, by violence, of the deity to whom it was 

dedicated, and his subsequent resurrection or 

restoration to life . Hence, the first part of the 

ceremonies of initiation was solemn and lugubrious 

in character, while the latter part 

was cheerful and joyous. These ceremonies 

and this legend were altogether symbolical, 

and the great truths of the unity of God and 

the immortality of the soul were by them intended 

to be dramatically explained . 

This representation of death, which finds 

its analogue in the Third Degree of Masonry, 

has been technically called the Death of the 

Mysteries. It is sometimes more precisely 

defined, in reference to any special one of the 

Mysteries, as "the Cabiric death" or "the 

Bacchic death," as indicating the death represented 

in the Mysteries of the Cabiri or of 

Dionysus. 

Debate. Debates in a Masonic Lodge 

must be conducted according to the fraternal 

principles of the Institution . In the language 

of Dr. Oliver, "the strictest courtesy should 

be observed during a debate, in a Mason's 

Lodge, on questions which elicit a difference 

of opinion ; and any gross violation of decorum 

and good order is sure to be met by an admonition 

from the chair." It must be always remembered 

that the object of a Masonic discussion 

is to elicit truth, and not simply to 

secure victory. 

When, in a debate, a brother desires to 

speak, he rises and addresses the chair . The 

presiding officer calls him by his name, and 

thus recognizes his right to the floor . While he 

is speaking, he is not to be interrupted by any 

other member, except on a point of order. If 

called to order by any member, the speaker is 

immediately to take his seat until the point is 

stated, when the Master will make his decision 

without debate . The speaker will then rise 

and resume his discourse, if not ruled out by 

the Master. During the time that he is speaking, 

no motion is permissible . Every member 

is permitted to speak once on the subject 

under discussion ; nor can he speak a second 

time, except by permission of the Master, 

unless there is a more liberal provision in the 

by-laws of the Lodge. There are to this rule 

two exceptions, namely, when a member rises 

to explain, and when the mover of the resolution 

closes the debate by a second speech to 

which he is entitled by parliamentary law . 

Decalogue. The ten commandments of 

the Masonic law, as delivered from Mt . 

Sinai and recorded in the twentieth chapter 

of Exodus, are so called . They are not obligar 

tory upon a Mason as a Mason, because the 

Institution is tolerant and cosmopolite, and 

cannot require its members to give their ad-

DECANUS 

DEDICATION 199 

hesion to any religious dogmas or precepts, 

excepting those which express a belief in the 

existence of God, and the immortality of the 

soul. No partial law prescribed for a particular 

religion can be properly selected for 

the government of an Institution whose great 

characteristic is its universality . (See Moral 

Law .) 

Decanus. An officer in the Knights Templar 

system of Baron Hund, who, in the absence 

of the Grand Master and his Prior, possessed 

the right to preside in the Chapter . 

Deeius. The nom de plume of C . L . Reinhold, 

a distinguished Masonic writer . (See 

Reinhold.) 

Declaration of Candidates . Every candidate 

for initiation is required to make, 

"upon honor," the following declaration before 

an appropriate officer or committee . 

That, unbiased by the improper solicitation of 

friends and uninfluenced by mercenary motives, 

he freely and voluntarily offers himself 

as a candidate for the Mysteries of Masonry ; 

that he is prompted to solicit the privileges of 

Masonry by a favorable opinion conceived of 

the Institution and a desire of knowledge ; 

and that he will cheerfully conform to all the 

ancient usages and established customs of the 

Fraternity . This form is very old . It is to be 

found in precisely the same words in the earliest 

edition of Preston . It is required by the 

English Constitution, that the candidate 

should subscribe his name to this declaration . 

But in America the declaration is made orally, 

and usually before the Senior Deacon . 

Declaration of the Master . Every Master 

of a Lodge, after his election and before his 

installation, is required to give, in the presence 

of the brethren, his assent to the following 

fifteen charges and regulations : 

1 . Do you promise to be a good man and 

true, and strictly to obey the moral law? 

2 . Do you promise to be a peaceable citizen, 

and cheerfully to conform to the laws of the 

country in which you reside? 3 . Do you 

promise not to be concerned in plots and conspiracies 

against the government of the country 

in which you live, but patiently to submit 

to the decisions of the law and the constituted 

authorities? 4 . Do you promise to pay proper 

respect to the civil magistrates, to work diligently, 

live creditably, and act honorably by 

all men? 5. Do you promise to hold in veneration 

the original rulers and patrons of the 

Order of Freemasonry, and their regular successors, 

supreme and subordinate, according to 

their stations ; and to submit to the awards 

and resolutions of your brethren in Lodge 

convened, in every case consistent with the 

constitutions of the Order? 6 . Do you promise, 

as much as in you lies, to avoid private piques 

and quarrels, and to guard against intemperance 

and excess? 7 . Do you promise to be 

cautious in your behavior, courteous to your 

brethren, and faithful to your Lodge? 8 . Do 

you promise to respect genuine and true 

brethrenr and to discountenance impostors 

and all dissenters from the Ancient Landmarks 

and Constitutions of Masonry? 9. Do you 

promise, according to the best of your abilities, 

to promote the general good of society, to 

cultivate the social virtues, and to propagate 

the knowledge of the mystic art, according to 

our statutes? 10 . Do you promise to pay 

homage to the Grand Master for the time 

being, and to his officers when duly installed ; 

and strictly to conform to every edict of the 

Grand Lodge or General Assembly of Masons 

that is not subversive of the principles and 

groundwork of Masonry? 11 . Do you admit 

that it is not in the power of any man, or body 

of men,_ to make innovations in the body of 

Masonry? 12 . Do you promise a regular attendance 

on the committees and communications 

of the Grand Lodge, on receiving proper 

notice, and to pay attention to all the duties 

of Masonry, on convenient occasions? 13 . 

Do you admit that no new Lodge can be 

formed without permission of the Grand 

Lodge ; and that no countenance ought to be 

given to any irregular Lodge, or to any person 

clandestinely initiated therein, as being con- 

the ancient charges of the Order? 

tra 14.%o you admit that no person can be regularly 

made a Freemason in, or admitted a 

member of, any regular Lodge, without previous 

notice, and due inquiry into his character? 

15 . Do you agree that no visitors shall be 

received into your Lodge without due examination, 

and producing proper vouchers of 

their having been initiated in a regular Lodge? 

Declaring Off. "When a brother ceases 

to visit and pay his monthly subscription, he 

thereby declares himself off the Lodge ." 

(Symbolical Dictionary .) In England, the 

brother "resigns." Various designations rule 

in the United States, the chief one being 

"dropped from the roll ." In some States the 

brother is punished by "suspension ." If, however, 

in certain States, he is clear of the books, 

upon application he can receive a certificate 

to that effect, and be dropped from the roll . 

In England he gets a "clearance certificate ." 

In Scotland a "demit" is issued by the 

Daughter Lodge and countersigned by the 

Grand Secretary . 

Decorations . A Lodge room ought, besides 

its necessary furniture, to be ornamented 

with decorations which, while they adorn and 

beautify it, will not be unsuitable to its sacred 

character . On this subject, Dr . Oliver, in his 

Book of the Lodge (ch. v ., p . 70), makes the following 

judicious remarks : "The expert Mason 

will be convinced that the walls of a Lodge 

room ought neither to be absolutely naked nor 

too much decorated . A chaste disposal of 

symbolical ornaments in the right places, and 

according to propriety, relieves the dulness 

and vacuity of a blank space, and, though but 

sparingly used, will produce a striking impression, 

and contribute to the general beauty and 

solemnity of the scene ." 

Dedication of a Lodge . Among the ancients 

every temple, altar, statue, or sacred 

place was dedicated to some divinity . The 

Romans, during the Republic, confided this 

duty to their consuls, pretors, censors, or 

other chief magistrates, and afterward to the

200 DEDICATION 

DEDICATION 

emperors. According to the Papirian law, the 

dedication must have been authorized by a 

decree of the senate and the people, and the 

consent of the college of augurs . The ceremony 

consisted in surrounding the temple or 

object of dedication with garlands of flowers, 

whilst the vestal virgins poured on the exterior 

of the temple the lustral water . The 

dedication was completed by a formula of 

words uttered by the Pontiff, and the immolation 

of a victim, whose entrails . were placed 

upon an altar of turf . The dedication of a 

temple was always a festival for the people, 

and was annually commemorated. While the 

Pagans dedicated their temples to different 

deities-sometimes to the joint worship of 

several-the monotheistic Jews dedicated 

their religious edifices to the one supreme Jehovah 

. Thus, David dedicated with solemn 

ceremonies the altar which he erected on the 

threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, after 

the cessation of the plague which had afflicted 

his people ; and Calmet conjectures that he 

composed the thirtieth Psalm on this occasion . 

The Jews extended this ceremony of dedication 

even to their private houses, and Clarke 

tells us, in reference to a passage on this subject 

in the Book of Deuteronomy, that "it 

was a custom in Israel to dedicate a new house 

to God with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving ; 

and this was done in order to secure the divine 

presence and blessing, for no pious or 

sensible man could imagine he could dwell 

safely in a house that was not under the immediate 

protection of God ." 

According to the learned Selden, there was 

a distinction among the Jews between consecration 

and dedication for sacred things were 

both consecrated and dedicated, while profane 

things such as private dwelling-houses were 

only dedicated. Dedication was, therefore, a 

less sacred ceremony than consecration. This 

distinction has also been preserved among 

Christians, many of whom, and, in the early 

ages, all, consecrated their churches to the 

worship of God but dedicated them to, or 

placed them under, the especial patronage of 

some particular saint . A similar practise prevails 

m the Masonic Institution ; and therefore, 

while we consecrate our Lodges "to the 

honor of God's glory," we dedicate them to 

the patrons of our Order . 

Tradition informs us that Masonic Lodges 

were originally dedicated to King Solomon, 

because he was our first Most Excellent Grand 

Master . In the sixteenth century St . John the 

Baptist seems to have been considered as the 

peculiar patron of Freemasonry ; but subsequently 

this honor was divided between the 

two Saints John, the Baptist and the Evangelist 

; and modern Lodges, in this country at 

least, are universally erected or consecrated to 

God, and dedicated to the Holy Saints John . 

In the Hemming lectures, adopted in 1813, at 

the time of the union of the two Grand Lodges 

of England, the dedication was changed from 

the Saints John to King Solomon, and this 

usage now prevails very generally in England 

[where Lodges are dedicated to "God and His 

Service, also to the memory of the Royal Solomon, 

under whose auspices many of our Masonic 

mysteries had their origin ."-[E . L . H .] ; 

but the ancient dedication to the Saints John 

has never been abandoned by the American 

Lodges . 

The formula in Webb which dedicates the 

Lodge "to the memory of the Holy Saint 

John," was, undoubtedly, an inadvertence on 

the part of that lecturer, since in all his oral 

teachings he adhered to the more general system, 

and described a Lodge in his esoteric 

work as being "dedicated to the Holy Saints 

John ." This is now the universal practise, 

and the language used by Webb becomes contradictory 

and absurd when compared with 

the fact that the festivals of both saints are 

equally celebrated by the Order, and that the 

27th of December is not less a day of observance 

in the Order than the 24th of June . 

In one of the old lectures of the last century, 

this dedication to the two Saints John is thus 

explained : 

"Q . Our Lodges being finished, furnished 

and decorated with ornaments, furniture, and 

jewels, to whom were they consecrated? 

"A . To God. 

"Q . Thank you, brother ; and can you tell 

me to whom they were first dedicated? 

"A . To Noah, who was saved in the ark . 

"Q . And by what name were the Masons 

then known? 

"A . They were called Noachidae, Sages, or 

Wise Men . 

"Q . To whom were the Lodges dedicated 

during the Mosaic dispensation? 

"A . To Moses, the chosen of God, and Solomon, 

the son of David, king of Israel, who 

was an eminent patron of the Craft . 

"Q . And under what name were the Masons 

known during that period? 

"A . Under the name of Dionysiacs, Geometricians, 

or Masters in Israel. 

"Q . But as Solomon was a Jew, and died 

long before the promulgation of Christianity, 

to whom were they dedicated under the Christian 

dispensation? 

"A . From Solomon the patronage of Masonry 

passed to St. John the Baptist . 

"Q . And under what name were they 

known after the promulgation of Christianity? 

"A . Under the name of Essenes, Architects, 

or Freemasons . 

"Q . Why were the Lodges dedicated to St . 

John the Baptist? 

"A. Because he was the forerunner of our 

Saviour, and, by preaching repentance and 

humiliation, drew the first parallel of the 

Gospel . 

"Q . Had St . John the Baptist any equal? 

"A . He had ; St. John the Evangelist . 

"Q . Why is he said to be equal to the Baptist? 

"A . Because he finished by his learning 

what the other began by his zeal, and thus 

drew a second line parallel to the former ; ever 

since which time Freemasons' Lodges, in all 

Christian countries, have been dedicated to

DEDICATION 

DEDICATION 201 

the one or the other, or both, of these worthy 

and worshipful men ." 

There is another old lecture, adopted into 

the Prestonian system, which still further 

developed these reasons for the Johannite dedication, 

but with slight variations in some of 

the details . 

"From the building of the first Temple at 

Jerusalem to the Babylonish captivity, Freemasons' 

Lodges were dedicated to King Solomon 

; from thence to the coming of the Messiah, 

they were dedicated to Zerubbabel, the 

builder of the second Temple ; and from that 

time to the final destruction of the Temple by 

Titus, in the reign of Vespasian, they were 

dedicated to St . John the Baptist ; but owing 

to the many massacres and disorders which 

attended that memorable event, Freemasonry 

sunk very much into decay ; many Lodges 

were entirely broken up, and but few could 

meet in sufficient numbers to constitute their 

legality ; and at a general meeting of the 

Craft, held in the city of Benjamin, it was observed 

that the principal reason for the decline 

of Masonry was the want of a Grand 

Master to patronize it . They therefore deputed 

seven of their most eminent members to 

wait upon St . John the Evangelist, who was 

at that time Bishop of Ephesus, requesting 

him to take the office of Grand Master . He 

returned for answer, that though well stricken 

in years (being upwards of ninety), yet having 

been initiated into Masonry in the early part 

of his life, he would take upon himself that 

office . He thereby completed by his learning 

what the other St . John effected by his zeal, 

and thus drew what Freemasons term a `line 

parallel' ; ever since which time Freemasons' 

Lodges, in all Christian countries, have been 

dedicated both to St . John the Baptist and St . 

John the Evangelist ." 

So runs the tradition, but, as it lacks every 

claim to authenticity, a more philosophical 

reason may be assigned for this dedication to 

the two Saints John. 

One of the earliest deviations from the pure 

religion of the Noachidx was distinguished by 

the introduction of sun worship . The sun, in 

the Egyptian mysteries, was symbolized by 

Osiris, the principal object of their rites, whose 

name, according to Plutarch and Macrobius, 

signified the prince and leader, the soul of the 

universe and the governor of the stars . Macrobius 

(Saturn., 1 . i ., c . 18) says that the 

Egyptians worshiped the sun as the only 

divinity ; and they represented him under 

different forms, according to the different 

phases, of his infancy at the winter solstice in 

December, his adolescence at the vernal equinox 

in March, his manhood at the summer 

solstice in June, and his old age at the autumnal 

equinox in September . 

Among the Phoenicians, the sun was adored 

under the name of Adonis, and in Persia, 

under that of Mithras . In the Grecian mysteries, 

the orb of day was represented by one of 

the officers who superintended the ceremony of 

initiation ; and in the Druidical rites his worship 

was introduced as the visible representa- 

tive of the invisible, creative, and preservative 

principle of nature . In short, wherever 

the spurious Freemasonry existed, the adoration 

of, or, at least, a high respect for, the solar 

orb constituted a part of its system . 

In Freemasonry, the sun is still retained as 

an important symbol . This fact must be familiar 

to every Freemason of any intelligence . 

It occupies, indeed, its appropriate position, 

simply as a symbol, but, nevertheless, it constitutes 

an essential part of the system . "As 

an emblem of God's power," says Hutchinson 

(Sp. of Mas ., Lect. IV., p. 86), `his goodness, 

omnipresence, and eternity, the Lodge is 

adorned with the image of the sun, which he 

ordained to arise from the east and open the 

day ; thereby calling forth the people of the 

earth to their worship and exercise in the 

walks of virtue ." 

"The government of a Mason's Lodge," 

says Oliver (Signs and Sym ., p. 204), "is 

vested in three superior officers, who are 

seated in the East, West, and South, to re eresent 

the rising, setting, and meridian sun .' 

The sun, obedient to the all-seeing eye, is an 

emblem in the ritual of the Third Degree, and 

the sun displayed within an extended compass 

constitutes the jewel of the Past Master in the 

American system, and that of the Grand 

Master in the English . 

But it is a needless task to cite authorities 

or multiply instances to prove how intimately 

the sun, as a symbol, is connected with the 

whole system of Freemasonry . 

It is then evident that the sun, either as an 

object of worship, or of symbolization, has 

always formed an important part of what has 

been called the two systems of Freemasonry, 

the Spurious and the Pure . 

To the ancient sun worshipers, the movements 

of the heavenly bodies must have been 

something more than mere astronomical phenomena 

; they were the actions of the deities 

whom they adored, and hence were invested 

with the solemnity of a religious character . 

But, above all, the particular periods when 

the sun reached his greatest northern and 

southern declination, at the winter and summer 

solstices, by entering the zodiacal signs of 

Cancer and Capricorn, marked as they would 

be by the most evident effects on the seasons, 

and on the length of the days and nights, 

could not have passed unobserved, but, on the 

contrary, must have occupied an important 

place in their ritual . Now these important 

days fall respectively on the 21st of June and 

the 21st of December . Hence, these solstitial 

periods were among the principal festivals 

observed by the Pagan nations . Du Pauw 

(Diss . on Egyp . and Chinese, ii ., 159) remarks 

of the Egyptians, that "they had a fixed festival 

at each new moon ; one at the summer, 

and one at the winter solstice, as well as the 

vernal and autumnal equinoxes ." 

The Druids always observed the festivals of 

midsummer and midwinter in June and December. 

The former for a long time was celebrated 

by the Christian descendants of the 

Druids . "The eve of St . John the Baptist,"

202 DEDICATION 

DEFORMITY 

says Chambers (Inf . for the People, No . 89), 

"variously called midsummer eve, was formerly 

a time of high observance amongst the 

English, as it still is in Catholic countries . 

Bonfires were everywhere lighted round which 

the people danced with joyful demonstrations, 

occasionally leaping through the flame ." 

Higgins (Celt . Druids, p . 165) thus alludes 

to the celebration of the festival of midwinter 

in the ancient world : 

"The festival of the 25th of December was 

celebrated, by the Druids in Britain and Ireland, 

with great fires lighted on the tops of the 

hills . . . . On the 25th of December, at the 

first moment of the day, throughout all the 

ancient world, the birthday of the god Sol was 

celebrated. This was the moment when, after 

the supposed winter solstice and the lowest 

point of his degradation below our hemisphere, 

he began to increase and gradually to ascend . 

At this moment, in all the ancient religions, 

his birthday was kept ; from India to the Ultima 

Thule, these ceremonies partook of the 

same character : everywhere the god was 

feigned to be born, and his festival was celebrated 

with great rejoicings ." 

Our ancestors finding that the Church, according 

to its usage of purifying Pagan festivals 

by Christian application, had appropriated 

two days near those solstitial periods to 

the memory of two eminent saints, incorporated 

these festivals by the lapse of a few days 

into the Masonic calendar, and adopted these 

worthies as patrons of our Order. To this 

change, the earlier Christian Masons were the 

more persuaded by the peculiar character of 

these saints . St . John the Baptist, by announcing 

the approach of Christ, and by the 

mystic ablution to which he subjected his 

proselytes, and which was afterward adopted 

in the ceremony of initiation into Christianity, 

might well be considered as the Grand Hierophant 

of the Church ; while the mysterious 

and emblematic nature of the Apocalypse assimilated 

the mode of instruction adopted by 

St. John the Evangelist to that practised by 

the Fraternity . 

We are thus led to the conclusion that the 

connection of the Saints John with the Masonic 

Institution is rather of a symbolic than 

of an historical character . In dedicating our 

Lodges to them, we do not so much declare our 

belief that they were eminent members of the 

Order, as demonstrate our reverence for the 

great Architect of the Universe in the symbol 

of His most splendid creation, the great light 

of day . 

In conclusion it may be observed that the 

ceremony of dedication is merely the enunciation 

of a form of words, and this having been 

done, the Lodge is thus, by the consecration 

and dedication, set apart as something sacred 

to the cultivation of the principles of Masonry, 

under that peculiar system which acknowledges 

the two Saints John as its patrons. 

Royal Arch Chapters are dedicated to 

Zerubbabel, Prince or Governor of Judah, and 

Commanderies of Knights Templar to St . 

John the Almoner . Mark Lodges should be 

dedicated to Hiram the Builder ; Past Masters' 

to the Saints John, and Most Excellent 

Masters' to King Solomon . 

Dedication of the Temple. There are five 

dedications of the Temple of Jerusalem which 

are recorded in Jewish history : 1 . The dedication 

of the Solomonic Temple, B .c. 1004 . 2. 

The dedication in the time of Hezekiah when 

it was purified from the abominations ofAhaz, 

B .c . 726 . 3 . The dedication of Zerubbabel's 

Temple, B .c. 513 . 4 . The dedication of the 

Temple when it was purified after Judas Maccabmus 

had driven out the Syrians, B .c . 164 . 

5 . The dedication of Herod's Temple, B.c . 

22 . The fourth of these is still celebrated by 

the Jews in their "Feast of the Dedication . ' 

The first only is connected with the Masonic 

ritual, and is commemorated in the Most 

Excellent Master's Degree of the American 

Rite as the "Celebration of the Cape-Stone ." 

This dedication was made by King Solomon 

in the year of the world 3000, and lasted eight 

days, commencing in the month of Tisri, 15th 

day, during the Feast of Tabernacles . The 

dedication of the Temple is called, in the English 

system of Lectures, "the third grand offering 

which consecrates the floor of a Mason's 

Lodge ." The same Lectures contain a tradition 

that on that occasion King Solomon assembled 

the nine Deputy Grand Masters in 

the holy place, from which all natural light 

had been carefully excluded, and which only 

received the artificial light which emanated 

from the east, west, and south, and there made 

the necessary arrangements. The legend must 

be considered as a myth ; but the inimitable 

prayer and invocation which were offered up 

by King Solomon on the occasion are recorded 

in the eighth chapter of the 1st Book of Kings, 

which contains the Scriptural account of the 

dedication . 

Defamation. See Back . 

Definition of Freemasonry. "The definitions 

of Freemasonry," says Oliver, in his 

Historical Landmarks of Freemasonry, "have 

been numerous ; but they all unite in declaring 

it to be a system of morality by the practice 

of which its members may advance their spiritual 

interest, and mount by the theological 

ladder from the Lodge on earth to the Lodge 

in heaven. It is a mistake, however, to suppose 

that Freemasonry is a system of religion . 

It is but the handmaiden to religion, although 

it largely and effectually illustrates one great 

branch of it, which is practice ." The definition 

in the English Lectures is most often 

quoted, which says that "Freemasonry is a 

peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory 

and illustrated by symbols ." 

But a more comprehensive and exact definition 

is, that it is a science which is engaged in 

the search after Divine Truth, and which employs 

symbolism as its method of instruction . 

Deformity . The old Constitutions declare 

that the candidate for Masonry must be 

a "perfect youth, having no maim or defect in 

his body ." The Masonic law of physical qualifications 

is derived from the Mosaic, which 

excluded from the priesthood a man having

DEGREES 

DEGREES 203 

any blemishes or deformities . The regulation 

in Masonry constitutes one of the landmarks, 

and is illustrative of the symbolism of the Institution 

. The earliest of the old Constitutions, 

that of the Halliwell or Regius MS ., has this 

language on the subject : 

"To the Craft it were great shame 

To make a halt man and a lame, 

For an imperfect man of such blood 

Should do the Craft but little good ." 

(Lines 153-6 .) 

This question has been fully discussed in 

Dr . Mackey's Text Book of Masonic Jurisprudence, 

pp. 96-113 . 

Degrees . The word degree, in its primitive 

meaning, signifies a step . The degrees of Freemasonry 

are, then, the steps by which the candidate 

ascends from a lower to a higher condition 

of knowledge. It is now the opinion of the 

best scholars, that the division of the Masonic 

system into degrees was the work of the revivalists 

of the beginning of the eighteenth 

century ; that before that period there was but 

one degree, or rather one common platform of 

ritualism ; and that the division into Masters, 

Fellows, and Apprentices was simply a division 

of ranks, there being but one initiation for all . 

In 1717 the whole body of the Fraternity consisted 

only of Entered Apprentices, who were 

recognized by the thirty-nine Regulations 

compiled in 1720, as among the law-givers of 

the Craft, no change in those Regulations 

being allowed unless first submitted "even to 

the youngest Apprentice ." In the old Charges, 

collected by Anderson and approved in 1722, 

the degree of Fellow-Craft is introduced as 

being a necessary qualification for Grand Master, 

although the word degree is not used. "No 

brother can be a . . . Grand Master unless 

he has been a Fellow Craft before his election ." 

And in the Manner of constituting a New 

Lodge of the same date, the Master and 

Wardens are taken from "among the Fellow 

Crafts," which Dermott explains by saying 

that "they were called Fellow Crafts because 

the Masons of old times never gave any man 

the title of Master Mason until he had first 

passed the chair ." In the thirteenth of the 

Regulations of 1720, approved in 1721, the 

orders or degrees of Master and Fellow-Craft 

are recognized in the following words : "Apprentices 

must be admitted Masters and 

Fellow Crafts only in the Grand Lodge." 

Between that period and 1738, the system of 

degrees had been perfected ; for Anderson, 

who, m that year, published the second edition 

of the Book of Constitutions, changed the 

phraseology of the old Charges to suit the altered 

condition of things, and said, "a Prentice, 

when of age and expert, may become an 

Enter'd Prentice or a Free-Mason of the lowest 

degree, and upon his due improvements 

a Fellow-Craft and a Master-Mason ." (Old 

Charge IV., Constitutions, 1738, p . 145 .) 

No such words are found in the Charges as 

printed in 1723 ; and if at that time the distinction 

of the three degrees had been as well 

defined as in 1738, Anderson would not have 

failed to insert the same language in his first 

edition . That he did not, leads to the fair presumption 

that the ranks of Fellow-Craft and 

Master were not then absolutely recognized 

as distinctive degrees . The earliest ritual extant, 

which is contained in the Grand Mystery, 

published in 1725, makes no reference to any 

degrees, but gives only what we may suppose 

was the common initiation in use about that 

time . The division of the Masonic system into 

three degrees must have grown up between 

1717 and 1730, but in so gradual and imperceptible 

a manner that we are unable to fix 

the precise date of the introduction of each 

degree . In 1717 there was evidently but one 

degree, or rather one form of initiation, and one 

catechism. Perhaps about 1721 the three 

degrees were introduced, but the second and 

third were not perfected for many years . 

Even as late as 1735 the Entered Apprentice's 

Degree contained the most prominent form of 

initiation, and he who was an Apprentice was, 

for all practical purposes, a Freemason. It 

was not until repeated improvements, by the 

adoption of new ceremonies and new regulations, 

that the degree of Master Mason took 

the place which it now occupies ; having been 

confined at first to those who had passed the 

chair . 

Degrees, Ancient Craft . See Ancient 

Craft Masonry . 

Degrees, Androgynous . Degrees that 

are conferred on females as well as males. 

(See Androgynous Degrees.) 

Degrees, Apocalyptic . See Apocalyptic 

Degrees. 

Degrees, High. See High Degrees. 

Degrees, Honorary. See Honorary Degrees. 

Degrees, Ineffable . See Ineffable Degrees 

. 

Degrees of Chivalry. The religious and 

military orders of knighthood which existed in 

the Middle Ages, such as the Knights Templar 

and Knights of Malta, which were incorporated 

into the Masonic system and conferred 

as Masonic degrees, have been called Degrees 

of Chivalry. They are Christian in character, 

and seek to perpetuate in a symbolic form 

the idea on which the original Orders were 

founded. The Companion of the Red Cross, 

although conferred, in this country, in a Commandery 

of Knights Templar, and as prelimnaary 

to that degree, is not properly a degree of 

Degrees of Knowledge . Fessler was desirous 

of abolishing all the high degrees, but 

being unable to obtain the consent of the 

Royal York Grand Lodge, he composed out 

of them a new system of five degrees which 

he called Degrees of Knowledge, Erkenntnis- 

Stufen, to each of which was annexed a form 

of initiation . "The Degrees of Knowledge," 

says Findel (Hist ., 496), "consisted of a regular 

detailed course of instruction in each system 

of the Lodges, whether extinct or in full 

activity, and were to end with a complete 

critical remodelling of the history of Freemasonry, 

and of the Fraternity of reemasons

204 DEGREES 

DEMIT 

from the most ancient period down to our own 

day." (See Fessler, Rite of.) 

Degrees, Philosophical. See Philosophic 

Degrees . 

Degrees, Symbolic . See Symbolic Degrees 

. 

Deiseil. The counterpart of Tuathal . Mackenzie, 

in the Royal Masonic Cycloptedia, says 

"Deiseil is used by the Druids as a term for 

the circumambulation of the sacred cairns . 

Derived from deas, south, and tul, a course ; 

that is, in a southward direction following the 

course of the sun. The opposite is Tuathal, in a 

northward direction, as is observed at the 

present day in approaching the grave witl} a 

corpse ." 

Deism . In an abstract sense, Deism, or 

Theism is the belief in God, but the word is 

general'y used to designate those who, believing 

in God, reject a belief in the Scriptures as 

a revelation. The sect of Deists-which, in 

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enrolled 

among its followers many great intellects, 

such as Toland, Collins, Lord Herbert 

of Cherbury, Hume, Gibbon, and Voltaire-is 

said by Findel (Hist ., p . 126) to have "necessarily 

exercised an important influence on the 

Fraternity of Masons" ; and, he adds, that 

"we cannot doubt that it contributed essentially 

to its final transformation from an operative 

to a universal speculative society ." 

The refutation of this remarkable assertion is 

best found in the first of the Charges adopted 

at the revival in 1717, and which was published 

in the Constitutions of 1723 : "A Mason 

is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the moral 

law ; and if he rightly understands the art, he 

will never be a stupid atheist nor an irreligious 

libertine," where the words irreligious libertine 

refer to the Freethinkers or Deists of that 

period . It is evident, then, that the Deists 

could have had no influence at that time in 

molding the Masonic organization . There is 

still better evidence to be found in the old 

records of Freemasonry during several preceding 

centuries, when the Operative was its 

dominant character, and when the dogmas 

of Christianity were fully recognized, which 

must necessarily have been the case, since 

Freemasonry during that period was under 

the patronage of the Church . There is, in 

fact, no evidence to sustain Findel's theory, 

that in the transition stage from the Operative 

to the Speculative, when such men as the 

deeply religious Ashmole were among its members, 

the Deists could have infused any of 

their principles into its organization or exercised 

any influence in changing its character . 

Freemasonry, at that time sectarian, demanded 

almost a Christian belief--at all 

events, a Christian allegiance-from its disciples 

. It is now more tolerant, and Deism 

presents no disqualification for initiation . 

An atheist would be rejected, but none would 

now be refused admission on religious grounds 

who subscribed to the dogmas of a belief in 

God and a resurrection to eternal life . 

Deity. See Great Architect of the Universe. 

Delalande, Charles Florent Jacques. 

A French litterateur of this century, who 

was the author of many didactic and poetic 

articles on Masonry inserted in the Miroir de 

la Veritk, the Annales Magonniques, and other 

collections . He was also the author of the 

Defense et Apologie de la Franche-Magonnerie, 

ou Refutation des Accusations dirigees centre 

elle d difjerentes Epoques et par divers Autems, 

a prize essay before a Lodge in Leghorn, published 

in 1814 . He founded the archives of 

the Lodge of the Philosophic Rite at Douay, 

France. 

Delalande, Joseph Jerome Frangols. 

One of the most distinguished French astronomers 

of the eighteenth centur . He was 

born in 1732 and died in 1807 . He was one of 

the founders of the Grand Orient of France, 

and published, in 1774, an able memoir upon 

the History of Freemasonry, which was subsequently 

incorporated in the twentieth volume 

of the Encyclopedie Methodique . 

Delaunay, Frangois H . Stanislaus . A 

French litterateur and historian, and author 

of many works on Masonry, the principal of 

which is the Tuileur des trente trois degres de 

l'Ecossisme du Rite Ancien et Accepte . This 

is a work of great erudition, and of curious research 

in reference to the etymology of the 

words of the Rite . These etymologies, however, 

are not always correct ; and, indeed, some 

of them are quite absurd, betraying a want of 

the proper appreciation of the construction of 

Hebrew, from which language all of the words 

are derived . 

Delaware. The Grand Lodge of Delaware 

was organized on the 7th of June, 1806 . 

Its seat is at Wilmington . The Grand Chapter 

was instituted in 1818, but having 

suspended labor for many years, a new organization 

was established by the General 

Grand High Priest of the United States in 

1869 . 

Delegates. Past Masters, or others, sent 

by a Lodge to represent it in the Grand Lodge, 

in place of the Master and Wardens, if these 

are absent, are in some of the American jurisdictions 

called delegates . The word is a 

modern one, and without good authority . 

Those who represent a Lodge in the Grand 

Lodge, whether the Master and Wardens or 

their proxies, are properly representatives . 

Delta. A triangle . The name of a piece 

of furniture in a Commandery of Knights 

Templar, which, being of a triangular form, 

derives its name from the Greek letter A, 

delta . It is also the title given, in the French 

and Scottish Rites, to the luminous triangle 

which encloses the Ineffable name. (See 

Triangle .) 

Demeter. The Greek name of Ceres, 

which see . 

Demit . A Mason is said to demit from 

his Lodge when he withdraws his membership 

; and a demit is a document granted by 

the Lodge which certifies that that demission 

has been accepted by the Lodge, and that the 

demitting brother is clear of the books and in 

good standing as a Mason . To demit, which

DENDERAH 

DEPUTATION 205 

is the act of the member, is, then, to resign ; 

and to grant a demit, which is the act of the 

Lodge, is to grant a certificate that the resignation 

has been accepted . It is derived from 

the French reflective verb se demettre, which, 

according to the dictionary of the Academy, 

means "to withdraw from an office, to resign 

an employment." Thus it gives as an example, 

"Il s'est demis de sa charge en faveur 

d'un tel," he resigned (demitted) his office in 

favor of such a one . 

The application for a demit is a matter of 

form, and there is no power in the Lodge to 

refuse it, if the applicant has paid all his dues 

and is free of all charges . It is true that a 

regulation of 1722 says that no number of 

brethren shall withdraw or separate themselves 

from the Lodge in which they were 

made, without a dispensation ; yet it is not 

plain how the law can be enforced, for Masonry 

being a voluntary association, there is 

no power in any Lge to insist on any 

brother continuing a connection with it which 

he desires to sever . (See, on this subject, 

Dr . Mackey's Text Book of Masonic Jurisprudence, 

book iii., chap. iii ., sect. vi .) 

The usual object in applying for a demit is 

to enable the brother to join some other 

Lodge, into which he cannot be admitted 

without some evidence that he was in good 

standing in his former Lodge . This is in accordance 

with an old law found in the Regulations 

of 1663 in the following words : "No 

person hereafter who shall be accepted a Freemason, 

shall be admitted into any Lodge or 

Assembly until he has brought a certificate of 

the time and place of his acceptation from the 

Lodge that accepted him, unto the Master of 

that limit or division where such Lodge is 

kept ." (See the corrupt word Dimit .) 

Denderah . A ruined town of Upper 

Egypt, of great interest in consequence of its 

astronomical allusions on the ceiling of the 

main portico supported on twenty-four columns, 

which is covered with figures and 

hieroglyphics . This is in the principal temple, 

which is 220 by 50 feet. The numerous 

mythological figures are arranged in zodiacal 

fashion . Recent archeological travelers doubt 

the reference to astronomy, in consequence of 

the absence of the Crab . The temple dates 

from the period of Cleopatra and the earlier 

Roman emperors, and is one of the finest and 

best preserved structures of the kind in Egypt . 

The chief deity was Athor, the goddess of 

night, corresponding with the Greek Aphrodite 

. (See Zodiac .) 

Denmark . The first Masonic Lodge in 

Denmark was opened in Copenhagen, by 

Baron G . O . Munnich, on the 11th of November, 

1743, under a charter, as he claimed, 

from the Lodge of the Three Globes in Berlin . 

In the next year a new Lodge named Zerubbabel 

was formed by members who separated 

from the former Lodge . Both of these bodies, 

however, appear to have been imperfect in 

their constitution . This imperfection was 

subsequently. rectified . The first Lodge, having 

changed ts name to St . Martin, received 

in 1749 a warrant from Lord Byron, who was 

then Grand Master of England . Lord Cranstoun 

had previously, in October 1745, 

granted a warrant to the second Lodge . In 

1749 Lord Byron, Grand Master of England, 

granted a patent to Count Danneskiold 

Laurvig as Provincial Grand Master of Denmark 

and Norway . A Lodge had been established 

at Copenhagen, by the Grand Lodge of 

Scotland, under the name of "Le petit 

Nombre" ; and in 1753 its Master was elevated 

b that body to the rank of a Provincial 

G 

rand Master . In 1792 Prince Charles became 

the sole head of the Danish Lodges, and 

the Grand Lodge of Denmark may be considered 

to have been then established . He 

died in 1836, and the Crown Prince, afterward 

Christian VIII ., became the Protector 

of the Danish Lodges, and his son and successor, 

Frederick VII ., became Grand Master 

of the Grand Lodge of Denmark on ascending 

the throne in 1848 . He remodeled Danish 

Masonry on the Swedish system . Now 

King Frederick VIII . is Protector of the 

Craft, with the Crown Prince as Grand 

Master, and there are three St . Andrew's, 

ten St. John's, and fifteen "Instruction" 

Lodges under his rule . [E . L . H .] 

Deposite. The deposite of the substitute 

ark is celebrated in the degree of Select Master, 

and is supposed to have taken place in 

the last year of the building of Solomon's 

Temple, or 1000 n .c . This is therefore adopted 

as the date in Cryptic Masonry . 

In the legendary history of Freemasonry as 

preserved in the Cryptic degrees, two deposites 

are spoken of ; the deposite of the substitute 

Ark, and the deposite of the Word, both being 

referred to the same year and being different 

parts of one transaction. They have, therefore, 

sometimes been confounded . The deposite 

of the Ark was made by the three 

Grand Masters ; that of the Word by Hiram 

Abif alone. 

Deposite, Year of. See Anno Depositionis. 

Depth of the Lodge. This is said to be 

from the surface to the center, and is the expression 

of an idea connected with the symbolism 

of the form of the Lodge as indicating 

the universality of Masonry. The oldest 

definition was that the depth extended "to 

the centre of the earth," which, says Dr . 

Oliver, is the greatest extent that can be 

imagined . (See Form of the Lodge .) 

Deputation . The authority granted by 

the Grand Master to a brother to act as 

Provincial Grand Master was formerly called 

a deputation . Thus, in Anderson's Constitutions 

(2d edition, 1738, p . 191), it is said, 

"Lovel, Grand Master, granted a deputation 

to Sir Edward Matthews to be Provincial 

Grand Master of Shropshire ." It was also 

used in the sense in which dispensation is now 

em ployed to denote the Grand Master's 

authority for opening a Lodge . In German 

Masonry, a deputation is a committee of one 

Lodge appointed to visit and confer with some 

other Lodge .

206 DEPUTE 

DERWENTWATER 

Depute Grand Master. Depute is a 

Scotticism used in the "Laws and Regulations 

of the Grand Lodge of Scotland" to 

designate the officer known in England and 

America as Deputy Grand Master . 

Deputy. In French Masonry, the officers 

who represent a Lodge in the Grand Orient 

are called its deputies . The word is also 

used in another sense . When two Lodges 

are affiliated, that is, have adopted a compact 

of union, each appoints a deputy to represent 

it at the meetings of the other . He is also 

called garant d'amitik, and is entitled to a seat 

in the East . 

Deputy Grand Chapter . In the Constitution 

adopted in January, 1798, by the 

"Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the Northern 

States of America," which afterward became 

the "General Grand Chapter," it was provided 

that Grand Bodies of the system should 

be established in the different States, which 

should be known as "Deputy Grand Royal 

Arch Chapters ." But in the succeeding 

year, on the adoption of a new Constitution, 

the title was changed to "State Grand Chapters 

." Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 

New York are the only States in which Deputy 

Grand Chapters were organized . 

Deputy Grand Master. The assistant 

and, in his absence, the representative of the 

Grand Master. The office originated in the 

year 1720, when it was agreed that the Grand 

Master might appoint both his Grand Wardens 

and a Deputy Grand Master . (Constitutions, 

1738, p . 111 .) The object evidently 

was to relieve a nobleman, who was Grand 

Master, from troublesome details of office . 

The Constitutions give a Deputy Grand Master 

no other prerogatives than those which he 

claims in the Grand Master's right . He presides 

over the Craft in the absence of the 

Grand Master, and, on the death of that officer, 

succeeds to his position until a new election. 

In England, and in a few States of 

America, he is appointed by the Grand Master 

; but the general usage in America is to 

elect him. 

Deputy Lodge . In Germany, a Deputations-Loge, 

or Deputy Lodge, was formed by 

certain members of a Lodge who lived at a 

remote distance from it, and who met under 

the name and by the authority of the mother 

Lodge, through whom alone it was known to 

the Grand Lodge, or the other Lodges. Such 

bodies are not known in England or America, 

and are not now so common in Germany as 

formerly . 

Deputy Master . In England, when a 

Prince of the Blood Royal is Master of a private 

Lodge, his functions are performed by an 

officer appointed by him, and called a Deputy 

Master, who exercises all the prerogatives and 

enjo s all the privileges of a regular Master . 

In Germany, the Master of every Lodge is 

assisted by a Deputy Master, who is either 

appointed by the Master, or elected by the 

members, and who exercises the powers of the 

Master in the absence of that officer . 

Dermott, Laurence . He was at first the 

Grand Secretary, and afterward the Deputy 

Grand Master, of that body of Masons who 

in 1751 formed the Grand Lodge of the 

"Ancients" (q . v .), stigmatizing the regular 

Masons as "Moderns." In 1756, Dermott 

published the Book of Constitutions of his 

Grand Lodge, under the title of Ahiman 

Rezon ; or a help to all that are or would be 

Free and Accepted Masons, containing the 

quintessence of all that has been published on 

the subject of Freemasonry . This work passed 

through several editions, the last of which 

was edited, in 1813, by Thomas Harper, the 

Deputy Grand Master of the Ancient Masons, 

under the title of The Constitutions of Freemasonry, 

or Ahiman Rezon . 

Dermott was undoubtedly the moving and 

sustaining spirit of the great schism which, 

from the middle of the eighteenth to the beginning 

of the nineteenth century, divided 

the Masons of England ; and his character has 

not been spared by the adherents of the constitutional 

Grand Lodge . Lawrie (Hilt ., p. 

117) says of him : "The unfairness with which 

he has stated the proceedings of the moderns 

the bitterness with which he treats them, and 

the quackery and vainglory with which he displays 

his own pretensions to superior knowledge, 

deserve to be reprobated by every 

class of Masons who are anxious for the 

purity of their Order and the preservation of 

that charity and mildness which ought to 

characterize all their proceedings." There 

is perhaps much truth in this estimate of 

Dermott's character. As a polemic, he was 

sarcastic, bitter, uncompromising, and not altogether 

sincere or veracious. But in intellectual 

attainments he was inferior to none of his 

adversaries, and in a philosophical appreciation 

of the character of the Masonic institution 

he was in advance of the spirit of his age . 

It has often been asserted that he invented 

the Royal Arch Degree by dismembering the 

Third Degree, but that this is entirely unfounded 

is proved by the fact that he was 

exalted to the Royal Arch Degree in 1746, 

while the degree was being conferred in 

London before 1744. (See Royal Arch Degree .) 

[He died in 1791 .-E . L . H .1 

Derwentwater. Charles Radcliffe, titular 

Earl of Derwentwater, which title he assumed 

on the death of the unmarried son of his 

brother, James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater, 

who was executed for rebellion in 1716, 

in London, was the first Grand Master of the 

Grand Lodge of France, to which office he was 

elected on the organization of the Grand 

Lodge in 1725. Charles Radcliffe was arrested 

with his brother, Lord Derwentwater, 

in 1715, for having taken part in the rebellion 

of that year to restore the house of Stuart to 

the throne . Both were convicted of treason, 

and the Earl suffered death, but his brother 

Charles made his escape to France, and thence 

to Rome, where he received a trifling pension 

from the Pretender . After a residence of 

some years, he went to Paris, where, with 

the Chevalier Maskelyne, Mr. Heguetty, 

and some other Englishmen, he established a

DESAGULIERS 

DESAGULIERS 207 

Lodge in the Rue des Boucheries, which was 

followed by the organization of several others, 

and Radcliffe, who had taken the title of 

Earl of Derwentwater on the death of his 

youthful nephew, the son of the last Earl, was 

elected Grand Master . Leaving France for a 

time, in 1736 he was succeeded in the Grand 

Mastership by Lord Harnouester. [Such is 

the statement usually made, but R . F . Gould, 

in his Concise History of Freemasonry, suggests 

that "Harnouester" is a corruption of "Darwentwater" 

and that the two persons are 

identical, the Earl of Derwentwater being 

really elected G . M . in 1736 .-E . L. H .] Radcliffe 

made many visits to England after that 

time in unsuccessful pursuit of a pardon . 

Finally, on the attempt of the young Pretender 

to excite a rebellion in 1745, he sailed 

from France to join him, and the vessel in 

which he had embarked having been captured 

by an English cruiser, he was carried to 

London and decapitated December 8, 1746 . 

Desaguliers, John Theophilus . Of 

those who were engaged in the revival of 

Freemasonry in the beginning of the eighteenth 

century, none performed a more important 

part than he to whom may be well 

applied the epithet of the Father of Modern 

Speculative Masonry, and to whom, perhaps, 

more than any other person, is the present 

Grand Lodge of England indebted for its existence 

. A sketch of his life, drawn from the 

scanty materials to be found in Masonic 

records, and in the brief notices of a few of 

his contemporaries, cannot fail to be interesting 

to the student of Masonic history . 

The Rev. John Theophilus Desaguliers, 

LL .D., F .R .S ., was born on the 12th of March, 

1683, at Rochelle, in France . He was the son 

of a French Protestant clergyman ; and, his 

father having removed to England as a refugee 

on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he 

was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where 

he took lessons of the celebrated Keill in experimental 

philosophy . In 1712 he received 

the degree of Master of Arts, and in the same 

year succeeded . Dr . Keill as a lecturer on experimental 

phlosophy at Hert Hall (now 

Hertford College) . In the year 1713 he removed 

to Westminster, where he continued 

his course of lectures, being the first one, it is 

said who ever lectured upon physical science 

in the metropolis. At this time he attracted 

the notice and secured the friendship of Sir 

Isaac Newton. His reputation as a philosopher 

obtained for him a fellowship in the 

Royal Society . He was also about this time 

admitted to clerical orders, and appointed by 

the Duke of Chandos his chaplain, who also 

presented him to the living of Whitchurch . 

In 1718 he received from the University of 

Oxford the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and 

was presented by the Earl of Sunderland to a 

living in Norfolk, which he afterward exchanged 

for one in Essex. He maintained, 

however, his residence in London, where he 

continued to deliver his lectures until his 

death in 1744. 

His contributions to science consist of a 

Treatise on the Construction of Chimneys, 

translated from the French, and published in 

1716 ; Lectures of Experimental Philosophy, of 

which a second edition was issued in 1719 ; A 

Course of Experimental Philosophy, in two 

volumes, 4to, published in 1734 ; and in 1735 

he edited an edition of Gregory la Elements of 

Catoptrics and Dioptries . He also translated 

from the Latin Gravesandes' Mathematical 

Elements of Natural Philosophy . 

In the clerical profession he seems not to 

have been an ardent worker, and his theological 

labors were confined to the publication 

of a single sermon on repentance . He 

was in fact more distinguished as a scientist 

than as a clergyman, and Priestly calls him 

"an indefatigable experimental philosopher ." 

It is, however, as a Mason that Dr . Desaguliers 

will most attract our attention . 

But nothing is known as to his connection 

with Freemasonry until 1719, when, he was 

elevated to the throne of the Grand Lodge, 

succeeding George Payne, and being thus the 

third Grand Master after the revival. He 

paid much attention to the interests of the 

Fraternity, and so elevated the character of 

the Order, that the records of the Grand Lodge 

show that during his administration several 

of the older brethren who had hitherto neglected 

the Craft resumed their visits to the 

Lodges, and many noblemen were initiated 

into the Institution . 

Dr. Desaguliers was peculiarly zealous in 

the investigation and collection of the old 

records of the society, and to him we are 

principally indebted for the preservation of 

the "Charges of a Freemason" and the 

preparation of the "General Regulations," 

which are found in the first edition of the 

Constitutions; which, although attributed to 

Dr. Anderson, were undoubtedly compiled 

under the supervision of Desaguliers . Anderson, 

we suppose, did the work, while Desaguliers 

furnished much of the material and 

the thought . One of the first controversial 

works in favor of Freemasonry, namely, A 

Detection of Dr . Plots' Account of the Freemasons, 

was also attributed to his pen ; but he 

is said to have repudiated the credit of its 

authorship, of which indeed the paper furnishes 

no internal evidence . In 1721 he delivered 

before the Grand Lodge what the 

records call "an eloquent oration about Masons 

and Masonry." It does not appear that 

it was ever published, at least no copy of it is 

extant, although Moss puts the title at the 

head of his Catalogue of Masonic Orations . It 

is, indeed, the first Masonic address of which 

we have any notice, and would be highly interesting, 

because it would give us, in all 

probability, as Moss remarks, the views of 

the Masons of that day in reference to the design 

of the Institution . 

After his retirement from the office of 

Grand Master, in 1720, Desaguliers was three 

times appointed Deputy Grand Master : in 

1723, by the Duke of Wharton; in June of 

the same year, by the Earl of Dalkeith ; in 

1725, by Lord Paisley ; and during this period

208 DESAGULIERS 

DES 

of service he did many things for the benefit 

of the Craft - among others, initiating that 

scheme of cfiarity which was subsequently 

developed in what is now known in the 

Grand Lodge of England as the Fund of Benevolence 

. 

After this, Dr . Desaguliers passed over to 

the Continent, and resided for a few years in 

Holland. In 1731 he was at The Hague, and 

presided as Worshipful Master of a Lodge 

organized under a special dispensation for the 

purpose of initiating and passing the Duke of 

Lorraine, who was subsequently Grand Duke 

of Tuscany, and then Emperor of Germany . 

The Duke was, during the same year, made a 

Master Mason in England . 

On his return to England, Desaguliers was 

considered from his position in Masonry, as 

the most fitting person to confer the degrees 

on the Prince of Wales, who was accordingly 

entered, passed, and raised in an occasional. 

Lodge, held on two occasions at 

Kew, over which Dr . Desaguliers presided as 

Master . 

Dr . Desaguliers was very attentive to his 

Masonic duties, and punctual in his attendance 

on the communications of the Grand 

Lodge. His last recorded appearance by 

name is on the 8th of February, 1742, but a 

few years before his death . 

Of Desaguliers' Masonic and personal character, 

Dr . Oliver gives, from tradition, the following 

description : 

"There were many traits in his character 

that redound to his immortal praise . He was 

a grave man in private life, almost approaching 

to austerity ; but he could relax in the private 

recesses of a Tyled Lodge, and in company 

with brothers and fellows, where the ties 

of social intercourse are not particularly 

stringent . He considered the proceedings of 

the Lodge as strictly confidential ; and being 

persuaded that his brothers by initiation 

actually occupied the same position as 

brothers by blood, he was undiagu~sedly free 

and fam iliar in the mutual interchange of unrestrained 

courtesy. In the Lodge he was 

jocose and free-hearted, sang his song, and had 

no objection to his share of the bottle, although 

one of the most learned and distin 

ished men of his day ." (Revelations of 

a quare, p . 10.) 

In 1713, Desaguliers had married a daughter 

of William Pudsey, Esq., by whom he had 

two sons-Alexander, who was a clergyman= 

and Thomas who went into the army, and 

became a co'onel of artillery and an equerry 

to George III. 

The latter days of Dr . Desaguliers are said 

to have been clouded with sorrow and poverty . 

De Feller, in the Biographic Universelle, says 

that he became insane, dressing sometimes as 

a harlequin, and sometimes as a clown, and 

that in one of these fits of insanity he died . 

And Cawthorn, in a poem entitled The Vanity 

of Human Enjoyments, intimates, in the following 

lines, that Desaguliers was in very 

necessitous circumstances at the time of his 

death : 

"How poor, neglected Desaguliers fell! 

How he who taught two gracious kings to view 

All Boyle ennobled and all Bacon knew, 

Died in a cell, without a friend to save, 

Without a guinea, and without a grave." 

But the accounts of the French biographer 

and the English poet are most probably both 

apocryphal, or, at least, much exaggerated ; 

for Nichols, who knew him personally, and has 

given a fine portrait of him in the ninth 

volume of his Literary Anecdotes, says that he 

died on the 29th of February, 1744, at the 

Bedford Coffee House, and was buried in the 

Savoy . 

To few Masons of the present day, except 

to those who have made Freemasonry a subject 

of especial study, is the name of Desaguhers 

very familiar. But it is well they should 

know that to him, perhaps, more than to any 

other man, are we indebted for the present 

existence of Freemasonry as a living mstitution, 

for it was his learning and social position 

that gave a standing to the Institution, which 

brought to its support noblemen and men of 

influence, so that the insignificant assemblage 

of four London Lodges at the Apple-Tree 

Tavern has expanded into an association 

which now overshadows the entire civilized 

world . And the moving spirit of all this was 

John Theophilus Desaguliers . 

Desert . The outer court of a tent in the 

Order of Ishmael, or of Esau and Reconciliation 

. 

Des Etangs, Nicholas Charles. A Masonic 

reformer, who was born at Allichamps, 

in France, on the 7th of September, 1766, and 

died at Paris on the 6th of May, 1847 . He 

was initiated, in 1797, into Masonry in the 

Lodge 1'Heureuse Rencontre . He subsequently 

removed to Paris, where, in 1822 he 

became the Master of the Lodge of Trmosophs, 

which position he held for nine years . 

Thinking that the ceremonies of the Masonic 

system in France did not respond to the digmty 

of the Institution, but were gradually 

being diverted from its original design, he determined 

to commence a reform in the recognized 

dogmas, legends, and symbols, which he 

proposed to present in new forms more in accord 

with the manners of the present age . 

There was, therefore, very little of conservation 

in the system of Des Etangs . It was, 

however, adopted for a time by many of the 

Parisian Lodges, and Des Etangs was loaded 

with honors. His Rite embraced five degrees, 

viz ., 1, 2, 3, the Symbolic degrees ; 4, 

the Rose Croix rectified ; 5, the Grand Elect 

Knight Kadosh . He gave to his system the 

title of "Masonry Restored to its True Principles," 

and fully developed it in his work entitled 

Veritable Lien des Peuples, which was 

first published in 1823 . Des Etangs also published 

in 1825 a very able reply to the calumnies 

of the Abbt Barruel, under the title of 

La Franc-Magonnerie justifee de toute les 

calomnies repandues contre elks . In the system 

of Des Etangs, the Builder of the Temple 

is supposed to symbolize the Good Genius of 

Humanity destroyed by Ignorance, False-

DESIGN 

DEVELOPMENT 209 

hood, and Ambition; and hence the Third Degree 

is supposed to typify the battle between 

liberty and despotism . In the same spirit, 

the justness of destroying impious kings is 

considered the true dogma of the Rose Croix . 

In fact, the tumults of the French Revolution, 

in which Des Etangs took no inconsiderable 

share, had infected his spirit with a political 

temperament, which unfortunately appears 

too prominently in many portions of his Masonic 

system. Notwithstanding that he incorporated 

two of the high degrees into his 

Rite, Des Etangs considered the three Symbolic 

degrees as the only legitimate Masonry, 

and says that all other degrees have been instituted 

by various associations and among 

different peoples on occasions when it was desired 

to revenge a death, to reestablish a 

prince, or to give success to a sect . 

Design of Freemasonry . It is neither 

charity nor almsgiving, nor the cultivation of 

the social sentiment ; for both of these are 

merely incidental to its organization ; but it 

is the search after truth, and that truth is the 

unity of God and the immortality of the soul . 

The various degrees or grades of initiation 

represent the various stages through which 

the human mind passes, and the many difficulties 

which men, individually or collectively, 

must encounter in their progress from ignorance 

to the acquisition of this truth . 

Destruction of the Temple . The Temple 

of King Solomon was destroyed by 

Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Chaldees, during 

the reign of Zedekiah, A .m . 3416, s.c. 

588, and just four hundred and sixteen years 

after its dedication . Although the city was 

destroyed and the Temple burnt, the Masonic 

legends state that the deep foundations of the 

latter were not affected . Nebuchadnezzar 

caused the city of Jerusalem to be leveled to 

the ground, the royal palace to be burned, 

the Temple to be pillaged as well as destroyed, 

and the inhabitants to be carried captive to 

Babylon. These events are symbolically detailed 

in the Royal Arch, and in allusion to 

them, the passage of the Book of Chronicles 

which records them is appropriately read 

during the ceremonies of this part of the 

degree . 

Detached Degrees . Side or honorary 

degrees outside of the regular succession of 

degrees of a Rite, and which, being conferred 

without the authority of a supreme controlling 

body, are said to be to the side of or detached 

from the regular regime . The word detached 

is peculiar to the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite. Thus, in the circular of the 

Southern Supreme Council, October 10, 1802, 

is the following : "Besides those degrees which 

are in regular succession, most of the Inspectors 

are in possession of a number of detached 

degrees, given in different parts of the world, 

and which they generally communicate, free 

of expense, to those brethren who are high 

enough to understand them ." 

Deuchar Charters . Warrants, some of 

which are still in existence in Scotland, and 

which are used to authorize the working of 

the Knights Templar Degree by Certain Encampments 

in that country . They were 

designated "Deuchar Charters," on account 

of Alexander Deuchar, an engraver and 

heraldic writer, having been the chief promoter 

of the Grand Conclave and its first 

Grand Master. To his exertions, also, the 

Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland 

may be said to have owed its origin . 

He appears to have become acquainted with 

Knights Templarism earl y in the present century 

through brethren who had been dubbed 

under a warrant emanating from Dublin, 

which was held by Fratres serving in the 

Shrop shire Militia . This corps was quartered 

in Edinburgh in 1798 ; and in all probability 

it was through the instrumentality of 

its members that the first Grand Assembly of 

Knights Templar was first act up in Edinburgh . 

Subsequently, this gave place to the Grand 

Assembly of High Knights Templar in Edinburgh, 

working under a charter, No . 31, of 

the Early Grand Encampment of Ireland, of 

which in 1807 Deuchar was Grand Master. 

The Deuchar Charters authorized Encampments 

to install "Knights Templar and 

Knights of St . John of Jerusalem "--one condition 

on which these warrants were held being 

"that no communion or intercourse shall 

be maintained with any Chapter or Encampment) 

or body assuming that name, holding 

meetmgs of Knights Templar under a Master 

Mason's Charter ." In 1837 the most of these 

warrants were forfeited, and the Encampments 

erased from the roll of the Grand Conclave, 

on account of not making the required 

returns. 

Deus Meumque Jus. God and my right . 

The motto of the Thirty-third Degree of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and 

hence adopted as that also of the Supreme 

Council of the Rite . It is a Latin translation 

of the motto of the royal arms of England, 

which is "Dieu et mon droit," and concerning 

which we have the following tradition . Richard 

Cceur de Leon, besieging Gisors, in Normandy, 

in 1198, gave, as a parole, "Dieu et 

mon droit," because Philip Augustus King of 

France, had, without right, taken that city, 

which then belonged to England . Richard, 

having been victorious with that righteous 

parole, hence adopted it as his motto ; and 

it was afterward marshaled in the arms of 

England . 

Development . The ancients often wrote 

their books on parchment, which were made 

up into a roll, hence called a volume, from 

volvere, "to roll up ." Thus, he who read the 

book commenced by unrolling it, a custom 

still practised by the Jews in reading their 

Sacred Law, and it was not until the whole 

volume was unrolled' and read that he became 

the master of its contents . Now, in the 

Latin language, to unfold or to unroll was 

devolvere, whence we get our English word 

to develop . The figurative signification thus 

elicited from etymology may be well applied 

to the idea of the development of Masonry. 

The system of Speculative Masonry is a vol-

210 DEVICE 

DIALECTICS 

ume closely folded from unlawful eyes, and 

he who would understand its true intent and 

meaning must follow the old proverb, and 

"commence at the beginning." There is no 

royal road of arriving at this knowledge . It 

can be attained only by laborious research . 

The student must begin as an Apprentice, by 

studying the rudiments that are unfolded on 

its first page. Then as a Fellow-Craft still 

more of the precious writing is unrolled, and 

he acquires new ideas . As a Master he continues 

the operation, and possesses himself of 

additional material for thought . But it is 

not until the entire volume lies unrolled before 

him, in the highest degree, and the whole 

speculative system of its philosophy is lying 

outspread before him, that he can pretend to 

claim a thorough comprehension of its plan . 

It is then only that he has solved the problem, 

and can exclaim, "the end has crowned the 

work ." The Mason who looks only on the 

ornamental covering of the roll knows nothing 

of its contents . Masonry is a scheme of development 

; and he who has learned nothing 

of its design, and who is daily adding nothing 

to his stock of Masonic ideas, is simply one 

who is not unrolling the parchment . It is a 

custom of the Jews on their Sabbath, in the 

synagogue, that a member should pay for the 

privilege of unrolling the Sacred Law . So, 

too, the Mason, who would uphold the law of 

his Institution, must pay for the privilege, 

not in base coin, but in labor and research, 

studying its principles, searching out its design, 

and imbibing all of its symbolism ; and 

the payment thus made will purchase a rich 

jewel . 

Device. A term in heraldry signifying 

any emblem used to represent a family, person, 

nation, or society, and to distinguish such 

from any other . The device is usually accompanied 

with a suitable motto applied in a 

figurative sense, and its essence consists in a 

metaphorical similitude between the thing 

representing and that represented. Thus, the 

device of a lion represents the courage of the 

person bearing it . The oak is the device of 

strength ; the palm, of victory ; the sword, of 

honor ; and the eagle, of sovereign power . 

The several sections of the Masonic sodality 

are distinguished by appropriate devices. 

1 . Ancient Craft Masonry . Besides the arms 

of Speculative Masonry, which are described 

in this work under the appropriate head, the 

most common device is a square and compass . 

2 . Royal Arch Masonry . The device is a 

triple tau within a triangle . 

3 . Knight Templarism . The ancient device, 

which was borne on the seals and banners 

of the primitive Order, was two knights 

riding on one horse, in allusion to the vow of 

poverty taken by the founders . The modern 

device of Masonic Templarism is a cross pattee . 

4 . Scottish Rite Masonry . The device is 

a double-headed eagle crowned, holding in his 

claws a sword . 

5 . Royal and Select Masters . The device 

is a trowel suspended within a triangle, in 

which the allusion is to the tetragrammaton 

symbolized by the triangle or delta, and the 

workmen at the first Temple symbolized by 

the trowel . 

6 . Rose Croix Masonry . The device is a 

cross charged with a rose ; at its foot an eagle 

and a pelican . 

7 . Knight of the Sun . This old degree of 

philosophical Masonry has for its device rays 

of light issuing from a triangle inscribed within 

a circle of darkness, which "teaches us," says 

Oliver, "that when man was enlightened by 

the Deity with reason, he became enabled to 

penetrate the darkness and obscurity which 

ignorance and superstition have spread abroad 

to allure men to their destruction ." 

Each of these devices is accompanied by 

a motto which properly forms a part of it . 

These mottoes will be found under the head of 

Motto . 

The Italian heralds have paid peculiar attention 

to the subject of devices, and have 

established certain laws for their construction, 

which are generally recognized in other countries 

. These laws are, 1 . That there be nothing 

extravagant or monstrous in the figures . 

2. That figures be never joined together which 

have no relation or affinity with one another . 

3. That the human body should never be used . 

4. That the figures should be few in number, 

and 5 . That the motto should refer to the 

device, and express with it a common idea . 

According to P. Bouhours, the figure or emblem 

was called the body, and the motto the 

soul of the device . 

Devoir . The gilds or separate communities 

in the system of French compagnonage 

are called devoirs. (See Compagnonage .) 

Devoir of a Knight . The original meaning 

of devoir is duty ; and hence, in the language 

of chivalry, a knight's devoir comprehended 

the performance of all those duties to 

which he was obligated by the laws of knighthood 

and the vows taken at his creation . 

These were the defense of widows and orphans, 

the maintenance of justice, and the 

protection of the poor and weak against the 

oppressions of the strong and great . Thus, 

in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, the 

knight says to the lady : 

"Madame, if any service or devoir 

Of a poor errant knight may right your wrongs, 

Command it ; I am prest to give you succor, 

For to that holy end I bear my armor ." 

Knight of the Burning Pestle . Act II ., Scene 1 . 

The devoir of a Knights Templar was origi 

nal ly to protect pilgrims on their visit to the 

Holy Land, and to defend the holy places . 

The devoir of a modern Knights Templar is 

to defend innocent virgins, destitute widows, 

helpless orphans, and the Christian religion . 

Devotions . The prayers in a Commandery 

of Knights Templar are technically called the 

devotions of the knights . 

Dialectics . That branch of logic which 

teaches the rules and modes of reasoning . Dialecticke 

and dialecticus are used as corruptions 

of the Latin dialectica in some of the old manuscript 

Constitutions, instead of logic, in the

DIAMOND 

DIMIT 211 

enumeration of the seven liberal arts and sciences 

. 

Diamond . A precious stone ; in Hebrew, 

thr,. It was the third stone in the second row 

of the high priest's breastplate, according to 

the enumeration of Aben Ezra, and corresponded 

to the tribe of Zebulun . But it is 

doubtful whether the diamond was known in 

the time of Moses ; and if it was, its great 

value and its insusceptibility to the impression 

of a graving-tool would have rendered it 

totally unfit as a stone in the breastplate. The 

Vulgate more properly gives the jasper . 

Dieseal. A term used by the Druids to 

designate the circumambulation around the 

sacred cairns, and is derived from two words 

signifying "on the right of the sun," because 

the circumambulation was always in imitation 

of the course of the sun, with the right 

hand next to the cairn or altar . (See Circumambulation 

and Deiseil.) 

Dieu et mon Drolt. See Dew Meumque 

Jus . 

Dieu le Veut . God wills it. The war-cry 

of the old Crusaders, and hence adopted as a 

motto in the degrees of Templarism . 

Dignitaries . The Master, the Wardens, 

the Orator, and the Secretary in a French 

Lodge are called dignitaries . The corresponding 

officers in the Grand Orient are called 

Grand Digmtaries. In English and American 

Masonic language the term is usually restricted 

to high officers of the Grand Lodge . 

Dimit . A modern, American, and wholly 

indefensible corruption of the technical word 

Demit . As the use of this corrupt form is benning 

to be very prevalent among American 

asomc writers, it is proper that we should 

inquire which is the correct word, Demit or 

Dimit. 

For almost a century and a half the Masonic 

world has been content, in its technical language, 

to use the word demit. But within a 

few years, a few admirers of neologisms--men 

who are always ready to believe that what is 

old cannot be good, and that new fashions are 

always the besthave sought to make a 

change in the well-established word, and, by 

altering the e in the first syllable into an i, 

they make another word dimit, which they assert 

is the right one . It is simply a question of 

orthography, and must be settled first by reference 

to usage, and then to etymology, to 

discover which of the words sustains, by its 

derivation, the true meaning which is intended 

to be conveyed . 

it is proper, however, to premise that although 

in the seventeenth century Sir Thomas 

Browne used the word demit as a verb, meaning 

"to depress," and Bishop Hall used dimit 

as signifying to send away, yet both words are 

omitted by all the early lexicographers . Neither 

of them is to be found in Phillips, in 1706, 

nor in Blunt, in 1707, nor in Bailey, in 1732 . 

Johnson and Sheridan, of a still later date, 

have inserted in their dictionaries demit, but 

not dimit ; but Walker, Richardson, and 

Webster give both words, but only as verbs . 

The verb to demit or to dimit may be found, but 

never the noun a demit or a dimit. As a noun 

substantive, this word, however it may be 

spelled, is unknown to the general language, 

and is strictly a technical expression peculiar 

to Freemasonry . 

As a Masonic technicality we must then discuss 

it . And, first, as to its meaning . 

Dr. Oliver, who omits dimit in his Dictionary 

of Symbolical Masonry, defines demit thus : 

"A Mason is said to demit from the Order 

when he withdraws from all connection with 

it." It will be seen that he speaks of it here 

only as a verb, and makes no reference to its 

use as a noun. 

Macoy, in his Gyclopcrdia, omits demit, but 

defines dimit thus : "From the Latin dimitto, 

to permit to go . The act of withdrawing from 

membership." To say nothing of the incorrectness 

of this definition to which reference 

will hereafter be made, tliere is in it a violation 

of the principles of language which is 

worthy of note. No rule is better settled than 

that which makes the verb and the noun derived 

from it have the same relative signification. 

Thus, "to discharge" means "to dismiss 

», a discharge » means a dismission , 

"to approve" means "to express liking" ; 

"an approval" means "an expression of 

mf` "to remit" means "to relax" ; "a remission" 

means "a relaxation" so with a 

thousand other instances . Row, according 

to this rule, if "to demit" means "to permit 

to go," then "a dimit" should mean ` a r- 

mission to go ." The withdrawal is somet g 

subsequent and consequent, but it may never 

take pace. According to Macoy's definition of 

the verb, the granting of "a dimit" does not 

necessarily lead to the conclusion that the 

Mason who received it has left the Lodge . He 

has only been permitted to do so. This is contrary 

to the universally accepted definition of 

the word . Accordingly, when he comes to 

define the word as a noun, he gives it the true 

meaning, which, however, does not agree with 

his previous definition as a verb . 

In instituting the inquiry which of these 

two words is the true one, we must first look 

to the general usage of Masonic writers ; for, 

after all, the rule of Horace holds good, that in 

the use of words we must be governed by custom 

or usage, 

-"whose arbitrary sway 

Words and the forms of language must obey ." 

If we shall find that the universal usage of 

Masonic writers until a very recent date has 

been to employ the form demit, then we are 

bound to believe that it is the correct form, 

notwithstanding a few writers have very recently 

sought to intrude the form dimit upon 

us. 

Now, how stands the case? The first time 

that we find the word demit used is in the second 

edition of Anderson's Constitutions, Anno 

1738, p . 153 . There it is said that on the 25th 

of November, 1723, "it was agreed that if a 

Master of a particular Lodge is deposed, or 

demits, the Senior Warden shall forthwith fill 

the Master's Chair ."

212 DIMIT 

DIMIT 

The word continued in use as a technical 

word in the Masonry of England for many 

years . In the editions of the Constitutions 

published in 1756, p . 311, the passage just 

quoted is again recited, and the word demit is 

again employed in the fourth edition of the 

Constitutions published in 1767, p . 345 . 

In the second edition of Dermott's Ahiman 

Rezon, published in 1764 (I have not the first), 

p. 52, and in the third edition, published in 

1778, p 58, the word demit is employed . Oliver, 

it will be seen, uses it in his Dictionary, published 

in 1853. But the word seems to have 

become obsolete in England, and to, resign is 

now constantly used by English Masonic 

writers in the place of to demit . 

In America, however, the word has been 

and continues to be in universal use, and has 

always been spelled, until very recently, 

demit . 

Thus we find it used by Taunehill, Manual, 

1845, p. 59 ; Morris, Code of Masonic Law, 

1856, p . 289 ; by Hubbard, in 1851 ; by Chase, 

Digest, 1859, p . 104 ; by Mitchell, Masonic 

History, vol . ii ., pp . 556, 592, and by all the 

Grand Lodges whose proceedings I have examined 

up to the year 1560, and probably beyond 

that date . 

On the contrary, the word dimit is of very 

recent origin, and has been used only within a 

few years . Usage, therefore, both English and 

American, is clearly in favor of demit, and 

dimit must be considered as an interloper, and 

ought to be consigned to the tomb of the Capulets. 

And now we are to, inquire whether this 

usage is sustained by the principles of etymology. 

First, let us obtain a correct definition 

of the word. 

To demit, in Masonic language, means simply 

to resign . The Mason who demits from his 

Lodge resigns from it . The word is used in the 

exact sense, for instance in the Constitution 

of the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin, where it is 

said : "No brother shall be allowed to demit 

from any Lodge unless for the purpose of uniting 

with some other." That is to say : "No 

brother shall be allowed to resign from any 

Lodge." 

Now what are the respective meanings of 

demit and dimit in ordinary language? 

There the words are found to be entirely 

different in signification . 

To demit is derived first from the Latin demittere 

through the French demettre. In Latin 

the prefixed particle de has the weight of down ; 

added to the verb mittere, to send, it signifies 

to let down from an elevated position to a 

lower . Thus, Cxsar used it in this very sense, 

when, in describing the storming of Avaricum, 

(Bel . Gal ., vii ., 28), he says that the 

Roman soldiers did not let themselves down, 

that is, descend from the to p of the wall to the 

level ground . The French, looking to this reference 

to a descent from a higher to a lower position, 

made their verb se demettre, used in a 

reflective sense, signify to give up a post, 

office, or occupation that is to say to resign 

it. And thence the English use of the word is 

reducible, which makes to demit signify to resign 

. We have another word in our language 

also derived from demettre, and in which the 

same idea of resignation is apparent. It is the 

word demise, which was originally used only to 

express a royal death. The old maxim was 

that "the king never dies ." So, instead of saying 

"the death of the king," they said "the 

demise of the king," thereby meaning his 

resignation of the crown to his successor . 

The word is now applied more generally, and 

we speak of the demise of Mr . Pitt, or any 

other person. 

To dimit is derived from the Latin dimittere . 

The prefixed particle di or dis has the effect of 

off from, and hence dimittere means to send 

away . Thus, Terence uses it to express the 

meaning of dismissing or sending away an 

army . 

Both words are now obsolete in the English 

language . They were formerly used, but in the 

different senses already indicated . 

Thus, Hollinshed employs demit to signify 

a surrender, yielding up, or resignation of a 

franchise . 

Bishop Hall uses dimit to signify a sending 

away of a servant by his master . 

Demit, as a noun, is not known in good English 

; the correlative nouns of the verbs to 

demit and to dimit are demission and dimission. 

"A demit" is altogether a Masonic 

technicality, and is, moreover, an Americanism 

of very recent usage . 

It is then evident that to demit is the proper 

word, and that to use to dimit is to speak and 

write incorrectly . When a Mason "demits 

from a Lodge," we mean that he "resigns from 

a Lodge," because to demit means to resign . 

But what does anyone mean when he says 

that a Mason "dimits from a Lodge"? To 

dimit means, as we have seen, to send away, 

therefore "he dimits from the Lodge" is 

equivalent to saying "he sends away from the 

Lodge," which of course is not only bad English,-but 

sheer nonsense. If dimit is to be used 

at all, as it is an active, transitive verb, it must 

be used only in that forth, and we must either 

say that "a Lodge dimits a Mason " or that 

"a Mason is dimitted by his Lod 

I think that I have discovered the way in 

which this blunder first arose . Robert Morris, 

in his Code of Masonic Law, p . 289, has the following 

passage : 

"A 'demit,' technically considered, is the 

act of withdrawing, and applies to the Lodge 

and not to the individual . A Mason cannot 

demit, in the strict sense, but the Lodge may 

demit (dismiss) him." 

It is astonishing how the author of this 

passage could have crowded into so brief a 

space so many violations of grammar, law, and 

common sense. First, to demit means to withdraw, 

and then this withdrawal is made the 

act of the Lodge and not of the individual, as 

if the Lodge withdrew the member instead of 

the member withdrawing himself . And immediately 

afterward, seeing the absurdity of 

this doctrine, and to make the demission the 

act of the Lodge, he changes the signification

DIOCESAN 

DIONYSIAN 213 

of the word, and makes to demit mean to dismiss. 

Certainly it is impossible to discuss the 

law of Masonic demission when such contrary 

meanings are given to the word in one and the 

same paragraph . 

But certain wiseacres, belonging probably 

to that class who believe that there is always 

improvement in change, seizing upon this 

latter definition of Morris, that to demit meant 

to dismiss, and seeing that this was a meaning 

which the word never had, and, from its 

derivation from demittere, never could have, 

changed the word from demit to dimit, which 

really does have the meaning of sending away 

or dismissing . But as the Masonic act of demission 

does not mean a dismissal from the 

Lodge, because that would be an expulsion, 

but simply a resignation, the word dimit 

cannot properly be applied to the act . 

A Mason demits from the Lodge ; he resigns 

. He takes out his demit (a strictly technical 

expression and altogether confined to 

this country) ; he asks for and receives an acceptance 

of his resignation. 

Diocesan . The Fifth Degree of Ba.hrdt's 

German Union . 

Dionysian Architects . The priests of 

Bacchus, or, as the Greeks called him, Dionysus, 

having devoted themselves to architectural 

pursuits, established about 1000 

years before the Christian era a society or fraternity 

of builders in Asia Minor, which is 

styled by the ancient writers the Fraternity 

of Dionysian Architects, and to this society was 

exclusively confined the privilege of erecting 

temples and other public buildings . 

The members of the Fraternity of Dionysian 

Architects were linked together by the 

secret ties of the Dionysian mysteries, into 

which they had all been initiated . Thus constituted, 

the Fraternity was distinguished by 

many peculiarities that strikingly assimilate 

it to our Order . In the exercise of charity, the 

"more opulent were sacredly bound to provide 

for the exigencies of the poorer brethren ." 

For the facilities of labor and government, 

they were divided into communities called 

auvoudal, each of which was governed by a 

Master and Wardens . They held a general 

assembly or grand festival once a year, which 

was solemnized with great pomp and splendor . 

They employed in their ceremonial observances 

many of the implements which are 

still to be found among Freemasons, and 

used, like them, a universal language, by 

which one brother could distinguish another 

in the dark as well as in the light, and which 

served to unite the members scattered over 

India, Persia, and Syria, into one common 

brotherhood . The existence of this order in 

Tyre, at the time of the building of the Temple, 

is universally admitted ; and Hiram, the widow's 

son, to whom Solomon entrusted the 

superintendence of the workmen, as an inhabitant 

of Tyre, and as a skilful architect 

and cunning and curious workman, was, very 

probably, one of its members . Hence, we may 

legitimately suppose that the Dionysians were 

sent by Hiram, King of Tyre, to assist King 

Solomon in the construction of the house he 

was about to dedicate to Jehovah, and that 

they communicated to their Jewish fellowlaborers 

a knowledge of the advantages of 

their Fraternity, and invited them to a participation 

in its mysteries and privileges . In 

this union, however, the apocryphal legend of 

the Dionysians would naturally give way to 

the true legend of the Masons, which was unhappily 

furnished by a melancholy incident 

that occurred at the time . The latter part of 

this statement is, it is admitted, a mere speculation, 

but one that has met the approval of 

Lawrie, Oliver, and our best writers ; and 

although this connection between the Dionysian 

Architects and the builders of King Solomon 

may not be supported by documentary 

evidence, the traditionary theory is at least 

plausible, and offers nothing which is either 

absurd or impossible. If accepted, it supplies 

the necessary link which connects the Pagan 

with the Jewish mysteries . 

The history of this association subsequent 

to the Solomonic era has been detailed by 

Masonic writers, who have derived their information 

sometimes from conjectural and 

sometimes from historical authority . About 

300 years B .c ., they were incorporated by the 

kings of Pergamos at Teos, which was assigned 

to them as a settlement, and where 

they continued for centuries as an exclusive 

society engaged in the erection of works of 

art and the celebration of their mysteries . 

Notwithstanding the edict of the Emperor 

Theodosius which abolished all mystical associations, 

they are said to have continued their 

existence down to the time of the Crusades, 

and during the constant communication which 

was kept up between the two continents 

passed over from Asia to Europe, where they 

became known as the "Traveling Freemasons" 

of the Middle Ages, into whose 

future history they thus became merged . 

Dionysian Mysteries . These mysteries 

were celebrated throughout Greece and Asia 

Minor, but principally at Athens, where the 

years were numbered by them . They were instituted 

in honor of Bacchus, or, as the Greeks 

called him, Dionysus, and were introduced 

into Greece from Egypt . In these mysteries, 

the murder of Dionysus by the Titans was 

commemorated in which legend he is evidently 

identified with the Egyptian Osiris, who 

was slain byhis brotherTyphon . The aspirant, 

in the ceremonies through which he passed, 

represented the murder of the god and his 

restoration to life, which, says the Baron de 

Sacy (Notes on Sainte-Croix, ii ., 86), were the 

subject of allegorical explanations altogether 

analogous to those which were given to the 

rape of Proserpine and the murder of Osiris . 

The commencement of the mysteries was 

signalized by the consecration of an e gg , in 

allusion to the mundane egg from which all 

things were supposed to have sprung. . The 

candidate having been first purified by water, 

and crowned with a myrtle branch, was introduced 

into the vestibule, and there clothed 

in the sacred habiliments . He was then de-

214 DIONYSUS 

DISCALCEATION 

livered to the conductor, who, after the mystic 

warning, ENLls, EKCfs, gave, $'ii Xo[, " Depart 

hence, all ye profane! " exhorted the candidate 

to exert all his fortitude and courage in the 

dangers and trials through which he was 

about to pass . He was then led through a 

series of dark caverns, mart of the ceremonies 

which Stobieus calls 'a rude and fearful 

march through night and darkness." During 

this passage he was terrified by the howling 

of wild beasts, and other fearful noises ; artificial 

thunder reverberated through the subterranean 

apartments, and transient flashes of 

lightning revealed monstrous apparitions to 

his sight. In this state of darkness and terror 

he was kept for three days and nights, after 

which he commenced the aphanism or mystical 

death of Bacchus . He was now placed on 

the pastor or couch, that is, he was confined 

in a solitary cell, where he could reflect seriously 

on the nature of the undertaking in 

which he was engaged . During this time, he 

was alarmed with the sudden crash of waters, 

which was intended to represent the deluge . 

Typhon, searching for Osiris, or Dionysus, for 

they are here identical, discovered the ark in 

which he had been secreted, and, tearing it 

violently asunder, scattered the limbs of his 

victim upon the waters . The aspirant now 

heard the lamentations which were instituted 

for the death of the god. Then commenced the 

search of Rhea for the remains of Dionysus . 

The apartments were filled with shrieks and 

groans ; the initiated mingled with their howlings 

of despair the frantic dances of the Corybantes 

; everything was a scene of distraction, 

until, at a signal from the hierophant, the 

whole drama changed-the mourning was 

turned to joy ; the mangled body was found ; 

and the aspirant was released from his confinement,theshoutsof 

ESpiilcaµev, EoyXafpwµev, 

"We have found it ; let us rejoice together ." 

The candidate was now made to descend into 

the infernal regions, where he beheld the torments 

of the wicked and the rewards of the 

virtuous . It was now that he received the 

lecture explanatory of the Rites, and was 

invested with the tokens which served the initiated 

as a means of recognition. He then underwent 

a lustration, after which he was introduced 

into the holy place, where he received 

the name of epopt, and was fully instructed in 

the doctrine of the mysteries, which consisted 

in a belief in the existence of one God and a 

future state of rewards and punishments . 

These doctrines were inculcated by a variety 

of significant symbols . After the performance 

of these ceremonies, the aspirant was dismissed, 

and the Rites concluded with the pronunciation 

of the mystic words, Konx Ompax . 

Sainte-Croix (Myst. du Pag., ii ., 90), says that 

the murder of Dionysus by the Titans was 

only an allegory of the physical revolutions of 

the world ; but these were in part, in the ancient 

initiations, significant of the changes of 

life and death and resurrection . 

Dionysus. The Greek name of Bacchus . 

(See Dionysian Mysteries .) 

Diploma. Literally means something 

folded . From the Greek, ScrAAw. The word 

is applied in Masonry to the certificates 

granted by Lodges, Chapters and Commanderies 

to their members, whic i should always 

be written on parchment. The more usual 

word, however, is Certificate, which see . In 

the Scottish Rite they are called Patents . 

Director of Ceremonies, Grand . An 

officer in the Grand Lodge of England, who 

has the arrangement and direction of all processions 

and ceremonies of the Grand Lodge 

and the care of the regalia, clothing, insignia, 

and jewels belonging to the Grand Lodge . 

His jewel is two rods in saltire, tied by a ribbon. 

Directory . In German Lodges, the Master 

and other officers constitute a council of 

management, under the name of Directorium 

or Directory . 

Directory, Roman Helvetic . The name 

assumed in 1739 by the Supreme Masonic authority 

at Lausanne, in Switzerland . (See 

Switzerland .) 

Discalceation, Rite of . The ceremony of 

taking off the shoes, as a token of respect, 

whenever we are on or about to approach holy 

ground . It is referred to in Exodus iii . 5, 

where the angel of the Lord, at the burning 

bush, exclaims to Moses : "Draw not nigh 

hither ; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for 

the place whereon thou standest is holy 

ground." It is again mentioned in Joshua v . 

15, in the following words : "And the captain 

of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy 

shoe from off thy foot ; for the place whereon 

thou standest is holy." And lastly, it is alluded 

to in the injunction given in Ecclesiastes 

v . 1 : "Keep thy foot when thou goest 

to the house of God ." 

The Rite, in fact, always was, and still is, 

used among the Jews and other Oriental nations 

when entering their temples and other 

sacred edifices . It does not seem to have been 

derived from the command given to Moses ; 

but rather to have existed as a religious custom 

from time immemorial, and to have been 

borrowed, as Mede supposes, by the Gentiles, 

through tradition, from the patriarchs . 

The direction of Pythagoras to his disciples 

was in these words : AxenrAwos Bde ical 

apLoabvec-that is, "Offer sacrifice and worship 

with thy shoes off ." 

Justin Martyr says that those who came to 

worship in the sanctuaries and temples of the 

Gentiles were commanded by their priests to 

put off their shoes . 

Drusius, in his Notes on the Book of Joshua, 

says that among most of the Eastern nations 

it was a pious duty to tread the pavement of 

the temple with unshod feet . 

Maimonides, the great expounder of the 

Jewish law, asserts (Beth Habbechirah, c . 

vii .) that "it was not lawful for a man to 

come into the mountain of God's house with 

his shoes on his feet, or with his staff, or in his 

working garments, or with dust on his feet ." 

Rabbi Solomon, commenting on the command 

in Leviticus xix . 30, "Ye shall reverence 

my sanctuary," makes the same remark in

DISCIPLINA 

DISCIPLINE 215 

relation to this custom . On this subject, Oliver 

(Hist . Landm ., ii ., 471) observes : "Now 

the act of going with naked feet was always 

considered a token of humility and reverence, 

and the priests, in the temple worship, always 

officiated with feet uncovered, although it was 

frequently injurious to their health ." 

Mede quotes Zago Zaba, an Ethiopian 

bishop, who was ambassador from David, 

King of Abyssinia, to John III ., of Portugal, as 

saying "We are not permitted to enter the 

church except barefooted ." 

The Mohammedans, when about to perform 

their devotions, always leave their slippers at 

the door of the mosque . The Druids practised 

the same custom whenever they celebrated 

their sacred rites ; and the ancient Peruvians 

are said always to have left their shoes at the 

porch when they entered the magnificent temple 

consecrated to the worship of the sun . 

Adam Clarke (Comm. on Exod .) thinks that 

the custom of worshiping the Deity barefooted, 

was so general among all nations of 

antiquity, that he assigns it as one of his thirteen 

proofs that the whole human race have 

been derived from one family . 

Finally, Bishop Patrick, speaking of the origin 

of this Rite, says, in his Commentaries : 

"Moses did not give the first beginning to this 

Rite, but it was derived from the patriarchs 

before him, and transmitted to future times 

from that ancient, general tradition ; for we 

find no command in the law of Moses for the 

priests performing the service of the temple 

without shoes, but it is certain they did so 

from immemorial custom ; and so do the Mohammedans 

and other nations at this day ." 

Discipiina Arcani . See Discipline of the 

Secret . 

Discipline . This word is used by Masons, 

in its ecclesiastical sense, to signify the execution 

of the laws by which a Lge is governed 

and the infliction of the penalties enjoined 

against offenders who are its members, 

or, not being members, live within its jurisdiction. 

To discipline a Mason is to subject 

him to punishment . (See Jurisdiction and 

Punishments .) 

Discipline of the Secret . There existed 

in the earlier ages of the Christian church a 

mystic and secret worship, from which a portion 

of the congregation was peremptorily excluded, 

and whose privacy was guarded, with 

the utmost care, from the obtrusive eyes of all 

who had not been duly initiated into the sacred 

rites that qualified them to be present . 

This custom of communicating only to a 

portion of the Christian community the more 

abstruse doctrines and more sacred ceremonies 

of the church, is known among ecclesiastical 

writers by the name of "DISCIPLINA 

ARCANI," or "The Discipline of the Secret ." 

Converts were permitted to attain a knowledge 

of all the doctrines, and participate in the 

sacraments of the church, only after a long and 

experimental probation . The young Christian, 

like the disciple of Pythagoras, was made 

to pass through a searching ordeal of time and 

patience, by which his capacity, his fidelity, 

and his other qualifications were strictlytested . 

For this purpose, different ranks were instituted 

in the congregation . The lowest of 

these were the Catechumens . These were occupied 

in a study of the elementary principles 

of the Christian religion . Their connection 

with the church was not consummated by 

baptism, to which rite they were not admitted, 

even as spectators, it being the symbol of a 

higher degree ; but their initiation was accompanied 

with solemn ceremonies, consisting of 

prayer, signing with the cross, and the imposition 

of hands by the priest . The next degree 

was that of the Competentes, or seekers . 

When a Catechumen had exhibited satisfactory 

evidences of his proficiency in religious 

knowledge, he petitioned the Bishop for the 

Sacrament of baptism . His name was then 

registered in the books of the church. After 

this registration, the candidate underwent the 

various ceremonies appropriate to the degree 

upon which he was about to enter . He was 

examined by the bishop as to his attainments 

in Christianity, and, if approved, was exorcised 

for twenty days, during which time he 

was subjected to rigorous fasts, and, having 

made confession, the necessary penance was 

prescribed . He was then, for the first time, instructed 

in the words of the Apostles' creed, a 

symbol of which the Catechumens were entirely 

ignorant . 

Another ceremony peculiar to the Competentes 

was that of going about with their 

faces veiled . St . Augustine explains the ceremony 

by Saying that the Competentes went 

veiled in public as an image of the slavery of 

Adam after his expulsion from Paradise, and 

that, after baptism, the veils were taken away 

as an emblem of the liberty of the spiritual 

life which was obtained by the sacrament of 

regeneration . Some other significant ceremonies, 

but of a less important character, 

were used, and the Competent, having passed 

through them all, was at length admitted to 

the highest degree . 

The Fideles, or Faithful, constituted the 

Third Degree or order . Baptism was the ceremony 

by which the Competentes, after an examination 

into their proficiency, were admitted 

into this degree . "The were thereby," 

says Bingham, "made compete and perfect 

Christians, and were, upon that account, dignified 

with several titles of honor and marks of 

distinction above the Catechumens ." They 

were called Illuminati, or Illuminated, because 

they had been enlightened as to those secrets 

which were concealed from the inferior orders . 

They were also called Initiati, or Initiated, because 

they were admitted to a knowledge of 

the sacred mysteries ; and so commonly was 

this name in use, that, when Chrysostom and 

the other ancient writers spoke of their concealed 

doctrines, they did so in ambiguous 

terms, so as not to be understood by the Catechumens, 

excusing themselves for their brief 

allusions, by saying, "the Initiated know what 

we mean ." And so complete was the understanding 

of the ancient Fathers of a hidden 

mystery, and an initiation into them, that

216 DISCIPLINE 

DISPENSATION 

St . Ambrose has written a book, the title of 

which is, Concerning those who are Initiated 

into the Mysteries . They were also called the 

Perfect, to intimate that they had attained to 

a perfect knowledge of all the doctrines and 

sacraments of the church. 

There were certain prayers, which none but 

the Faithful were permitted to hear . Among 

these was the Lord's praper, which, for this 

reason, was commonly called Oratio Fidelium, 

or, "The Prayer of the Faithful ." They were 

also admitted to hear discourses upon the 

most profound mysteries of the church, to 

which the Catechumens were strictly forbidden 

to listen . St . Ambrose, in the book written 

by him to the Initiated, says that sermons on 

the subject of morality were daily preached to 

the Catechumens ; but to the Initiated they 

gave an explanation of the Sacraments, which, 

to have spoken of to the unba tized, would 

have rather been like a betrayal of mysteries 

than instruction. And St . Augustine, in one of 

his sermons to the Faithful, says : "Having 

now dismissed the Catechumens, you alone 

have we retained to hear us, because, in addition 

to those things which belong to all Christians 

in common, we are now about to speak in 

an especial manner of the Heavenly Mysteries, 

which none can hear except those who, by the 

gift of the Lord, are able to comprehend them ." 

The mysteries of the church were divided 

like the Ancient Mysteries, into the lesser anc 

the greater . The former was called "Missa 

Catechumenorum," or the Mass of the Catechumens, 

and the latter, "Missa Fidelium," 

or the Mass of the Faithful. The public service 

of the church consisted of the reading of the 

Scripture, and the delivery of a sermon, which 

was entirely of a moral character. These being 

concluded, the lesser mysteries, or Mass of the 

Catechumens, commenced. The deacon proclaimed 

in a loud voice, " Ne quis audientium, 

ne quis infidelium," that is, "Let none who are 

simply hearers, and let no infidels be present ." 

All then who had not acknowledged their 

faith in Christ by placing themselves among 

the Catechumens, and all Jews and Pagans, 

were caused to retire, that the Mass of the 

Catechumens might begin . And now, for better 

security, a deacon was placed at the men's 

door and a subdeacon at the women's, for the 

deacons were the door-keepers and, in fact, 

received that name in the Greec church . The' 

Mass of the Catechumens-which consisted 

almost entirely of prayers, with the Episcopal 

benediction-was then performed . 

This part of the service having been concluded, 

the Catechumens were dismissed by 

the deacons, with the expression, "Catechumens, 

depart in peace." The Competentes, 

however, or those who had the Second or intermediate 

degree, remained until the prayers 

for those who were possessed of evil spirits, 

and the supplications for themselves, were 

pronounced. After this, they too were dismissed, 

and none now remaining in the church 

but the Faithful, the Missa Fidelium, or 

greater mysteries, commenced . 

The formula of dismission used by the dea- 

con on this occasion was : "Holy things for the 

holy, let the dogs depart," Sancta sanetis, foris 

canes . 

The Faithful then all repeated the creed, 

which served as an evidence that no intruder 

or uninitiated person was present ; because the 

creed was not revealed to the Catechumens, 

but served as a password to prove that its possessor 

was an initiate . After prayers had been 

offered up-which, however, differed from the 

supplications in the former part of the service, 

by the introduction of open allusions to the 

most abstruse doctrines of the church, which 

were never named in the presence of the Catechumens-the 

oblations were made, and the 

Eucharistical Sacrifice, or Lord's Supper, was 

celebrated . Prayers and invocations followed, 

and at length the service was concluded, and 

the assembly was dismissed by the benediction, 

"Depart in peace ." 

Bmgham records the following rites as having 

been concealed from the Catechumens, 

and entrusted, as the sacred mysteries, only to 

the Faithful : the manner of receiving baptism 

; the ceremony of confirmation ; the ordination 

of priests ; the mode of celebrating 

the Eucharist ; the liturgy, or Divine service ; 

and the doctrine of the Trinity, the creed, and 

the Lord's prayer, which last, however, were 

begun to be explained to the Competentes . 

Such was the celebrated Discipline of the 

Secret in the early Christiah church. That its 

origin, so far as the outward form was concerned, 

is to be found in the Mysteries of 

Paganism, there can be no doubt, as has been 

thus expressed by the learned Mosheim : 

"Religion having thus, in both its branches, 

the speculative as well as the practical, assumed 

a twofold character,-the one public or 

common, the other private or mysterious,-it 

was not long before a distinction of a similar 

kind took place also in the Christian discipline 

and form of divine worship ; for, observing 

that in Egypt, as well as in other countries, 

the heathen worshippers, in addition to their 

public religious ceremonies,-to which everyone 

was admitted without distinction,-had 

certain secret and most sacred rites, to which 

they gave the name of "mysteries," and at the 

celebration of which none but persons of the 

most approved faith and discretion were permitted 

to be present, the Alexandrian Christians 

first, and after them others, were beguiled 

into a notion that they could not do 

better than make the Christian discipline accommodate 

itself to this model ." 

Discovery of the Body . See Euresis . 

Discovery, Year of the . "Anne, Inventionis," 

or "in the Year of the Discovery," is 

the style assumed by the Royal Arch Masons, 

in commemoration of an event which took 

place soon after the commencement of the rebuilding 

of the Temple by Zerubbabel . 

Dispensation . A permission to do that 

which, without such permission, is forbidden 

by the Constitutions and usages of the Order . 

Du Cange (Glossarium) defines a dispensation 

to be a prudent relaxation of a general 

law . Provida juris communis relaxatio . While

DISPENSATION 

DISPENSATIONS 217 

showing how much the ancient ecclesiastical 

authorities were opposed to the granting of 

dispensations, since they preferred to pardon 

the offense after the law had been violated, 

rather than to give a previous license for its 

violation he adds, "but however much the 

Roman 13ontiffs and pious Bishops felt of reverence 

for the ancient Regulations, they were 

often compelled to depart in some measure 

from them, for the utility of the church ; and 

this milder measure of acting the jurists called 

a dispensation." 

This power to dispense with the provisions 

of law in particular cases appears to be inherent 

in the Grand Master ; because, although 

frequently referred to in the old Regulations, 

it always is as if it were a power already in existence, 

and never by way of a new grant . 

There is no record of any Masonic statute or 

constitutional provision conferring this prerogative 

in distinct words. The instances, however, 

in which this prerogative may be exercised 

are clearly enumerated in various places 

of the Old Constitutions, so that there can be 

no difficulty in understanding to what extent 

the prerogative extends . 

The power of granting dispensations is confided 

to the Grand Master, or his representative, 

but should not be exercised except on 

extraordinary occasions, or for excellent reasons 

. The dispensing power is confined to only 

four circumstances : 1 . A Lodge cannot be 

opened and held unless a Warrant of Constitution 

be first granted by the Grand Lodge ; 

but the Grand Master may issue his dispensation, 

empowering a constitutional number of 

brethren to open and hold a Lodge until the 

next communication of the Grand Lodge . 

At this communication, the dispensation of 

the Grand Master is either revoked or confirmed 

. A Lodge under dispensation is not permitted 

to be represented, nor to vote in the 

Grand Lodge . 2 . Not more than five candidates 

can be made at the same communication 

of a Lodge ; but the Grand Master, on the 

showing of sufficient cause, may extend to a 

Lodge the privilege of making as many more 

as he may think pro p er . 3 . No Brother can, 

at the same time, belong to two Lodges within 

three miles of each other . But the Grand 

Master may dispense with this regulation also . 

4 . Every Lodge must elect and install its officers 

on the constitutional night, which, in most 

Masonic jurisdictions, precedes the anniversary 

of St . John the Evangelist . Should it, 

however, neglect this duty, or should any officer 

die, or be expelled, or removed permanently, 

no subsequent election or installation can take 

place, except under dispensation of the Grand 

Master . 

Dispensation, Lodges under . See Lodge. 

Dispensations of Religion . An attempt 

has been made to symbolize the Pagan, the 

Jewish, and the Christian dispensations by a 

certain ceremony of the Master's Degree which 

dramatically teaches the resurrection of the 

body and the immortality of the soul . The 

reference made in this ceremony to portions of 

the First, Second, and Third degrees is used to 

demonstrate the difference of the three dispensations 

in the reception of these two dogmas. 

It is said that the unsuccessful effort in 

the Entered Apprentice's Degree refers to the 

heathen dispensation, where neither the resurrection 

of the body nor the immortality of 

the soul was recognized ; that the second unsuccessful 

effort in the Fellow-Craft's Degree 

refers to the Jewish dispensation, where, 

though the resurrection of the body was unknown, 

the immortality of the soul was dimly 

hinted ; and that the final and successful effort 

in the Master's Degree symbolizes the Christian 

dispensation, in which, through the teachings 

of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, both the 

resurrection of the body and the immortality 

of the soul were clearly brought to light . 

This symbolism, which was the invention of a 

peripatetic lecturer in the South about fifty 

years ago, is so forced and fanciful in its character, 

that it did not long survive the local and 

temporary teachings of its inventor, and is 

only preserved here as an instance of how 

symbols, like metaphors, may sometimes run 

But there is another symbolism of the three 

degrees, as illustrating three dispensations, 

which is much older, having originated among 

the lecture-makers of the eighteenth century, 

which for a long time formed a portion of the 

authorized ritual, and is still repeated with 

approbation by some distinguished writers . 

In this the three degrees are said to be symbols 

in the progressive knowledge which they impart 

of the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the 

Christian dispensations. 

The First, or Entered Apprentice's Degree, 

in which but little Masonic light is communicated, 

and which, indeed, is only preparatory 

and introductory to the two succeedin g degrees, 

is said to symbolize the first, or Patriarchal 

dispensation, the earliest revelation, 

where the knowledge of God was necessarily 

imperfect, His worship only a few simple rites 

of devotion, and the religious dogmas merely 

a general system of morality. The Second, or 

Fellow-Craft's Degree,is symbolic of the second 

or Mosaic dispensation, in which, while there 

were still many imperfections, there was also 

a great increase of religious knowled g e, and a 

nearer approximation to Divine truth, with a 

promise in the future of a better theodicy . 

But the Third, or Master Mason's Degree, 

which, in its original conception, before it was 

dismembered by the innovations of the Royal 

Arch, was perfect and complete in its consummation 

of all Masonic light, symbolizes the last 

or Christian dispensation, where the great and 

consoling doctrine of the resurrection to eternal 

life is the crowning lesson taught by its 

Divine founder. This subject is very full y 

treated by the Rev . James Watson, in an address 

delivered at Lancaster, Eng ., in 1795, 

and contained in Jones's Masonic Miscellanies, 

p . 245 ; better, I think, by him than even by 

Hutchinson. 

Beautiful as this symbolism may be, and 

appropriately fitting in all its parts to the laws 

of symbolic science, it is evident that its

218 DISPERSION 

DODD'S 

origin cannot be traced farther back than to 

the period when Masonry was first divided 

into three distinctive degrees ; nor could it 

have been invented later than the time when 

Masonry was deemed, if not an exclusively 

Christian organization at least to be founded 

on and fitly illustrated by Christian dogmas . 

At present, this symbolism, though preserved 

in the speculations of such Christian writers 

as Hutchinson and Oliver, and those who are 

attached to their peculiar school, finds no place 

in the modern cosmopolitan rituals . It may 

belong, as an explanation, to the history of 

Masonry, but can scarcely make a part of its 

symbolism . 

Dispersion of Mankind . The dispersion 

of mankind at the tower of Babel and on the 

plain of Shinar, which is recorded in the Book 

of Genesis, has given rise to a Masonic tradition 

of the following purport. The knowledge 

of the great truths of God and immortality 

were known to Noah, and by him communicated 

to his immediate descendants, the Nos, 

chide or Noachites, by whom the true worship 

continued to be cultivated for some time after 

the subsidence of the deluge ; but when the 

human race were dispersed, a portion lost sight 

of the Divine truths which had been communicated 

to them from their common ancestor, 

and fell into the most grievous theological 

errors, corrupting the purity of the worship 

and the orthodoxy of the religious faith which 

they had primarily received . 

These truths were preserved in their integrity 

by but a very few in the atriarchal 

line, while still fewer were enable to retain 

only dim and glimmering portions of the true 

light . 

The first class was confined to the direct 

descendants of Noah, and the second was to be 

found among the priests and philosophers 

and, perhaps, still later, among the poets of 

the heathen nations, and among those whom 

they initiated into the secrets of these truths . 

The system of doctrine of the former class 

has been called by Masonic writers the "Pure 

or Primitive Freemasonry" of antiquity, and 

that of the latter class the "Spurious Freemasonry" 

of the same period . These terms 

were first used by Dr . Oliver, and are intended 

to refer-the word pure to the doctrines taught 

by the descendants of Noah in the Jewish line, 

and the word spurious to those taught by his 

descendants in the heathen or Gentile line . 

Disputes. The spirit of all the Ancient 

Charges and Constitutions is, that disputes 

among Masons should be settled by an appeal 

to the brethren, to whose award the disputants 

were required to submit . Thus, in an Old 

Record of the fifteenth century, it is provided, 

among other charges, that "yf any discorde 

schall be bitwene hym and his felows, he 

schall abey hym mekely and be stylle at the 

byddyng of his Master or of the Wardeyne of 

his Master, in his Master's absens, to the holy 

day folowyng, and that he accorde then at the 

tion at this day by the Charges approved in 

1722, which express the same idea in more 

modern language. 

Distinctive Title . In the rituals, all 

Lodges are called Lodges of St . John, but 

every Lodge has also another name by which 

it is distinguished. This is called its distinctive 

title. This usage is preserved in the diplomas 

of the continental Masons, especially the 

French, where the specific name of the Lodge 

is always given as well as the general title of 

St . John, which it has in common with all 

other Lodges . Thus, a diploma issued by a 

French Lodge whose name on the Register of 

the Grand Orient would perhaps be La Write, 

will purport to have been issued by the Lodge 

of St . John, under the distinctive title of La 

Verite, "Par la Loge de St . Jean sub la title 

distinctive de la Verity ." The expression is 

never used in English or American diplomas . 

Distress, Sign of. See Sign of Distress . 

District Deputy Grand Master . An officer 

appointed to inspect old Lodges, consecrate 

new ones, install their officers, and exercise 

a general supervision over the Fraternity 

in the districts where, from the extent of the 

jurisdiction, the Grand Master or his Deputy 

cannot conveniently attend in person . He is 

considered as a Grand Officer, and as the representative 

of the Grand Lodge in the district 

in which he resides. In England, officers of 

this description are called Provincial Grand 

Masters . 

District Grand Lodges . In the Constitution 

of the Grand Lodge of England, Grand 

Lodges in colonies and foreign parts are called 

District Grand Lodges, to distinguish them 

from Provincial Grand Lodges in England. 

Diu. (The "Shining Light of Heaven .") 

An Indian word applied to the Supreme God, 

of the same signification as the Greek words 

Zeus and Theos, and the Latin Deus Jupiter 

(Jovis) ; in Sanskrit, Dewas ; in Lettis'h, Dews, 

in Gothic, Thius ; and in North German, Tyr. 

Divining-Rod or Pedum. The Moderator, 

or Royal Master was imaged 

with the ureus on his forehead, the 

pedum and the whip between his 

knees. The Divining-Rod was a 

symbol of moderation. 7.1, Heq, 

signifies a law, a statute, or custom ; 

77 M , Hegq, a legislator, a scepter, a 

king, moderator, and a pedum . 

Hence, a staff . It is represented by a 

crook surmounted on a pole . The 

rod of the Rose Croix Knight is dissimilar 

; it is straight, white, like a 

wand, and yet may be used as a helping 

or leaning staff . 

Documents, Three Oldest. See Krause. 

Dodd's Constitutions. This is a printed 

pamphlet of twenty pages, in quarto, the title 

being The beginning and the first foundation of 

the Most Worthy Craft of Masonry ; with the 

Charges thereunto belonging. 

dispocition of his felows ." A similar regulation 

is to be found in all the other old Charges 

and Constitutions, and is continued in opera, 

By a deceased 

Brother, for the benefit of his widow . London : 

printed for Mrs . Dodd at the Peacock without 

Temple Bar. 1739. Price, sixpence .

DOG 

DOUBLE 219 

Probablythis pamphlet was printed from the 

Spencer MS. ; it is very rare, but the Grand 

Lodges of England and Iowa each have a copy, 

and so had Mr . Carson of Cincinnati, who reprinted 

125 copies of it in 1886 ; it has also 

been reproduced in facsimile by the Quatuor 

Coronati Lodge in Volume IV . of their Masonic 

Reprints . [E . L. H .] 

Dog . A symbol in the higher degrees . 

(See Cynocephalus .) 

Dolmen . A name given in France to the 

Celtic stone tables termed in England "cromlechs 

." 

Domatie . At one time, especially in Scotland, 

Operative Masons were styled "Domatic," 

while the Speculative ones were known 

as "Geomatic" ; but the origin and derivation 

of the terms are unknown . [E. L . H .] 

Domine Deus Meus . (Adonai elohai .) 

Found in the Third Degree of the Scottish 

Rite . 

Dominicans, Order of. Founded at 

Toulouse, in 1215, by Dominic (Domingo) de 

Guzman, who was born at Calahorra, in Old 

Castile, 1170 . He became an itinerant to 

convert the heretical Albigenses, and established 

the Order for that purpose and the cure 

of souls . The Order was confirmed by 

Innocent III . and Honorius III ., in 1216 . 

Dress, white garment, with black cloak and 

pointed cap . Dominic died at Bologna, 1221, 

and was canonized by Gregory IX . in 1233 . 

Dominican Republic . Masonry, in the 

Dominican Republic, has for its center the National 

Grand Orient, which possesses the 

supreme authority and which practises the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The 

Grand Orient is divided into a National Grand 

Lodge, under which are fifteen Symbolic 

Lodges ; a sovereign Grand Chapter General, 

under which are all Chapters ; and a Supreme 

Council,' which controls the higher degrees 

of the Rite . 

San Domingo was the headquarters of Morin 

(q . v .) in 1763, when he was establishing the 

Scottish Rite in America . 

Donats . A class of men who were attached 

to the Order of St . John of Jerusalem, or 

Knights of Malta. They did not take the 

vows of the Order, but were employed in the 

different offices of the convent and hospital . 

In token of their connection with the Order, 

they wore what was called the demi-cross . 

(See Knights of Malta .) 

Door . Every well-constructed Lodge room 

should be provided with two doors-one on 

the left hand of the Senior Warden, communicating 

with the preparation . room, the other 

on his right hand, communicating with the 

Tiler's apartment . The former of these is 

called the inner door, and is under the charge 

of the Senior Deacon ; the latter is called the 

outer door, and is under the charge of the 

Junior Deacon . In a well-furnished Lodge, 

each of these doors is provided with two 

knockers, one on the inside and the other on 

the outside ; and the outside door has sometimes 

a small aperture in the center to facilitate 

communications between the Junior 

Deacon and the Tiler . This, however, is a 

modern innovation, and its propriety and 

expediency are very doubtful. No communication 

ought legally to be held between the 

inside and the outside of the Lodge except 

through the door, which should be opened 

only of ter regular alarm duly reported, and on 

the order of the Worshipful Master . 

Doric Order. The oldest and most original 

of the three Grecian orders . It is remarkable 

for robust solidity in the column, for massive 

grandeur in the entablature, and for harmonious 

simplicity in its construction . The 

distinguishing characteristic of this order is 

the want of a base . The flutings are few 

large, and very little concave. The capita! 

has no astragal, but only. one or more fillets, 

which separate the flutings from the torus . 

The column of strength which supports the 

Lodge is of the Doric order, and its appropriate 

situation and symbolic officer are m the 

West. (See Orders of Architecture .) 

Dormant Lodge . A Lodge whose Charter 

has not been revoked, but which has ceased to 

meet and work for a long time, is said to be 

dormant . It can be restored to activity only 

by the authority of the Grand Master or the 

Grand Lodge on the petition of some of its 

members, one of whom, at least, ought to be a 

Past Master . 

Dormer. In the Lectures, according to 

the present English system, the ornaments of 

a Master Mason's Lodge are said to be the 

porch, dormer, and square pavement . The 

dormer is the window which is supposed to 

give light to the Holy of Holies . In the 

Glossary of Architecture, a dormer is defined 

to be a window pierced through a sloping roof, 

and placed in a small gable which rises on the 

side of the roof . This symbol is not preserved 

in the American system. 

Dotage. The regulations of Masonry forbid 

the initiation of an old man in his dotage ; 

and very properly, because the imbecility of 

his mind would prevent his comprehension of 

the truths presented to him . 

Double Cube. A cubical figure, whose 

length is equal to twice its breadth and 

height. Solomon's Temple is said to have 

been of this figure, and hence it has sometimes 

been adopted as the symbol of a Masonic 

Lodge. Dr. Oliver (Diet. Symb . Mas .) thus 

describes the symbolism of the double cube : 

"The heathen deities were many of them 

represented by a cubical stone. Pausanius 

informs us that a cube was the symbol of 

Mercury, because, like the cube, represented 

Truth . In Arabia, a black stone in 

the form of a double cube was reputed to be 

possessed of many occult virtues . Apollo 

was sometimes worshiped under the symbol 

of a square stone ; and it is recorded that when 

a fatal pestilence raged at Delphi, the oracle 

was consulted as to the means proper to be 

adopted for the purpose of arresting its 

progress, and it commanded that the cube 

should be doubled . This was understood by 

the priests to refer to the altar, which was of 

a cubical form. They obeyed the injunction,

220 DOUBLE-HEADED 

DROPS 

increasing the altitude of the altar to its prescribed 

dimensions like the pedestal in a 

Masons' Lodge, and the pestilence ceased ." 

Double -Headed Eagle. See Eagle, 

Double-Headed . 

Dove. In ancient symbolism, the dove 

represented purity and innocence ; in ecclesiology, 

it is a symbol of the Holy Spirit . In 

Masonry, the dove is only viewed in reference 

to its use by Noah as a messenger . Hence, 

in the Grand Lodge of England, doves are 

the jewels of the Deacons, because these 

officers are the messengers of the Masters and 

Wardens. They are not so used in America . 

In an honorary or side degree formerly conferred 

in America, and called the "Ark and 

Dove," that bird is a prominent symbol . 

Dove, Knights and Ladies of the . An 

extinct secret society, of a Masonic model, but 

androgynous, instituted at Versail les, in 1784 . 

Dowland Manuscript . First published 

by James Dowland, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 

May, 1815,Vol . LXXXV ., p . 489 . "Written 

on a long roll of parchment, in a very clear 

hand, apparently early in the seventeenth 

century, and very probably is copied from a 

manuscript of earlier date ." Bro . William 

J. Hughan says : "Brother Woodford, Mr . 

Sims, and other eminent authorities, consider 

the original of the copy, from which the manuscript 

for the Gentleman's Magazine was 

written, to be a scroll of at least a century 

earlier than the date ascribed to Mr . Dowland's 

MS., that is t about 1550 ." The 

original MS. from which Dowland made his 

copy has not yet been traced . Hughan's 

Old Charges (ed . 1872) contains a reprint 

of the Dowland MS . 

Draeseke, Johan Heinrich Dernhardt . 

A celebrated pulpit orator of great eloquence, 

who presided over the Lodge "Oelzweig," in 

Bremen, for three years, and whose contributions 

to Masonic literature were collected 

and published in 1865, by A. W. Muller, 

under the title of Bishop Drdseke as a Mason . 

Of this work Findel says that it "contains a 

string of costly pearls full of Masonic eloquence 

." 

Drake, Francis, M.D . Francis Drake 

M .D ., F.R.S ., a celebrated antiquary and 

historian, was initiated in the city of York in 

1725, and, as Hughan says, "soon made his 

name felt in Masonry ." His promotion was 

rapid ; for in the same year he was chosen 

Junior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of 

York, and in 1726 delivered an address, which 

was published with the following title : A 

Speech delivered to the Worshipful and Ancient 

Society of Free and Accepted Masons, at a Grand 

Lodge held at Merchants' Hall, in the city of 

York, on St . John's Day, December the 27th, 

1726 . The Right Worshipful Charles Bathurst, 

Esq ., Grand Master . By the Junior Grand 

Warden . Olim meminisse Juvabit . York. 

The address was published in York without 

any date, but probably in 1727, and reprinted 

in London in 1729 and 1734 . It has often 

been reproduced since and can be found in 

Hughan's Masonic Sketches and Reprints. In 

this work Drake makes the important statement 

that the first Grand Loqgee in England 

was held at York ; and that while it recognizes 

the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in 

London as Grand Master of England, it claims 

that its own Grand Master is Grand Master 

of all England . The speech is also important 

for containing a very early reference to 

the three degrees of Entered Apprentice, 

Fellow-Craft and Master Mason . 

Dramatic Literature of Masonry . 

Freemasonry has frequently supplied playwriters 

with a topic for the exercise of their 

genius. Kloss (Bibliog ., p. 300) gives the 

titles of no less than forty-one plays of which 

Freemasonry has been the subject. The 

earliest Masonic play is noticed by Thory 

(Fond. G. 0., p .360), as having been performed 

at Paris, in 1739, under the title of Les Frimagons 

. Editions of it were subsequently 

published at London, Brunswick, and Strasburg. 

In 1741 we have Des Geheimniss der 

Freimaurer at )Frankfort and Leipsic. France 

and Germany made many other contributions 

to the Masonic drama . Even Denmark supplied 

one in 1745, and Italy in 1785 . The 

English dramatists give us only a pantomime, 

Harlequin Freemason, which was brought out 

at Covent Garden in 1781, and on's 

Temple, an oratorio . Templarism has not 

been neglected by the dramatists. Kalchberg, 

in 1788, wrote Die Tempelherren, a dramatic 

poem in five acts . Odon do Saint- 

Amand, Grand Maitre des Templiers, a melodrama 

in three acts, was performed at Paris 

in 1806. Jacques Molai, a melodrama, was 

published at Paris in 1807, and La Mort de 

Jacques Molai a tragedy, in 1812 . Some of 

the plays on Freemasonry were intended to 

do honor to the Order, and many to throw 

ridicule upon it . 

Dresden, Congress of. A General Congress 

of the Lodges of Saxony was held in 

Dresden, where the representatives of twelve 

Lodges were present . In this Congress it was 

determined to recognize only the Masonry of 

St . John, and to construct a National Grand 

Lodge . Accordingly, on September 28, 1811, 

the National Grand Lodge of Saxony was 

established in the city of Dresden, which was 

soon joined by all the Saxon Lodges, with 

the exception of one in Leipsic. Although it 

recognizes only the Symbolic degrees, it permits 

great freedom in the selection of a ritual ; 

and, accordingly, some of its Lodges work in 

the Rite of Fessler, and others in the Rite of 

Berlin . 

Dress of a Mason. See Clothed. 

Drop Cloth . A part of the furniture used 

in America in the ceremony of initiation into 

the Third Degree . It should be made of very 

strong material, with a looped rope at each 

corner and one in the middle of each side, 

by which it may be securely held. 

Drops, Three. The mystic number of 

drops of blood from the White Giant, that in 

the Persian mysteries restored sight to the 

captives in the cell of horrors when applied 

by the conqueror Rustam . In India, a girdle

DRUIDICAL 

DRUSES 221 

of three triple threads was deemed holy ; so 

were three drops of water in Brittany, and the 

same number of drops of blood in Mexico . 

Druidieal Mysteries . The Druids were 

a sacred order of priests who existed in Britain 

and Gaul, but whose mystical rites were 

practised in most perfection in the former 

country, where the isle of Anglesea was considered 

as their principal seat. Higgins 

thinks that they were also found in Germany, 

but against this opinion we have the positive 

statement of Ciesar . 

The meanings given to the word have been 

very numerous and most of them wholly untenable 

. The komans, seeing that they worshiped 

in groves of oak, because that tree was 

peculiarly sacred among them, derived their 

name from the Greek word, opus, drus; thus 

absurdly seeking the etymology of a word of 

an older language in one comparatively modem 

. Their derivation would have been 

more reasonable had they known that in 

Sanskrit druma is an oak, from dru, wood . It 

has also been traced to the Hebrew with equal 

incorrectness, for the Druids were not of the 

Semitic race. Its derivation is rather to be 

sought in the Celtic language . The Gaelic 

word Druiah signifies a holy or wise man ; in a 

bad sense a magician ; and this we may readily 

trace to the Aryan druh, applied to the spirit 

of night or darkness, whence we have the 

Zend dru, a magician . Druidism was a mystical 

profession, and in the olden time mystery 

and magic were always confounded . Vallencey 

(Coll . Reb. Hib ., iii ., 503) says : "Welsh, Drud, 

a Druid, i. e . the absolver or remitter of sins ; 

so the Irish Drui, a Druid, most certainly is 

from the Persic duru, a good and holy man" ; 

and Ousely (Coll . Orient., iv., 302) adds to this 

the Arabic dart, which means a wise man . 

Bosworth (A . S . Dict.) gives dry, pronounced 

dru, as the Anglo-Saxon for "a magician, sorcerer 

druid ." Probably with the old Celts 

the Druids occupied the same place as the 

Magi did with the old Persians . 

Druidism was divided into three orders or 

degree, which were beginning with the lowest, 

the Bards, the Prophets, and the Druids. 

Higgins thinks that the prophets were the 

lowest order, but he admits that it is not 

generally allowed . The constitution of the 

Order was in many respects like that of the 

Freemasons . In every country there was an 

Arch-Druid in whom all authority was placed . 

In Britain it is said that there were under him 

three arch-flamens or priests, and twentyfive 

flamens. There was an annual assembly 

for the administration of justice and the 

making of laws, and, besides, four quarterly 

meetings, which took place on the days when 

the sun reached his equinoctial and solstitial 

points . The latter two would very nearly 

correspond at this time with the festivals of 

St . John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist 

. It was not lawful to commit their 

ceremonies or doctrines to writing, and Cnsar 

says (Bell. Gall., vi., 14) that they used the 

Greek letters, which was, of course, as a cipher ; 

but Higgins (p . 90) says that one of the Irish 

Ogum alphabets, which Toland calls secret 

writing, ` was the on~nal, sacred, and secret 

character of the Druids ." 

The places of worship, which were also 

places of initiation, were of various forms : 

circular, because a circle was an emblem of 

the universe ; or oval, in allusion to the mundane 

egg, from which, according to the Egyptians, 

our first parents issued ; or serpentine, 

because a serpent was a symbol of Hu, the 

druidical Noah ; or winged, to represent the 

motion of the Divine Spirit ; or cruciform, 

because a cross was the emblem of regeneration 

. Their only covering was the clouded 

canopy, because they deemed it absurd to 

confine the Omnipotent beneath a roof ; and 

they were constructed of embankments of 

earth, and of unhewn stones, unpolluted with 

a metal tool . Nor was anyone permitted to 

enter their sacred retreats, unless he bore a 

chain. 

The ceremony of initiation into the Druidical 

Mysteries required much preliminary 

mental preparation and physical purification . 

The aspirant was clothed with the three 

sacred colors, white, blue, and green ; white 

as the symbol of Light, blue of Truth, and 

green of Hope. When the rites of initiation 

were passed, the tri-colored robe was changed 

for one of green- in the Second Degree, the 

candidate was clothed in blue ; and having 

surmounted all the dangers of the Third, and 

arrived at the summit of perfection,he received 

the red tiara and flowing mantle of purest 

white. The ceremonies were numerous, the 

physical proofs painful, and the mental trials 

appalling . They commenced in the First 

Degree, with placing the as ~~i~rant in the 

pastos, bed or coffin, where his symbolical 

death was represented, and they terminated 

in the Third, by his regeneration or restoration 

to life from the womb of the giantess 

Ceridwin, and the committal of the body of 

the newly born to the waves in a small boat, 

symbolical of the ark . The result was, 

generally, that he succeeded in reaching the 

safe landing-place but if his arm was weak, 

or his heart failed, death was the almost inevitable 

consequence . If he refused the trial 

through timidity, he was contemptuously 

rejected, and declared forever ineligible to 

participate in the sacred rites . But if he 

undertook it and succeeded, he was joyously 

invested with all the privileges of Druidism . 

The doctrines of the Druids were the same 

as those entertained by Pythagoras. They 

taught the existence of one Supreme Being ; 

a future state of rewards and punishments ; 

the immortality of the soul, and a metempsychosis 

; and the object of their mystic rites 

was to communicate these doctrines in symbolic 

language an object and a method common 

alike to Druidism to the Ancient Mysteries 

and to Modern freemasonry . 

Druses. A sect of mystic religionists who 

inhabit Mounts Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, 

in Syria. They settled there about the tenth 

century and are said to be a mixture of Cuthites 

or Kurds, Mardi Arabs, and possibly of

222 DUAD 

DUELING 

Crusaders ; all of whom were added, by subsequent 

immigrations, to the original stock to 

constitute the present or modern race of 

Druses . Their religion is a heretical compound 

of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedism 

; the last of which, greatly modified, 

predominates in their faith. They have a 

regular order of priesthood the office being 

filled by persons consecrated' for the purpose, 

comprising principally the emirs and sheiks, 

who form a secret organization divided into 

several degrees, keep the sacred books, and 

hold secret religious assemblies . Their sacred 

books are written in antiquated Arabic . The 

Druses are divided into three classes or degrees, 

according to religious distinctions . To enable 

one Druse to recognize another, a system of 

passwords is adopted, without an interchange 

of which no communication is made that may 

give an idea of their religious tenets . (Tien's 

Druse Religion Unveiled .) 

Dr . Clarke tells us in his Travels that "one 

class of the Druses are to the rest what the 

initiated are to the profane, and are called 

Okkals, which means spiritualists ; and they 

consider themselves superior to their countrymen. 

They have various degrees of initiation ." 

Colonel Churchill, in his Ten Years' Residence 

on Mount Lebanon, tells us that among this 

singular people there is an order having many 

similar customs to the Freemasons. It requires 

a twelvemonth's probation previous to 

the admission of a member . Both sexes are 

admissible. In the second year the novice 

assumes the distinguishing mark of the white 

turban, and afterward, by degrees, is allowed 

to participate in the whole of the mysteries . 

Simplicity of attire, self-denial, temperance, 

and irreproachable moral conduct are essential 

to admission to the order . 

All of these facts have led to the theory 

that the Druses are an offshoot from the early 

Freemasons, and that their connection with 

the latter is derived from the Crusaders, who 

according to the same theory, are supp osed 

to have acquired their Freemasonry during 

their residence in Palestine . Some writers go 

so far as to say that the degree of Prince of 

Lebanon, the Twenty-second in the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite, refers to the 

ancestors of these mystical mountaineers in 

Syria . 

Duad . The number two in the Pythagorean 

system of numbers . 

Dualism . In the old mythologies, there 

was a doctrine which supposed the world to 

have been always governed by two antagonistic 

principles, distinguished as the good and 

the evil principle . This doctrine pervaded 

all the Oriental religions . 

Thus in the system of Zoroaster we have 

Ahriman and Ormuzd, and in the Hebrew 

cosmogony we find the Creator and the Serpent 

. There has been a remarkable development 

of this system in the three degrees of 

Symbolic Masonry, which everywhere exhibit 

in their organization, their symbolism, and 

their design, the pervading influences of this 

principle of dualism . Thus, in the First De- 

free, there is Darkness overcome by Light ; 

m the Second, Ignorance dispersed by Knowledge, 

and in the Third, Death conquered by 

Eternal Life . 

Dub . In the ancient ceremonies of chivalry, 

a knight was made by giving him three 

strokes on the neck with the fiat end of the 

sword, and he was then said to be "dubbed a 

knight ." Dubbing is from the Saxon, dubban, 

to strike with a blow . Sir Thomas Smith 

(Eng. Commonwealth), who wrote in the sixteenth 

century, says : "And when any man is 

made a knight, he, kneeling down, is strooken 

of the prince, with his sword naked, upon the 

back or shoulder, the prince saying= Sus or 

sois chevalier au uom de Dieu, and (in times 

past) they added St . George, and at his arising 

the prince sayeth, Avancey. This is the manner 

of dubbing of knights at this present ; and 

that terme dubbing was the old terme in this 

point, and not creation." 

Due East and West . A Lodge is said to 

be situated due East and West for reasons 

which have varied at different periods in the 

ritual and lectures . (See Orientation .) 

Due Examination. That sort of examination 

which is correct and prescribed by law . 

It is one of the three modes of proving a 

strange brother ; the other two being strict 

trial and lawful information . (See Vouching) 

Due Form . When the Grand Lodge is 

opened, or any other Masonic ceremony performed, 

by the Deputy Grand Master in the 

absence of the Grand Master, it is said to be 

done in due form. Subordinate Lodges are 

always said to be opened and closed in due 

form . It is derived from the French word 

du, and that from devoir, "to owe,"-that 

which is owing or ought to be done. Due 

form is the form in which an act ought to be 

done to be done rightly. French : En due 

forme. (See Ample Form .) 

Due Guard. A mode of recognition which 

derives its name from its object, which is to 

duly guard the person using it in reference 

to his obligations, and the penalty for their 

violation . The Due Guard is an Americanism, 

and of comparatively recent origin, being 

unknown to the English and continental 

systems . In some of the old rituals of the 

date of 1757, the expression is used, but only 

as referring to what is now called the Sign . 

Dueling . Dueling has always been considered 

a Masonic crime, and most of the 

Grand Lodges have enacted statutes by which 

Masons who engage in duels with each other 

are subject to expulsion . The Monde Maconnique 

(May, 1858) gives the following correct 

view on this subject : "A Freemason who 

allows himself to be involved in a duel, and 

who possesses not sufficient discretion to be 

able to make reparation without cowardice, 

and without having recourse to this barbarous 

extremity, destroys by that impious act the 

contract which binds him to his brethren . 

His sword or his pistol, though it may seem to 

spare his adversary still commits a murder, 

for it destroys his brothers-from that time 

fraternity no longer exists for him."

DUES 

DUNCKERLEY 223 

Dues. The payment of annual dues by a 

member to his Lodge is a comparatively 

modem custom, and one that certainly did 

not exist before the revival of 1717 . As 

previous to that period, according to Preston, 

Lodges received no warrants, but a sufficient 

number of brethren meeting together were 

competent to practise the Rites of Masonry, 

and as soon as the special business which 

called them together had been accomplished, 

they separated, there could have been no 

permanent organization of Speculative Masons, 

and no necessity for contributions to 

constitute a Lodge fund . Dues must therefore 

have been unknown except in the Lodges 

of Operative Masons, which, as we find, 

especially in Scotland, had a permanent existence 

. There is, accordingly, no regulation 

in any of the old Constitutions for the payment 

of dues . It is not a general Masonic 

duty, in which the Mason is affected to the 

whole of the Craft, but an arrangement 

between himself and his Lodge, with which 

the Grand Lodge ought not to interfere . As 

the payment of dues is not a duty owing 

to the Craft in general, so the non-payment 

of them is not an offense against the Craft, 

but simply against his Lodge, the only punishment 

for which should be striking from 

the roll or discharge from membership . It 

is now the almost universal opinion of Masonic 

jurists that suspension or expulsion from 

the Order is a punishment that should never 

be inflicted for non-payment of dues . 

Dumbness . Although the faculty of 

speech is not one of the five human senses, 

it is important as the medium of communicating 

instruction, admonition, or reproof, 

and the person who does not possess it is 

unfitted to perform the most important duties 

of life . Hence dumbness disqualifies a candidate 

for Masonic initiation . 

Dummy . A word used in the Grand 

Chapter of Minnesota to signify what is more 

usually called a substitute in the Royal Arch 

Degree . 

Dunckerley, Thomas . No one, among 

the Masons of England, occupied a more distinguished 

position or played a more important 

part in the labors of the Craft during the 

latter part of the eighteenth century than 

Thomas Dunckerley, whose private life was 

as romantic as his Masonic was honorable. 

Thomas Dunckerley was born in the city 

of London on the 23d of October, 1724 . He 

was the reputed son of Mr . - and Mrs . 

Mary Dunckerley, but really owed his birth 

to a personage of a much higher rank in life, 

being the natural son of the Prince of Wales, 

afterward George II ., to whom he bore, as his 

portrait shows, a striking resemblance . It 

was not until after his mother's death that he 

became acquainted with the true history of 

his birth ; so that for more than half of his life 

this son of a king occupied a very humble 

position on the stage of the world, and was 

sometimes even embarrassed with the pressure 

of poverty and distress . 

At the age of ten he entered the navy, and 

continued in the service for twenty-six years, 

acquiring, by his intelligence and uniformly 

good conduct, the esteem and commendation 

of all his commanders . But having no personal 

or family interest, he never attained to 

any higher rank than that of a gunner . During 

all this time, except at brief intervals, he 

was absent from England on foreign service . 

He returned to his native country in January, 

1760, to find that his mother had died a 

few days before, and that on her death-bed 

she had made a solemn declaration, accompanied 

by such details as left no possible doubt 

of its truth, that Thomas was the illegitimate 

son of King George II ., born while he was 

Prince of Wales . The fact of the birth had, 

however, never been communicated by the 

mother to the prince, and George II . died 

without knowing that he had such a son 

living . 

Dunckerley, in the account of the affair 

which he left among his posthumous papers, 

says : "This information gave me great surprise 

and much uneasiness ; and as I was 

obliged to return immediately to my duty on 

board the Vanguard, I made it known to no 

person at that time but Captain Swanton . 

He said that those who did not know me would 

look on it to be nothing more than a gossip's 

story. We were then bound a second time to 

Quebec, and Captain Swanton did promise me 

that on our return to England he would endeavour 

to get me introduced to the king, and 

that he would give me a character ; but when 

we came back to England the king was dead." 

Dunckerley had hoped that his case would 

have been laid before his royal father, and that 

the result would have been an appointment 

equal to his birth . But the frustration of 

these hopes by the death of the king seems to 

have discouraged him, and no efforts appear 

for some time to have been made by him or 

his friends to communicate the facts to George 

III ., who had succeeded to the throne . 

In 1761 he again left England as a gunner 

in Lord Anson's fleet, and did not return until 

1764, at which time, finding himself embarrassed 

with a heavy debt, incurred in the expenses 

of his family (for he had married in 

early life in the year 1744), knowing no person 

who could authenticate the story of his birth, 

and seeing no probability of gaining access to 

the ear of the king, he sailed in a merchant 

vessel for the Mediterranean . He had previously 

been granted superannuation in the navy 

in consequence of his long services, and received 

a small pension, the principal part of 

which he left for the support of his family 

during his absence . 

But the romantic story of his birth began 

to be publicly known and talked about and 

in 1766 attracted the attention of several persons 

of distinction, who endeavored, but without 

success, to excite the interest of the 

Princess Dowager of Wales in his behalf . 

In 1767, however, the declaration of his 

mother was laid before the king, who was 

George III ., the grandson of his father . It 

made an impression on him, and inquiry into

224 DUNCKFRLEY 

DYE 

his previous character and conduct having 

proved satisfactory, on May 7, 1767, the king 

ordered Dunckerley to receive a pension of 

£100, which was subsequently increased to 

£800, together with a suite of apartments in 

Hampton Court Palace. He also assumed, 

and was permitted to bear, the royal arms 

with the distinguishing badge of the bend 

sinister, and adopted as his motto the appropriate 

words "Fato non merito." In his familiar 

correspondence, and in his book-plates, 

he used the name of " Fitz-George." 

In 1770 he became a student of law, and in 

1774 was called to the bar ; but his fondness 

for an active life prevented him from ever 

making much progress in the legal profession . 

Dunckerley died at Portsmouth in the year 

1795, at the ripe age of seventy-one ; but his 

last years were embittered by the misconduct 

of his son, whose extravagance and dissolute 

conduct necessarily afflicted the mind while it 

straitened the means of the unhappy parent . 

Every effort to reclaim him proved utterly 

ineffectual ; and on the death of his father, no 

provision being left for his support, he became 

a vagrant, living for the most part on Masonic 

charity . At last he became a bricklayer's 

laborer and was often seen ascending a ladder 

with a hod on his shoulders . His misfortunes 

and his misconduct at length found an end, 

and the grandson of a king of England died a 

pauper in a cellar at St. Giles . 

Dunckerley was initiated into Masonry on 

January 10, 1754, in a Lodge, No . 31, which 

then met at the Three Tuns, Portsmouth ; in 

1760 he obtained a warrant for a Lodge to be 

held on board the Vanguard, in which ship he 

was then serving ; in the following year the 

Vanguard sailed for the West Indies, and 

Dunckerley was appointed to the Prince, for 

which ship a Lodge was warranted in 1762 ; 

this warrant Dunckerley appears to have retained 

when he left the service, and in 1766 

the Lodge was meeting at Somerset House, 

where Dunckerley was then living . In 1768 

the Vanguard Lodge was revived in London, 

with Dunckerley as its first Master, and it 

exists to the present day under the name of 

the "London Lodge," No . 108. 

In 1767 he joined the present "Lodge of 

Friendship" ; in 1785 he established a Lodge 

at Hampton Court, now No. 255. In 1767 

he was appointed Provincial Grand Master of 

Hampshire, and in 1776 Provincial Grand 

Master for Essex, and at various dates he was 

placed in charge of the provinces of Bristol, 

Dorsetchire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, 

and Herefordshire . In Royal Arch Masonry 

Dunckerley displayed equal activity as in 

Craft Masonry ; he was exalted at Portsmouth 

in 1754 and in 1766 joined the London Chapter, 

which in the following year became a 

Grand Chapter. 

He was especially active in promoting Arch 

Masonry all over the country and was in 

charge .of Essex, Hants, Wilts, Dorset, Devon, 

Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Suffolk, 

Sussex and Durham . 

He was also a most zealous Knight Templar, 

being in 1791 the first Grand Master of the 

Order when the Grand Conclave was formed 

in London. 

He was also a Mark Mason . A Charge, or 

Oration, is still extant, which was delivered 

by him at Plymouth in April, 1757, entitled 

"The Light and Truth of Masonry Explained ." 

He was also the author of "A Song for the 

Knights Templars," and of an "Ode for an 

Exaltation of Royal Arch Masons." These 

will be found in Thomas Dunckerley-his 

Life, Labours and Letters, by H . Sadler (1891) . 

It is often asserted that Dunckerley revised 

the Craft Lectures and reconstructed the 

Royal Arch Degree, but there is no proof 

forthcoming of these statements. [E . L . H .] 

Dupaty, Louis Emanuel Charles Merrier. 

The author of many Masonic songs 

and other fugitive pieces inserted in the Annales 

Magonniques . , He wrote in 1810, with 

Rev roui de Saint-Cyr, a comic opera entitled 

"Cagliostro ou les Illumines ." In 1818, he 

published a Masonic tale entitled "l'Harmonie 

." He was a poet and dramatic writer 

of some reputation. He was born in the 

Gironde in 1775, elected to the French Academy 

in 1835, and died in 1851 . 

Duty. The duty of a Mason as an honest 

man is plain and easy . It requires of him 

honesty in contracts, sincerity in affirming, 

simplicity in bargaining and faithfulness in 

performing . To sleep little, and to stud 

much ; to say little, and to hear and think 

much ; to learn, that he may be able to do ; and 

then to do earnestly and vigorously whatever 

the good of his fellows his country, and mankind 

requires, are the duties of every Mason . 

Dyaus . Sanskrit for sky ; bright, exalted . 

The Deity, the sun, the celestial canopy, the 

firmament . 

"Dye na Sore," or "Die Wanderer aus 

dem Sanskrit Ubersetzt ." A Masonic romance, 

by Von Meyern, which appeared at Vienna 

in 1789, and contains a complete account of 

Masonic festivities.

E 

E . (Heb., "I .) The fifth letter in the 

English and in the Graeco-Roman alphabets . 

In form the Hebrew M is quite similar to Cheth, 

r , which has a numerical value of eight, while 

that of He is five. The signification is window, 

and in the Egyptian hieroglyphs- is represented 

by a hand extending the thumb and 

two fingers. It also represents the fifth name 

of God, 1111 (Hadur), Formosus, Majestuosus. 

Eagle. The eagle, as a symbol, is of great 

antiquity. In Egypt, Greece, and Persia, 

this bird was sacred to the sun . Among the 

Pagans it was an emblem of Jupiter, and with 

the Druids it was a symbol of their supreme 

god . In the Scriptures, a distinguished reference 

is in many instances made to the eagle ; 

especially do we find Moses (Exod . xix. 4) 

representing Jehovah as saying, in allusion to 

the belief that this bird assists its feeble young 

in their flight by bearing them upon its own 

pinions, "Ye have seen what I did unto the 

EFyptians and how I bare you on a les' 

wings and brought you unto myself ." Not 

less elevated was the symbolism of the eagle 

among the Pagans. Thus, Cicero, speaking 

of the myth of Ganymede carried up to Jove 

on an eagle's back, says that it teaches us that 

the truly wise, irradiated by the shining 

light of virtue, become more and more like 

God, until by wisdom they are borne aloft and 

soar to Him . The heralds explain the eagle as 

signifying the same thing among birds as the 

lion does among quadrupeds . It is, they say 

the most swift, strong, laborious, generous, and 

bold of all birds, and for this reason it has 

been made, both by ancients and moderns, 

the R0,:Tbol of majesty . In the jewel of the 

oix Degree is found an eagle displayed 

at the foot of the cross ; and it is there very 

appropriately selected as a symbol of Christ, 

in His Divine character, bearing the children 

of His adoption on his wings, teaching them 

with unequaled love and tenderness to poise 

their unfledged wings and soar from the dull 

corruptions of earth to a higher and holier 

sphere. And for this reason the eagle in the 

jewel of that degree is very significantly represented 

as having the wings displayed as if 

in the very act of flight . 

Eagle and Pelican, Knight of the . See 

Knight of the Eagle and Pelican . 

Eagle, Double-Headed . The eagle displayed, 

that is, with extended wings, as if in 

the act of flying, has always, from the majestic 

character of the bird, been deemed an 

emblem of imperial power . Marius, the consul, 

first consecrated the eagle, about eight 

years n .c ., to be the sole Roman standard at 

the head of every legion, and hence it became 

the standard of the Roman Empire ever afterward 

. As the single-headed eagle was thus 

adopted as the symbol of imperial power, the 

double-headed eagle naturally became the representative 

of a double empire ; and on the 

division of the Roman dominions into the 

eastern and western empire, which were after- 

E 

EAGLE 225 

ward consolidated by the Carlovingian race 

into what was ever after called the Holy 

Roman Empire, the double-headed eagle was 

assumed as the emblem of this double empire ; 

one head looking, as it were, to the West, or 

Rome, and the other to the East, or Byzantium 

. Hence the escutcheons of many persons 

now living, the descendants of the princes 

and counts of the Holy Roman Empire, are 

placed upon the breast of a double-headed 

eagle . Upon the dissolution of that empire, 

the emperors of Germany, who claimed their 

empire to be the representative of ancient 

Rome, assumed the double-headed eagle as 

their symbol, and placed it in their arms, 

which were blazoned thus : Or, an eagle displayed 

sable, having two heads, each enclosed 

within an amulet, or beaked and armed gales, 

holding in his right claw a sword and scepter 

or, and in his left the imperial mound . Russia 

also bears the double-headed eagle, having 

added, says Brewer, that of Poland to her 

own, and thus denoting a double empire. It 

is, however, probable that the double-headed 

eagle of Russia is to be traced to some assumed 

representation of the Holy Roman Empire 

based upon the claim of Russia to Byzantium ; 

for Constantine, the Byzantine emperor, is 

said to have been the first who assumed this 

device to intimate the division of the empire 

into East and West . 

The statement of Millington (Heraldry in 

History, Poetry, and Romance, p . 290) is 

doubtful that "the double-headed eagle of 

the Austrian and Russian empires was first 

assumed during the Second Crusade and typified 

the great alliance formed by the Christian 

sovereigns of Greece and Germany against the 

enemy of their common faith, and it is retained 

by Russia and Austria as representations of 

those empires ." The theory is more probable 

as well as more generally accepted which connects 

the symbol with the eastern and western 

empires of Rome . It is, however, agreed by 

all that while the single-headed eagle denotes 

imperial dignity, the extension and multiplication 

of that dignity is symbolized by the two 

heads. 

The double-headed eagle was probably first 

introduced as a symbol into Masonry in the

226 EAGLE 

EAST 

year 1758 . In that year the body calling itself 

the Council of Emperors of the East and 

West was established in Paris . The doubleheaded 

eagle was likely to have been assumed 

by i .his Council iii reference to the double 

jurisdiction whic'r it claimed, and which is 

represented so distinctly in its title . Its 

ritual, which consisted of twenty-five degrees, 

all of which are now contained in the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, was subsequently 

established in the city of Berlin, 

and adopted by the Grand Lodge of the Three 

Globes . 

The jewel of the Thirty-third Degree, or 

Sovereign Grand Inspector-General of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is a 

double-headed eagle (which was originally 

black, but is now generally of silver) a golden 

crown resting on both heads, wings displayed, 

beak and claws of gold, his talons grasping a 

wavy sword, the emblem of cherubic fire, the 

hilt held by one talon, the blade by the other . 

The banner of the Order is also a doubleheaded 

eagle crowned . 

Eagle, Knight of the. See Knight of 

the Eagle . 

Eagle, Knight of the American . See 

Knight of the American Eagle . 

Eagle, Knight of the Black. See 

Knight of the Black Eagle . 

Eagle, Knight of the Golden . See 

Knight of the Golden Eagle . 

Eagle, Knight of the Prussian . See 

Knight of the Prussian Eagle . 

Eagle, Knight of the Red. See Knight 

of the Red Eagle . 

Eagle, Knight of the White and Black . 

See Knight of the White and Black Eagle . 

Eagles, Knight of the Two Crowned. 

See Knight of the Two Crowned Eagles . 

Ear of Corn. This was, among all the 

ancients, an emblem of plenty . Ceres, who 

was universally worshiped as the goddess of 

abundance, and even called by the Greeks 

Demeter, a manifest corruption of Gemeter, or 

mother earth, was symbolically represented 

with a garland on her head composed of ears 

of corn, a lighted torch in one hand, and a 

cluster of poppies and ears of corn in the other . 

And in the Hebrew, the most significant of all 

languages, the two words, which signify an ear 

of corn, are both derived from roots which 

give the idea of abundance . For shibboleth 

which is applicable both to an ear of corn and 

a flood of water, has its root in shabal, to increase 

or to flow abundantly ; and the other 

name of corn, dagan, is derived from the verb 

dagah, signifying to multiply, or to be increased 

. 

Ear of corn, which is a technical expression 

in the Second Degree, has been sometimes 

ignorantly displaced by a sheaf of wheat . This 

is done in America, under the mistaken supposition 

that corn refers only to Indian maize, 

which was unknown to the ancients . But 

corn is a generic word, and includes wheat and 

every other kind of grain . This is its legitimate 

English meaning, and hence an ear of 

corn, which is an old expression, and the right 

one, would denote a stalk, but not a sheaf of 

wheat . (See Shibboleth .) 

Ear, The Listening . The listening ear is 

one of the three precious jewels of a Fellow- 

Craft Mason . In the Hebrew language, the 

verb YnT, shemong, signifies not only to hear, 

but also to understand and to obey . Hence, 

when Jesus said, after a parable, "he that 

hath ears to hear, let him hear," he meant to 

denote that he who hears the recital of allegories 

should endeavor to discover their hidden 

meaning and be obedient to their teaching . 

This is the true meaning of the symbol of the 

listening ear, which admonishes the Fellow 

Craft not only that he should receive lessons 

of instruction from his teacher, but that he 

should treasure them in his breast, so as to 

ponder over their meaning and carry out their 

design . 

Earthen Pan. In the lectures of the early 

part of the eighteenth century used as a symbol 

of zeal, together with chalk and charcoal, 

which represented freedom and fervency . In 

the modern lectures clay has been substituted 

for it. Pan once signified hard earth, a meaning 

which is now obsolete, though from it we 

derive the name of a cooking utensil . 

East . The East has always been considered 

peculiarly sacred . This was, without 

exception, the case in all the Ancient Mysteries 

. In the Egyptian rites, especially, and 

those of Adonis, which were among the earliest, 

and from which the others derived their 

existence, the sun was the object of adoration, 

and his revolutions through the various seasons 

were fictitiously represented . The spot, 

therefore, where this luminary made his appearance 

at the commencement of day, and 

where his worshipers were wont anxiously to 

look for the first darting of his prolific rays, 

was esteemed as the figurative birthplace of 

their god, and honored with an appropriate 

degree of reverence . And even among those 

nations where sun-worship gave place to more 

enlightened doctrines, the respect for the place 

of sun-rising continued to exist . The camp 

of Judah was placed by Moses in the East as a 

mark of distinction ; the tabernacle in the 

wilderness was placed due East and West ; 

and the practise was continued in the erection 

of Christian churches . Hence, too, the primitive 

Christians always turned toward the 

East in their Public prayers, which custom St . 

Augustine (Serm . Dom. in Monte, c . 5), accounts 

for "because the East is the most honorable 

part of the world, being the region of 

light whence the glorious sun arises ." And 

hence all Masonic Lodges, like their great prototype 

the Temple of Jerusalem, are built, or 

supposed to be built, due East and West ; and 

as the North is esteemed a place of darkness, 

the East, on the contrary, is considered a 

place of light . 

In the primitive Christian church, according 

to St . Ambrose, in the ceremonies accompanying 

the baptism of a catechumen, "he turned 

towards the West, the image of darkness, to 

abjure the world, and towards the East, the 

emblem of light, to denote his alliance with

EAST 

EBONY 227 

Jesus Christ ." And so, too, in the oldest lectures 

of the last century, the Mason is said to 

travel from the West to the East, that is, from 

darkness to light . In the Prestonian system, 

the question is asked, "What induces you to 

leave the West to travel to the East?" And 

the answer is : "In search of a Master, and 

from him to gain instruction ." The same 

idea, if not precisely the same language, is preserved 

in the modern and existing rituals . 

The East, being the place where the Master 

sits, is considered the most honorable part of 

the Lodge, and is distinguished from the rest 

of the room by a dais, or raised platform, 

which is occupied only by those who have 

passed the Chair . 

Bazot (Manuel, p. 154) says : "The veneration 

which Masons have for the East, confirms 

the theory that it is from the East that the 

Masonic cult proceeded, and that this bears a 

relation to the primitive religion whose first 

degeneration was sun-worship ." 

East and West, Knight of the . See 

Knight of the East and West . 

East, Grand . The place where a Grand 

Lodge holds its communications and whence 

are issued its edicts, is often called its Grand 

East . Thus, the Grand East of Boston 

would, according to this usage, be placed 

at the head of documents emanating from 

the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts . Grand 

Orient has sometimes been used instead of 

Grand East, but improperly . Orient might 

be admissible as signifying East, but Grand 

Orient having been adopted as the name of 

certain Grand Bodies, such as the Grand 

Orient of France, which is tantamount to the 

Grand Lodge of France, the use of the term 

might lead to confusion . Thus, the Orient 

of Paris is the seat of the Grand Orient of 

France . The expression Grand East, however, 

is almost exclusively confined to America, 

and even there is not in universal use . 

East Indies . See India . 

East, Knight of the . See Knight of the 

East. 

Easter . Easter Sunday, being the day 

celebrated by the Christian church in commemoration 

of the resurrection of the Lord 

Jesus, is appropriately kept as a feast-day by 

Rose Croix Masons. 

Easter Monday. On this day, in every 

third year, Councils of Kadosh in the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite hold their elections 

. 

Eastern Star, Order of the . 

An American 

Adoptive Rite, called the "Order of the 

Eastern Star," invented by Bro . Robert 

Morris, and somewhat popular in America . 

It consists of five degrees, viz ., 1, Jephtha's 

Daughter, or the Daughter's Degree ; 2, 

Ruth, or the Widow's Degree ; 3, Esther, or the 

Wife's Degree ; 4, Martha, or the Sister's 

Degree ; 5, Elects, or the Benevolent . It is 

entirely different from European or French 

Adoptive Masonry . Recently, this Order 

has undergone a thorough organization, and 

been extended into other countries, especially 

into South America and Great Britain. 

East Port . An error of ignorance in the 

Lansdowne Manuscript, where the expression 

"the city of East Port" occurs as a corruption 

of "the cities of the East ." 

Eavesdropper. A listener . The punishment 

which was directed in the old lectures, 

at the revival of Masonry in 1717, to be inflicted 

on a detected cowan was : "To be 

placed under the eaves of the house in rainy 

weather, till the water runs in at his shoulders 

and out at his heels ." The French inflict a 

similar punishment . "On le met sous une 

gouttiere, une pompe, ou une fontaine, 

jusqu'h ce qu'il~~soit mouill6 depuis la tete 

jusqu aux pieds . Hence a listener is called 

an eavesdropper . The word is not, as has 

by some been supposed, a peculiar Masonic 

term, but is common to the language . Skinner 

gives it in his Etymologicon, and calls it 

"vox sane elegantissima" ; and Blackstone 

(Comm .,iv .,13) thus defines it : "Eavesdroppers, 

or such as listen under walls, or windows, or 

the eaves of a house, to hearken after discourse, 

and thereupon to frame slanderous 

and mischievous tales, are a common nuisance 

and presentable at the court leet ; or are indictable 

at the sessions, and punishable by fine 

and finding sureties for their good behavior ." 

Ebal. According to Mackenzie (Royal 

Masonic Cyclopadia s .v .) the following was 

introduced into the lectures of Masonry in 

the last century : "Moses commanded Israel 

that as soon as they had passed the Jordan, 

they should go to Shechem, and divide into 

two bodies, each composed of six tribes : one 

placed on, that is, adjacent to, Mount Ebal ; 

the other on, or adjacent to, Mount Gerizim . 

The six tribes on or at Gerizim were to pronounce 

blessings on those who should faithfully 

observe the law ; and the six on Mount 

Ebal were to pronounce curses against those 

who should violate it. This Joshua executed . 

(Deut . xxvii ; Joshua viii. 30-35 .) Moses enjoined 

them to erect an altar of unhewn stones 

on Mount Ebal, and to plaster them over, 

that the law might be written on the altar . 

Shechem is the modern Nablous ." 

Eben Bohan . The stone which Bohan set 

up as a witness-stone, and which afterward 

served as a boundary-mark on the frontier 

between Judah and Benjamin. (Joshua xv .6; 

xviii. 17 .) 

Eben-Ezer . (Heb ., stone of 

help .) A stone set up by Samuel between 

Mizpeh and Shen in testimony of the Divine 

assistance obtained against the Philistines . 

(1 Sam . vii. 12 .) 

Eblis. The Arabian name of the prince of 

the apostate angels, exiled to the infernal 

regions for refusing to worship Adam at the 

command of the Supreme, Ebhs claiming that 

he had been formed of ethereal fire, while 

Adam was created from clay. The Mohammedans 

assert that at the birth of their 

prophet the throne of Eblis was precipitated 

to the bottom of hell . The Azazel of the 

Hebrews. 

Ebony Box. A symbol in the high degrees 

of the human heart, which is intended to

228 ECBATANA 

ECOSSAIS 

teach reserve and taciturnity, which should 

be inviolably maintained in regard to the incommunicable 

secrets of the Order. When it 

is said that the ebony box contained the plans 

of the Temple of Solomon, the symbolic teaching 

is, that in the human heart are deposited 

the secret designs and motives of our conduct 

by which we propose to erect the spiritual 

temple of our lives. 

Eebatana. An ancient city of great 

interest to those who study the history of the 

rebuilding of the Temple . Its several names 

were Agbatana, Hagmatana, and Achmeta . 

Tradition attributes the founding of the city 

to Solomon, Herodotus to Deioces 728 B .C ., 

the Book of Judith to Arphaxad . ft was the 

ancient capital of Media. Vast quantities of 

rubbish now indicate where the palace and 

citadel stood . The Temple of the Sun 

crowned a conical hill enclosed by seven concentric 

walls . According to Celsus, there was 

thus exhibited a scale composed of seven steps 

or stages, with an eighth at the upper extremity 

. The first stage was composed of 

lead, and indicated Saturn ; the second of tin 

denoted Venus ; the third, of copper, denoted 

Jupiter ; the fourth, of iron, denoted Mars ; the 

fifth, of divers metals, denoted Mercury ; 

the sixth, of silver, denoted the Moon ; the 

seventh, of gold, denoted the Sun ; then the 

highest, Heaven. As they rose in gradation 

toward the pinnacle, all the gorgeous battlements 

represented at once-in Sabean fashion 

-the seven planetary spheres. The principal 

buildings were the Citadel, a stronghold of 

enormous dimensions, where also the archives 

were kept, in which Darius found the edict of 

Cyrus the Great concerning the rebuilding of 

the Holy Temple in Jerusalem . 

Eclectic Masonry. From the Greek, 

J,cXewnubs, eklektikos, which means selecting . 

Those philosophers who, in ancient times, 

selected from the various systems of philosophy 

such doctrines as appeared most conformable 

to truth were called "eclectic philosophers 

." So the confederation of Masons in 

Germany which consisted of Lodges that 

selected the degrees which they thought most 

comformable to ancient Freemasonry, was 

called the eclectic union, and the Masonry 

which it adopted received the name of Eclectic 

Masonry. (See Eclectic Union.) 

Eclectic Rite. The Rite practised by the 

Eclectic Union, which see. 

Eclectic Union . The fundamental idea 

of a union of the German Lodges for the purpose 

of purifying the Masonic system of the 

corruptions which had been introduced by 

the numerous degrees founded on alchemy, 

theosophy, and other occult sciences which at 

that time flooded the continent of Europe, 

originated, in 1779, with the Baron Von Ditfurth, 

who had been a prominent member of 

the Rite of Strict Observance ; although Lenning 

attributes the earlier thought of a circular 

letter to Von Knigge. But the first practical 

step toward this purification was taken in 

1783 by the Provincial Grand Lodges of 

Frankfort-on-the-Main and of Wetzlar . These 

two bodies addressed an encyclical letter to 

the Lodges of Germany in which they invited 

them to enter into an alliance for the purpose 

of "re-establishing the Royal Art of Freemasonry 

." The principal points on which this 

union or alliance was to be founded were, 1 . 

That the three symbolic degrees only were to 

be acknowledged by the united Lodges . 2 . 

That each Lodge was permitted to practise 

for itself such high degrees as it might select 

for itself but that the recognition of these was 

not to he made compulsory on the other 

Lodges . 3 . That all the united Lodges were 

to be equal, none being dependent on any 

other . These propositions were accepted by 

several Lodges, and thence resulted the Eklectischer 

Bund, or Eclectic Union of Germany . 

at the head of which is the "Mother Grand 

Lodge of the Eclectic Union" at Frankforton-the-Main 

which has 21 Lodges and 3,166 

brethren under its jurisdiction . The system 

of Masonry practised by this union is called 

the Eclectic system, and the Rite recognized 

by it is the Eclectic Rite, which consists of 

only the three degrees of pprentice, Fellow- 

Craft, and Master Mason . 

Eeossais. This is a French word, which 

is most generally to be translated as Scottish 

Master. There are numerous degrees under 

the same or a similar name ; all of them, however, 

concurring in one particular, namely, 

that of detailing the method adopted for the 

preservation of the true Word . The American 

Mason will understand the character of 

the system of Ecossaism, as it may be called, 

when he is told that the Select Master of 

his own Rite is really an Ecossais Degree . 

It is found, too, in many other Rites . Thus, 

in the French Rite it is the Fifth Degree . 

In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, 

the Thirteenth Degree or Knights of the 

Ninth Arch is properly an Ecossais Degree . 

The Ancient York Rite is without an Ecossais 

Degree, but its principles are set forth 

in the instructions of the Royal Arch . 

Some idea of the extent to which these degrees 

have been multiplied may be formed 

from the fact that Oliver has a list of eighty 

of them ; Ragon enumerates eighty-three ; and 

the Baron Tschoudy, rejecting, twenty-seven 

which he does not consider legitimate, retains 

a far greater number to whose purity he does 

not object. 

In the Ecossais system there is a legend, 

a part of which has been adopted in all the 

Ecossais degrees, and which has in fact been 

incorporated into the mythical history of 

Masonry . It is to the effect that the builder 

of the Temple engraved the word upon a triangle 

of pure metal, and, fearing that it might 

be lost, he always bore it about his person 

suspended from his neck, with the a aved 

side next to his breast. In a time great 

peril to himself, he cast it into an old dry well, 

which was in the southeast comer of the 

Temple, where it was afterward found by 

three Masters . They were passing near the 

well at the hour of meridian, and were attracted 

by its brilliant appearance ; whereupon

ECOSSAIS 

ECOSSAIS 229 

one of them, descending with the assistance of sixth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

his comrades, obtained it, and carried it to France. 

King Solomon . But the more modern form Ecossais of Naples . The Forty-second 

of the legend dispenses with the circumstance Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan 

of the dry well and says that the builder Chapter of France . 

deposited it in tie place which had been purposely 

prepared for it, and where centuries Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan 

Ecossais of Perfection . The Thirty-ninth 

afterward it was found . And this amended Chapter of France . 

form of the legend is more in accord with the Eeossals of Prussia . A degree in the 

recognized symbolism of the loss and the recovery 

of the Word. 

sophic Scottish Rite . 

archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philo- 

Ecossais. 1 . The Fourth Degree of Ramsay's 

Rite, and the original whence all the de- 

form of Ecossaism, and found in several 

Ecossais of St . Andrew . A not unusual 

grees of Ecossaism have sprung . 2 . The Rites. 1 . The Second Degree of the Clerks 

Fifth Degree of the French Rite . 3 . The of Strict Observance ; 2 . The Twenty-first 

Ecossais degrees constitute the fourth class Degree of the Rite of Mizraim ; 3 . The 

of the Rite of Mizraim-from the Fourteenth Twenty-ninth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite is also an Ecossais of St . 

to the Twenty-first Degree. In the subsequent 

articles only the principal Ecossais degrees will Andrew ; 4. The Sixty-third Degree of the 

be mentioned . 

collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

Ecossais Architect, Perfect. (Ecossais France is an Ecossais of St. Andrew of Scotland 

; 5. The Seventy-fifth Degree of the same 

Architecte Parfait.) A degree in the collection 

of M . Pyron. 

collection is called Ecossais of St . Andrew of 

Ecossais d'Angers or Ecossais d'Alcidony 

. Two degrees mentioned in a work Ecossais of St. George . A degree in the 

the Thistle . 

entitled Philosophical Considerations on Freemasonry 

. 

Ecossals of the Forty. (Ecossais des 


English. (Ecoss . Anglais .) A Quarante.) The Thirty-fourth Degree of the 

degree in the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

Rite. 

France . 

Ecossais, Faithful. (Ecossais Fidlle.) Ecossais of the Lodge of Prince Edward . 

(See Vielle Bru .) 

A degree in the collection of Pyron . This was 

Ecossais, French. The Thirty-fifth Degree 

of the collection of the Metropolitan Prince Charles Edward, the young retender . 

probably a Stuart degree, and referred to 

Chapter of France . 

Ecossais of the Sacred ault of James 

Ecossais, Grand . The Fourteenth Degree VI. 1 . The Thirty-third Degree of the collection 

of the Metropolitan Chapter of France, 

of the Scottish Rite is so called in some of the 

French rituals . 

said to have been composed by the Baron 

Ecossals, Grand Architect. (Grand Architect 

Ecossais .) The Forty-fifth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim. 3 . In the French rituals, 

Tschoudy . 2 . The Twentieth Degree of the 


this name has been given to the Fourteenth 

Ecossais, Grand Master . Formerly the Degree of the Scottish Rite . Chemin Dupontcs 

says that the degree was a homage Sixth Degree of the Capitular system, prac- 

paid 

tised in Holland . 

Ecossais, Knight . A synonym of the 

Ninth Degree of Illuminism . It is more commonly 

called Illuminatus Diri ens . 

Ecossais, Master . The Fifth Degree of 

the Rite of Zinnendorf. It was also formerly 

among the high degrees of the German Chapter 

and those of the Rite of the Clerks of 

Strict Observance. It is said to have been 

composed by Baron Hund . 

Ecossais Novice. A synonym of the 

Eighth Degree of Illuminism . It is more 

commonly called Illuminatus Major . 

Ecossals of Clermont . The Thirteenth 

Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

France. 

Ecossais of England . A degree in the 

collection of M . Le Rouge . 

Ecossais of Franville. The Thirty-first 

Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

France . 

Ecossais of Hiram . A degree in the 

Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scotch Rite . 

Ecossais of Messina. A degree in the 

nomenclature of M . Fustier. 

Ecossais of Montpellier. The Thirty- 

to the kings of Scotland . Nothing., however, 

of this can be found in its present ritual ; but it 

is very probable that the degree, in its first 

conception, and in some ritual that no longer 

exists, was an offspring of the house of Stuart, 

of which James VI . was the first English 

king. 

Ecossais of the Three J. J . J. 1 . The 

Thirty-second Degree of the collection of the 

Metropolitan Chapter of France . 2 . The 

Nineteenth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . 

The three J. J. J . are the initials of Jourdain, 

Jaho, Jachin. 

Ecossals of Toulouse . A degree in the 

archives of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic 


Ecossais of the Triple Triangle . The 

Thirty-seventh Degree of the collection of the 


Ecossais, Parisian . So Thory has it ; but 

Ragon, and all the other nomenclators, give it 

as cossais Panisait re. The Seventeenth Degree 

of the Rite of Mizraim. 

Ecossais, Perfect . A degree in the archives 

of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic 

Scottish Rite .

230 ECOSSISM 

EDWARD 

Eeossism. A name given by French Masonic 

writers to the thirty-three degrees of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This 

in English, would be equivalent to Scottis!e 

Masonry which see . 

Ecuador. Masonry was introduced into 

the Republic of Ecuador, in the year 1857, by 

the Grand Orient of Peru, which organized a 

Symbolic Lodge and Chapter of the Eighth 

Degree in Guayaquil ; but in consequence of 

the opposition of the priests, these bodies did 

not flourish, and at the end of two years their 

members surrendered their -warrants and 

ceased to pursue their Masonic labors . But, 

since then the Craft has revived and there are 

in Ecuador two Lodges under the Grand 

Lodge of Peru . 

Edda. An Icelandic word, literally translated 

great-grandmother, as referred to in 

Scandinavian poetry. There are in reality 

two books of this name which were deemed 

inspired by the ancient Germans, Norwegians, 

and Swedes, and there grew out so many 

myths from these canonical writings, that 

great difficulty is now experienced as to what 

were apocryphal. The myths springing from 

the old German theology are full of beauty ; 

they pervade Freemasonry extensively and so 

intimately that they are believed by many of 

the best students to be the origin of a large 

number of its legends and symbols. 

The older of the two, called The Edda of 

Samund the Learned, was written in a language 

existing in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway 

as early as the eighth century. Samund 

Sigfusson, an Icelandic priest born in 1056, 

collected thirty-nine of these poems during the 

earlier portion of the twelfth century. The 

most remarkable of these poems is the Oracle 

of the Prophetess, containing the cosmogony, 

under the Scandinavian belief, from the creation 

to the destruction of the world . A wellpreserved 

copy was found in Iceland in 1643 . 

The younger Edda is a collection of the 

myths of the gods, and of explanations of 

meters of Pagan poetry, and is intended for 

instruction of young scalds or poets. The 

first copy was found complete in 1628 . The 

prologue is a curious compendium of Jewish, 

Greek Christian, Roman, and Icelandic 

legend. Its authorship is ascribed to Snorro 

Sturleson, born in 1178 ; hence called Edda of 

Snorro . 

Edict of Cyrus . Five hundred and thirtysix 

years before the Christian era, Cyrus 

issued his edict permitting the Jews to return 

from the captivity at Babylon to Jerusalem, 

and to rebuild the House of the Lord . At the 

same time he restored to them all the sacred 

vessels and precious ornaments of the first 

Temple, which had been carried away by 

Nebuchadnezzar, and which were still in existence. 

This is commemorated in the Royal 

Arch Degree of the York and American Rites . 

It is also referred to in the Fifteenth Degree, 

or Knight of the East of the Scottish Rite . 

Edicts . The decrees of a Grand Master or 

of a Grand Lodge are called Edicts and obedience 

to them is obligatory on all the Craft. 

Edinburgh . The capital of Scotland . 

[The Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel is 

No . 1 on the "Roll of Lodges holding under the 

Grand Lodge of Scotland," and is described 

therein as instituted "Before 1598 ." Nothing 

more precise is known as to the date of its 

foundation, but it possesses minutes commencing 

in July, 1599. It met at one time in 

a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and 

from this is derived the second part of its 

name . Its history has been written by D . 

M . Lyon (1873) .-E. L. H .] (See Scotland .) 

Edinburgh, Congress of . It was convoked, 

in 1736, by William St . Clair of Roslin, 

Patron of the Masons of Scotland (whose 

mother Lodge was Canongate Kilwinning), 

with the view of abdicating his 

as 

hereditary Grand Patron, with all the privileges 

granted to the family of St. Clair of 

Roslin by the Operative Masons of Scotland 

early in the seventeenth century (see St . 

Clair Charters), and afterward to organize 

Masonry upon a new basis. The members of 

thirty-three Lodges uniting for this purpose, 

constituted the new Grand Lodge of Scotland, 

and elected St . Clair Grand Master on November 

30, 1736. (See St . Clair .) 

Edinburgh - Kilwinning Manuscript . 

One of the "Old Charges," probably written 

about 1665 . It is in the custody of the 

"Mother Lodge Kilwinnin , No. 0," which 

heads the Roll of Scotch Lodges . It has been 

reproduced in Hughan's Masonic Sketches 

and Reprints, and in D . M . Lyon's History 

of the Lodge of Edinburgh. [E. L. H .] 

Edward the Confessor, King. Said to 

have been a patron of Masonry in England 

in 1041 . 

Edward, Rings. The four kings, numerically 

known as the First, Second, Third, and 

Fourth, appear as favorers, abettors, and 

protectors of the Institution of Freemasonry . 

Edward, Prince . Son of George III ., and 

Duke of Kent, was initiated in 1790, at 

Geneva, in the Lodge De l' Union des Cnurs ; 

was Grand Master of the Ancients, and resigned 

to the Duke of Sussex on the memorable 

occasion of the Union in England, 

1813. 

Edward III. Manuscript . A manuscript 

quoted by Anderson in his second edition 

(p. 71), and also by Preston, as an old record 

referr' g to "the glorious reign of King 

Edward III ." The whole of the record is not 

cited, but the passages that are given are 

evidently the same as those contained in what 

is now known as the Cooke MS., the archaic 

phraseology having been modernized and interpolations 

inserted by Anderson, as was, 

unfortunately, his habit in dealing with those 

old documents . Compare, for instance, the 

following passages : 

From the Cooke MS . "When the master 

and the felawes be forwarned ben y come to 

such congregations if nede be the Schereffe 

of the countre or the mayer of the Cyte or 

alderman of the towne in wyche the congregacions 

is holde schall be felaw and sociat 

to the master of the congregation in helpe of

EDWIN 

EGYPTIAN 231 

hym a vest rebelles and u beryng (upbearing) 

the rygt of the reme ." (Ll . 901-912 .) 

Edward III . MS ., as quoted by Anderson . 

"That when the Master and Wardens preside 

in a Lodge, the sheriff if need be, or the 

mayor or the alderman (if a brother) where 

the Chapter is held, shall be sociate to the 

Master, in help of him against rebels and for 

upholding the rights of the realm ." 

The identity of the two documents is apparent 

. Either the Edward III . M S . was 

copied from the Cooke, or both were derived 

from a common original. 

Edwin. The son of Edward, Saxon king 

of England, who died in 924, and was succeeded 

by his eldest son, Athelstan . The 

Masonic tradition is that Athelstan appointed 

his brother Edwin the Patron of Masonry in 

England, and gave him what the Old Records 

call a free Charter to hold an Annual Communication 

or General Assembly, under the 

authority of which he summoned the Masons 

of England to meet him in a Congregation at 

York, where they met in 926 and formed the 

Grand Lodge of England . The Old Records 

say that these Masons brought with them 

many old writings and records of the Craft, 

some in Greek, some in Latin, some in French, 

and other languages, and from these framed 

the document now known as the York Constitutions, 

whose authenticity has been in 

recent years so much a subject of controversy 

among Masonic writers. Prince Edwin died 

two years before his brother, and a report was 

spread of his being put wrongfully to death 

by him ; "but this,' says Preston, "is so improbable 

in itself so inconsistent with the 

character of Athelstan, and, indeed, so slenderly 

attested, as to be undeserving a place in 

history." William of Malmesbury, the old 

chronicler, relates the story, but confesses that 

it had no better foundation than some old 

ballads. But now come the later Masonic 

antiquaries, who assert that Edwin himself 

is only a myth, and that', in spite of the authority 

of a few historical writers, Athelstan 

had no son or brother of the name of Edwin . 

Woodford (Old Charges of the Brit. Freemasons, 

p. xiv.) thinks that the Masonic tradition 

points to Edwin, King of Northumbria, 

whose rendezvous was once at Auldby, near 

York, and who in 627 aided in the building of a 

stone church at York, after his baptism there, 

with Roman workmen. "Tradition," he says, 

"sometimes gets confused after they lapse of 

time ; but I believe the tradition is in itself 

true which links Masonry to the church building 

at York by the Operative Brotherhood, 

under Edwin, in 627, and to a gild Charter 

under Athelstan, in 927 ." 

The legend of Prince Edwin, of course 

requires some modification, but we should 

not be too hasty in rejecting altogether a 

tradition which has been so long and so universally 

accepted by the Fraternity, and to 

which Anderson, Preston, Krause, Oliver, and 

a host of other writers, have subscribed their 

assent. The subject will be fully discussed 

under the head of York Legend, which see. 

Edwin Charges . The charges said to have 

been given by Prince Edwin, and contained 

in the Antiquity MS., are sometimes so called . 

(See Antiquity Manuscript.) 

Egg, Mundane . It was a belief of almost 

all the ancient nations, that the world was 

hatched from an egg made by the Creator 

over which the Spirit of God was represented 

as hovering in the same manner as a bird 

broods or flutters over her eggs. Faber 

(Pag. Idol., i . 1 4), who traced everything to the 

Arkite worship, says that this egg, which was 

a symbol of the resurrection, was no other than 

the ark ; and as Dionysus was fabled in the 

Orphic hymns to be born from an egg, he and 

Noah were the same person ; wherefore the 

birth of Dionysus or Brahma, or any other 

hero god from an egg, was nothing more than 

the egress of Noah from the ark . Be this as 

it may, the egg has been always deemed a 

symbol of the resurrection, and hence the 

Christian use of Easter eggs on the great feast 

of the resurrection of our Lord. As this is the 

most universally diffused of all symbols, it is 

strange that it has found no place in the symbolism 

of Freemasonry, which deals so much 

with the doctrine of the resurrection, of which 

the egg was everywhere the recognized symbol . 

It was, however, used by the ancient architects, 

and from them was adopted by the 

Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, one of 

whose favorite ornaments was the ovolo, or 

egg-molding. 

Eglinton Manuscript . An Old Record 

dated December 28, 1599 . It is so named 

from its having been discovered some years 

ago in the charter chest at Eglinton Castle . 

It is a Scottish manuscript, and is valuable 

for its details of early Masonry in Scotland . 

In it, Edinburgh is termed "the first and 

princpal Lodge," and Kilwinning is called 

"the heid and secund Ludge of Scotland in all 

tyme cuming ." An exact copy of it was 

taken by Bro . D. Murray Lyon, and published 

in his History of the Lodge of Edinburgh . 

(P . 12 .) It has also been printed in Hughan's 

Masonic Sketches and Reprints . 

Egyptian Hieroglyphs . The extent of 

parallelism between the innumerable hieroglyphs 

on the tombs and monuments of India 

an Egypt and the symbols and emblems 

of Freemasonry, taken together with their 

esoteric interpretation, has caused very many 

well-thinking Masons to believe in an Indian 

or Egyptian origin of our speculative institution 

of the present day . So close and numerous 

are these symbols and their meaning that 

it becomes difficult for the mind to free itself 

from a fixed conclusion ; and some of the best 

students feel confident in their judgment to 

this end, more especially when tracing the 

Leader "Moses, 

learned in all the 

wisdom of the 

11 M S S arME S 

Egyptians," from 1 , 

that country to 

Palestine with the twelve tribes of Israel 

and their successors building that Holy 

House in Jerusalem, which has become the

232 EGYPTIAN 

EGYPTIAN 

chief Masonic symbol . Some have abominated 

this theory on the ground of alleged 

polytheism existing among the Egypt but 

this existed only at a later day m the life of 

the nation, as it also existed among the corru 

ted Jews in its worst form, for which see 

2 ' ch. 17-21 . 

Bro . Thomas Pryer presents this evidence 

• a monotheistic belief, of pristine purity, 

among the early Egyptians, ages prior to 

Abraham's day . We give the hieroglyphs 

• their interpretation : 

May 

thy soul 

attain (come) 

to 

Kmgi m (Spirit of God, one of the 

forms of AMoN, the Creator), 

The Creator (the idea denoted by a 

man building the walls of a city) 

• all 

mankind (literally men and women .) 

1~ 

r 

P1 

%X, 1 

May thy soul attain to KHNUM, the Creator of 

all mankind. 

How prophetical were the Books of Hermes, 

"0 Egypt, Egyptl a time shall come, 

when, in lieu of a pure religion, and of a pure 

belief, thou wilt possess naught but ridiculous 

fables, incredible to posterity ; and nothing 

will remain to thee, but words engraven on 

stone, the only monuments that will attest thy 

piety." 

Egyptian Masonry. See Cagliostro. 

Egyptian Months. Named Thoth, Paophi, 

Athyr, Choiak Tybi, Mechir Phamenoth 

Pharmuthi, 1'ashons, Payni, Epiphi, 

• 1V1'esore . The above twelve months, 

commencing with March 1st, were composed of 

thirty days each, and the five 

entary 

days were dedicated to Hesirisu=), 

Hor 

(Horns), Set (Typhon), His (Isis), and Nebti 

(Nephthys) . The sacred year commenced 

July 20th ; the Alexandrian year, August 29th, 

B .c . 25 . 

Egyptian Mysteries. Egypt has always 

been considered as the birthplace of the mysteries. 

It was there that the ceremonies of 

initiation were first established . It was there 

that truth was first veiled in allegory, and 

the dogmas of religion were first imparted 

under symbolic forms . From Egypt "the 

land of the winged globe"-the land of 

science and philosophy, "peerless for stately 

tombs and magnificent temples-the land 

whose civilization was old and mature before 

other nations, since called to empire had a 

name"-this system of symbols was disseminated 

through Greece and Rome and other 

countries of Europe and Asia, giving ongm, 

through many intermediate steps, to that 

mysterious association which is now represented 

by the Institution of Freemasonry . 

To Egypt, therefore, Masons have always 

looked with peculiar interest as the cradle of 

that mysterious science of symbolism whose 

peculiar modes of teaching they alone, of all 

modern institutions, have preserved to the 

present day . 

The initiation into the Egyptian mysteries 

was, of all the systems practised by the ancients, 

the most severe and impressive . The 

Greeks at Eleusis imitated it to some extent, 

but they never reached the magnitude of its 

forms nor the austerity of its discipline . The 

system had been organized for ages, and the 

priests, who alone were the hierophants-the 

explainers of the mysteries, or, as we should 

call them in Masonic language, the Masters 

of the Lodges-were educated almost from 

childhood for the business in which they were 

engaged . That "learning of the Egyptians," 

in which Moses is said to have been so skilled, 

was all imparted in these mysteries. It was 

confined to the priests and to the initiates ; 

and the trials of initiation through which the 

latter had to pass were so difficult to be endured 

that none but those who were stimulated 

iiy the most ardent thirst for knowledge 

dared to undertake them or succeeded in submitting 

to them . 

The priesthood of Egypt constituted a 

sacred caste, in whom the sacerdotal functions 

were hereditary. They exercised also an important 

part in the government of the state, 

and the kings of Egypt were but the first 

subjects of its priests . They had originally 

organized, and continued to control, the 

ceremonies of initiation . Their doctrines 

were of two kinds-exoteric or public which 

were communicated to the multitude, and 

esoteric or secret which were revealed only to 

a chosen few ; and to obtain them it was necessary 

to pass through an initiation which was 

characterized by the severest trials of courage 

and fortitude . 

The principal seat of the mysteries was at 

Memphis, in the neighborhood of the great 

Pyramid. They were of two kinds, the 

greater and the less ; the former being the 

mysteries of Osiris and Serapis, the latter 

those of Isis . The mysteries of Osiris were 

celebrated at the autumnal equinox those of 

Serapis at the summer solstice, ana those of 

Isis at the vernal equinox . 

The candidate was required to exhibit 

proofs of a blameless life . For some days 

previous to the commencement of the ceremonies 

of initiation, he abstained from all 

unchaste acts, confined himself to an exceedingly 

light diet, from which animal food was 

rigorously excluded, and purified himself by 

repeated ablutions . 

Apuleius (Met. lib. xi.), who had been initiated 

in all of them, thus alludes with cautious 

reticence, to those of Isis : "h a priest, 

all the profane being removed to a distance, 

taking hold of me by the hand, brought me 

into the inner recesses of the sanctuary itself, 

clothed in a new linen garment. Perhaps,

EGYPTIAN 

EGYPTIAN 233 

curious reader, you ma be eager to know 

what was then said andydone. I would tell 

you were it lawful for me to tell you ; you 

should know it if it were lawful for you to 

hear . But both the ears that heard those 

things and the tongue that told them would 

reap the evil results of their rashness. Still, 

however, kept in suspense, as you probably 

are, with religious longing, I will not torment 

you with long-protracted anxiety . Hear 

therefore, but believe what is the truth . 1 

approached the confines of death, and, having 

trod on the threshold of Proserpine, I returned 

therefrom, being borne through all the elements. 

At midnight I saw the sun shining 

with its brilliant light ; and I approached the 

presence of the gods beneath and the gods 

above, and stood near and worshiped them . 

Behold, I have related to you things of which, 

though heard by you, you must necessarily 

remain ignorant ." 

The first degree, as we may term it, of 

Egyptian initiation was that into the mysteries 

of Isis . What was its peculiar import, 

we are unable to say. Isis, says Knight, was, 

among the later Egyptians, the personification 

of universal nature . To Apuleius she says : 

"I am nature-the parent of all things, the 

sovereign of the elements, the primary 

progeny of time ." Plutarch tells us that on 

the front of the temple of Isis was placed this 

inscription : "I, Isis am all that has been, that 

is, or shall be, and no mortal bath ever unveiled 

me ." Thus we may conjecture that 

the Isiac mysteries were descriptive of the 

alternate decayin and renovating powers of 

102) it is true, 

says that during the mysteries ofIsis were 

celebrated the misfortunes and trag~'cal death 

of Osiris in a sort of drama ; and Apuleius 

asserts that the initiation into her mysteries 

is celebrated as bearing a close resemblance 

to a voluntary death, with a precarious 

chance of recovery . But Higgins gives no 

authority for his statement and that of 

nature . Higgi ns (An eal., ii ., 

Apuleius cannot be constrained; into any reference 

to the enforced death of Osiris . It is, 

therefore, probable that the ceremonies of this 

initiation were simply preparatory to that of 

the Osirian, and taught, by instructions in the 

physical laws of nature, the necessity of moral 

purification, a theory which is not incompatible 

with all the mystical allusions of 

Apuleius when he describes his own initiation. 

The Mysteries of Serapis constituted the 

second degree of the Egyptian initiation . 

Of these rites we have but a scanty knowledge . 

Herodotus is entirely silent concerning them 

and Apuleius, calling them "the nocturnal 

orgies of Serapis, a god of the first rank," only 

intimates that they followed those of Isis, and 

were preparatory to the last and greatest 

initiation . Serapis is said to have been only 

Osiris while in Hades ; and hence the Serapian 

initiation might have represented the death of 

Osiris, but leaving the lesson of resurrection 

for a subsequent initiation. But this is merely 

a conjecture . 

In the mysteries of Osiris, which were the 

consummation of the Egyptian system, the 

lesson of death and resurrection was symbolically 

taught ; and the legend of the murder 

of Osiris, the search for the body, its discovery 

and restoration to life is scenically represented 

. This legend of initiation was as follows : 

Osirist a wise king of Egy pt, left the care of 

his kingdom to his wife lsis 7 and traveled 

for three years to communicate to other 

nations the arts of civilization . During his 

absence, his brother Typhon formed a secret 

conspiracy to destroy him and to usurp his 

throne . On his return, Osiris was invited by 

Typhon to an entertainment in the month of 

November, at which all the conspirators were 

present . Typhon produced a chest inlaid 

with gold, and promised to give it to any person 

present whose body would most exactly 

fit it . Osiris was tempted to try the experiment 

; but he had no sooner laid down in the 

chest, than the lid was closed and nailed down, 

and the chest thrown into the river Nile. The 

chest containing the body of Osiris was, after 

being for a long time tossed about by the 

waves, finally cast up at Byblos in Phoenicia, 

and left at the foot of a tamarisk tree . Isis, 

overwhelmed with grief for the loss of her 

husband, set out on a journeyand traversed 

the earth in search of the body . 

adventures, she at length discovered the spot 

whence it had been thrown up by the waves 

and returned with it in triumph to Egypt. It 

was then proclaimed, with the most extravagant 

demonstrations of joy, that Osiris was 

risen from the dead and had become a 

god. Such, with slight variations of details 

by different writers, are the general outlines 

of the Osiric legend which was represented in 

the drama of initiation . Its resemblance to 

the Hiramic legend of the Masonic system will 

be readily seen, and its symbolism will be 

easily understood. Osiris and Typhon are 

the representatives of the two antagonistic 

principles-good and evil, light and darkness, 

life and death . 

There is also an astronomical interpretation 

of the legend which makes Osiris the sun and 

Typhon the season of winter, which suspends 

the fecundating and fertilizing powers of the 

sun or destroys its life, to be restored only by 

the return of invigorating spring . ~ 

The sufferings and death of Osiris were the 

great mystery of the Egyptian religion . His 

being the abstract idea of the Divine goodness, 

his manifestation upon earth, his death, his 

resurrection, and his subsequent office as 

judge of the dead in a future state, look says 

Wilkinson, like the early revelation of a ftuture 

manifestation of the Deity converted into a 

mythological fable . 

Into these mysteries Herodotus, Plutarch, 

and Pythagoras were initiated, and the former 

two have given brief accounts of them . But 

their own knowledge must have been extremely 

limited, for, as Clement of Alexandria 

(Strom., v ., 7) tells us, the more important 

secrets were not revealed even to all the 

priests, but to a select number of them only .

234 EGYPTIAN 

EJThYE$ 

Egyptian Priests, Initiations of the . In 

the year 1770, there was published at Berlin 

a work entitled Crata Repoa; oder Einweihungen 

der Egyptischen Priester, i . e., Crata Repoa; 

or, Initiations of the Egyptian Priests . This 

book was subsequently republished in 1778, 

and translated into French under the revision 

of Ragon, and published at Paris in 1821, by 

Bailleul . It professed to give the whole 

formula of the initiation into the mysteries 

practised by the ancient Egyptian priests . 

Lenning cites the work, and gives an outline 

of the system as if he thought it an authentic 

relation ; but GAdicke more prudently says of 

it that he doubts that there are more mysteries 

described in the book than were ever 

practised by the ancient Egyptian priests . 

The French writers have generally accepted 

it as genuine . Forty years before, the Abbo 

Terrasson had written a somewhat similar 

work, in which he pretended to describe the 

initiation of a Prince of Egypt. Moss, in his 

Bibliography has placed this latter work under 

the head of ` Romances of the Order" ; 

and a similar place should doubtless be assigned 

to the Crata Repoa . The curious 

may, however, be gratified by a brief detail of 

the system. 

According to the Crata Repoa, the priest 

of Egypt conferred their initiation at Thebes . 

The mysteries were divided into the following 

seven degrees : 1 . Pastophoros . 2 . Neocorns. 

3 . Melanophoros. 4 . Kistophoros . 

5. Balahate . 6. Astronomos . 7 . Propheta . 

Th e first degree was devoted to instructions 

in the physical sciences ; the second, to geometry 

and architecture . In the third degree, 

the candidate was instructed in the symbolical 

death of Osiris, and was made acquainted 

with the hieroglyphical language . In the 

fourth he was presented with the book of the 

laws of Egypt, and became a judge . The 

instructions of the fifth degree were dedicated 

to chemistry, and of the sixth to astronomy 

and the mathematical sciences. In the 

seventh and last degree the candidate received 

a detailed explanation of all the mysteries 

his head was shaved, and he was presented 

with a cross, which he was constantly to carry, . 

a white mantle, and a square head dress . To 

each degree was attached a word and sign . 

Anyone who should carefully read the Crata 

Repoa would be convinced that, so far from 

being founded on any ancient system of 

initiation, it was simply a modern invention 

made up out of the high degrees of continental 

Masonry. It is indeed surprising that Lenand 

Ragon should have treated it as if it 

Wthe least claims to antiquity . 

[It has been suggested that Crata Repoa 

may be an anagram for Arcta Opera or 

"close finished works."-E . L . H .1 

Eheyeh asher Eheyeh . The pronunciation 

of 11 1At "ITUit 1N1K, which means, I am that 

I am, and is one of the pentateuchal names of 

God . It is related in the third chapter of 

Exodus, that when God appeared to Moses 

in the burning bush, and drected him to go 

to Pharaoh and to the children of Israel in 

t, Moses required that, as preliminary 

to s mission, he should be instructed in the 

name of God, so that, when he was asked by 

the Israelites, he might be able to prove his 

mission by announcing what that name was ; 

and God said to him, ii'i"IK (Eheyeh), I am 

that I am; and he directed him to say, "I am 

hath sent you ." Eheyeh asher eheyeh is, 

therefore, the name of God, in which Moses 

was instructed at the burning bush . 

Maimonides thinks that when the Lord 

ordered Moses to tell the people that 1'1K 

(Eheyeh) sent him, he did not mean that he 

should only mention his name ; for if they were 

already acquainted with it, he told them nothing 

new, and if they were not, it was not likely 

that they would be satisfied by saying such a 

name sent me, for the proof would still be 

wanting that this was really the name of God ; 

therefore, he not only told them the name, 

but also taught them its signification . In 

those times, Sabaism being the predominant 

religion, almost all men were idolaters, and 

occupied themselves in the contemplation of 

the heavens and the sun and the stars, without 

y idea of a personal God in the world . 

r 

ow, the Lord, to deliver hispeo ple from such 

an error, said to Moses "Go and tell them 

I AM THAT I AM hath sent me unto you," 

which name 71',1K (Eheyeh), signifying Being, 

is derived from 1„1 (heyeh), the verb of existence, 

and which, being repeated so that the 

second is the predicate of the first, contains 

the mystery . This is as if he had said, "Explain 

to them that I am what I am: that is, 

that my Being is within myself, independent 

of every other, different from all other beings, 

who are so alone by virtue of my distributing 

it to them, and might not have been, nor could 

actually be such without it ." So that '11K 

denotes the Divine Being Himself, by which 

he taught Moses not only the name, but the 

infallible demonstration of the Fountain of 

Existence, as the name itself denotes . The 

Kabbalists say that Eheyeh is the crown or 

highest of the Sephiroth, and that it is the 

name that was hidden in the most secret place 

of the tabernacle . 

The Talmudists had many fanciful exercitations 

on this word 1`1$, and, among 

others, said that it is equivalent to D 1'. and 

the four letters of which it is formed possess 

peculiar propeeties . K is in Hebrew numerically 

equivalent to 1, and I to 10, which is 

equal to 11 ; a result also obtained by taking 

the second and third letters of the holy name, 

or 1 and 1 which are 5 and 6, amounting to 

11 . But the 5 and 6 invariably produce the 

same number in their multiplication, for 5 . 

times 5 are 25, and 6 times 6 are 36, and this 

invariable product of 1 and 1 was said to denote 

the unchangeableness of the First Cause . 

Again, I am, 1^1K, commences with $ or 1, the 

beginning of numbers, and Jehovah,111`, with 

or 10, the end of numbers, which signified 

that God was the beginning and end of all 

things . The phrase Eheyeh asher eheyeh is 

of importance in the study of the legend of 

the Royal Arch system . Some years ago,

EIGHT 

ELECT 235 

that learned Mason, William S . Rockwell, 

while preparing his Ahiman Rezon for the 

State of Georgia, undertook, but beyond that 

jurisdiction unsuccessfully, to introduce it as 

a password to the veils . 

Eight. Among the Pythagoreans the number 

eight was esteemed as the first cube, being 

formed by the continued multiplication of 

2 X 2 X 2, and signified friendship, prudence, 

counsel, and justice ; and, as the cube or reduplication 

of the first even number, it was 

made to refer to the primitive law of nature, 

which supposes all men to be equal . Christian 

numerical symbologists have called it the 

symbol of the resurrection, because Jesus rose 

on the 8th day, i . e . the day after the 7th, 

and because the name of Jesus in Greek 

numerals, corresponding to its Greek letters 

is 10, 8, 200, 70, 400, 200, which, being added 

up, is 888. Hence, too, they call it the 

Dominical Number . As 8 persons were 

saved in the ark, those who, like Faber, have 

adopted the theory that the Arkite Rites pervaded 

all the religions of antiquity, find an 

important symbolism in this number, and as 

Noah was the type of the resurrection, they 

again find in it a reference to that doctrine . 

It can, however, be scarcely reckoned among 

the numerical symbols of Masonry. 

Eighty-One. A sacred number in the 

high degrees, because it is the square of nine, 

which is again the square of three . The 

Pythagorean, however, who considered the 

nine as a fatal number, especially dreaded 

eighty-one, because it was produced by the 

multiplication of nine by itself. 

El, 5K . One of the Hebrew names of God, 

signifying the Mighty One. It is the root 

of many of the other names of Deity, and 

also, therefore, of many of the sacred words 

in the high degrees . Bryant (Anc. Myth. i ., 

16) says it was the true name of God, but 

transferred by the Sabians to the sun, whence 

the Greeks borrowed their helios. 

Elai bent almanah (Hebrew '=5K ']D 

'SK, Hue venue flit viduce) . Third Degree 

A. A . Scottish Rite . 

Elal bent emeth (Heb., tltK '» 'SK, Hue 

venite flit veritatis) . Sometimes applied to 

the Twenty-sixth Degree of the A . A. Scottish 

Rite . 

Elchanan, pth? . God has graciously 

given. In the authorized version, it is improperly 

translated Elhanan. Jerome says 

that it meant David, because in 2 Sam . xxi . 

19 it is said that Elchanan slew Goliath . A 

significant word in the high degrees, which 

has undergone much corruption and various 

changes of form . In the old rituals it is 

Elebam . Lenning gives Elchanam, and incorrectly 

translates, mercy of God; Delaunay 

calls it Eliham, and translates it, God of the 

people, in which Pike concurs . 

Elders . This word is used in some of the 

old Constitutions to designate those Masons 

who, from their rank and age, were deputed 

to obligate Apprentices when admitted into 

the Craft . Thus in the Constitutions of Masonrie, 

preserved in the archives of the York 

r 

Lodge, No. 236 (York Roll No . 2), with the 

date of 1704, we find this expression, Tum 

unus ex Senioribus Teneat librum, etc., which 

in another manuscript, dated 1693, preserved 

in the same archives (York Roll No . 4), is thus 

translated : "Then one of the elders takeing 

the Booke, and that bee or shee that is to bee 

made Mason shall lay their hands thereon 

and the charge shall be given ." These old 

MSS. have been published by W . J. Hughan 

in Ancient Masonic Rolls of Constitutions, 

&c ., 1894 . 

Elect. See Elu . 

Elect Brother . The Seventh Degree of the 

Rite of Zinnendorf and of the National Grand 

Lodge of Berlin. 

Elect Cohens, Order of. See Paschalis, 

Martinez. 

Elect Commander. (Elu Commandeur .) 

A degree mentioned in Fustier's nomenclature 

of degrees . 

Elect, Depositary . A degree mentioned 

in Pyron's collection . 

Elect, Grand . (Grand Elu.) The Fourteenth 

Degree of the Chapter of the Emperors 

of the East and West . The same as the 

Grand Elect, Perfect and Sublime Mason of 

the Scottish Rite . 

Elect, Grand Prince of the Three. A 

degree mentioned in Pyron's collection . 

Elect, Irish . (Elu Irlandais .) The first 

of the high grades of the Chapters of that 

name. 

Elect Lady, Sublime. (Dame, Elu Sublime 

.) An androgynous degree contained in 

the collection of Pyron . 

Elect, Little English. (PetitElu Anglais .) 

The Little English Elect was a degree of the 

Ancient Chapter of Clermont . The degree is 

now extinct . 

Elect Master . (Maitre Elu .) 1 . The 

Thirteenth Degree of the collection of the 

Metropolitan Chapter of France . 2 . The 

Fifth Degree of the Rite of Zinnendorf . 

Elect of Fifteen . (Elu des Quinze .) The 

Tenth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite . The place of meetingg is called 

a Chapter ; the emblematic color is black, 

strewed with tears ; and the principal officers 

are a Thrice Illustrious Master and two Ins 

tors. The history of this degree develops 

t e continuation and conclusion of the punishment 

inflicted on three traitors who, just 

before the conclusion of the Temple, had committed 

a crime of the most atrocious character 

. The degree is now more commonly 

called Illustrious Elu of the Fifteen . The 

same degree is found in the Chapter of Emperors 

of the East and West, and in the Rite 

of, Mizraim . 

Elect of London. (Elus des Londres .) 

The Seventieth Degree of the collection of 

the Metropolitan Chapter of France . 

Elect of Nine. (Elu des Neuf.) The 

Ninth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite. In the old rituals there were two officers 

who represented Solomon and Stolkin . 

But in the revised ritual of the Southern Jurisdiction, 

the principal officers are a Master and

236 ELECT 

ELEMENTS 

two Inspectors . The meetings are called 

Chapters . The degree details the mode in 

which certain traitors, who, just before the 

completion of the Temple had been engaged 

in an execrable deed of vihlany, received their 

punishment . The symbolic colors are red, 

white, and black ; the white emblematic of the 

purity of the knights ; the red of the crime 

which was committed ; and the black, of grief. 

This is the first of the Btu degrees, and the 

one on which the whole Btu system has been 

founded . 

Elect of Nine and Fifteen . (Auserwahlts 

der Neun and der Fiinfzehn .) The first and 

second points of the Fourth Degree of the old 

system of the Royal York Lodge of Berlin . 

Elect of Perignan . (Elu de Perignan .) 

A degree illustrative of the punishment inflicted 

upon certain criminals whose exploits 

constitute a portion of the legend of Symbolic 

Masonry . The substance of this degree 

is to be found in the Elect of Nine and Elect 

of Fifteen in the Scottish Rite with both of 

which it is closely connected . It is the 

Sixth Degree of the Adonhiramite Rite. (See 

Perignan .) 

Elect of the New Jerusalem . Formerly 

the Eighth and last of the high degrees of the 

Grand Chapter of Berlin . 

Elect of the Twelve Tribes . (Btu des douze 

Tribus .) The Seventeenth Degree of the collection 

of the Metropolitan Chapter of France . 

Elect of Truth, Rite of. (Rite des Elus 

de la Verite .) This Rite was instituted in 

1776, by the Lodge of Perfect Union, at 

Rennes, in France . A few Lodges in the interior 

of France adopted this regime; but, notwithstanding 

its philosophical character, it 

never became popular, and finally, about the 

end of the eighteenth century, fell into disuse . 

It consisted of twelve degrees divided into 

two classes, as follows : 

1st Class. Knights Adepts . 1 . Apprentice ; 

2 . Fellow-Craft ; 3 . Master ; 4 . Perfect Master . 

2d Class . Elects of Truth. 5 . Elect of 

Nine ; 6. Elect of Fifteen ; 7 . Master Elect - 

8 . Architect ; 9 . Second Architect ; 10 . Grand 

Architect ; 11 . Knight of the East ; 12. Prince 

of Rose Croix. 

Elect of Twelve. See Knight Elect of 

Twelve. 

Elect, Perfect . (Parfait Btu .) The 

Twelfth Degree of the Metropolitan Chapter 

of France, and also of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Elect, Perfect and Sublime Mason . 

See Perfection, Lodge of. 

Elect Philosopher . A degree under this 

name is found in the instructions of the philosophic 

Scottish Rite, and in the collection of 

Viany . 

-Elect Secret, Severe Inspector . (Elu 

Secret, Severe Inspectour .) The Fourteenth 

Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan 


Elect, Sovereign. (Elu Souverain.) The 

Fifty-ninth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Elect, Sublime. (Elu Sublime .) The 

Fifteenth Degree of the collection. of the 


Elect, Supreme. (Btu Supreme .) The 

Seventy-fourth Degree of the collection of the 

Metropolitan Chapter of France. It is also 

a degree in the collection of M . Pyron, and, 

under the name of Tabernacle of Perfect 

Elect, is contained in the archives of the 

Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Rite. 

Elect, Symbolical . Fifth Degree of the 

Reformed Rite of Baron Von Tachoudy . 

Eiecta . Fifth Degree in the American 

Adoptive system of the Eastern Star . [So 

named from the lady, whose real name is unknown, 

to whom the 2d Epistle of St . John is 

addressed, and who, according to tradition, 

"joyfully rendered up home, husband, children, 

good name and life, that she might 

testify to her Christian love by a martyr's 

death ."-E . L. H.] 

Election of Officers. The election of the 

officers of a Lodge is generally held on the 

meeting which precedes the festival of St. 

John the Evangelist, and sometimes on that 

festival itself . Should a Lodge fail to make 

the election at that time, no election can be 

subsequently held except by dispensation ; 

and it is now very generally admitted, that 

should any one of the officers die or remove 

from the jurisdiction during the period for 

which he was elected, no election can take 

place to supply the vacancy, but the office 

must be filled tem orarily until the next elec- 

If it be the Master, the Senior Warden 

tion. 

succeeds to the office. For the full exposition 

of the law on this subject, see Vacancies in 

Office . 

Elective Officers . In America, all the 

offices of a Symbolic Lodge except the Deacons, 

Stewards, and sometimes the Tiler, are 

elected by the members of the Lodge. In 

England, the rule is different . There the 

Master, Treasurer, and Tiler only are elected ; 

the other officers are appointed by the Master . 

Eleham. See Elchanan. 

Elements. It was the doctrine of the old 

philosophies, sustained by the authority of 

Aristotle, that there were four principles of 

matter-fire, air, earth, and water-which 

they called elements. Modern science has 

shown the fallacy of the theory. But it was 

also taught by the Kabbalists, and afterward 

by the Rosicrucians, who, according to the 

Abbe de Villars (Le Comte de Gabolis), peopled 

them with supernatural beings called, 

m the fire, Salamanders ; in the air, Sylphs ; 

in the earth, Gnomes ; and in the water, 

Undines . From the Rosicrucians and the 

Kabbalists, the doctrine passed over into 

some of the high degrees of Masonry, and is 

especially referred to in the Ecossais or 

Scottish Knight of St. Andrew, originally invented 

by the Chevalier Ramsay . In this 

degree we find the four angels of the four 

elements described as Andarel, the angel of 

fire ; Casmaran, of air Talliad, of water ; and 

Furlac, of earth ; and the signs refer to the 

same elements . 

Elements, Test of the . A ceremonial in 

the First and Twenty-fourth degrees of the 

A . A. Scottish Rite .

ELEPHANTA 

ELEUSINIAN 237 

Elephants. The cavern of Elephanta, 

situated on the island of Gharipour, in the 

Gulf of Bombay, is the most ancient temple 

in the world, and was the principal place for 

the celebration of the mysteries of India . It 

is one hundred and thirty-five feet square and 

eighteen feet high, supported by four massive 

pillars, and its walls covered on all sides with 

statues and carved decorations . Its adytunr 

at the western extremity, which was accessible 

only to the initiated, was dedicated to the 

Phallic worship. On each side were cells and 

pass ages for the purpose of initiation, and a 

sacred orifice for the mystical representation 

of the doctrine of regeneration . (See Maurice's 

Indian Antiquities, for a full description 

of this ancient scene of initiation .) 

Eleusinian Mysteries . Of all the mysteries 

of the ancient religions, those celebrated 

at the village of Eleusis, near the city of 

Athens, were the most splendid and the most 

popular . To them men came, says Cicero, 

from the remotest regions to be initiated . 

They were also the most ancient, if we may 

believe St . Epiphanius, who traces them to 

the reign of Inachus, more than eighteen hundred 

years before the Christian era . They 

were dedicated to the goddess Demeter, the 

Ceres of the Romans, who was worshiped by 

the Greeks as the symbol of the prolific earth ; 

and in them were scenically represented the 

loss and the recovery of Persephone, and the 

doctrines of the unity of God and the immortality 

of the soul were esoterically taught . 

The learned Faber believed that there was 

an intimate connection between the Arkite 

worship and the mysteries of Eleusis ; but 

Faber's theory was that the Arkite Rites, 

which he traced to almost all the nations of 

antiquity, symbolized, in the escape of Noah 

and the renovation of the earth, the doctrines 

of the resurrection and the immortal life . 

Plutarch (De Is. et Os .) says that the travels 

of Isis in search of Osiris were not different 

from those of Demeter in search of Persephone 

; and this view has been adopted by 

St. Croix (Myst . du Pag.) and by Creuzer 

(Symb.) ; and hence we may well suppose that 

the recovery of the former at Byblos, and of 

the latter in Hades, were both intended to 

symbolize the restoration of the soul after 

death to eternal life. The learned have 

generally admitted that when Vir ' , in the 

sixth book of his fEneid, depicted the descent 

of neas into hell, he intended to give a 

representation of the Eleusinian mysteries . 

The mysteries were divided into two classes, 

the lesser and the greater . The lesser mysteries 

were celebrated on the banks of the 

Ilissus, whose waters supplied the means of 

purification of the aspirants. The greater 

mysteries were celebrated in the temple at 

Eleusis. An interval of six months occurred 

between them, the former taking place in 

March and the latter in September ; which 

has led some writers to suppose that there 

was some m ystical reference to the vernal 

and autumnal equinoxes . But, considering 

the character of Demeter as the goddess of 

Agriculture, it might be imagined, although 

this is a mere conjecture, that the reference 

was to seed-time and harvest . A year, however, 

was required to elapse before the initiate 

into the lesser mysteries was granted admission 

into the greater . 

In conducting the mysteries, there were 

four officers, namely : 1 . The Hierophant, or 

explainer of the sacred things . As the 

pontifex maximus in Rome, so he was the 

chief priest of Attica ; he presided over 

the ceremonies and explained the nature of 

the mysteries to the initiated . 2 . The Dadouchus, 

or torch-bearer, who appears to 

have acted as the immediate assistant of the 

Hierophant . 3 . The Hieroceryx, or sacred 

herald, who had the general care of the temple, 

guarded it from the profanation of the 

uninitiated, and took charge of the aspirant 

during the trials of initiation . 4 . The Epibomus, 

or altar-server, who conducted the 

sacrifices . 

The ceremonies of initiation into the lesser 

mysteries were altogether purificato ry , , and 

intended to prepare the neophyte for his 

reception into the more sublime rites of the 

greater mysteries . This, an ancient poet, 

quoted by Plutarch, illustrates by sayin g that 

sleep is the lesser mysteries of the death . 

The candidate who desired to pass throu gh 

this initiation entered the modest temple, 

erected for that purpose on the borders of the 

Ilissus, and there submitted to the required 

ablutions, typical of moral purification . The 

Dadouchus then placed his feet upon the 

skins of the victims which had been immolated 

to Jupiter . Hesychius says that only 

the left foot was placed on the skins . In this 

position he was asked if he had eaten bread, 

and if he was pure ; and his replies being satisfactory, 

he passed through other symbolic 

ceremonies, the mystical signification of which 

was given to him, an oath of secrecy having 

been previously administered . The initiate 

into the lesser mysteries was called a m stes, 

a title which, being derived from a reek 

word meaning to shut the eyes, signified that 

he was yet blind as to the greater truths 

thereafter to be revealed . 

The greater mysteries lasted for nine days, 

and were celebrated partly on the Thriasian 

plain, which surrounded the temple and 

partly in the temple of Eleusis itself . bf this 

temple, one of the most magnificent and the 

largest in Greece, not a vestige is now left . 

Its antiquity was very great, having been in 

existence, according to Aristides the rhetorician, 

when the Dorians marched against 

Athens . It was burned by the retreating 

Persians under Xerxes, but immediately rebuilt, 

and finally destroyed with the city by 

Alarie, "the Scourge of God," and all that 

is now left of Eleusis and its spacious temple 

is the mere site occupied by the insignificant 

Greek village of Lepsina, an evident corruption 

of the ancient name . 

The public processions on the plain and on 

the sacred way from Athens to Eleusis were 

made in honor of Demeter and Persephone,

238 ELEUSINIAN 

ELEUSINIAN 

and made mystical allusions to events in 

the life of both, and of the infant Iacchus . 

These processions were made in the daytime, 

but the initiation was nocturnal, and was 

reserved for the nights of the sixth and 

seventh days . 

The herald opened the ceremonies of initiation 

into the greater mysteries by the proclamation, 

Zads, &dS, f0'-r€ Slpnaoi, "Retire, 

0 ye profane ." Thus were the sacred 

precincts tiled . The aspirant was clothed 

with the skin of a calf . An oath of secrecy 

was administered,, and he was then asked, 

"Have you eaten bread?" The reply to 

which was, "I have fasted ; I have drunk the 

sacred mixture ; I have taken it out of the 

chest; I have spun - I have placed it in the basket, 

and from the basket laid it in the chest ." 

By this reply, the aspirant showed that he 

had been duly prep ared by initiation into the 

lesser mysteries ; for Clement of Alexandria 

says that this formula was a shibboleth, or 

password, by which the mystEe, or initiates, 

into the lesser mysteries were known as such, 

and admitted to the epopteia or greater 

initiation . The gesture of spinning wool, in 

imitation of what Demeter did in the time of 

her affliction, seemed also to be used as a sign 

of recognition . 

The aspirant. was now clothed in the sacred 

tunic, and awaited in the vestibule the 

opening of the doors of the sanctuary . 

What subsequently took place must be 

left in great part to conjecture, although 

modern writers have availed themselves of 

all the allusions that are to be found in the 

ancients. The temple consisted of three 

parts : the megaron, or sanctuary, corresponding 

to the holy place of the Temple of Solomon 

; the anactoron, or holy of holies, and a 

subterranean apartment beneath the temple. 

Each of these was probably occupied at a different 

portion of the initiation . The representation 

of the infernal regions, and the 

punishment of the uninitiated impious was 

appropriated to the subterranean apartment, 

and was, as Sylvestre de Sacy says (Notes to 

St. Crbiz, i ., 360), an episode of the drama 

which represented the adventures of Isis, 

Osiris, and Typhon, or of Demeter, Persephone, 

and Pluto . This drama, the same 

author thinks, represented the carrying away 

of Persephone, the travels of Demeter in 

search of her lost daughter, her descent into 

hell ; the union of Pluto with Persephone, and 

was terminated by the return of Demeter into 

the upper world and the light of day . The 

representation of this drama commenced 

immediately after the profane had been sent 

from the temple. And it is easy to understand 

how the groans and wailings with which 

the tem ple at one time resounded might symbolize 

the sufferings and the death of man, 

and the subsequent rejoicin gs at the return of 

the goddess might be typical of the joy for the 

restoration of the soul to eternal life . Others 

have conjectured that the drama of the mysteries 

represented, in the deportation of Persephone 

to Hades by Pluto, the departure, as 

it were, of the sun, or the deprivation of its 

vivific power during the winter months, and 

her reappearance on earth, the restoration of 

the prolific sun in summer . Others again tell 

us that the last act of the mysteries represented 

the restoration to life of the murdered 

Zagreus, or Dionysus, by Demeter. Diodorus 

says that the members of the body of 

Zagreus lacerated by the Titans was represented 

in the ceremonies of mysteries, as well 

as in the Orphic hymns- but he prudently 

adds that he was not al]owed to reveal the 

details to the uninitiated . Whatever was the 

precise method of symbolism, it is evident 

that the true interpretation was the restoration 

from death to eternal life, and that the 

funereal part of the initiation referred to a 

loss, and the exultation afterward to a recovery 

. Hence it was folly to deny the coincidence 

that exists between this Eleusinian 

drama and that enacted in the Third Degree 

of Masonry . It is not claimed that the one 

was the uninterrupted successor of the other 

but there must have been a common ideal 

source for the origin of both . The lesson, 

the dogma, the symbol, and the method of instruction 

are the same . Having now, as 

Pindar sa y s, "descended beneath the hollow 

earth, and beheld those mysteries," the initiate 

ceased to be a mystes, or blind man, and 

was thenceforth called an epopt, a word signifying 

he who beholds . 

The Eleusinian mysteries, which, by their 

splendor, surpassed all contemporary mstitutions 

of the kind, were deemed of so much 

importance as to be taken under the special 

protection of the state, and to the council of 

five hundred were entrusted the observance 

of the ordinances which regulated them. By 

a law of Solon, the magistrates met every 

year at the close of the festival, to pass sentence 

upon any who had violated or transgressed 

any of the rules which governed the 

administration of the sacred rites . Any attempt 

to disclose the esoteric ceremonies of 

initiation was punished with death. Plutarch 

tells us, in his Life of Alcibiades, that 

that votary of pleasure was indicted for 

sacrilege, because he had imitated the mysteries, 

and shown them to his companions in 

the same dress as that worn by the Hierophanti 

and we get from Livy (xxxi . 14), the 

followin g relation : 

Two Acarnanian youths, who had not been 

initiated, accidentally entered the temple of 

Demeter during the celebration of the mysteries 

. They were soon detected by their 

absurd questions, and being carried to the 

managers of the temple, although it was evident 

that their intrusion was accidental, they 

were put to death for so horrible a crime . It 

is not, therefore, surprising that, in the account 

of them we should find such uncertain 

and even conflicting assertions of the ancient 

writers, who hesitated to discuss publicly so 

forbidden a subject . 

The qualifications for initiation were maturity 

of age and purity of life. Such was 

the theory, although in practise these qualifi-

ELEVEN 

ELUS 239 

nations were not always rigidly regarded . 

But the early doctrine was that none but the 

pure, morally, and ceremonially, could be 

admitted to initiation . At first, too, the 

right of admission was restricted to natives 

of Greece ; but even in the time of Herodotus 

this law was dispensed with, and the citizens 

of all countries were considered eligible . So 

in time these mysteries were extended beyond 

the limits of Greece, and in the days of the 

empire they were introduced into Rome, 

where they became exceedingly popular . 

The scenic representations, the participation 

in secret signs and words of recognition, the 

instruction in a peculiar dogma, and the 

establishment of a hidden bond of fraternity, 

gave attraction to these mysteries, which 

lasted until the very fall of the Roman Empire, 

and exerted a powerful influence on the 

mystical associations of the Middle Ages . 

The bond of union which connects them with 

the modern initiations of Freemasonry is evident 

in the common thought which pervades 

and identifies both ; though it is difficult, and 

perhaps impossible, to trace all the connecting 

links of the historic chain . We see the beginning 

and we see the end of one pervading 

idea, but the central point is hidden from us 

to await some future discoverer . 

Eleven. In the Prestonian lectures, 

eleven was a mystical number, and was the 

final series of steps in the winding stairs of 

the Fellow-Craft, which were said to consist 

of 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 . The eleven was referred 

to the eleven apostles after the defection of 

Judas and to the eleven sons of Jacob after 

Josepii went into Egypt . But when the lectures 

were revived Hemming, the eleven 

was struck out. In Templar Masonry, however, 

eleven is still significant as being the 

constitutional number required to open a 

Commandery ; and here it is evidently allusive 

of the eleven true disciples . 

Eligibility for Initiation . See Qualifications 

of Candidates . 

Elihoreph . One of Solomon's secretaries . 

(See Ahiah .) 

Elizabeth of England. Anderson (Constitutions, 

1738, p . 80) states that the following 

circumstance is recorded of this sovereign : 

Hearing that the Masons were in possession 

of secrets which they would not reveal, 

and being jealous of all secret assemblies, she 

sent an armed force to York, with intent to 

break up their annual Grand Lodge. This 

design, however, was happily frustrated by 

the interposition of Sir Thomas Sackville, who 

took care to initiate some of the chief officers 

whom she had sent on this duty . They joined 

in communication with the Masons, and made 

so favorable a report to the queen on their 

return that she countermanded her orders, 

and never afterward attempted to disturb 

the meetings of the Fraternity . [What 

authority, if any, Anderson had for the story 

is unknown .] 

Elizabeth of Portugal . In May, 1792, 

this queen, having conceived a suspicion of the 

Lodges in Madeira, gave an order to the gov- 

ernor to arrest all the Freemasons in the island, 

and deliver them over to the Inquisition . The 

rigorous execution of this order occasioned an 

emigration of many families, ten of whom repaired 

to New York, and were liberally assisted 

by the Masons of that city . 

Elohim . 

A name applied in Hebrew 

to any deity, but sometimes also to the 

true God . According to Lanci, it means the 

most beneficent. It is not, however, much 

used in Masonry . 

It is an expression used throughout the first 

chapter of Genesis, as applied to God in the 

exercise of His creative power, and signifies the 

"Divine Omnipotence, the Source of all 

power, the Power of all powers," which was 

in activity in the Creation . After which the 

expression used for Deity is Jehovah, which 

implies the Providence of God, and which could 

not have been active until the world had been 

created by Elohim . 

Eloquence of Masonry . Lawyers boast 

of the eloquence of the bar, and point to the 

arguments of counsel in well-known cases ; 

the clergy have the eloquence of the pulpit 

exhibited in sermons, many of which have a 

world-wide reputation ; and statesmen vaunt 

of the eloquence of Congress--some of the 

speeches, however, being indebted, it is said 

for their power and beauty, to the talent of 

the stenographic reporter rather than to the 

member who is supposed to be the author . 

Freemasonry, too, has its eloquence, which 

is sometimes, although not always, of a very 

high order . This eloquence is to be found in 

the addresses orations, and discourses which 

have usually been delivered on the great festivals 

of the Order, at consecrations of Lodges, 

dedications of halls, and the laying of foundation-stones. 

These addresses constitute, in 

fact, the principal part of the early literature 

of Freemasonry . (See Addresses, Masonic .) 

Elu . The Fourth Degree of the French 

Rite. (See Elm .) 

Elul. ~~ti . The sixth month of the ecclesiastical 

and the twelfth of the civil year of 

the Jews . The twelfth also, therefore, of the 

Masonic calendar used in the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite . It begins on the new 

moon of August or September, and consists 

of twenty-nine days . 

Elus. The French word elu means elected ; 

and the degrees, whose object is to detail the 

detection and punishment of the actors in the 

crime traditionally related in the Third Degree, 

are called Elus, or the degrees of the Elected, 

because they referred to those of the Craft 

who were chosen or elected to make the discovery, 

and to inflict the punishment . They 

form a particular system of Masonry, and are 

to be found in every Rite, if not in all in name, 

at least in principle. In the York and American 

Rites, the Elu is incorporated in the Master's 

Degree ; in the French Rite it constitutes 

an independent degree ; and in the Scottish 

Rite it consists of three degrees, the Ninth, 

Tenth, and Eleventh . Ragon counts the five 

preceding degrees among the Elus, but they 

more properly belong to the Order of Masters .

240 EMANATION 

EMERGENCY 

The symbolism of these Flu degrees has been 

greatly mistaken and perverted by anti- 

Masonic writers, who have thus attributed to 

Masonry a spirit of vengeance which is not its 

characteristic. They must be looked upon as 

conveying only a symbolic meaning. Those 

higher degrees, in which the object of the election 

is changed and connected with Templarism, 

are more properly called Kadoshes. Thory 

says that all the Elus are derived from the degree 

of Kadosh, which preceded them . Thereverse, 

we think, is the truth . The Elu system 

sprang naturally from the Master's Degree, 

and was only applied to Templarism when De 

Molay was substituted for Hiram the Builder . 

Emanation . Literally, "a flowing forth ." 

The doctrine of emanations was a theory predominant 

in many of the Oriental religions, 

such ,especially, as Brahmanism and Paraeeism, 

and subsequently adopted by the Kabbalists 

and the Gnostics, and taught by Philo 

and Plato . It assumed that all things emanated 

flowed forth (which is the literal meaning 

of the word), or were developed and descended 

by degrees from the Supreme Being . 

Thus, in the ancient religion of India, the 

anima mundi, or soul of the word, the mysterious 

source of all life, was identified with 

Brahma, the Supreme God . The doctrine of 

Gnosticism was that all beings emanated from 

the Deity ; that there was a progressive degeneration 

of these beings from the highest to 

the lowest emanation, and a final redemption 

and return of all to the purity of the Creator . 

Philo taught that the Supreme Being was the 

Primitive Light or the Archetype of Light, 

whose rays illuminate, as from a common 

source, all souls. The theory of emanations is 

interesting to the Mason, because of the reference 

in many of the higher degrees to the 

doctrines of Philo, the Gnostics, and the Kabbalists. 

Emanuel. A sacred word in some of the 

high degrees, being one of the names applied 

in Scripture to the Lord Jesus Christ . It is a 

Greek form from the Hebrew, Immanuel, 

~~t1]T]y, and signifies "God is with us ." 

Embassy. The embassy of Zerubbabel 

and four other Jewish chiefs to the court of 

Darius, to obtain the protection of that monarch 

from the encroachments of the Samaritans, 

who interrupted the labors in the reconstruction 

of the Temple, constitutes the 

legend of the Sixteenth Degree of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite, and also of the 

Red Cross Degree of the American Rite, which 

is surely borrowed from the former . The history 

of this embassy is found in the eleventh 

book of the Antiquities of Josephus, whence 

the Masonic ritualists have undoubtedly taken 

it. The only authority of Josephus is the apocryphal 

record of Esdras, and the authenticity 

of the whole transaction is doubted or denied 

by modem historians . 

Emblem. The emblem is an occult representation 

of something unknown or concealed 

by a sign or thing that is known . Thus, 

a square is in Freemasonry an emblem of 

morality ; a plumb line, of rectitude of con- 

duct ; and a level, of equality of human con . 

ditions . Emblem is very generally used as 

synonymous with symbol, although the two 

words do not express exactly the same meaning 

. An emblem is properly a representation 

of an idea by a visible object, as in the examples 

quoted above; but a symbol is more extensive 

in its application, includes every representation 

of an idea by an image whether 

that image is presented immediately to the 

senses as a visible and tangible substance, or 

only brought before the mind by words . 

Hence an action or event as described, a myth 

or 1egend, may be a symbol ; and hence, too, 

it follows that while all emblems are sym bols, 

all symbols are not emblems . (See Symbol .) 

Emerald. In Hebrew, JDn, caphak . It was 

the first stone in the first row of the high 

priest's breastplate, and was referred to Levi . 

Adam Clarke says it is the same stone as the 

smaragdus, and is of a bright green color . 

Josephus, the Septuagint, and the Jerusalem 

Targum understood by the Hebrew word the 

carbuncle, which is red . The modern emerald, 

as everybody knows, is green . 

Emergency. The general law of Masonry 

requires a month to elapse between the time 

of receiving a petition for initiation and that 

of balloting for the candidate, and also that 

there shall be an interval of one month between 

the reception of each of the degrees of 

Craft Masonry . Cases sometimes occur when 

a Lodge desires this probationary period to be 

dispensed with, so that the candidate's petition 

may be received and balloted for at the 

same communication, or so that the degrees 

may be conferred at much shorter intervals . 

As some reason must be assigned for the application 

to the Grand Master for the dispensation, 

such reason is generally stated to be that 

the candidate is about to go on a long journey 

or some other equally valid. Cases of this kind 

are called, in the technical language of Mar 

It is evident that 

the emergency is made for the sake of the candidate, 

and not for that of the Lodge or of 

Masonry. The too frequent occurrence of 

applications for dispensations in cases of 

emergency have been a fruitful source of evil, 

as thereby unworthy persons, escaping the 

ordeal of an investigation into character have 

been introduced into the Order ; and even 

where the candidates have been worthy, the 

rapid passing through the degrees prevents a 

due impression from being made on the mind, 

and the candidate fails to justly appreciate the 

beauties and merits of the Masonic system . 

Hence, these cases of emergency have been 

very unpopular with the most distinguished 

members of the Fraternity . In the olden time 

the Master and Wardens of the Lodge were 

vested with the prerogative of deciding what 

was a case of emergency ; but modem law 

and usage (in America, at least) make the 

Grand Master the sole judge of what constitutes 

a case of emergency. [Under the English 

Constitution the emergency must be real 

in the opinion of the Master of the Lodge concerned. 

(Rule 185.)] 

sonry, cases of emergency .

EMERGENT 

ENCAMPMENT 241 

Emergent Lodge. A Lodge held at an 

emergent meeting . 

Emergent Meeting . The meeting of a 

Lodge called to elect a candidate, and confer 

the degrees in a case of emergency, or for any 

other sudden and unexpected cause, has been 

called an emergent meeting. The term is not 

very common, but it has been used by W . S . 

Mitchell and a few other writers . 

Emeritus. Latin ; plural, emeriti. The 

Romans applied this word-which comes 

from the verb emerere, to gain by service-to a 

soldier who had served out his time • hence 

in the Supreme Councils of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite of this country, an 

active member, who resigns his seat by reason 

of age, infirmity, or for other cause deemed 

good by the Council, may be elected an Emeritus 

member, and will possess the privilege of 

proposing measures and being heard in debate, 

but not of voting. 

Emeth . Hebrew, =M . One of the words 

in the high degrees . It signifies integrity, 

fidelity, firmness, and constancy in keeping a 

promise, and especially TRUTH, as opposed to 

falsehood. In the Scottish Rite, the Sublime 

Knights Elect of Twelve of the Eleventh Degree 

are called "Princes Emeth," which mean 

simply men of exalted character who are devoted 

to truth. 

Eminent. The title given to the Commander 

or presiding officer of a Commandery 

of Knights Templar, and to all officers below 

the Grand Commander in a Grand Commander 

. The Grand Commander is styled 

I'Mght Eminent," and the Grand Master of 

the brand Encampment of the United States, 

"Most Eminent." The word is from the Latin 

eminens, "standing above," and literally signifies 

"exalted in rank ." Hence, it is a title 

given to the cardinals in the Roman Church . 

Emounah. (Fidelity, Truth .) The name of 

the Fourth Step of the mystic ladder of the 

Kadosh of the A . A. Scottish Rite . 

Emperor of Lebanon. (Empereur du 

Liban .) This degree, says Thory (Act. Lat., i ., 

311), which was a part of the collection of M . 

Le Rouge, was composed in the isle of Bourbon, 

in 1778, by the Marquis de Beurnonville, 

who was then National Grand Master of all 

the Lodges of India. 

Emperors of the East and West. In 

1758 there was established in Paris a Chapter 

called the "Council of Emperors of the East 

and West." The members assumed the titles 

of "Sovereign Prince Masonsl " "Substitutes 

General of the Royal Art, Grand Superintendents 

and Officers of the Grand and Sovereign 

Lodge of St . John of Jerusalem." Their 

ritual, which was based on the Templar system, 

consisted of twenty-five degrees, as follows 

: 1 to 19, the same as the Scottish Rite • 

20, Grand Patriarch Noachite ; 21, Key of 

Masonry ; 22, Prince of Lebanon ; 23, Knight 

of the Sun ; 24, Kadosh ; 25, Prince of the 

Royal Secret . It granted warrants for Lodges 

of the high degrees, appointed Grand Inspectors 

and Deputies, and established several 

subordinate bodies in the interior of France, 

among which was a "Council of Princes of the 

Royal Secret," at Bordeaux . In 1763, one 

Pincemaille, the Master of the Lodge La Candeur 

at Metz, began to publish an exposition 

of these degrees in the serial numbers of a 

work entitled Conversations Allegoriques sur 

la Franche-Magonnerie . In 1764, the Grand 

Lodge of France offered him 300 livres to suppress 

the book . Pincemaille accepted the 

bribe but continued the publication, which 

lasted until 1766 . 

In 1758, the year of their establishment in 

France, the degrees of this Rite of Heredom, or 

of Perfection, as it was called, were carried by 

the Marquis de Bernez to Berlin, and adopted 

by the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes . 

Between the years 1760 and 1765, there was 

much dissension in the Rite . A new Council, 

called the Knights of the East, was established 

at Paris, in 1760, as the rival of the Emperors 

of the East and West . The controversies of 

these two bodies were carried into the Grand 

Lodge, which, in 1766, was compelled, for the 

sake of peace, to issue a decree in opposition 

to the high degrees, excluding the malcontents, 

and forbidding the symbolical Lodges to 

recognize the authority of these Chapters . 

But the excluded Masons continued to work 

clandestinely and to grant warrants. From 

that time until its dissolution, the history of 

the Council of the Emperors of the East and 

West is but a history of continuous disputes 

with the Grand Lodge of France . At length, 

in 1781, it was completely absorbed in the 

Grand Orient, and has no longer an existence. 

The assertion of Thory (Act . Lat .), and of 

Ragon (Orthod. Mac .), that the Council of the 

Emperors of the East and West was the origin 

of the Ancient and Accepted Rite, although it 

has been denied, does not seem destitute of 

truth . It is very certain, if the documentary 

evidence is authentic, that the Constitutions 

of 1672 were framed by this Council ; and it is 

equally certain that under these Constitutions 

a patent was granted to Stephen Morin, 

through whom the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite was established in America . 

Emunah . 111tk. Sometimes spelled 

Amunah, but not in accordance with the 

Masoretic points . A significant word in the 

high degrees signifying fidelity, especially in 

fulfilling one's promises . 

Encampment. All regular assemblies of 

Knights Templar were formerly called Encampments. 

They are now styled Commanderies 

in America, and Grand Encampments 

of the States are called Grand Commanderies. 

In England they are now called 

"Preceptories ." (See Commandery and Commandery, 

Grand.) 

Encampment, General Grand. The 

title, before the adoption of the Constitution 

of 1856, of the Grand Encampment of the 

United States. 

Encampment, Grand. The Grand Encam 

pwent of the United States was instituted 

on the 22d of June, 1816, in the city of New 

York. It consists of a Grand Master, Deputy 

Grand Master, and other Grand Officers who

242 ENCYCLICAL 

ENGLAND 

are similar to those of a Grand Commandery, 

with Past Grand Officers and the representatives 

of the various Grand Commanderies . 

and of the subordinate Commanderies deriving 

their warrants immediately from it . It 

exercises jurisdiction over all the Templars of 

the United States, and meets triennially . The 

term Encampment is borrowed from military 

usage, and is very properly applied to the temporary 

congregation at stated periods of the 

army of Templars, who may be said to be, for 

the time being, in camp . 

Encyclical. Circular ; sent to many places 

or persons . Encyclical letters, containing information, 

advice, or admonition, are sometimes 

issued by Grand Lodges or Grand 

Masters to the Lodges and Masons of a 

jurisdiction . The word is not in very common 

use ; but in 1848 the Grand Lodge of 

South Carolina issued "an encyclical letter 

of advice, of admonition, and of direction," 

to the subordinate Lodges under her jurisdiction; 

and a similar letter was issued in 

1865 by the Grand Master of Iowa . 

En famWe . French, meaning as a family. 

In French Lodges, during the reading of the 

minutes, and sometimes when the Lodge is 

engaged in the discussion of delicate matters 

affecting only itself the Lodge is said to meet 

"en famille,' at which time visitors are not 

admitted . 

England. The following is a brief resume 

of the history of Freemasonry in England as 

it has hitherto been written, and is now generally 

received by the Fraternity . It is but 

right, however to say, that recent researches 

have thrown doubts on the authenticity of 

many of the statements-that the legend of 

Prince Edwin has been doubted ; the establishment 

of a Grand Lodge at York in the beginning 

of the eighteenth century denied ; and 

the existence of anything but Operative 

Masonry before 1717 controverted. These 

questions are still in dispute ; but the labors 

of Masonic antiquaries, through which many 

old records and ancient constitutions are being 

continually exhumed from the British Museum 

and from Lodge libraries, will eventually 

enable us to settle upon the truth . 

According to Anderson and Preston, the 

first charter granted in England to the Masons, 

as a body, was bestowed by King Athelstan, 

in 926, upon the application of his 

brother, Prince Edwin . "According)y," says 

Anderson, quoting from the "Old Constitutions" 

(Constitutions, 1738 p . 64), "Prince 

Edwin summon'd all the 1 tree and Accepted 

Masons in the Realm to meet him in a Congregation 

at York, wlo came and form'd the 

Grand Lodge under him as their Grand Master, 

A .D . 926. 

"They brought with them many old Writings 

and Records of the Craft, some in Greek, 

some in Latin some in French, and other Languages 

; and from the Contents thereof, they 

fram'd the Constitutions of the English 

Lodges, and made a Law for Themselves, to 

preserve and observe the same in all Time 

coming, &c, &c, &o." 

From this assembly at York, the rise of 

Masonry in England is generally dated ; from 

the statutes there enacted are derived the 

English Masonic Constitutions ; and from the 

place of meeting, the ritual of the English 

Lodges is designated as the "Ancient York 

Rite." 

E 

For a long time the York Assembly exercised 

the Masonic jurisdiction over all England 

; but in 1567 the Masons of the southern 

part of the island elected Sir Thomas Gresham, 

the celebrated merchant, their Grand Master, 

according to Anderson . (Constitutions, 1738, 

81 .) He was succeeded by the Earl of Effingham,am, 

the Earl of Huntingdon, and by the illustrious 

architect, Inigo Jones . 

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, 

Masonry in the south of England had fallen 

into decay . The disturbances of the revolution, 

which placed William III . on the throne, 

and the subsequent warmth of political feelings 

which agitated the two parties of the 

state, had given this peaceful society a wound 

fatal to its success . But in 1716 "the few 

Lodges at London finding themselves neglected 

by Sir Christopher Wren, thought fit 

to cement under a Grand Master as the Center 

of Union and Harmony," and so four of the 

London Lodges "met at the Apple-Tree Tavern 

; and having put into the chair the oldest 

Master Mason, (now the Master of a Lodge,) 

they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge, 

pro tempore, in due form, and forthwith revived 

the quarterly communication of the 

officers of Lodges, (called the Grand Lodge,) 

resolved to hold the annual assembly and 

feast, and then to choose a Grand Master from 

among themselves, till they should have the 

honor of a noble brother at their head ." (Anderson, 

Constitutions, 1738, p. 109.) 

Accordingly, on St . John the Baptist's Day, 

1717, the annual assembly and feast were 

held, and Mr. Anthony Sayer duly proposed 

and elected Grand Master . The Grand Lodge 

adopted, among its regulations, the following : 

"That the privilege of assembling as Masons, 

which bad hitherto been unlimited, should be 

vested in certain Lodges or assemblies of 

Masons convened in certain places ; and that 

every Lodge to be hereafter convened, except 

the four old Lodges at this time existing, 

should be legally authorized to act by a warrant 

from the Grand Master for the time 

being, granted to certain individuals by petition 

with the consent and approbation of 

the C rand Lodge in communication ; and 

that, without such warrant no Lodge should 

be hereafter deemed regular or constitutional . 

In compliment, however, to the four old 

Lodges, the privileges which they had always 

possessed under the old organization were 

particularly reserved to them ; and it was 

enacted that "no law, rule, or regulation, to 

be hereafter made or passed in Grand Lodge, 

should deprive them of such privilege, or encroach 

on any landmark which was at that 

time established as the standard of Masonic 

government." (Preston, Illustrations, ed . 

1792, pp. 248,249.)

ENGLAND 

ENGLAND 2 43 

The Grand Lodges of York and of London 

kept up a friendly intercourse, and mutual 

interchange of recognition, until the latter 

body, in 1725, granted a warrant of constitution 

to some Masons who had seceded from 

the former . This unmasonic act was severely 

reprobated by the York Grand Lodge, and 

produced the first interruption to the harmony 

that had long subsisted between them . It was, 

however, followed some years after by another 

unjustifiable act of interference . In 1735, the 

Earl of Crawford, Grand Master of England, 

constituted two Lodges within the jurisdiction 

of the Grand Lodge of York, and granted, 

without its consent, deputations for Lancashire, 

Durham, and Northumberland . 

"This circumstance, " says Preston (Illust ., 

ed. 1792, p. 279), "the Grand Lodge at York 

highly resented, and ever afterward viewed the 

proceedings of the brethren in the south with a 

jealous eye . All friendly intercourse ceased, 

and the York Masons, from that moment, 

considered their interests distinct from the 

Masons under the Grand Lodge in London ." 

Three years after, in 1738, several brethren 

dissatisfied with the conduct of the Grand 

Lodge of England, seceded from it, and held 

unauthorized meetings for the purpose of initiation. 

Taking advantage of the breach between 

the Grand Lodges of York and London, 

they assumed the character of York Masons . 

On the Grand Lodge's determination to put 

strictly in execution the laws against such seceders, 

they still further separated from its 

jurisdiction, and assumed the appellation of 

"Ancient York Masons." They announced 

that the ancient landmarks were alone preserved 

by them ; and, declaring that the regular 

Lodges had adopted new plans, and sanctioned 

innovations, they branded them with 

the name of "Modern Masons ." In 1739, they 

established a new Grand Lodge in London, 

under the name of the "Grand Lodge of Ancient 

York Masons," and, persevering in the 

measures they had adopted, held communications 

and appointed annual feasts . They 

were soon afterward recognized by the Masons 

of Scotland and Ireland, and were encouraged 

and fostered by many of the nobility. The 

two Grand Lges continued to exist, and to 

act in opposition to each other, extending their 

schisms into other countries, especially into 

America, until the year 1813, when, under the 

Grand Mastership of the Duke of Sussex, 

they were united under the title of the United 

Grand Lodge of England . 

Such is the history of Freemasonry in England 

as uninterruptedly believed by all Masons 

and Masonic writers for nearly a century 

and a half. Recent researches have thrown 

great doubts on its entire accuracy . Until the 

year 1717, the details are either traditional, or 

supported only by manuscripts whose authenticity 

has not yet been satisfactorily proved . 

Much of the history is uncertain- some of it, 

especially as referring to York, is deemed apocryphal 

by Hughan and other laborious writers, 

and Bro. Henry Sadler in his Masonic Facts 

and Fictions has proved that the "Ancients" 

were not really a schismatic body of seceders 

from the Premier Grand Lodge of England, 

but were Irish Masons settled in London, who 

in 1751, established a body which they called 

the " Grand Lodge of England according to the 

Old Institutions," maintaining that they alone 

preserved the ancient tenets and practises of 

Masonry . (See Ancient Masons .) [E . L . H .] 

England, Grand Lodges In . During one 

period of the eighteenth century there existed 

four Grand Lodges in England : 1 . "The G. 

Lodge of England " located at London ; 2 . 

"The G . Lodge ot 1 all England," located at 

York ; 3 . "The G. Lodge of England according 

to the Old Institutions" ; and, 4 . "The 

G. Lodge of England south of the river Trent," 

which last two had their G . East at London . 

The first Grand Lodge was formed in 1717 . 

The second G . Lodge bears date 1725, and 

emanated from that immemorial Masonic 

Lodge that gave such reverence to the city of 

York . The third was established in 1751 by 

some Irish Masons settled in London. (See 

Ancient Masons.) And the fourth, whose 

existence lasted from 1779 to 1789, was instituted 

by the York Grand Lodge in compliance 

with the request of members of the 

Lodge of Antiquity, of London ; but its existence 

was ephemeral, in consequence of the 

removal of the disturbing cause with the regular 

G. Lodge . Recently evidence has been 

found pointing to the existence in London 

from 1770 to 1775 of a fifth Grand Lodge, 

formed by Scotch Masons, with some four or 

five Lodges under its control . (Ars Quatuor 

Coronatorum, xviii., pp . 69-90 .) [E . L. H .] 

All subordinate Lodges existing at present, 

which had their being prior to the union, in 

December, 1813, were subjects of either the 

first or the third of the above designated four 

G. Lodges, and known respectively as the 

"Moderns" or the "Ancients," these titles, 

however, having no recognized force as to the 

relative antiquity of either . 

England, The First Record of Grand 

Lodge of . Bro . R . F . Gould (Hist . of F. M ., 

ii., 373) furnishes the valuable information 

that the minutes of Grand Lodge commence 

24th June, 1723, and those bearing such 

date are signed by "John Theophilus Desaguliers, 

Deputy Grand Master ." They are entered 

in a different handwriting, under date of 

25th November, 1723, 19th February, 172k, 

28th "Aprill 1724," and are not signed at foot . 

On 24th June, 1724, the Earl of Dalkeith presided 

in Grand Lodge, and the following signatures 

are appended to the recorded minutes : 

"Dalkeith, G. M ., 1724 ." 

"J. T. Desaguliers, G . M ." 

"Fra Sorrell, Senr ., G . W." 

"John Senex, Junr ." 

The minutes of 21st November, 1724, 17th 

March, 20th May, 24th June, and 27th 

November, 1725, are unsigned . But to those 

of 27th December, 1725, are appended the 

signatures of 

"Richmond & Lenox, G . M ., 1725," 

"M . ffolkes, D . G . M.," 

and two G, Wardens.

244 ENGLET 

ENOCH 

Signatures are again wanting to the 

ceedings of 28th February and 12th Decem r, 

1726, but reappear under date of 27th "ffebry 

1726" [27], viz . : 

"Paisley, G. Mr ., 1726 " 

and the next three succeeding officers. 

The minutes of the following 10th May 

(1727) were signed by "Inchiquin, G. M ., 

1727," and the three officers next in rank . 

The earliest minutes were not signed on confirmation 

at the next meeting but were verified 

by thefour Grand Officers, or such of them 

as took part in the proceedings recorded . In 

consequence of the reelection of Dr . Desaguliers 

as Dep . G. M . the minutes say that "the 

late Grand Master went away from the Hall 

without any ceremony." [E . L. H .] 

Englet. A corruption of Euclid, found in 

the Old Constitutions known as the Matthew 

Cooke MS., "wherefore ye forsayde maister 

Englet ordeynet thei were passing of conying 

schold be passing honoured ." (LI. 674-7 .) 

Perhaps the copyist mistook a badly made old 

English u for an n, and the original had Euglet, 

which would be a nearer approximation to 

Euclid . 

Engrave. In French Lodges, buriner, to 

engrave, is used instead of ecrire, to write . 

The "engraved tablets" are the "written 

records." 

Enlightened . This word, equivalent to 

the Latin illuminatus, is frequently used to 

designate a Freemason as one who has been 

rescued from darkness, and received intellectual 

light. Webster's definition shows its 

appositeness : "Illuminated ; instructed; informed, 

furnished with clear views." Many 

old Latin diplomas commence with the heading, 

"Omnibus illummatis," i . e., "to all the 

enlightened." 

Enlightenment, Shock of. See Shock of 

Enlightenment . 

Enoch . Though the Scriptures furnish 

but a meager account of Enoch, the traditions 

of Freemasonry closely connect him, by numerous 

circumstances, with the early history of 

the Institution . All, indeed, that we learn 

from the Book of Genesis on the subject of his 

life is, that he was the seventh of the patriarchs 

; the son of Jared, and the great-grandfather 

of Noah ; that he was born in the year 

of the world 622 ; that his life was one of eminent 

virtue, so much so, that he is described 

as "walking with God" ; and that in the year 

987 his earthly pilgrimage was terminated 

(as the commentators generally suppose), not 

by death, but by a bodily translation to 

heaven . 

In the very commencement of our inquiries, 

we shall find circumstances in the life of this 

great patriarch that shadow forth, as it were, 

something of that mysticism with which the 

traditions of Masonry have connected him . 

His name, in the Hebrew language, I1, 

ienoch, signifies to initiate and to instruct, and 

seems intended to express the fact that he was, 

as Oliver remarks, the first to give a decisive 

character to the rite of initiation and to add 

to the practise of Divine worship the study and 

application of human science . In confirmation 

of this view, a writer in the Freemasons' Quarterly 

Review says, on this subject, that "it 

seems probable -that Enoch introduced the 

speculative principles into the Masonic creed 

and that he originated its exclusive character,' ; 

which theory must be taken, if it is accepted 

at all, with very considerable modifications . 

The years of his life may also be supposed to 

contain a mystic meaning, for they amounted 

to three hundred and sixty-five, being exactly 

equal to a solar revolution . In all the ancient 

rites this number has occupied a prominent 

place, because it was the representative of the 

annual course of that luminary which, as the 

great fructifier of the earth, was the peculiar 

object of divine worship . 

Of the early history of Enoch, we know 

nothing. It is, however probable that, like 

the other descendants of the pious Seth, he 

passed his pastoral life in the neighborhood 

of Mount Moriah . From the other patriarchs 

he differed only in this, that, enlightened by 

the Divine knowledge which had been imparted 

to him, he instructed his contemporaries 

in the practise of those rites, and in the 

study of those sciences, with which he had 

himself become acquainted . 

The Oriental writers abound in traditionary 

evidence of the learning of the venerable patriarch 

. One tradition states that he received 

from God the gift of wisdom and knowledge, 

and that God sent him thirty volumes from 

heaven, filled with all the secrets of the most 

mysterious sciences. The Babylonians supposed 

him to have been intimately acquainted 

with the nature of the stars ; and they attribute 

to him the invention of astrology. The 

Rabbis maintain that he was taught by God 

and Adam how to sacrifice, and how to worship 

the Deity aright . The Kabbalistic book of 

Raziel says that he received the Divine mysteries 

from Adam, through the direct line of 

the preceding patriarchs. 

The Greek Christians supposed him to have 

been identical with the first Egyptian Hermes, 

who dwelt at Sais. They say he was the first 

to give instruction on the celestial bodies ; 

that he foretold the deluge that was to overwhelm 

his descendants ; and that he built the 

Pyramids, engraving thereon figures of artificial 

instruments and the elements of the sciences, 

fearing lest the memory of man should 

perish in that general destruction . Eupolemus, 

a Grecian writer, makes him the same as Atlas, 

and attributes to him, as the Pagans did to 

that deity, the invention of astronomy . 

Mr . Wait, in his Oriental Antiquities, quotes 

a pMsage from Bar Hebraeus, a Jewish writer, 

which asserts that Enoch was the first who invented 

books and writing; that he taught men 

the art of building cities ; that he discovered 

the knowledge of the Zodiac and the course of 

the planets- and that he inculcated the worship 

of God by fasting, prayer, alms, votive 

offerings, and tithes . Bar Hebraeue adds, that 

he also appointed festivals for sacrifices to the 

sun at the periods when that luminary entered 

each of the zodiacal signs; but this

ENOCH 

ENOCH 245 

statement, which would make him the author 

of idolatry, is entirely inconsistent with all 

that we know of his character, from both history 

and tradition, and arose, as Oliver supposes, 

most probably from a blending of the 

characters of Enos and Enoch . 

In the study of the sciences, in teaching 

them to his children and his contemporaries, 

and in instituting the rites of initiation, Enoch 

is supposed to have passed the years of his 

peaceful, his pious, and his useful life, until 

the crimes of mankind had increased to such 

a height that, in the expressive words of Holy 

Writ, "every imagination of the thoughts of 

man's heart was only evil continually ." It 

was then, according to a Masonic tradition, 

that Enoch, disgusted with the wickedness 

that surrounded him, and appalled at the 

thought of its inevitable consequences, fled to 

the solitude and secrecy of Mount Moriah, 

and devoted himself to prayer and pious contemplation 

. It was on that spot-then first 

consecrated by this patriarchal hermitage, 

and afterward to be made still more holy by 

the sacrifices of Abraham, of David, and of 

Solomon-that we are informed that the Shek- 

:nah, or sacred presence, appeared to him, and 

gave him those instructions which were to 

preserve the wisdom of the antediluvians to 

their posterity when the world, with the exception 

of but one family, should have been 

destroyed by the forthcoming flood . The circumstances 

which occurred at that time are 

recorded in a tradition which forms what has 

been called the great Masonic "Legend of 

Enoch," and which runs to this effect : 

Enoch, being inspired by the Most High, 

and in commemoration of a wonderful vision, 

built a temple under ground, and dedicated it 

to God . His son, Methuselah, constructed the 

building ; although he was not acquainted 

with his father's motives for the erection . 

This temple consisted of nine brick vaults, 

situated perpendicularly beneath each other, 

and communicating by apertures left in the 

arch of each vault . 

Enoch then caused a triangular plate of gold 

to be made, each side of which was a cubit 

long ; he enriched it with the most precious 

stones, and encrusted the plate upon a stone 

of agate of the same form . On the plate he 

engraved, in ineffable characters, the true 

name of Deity, and, placing it on a cubical 

pedestal of white marble, he deposited the 

whole within the deepest arch . 

When this subterranean building was completed, 

he made a door of stone, and attaching 

to it a ring of iron, by which it might 

be occasionally raised, he placed it over the 

opening of the uppermost arch, and so covered 

it over that the aperture could not be discovered 

. Enoch himself was permitted to enter 

it but once a year ; and on the death of 

Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech, and the destruction 

of the world by the deluge, all knowledge 

of this temple, and of the sacred treasure 

which it contained, was lost until, in after 

times, it was accidentally discovered by another 

worthy of Freemasonry, who, like Enoch, 

was engaged in the erection of a temple on the 

same spot . 

The legend goes on to inform us that after 

Enoch had completed the subterranean temple, 

fearing that the principles of those arts 

and sciences which he had cultivated with so 

much assiduity would be lost in that general 

destruction of which he had received a prophetic 

vision, he erected two pillars--the one 

of marble, to withstand the influence of fire, 

and the other of brass, to resist the action of 

water . On the pillar of brass he engraved the 

history of the creation, the principles of the 

arts and sciences, and the doctrines of Speculative 

Freemasonry as they were practised in 

his times - and on the one of marble he inscribed 

characters in hieroglyphics, importing 

that near the spot where they stood a 

precious treasure was deposited in a subterranean 

vault . 

Josephus gives an account of these pillars 

in the first book of his Antiquities . He ascribes 

them to the children of Seth, which is by no 

means a contradiction of the Masonic tradition, 

since Enoch was one of these children . 

"That their inventions," says the historian, 

"might not be lost before they were sufficiently 

known, upon Adam's prediction that 

the world was to be destroyed at one time by 

the force of fire and at another time by the 

violence and quantity of water, they made two 

pillars-the one of brick, the other of stone ; 

they inscribed their discoveries on them both, 

that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed 

by the flood, the pillar of stone might 

remain and exhibit those discoveries to mankind, 

and also inform them that there was another 

pillar of brick erected by them . Now 

this remains in the land of Siriad to this day ." 

Enoch, having completed these labors, 

called his descendants around him on Mount 

Moriah, and having warned them in the most 

solemn manner of the consequences of their 

wickedness, exhorted them to forsake their 

idolatries and return once more to the worship 

of the true God. Masonic tradition informs us 

that he then delivered up the government of 

the Craft to his grandson, Lamech, and disappeared 

from earth . 

Enoch, Brother. (Frere Enoch .) Evidently 

the nom de plume of a French writer 

and the inventor of a Masonic rite . He published 

at Liege, in 1773, two works : 1 . Le 

Vrai Franc-Magon, in 276 pages ; 2. Lettres 

Magonniques pour servir de Supplement au 

Vrai Franc-Magon . The design of the former 

of these works was to give an account of the 

origin and object of Freemasonry, a description 

of all the degrees, and an answer to the 

objections urged against the Institution . The 

historical theories of Frr re Enoch were exceedingly 

fanciful and wholly untenable . 

Thus, he asserts that in the year 814, Louis the 

Fair of France, being flattered by the fidelity 

and devotion of the Operative Masons, organized 

them into a society of four degrees, 

granting the Masters the privilege of wearing 

swords in the Lodge-a custom still continued 

in French Lodges-and, having been received

.246 ENOCH 

EONS 

into the Order himself, accepted the Grand 

Mastership on the festival of St . John the 

Evangelist in the year 814 . Other equally extravagant 

opinions make his book rather a 

source of amusement than of instruction . His 

definition of Freemasonry is however, good . 

He says that it is "a holy and religious society 

of men who are friends, which has for its foundation 

discretion - for its object, the service of 

God fidelity to the sovereign, and love of our 

neighbor ; and for its doctrine, the erection of 

an allegorical building dedicated to the virtues, 

which it teaches with certain signs of 

recognition ." 

Enoch, Legend of. This legend is detailed 

in a preceding article. It never formed any 

part of the old system of Masonry, and was 

first introduced from Talmudic and Rabbinical 

sources into the high degrees, where, however, 

it is really to be viewed rather as symbolical 

than as historical . Enoch himself is but 

the symbol of initiation, and his legend is intended 

symbolically to express the doctrine 

that the true Word or Divine truth was preserved 

in the ancient initiations . 

Enoch, Rite of. A Rite attempted to be 

established at liege, in France, about the year 

1773 . It consisted of four degrees, viz ., 1 . 

Manouvre, or Apprentice, whose object was 

friendship and benevolence . 2. Ouvrier, or 

Fellow-Craft, whose object was fidelity to the 

Sovereign. 3 . Maitre, or Master, whose object 

was submission to the Supreme Being . 4. 

Architects, whose object was the perfection of 

all the virtues . The Rite never made much 

progress . 

Enochian Alphabet . One of the most 

important alphabets, or ciphers, known to 

historic Masons is the Enochian, in consequence 

of the revelations made in that char- 

A G N i: 71 11 n _17S 

acter . Tradition says the Christian princes 

were accompanied in their journey to Palestine 

by Freemasons, who fought by their side 

and who, when at the Holy City, discov 

important MSS., on which some of the historic 

degrees were founded ; that some of 

these MSS . were in Syriac and others in 

Enochian characters ; and that on their return, 

when at Venice it was ascertained that 

the characters were identical with those in the 

Syriac column, spoken of by Josephus, and 

with the oldest copies in which the Book of 

Enoch was written and are of great antiquity . 

The brethren in tie A. A. Scottish Rite are 

largely instructed as to matters pertaining 

hereto in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth 

degrees . 

We present an exact copy of the alphabet, 

as may be found by comparison with that in 

the Bodleian Library . 

The name He No C H, in Hebrew, signifies 

"taught," or, more properly, "dedicated ." In 

the Koran Enoch is called "Edria," from dar- 

asa, to study, which word, more liberally 

translated means, "to read or to study with 

attention . l' (See Enoch.) 

En Soph. VU ,1It . In the Kabbalistic 

doctrines, the Divine Word, or Supreme 

Creator, is called the En Soph or rather the 

Or En Soph, the Infinite Intellectual Light . 

The theory is that all things emanated from 

this Primeval Light . (See Kabbala .) 

Entered. When a candidate receives the 

First Degree of Masonry he is said to be entered . 

It is used in the sense of admitted, or introduced 

; a common as well as a Masonic employment 

of the word as when we say, "the 

youth entered college" ; or, "the soldier entered 

the service ." 

Entered Apprentice. See Apprentice, Entered. 

Entiek, John. An English clergyman, 

born about 1703, who took much interest in 

Freemasonry about the middle of the eighteenth 

century . He revised the third edition 

of Anderson's Constitutions, by order of the 

Grand Lodge, which was published in 1756 . 

The next issue of the Book of Constitutions 

(1767) also has his name on the title-page as 

successor to Dr. Anderson, and is often attributed 

to him, but it is described as "A new 

edition . . . by a Committee appointed by the 

Grand Lodge," and it does not appear that he 

had anything to do with its preparation . 

(Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, xxi ., p . 80.) Entick 

was also the author of many Masonic sermons, 

a few of which were published. Oliver 

speaks of him as a man of grave and sober 

habits, a good Master of his Lodge a fair disciplinarian 

and popular with the raft . But 

Entick did not confine his literary labors to 

Masonry . He was the author of a History 

of the War which ended in 1763, in 5 vols ., 8vo ; 

and a History of London, 

in 4 vols ., 8vo . As an 

orthoepist he had considerable 

reputation 

and published a Latin 

and English Dictionary, 

and an English Spelling Dictionary . He died 

in 1773. [E. L . H .] 

Entombment. An impressive ceremony in 

thedegreeof Perfect Master of theScottish Rite . 

Entrance, Points of. See Points of Entrance, 

Perfect . 

Entrance, Shock of. See Shock ofEntrance. 

Entrusting . That portion of the ceremony 

of initiation which consists in communicating 

to the candidate the modes of recognition . 

Envy . This meanest of vices has always 

been discouraged in Masonry . The fifth of the 

Old Charges says : "None shall discover envy 

at the prosperity of a brother." (Constitutions, 

1723, p. 53 .) 

Eons . In the doctrine of Gnosticism, Divine 

spirits occupying the intermediate state 

which was supposed to exist between the Supreme 

Being and the Jehovah of the Jewish 

theology, whom the Gnostics called only a 

secondary deity. These spiritual beings were 

indeed no more than abstractions, such as 

Wisdom, Faith, Prudence, etc . They derived

EONS 

EQUALITY 247 

their name from the Greek ai ,y, an age, in 

reference to the long duration of their existence 

. Valentinius said there were but thirty 

of them; but Basilides reckons them as three 

hundred and sixty-five, which certainly has an 

allusion to the days of the solar year. In some 

of the philosophical degrees, references are 

made to theEons,whose introduction into them 

is doubtless to be attributed to the connection 

of Gnosticism with certain of the high degrees . 

Eons, Rite of the . Ragon (Tuilleur Gen ., 

p. 186) describes this Rite, as one full of beautiful 

and learned instruction, but scarcely known, 

and practised only in Asia, being founded on 

the religious dogmas of Zoroaster . The existence 

of it as a genuine Rite is doubtful, for 

Ragon's information is very meager . 

Eostre . Easter, a name given to the paschal 

festival in the spring of the year . 

Ephod. The sacred vestment worn by the 

high priest of the Jews over the tunic and outer 

garment . It was without sleeves, and divided 

below the arm-pits into two parts or halves 

one falling before and the other behind, and 

both reaching to the middle of the thighs . 

They were joined above on the shoulders by 

buckles and two large precious stones, on 

which were inscribed the names of the twelve 

tribes, six on each . The ephod was a distinctive 

mark of the priesthood . It was of two 

kinds, one of plain linen for the priests, and 

another, richer and embroidered, for the high 

priest, which was composed of blue, purple, 

crimson, and fine linen . The robe worn by the 

high prest in a Royal Arch Chapter is intended 

to be a representation, but hardly can 

be called an imitation, of the ephod . 

Ephraimites . The descendants of Ephraim. 

They inhabited the center of Judea between 

the Mediterranean and the river Jordan . 

The character given to them in the ritual of 

the Fellow-Craft's Degree, of being "a stiffnecked 

and rebellious people," coincides with 

history, which describes them as haughty, 

tenacious to a fault of their rights, and ever 

ready to resist the pretensions of the other 

tribes, and more especially that of Judah, of 

which they were peculiarly jealous . The circumstance 

in their history which has been appropriated 

for a symbolic purpose in the ceremonies 

of the Second Degree of Masonry, may 

be briefly related thus . The Ammonites, who 

were the descendants of the younger son of 

Lot, and inhabited a tract of country east of 

the river Jordan, had been always engaged in 

hostility against the Israelites . On the occasion 

referred to, they had commenced a war 

upon the pretext that the Israelites had deprived 

them of a portion of their territory . 

Jephthah, having been called by the Israelites 

to the head of their army defeated the Ammonites, 

but had not called upon the Ephraimites 

to assist in the victory . Hence, that 

high-spirited people were incensed, and more 

especially as they had had no share in the rich 

spoils obtained by Jephthah from the Ammonites. 

They accordingly gave him battle, 

but were defeated with great slaughter by the 

Gileadites, or countrymen of Jephthah, with 

whom alone he resisted their attack . As the 

land of Gilead, the residence of Jephthah, was 

on the west side of the Jordan, and as the 

Ephraimites lived on the east side, in making 

their invasion it was necessary that they 

should cross the river, and after their defeat, 

in attempting to effect a retreat to their own 

country, they were compelled to recross the 

river . But Jephthah, aware of this, had 

plated forces at the different fords of the river, 

who intercepted the Ephraimites, and detected 

their nationality by a peculiar defect 

in their pronunciation. For although the 

Ephraimites did not speak a dialect different 

from that of the other tribes, they had a different 

pronunciation of some words, and an inability 

to pronounce the letter lU or SH, which 

they pronounced as if it were 0 or S . Thus, 

when called upon to say SHIBBOLETH, 

the pronounced it, SIBBOLETH, "which 

tri g defect," says the ritual, "proved them 

to be enemies ." The test to a Hebrew was a 

palpable one, for the two words have an entirely 

different signification ; shibboleth meaning 

an ear of corn, and sibboleth, a burden . The 

biblical relation will be found in the twelfth 

chapter of the Book of Judges . 

Epoch. In chronology, a certain point of 

time marked by some memorable event at 

which the calculation of years begins . Different 

peoples have different epochs or epochs : 

Thus, the epoch of Christians is the birth of 

Christ ; that of Jews, the creation of the world ; 

and that of Mohammedans, the flight of their 

prophet from Mecca. See Calendar. 

Epopt. This was the name given to one 

who had passed through the Great Mysteries, 

and been permitted to behold what was concealed 

from the mystee, who had only been initiated 

into the Lesser . It signifies an eye-witness, 

and is derived from the Greek, d¢osdw, 

to look over, to behold. The apopts repeated the 

oath of secrecy which had been administered 

to them on their initiation into the Lesser 

Mysteries, and were then conducted into the 

lighted interior of the sanctuary and permitted 

to behold what the Greeks emphatically 

termed "the sight," wrrollla . The epopts alone 

were admitted to the sanctuary, for the mystae 

were confined to the vestibule of the temple . 

The epopts were, in fact, the Master Masons of 

the Mysteries, while the mystee were the Apprentices 

and Fellow-Crafts ; these words bemg 

used, of course, only in a comparative 

sense. 

Equality. Among the ancient iconologists, 

equality was symbolized by a female 

figure holding in one hand a pair of scales 

equipoised and in the other a nest of swallows 

. The moderns have substituted a level 

for the scales. And this is the Masonic idea . 

In Masonry, the level is the symbol of that 

equality which, as Higgins (Anac ., i ., 790), 

says, is the very essence of Freemasonry . 

"All, let their rank in life be what it may, 

when in the Lodge are brothers-brethren 

with the Father at their head . No person can 

read the Evangelists and not see that this is 

correctly Gospel Christianity ."

248 EQUERRY 

ERICA 

Equerry. An officer in some courts who 

has the charge of horses . For some unknown 

reason the title has been introduced into some 

of the high degrees . 

Eques . A Latin word signifying knight. 

Every member of the Rite of Strict Observance, 

on attaining to the seventh or highest 

degree, received a "characteristic name " 

which was formed in Latin by the addition of a 

noun in the ablative case, governed by the 

preposition a or ab to the word Eques, as 

"Eques a Serpents,' ; or Knight of the Serpent, 

"Eques ab Aquila, ,, or Knight of the Eagle 

etc., and by this name he was ever afterward 

known in the Order . Thus Bode, one of the 

founders of the Rite, was recognized as 

"Eques A6 Lilio Convallium," or Knight o 

the Lily of the Valleys, and the Baron Hun y 

another founder, as "Eques ab Ense," or 

Knight of the Sword . A similar custom prevailed 

among the Illuminati and in the Royal 

Order of Scotland . Eques signified among the 

Romans a knight, but in the Middle Ages the 

knight was called miles; although the Latin 

word miles denoted only a soldier, yet, by the 

usage of chivalry, it received the nobler signification. 

Indeed, Muratori says, on the authority 

of an old inscription, that Eques was 

inferior in dignity to Mites . (See Miles ) 

Eques Professus . Professed Knight . The 

seventh and last degree of the Rite of Strict 

Observance. Added, it is said, to the original 

series by Von Hund . 

Equilateral Triangle . (See Triangle.) 

Equity . The equipoised balance is an ancient 

symbol of equity. On the medals, this 

virtue is represented by a female holding in 

the right hand a balance, and in the left a 

measuring wand, to indicate that she gives to 

each one his just measure . In the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite, the Thirty-first Degree, 

or Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander 

is illustrative of the virtue of equity ; and 

hence the balance is a prominent symbol of 

that degree, as it is also of the Sixteenth Degree, 

or Princes of Jerusalem, because according 

to the old rituals, they were chiefs 

in Masonry, and administered justice to the 

inferior degrees . 

Equivocation . The words of the covenant 

of Masonry require that it should be 

made without evasion, equivocation, or mental 

reservation. This is exactly in accordance 

with the law of ethics in relation to promises 

made . And it properly applies in this case, 

because the covenant, as it is called, is simply a 

promise, or series of promises, made by the 

candidate to the Fraternity-to the brotherhood 

into whose association he is about to be 

admitted . In making a promise, an evasion is 

the eluding or avoiding the terms of the promise 

; and this is done, or attempted to be done, 

by equivocation, which is by giving to the 

words used a secret signification different 

from that which they were intendW to convey 

by him who imposed the promise, so as to mislead, 

or by a mental reservation which is a concealment 

or withholding in the mind of the 

promiser of certain conditions under which he 

makes it, which conditions are not known to 

the one to whom the promise is made . All of 

this is in direct violation of the law of veracity . 

The doctrine of the Jesuits is very different . 

Suarez, one of their most distinguished casuists, 

lays it down as good law, that if any one 

makes a promise or contract, be may secretly 

understand that he does not sincerely promise, 

or that he promises without any intention of 

fulfilling the promise. This is not the rule of 

Masonry, which requires that the words of 

the covenant be taken in the patent sense 

which they were intended by the ordinary use 

of language to convey. It adheres to the 

true rule of ethics, which is, as Paley says, 

that a promise is binding in the sense in 

which the promiser supposed the promisee to 

receive it . 

Eranol. Among the ancient Greeks there 

were friendly societies, whose object was, like 

the modern Masonic Lodges, to relieve the 

distresses of their necessitous members . They 

were permanently organized, and had a common 

fund by the voluntary contributions of 

the members. If a member was reduced to 

poverty or was in temporary distress for 

money, he applied to the eranos, and, if worthy, 

received the necessary assistance, which was, 

however, advanced rather as a loan than a 

gift, and the amount was to be returned when 

the recipient was in better circumstances . In 

the days of the Roman Empire these friendly 

societies were frequent among the Greek cities, 

and were looked on with suspicion by the 

emperors, as tending to political combinations . 

Smith says (Diet. Gr . and Rom. Ant. s . v. 

Evani) that the Anglo-Saxon gilds, or fraternities 

for mutual aid, resembled the eranoi 

of the Greeks . In their spirit, these Grecian 

confraternities partook more of the Masonic 

character, as charitable associations, than of 

the modern friendly societies, where relief is 

based on a system of mutual insurance ; for 

the assistance was given only to cases of actual 

need, and did not depend on any calculation of 

natural contingencies . 

Erica. The Egyptians selected the erica 

as a sacred plant. The origin of the consecration 

of this plant will be peculiarly interesting 

to the Masonic student . There was a legend 

in the mysteries of Osiris, which related that 

Isis, when in search of the body of her murdered 

husband, discovered it interred at the 

brow of a hill near which an erica grew ; and 

hence, after the recovery of the body and the 

resurrection of the god, when she established 

the mysteries to commemorate her loss and her 

recovery, she adopted the erica as a sacred 

plant, in memory of its having pointed out the 

spot where the mangled remains of Osiris were 

concealed . 

Ragon (Cours des Initiations, p . 151), thus 

alludes to this mystical event : "Isis found the 

body of Osiris in the neighborhood of Biblos, 

and near a tall plant called the erica . O 

pressed with grief, she seated herself on t)e 

margin of a fountain whose waters issued 

from a rock . This rock is the small hill mentioned 

in the ritual ; the erica has been re-

ERLKING 

ESSENES 249 

placed by the acacia, and the grief of Isis has 

been changed for that of the Fellow-Crafts ." 

The lexicographers define JpefKn as "the 

heath or heather ' ; but it is really, as Plutarch 

asserts, the tamarisk tree ; and Schwenk (Die 

Mythologie der Semiten, p . 248) says that 

Phylee, so renowned among the ancients as 

one of the burial-places of Osiris, and among 

the moderns for its wealth of architectural 

remains, contains monuments in which the 

grave of Osiris is overshadowed by the tamarisk 

. 

ErUdng. A name found in one of the sacred 

sagas of the Scandinavian mythology, entitled 

Sir Olaf and the Erlking's Daughter, and 

applied to the mischievous goblin haunting 

the black forest of Thuringia. 

Ernest and Falk . Ernst and Falk . Gesprache 

fur Freimaurer, i . e ., "Ernest and 

Falk . Conversations for Freemasons " is the 

title of a German work written by ootthold 

Ephraim Leasing, and first published in 1778 . 

Ernest is an inquirer, and Falk a Freemason, 

who gives to his interlocutor a very philosophical 

idea of the character, aims, and objects of 

the Institution . The work has been faithfully 

translated by Bro. Kenneth R . H . Mackenzie, 

F.S.A ., in the London Freemasons' Quarterly 

Magazine, in 1854, and continued and finished, 

so far as the author had completed it, in 

the London Freemason in 1872 . Findel says of 

this work, that it "is one of the best things that 

has ever been written upon Freemasonry ." 

(Hilt . of. F . M., p . 373 .) 

Erwin von Steinbach . A distinguished 

German who was born as his name imports, 

at Steinbach, near Biflii, about the middle of 

the thirteenth century . He was the master of 

the works at the Cathedral of Strasburg, the 

tower of which he commenced in 1275 . He 

finished the tower and doorway before his 

death, which was in 1318. He was at the head 

of the German Fraternity of Stonemasons, 

who were the precursors of the modern Freemasons. 

(See Strasburg.) 

Esoteric Masonry . That secret portion 

of Masonry which is known only to the initiates 

as distinguished from exoteric Masonry, 

or monitorial, which is accessible to all who 

choose to read the manuals and published 

works of the Order . The words are from the 

Greek, JowrepuKbs, internal, and ifwrKepucbs, 

external, and were first used by Pythagoras, 

whose philosophy was divided into the exoteric, 

or that taught to all, and the esoteric, or 

that taught to a select few ; and thus his disciples 

were divided into two classes, according 

to the degree of initiation to which the had 

attained, as being either fully admitted into 

the society, and invested with all the knowledge 

that the Master could communicate or 

as merely postulants, enjoying only the public 

instructions of the school, and awaiting the 

gradual reception of further knowledge . This 

double mode of instruction was borrowed by 

Pythagoras from the Egyptian priests, whose 

theology was of two kinds-the one exoteric, 

and addressed to the people in general ; the 

other esoteric, and confined to a select num- 

ber of the priests and to those wno possessed, 

or were to possess, the regal power . And the 

mystical nature of this concealed doctrine was 

expressed iii their symbolic language by the 

images of sphinxes placed at the entrance of 

their temples. Two centuries later, Aristotle 

adopted the system of Pythagoras, and, in 

the Lyceum at Athens, delivered in the morning 

to his select disciples his subtle and concealed 

doctrines concerning God Nature, and 

Life, and in the evening lectured on more elementary 

subjects to a promiscuous audience . 

These different lectures he called his Morning 

and his Evening Walk . 

Esperance. Under the name of "Chevaliers 

et Dames de 1'Esperance" was founded 

in France and subsequently an androgynous 

order in (lermany . It is said to have been 

instituted by Louis XV ., at the request of the 

Marquis de Chatelet, and was active about 

1750 . The Lodge "Irene," at Hamburg, was 

founded in 1757 . 

Essenes. Lawrie, in his History of Freemasonry, 

in replying to the objection, that if 

the Fraternity of Freemasons had flourished 

during the reign of Solomon, it would have 

existed in Judea in after ages, attempts to 

meet the argument by, showing that there 

did exist, after the building of the Temple, an 

association of men resembling Freemasons in 

the nature, ceremonies, and object of their 

institution (p . 33.) The association to which 

'he here alludes is that of the Essenes, whom 

he subsequently describes as an ancient Fraternity 

architects 

originating from an association of 

who were connected with the building 

of Solomon's Temple. 

Lawrie evidently seeks to connect historically 

the Essenes with the Freemasons, 

and to impress his readers with the id tit of 

the two Institutions . I am not prepare to 

go so far; but there is such a similarity between 

the two, and such remarkable coincidences 

in many of their usages, as to render 

this Jewish sect an interesting study to every 

Freemason, to whom therefore some account 

of the usages and doctrines of this holy brotherhood 

will not, perhaps, be unacceptable . 

At the time of the advent of Jesus Christ, 

there were three religious sects in Judeathe 

Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes 

; and to one of these sects every Jew 

was compelled to unite himself . The Savior 

has been supposed by many writers to 

have been an Essene, because, while repeatedly 

denouncing the errors of the two other 

sects, he has nowhere uttered a word of censure 

against the Essenes ; and because, also, 

many of the precepts of the New Testament 

are to be found among the laws of this sect . 

In ancient authors, such as Jose phus, Philo 

Porphyry, Eusebius, and Pliny, who have had 

occasion to refer to the subject, the notices of 

this singular sect have been so brief and unsatisfactory, 

that modern writers have found 

great difficulty in properly understanding the 

true character of Essenism . And yet our antiquaries, 

never weary of the task of investigation, 

have at length, within a recent period,

250 ESSENES ESSENES 

succeeded in eliciting from the collation of all of this sect he is supposed, as has been 

that has been previously written on the subject, 

very correct details of the doctrines and On this subject, Ginsburg says : "Jesus, 

I 

already said, to have been a member . 

practises of the Essenes, Of these writers who in all things conformed to the Jewish 

none have been more successful than the laborious 

German critics Frankel and Rappaport . and separate from sinners, would, therefore • 

law, and who was holy, harmless, undefiled, 

Their investigations have been ably and thoroughly 

condensed by Dr. Christian D . Gins- 

Judaism which was most congenial to his holy 

naturally associate himself with that order of 

burg, whose essay on The Essenes, their History nature . Moreover, the fact that Christ, with 

and Doctrines (Lond ., 1864), has supplied the the exception of once, was not heard of in 

most material facts contained in the present public till his thirtieth year, implying that he 

article . 

lived in seclusion with this Fraternity and 

It is impossible to ascertain the precise date that, though he frequently rebukes the 

of the development of Essenism as a distinct Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees, he never 

organization . The old writers are so exaggerated 

in their statements, that they are 

worth nothing as historical authorities . Philo 

says, for instance, that Moses himself instituted 

the order, and Josephus that it existed 

ever since the ancient time of the Fathers ; 

while Pliny asserts, with mythical liberality, 

that, it has continued for thousands of ages . 

Dr. Ginsburg thinks that Essenism was a 

gradual development of the prevalent religious 

notions out of Judaism, a theory which 

Dr. Dollinger repudiates . But Rappaport, 

who was a learned Jew, thoroughly conversant 

with the Talmud and other Hebrew writings, 

and who is hence called bay Ginsburg "the 

corypheus of Jewish critics, ' asserts that the 

Essenes were not a distinct sect, in the strict 

sense of the word, but simply an order of Judaism, 

and that there never was a rupture between 

them and the rest of the Jewish community. 

This theory is sustained by Frankel, 

a learned German who maintains that the 

Essenes were simply an intensification of the 

Pharisaic sect, and that they were the same as 

the Chasidim, whom Lawrie calls the Kassideans, 

and of whom he speaks as the guardians 

of King Solomon's Temple . If this view be 

the correct one, and there is no good reason to 

doubt it, then there will be another feature 

of resemblance and coincidence between the 

Freemasons and the Essenes ; for, as the latter 

was not a religious sect, but merely a development 

of Judaism, an order of Jews entertaining 

no heterodox opinions, but simply carrying 

out the religious dogmas of their faith with an 

unusual strictness of observance, so are the 

Freemasons not a religious sect, but simply a 

development of the religious idea of the age . 

The difference, however, between Freemasonry 

and Essenism lies in the spirit of universal 

tolerance prominent in the one and 

absent in the other. Freemasonry is Christian 

as to its membership in general, but recognizing 

and tolerating in its bosom all other 

religions : Essenism, on the contrary, was 

exclusively and intensely Jewish in its membership, 

its usages, and its doctrines . 

The Essenes axe first mentioned by Josephus 

as existing in the days of Jonathan the Maccabwan, 

one hundred and sixty-six years before 

Christ . The Jewish historian repeatedly 

speaks of them at subsequent periods ; and 

there is no doubt that they constituted one of 

the three sects which divided the Jewish religious 

world at the advent of our Savior, and 

denounced the Essenes, strongly confirms 

this decision ." But he admits that Christ 

neither adopted nor preached their extreme 

doctrines of asceticism . 

After the establishment of Christianity, 

the Essenes fade out of notice, and it has 

been supposed that they were among the earliest 

converts to the new faith . Indeed, De 

Quincey rather paradoxically asserts that 

they were a disguised portion of the early 

Christians. 

The etymology of the word has not been 

settled . Yet, among the contending opinions, 

the preferable one seems to be that it is derived 

from the Hebrew CHASID,-holy, 

pious,--which connects the Essenes with the 

Chasidim, a sect which preceded them, and 

of whom Lawrie says (quoting from Scaliger), 

that they were "an order of the KxionTs 

OF THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM, who bound 

themselves to adorn the porches of that magnificent 

structure, and to preserve it from injury 

and decay ." (Hist . of F. M., p. 38 .) 

The Essenes were so strict in the observance 

of the Mosaic laws of purity, that they were 

compelled for the purpose of avoiding contamination, 

to withdraw altogether from the 

rest of the Jewish nation and to form a separ 

rate community, which thus became a brotherhood 

. The same scruples which led them to 

withdraw from their less strict Jewish brethren 

induced most of them to abstain from 

marriage, and hence the unavoidable depletion 

of their membership by death could only 

be repaired by the initiation of converts . 

They had a common treasury in which was 

deposited whatever anyone of them possessed, 

and from this the wants of the whole community 

were supplied by stewards app ointed 

by the brotherhood, so that they had everything 

in common. Hence there was no distinction 

among them of rich and poor, or 

masters and servants ; but the only gradation 

of rank which they recognized was de= 

rived from the degrees or orders into which 

the members were divided, and which depended 

on holiness alone . They lived peaceably 

with all men, reprobated slavery and 

war, and would not even manufacture any 

warlike instruments . They were governed by 

a president, who was elected by the whole 

community ; and members who had violated 

their rules were after due trial, excommunicated 

or expelled . 

As they held no communication outside of

ESSENES 

ESSENES 251 

their own fraternity, they had to raise their 

own supplies r and some were engaged in tilling, 

some in tending flocks, others in making clothing, 

and others in pre ing food . They got 

up before sunrise, and, after singing a hymn 

of praise for the return of light, which they did 

with their faces turned to the east, each one 

repaired to his appropriate task . At the fifth 

hour, or eleven in the forenoon, the morning 

labor terminated . The brethren then again 

assembled, and after a lustration in cold water, 

they put on white garments and proceeded to 

the refectory, where they pal took of the common 

meal, which was always of the most 

frugal character. A mysterious silence was observed 

during this meal, which, to some extent, 

had the character of a sacrament . The 

feast being ended, and the priest having returned 

thanks, the brethren withdrew and put 

off their white garments, resumed their working-clothes 

and their several employments 

until evening, when they again assembled as 

before, to partake of a common meal . 

They observed the Sabbath with more than 

Judaic strictness, regarding even the removal 

of a vessel as a desecration of the holy day . 

On that day, each took his seat in the synagogue 

in becoming attire; and, as they had no 

ordained ministers, any one that liked read 

out of the Scriptures, and another, experienced 

in spiritual matters, expounded the passages 

that had been read . The distinctive 

ordinances of the brotherhood and the mysteries 

connected with the Tetragrammaton and 

the angelic worlds were the prominent topics 

of Sabbatical instruction . In particular, did 

they pay attention to the mysteries connected 

with the Tetragrammaton, or the Sbem hamphorash, 

the expository name, and the other 

names of God which play so important a part 

in the mystical theosophy of the Jewish Kabbalists, 

a great deal of which has descended 

to the Freemasonry of our own days . 

Josephus describes them as being distinguished 

for their brotherly love, and for their 

charity in helping the needy, and showing 

mercy . He says that they are just dispensers 

of their anger, curbers of their passions, representatives 

of fidelity, ministers of peace, and 

every word with them is of more force than an 

oath . They avoid taking an oath, and regard 

it as worse than perjury ; for they say 

that he who is not believed without calling on 

God to witness, is already condemned of perjury 

. He also states that they studied with 

great assiduity the writings of the ancients on 

distempers and their remedies, alluding, as it 

is supposed, to the magical works imputed by 

the Talmudists to Solomon . 

It has already been observed that, in consequence 

of the celibacy of the Essenes, it 

was found necessary to recruit their ranks by 

the introduction of converts, who were admitted 

by a solemn form of initiation . The 

candidate, or aspirant, was required to pass 

through a novitiate of two stages, which extended 

over three years, before he was admitted 

to a full participation in the privileges 

of the Order. Upon entering the first 

stage, which lasted for twelve months, the 

novice cast all hispoa sessions into the common 

treasury . He then received a copy of the 

regulations of the brotherhood, and was presented 

with a spade, and apron, and a white 

robe. The spade was employed to bury excrement, 

the apron was used at the daily lustrations, 

and the white robe was worn as a 

symbol of purity . During all this period the 

aspirant was considered as being outside the 

order, and, although required to observe some 

of the ascetic rules of the society, he was 

not admitted to the common meal . At the end 

of the probationary year, the aspirant, if approved, 

was advanced to the second stage 

which lasted two years, and was then called 

an approacher . During this period he was 

permitted to unite with the brethren in their 

lustrations, but was not admitted to the common 

meal, nor to hold any office . Should this 

second stage of probation be passed with approval, 

the approacher became an associate 

and was admitted into full membership, and 

at length allowed to partake of the common 

meal . 

There was, a third rank or degree called 

the disciple or companion, in which there was 

a still closer union . Upon admission to this 

highest grade, the candidate was bound by a 

solemn oath to love God, to be just to all men, 

to practise charity, maintain truth, and to 

conceal the secrets of the society and the 

mysteries connected with the Tetragrammaton 

and the other names of God . 

These three sections or degrees, of Aspirant, 

Associate, and Companion, were subdivided 

into four orders or ranks, distinguished from 

each other by different degrees of holiness ; 

and so marked were these distinctions, that if 

one belonging to a higher degree of purity 

touched one of a lower order, he immediately 

became impure, and could only regain his 

purity by a series of lustrations . 

The earnestness and determination of these 

Essenes, says Ginsburg, to advance to the 

highest state of holiness were seen in their 

self-denying and godly litre ; and it may fairly 

be questioned whether any religious system 

has ever produced such a community of saints . 

Their absolute confidence in God and resignation 

to the dealings of Providence ; their 

uniformly holy and unselfish life ; their unbounded 

love of virtue and utter contempt for 

worldly fame, riches, and pleasures ; their 

industry, temperance, modesty, and simplicity 

of life ; their contentment of mind and cheerfulness 

of temper ; their love of order, and 

abhorrence of even the semblance of falsehood 

; their benevolence and philanthropy ; 

their love for the brethren, and their following 

peace with all men ; their hatred of slavery 

and war ; their tender regard for children, and 

reverence and anxious care for the aged ; 

their attendance on the sick, and readiness to 

relieve the distressed ; their humility and 

magnanimity ; their firmness of character and 

power to subdue their passions ; their heroic 

endurance under the most agonizing sufferings 

for righteousness' sake ; and their cheer-

252 ESSENES 

ETHICS 

fully looking forward to death, as releasing 

their immortal souls from the bonds of the 

body, to be forever in a state of bliss with their 

Creator,-have hardly found a parallel in the 

history of mankind . 

Lawrie, in his History of Freemasonry, gives, 

on the authority of Pictet, of Basnage, and of 

Philo, the following condensed recapitulation 

of what has been said in the preceding pages of 

the usages of the Essenes : 

"When a candidate was proposed for admission, 

the strictest scrutiny was made into 

his character. If his life had hitherto been 

exemplary, and if he appeared capable of 

curbing his passions and regulating his conduct, 

according to the virtuous, though austere 

maxims of their order, he was presented, 

at the expiration of his novitiate, with a white 

garment, as an emblem of the regularity of his 

conduct, and the purity of his heart. A solemn 

oath was then administered to him, that 

he would never divulge the mysteries of the 

Order ; that he would make no innovations on 

the doctrines of the society ; and that he would 

continue in that honorable course of piety 

and virtue which he had begun to pursue . 

Like Freemasons, they instructed the yo ur~ 

member in the knowledge which they derived 

from their ancestors . They admitted no 

women into their order. They had particular 

signs for recognizing each other, which have a 

strong resemblance to those of Freemasons . 

They had colleges or places of retirement 

where they resorted to practise their rites and 

settle the affairs of the society ; and, after the 

performance of these duties, they assembled 

in a large hall, where an entertainment was 

provided for them by the president, or master 

of the college, who alloted a certain quantity 

of provisions to every individual . They abolished 

all distinctions of rank ; and if preference 

was ever given, it was given to piety, 

liberality, and virtue . Treasurers were appointed 

in every town, to supply the wants of 

indigent strap rs ." (pp . 34, 35 .) 

Lawrie thin that this remarkable coincidence 

between the chief features of the Masonic 

and Essenian fraternities can be accounted 

for only by referring them to the same 

origin ; and, to sustain this view, he attempts 

to trace them to the Kasideans, or Assideans, 

more properly the Chasidim, "an association 

of architects who were connected with the 

building of Solomon's Temple ." But, aside 

from the consideration that there is no evidence 

that the Chasidim were a body of architects-for 

they were really a sect of Jewish 

p 

u 'tans, who held the Temple in especial 

honor-we cannot conclude, from a mere 

coincidence of doctrines and usages, that the 

origin of the Essenes and the Freemasons is 

identical . Such a course of reasoning would 

place the Pythagoreans in the same category 

: a theory that has been rejected by the 

best modern critics . 

The truth appears-to be that the Essenes, 

the School of Pythagoras, and the Freemasons, 

derive their similarity from that spirit of 

brotherhood which has prevailed in all ages of 

the civilized world, the inherent principles of 

which, as the results of any fraternity,-all 

the members of which are engaged in the same 

pursuit and assenting to the same religious 

creed,--are brotherly love, charity, and that 

secrecy which gives them their exclusiveness . 

And hence, between all fraternities, ancient 

and modern, these "remarkable coincidences" 

will be found . 

Esther. The Third Degree of the American 

Adoptive Rite of the Eastern Star . It is 

also called "the wife's degree," and in its ceremonies 

comprises the history of Esther the 

wife and queen of Ahasuerus, King of Persia, 

as related in the Book of Esther . 

Eternal Life . The doctrine of eternal life 

is taught in the Master's Degree, as it was in 

the Ancient Mysteries of all nations. (See 

Immortality of the Soul .) 

Eternity. The ancient symbol of eternity 

was a serpent in the form of a circle, the tail 

being placed in the mouth. The simple circle, 

the figure which has neither beginning nor 

end, but returns continually into itself, was 

also a symbol of eternity . 

Ethanim or Tishri . The seventh sacred 

month, or the first month of the Hebrew 

civil year, commencing with the new moon in 

September . 

Ethics of Freemasonry . There is a Greek 

word, fOos (ethos), which signifies custom 

from which Aristotle derives another word 

Joos, (8thos),l which means ethics ; because, as 

he says, from the custom of doing good acts 

arises the habit of moral virtue . Ethics, then, 

is the science of morals teaching the theory 

and practise of all that is good in relation to 

God and to man, to the state and the individual 

; it is, in short, to use the emphatic expression 

of a German writer, "the science of 

the good ." Ethics being thus engaged in the 

inculcation of moral duties, there must be a 

standard of these duties an authoritative 

ground-principle on whic i they depend, a 

doctrine that requires their performance, 

making certain acts just those that ought to be 

done, and which, therefore, are duties, and 

that forbid the performance of others which 

are, therefore, offenses . Ethics, then, as a 

science, is divisible into several species, var~ 

ing in name and character, according to the 

foundation on which it is built . 

Thus we have the Ethics of Theology, which 

is founded on that science which teaches the nature 

and attributes of God ; and, as this forms 

a part of all religious systems, every religion, 

whether it be Christianity or Judaism, Brahmanism 

or Buddhism, or any other form of 

recognized worship, has within its bosom a 

science of theological ethics which teaches, 

according to the lights of that religion, the 

duties which are incumbent on man from his 

relations to a Supreme Being. And then we 

have the Ethics of Christianity, which being 

founded on the Scriptures, recognized by 

Christians as the revealed will of God is 

nothing other than theological ethics applied 

to and limited by Christianity . 

Then, again, we have the Ethics of Philoso-

ETHICS 

EUCLID 253 

phy, which is altogether speculative, and derived 

from and founded on man's speculations 

concerning God and himself . There might be 

a sect of philosophers who denied the existence 

of a Superintending Providence ; but it would 

still have a science of ethics referring to the relations 

of man to man, although that system 

would be without strength, because it would 

have no Divine sanction for its enforcement . 

And, lastly, we have the Ethics of Freemasonry, 

whose character combines those of the 

three others. The first and second systems in 

the series above enumerated are founded on 

religious dogmas ; the third on philosophical 

speculations. Now as Freemasonry claims to 

be a religion, in so liar as it is founded on a recognition 

of the relations of man and God, and 

a philosophy in so far as it is engaged in speculations 

on the nature of man, as an immortal, 

social, and responsible being, the ethics of 

Freemasonry will be both religious and philosophical 

. 

The symbolism of Masonry, which is its 

peculiar mode of instruction, inculcates all the 

duties which we owe to God as being his children, 

and to men as being their brethren . 

"There is," says Dr . Oliver, "scarcely a point 

of duty or morality which man has been presumed 

to owe to God, his neighbor, or himself, 

under the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, or the 

Christian dispensation, which, in the construction 

of our symbolical system, has been left 

untouched ." Hence, he says, that these symbols 

all unite to form "a code of moral and 

theological philosophy" ; the term of which 

expression would have been better if he had 

called it a "code of philosophical and theological 

ethics ." 

At a very early period of his initiation, the 

Mason is instructed that he owes a threefold 

duty, to God, his neighbor, and himself,- 

and the inculcation of these duties constitutes 

the ethics of Freemasonry . 

Now, the Tetragrammaton, the letter G, 

and many other symbols of a like character, 

impressively inculcate the lesson that there is 

a God in whom "we live, and move, and have 

our being," and of whom the apostle, quoting 

from the Greek poet, tells us that "we are his 

offapring." To him then as the Universal 

Father, does the ethics of eemasonry teach 

us that we owe the duty of loving and obedient 

children . 

And, then, the vast extent of the Lodge, 

making the whole world the common home of 

all Masons and the temple in which we all 

labor for the building up of our bodies as a 

spiritual house, are significant symbols, which 

teach us that we are not only the children of 

the Father, but fellow-workers, laboring together 

in the same task and owing a common 

servitude to God as the Grand Architect of the 

universe-the Algabil or Master Builder of the 

world and all that is therein ; and thus these 

symbols of a joint labor, for a joint purpose, 

tell us that there is a brotherhood of man : to 

that brotherhood does the ethics of Freemasonry 

teach us that we owe the duty of fraernal 

kindness in all its manifold phases . 

And so we find that the ethics of Freemasonry 

is really founded on the two great 

ideas of the universal fatherhood of God and 

the universal brotherhood of man. 

Ethiopia . A tract of country to the south 

of Egypt, and watered by the upper Nile . 

The reference to Ethiopia, in the Master's 

Degree of the American Rite, as a place of 

attempted escape for certain criminals, is not 

to be found in the English or French rituals, 

and I am inclined to think that this addition 

to the Hiramic legend is an American interpolation 

. The selection of Ethiopia, by the 

ritualist, as a place of refuge, seems to be 

rather inappropriate when we consider what 

must have been the character of that country 

in the age of Solomon . 

Etymology. For the etymology of the 

word Mason, see Mason, Derivation of the 

Word. 

Euclid . In the year of the world 3650, 

which was 646 years after the building of King 

Solomon's Temple, Euclid, the celebrated 

geometrician, was born . His name has been 

always associated with the history of Freemasonry, 

and in the reign of Ptolemy Soter, 

the Order is said to have greatly flourished in 

Egypt, under his auspices . The well known 

forty-seventh problem of his first book, although 

not discovered by him, but long before 

by Pythagoras, has been adopted as a 

symbol in the Third Degree . 

Euclid, Legend of. All the old manuscript 

Constitutions contain the well known 

"legend of Euclid," whose name is presented 

to us as the "Worthy Clerk Euclid" in every 

conceivable variety of corrupted form. The 

legend as given in the Dowland MS . (q . v.) is 

in the following words : 

"Moreover, when Abraham and Sara his 

wife went into Egypt there he taught the 

Seaven Scyences to the Egiptians ; and he had 

a worthy Scoller that height Ewcjyde, and he 

learned right well, and was a master of all the 

vij Sciences liberall . And in his dayes it befell 

that the lord and the estates of the realme 

had soe many sonns that they had gotten, 

some by their wifes and some by other ladyes 

of the realm ; for that land is a hott land and a 

plentious of generation . And they had not 

competent livelode to find with their children ; 

wherefore they made much care . And then the 

King of the land made a great Counsell and a 

parliament, to witt, how they might find their 

children honestly as gentlemen ; And they 

could find no manner of good way . And then 

they did crye through all the realme, if their 

were any man that could informe them that 

he shoud come to them, and he should lie soe 

rewarded for his travail, that he should hold 

him pleased . 

"After that this cry was made, then came 

this worthy clarke Ewclyde, and said to the 

King and to all his great lords : Ìf yee will, 

take me your children to governe, and to 

teach them one of the Seaven Scyences, wherewith 

they may live honestly as gentlemen 

should, under a condicion, that yee will grant 

me and them a commission that I may have

254 EULOGY 

EVEILLES 

power to rule them after the manner that the 

science ought to be ruled .' And that the King 

and all his counsell granted to him anone, and 

sealed their commission . And then this worthy 

Doctor tooke to him these lords' sons, and 

taught them the scyence of Geometrie in practice, 

for to work in stones all manner of worthy 

worke that belongeth to buildinge churches, 

temples, castells, towres, and mannors, and all 

other manner of buildings ; and he gave them 

a charge on this manner :" 

Here follow the usual "charges" of a Freemason 

as given in all the old Constitutions ; 

and then the legend concludes with these 

words : 

"And thus was the science grounded there ; 

and that worthy Mr . Ewclyde gave it the 

name of Geometric . And now it is called 

through all this land Masonrye." (Hughan's 

Old Charges, ed . 1872, p . 26 .) 

This legend, considered historically, is 

certainly very absurd, and the anachronism 

which makes Euclid the contemporary of Abraham 

adds, if possible, to the absurdity. But 

interpreted as all Masonic legends should be 

interpreted, as merely intended to convey a 

Masonic truth in symbolic language, it loses 

its absurdity, and becomes invested with an 

importance that we should not otherwise attach 

to it . 

Euclid is here very appropriately used as a 

type of geometry, that science of which he 

was so eminent a teacher ; and the myth or 

legend then symbolizes the fact that there was 

in Egypt a close connection between that science 

and the great moral and religious system 

which was among the Egyptians, as well 

as other ancient nations, what Freemasonry 

is at the present day-a secret institution, 

established for the inculcation of the same principles, 

and inculcating them in the same symbolic 

manner. So interpreted, this legend corresponds 

to all the developments of Egyptian 

history, which teach us how close a connection 

existed in that country between the religious 

and scientific systems . Thus Kenrick (Anc. 

Eg ., i ., 383) tells us that "when we read of 

foreigners [in Egypt] being obliged to submit 

to painful and tedious ceremonies of initiation, 

it was not that they might learn the secret 

meaning of the rites of Osiris or Isis but that 

they might partake of the knowledge of astronomy, 

physic, geometry, . and theology ." 

The legend of Euclid belongs to that class 

of narration which, in another work, Dr . 

Mackey calls "The Mythical Symbols of 

Freemasonry ." 

Eulogy. Masonry delights to do honor to 

the memory of departed brethren by the delivery 

of eulogies of their worth and merit, which 

are either delivered at the time of their burial, 

or at some future period . The eulogy forms 

the most important part of the ceremonies of 

a Sorrow Lodge . But the language of the eulogist 

should be restrained within certain limits 

; while the veil of charity should be thrown 

over the frailties of the deceased, the praise of 

his virtues should not be expressed with esaggerated 

adulation . 

Eumolpus . A king of Eleusis, who 

founded, about the year 1374 B. c ., the Mysteries 

of Eleusis . His descendants, the Eumoipidae, 

presided for twelve hundred years over 

these Mysteries as Hierophants . 

Eunuch . It is usual, in the most correct 

rituals of the third degree, especially to name 

eunuchs as being incapable of initiation . In 

none of the old Constitutions and Charges is 

this class of persons alluded to by name, although 

of course they are comprehended in 

the general prohibition against making persons 

who have any blemish or maim . However, 

in the Charges which were published by Dr . 

Anderson, in his second edition (Constitur 

tions, 1738, p . 144), they are included in the 

list of prohibited candidates. It is probable 

from this that at that time it was usual to 

name them in the point of OB . referred to ; 

and this presumption derives strength from 

the fact that Dermott, in copying his Charges 

from those of Anderson's second edition, 

added a note complaining of the "moderns"; 

for having disregarded this ancient law, in at 

least one instance . (Ahiman Rezon, ed. 1778.) 

The question is, however, not worth discussion, 

except as a matter of ritual history 

since the legal principle is already determined 

that eunuchs cannot be initiated because 

they are not perfect men, "having no maim or 

defect in their bodies." 

Euphrates . One of the largest and most 

celebrated rivers of Asia . Rising in the mountains 

of Armenia and flowing into the Persian 

gulf, it necessarily lies between Jerusalem and 

Babylon. In the ritual of the higher degrees 

it is referred to as the stream over which the 

Knights of the East won a passage by their 

arms in returning from Babylon to Jerusalem . 

Euresis. From the Greek, euperis, a 

discovery . That part of the initiation in the 

Ancient Mysteries which represented the 

finding of the body of the god or hero whose 

death and resurrection was the subject of the 

initiation . The curesis has been adopted in 

Freemasonry, and forms an essential portion 

of the ritual of the Third Degree . 

Europe. An appellation at times given to 

the west end of the Lodge. 

Eva . The acclamation used in the French 

Rite of Adoption . 

Evangellcon. The gospel belonging to the 

so-called "Ordre du Temple" at Paris, and 

professedly a relic of the real Templars . Some 

believe in its antiquity ; but others, from external 

and internal evidence, fix its date subsequent 

to the fifteenth century . It is 

apparently a garbled version of St . John's Gospel. 

It is sometimes confounded with the 

"Leviticon" ; but, though bound up in the 

same printed volume, it is entirely distinct . 

Evangelist. (See St. John the Evangelist.) 

Evates . The second degree in the Druidical 

system . Of the three degrees the first 

was the Bards, the second Evates or Prophets, 

and the third Druids or Sanctified Authorities. 

Eveilles, Secte des . (Sect of the Enlightened 

.) According to Thory (ActaLat., i., 312),

EVERGETEN 

EXAMINATION 255 

a society presumed to be a branch of Weishaupt's 

Illumines that existed in Italy . 

Evergeten, Bung der . (From the Greek 

dvepy4oms, a benefactor.) A secret order after 

the manner of the Illuminati . It was founded 

in Silesia about 1792, by a certain Zerboni of 

Glogau, Lieut. von Leip zinger, the merchant 

Contessa, Herr von Reibnitz, and five others ; 

that Fessler worked in it ; that it used Masonic 

forms. Some of the members were imprisoned 

at Breslau in 1796, and about 1801 the 

society became defunct. (Kenning's 

pxdia of F. M. s.v .) 

Cycle 

Evergreen. An evergreen plant is a symbol 

of the immortality of the soul . The ancients, 

therefore, as well as the moderns, 

planted evergreens at the heads of graves . 

Freemasons wear evergreens at the funerals of 

their brethren, and cast them into the grave . 

The acacia is the plant which should be used 

on these occasions, but where it cannot be obtained, 

some other evergreen plant, especially 

the cedar, is used as a substitute . (See 

Acacia.) 

Evora, Knights of . There is a very ancient 

cit y in Portugal of 1200 population . 

Quintus Sertorius took it 80 B .C . The Roman 

antiquities are unrivaled . The aqueduct 

erected by Sertorius has at one end a marvelous 

architectural tower rising high above 

the city, perfect in its condition as when built, 

70 B .C . In 1147, King Alfonso I ., of Portugal, 

instituted the Order of the New Militia in 

consequence of the prowess exhibited by the 

troops in the siege of Lisbon against the Moors . 

When they conquered Evora in 1166, the king 

~y decree changed their name to Knights of 

Evora. 

Exalted . A candidate is said to be exalted 

when he receives the Degree of Holy Royal 

Arch, the seventh in American Masonry . Exalted 

means elevated or lifted up, and is applicable 

both to a peculiar ceremony of the degree, 

and to the fact that this degree, in the Rite in 

which it is practised, constitutes the summit of 

ancient Masonry. 

The rising of the sun of spring from his 

wintry sleep into the glory of the vernal equinox 

was called by the old sun-worshipers his 

"exaltation" ; and the Fathers of the Church 

afterward applied the same term to the resurrection 

of Christ . St. Athanasius says that 

by the expression, "God hath exalted him," 

St . Paul meant the resurrection . Exaltation, 

therefore, technically means a rising from a 

lower to a higher sphere, and in Royal Arch 

Masonry may be supposed to refer to the being 

lifted up out of the first temple of this life 

into the second temple of the future life. The 

candidate is raised in the Master's Degree, he 

is exalted in the Royal Arch. In both the symbolic 

idea is the same . 

Examination of Candidates . It is an 

almost universal rule of the modern Constitutions 

of Masonry, that an examination 

upon the subjects which had been taught 

in the preceding degree shall be required of 

every brother who is desirous of receiving a 

higher degree ; and it is directed that th,a 

examination shall take place in an open Lodge 

of the degree upon which the examination is 

made, that all the members present may have 

an opportunity of judging from actual inspection 

of the proficiency and fitness of the candidate 

for the advancement to which he aspires . 

The necessity of an adequate comprehension 

of the mysteries of one degree, before any 

attempt is made to acquire a higher one, seems 

to have been duly appreciated from the earliest 

times ; and hence the 13th Article of the 

Regius MS . requires that if a Master has an 

Apprentice he shall teach him fully, that he 

may know his Craft ably wherever he may 

go . (vv ., 239-244 .) But there is no evidence 

that the system of examining candidates as 

to their proficiency, before their advancement, 

is other than a modern improvement, and first 

adopted not very early in the present century . 

Examination of the Ballot-Box . This is 

sometimes done during the ballot for a candidate, 

by presenting the box first to the Junior 

Warden, then to the Senior, and lastly to the 

Master each of whom proclaims the result as 

"clear" or "foul." This order is adop ted so 

that the declaration of the inferior officer, as 

to the state of the ballots, may be confirmed 

and substantiated by his superior . 

Examination of Visitors . The due examination 

of strangers who claim the right to 

visit, should be entrusted only to the most 

skilful and prudent brethren of the Lodge . 

And the examining committee should never 

forget, that no man applying for admission is 

to be considered as a Mason, however strong 

may be his recommendations, until b y undeniable 

evidence he has proved himself to be 

such . 

All the necessary forms and antecedent 

cautions should be observed . Inquiries should 

be made as to the time and place of initiation, 

as a preliminary step the Tiler's OB, of course, 

never being omitted. Then remember the 

good old rule of "commencing at the beginning 

." Let everything proceed in regular 

course, not varying in the slightest degree 

from the order in which it is to be supposed 

that the information sought was originally 

received . Whatever be the suspicions of imposture, 

let no expression of those suspicions 

be made until the final decree for rejection is 

uttered . And let that decree be uttered in 

general terms, such as, "I am not satisfied," 

or "I do not recognize you," and not in more 

specific language, such as, "You did not answer 

this inquiry," or "You are ignorant on 

that point ." The candidate for examination is 

only entitled to know that he has not complied 

generally with the requisitions of his 

examiner . To descend to particulars is alwa 

improper and often dangerous . Above 

never ask what the lawyers call "leading questions," 

which include in themselves the answers, 

nor in any manner aid the memory or 

prompt the forgetfulness of the party examined, 

by the slightest hints . If he has it in him 

it will come out without assistance, and if he 

has it not he is clearly entitled to no aid . The 

Mason w io is so unmindful of his obligations

256 EXCALIBAR 

EXCLUSNENESS 

as to have forgotten the instructions he has 

received, must pay the penalty of his carelessness, 

and be deprived of his contemplated 

visit to that society whose secret modes of recognition 

he has so little valued as not to have 

treasured them in his memory. 

Lastly, never should an unjustifiable delicacy 

weaken the rigor of these rules. Remember, 

that for the wisest and most evident 

reasons, the merciful maxim of the law, which 

says that it is better that ninety nine guilty 

men should escape than that one innocent man 

should be punished, is with us reversed and 

that in Masonry it is better that ninety and nine 

true men should be turned away from the door o 

a Lodge than that one cowan should be adm - 

Excallbar. King Arthur's famous sword, 

which he unfixed from a miraculous stone 

after the unavailing efforts of 200 of his most 

puissant barons. Hence, Arthur was proclaimed 

king . When dying, Arthur commanded 

a servant to throw the sword into a 

neighboring lake, but the servant twice eluded 

this command. When he finally complied, a 

hand and arm arose from the water, seized the 

sword by the hilt, waved it thrice, then sinking 

into the lake, was seen no more? 

Excavations. Excavations beneath Jerusalem 

have for some years past been in progress, 

under the direction of the English society, which 

controls the " PalestineExploration Fund," and 

many important discoveries, especially interesting 

to Masons, have been made . 

Excellent. A title conferred on the Grand 

Captain of the Host and Grand Principal Sojourner 

of a Grand Chapter, and on the King 

and Scribe of a subordinate Chapter of Royal 

Arch Masons in America . 

Excellent Masons . Dr . Oliver (Hilt. 

Landm ., i., 420-8) gives a tradition that at the 

building of Solomon's Temple there were nine 

Lodges of Excellent Masons having nine in 

each, which were distributed as follows : Six 

Lodges, or fifty-four Excellent Masons in the 

quarries ; three Lodges, or twenty-seven Excellent 

Masons in the forest of Lebanon ; 

eight Lodges, or seventy-two Excellent Masons 

engaged in preparing the materials ; and 

nine Lodges, or eighty-one Excellent Masons 

subsequently employed in building the Temple 

. Of this tradition there is not the slightest 

support in authentic history, and it must 

have been invented altogether for a symbolic 

purpose, in reference perhaps to the mystical 

numbers which it details . 

Excellent Master . A degree which, with 

Super-Excellent Master was atone time given 

as preparatory to the Loyal Arch . They now 

form part of what is known as Cryptic Masonry 

. 

Most. (See Most Excellent.) 

Excellent, Right . (See R' ht Excellent .) 

Excellent, Super. (See Super-Excellent 

Masons .) 

Exclusion. In England the Grand Lodge 

alone can expel from the rights and privileges 

of Masonry. But a subordinate Lodge may 

exclude a member after giving him due notice 

of the charge preferred against him, and of the 

time appointed for its consideration. The 

name of any one so excluded, and the cause of 

his exclusion must be sent to the Grand 

Secretary and to the Provincial or District 

Grand Secretary if the Lodge be in a Province 

or District. No Mason excluded is eligible to 

any other Lodge until the Lodge to which he 

applies has been made acquainted with his 

exclusion, and the cause, so that the brethren 

may exercise their discretion as to his admission. 

(Constitutions, Rules 210 and 212.) In 

America, the word used as synonymous with 

exclusion is striking from the roll, except that 

the latter punishment is only inflicted for nonpayment 

of Lodge dues. 

Exclusiveness of Masonry . The exclusiveness 

of Masonic benevolence is a charge 

that has frequently been made against the 

Order ; and it is said that the charity of which 

it boasts is always conferred on its own members 

in preference to strangers. It cannot be 

denied that Masons, simply as Masons have 

ever been more constant and more profuse in 

their charities to their own brethren than to the 

rest of the world; that in apportioning the alms 

which God has given them to bestow, they have 

first looked for the poor in their own home before 

they sought those who were abroad ; and 

that their hearts have felt more deeply for the 

destitution of a Brother than a stranger. 

The principle that governs the Institution of 

Freemasonry, in the distribution of its charities, 

and the exercise of all the friendly affections, 

is that which was laid down by St . 

Paul for the government of the infant church 

at Galatia- "As we have therefore opportunity 

let us do good unto all men, es eciall~y 

unto diem who are of the household of faith . ' 

(Galatians vi. 10.) 

This sentiment of preference for those of 

one's own faith, thus sanctioned by apostolic 

authority, is the dictate of human nature, and 

the words of Scripture find their echo in every 

heart. "Blood," says the Spanish proverb, 

"is thicker than water," and the claims of 

kindred, of friends and comrades to our affections, 

must not be weighed in the same scale 

with those of the stranger, who has no stronger 

tie to bind him to our sympathies, than that 

of a common origin from the founder of our 

race . All associations of men act on this princi~e 

. It is acknowledged in the church, 

which follows with strict obedience the in'unction 

of the apostle ; and in the relief it affords 

to the distressed, in the comforts and consolations 

which it imparts to the afflicted, and 

in the rights and privileges which it bestows 

upon its own members, distinguishes between 

those who have no community with it of religious 

belief, and those who, by worshiping at 

the same altar, have established the higher 

claim of being of the household of faith . 

It is recognized by all other societies, which 

however they may, from time to time, and 

under the pressure of peculiar circumstances, 

extend temporary aid to accidental cases of distress, 

carefully preserve their own peculiar 

funds for the relief of those who, by their election 

as members, by their subscription to a

EXCUSE 

EXPOSITIONS 257 

written constitution, and by the regular payment 

of arrears, have assumed the relationship 

which St . Paul defines as being of the household 

of faith . 

It is recognized by governments, which, 

however liberally they may frame their laws, 

so that every burden may bear equally on all, 

and each may enjoy the same civil and religious 

rights, never fail, in the privileges which they 

bestow, to discriminate between the alien and 

foreigner, whosevisit is but temporary orwhose 

allegiance is elsewhere, and their own citizens . 

This principle of preference is universally 

diffused, and it is 

it is so . It is well 

that those who are nearer should be dearer 

and that a similitude of blood, an identity ot; 

interest, or a community of purpose, should 

give additional strength to the ordinary ties 

that bind man to man. Man, in the weakness 

of his nature, requires this security . By his 

own unaided efforts, he cannot accomplish 

the objects of his life nor supply the necessary 

wants of his existence. In this state of utter 

helplessness, God "has wisely and mercifully 

provided a remedy by implanting in the 

human breast a love of union and an ardent 

desire for society. Guided by this instinct of 

preservation, man eagerly seeks the communion 

of man, and the weakness of the individual 

is compensated by the strength of association . 

It is to this consciousness of mutual dependence, 

that nations are indebted for their 

existence, and governments for their durability 

. And under the impulse of the same 

instinct of society, brotherhoods and associations 

are formed, whose members, concentrating 

their efforts for the attainment of one common 

object, bind themselves by voluntary 

ties of love and friendship, more powerful 

than those which arise from the ordinary sentiments 

and feelings of human nature . 

Excuse . Many Lodges in the last century 

and in the beginning of this inflicted pecuniary 

fines for non-attendance at Lodge meetings, 

and of course excuses were then required 

to avoid the penalty . But this has now grown 

out of use. Masonry being considered a voluntary 

institution, fines for absence are not 

inflicted, and excuses are therefore not now required. 

The infliction of a fine would, it is 

supPosed, detract from the solemnity of the 

obligation which makes attendance a duty . 

The old Constitutions, however, required 

excuses for non-attendance, although no penalty 

was prescribed for a violation of the rule . 

Thus, in the Matthew Cooke MS . (fifteenth 

century), it is said, "that every master of 

this art should be warned to come to his congregation 

that they come duly, but if (unless) 

they may be excused by some manner of 

cause. (lines 740-4.) And in the Regius MS . 

it is written : 

"That every mayster, that is a Mason, 

Must ben at the generals congregacyon, 

so that he hyt resonebly y-tolde 

Where that the semble shall be holde ; 

And to that semble he must nede gon, 

But he have a resenabul skwsacyon." 

vv. 107-112 . 

Executive Powers of a Grand Lodge. 

(See Grand Lodge .) 

Exegetical and Philanthropical Society . 

According to Thory (Acts Lat., i., 312), 

founded at Stockholm in 1787 . It united 

Magnetism to Swedenborgianism ; it was at 

first secret, but when it became known it was 

killed by ridicule . 

Exemplification of the Work . This term 

is of frequent use in American Masonry. 

When a lecturer or teacher performs the ceremonies 

of a degree for instruction, using generally 

one of the Masons present as a substitute 

for the candidate, he is said "to exemplify 

the work." It is done for instruction, or to 

enable the members of the Grand or subordinate 

Lodge to determine on the character of 

the ritual that is taught by the exemplifier . 

Exoteric . Public, not secret. (See Esoteric.) 

Exodus . The date of the Exodus has been 

determined by the excavations recently made 

at Tel el-Maskhi ta. This is the name of large 

mounds near Tel el-Keber excavated by M . 

Naville for the Egyptian 'Exploration Fund, 

wherein he found inscriptions showing that 

they represent the ancient city of Pithom, or 

Succoth, the "treasure-cities" (Ex . i. 11), and 

that Ramses II . was the founder . This was 

the Pharaoh of the oppression. The walls of 

the treasure-chambers were about six hundred 

and fifty feet square and twenty-two feet 

thick. From Pithom, or Succoth, where the 

Israelites were at work, they started on their 

Exodus toward Etham (Khetam), then to Pihachiroth 

(Ex. xiv . 2), and so on north and 

east . The Exodus took place under Meneptah 

II ., who ascended the throne B.c . 1325, 

and reigned but a short period . It was along 

the isthmus that the Egyptian army perished 

pursuing the retreating Israelites as they 

crossed between Lake Serbonis and the waters 

of the Mediterranean, amidst the "sea of 

papyrus reeds," the ydm stlph, that has often 

proved disastrous to single or congregated 

travelers. (See S. Birch, LL.D ., in Ancient 

History from the Monuments, Brugsch-Bey's 

lecture 17th September, 1874 ; but more particularfy 

the late discoveries above referred 

to, in Fresh Lights, etc ., by A . H . Sayce. 

Expert . In Lodges of the French Rite 

there are two officers called First and Second 

Experts, whose duty it is to assist the Master 

of Ceremonies in the initiation of a candidate . 

In Lodges of Perfection of the Scottish Rite, 

there are similar officers who are known as the 

Senior and Junior Expert. 

Expert, Perfect . Conferred in three 

grades, and cited in Fustier's collection . 

(Thory, Acta Let . i., 312 .) 

Expert, Sublime English . Mentioned in 

Fustier's collection. (Thory, ActaLat., i ., 312 .) 

Expositions. Very early after the revival 

of Masonry, in the beginning of the eighteenth 

century, pretended expositions of the ritual of 

Masonry began to be published . The following 

catalogue comprises the most notorious of 

these pseudo-revelations . The leading titles 

only are given .

258 EXPOSITIONS 

EXPULSION 

1 . A Mason's Examination, which appeared 

in The Flying Post for April 11-13, 1723. 

(Gould's Hist . of F . M ., iii ., 487.) 

2. The Grand Mystery of Freemasons Discovered 

. London, 1724 . (Gould's Hiss. of 

F. M ., iii ., 475 .) 

3. The Secret History of the Freemasonry . 

London, 1724 . 

4. Masonry Dissected, by Samuel Prichard . 

London, 1730. There were several subsequent 

editions, and a French translation in 

1737, and a German one in 1736. 

5. The Secrets of Masonry made known to 

all men, by S. P . [Samuel Prichard.) London, 

1737. 

6. The Mystery of Masonry . London, 1737 . 

7. Masonry further dissected . London, 1738 . 

8. Le Secret des Franc-Masons, par M . 

l'Abbd Perau . Geneva, 1742. 

9. Catechisme des Franc-Masons, par Leonard 

Gabanon (Louis Travenol) . Paris, 1745 . 

He published several editions, varying the 

titles. 

10. L'Ordre de Franc-Masons trahi et le 

Secret des Mopses revelE . Amsterdam, 1745 . 

Many subsequent editions, and a German 

and a Dutch translation . 

11 . Le Mason demarque . 1751 . 

12 . A Master Key to Freemasonry . 1760. 

13 . The Three Distinct Knocks . 1760. 

14 . Jachin and Boar . 1762 . 

15 . Hiram ; or, The Grand Master Key . 

London,1764 . 

16 . Shibboleth, or Every Man a Freemason . 

1765 . 

17 . Solomon in all his Glory . 1766. 

18 . Mahhabone, or the Grand Lodge Door 

Open'd. 1766. 

19. Tubal Kain . 1767. 

20 . The Freemason Stripped Naked, by 

Charles Warren . London, 1769 . 

21 . Receuil precieux de la Magonnerie Adonhiramite, 

par Louis Guillemain de St . Victor. 

Paris, 1781 . This work was not written 

with an unfriendly purpose, and many editions 

of it were published . 

22. The Master Key, by I. Browne. London, 

1794 . Scarcely an exposition, since the 

cipher in which it is printed renders it a sealed 

book to all who do not possess the key . 

23. A Masonic Treatise, "than Elucidation 

on the Religious and Moral Beauties of Freemasonry, 

etc ., by W . Finch. London, 1801 . 

24 . Manual of Freemasonry, by Richard 

Carlisle. London, 1825 . 

25 . Illustrations of Masonry, by William 

Morgan . The first edition is without date or 

place, but it was probably printed at Batavia, 

N . Y. . in 1828 . 

26 . Light on Masonry, by David Bernard . 

Utica, N . Y ., 1829. 

27 . A Ritual of Freemasonry, by Avery 

New York, 1852 . 

There have been several other American 

expositions, but the compilers have only been 

servile copyists of Morgan, Bernard, and 

Allyn . It has been, and continues to be, 

simply the pouring out of one vial into another. 

The expositions which abound in the French, 

German, and other continental languages, are 

not attacks upon Freemasonry, but are written 

often under authority, for the use of the 

Fraternity. The usages of continental Masonry 

permit a freedom of publication that 

would scarcely be tolerated by the English or 

American Fraternity . [E . L. H .] 

Expulsion . Expulsion is, of all Masonic 

penalties, the highest that can be inflicted on 

a member of the Order, and hence it has been 

often called a . Masonic death . It deprives 

the expelled of all the rights and privileges 

that he ever enjoyed, not only as a member of 

the particular Lodge from which he has been 

ejected, but also of those which were inherent 

in him as a member of the Fraternity at large . 

He is at once as completely divested of his 

Masonic character as though he had never 

been admitted, so far as regards his rights, 

while his duties and obligations remain as 

firm as ever, it being impossible for any 

human power to cancel them . He can no 

longer demand the aid of his brethren, nor require 

from them the performance of any of 

the duties to which he was formerly entitled, 

nor visit any Lodge, nor unite in any of the 

public or private ceremonies of the Order . 

He is considered as being without the pale, 

and it would be criminal in any brother, aware 

of his expulsion, to hold communication with 

him on Masonic subjects . 

The only proper tribunal to impose this 

heavy punishment is a Grand Lodge . A subordinate 

Lodge tries its delinquent member, 

and if guilty declares him expelled . But the 

sentence is of no force until the Grand Lodge, 

under whose jurisdiction it is working, has 

confirmed it. And it is optional with the 

Grand Lodge to do so, or, as is frequently done, 

to reverse the decision and reinstate the 

brother. Some of the Lodges in this country 

claim the right to expel independently of the 

action of the Grand Lodge, but the claim is 

not valid . The very fact that an expulsion is a 

penalty, affecting the general relations of the 

punished brother with the whole Fraternity, 

proves that its exercise never could with 

propriety be entrusted to a body so circumscribed 

in its authority as a subordinate 

Lodge . Besides, the general practise of the 

Fraternity is against it. The English Constitutions 

vest the power to expel exclusively in 

the Grand Lodge. A Private Lodge has only 

the power to exclude an offending member 

from its own meetings . 

All Masons, whether members of Lodges or 

not, are subject to the infliction of this punishment 

when found to merit it . Resignation or 

withdrawal from the Order does not cancel a 

Mason's obligations, nor exempt him from 

that wholesome control which the Order exercises 

over the moral conduct of its members . 

The fact that a Mason, not a member of any 

particular Lodge, who has been guilty of immoral 

or unmasonic conduct, can be tried and 

punished by any Lodge within whose jurisdiction 

he may be residing, is a point on which 

there is no doubt .

EXTENDED 

EZRA 259 

Immoral conduct, such as would subject a 

candidate for admission to rejection, should 

be the only offense visited with expulsion. As 

the punishment is general, affecting the relation 

of the one expelled with the whole Fraternity, 

it should not be lightly imposed for the 

violation of any Masonic act not general in its 

character. The commission of a grossly immoral 

act is a violation of the contract entered 

into between each Mason and his Order . If 

sanctioned by silence or impunity, it would 

bring discredit on the Institution, and tend 

to impair its usefulness . A Mason who is a 

bad man is to the Fraternity what a mortified 

limb is to the body, and should be treated 

with the same mode of cure, he should be cut 

off, lest his example spread, and disease be 

propagated through the constitution . 

Expulsion from one of what is called the 

higher degrees of Masonry, such as a Chapter 

or an Encampment, does not affect the relations 

of the expelled party to Blue Masonry . 

A Chapter of Royal Arch Masons is not and 

cannot be recognized as a Masonic body by a 

Lodge of Master Masons by any of the modes 

of recognition known to Masonry . The acts, 

therefore, of a Chapter cannot be recognized 

by a Master Mason's Lodge any more than the 

acts of a literary or charitable society wholly 

unconnected with the Order . Besides, by the 

present organization of Freemasonry, Grand 

Lodges are the supreme Masonic tribunals . 

If, therefore, expulsion from a Chapter of 

Royal Arch Masons involved expulsion from 

a Blue Lodge, the right of the Grand Lodge to 

hear and determine causes, and to regulate the 

internal concerns of the Institution, would be 

interfered with by another body beyond its 

control . But the converse of this proposition 

does not hold good . Expulsion from a Blue 

Lodge involves expulsion from all the higher 

degrees ; because, as they are composed of 

Blue Masons, the members could not of right 

sit and hold communications on Masonic 

sub'ects with one who was an expelled Mason . 

Mended Wings of the Cherubim . An 

expression used in the ceremonies of Royal 

Master, the Tenth Degree of the American 

Rite, and intended to teach symbolically that 

he who comes to ask and to seek Divine Truth 

symbolized by the True Word, should begin 

by placing himself under the protection of 

that Divine Power who alone is Truth, and 

from whom alone Truth can be obtained . Of 

him the cherubim with extended wings in the 

Holy of Holies were a type . 

Extent of the Lodge. The extent of a 

Mason's Lodge is said to be in height from 

the earth to the highest heavens ; in depth, 

from the surface to the center ; in length, 

from east to west ; and in breadth, from north 

to south . The expression is a symbolic one, 

and is intended to teach the extensive boundaries 

of Masonry and the coterminal extension 

of Masonic charity . (See Form of the Lodge .) 

Exterior. The name of the First Degree 

of the "Rite d'Orient," according to the 

nomenclature of M . Fustier. (Thory, Ada 

Lat., i., 312.) 

External Qualifications . The external 

qualifications of candidates for initiation are 

those which refer to their outward fitness, 

based upon moral and religious character, the 

frame of body, the constitution of the mind, 

and social position . Hence they are divided 

into Moral, Religious, Physical, Mental, and 

Political, for which see Qualifications of Candidates 

. The expression in the ritual, that "it 

is the internal and not the external qualifications 

that recommend a man to be made a 

Mason," it is evident, from the context, refers 

entirely to "worldly wealth and honors," 

which, of course, are not to be taken "into 

consideration in inquiring into the qualifications 

of a candidate ." 

Extinct Lodge. A Lodge is said to be 

extinct which has ceased to exist and work, 

which is no longer on the registry of the Grand 

Lodge, and whose Charter had been revoked 

for misuse or forfeited for nonuse . 

Extra Communication . The same as 

Special Communication . (See Communication 

.) 

Extraneous . Not regularly made ; clandestine. 

The word is now obsolete in this signification, 

but was so used by the Grand 

Lodge of England in a motion adopted March 

31, 1735, and reported by Anderson in his 1738 

edition of the Constitutions, p . 182 . "No extraneous 

brothers, that is, not regularly made, 

but clandestinely, shall be ever qualified 

to partake of the Mason's general charity 

." 

Extrusion. Used in the Constitution of 

the Royal Order of Scotland for expulsion . 

"If a brother shall be convicted of crime by 

any Court of Justice, such brother shall be 

permanently extruded ." (Sect . 29 .) Not in 

use elsewhere as a Masonic term . 

Eye . (See All-Seeing Eye .) 

Ezekiel, Temple of. (See Temple of 

Ezekiel .) 

Ezel . In Hebrew, ' 7N 1 4, eben hahezel, 

the stone of the departure, viz ., a mile-stone . 

An old testimonial stone in the neighborhood 

of Saul's residence, the scene of the parting of 

David and Jonathan, and the mark beyond 

which the falling of Jonathan's arrow indicated 

danger. (1 Sam . xx. 19 .) Hence, a word 

adopted in the honorary deFee called the 

"Mason's wife and daughter .' 

Ezra . There are two persons named Ezra 

who are recorded in Scripture. 1 . Ezra, a 

leading priest among the first colonists who 

came up to Jerusalem with Zerubbabel, and 

who is mentioned by Nehemiah (xii . i) ; and, 

2, Ezra, the celebrated Jewish scribe and restorer 

of the law, who visited Jerusalem fortytwo 

years after the second Temple had been 

completed . Calmet, however, says that this 

second Ezra had visited Jerusalem previously 

in company with Zerubbabel . Some explanation 

of this kind is necessary to reconcile an 

otherwise apparent inconsistency in the English 

system of the Royal Arch, which- makes 

two of its officers represent Ezra and Nehe 

miah under the title of scribes, while at the 

same time it mares the time of the ritual refer

260 EZRA 

FAMILY 

to the laying of the foundation of the second 

Temple, and yet places in the scene, as a 

prominent actor, the later Ezra, who did not 

go up to Jerusalem until more than forty 

years after the completion of the building . It 

is more probable that the Ezra who is said in 

the ritual to have wrought with Joshua, Hagand 

Zerubbabel, was intended by the original 

framer of the ritual to refer to the first 

Ezra, who is recorded by Nehemiah as having 

been present ; and that the change was made 

in the reference without due consideration, 

by some succeeding ritualist, whose mistake 

has been carelessly perpetuated by those who 

followed him. Dr . Oliver (Hilt . Landmarks, 

ii., 428) attempts to reconcile the difficulty, 

and to remove the anachronism, by saying 

that Esdras was the scribe under Joshua, 

Haggai, and Zerubbabel, and that he was succeeded 

in this important office by Ezra and 

Nehemiah. But the English ritual makes no 

allusion to this change of succession; and if it 

did, it would not enable us to understand bow 

Ezra and Nehemiah could he present as scribes 

when the foundations of the second Temple 

were laid, and the important secrets of the 

Royal Arch degree were brought to light, 

unless the Ezra meant is the one who came to 

Jerusalem with Nehemiah . There is a confusion 

is all this which should be rectified . 

F. The sixth letter in the English and 

Latin alphabets, and the same as the Greek 

digamma or the ¢ or ph, and the vau of the 

Hebrew, which has a numerical value of six . 

F. . In French Masonic documents the 

abbreviation of Frbre, or Brother . FF . . is 

the abbreviation of Frbres, or Brethren. 

Fabre-Palaprat, Bernard Raymond . 

The restorer, or, to speak more correctly, the 

organizer of the Order of the Temple at Paris, 

of which he was elected Grand Master in 

1804 . He died at Pau, in the lower Pyrenees, 

February 18, 1838. (See Temple, Order of 

the .) 

Faculty of Abrac . 

In the so-called Leland 

Manuscript, it is said that Masons "conceal 

the way of wynninge the facultye of Abrac ." 

That is, that they conceal the method of 

acquiring the powers bestowed by a knowledge 

of the magical talisman that is called 

Abracadabra. (See Abracadabra and Leland 

Manuscript .) 

Faith. In the theological ladder the explanation 

of which forms a part of tlhe ritual 

said 

of the First Degree of Masonry, faith, is 

to typify the lowest round . Faith, here, is 

synonymous with confidence or trust, and 

hence we find merely a repetition of the lesson 

which had been previously taught that the 

first, the essential qualification of a candidate 

for initiation, is that he should trust in God . 

In the lecture of the same degree, it is said 

that "Faith may be lost in sight ; Hope ends 

in fruition ; but Charity extends beyond the 

grave through the boundless realms of eternity.'; 

And this is said, because as faith is 

"the evidence of things not seen " when we 

see we no longer believe by faith but through 

demonstration ; and as hope lives only in the 

expectation of possession, it ceases to exist 

when the object once hoped for is at length 

enjoyed, but charity, exercised on earth in 

acts of mutual kindness and forbearance, is 

still found in the world to come, in the sub- 

F 

limer form of mercy from God to his erring 

creatures . 

Faithful Breast. (SeeBreast, the Faithful .) 

Falk, De, Rabbi . A native Israelite of 

-Furth, who attracted some attention in 

London at the close of the eighteenth century 

in consequence of his presumed extraordinary 

powers, acquired through the secrets of the 

Kabbala, as a Thaumaturgist . It was alleged 

that he could and did transmute metals, and 

thereby acquired large sums with which he 

was liberal to the poor . A merry incident is 

perhaps familiar to the reader . An invitation 

was extended by the Baal Shem (the sacerdotal 

pronouncer of the Holy Name) to the 

Doctor to call as a visitor for a friendly and 

philosophical discussion . This was assented 

to, when the Doctor was asked to fix a time . 

He did so by taking from his pocket a small 

taper and handing it to his new friend, saying : 

"Light this, sir, when you get home, and 

I shall be with you as soon as it goes out ." 

This the gentleman did next morning, expecting 

an early call, but the taper appeared 

to have a charmed life, and it was deposited 

in a special closet, where it continued to burn 

for three weeks, and until in the even=g, when 

Doctor drove up to the door and alighted, 

much to the surprise of the host, who, with 

wonderment, had watched the bright-burning 

taper . As soon as his visitor was announced, 

the light and candlestick . disappeared The 

Doctor was asked if the candlestick would 

be returned, when he replied, "It is already in 

the kitchen" ; and so it was found . A further 

incident is mentioned of his leavin upon his 

death a sealed box to his parti friend, 

Aaron Goldsmid stating that to n it 

portended evil. Aaron could not wit tand 

his curiosity, and one day opened it, and ere 

the night came Aaron was picked up dead . 

Fail of Water. (See Waterfall .) 

Family Lodge. A Lodge held especially 

for the transaction of private and local busi-

FANATICISM 

FELLOW-CRAFT 261 

ness of so delicate a nature that it is found 

necessary to exclude, during the session, the 

presence of all except members. In France a 

Lodge when so meeting is said to be en 

famille, and the meeting is called a tenue de 

famille or family session ; in Germany such 

Lodges are called, sometimes, Familien- 

Logen but more generally Conferenz-Logen. 

(See conference Lodges .) 

Fanaticism . The English interpretation 

of the name of the second assassin of the G . 

Master, or mankind . The frenzy that overbalances 

the mind . The Gravelot or Romvel 

of philosophical Masonry . 

Fanor. The name given to the Syrian 

Mason, who is represented in some legends 

as one of the assassins . Amru and Metusael 

being the other two . 

Fasces. The bundle of rods borne before 

the Roman magistrates as an ensign of their 

authority. In French Masonry, faisceau, or 

farces, is used to denote a number of speeches 

or records tied up in a roll and deposited in 

the archives. 

Favorite of Solomon. The Seventh Degree, 

3d division, of the system of the Chapter 

of the High Degrees of Stockholm . (Thory, 

Aeta Lat., i, 313 .) 

Favorite Brother of St. Andrew. The 

Ninth Degree of the Swedish Rite . 

Favorite Brother of St . John . The 

Eighth Degree of the Swedish Rite . 

Feast . The convocation of the Craft together 

at an annual feast, for the laudable 

purpose of promoting social feelings, and 

cementing the bonds of brotherly love by the 

interchange of courtesies, is a time-honored 

custom, which is unfortunately growin~ into 

disuse. The "Assembly and Feast' are 

words constantly conjoined in the Book of 

Constitutions . At this meeting, no business 

of any kind, except the installation of officers, 

was transacted, and the day was passed in 

innocent festivity. The election of officers 

always took place at a previous meeting, in 

obedience to a regulation adopted by the 

Grand Lodge of England, in 1720, as follows : 

"It was agreed, in order to avoid disputes on 

the annual feast-day, that the new Grand 

Master for the future shall be named and 

proposed to the Grand Lodge some time before 

the feast ." (Constitutions, 1738, p . 111 .) 

Feasts of the Order . The festivals of St . 

John the Baptist and St . John the Evangelist, 

June 24th and December 27th, are so called . 

Feeling . One of the five human senses, and 

esteemed by Masons above all the others . For 

as Anthony Brewer, an old dramatist, says : 

" Though one hear, and see, and smell, and taste, 

If he wants touch, he is counted but a block." 

Fees of Honor. In the Grand Lodge of 

England every Grand Officer, on his election 

or reelection, is required to pay a sum of 

money, varying from two to twenty guineas . 

The sums thus paid for honors bestowed are 

technically called "fees of honor ." A similar 

custom prevails in the Grand Lodges of Ireland 

and Scotland ; but the usage is unknown 

in America . 

Feix-Feax . A word signifying School of 

Thought, which is found in the First Degree 

of the French Adoptive Rite . 

Felicity, Order of. An androgynous 

secret society, founded in 1743, at Paris, by 

M . Chambonnet . It was among the first of 

the pseudo-Masonic associations, or coteries, 

invented by French Masons to gratify the 

curiosity and to secure the support of women . 

It had a ritual and a vocabulary which were 

nautical in their character, and there was a 

rather too free indulgence in the latitude of 

gallantry . • It consisted of four degrees, 

Cabin Boy, Master Commodore, and Vice 

Admiral. The chic? of the order was called 

Admiral, and this position was of course occupied 

by M . Chambonnet, the inventer of 

the system . (Clavel, Historie Pittoresque, p . 

111 .) 

Feld Loge. What is designated in England 

and America as a Military or Traveling 

Lodge is called in Germany a Feld Loge. 

Sometimes, "ein ambulante Loge ." 

Fellow. The Saxon word for fellow is 

felaw . Spelman derives it from two words, 

fe and loy, which signifies bound in mutual 

trust; a plausible derivation, and not . unsuited 

to the meaning of the word . But Hicks 

gives a better etymology when he derives it 

from the Anglo-Saxon folgian, "to follow," 

and thus a fellow would he a follower a companion, 

an associate . In the Middle Ages, 

the Operative Masons were divided into 

Masters and Fellows . Thus in the Harleian 

MS., No . 2054, it is said : "Now I will reherse 

other charges in singular for Maisters & 

fellowes" Those who were of greater skill 

held a higher position and were designated as 

Masters, while the masses of the fraternity 

the commonalty, as we might say, were called 

Fellows . In the Matthew Cooke MS . this 

principle is very plainly laid down . There 

it is written that Euclid "ordained that they 

who were passing of cunning should be passing 

honored, and commanded to call the cunninger 

Master . . . and commanded that 

they that were less of wit should not be called 

servant nor subject, but Fellow, for nobility 

of their gentle blood ." (Lines 675-688 .) 

From this custom has originated the modern 

title of Fellow-Craft, given to the Second Degree 

of Speculative Masonry ; although not 

long after the revival of 1717 the Fellows 

ceased to constitute the main body of the 

Fraternity, the Masters having taken and still 

holding that position . 

Fellow-Craft . The Second Degree of 

Freemasonry in all the Rites is that of the 

Fellow-Craft. In French it is called Compagnon; 

in Spanish, Compaftero; in Italian, 

Compagno; and in German, Gesell; in all of 

which the radical meaning of the word is a 

fellow workman, thus showing the origin of 

the title from an operative institution . Like 

the Degree of Apprentice, it is only preparatory 

in the higher initiation of the Master ; 

and yet it differs essentially from it in its symbolism 

. For, as the First Degree was typical 

of youth, the Second is supposed to represent

262 FELLOW-CRAFT 

FESSLER 

the stage of manhood, and hence the acquisition 

of science is made its prominent characteristic. 

While the former is directed in all 

its symbols and allegorical ceremonies to the 

purification of the heart, the latter is intended 

by its lessons to cultivate the reasoning faculties 

and improve the intellectual powers . 

Before the eighteenth century, the great 

body of the Fraternity consisted of Fellow- 

Crafts, who are designated in all the old manuscripts 

as "Fellows ." After the revival in 

1717, the Fellow-Crafts, who then first began 

to be called by that name lost their prominent 

position, and the great body of the brotherhood 

was, for a long time, made up altogether 

of Apprentices, while the government of the 

Institution was committed to the Masters and 

Fellows, both of whom were made only in the 

Grand Lodge until 1725, when the regulation 

was repealed, and subordinate Lodges were 

permitted to confer these two degrees. 

Fellow-Craft Perfect Architect . (Compagnon 

Parfait Architect.) The Twentysixth 

Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . There 

are several other degrees which, like this, are 

so called, not because they have any relation 

to the original Second Degree of Symbolic 

Masonry, but to indicate that they constitute 

the second in any particular series of degrees 

which are preparatory to the culmination of 

that series . Thus, in the Rite of Mizraim, 

we have the Master Perfect Architect, which 

is the Twenty-seventh Degree, while the 

Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth are Apprentice 

and Fellow-Craft Perfect Architect . So 

we have in other rites and systems the Fellow- 

Craft Cohen Hermetic, and Kabbalistic Fellow-Craft, 

were Master Cohen and Hermetic 

and Kabbalistic Master are the topmost degrees 

of the different series. Fellow-Craft in 

all these, and many other instances like them 

means only the second preparation toward 

perfection. 

Fellowship, Five Points of. (See Points 

of Fellowship, Five.) 

Female Masonry . (See Adoptive Masonry.) 

Female Masons. The landmarks of Speculative 

Masonry peremptorily exclude females 

from any active participation in its mysteries . 

But there are a few instances in which the 

otherwise unalterable rule of female exclusion 

has been made to yield to the peculiar exigencies 

of the occasion ; and some cases are well 

authenticated where this "Salique law" has 

been violated from necessity, and females have 

been permitted to receive at least the First 

Degree . Such, however, have been only the exceptions 

which have given confirmation to the 

rule . (See Aldworth, Beaton, and Xaintrailles.) 

Fendeurs. L'Ordre des Fendeurs, i . e . the 

Order of Woodcutters, was a secret society, 

established at Paris, in 1743, by the Chevalier 

Beauchaine . The Lodge represented a forest, 

and was generally held in a garden . It 

was androgynous, and had secret signs and 

words, and an allegorical language borrowed 

from the profession of woodcutting. The 

Abb6 Barruel (tom . ii., p. 350, ed . 1797) 

thought that the Order originated in the forests 

among the actual woodcutters, and that 

many intelligent inhabitants of the city having 

united with them, the operative business of 

felling trees was abandoned, and Philosophic 

Lodges were established-a course of conversion 

from Operative to Speculative precisely 

like that, he says, which occurred in Masonry, 

and this conversion was owing to the number 

of Fendeurs who were also Freemasons. 

A complete ritual of the Fendeurs is given 

in Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol . XXII, pp. 

37-52 .1 

Ferdinand IV. This King of the two Sicilies, 

on the 12th of September, 1775, issued 

an edict forbidding the meeting of Masons in 

Lodges in his dominions, under penalty of 

death . In 1777, at the solicitation of his 

queen, Caroline, this edict was repealed, and 

Masonry was once more tolerated ; but in 1781 

the decree was renewed . 

Ferdinand VI. In 1751, Ferdinand VI ., 

King of Spain, at the solicitation of Joseph 

Ferrubia, Visitor of the Holy Inquisition, enforced 

in his dominions the bull of excommunication 

of Pdpe Benedict XIV ., and forbade 

the congregation of Masons under the 

highest penalties of law. In the Journal of 

Freemasonry, Vienna, 1784 (pp. 176-224), 

will be found a translation from Spanish into 

German of Ferrubia's "Act of Accusation," 

which gave rise to this persecution . 

Ferdinand VII . The King of Spain who 

bore this title was one of the greatest bigots 

of his time . He had no sooner ascended the 

throne in 1814, than he reestablished the Inquisition, 

which had been abolished by his 

predecessor, proscribed the exercise of Freemasonry, 

and ordered the closing of all the 

Lodges, under the heaviest penalties . In 

September following, twenty-five persons 

among whom were several distinguished 

noblemen, were arrested as "suspected of 

Freemasonry ." On March 30, 1818, a still 

more rigorous edict was issued, by which those 

convicted of being Freemasons were subjected 

to the most severe punishments, such as banishment 

to India and confiscation of goods, or 

sometimes death by a cruel form of execution . 

But the subsequent resolution of 1820 and 

the abolition of the Inquisition removed these 

blots from the Spanish records . 

Fervency. From the middle of the last 

century, ardent devotion to duty, fervor or 

fervency, was taught as a Masonic virtue in 

the lectures of the First Degree, and symbolized 

by charcoal, because, as later rituals 

say, all metals were dissolved by the fervor 

of ignited charcoal . Subsequently, in the 

higher degrees, fervency and zeal were symbolized 

by the color scarlet, which is the 

appropriate tincture of Royal Arch Masonry . 

Fessler, Ignaz Aurelius . A distinguished 

German writer and Masonic reformer, who 

was born at Czurendorf, in Hungary, in 1756 . 

He was the son of very poor parents . His 

mother, who was a bigoted Catholic, had devoted 

him to a monastic life and having been 

educated at the Jesuit school of Raab, he took

FESSLER 

FESSLER 263 

holy orders in 1772, and was removed to the 

Capuchin monastery in Vienna. In consequence, 

however, of his exposure to the Emperor 

Joseph II. of monastic abuses, he incurred 

the persecutions of his superiors . But 

the emperor, having taken him under his 

protection, nominated him, in 1783, as exprofessor 

of the Oriental languages in the 

University of Lemberg. But the monks having 

threatened him with legal proceedings, he 

fled to Breslau in 1788, where he subsequently 

was appointed the tutor of the son of the 

Prince of Corolath . Here he established a 

secret Order, called by him the "Evergreen," 

which bore a resemblance to Freemasonry in 

its organization, and was intended to effect 

moral reforms, which at the time he thought 

Masonry incapable of producing . The Order, 

however, never really had an active existence, 

and the attempt of Fessler failed by the 

dissolution, in 1793, of the society . In 1791 

he adopted the Lutheran faith, and, having 

married, settled in Berlin, where until 1806 

he was employed as a superintendent of 

schools. He wrote during this period several 

historical works, which gave him a high reputation 

as an author. But the victorious progress 

of the French army in Prussia caused 

him to lose his official position . Having been 

divorced from his wife in 1802, he again married, 

and, retiring in 1803 from Berlin, betook 

himself to the quietude of a country life . Becoming 

now greatly embarrassed in pecuniary 

matters, he received adequate relief from 

several of the German Lodges, for which he 

expressed the most lively gratitude. In 1808 

he accepted the position of a professor in the 

University of St . Petersburg, which, however, 

he was soon compelled to relinquish in consequence 

of the intrigues of the clergy, who 

were displeased with his liberal views . Subsequently 

he was appointed superintendent of 

the Evangelical community, over nine Russian 

departments, and Ecclesiastical President of 

the consistory at Saratow, with a large Wary . 

In 1827, on the invitation of the Emperor 

Alexander, he removed permanently to St . 

Petersburg, where, in 1833, he received the 

appointment of Ecclesiastical Counsellor, and 

died there December 15, 1839, at the advanced 

age of eighty-three years . 

Fessler was initiated into Masonry at Lemberg, 

in 1783, and immediately devoted himself 

to the study of its science and history . 

In June, 1796, he affiliated with the Lodge 

Royal York, zur Freundschaft, in Berlin, and 

having been made one of its Sublime Council, 

was invested with the charge of revising and 

remodeling the entire ritual of the Lodge, 

which was based on the high degrees of the 

French system. To the accomplishment of 

this laborious task Fessler at once, and for a 

long time afterward, devoted his great intellect 

and his indefatigable energies . In a very 

short period he succeeded in a reformation of 

the symbolic degrees, and finding the brethern 

unwilling to reject the high degrees, which 

were four in number, then practised by the 

Lodge, he remodeled them, retaining a con- 

siderable part of the French ritual, but incorporated 

with it a portion of the Swedish system 

. The work thus accomplished met with 

general approbation. In his next task of 

forming a new Constitution he was not so 

successful, although at length he induced the 

Royal York Lodge to assume the character 

and rank of a Grand Lodge, which it did in 

1798, with seven subordinate Lodges under 

its obedience . Again Fessler commenced the 

work of a revision of the ritual . He had 

always been opposed to the high degree system 

. He proposed, therefore, the abolition 

of everything above the Degree of Master . In 

this, however, he was warmly opposed, and 

was compelled to abandon his project of 

reducing German Masonry to the simplicity 

of the English system . Yet he was enabled 

to accomplish something, and had the satisfaction, 

in 1800, of metamorphosing the Elu 

the Ecossais, and the Rose Croix, of the old 

ritual of the Royal York Lodge into the "degrees 

of knowledge," which constitute the 

Rite known as the Rite of Fessler . 

In 1798, Fessler had been elected Deputy 

Grand Master when there were but three 

Lodges under the Grand Lodge . In 1801 

by his persevering activity, the number had 

been increased to sixteen . Still, notwithstanding 

his meritorious exertions in behalf 

of Masonry, he met with that ingratitude, 

from those whom he sought to serve, which 

appears to be the fate of almost all Masonic 

reformers . In 1802, wearied with the opposition 

of his antagonists, he renounced all the 

offices that he had filled, and resigned from 

the Grand Lodge . Thenceforth he devoted 

himself in a more retired way to the pursuits 


Before Fessler resigned, he had conceived 

and carried out the scheme of establishing a 

great union of scientific Masons, who should 

devote themselves to the investigation of the 

history of Masonry . Of this society Mossdorf, 

Fischer, and many other distinguished 

Masons, were members . (See Scientific Masonic 

Association .) 

Fessler's contributions to the literature of 

Freemasonry were numerous and valuable . 

His chief work was, An Attempt to Furnish a 

Critical History of Freemasonry and the Masonic 

Fraternity from the earliest times to the 

year 1802 . This work was never printed, 

but only sold in four folio manuscript volumes 

at the price of £30, to persons who pledged 

themselves eventually to return it . It was a 

mistake to circumscribe the results of his 

researches within so narrow a field . But he 

published many other works. His productions 

were mostly historical and judicial, and 

made a great impression on the German 

Masonic mind . His collected works were 

published in Berlin, from 1801 to 1807, but, 

unfortunately, they have never been translated 

into English . The object of all he wrote 

was to elevate Freemasonry to the highest 

sphere of intellectual character . 

Fessler, Rite of . This Rite, which was 

prepared by Fessler at the request of the

264 FESTIVALS 

FIDES 

Grand Lodge Royal York of Berlin, consisted 

of nine degrees, as follows : 

1 . Entered Ap sntics . 

2 . Fellow-Cra 

3 . Master Mason . 

These differ but slightly from the same degrees 

in all the Rites and are followed by six 

other degrees, which he called the higher 

knowledge, namely : 

4 . The Holy of Holies .-This degree is 

occupied in a critical exposition of the various 

hypotheses which have been proposed as to 

the ongin of Freemasony ; as, whether it 

sprang from the Templars, from the Cathedral 

of Strasburg, from the Rose Croix of the 

seventeenth century, from Oliver Cromwell, 

from the Cathedral of St . Paul's at London, 

from that of the Palace of Kensington, or from 

the Jesuits . 

5. Justification .-Critical examination of 

the origin of certain of the high degrees, such 

as the Ecossais and the Chapter of Clermont. 

6 . Celebration .-Critical examination of the 

four following systems : Rose Croix, Strict 

Observance, African Architects, and Initiated 

Brothers of Asia . 

7 . True Light.-Critical examination of the 

Swedish System, the System of Zinnendorf, 

the Royal Arch of England, of the succession 

of the Mysteries, and of all systems and their 

ramifications . 

8. The Country .-Examination of the origin 

of the Mysteries of the Divine Kingdom, introduced 

by Jesus of Nazareth ; of the exoteric 

doctrines communicated by him immediately 

to his disciples, and of those which sprang up 

after his death, up to the time of the Gnostics . 

9 . Perfection.-A complete critical history 

of all Mysteries comprehended in actual Freemasonry. 

Both Clavel and Ragon say that the rituals 

of these degrees were drawn up from the 

rituals of the Golden Rose Croix, of the Rite 

of Strict Observance, of the Illuminated 

Chapter of Sweden, and the Ancient Chapter 

of Clermont . Fessler's Rite was, perhaps 

the most abstrusely learned and philosophical 

of all the Masonic systems ; but it did not have 

a long existence, as it was abandoned by the 

Grand Lodge, which had at first accepted it, 

for the purpose of adopting the Ancient York 

Rite under the Constitutions of England . 

Festivals . In all religions there have been 

certain days consecrated to festive enjoyment, 

and hence called festivals . Sir Isaac Newton 

(on Daniel, p . 204) says : "The heathen were 

delighted with the festivals of their gods, and 

unwilling to part with these delights ; and 

therefore, Gregory Thaumatur_ gus, who died 

in 265, and was Bishop of Neociesarea, to 

facilitate their conversion, instituted annual 

festivals to the saints and martyrs. Hence it 

came to pass that for exploding the festivals 

of the heathens, the principal festivals of the 

Christians succeeded in their room ; as the 

keeping of Christmas with joy, and feasting, 

and playing, and sports, in the room of the 

Bacchanalia and Saturnalia ; the celebrating 

of May day with flowers, in the room of the 

Floralia; and the keeping of festivals to the 

Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and divers 

of the apostles, in the room of the solemnities 

at the entrance of the sun into the signs of the 

Zodiac, in the old Julian Calendar." The 

Masons, borrowing from and imitating the 

usage of the Church, have also always had 

their festivals or days of festivity and celebration 

. The chief festivals of the Operative or 

Stonemasons of the Middle Ages were those 

of St . John the Baptist on the 24th of June 

and the Four Crowned Martyrs on the 8th of 

November. The latter was, however, discarded 

by the Speculative Masons ; and the 

festivals now most generally celebrated by the 

Fraternity are those of St . John the Baptist, 

June 24th, and St . John the Evangelist, December 

27th . These are the days kept in this 

country. Such, too, was formerly the case in 

England ; but the annual festival of the Grand 

Lodge of England now falls on the Wednesday 

following St . George's day, April 23d, that 

saint being the patron of England . For a 

similar reason, St . Andrew's day, November 

30th, is kept by the Grand Lodge of Scotland . 

In Ireland the festival kept is that of St . John 

on December 27th . 

Feuillans . An androgynous system, found 

in Fustier's collection and governed by the 

statutes of St . Bernard. 

Fidelity . (See Fides .) 

Fidelity of Baden Durlach, Order of . 

Instituted in 1716 by Charles Margrave of 

Baden Durlach . The members of the Order 

were knighted, selections being made only 

from the nobles of ancient family . The 

reigning princes were hereditary Grand 

Masters . 

Fides. In the Lecture of the First Degree 

it is said that" our ancient brethrenworshipped 

deity under the name of Fides or Fidelity, 

which was sometimes represented by two 

right hands joined, and sometimes by two 

human figures holding each other by the right 

hands." The deity here referred to was the 

goddess Fides, to whom Numa first erected 

temples, and whose priests were covered by a 

white veil as a symbol of the purity which 

should characterize Fidelity . No victims 

were slain on her altars, and no offerings made 

to her except flowers, wine, and incense . Her 

statues were represented clothed in a white 

mantle, with a key in her hand and a dog at 

her feet . The virtue of Fidelity is, however, 

frequently symbolized in ancient medals by a 

heart in the open hand, but more usually by 

two right hands clasped. Horace calls her 

"incorrupta fides," and makes her the sister of 

Justice ; while Cicero says that that which is 

religion toward God and piety toward our 

parents is fidelity toward our fellow-men . 

There was among the Romans another deity 

called Fidius, who presided over oaths and 

contracts, a very usual form of imprecation 

being "Me Dius Fidius adjuvet," that is, so 

help me the god Fidius. Noel (Dict. Fab .) 

says that there was an ancient marble at 

Rome consecrated to the god Fidius, on which 

was depicted two figures clasping each other's

FIDUCIAL 

FINDEL 265 

hands as the representatives of Honor and 

Truth, without which there can be no fidelity 

nor truth among men . Masonry, borrowing 

its ideals from the ancient p oets, also makes 

the right hand the symbol of Fidelity. 

Fiducial Sign. That is, the sign of confiding 

trust, called also the sign of Truth and 

Hope . One of the signs of the English Royal 

Arch system, which is thus explained b y Dr . 

Oliver (Diet . Symb . Mas .) : " The fiducial 

sign shows us if we prostrate ourselves with 

our face to the earth, we thus throw ourselves 

on the mercy of our Creator and Judge, lookin 

g forward with humble confidence to his 

holy promises, by which alone we hope to pass 

through the Ark of our redemption into the 

mansion of eternal bliss and glory to the 

presence of Him who is the great I AM, the 

Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the 

Ending, the First and the Last ." 

Field Lodge, or Army Lodge . A lodge 

duly instituted under proper authority from a 

grand body of competent jurisdiction, and 

authorized to exercise during its peripatetic 

existence all the powers and privileges that it 

might possess if permanently located . Charters 

of this nature, as the name implies, are 

intended for the tented field, and have been 

of the greatest service to humanity in its trying 

hours, when the worst of passions are 

appealed to . 

Fifteen. A sacred number symbolic of the 

name of God, because the letters of the holy 

name V, JAH, are equal, in the Hebrew mode 

of numeration by the letters of the alphabet, 

to fifteen ; for' is equal to ten, and 71 is equal to 

five. Hence, from veneration for this sacred 

name, the Hebrews do not, in ordinary comp 

utation, when they wish to express the number 

fifteen, make use of these two letters, but 

of two others, which are equivalent to nine 

and six. 

Finances. According to universal usage 

in Masonry, the Treasurer of the Lodge or 

other body is the banker or depositary of the 

finances of the Lodge . They are first received 

by the Secretary, who receipts for them, and 

immediately pays them over to the Treasurer . 

The Treasurer distributes them under the 

orders of the Master and the consent of the 

Lodge . This consent can only be known officially 

to him by the statement of the Secretary, 

and hence all orders drawn on the 

Treasurer for the disbursement of money 

should be countersigned by the Secretary . 

Finch, William . A Masonic charlatan, 

who flourished at the end of the last and the 

beginning of the present century . Finch was 

a tailor in Canterbury, who, having been expelled 

for some misconduct by the Grand 

Lodge, commenced a system of practical Masonry 

on his own account, and opened a Lodge 

in his house, where he undertook to initiate 

candidates and to give instructions in Masonry 

. He published a great number of pamphlets, 

many of them in a ci pher of his own, 

which he pretended were for the instruction of 

the Fraternity . Among the books published 

by him are : Masonic Treatise, with an Eluci- 

dation on the Religious and Moral Beauties of 

Freemasonry etc . ; printed at Canterbury in 

1802. The iFectures, Laws, and Ceremonies of 

the Holy Arch Degree of Freemasonry, etc . ; 

Lambeth 1812 . The Origin of Freemasons, 

etc. ; London, 1816 . Finch found many dupes, 

and made a great deal of money . But having 

on one occasion been sued by an engraver 

named Smith, for money due fr printing his 

plates, Finch pleaded an offset of money due 

by Smith for initiation and instruction in Masonry. 

Smith brought the Grand Secretary 

and other distinguished Masons into court, 

who testified that Finch was an impostor . 

In consequence of this exposure, Finch lost 

credit with the community, and, sinking into 

obscurity, died sometime after, in abject 

poverty . 

As it is impossible to read Finch's Treatises 

without a knowledge of the cipher employed 

by him, the following key will be found useful . 

We owe it to the researches of Bro . H. C. Levander 

(Freem . Mag . and Rev ., 1859, p. 490) . 

In the first part of the book the cipher used is 

formed by reversing the alphabet, writing z 

for a, y for b, etc . The cipher used on the 

title-page differs somewhat from this, as will 

be seen from the following tables : 

FOR THE TITLE-PAGE . 

Cipher. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k,1, m, n, o, 

p, q, r, a, t, u v, w, x, y, z . 

Key. b, d, f, h, j, l, n, p, r, t, v, x, z, y, w, 

u, a, q, o, in, k, i, g, e, c, a . 

FOR THE FIRST PART. 

Cipher. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, b, i, j, k, 1, m, n, 

o, p, q, r, a, t, u, v, w, x, y, z . 

Key . z, y, x, w, v u, t, s, r, q, p, o, n, m, 1, 

k, j, i, h, g, f, e, d, c, b, a . 

In the second part of the work, a totally 

different system is employed . The words may 

be deciphered by taking the last letter, then 

the first, then the last but one, then the second, 

and so on . Two or three words are also 

often run into one ; for example, ereetemhdrdoh, 

is he ordered them . The nine digits represent 

certain words of fre quent recurrence, a 

repetition of the same digit denoting the 

plural ; thus, 1 stands for Lodge; 11, for 

Lodges ; 3, Fellow-Craft ; 33, Fellow-Crafts, 

etc . 

Findel, J . G. A Masonic writer of more 

than ordinary note, who was admitted in the 

lodge "Eleusis zur Verschwiegenheit," at 

Baireuth, in 1856 . He was editor of the Bauhiitte, 

an interesting journal, at Leipsic, in 

1858, and added materially to Masonic literature 

in founding the Verein Deutscher Freimaurer, 

about 1860, and publishing, in 1874, 

Geist and Form der Freimaurerei . 

His best known and most important work 

is his Geschichte der Freimaurerei (or General 

History of Freemasonry) published in 1861, 

which has been translated into English, 

French, and other languages, and was the 

first attempt at a critical history of the Craft . 

He died in 1905. 

Fines. Fines for non-attendance or neglect 

of duty are not now usually imposed in 

I

266 FIRE 

Masonic bodies, because each member is 

bound to the discharge of these duties by a 

motive more powerful than any that could be 

furnished by a pecuniary penalty . The imposition 

of such a penalty would be a tacit acknowledgment 

of the inadequacy of that 

motive, and would hence detract from its 

solemnity and its binding nature . It cannot, 

however, be denied that the records of old 

Lodges show that it was formerly a common 

custom to impose fines for a violation of the 

rules . 

Fire. The French, in their Table Lodges, 

called the drinking a toast, feu, or fire . 

Fire Philosophers . (See Theosophists .) 

Fire, Pillar of. (See Pillars of Cloud and 

Fire.) 

Fire, Purification by. (See Purification 

.) 

Fire-Worship . Of all the ancient religions, 

fire-worship was one of the earliest, next 

to Sabaism ; and even of this it seems only to 

have been a development, as with the Sabaists 

the sun was deemed the Universal Fire. 

"Darius," says Quintus Curtius "invoked the 

sun as Mithras, the sacred ancj eternal fire ." 

It was the faith of the ancient Magi and the 

old Persians, still retained by their modern 

descendants the Parsees . But with them it was 

not an idolatry. The fire was venerated only 

as a visible symbol of the Supreme Deity, of 

the creative energy, from whom all things 

come, and to whom all things ascend . The 

flame darting upward to meet its divine 

original, the mundane fire seeking an ascension 

to and an absorption into the celestial 

fire, or God himself, constituted what has 

been called "the flame-secret" of the fireworshipers 

. This religion was not only very 

ancient, but also very universal . From India 

it passed over into Egypt, and thence extended 

to the Hebrews and to the Greeks, and has 

shown its p ower and prevalence even in modern 

thought. On the banks of the Nile, the 

people did not, indeed, fall down like the old 

Persians and worship fire, but they venerated 

the fire-secret and its symbolic teaching . 

Hence the Pyramids (pyr is Greek for fire), 

the representation of ascending flame ; and 

Jennings Hargrave shrewdly says that what 

has been supposed to be a tomb, in the center 

of the Great Pyramid, was in reality a depository 

of the sacred, ever-burning fire . Monoliths 

were everywhere in antiquity erected to 

fire or to the sun, as the type of fire . Among 

the Hebrews, the sacred idea of fire, as something 

connected with the Divine Being, was 

very prominent . God appeared to Moses in a 

flame of fire ; he descended on Mount Sinai 

in the midst of flames ; at the Temple the fire 

descended from heaven to consume the burntoffering 

. Everywhere in Scripture, fire is a 

symbol of the holiness of God . The lights on 

the altar are the symbols of the Christian God . 

The purifying power of fire is naturally deduce3 

from this symbol of the holiness of the 

element . And in the high degrees of Masonry, 

as in the ancient institutions, there is a purification 

by fire, coming down to us insensibly 

and unconsciously from the old Magian cultus. 

In the Medieval ages there was a sect 

of "fire-philosophers"-philosophi per 

-who were a branch or offshoot of Rosicrucianism, 

with which Freemasonry has so much 

in common . These fire-philosophers kept up 

the veneration for fire, and cultivated the 

"fire-secret," not as an idolatrous belief, but 

modified by their hermetic notions . The y 

were also called "theosophists," and through 

them, or in reference to them, we find the 

theosophic degrees of Masonry, which sprang 

up in the eighteenth century . As fire and 

light are identical, so the fire, which was to 

the Zoroastrians the symbol of the Divine 

Being, is to the Mason, under the equivalent 

idea of light the symbol of Divine Truth, or 

of the Grand Architect . 

Firrao, Joseph . A cardinal priest who, in 

1738, published the edict of Pope Clement 

XII. against Freemasonry . 

Fish. The Greek word for fish is IXwi . 

Now these five letters are the initials of the 

five words In?oovs Xpta°ros Oeov Ttos &ori p, 

that is, Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior . 

Hence the early Christians adopted the fish as 

a Christian symbol ; and it is to be found on 

many of their tombs, and was often worn as an 

ornament . Clement of Alexandria, in writing 

of the ornaments that a Christian may constantly 

wear, mentions the fish as a proper 

device for a ring, as serving to remind the 

Christian of the origin of his spiritual life, the 

fish referring to the waters of baptism . The 

Vesica Piscis, which is an oval figure, pointed 

at both ends, and representing the air bladder 

of a fish, was adopted, and is still often used as 

the form of the seal of religious houses and confraternities 

. Margoliouth (Vest . of Gen . Freem ., 

45) says : "In former days, the Grand Master 

of our Order used to wear a silver fish on his 

person ; but it is to be regretted that, amongst 

the many innovations which have been of late 

introduced into the society to conciliate the 

prejudices of some who cannot consistently be 

members of it, this beautiful emblem has disappeared 

." 

Five. Among the Pythagoreans five was a 

mystical number, because it was formed by 

the union of the first even number and the 

first odd, rejecting unity ; and hence it symbolized 

the mixed conditions of order and disorder, 

happiness and misfortune, life and 

death . The same union of the odd and even, 

or male and female, numbers made it the symbol 

of marriage . Among the Greeks it was a 

symbol of the world, because, says Diodorus, 

it represented ether and the four elements . 

It was a sacred round number among the Hebrews 

. In Egypt, India, and other Oriental 

nations, says Gesenius, the five minor planets 

and the five elements and elementary powers 

were accounted sacred . It was the pentas of 

the Gnostics and the Hermetic Philosophers ; 

it was the symbol of their quintessence, the 

fifth or highest essence of power in a natural 

body . In Masonry, five is a sacred number, 

inferior only in importance to three and seven . 

It is especially significant in the Fellow-Craft's

FIVE-POINTED 

FLORIDA 267 

Degree, where five are required to hold a 

Lodge, and where, in the wording stairs, thefive 

steps are referred to the orders of architecture 

and the human senses. In the Third 

Degree, we find the reference to the five points 

of fellowship and their symbol the fivepointer 

star. Geometry, too, which is deemed 

synonymous with Masonry, is called the fifth 

science ; and, in fact, throughout nearly all the 

degrees of Masonry, we find abundant allusions 

to five as a sacred and mystical number . 

Five-Pointed Star . The five-pointed star, 

which is not to be confounded with the blazing 

star, is not found among the old symbols of 

Masonry ; indeed, some writers have denied 

that it is a Masonic emblem at all . It is undoubtedly 

of recent origin, and was probably 

introduced by Jeremy Cross, who placed it 

among the plates in the emblems of the Third 

Degree prefixed to his Hieroglyphic Chart . It is 

not mentioned in the ritual or the lecture of 

the Third Degree, but the Masons of this country 

have, by tacit consent, referred to it as a 

symbol of the Five Points of Fellowship. The 

outlines of the five-pointed star are the same 

as those of the pentalpha of Pythagoras, which 

was the symbol of health. M . Jomard, in his 

Description de l'Egypte (tom . viii ., p . 423), 

says that the star engraved on the Egyptian 

monuments, where it is a very common hieroglyphic, 

has constantly five points, never 

more nor less . 

Five Points of Fellowship. (See Points 

of Fellowship, Five .) 

Five Senses . The five senses of Hearing, 

Seeing, Feeling, Tasting, and Smelling are introduced 

into the lecture of the Fellow-Craft 

as a part of the instructions of that Degree . 

See each word in its appropriate place . In the 

earlier lectures of the eighteenth century, the 

five senses were explained in the First Degree 

as referring to the five who make a Lodge . 

Their subsequent reference to the winding 

stairs, and their introduction into the second 

degree, were modern improvements . As these 

senses are the avenues by which the mind receives 

its perceptions of things exterior to it, 

and thus becomes the storehouse of ideas, they 

are most appropriately referred to that degree 

of Masonry whose professed object is the pursuit 

and acquisition of knowledge. 

Fixed Lights . In the old lectures of the 

last century, the fixed lights were the three 

windows always supposed to exist in the East, 

South, and West . Their uses were, according 

to the ritual, "to light the men to, at, and from 

their work ." In the modern lectures the~ 

have been omitted, and their place as symbols 

supplied by the lesser lights . 

Flaming Sword . A sword whose blade is 

of a spiral or twisted form is called by the 

heralds a flaming sword, from its resemblance 

to the ascending curvature of a flame of fire . 

Until very recently, this was the form of the 

Tiler's sword . Carelessness or ignorance has 

now in many Lodges substituted for it a common 

sword of any form . The flaming sword 

of the Tiler refers to the flaming sword which 

guarded the entrance to Paradise, as described 

in Genesis (iii ., 24) : "So he drove out the man ; 

and he placed at the east of the garden of 

Eden cherubims and a flaming sword 

which turned every way, to keep the 

way of the tree of life" ; or, as Raphall 

has translated it, "the flaming sword 

which revolveth, to guard the way to 

the tree of life ." In former times, 

when symbols and ceremonies were 

more respected than they are now ; 

when collars were worn, and not ribbons 

in the buttonhole - and when 

the standing column of : the Senior 

Warden, and the recumbent one of p, 

the Junior during labor, to be reversed 

during refreshment, were 

deemed necessary for the complete 

furniture of the Lodge, the cavalry sword was 

unknown as a Masonic implement, and the 

Tiler always bore a flaming sword. It were 

better if we could get back to the old customs . 

Floats. Pieces of timber, made fast together 

with rafters, for conveying burdens 

down a river with the stream . The use of 

these floats in the building of the Temple is 

thus described in the letter of King Hiram to 

Solomon : "And we will cut wood out of Lebanon, 

as much as thou shalt need ; and we will 

bring it to thee in flotes by sea to Joppa ; 

and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem ." 

(2 Chron . ii ., 16 .) 

Floor . The floor of a properly constructed 

Lodge room should be covered with alternate 

squares of black and white, to represent the 

Mosaic pavement which was the ground floor 

of King Solomon's Temple . 

Floor-Cloth. A framework of board or 

canvas, on which the emblems of any particular 

degree are inscribed, for the assistance 

of the Master in giving a lecture . It is so 

called because formerly it was the custom to 

inscribe these designs on the floor of the 

Lodge room in chalk, which were wiped out 

when the Lodge was closed . It is the same as 

the "Carpet," or "Tracing Board ." 

Flooring. The same as floor-cloth, which 

see. 

Florian, Squin de. The first accuser of 

Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the 

Knights Templar . He was subsequently assassinated 

. 

Florida. Freemasonry was first introduced 

into Florida, in 1806, by the organization, 

in the city of St. Augustine, of St . Fernando 

Lodge by the Grand Lodge of Georgia . In 

the year 1811, it was suppressed by a mandate 

of the Spanish government . In 1820, the 

Grand Lodge of South Carolina granted a 

Charter to Floridian Virtue Lodge, No . 28, 

but, in consequence of the hostility of the political 

and religious authorities, it did not long 

exist . In 1824, the Grand Lodge of South Carslina 

granted another Charter for Esperanza 

Lodge at St . Augustine, which body, however, 

became extinct after a year by the removal of 

moat of its members to Havana . In 1826, the 

Grand Lodges of Tennessee and Georgiaa 

granted warrants for the establishment rep 

spectively of Jackson Lodge at Tallahassee,

268 FLUDD 

MIKES 

Washington Lodge at Quincy, and Harmony 

Lodge at Mariana . On the 5th of July, 1830, 

delegates from these three Lodges met at Tallahassee, 

and organized the Grand Lodge of 

Florida, which has 166 subordinate Lodges 

under its rule . 

Fludd, Robert . Robert Fludd, or, as he 

called himself in his Latin writings, Robertus 

de Fluctibus, was in the seventeenth century a 

prominent member of the Rosicrucian Fraternity 

. He was born in England in 1574, and 

having taken the degrees of Bachelor and Master 

of Arts at St . John's College, Oxford, he 

commenced the study of physic, and in due 

time took the degree of Doctor of Medicine . 

He died in 1637. In 1616, he commenced the 

publication of his works and became a voluminous 

writer, whose subject and style were 

equally dark and mysterious . The most important 

of his publications are : Apologia Compendaria, 

Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce, suspicionis 

et infamice maculis aspersum abluens, 

(Leyden, 1616), i . e ., A Brief Apology, clearing 

the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross from the 

stigma of suspicion and infamy with which 

they have been aspersed ; and Tractatus Apologeticus 

integritatem Societatis de Rosea truce 

defendens contra Libanium et alios (Leyden, 

1617), or, An Apologetic Tract defending the 

purity of the Society of the Rosy Cross from the 

attacks of Libanius and others . And last, and 

wildest of all, was his extravagant work on 

magic, the kabbala, alchemy, and Rosicrucianism, 

entitled Summum bonum, quod est 

verism magice, cabaa?l, alchymice, fratrum 

Rosae Crucis verorum very subjectum . Rosicrucianism 

was perhaps indebted more to 

Fludd than to any other person for its introduction 

from Germany into England, and it 

may have had its influence in molding the 

form of Speculative Freemasonry ; but we are 

not prepared to go as far as a distinguished 

writer in the London Freemasons' Magazine 

(April, 1858, p . 677), who says that "Fludd 

must be considered as the immediate father of 

Freemasonry as Andrea was its remote father ." 

Nicolai more rationally remarks that Fludd, 

like Andrea, exerted a considerable and beneficial 

influence on the manners of his age . His 

explanation of the Rose Croix is worth quoting. 

He says that it symbolically signifies 

the cross dyed with the blood of the Savior ; 

a Christian idea which was in advance of the 

original Rosicrucians . 

Folkes, Martin . From his acquaintance 

with Sir Christopher Wren, and his intimacy 

with Dr. Desaguliers, Martin Folkes was induced 

to take an active part in the reorganization 

of Freemasonry in the beginning of the 

last century, and his literary attainments and 

prominent position in the scientific world enabled 

him to exercise a favorable influence on 

the character of the Institution . He was descended 

from a good family, being the eldest 

son of Martin Folkes, Esq ., Counsellor at 

Law, and Dorothy, the daughter of the Sir 

William Howell, Knt., of the county of Norfolk. 

He was born in Queen Street, Leicester 

Inn Fields, Westminster, October 29, 1690 . In 

1707 he was entered at Clare Hall, Cambridge, 

and in 1713 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, 

of which, in 1723, he was appointed Vice- 

President. In 1727, on the death of Sir Isaac 

Newton= he became a candidate for the Presidency, 

m which he was defeated by Sir Hans 

Sloane, who, however, renewed his appointment 

as Vice-President, and in 1741, on the 

resignation of Sloane as President, he was 

elected his successor . In 1742 he was 

elected a member of the Royal Academy of 

Sciences of Paris, and in 1746 received the 

degree of Doctor of Laws from the Universities 

of Oxford and Cambridge . 

In 1750, he was elected President of the Society 

of Antiquaries. To this and to the Royal 

Society he contributed many essa s, and published 

a work entitled, A Table ofyEnglish Silver 

Coins, which is still much esteemed as a 

numismatic authority . On September 26, 

1751, he was struck with paralysis, from which 

be never completely recovered . On November 

30, 1753, he resigned the Presidency of the 

Royal Society, but retained that of the Society 

of Antiquaries until his death. In 1733, he 

visited Italy, and remained there until 1735, 

during which time he appears to have ingratiated 

himself with the Masons of that country, 

for in 1742 they struck a medal in his honor, a 

copy of which is to be found in Thory's History 

of the Foundation of the Grand Orient of 

France. On one side is a pyramid, a sphinx, 

some Masonic ciphers and the two pillars, 

and on the obverse a li(ceness of Folkes . 

Of the Masonic life of Folkes we have but 

few records . In 1725, he was appointed Deputy 

Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, 

and is recorded as having paid great attention 

to the duties of his office . Anderson 

says that he presided over the Grand Lodge in 

May of that year, and " Rrompted a most 

agreeable communication . (Constitutions, 

1738, p . 119 .) But he held no office afterward ; 

yet he is spoken of as having taken great interest 

in the Institution . Of his literary contributions 

to Masonry nothing remains . 

The Pocket Companion cites an address by 

him, in 1725, before the Grand Lodge, probably 

at that very communication to which 

Anderson has alluded, but it is unfortunately 

no longer extant . He died June 28, 1754, and 

was buried in the Chancel of Hillington 

Church near Lynn, Norfolk. He left a wife 

and two daughters, an only son having died 

before him . 

Nichols, who knew him personally, says 

(Lit . Anecd ., ii ., 591) of him : "His knowledge 

was very extensive, his judgment exact and 

accurate, and the precision of his ideas appe~ared 

from the perspicuity and conciseness of 

his expression in his discourses and writings on 

abstruse and difficult topics. . . . He had 

turned his thoughts to the study of antiquity 

and the polite arts with a philosophical spirit 

which he had contracted by the cultivation of 

the mathematical sciences from his earliest 

youth ." His valuable library of more than 

five thousand volumes was sold for £3,090 at 

auction after his decease .

FOOL 

FORM 269 

Fool . A fool, as one not in possession of 

sound reason, a natural or idiot, is intellectually 

unfit for initiation into the mysteries of 

Freemasonry, because he is incapable of 

comprehending. the principles of the Institution, 

and is without any moral responsibility 

for a violation or neglect of its duties . 

Footstone. The corner-stone . "To level 

the footstone" : to lay the corner-stone. Thus, 

Oliver="Solomon was enabled to level the 

footstone of the Temple in the fourth year of 

his reign " 

Foot to Foot . The old lectures of the last 

century descanted on the symbolism of foot 

to foot as teaching us "that indolence should 

not permit the foot to halt or wrath to turn 

our steps out of the way ; but forgetting injuries 

and selfish feelings, and remembering 

that man was born for the aid of his fellowcreatures, 

not for his own enjoyments only, 

but to do that which is good, we should be 

swift to extend our mercy and benevolence to 

all, but more partic ularly to a brother Mason ." 

The present lecture on the same subject gives 

the same lesson more briefly and more emphatically, 

when it says, "we should never 

halt nor grow weary in the service of a brother 

Mason." 

Fords of the Jordan . The slaughter of 

the Ephraimites at the passages or fords of the 

river Jordan which is described in the twelfth 

chapter of to Book of Judges, is referred to in 

the ritual of the Fellow-Craft's Degree . Morris, 

in his Freemasonry in the Holy Land (p . 316), 

says : "The exact locality of these fords (or 

`passages,' as the Bible terms them), cannot 

now be designated, but most likely they were 

those nearly due east of Seikoot and opposite 

Mizpah . At these fords in summer time the 

water is not more than tree or four feet deep, 

the bottom being composed of a hard limestone 

rock. If, as some think, the fords, thirty 

miles higher up, are those referred to, the same 

description will ap ly . At either place, the 

Jordan is about ei ty feet wide, its banks en- 

by a d ense growth of cumbered tamarisks, 

cane, willows, thorn-bushes, and other low 

vegetation of the shrubby and thorny sorts, 

which make it difficult even to approach the 

margin of the stream . The Arabs cross the 

river at the present day, at stages of low 

water, at a number of fords, from the one near 

the point where the Jordan leaves the Sea of 

Galilee down to the Pilgrims' Ford, six miles 

above the Dead Sea ." 

Foreign Country . The lecture of the 

Third Degree begins by declaring that the 

recipient was induced to seek that sublime 

degree "that he might perfect himself in 

Masonry, so as to travel into foreign countries, 

and work and receive wages as a Master 

Mason." 

Thousand have often heard this ritualistic 

expression at the opening and closing of a 

Master's Lodge without dreaming for a moment 

of its hidden and spiritual meaning, or, 

if they think of any meaning at all, they content 

themselves by interpreting it as refrring 

to the actual travels of the Masons, after the 

completion of the Temple, into the surrounding 

countries in search of employment, whose 

wages were to be the gold and silver which 

they could earn by the exercise of their skill in 

the operative art . 

But the true symbolic meaning of the foreign 

country into which the Master Mason 

travels in search of wages is far different . 

The symbolism of this life terminates with 

the Master's Degree . The completion of that 

degree is the lesson of death and the resurrection 

to a future life, where the TRUE WORD, 

or Divine Truth, not given in this, is to be received 

as the reward of a life worthily spent in 

its search . Heaven, the future life, the higher 

state of existence after death, is the foreign 

country in which the Master Mason is to enter, 

and there he is to receive his wages in the reception 

of that TRUTH which can be imparted 

only in that better land . 

Foresters' Degrees . This title has been 

given to certain secret associations which derive 

their symbols and ceremonies from trades 

practised in forests, such as the Carbonari, or 

Charcoal-burners ; the Fendeurs, or Woodcutters 

; the Sawyers, etc . They are all imitative 

of Freemasonry . 

Forest of Lebanon . (See Lebanon.) 

Forfeiture of Charter . A Lodge may forfeit 

its charter for misconduct, and when forfeited 

the warrant or charter is revoked by the 

Grand Lodge. 

Form . In Masonry, an official act is said 

to be done, according to the rank of the person 

who does it, either in ample form, in due 

form, or simply in form . Thus, when the 

Grand Lodge is opened by the Grand Master 

in person, it is said to be opened in ample form; 

when by the Deputy Grand Master, it is said 

to be in due form/ when by any other qualified 

officer, it is said to be inform. The legality 

of the act is the same whether it be done in 

form or in ample form ; and the epithet refers 

only to the dignity of the officer by whom the 

act is performed. 

Form of the Lodge . The terms "Ample" 

and "Due" Form appear to have been introduced 

by Anderson m the 1738 ed . of the Constitutions 

(p . 110) . The form of a Mason's 

Lodge is said to be an oblong square, having 

its greatest length from east to west and its 

greatest breadth from north to sout . This 

oblong form of the Lodge has, I think, a symbolic 

allusion that has not been adverted to by 

any other writer . 

If, on a map of the world, we draw lines 

which shall circumscribe just that portion 

which was known and inhabited at the time 

of the building of Solomon's Temple, these 

lines, running a short distance north and 

south of the Mediterranean Sea, and extending 

from Spain to Asia Minor will form an 

oblong square, whose greatest length will be 

from east to west, and whose greatest breadth 

will be from north to south, as is shown in 

the annexed diagram . 

There is a peculiar fitness in this theory, 

which is really only making the Masome 

Lodge a symbol of the world . It must be

270 FORMULA 

FORTY 

remembered that, at the era of the Temple, 

the earth was supposed to have the form of a 

parallelogram, or "oblong square ." Such a 

figure inscribed upon a map of the world, and 

including only that part of it which was 

known in the days of Solomon, would present 

just such a square, embracing the Mediterranean 

Sea and the countries lying immediatel 

on its northern, southern, and eastern 

borers. Beyond, far in the north, would be 

Cimmerian deserts as a place of darkness, 

while the pillars of Hercules in the west, on 

each side of the Straits of Gades-now Gibraltar-might 

appropriately be referred to the 

two pillars that stood at the porch of the 

Temple. Thus the world itself would be the 

true Mason's Lodge, in which he was to live 

and labor . Again : the solid contents of the 

earth below, "from the surface to the centre," 

and the profound expanse above, "from the 

earth to the highest heavens," would give to 

this parallelogram the outlines of a double 

cube, and meet thereby that definition which 

says that "the form of the Lodge ought to be 

a double cube, as an expressive emblem of 

the powers of light and darkness in the creation 

." 

Formula. A prescribed mode or form of 

doing or saying anything . The word is derived 

from the technical language of the 

Roman law, where, after the old legal actions 

had been abolished, suits were practised according 

to certain prescribed forms called 

formulae . 

Formulas in Freemasonry are very frequent . 

They are either oral or monitorial . Oral formulas 

are those that are employed in various 

parts of the ritual, such as the opening and 

closing of a Lodge, the investiture of a candidate, 

etc . From the fact of their oral transmission 

they are frequently corrupted or altered, 

which is one of the most prolific sources 

of non-conformity so often complained of by 

Masonic teachers . Monitorial formulas are 

those that are committed to writing, and are 

to be found in the various monitors and 

manuals . They are such as relate to public 

installations, to laym g foundation-stones, to 

dedications of halls, to funerals, etc. Their 

monitorial character ought to preserve them 

from change ; but uniformity is not even here 

always attained, owing to the whims of the 

compilers of manuals or of monitors, who 

have often unnecessarily changed the form of 

words from the original standard . 

Fort Hiram . An earthwork erected on 

October 3, 1814, at Fox Point, Rhode Island, 

by the Grand Lodge, with the members of the 

subordinate Lodges, about two hundred and 

thirty in number. The object was to build a 

fortification for the defense of the harbor of 

Providence, and the G. Lodge, of which 

Thomas Smith Webb was Grand Master, 

through its Deputy, Sen . G. Warden, and W . 

Bro. Carlisle were authorized to work on the 

defenses . They formed a procession, marched 

in the early morning to the Point, and by sunset 

had completed their labors consisting of a 

breastwork four hundred and thirty feet in 

length, ten wide, and five high . They then 

marched and countermarch upon the parapet 

from one extremity to the other, when 

the G . Master gave the work the appellation 

of Fort Hiram which was approved and 

sanctioned by tie Governor. 

Fort Masonic. A redoubt of the fortifications 

on what was known as the Heights 

of Brooklyn, located between, what is now, 

Bond and Nevins Streets, Brooklyn, the 

south point of the quadrangle resting on 

State Street and extending north nearly to 

Schermerhorn Street ; built by members of 

the fourteen Lodges located in New York 

City, who, agreeable to a resolution of the 

Grand Lodge, of which De Witt Clinton was 

Grand Master, adopted August 22, 1814, assembled 

at sunrise on the morning of Thursday, 

September 1st, and accompanied by the 

officers of the Grand Lodge, proceeded to 

Brooklyn where they were joined by the 

members of Fortitude and Newton Union 

Lodges, marched to the Height and performed 

one day's work on the fortifications ; the redoubt 

was not completed, however, until September 

17th, when another day's labor was 

performed . [W. J . A .] 

Fortitude . One of the four cardinal virtues, 

whose excellencies are dilated on in the 

First Degree . It not only instructs the 

worthy Mason to bear the ills of life with becoming 

resignation, "taking up arms against a 

sea of trouble," but, by its intimate connection 

with a portion of our ceremonies, it 

teaches him to let no dangers shake, no pains 

dissolve the inviolable fidelity he owes to the 

trusts reposed in him . Or, in the words of 

the old Prestonian lecture, it is "a fence or 

security against any attack that might be 

made upon him by force or otherwise, to extort 

from him any of our Royal Secrets ." 

Spence, in his Polrnnetis (p. 139) when describing 

the moral virtues, says of Fortitude- 

" She may be easily known by her erect air and 

military dress, the spear she rests on with one 

hand, and the sword which she holds in the 

other . She has a globe under her feet ; I suppose 

to show that the Romans, by means of 

this virtue, were to subdue the whole world ." 

Forty. The multiple of two perfect numbers-four 

and ten. This was deemed a sacred 

number, as commemorating many events 

of religious signification, some of which are as 

follows : The alleged period of probation of 

our first parents in Eden ; the continuous del-

FORTY-SEVENTH 

FORTY-SEVENTH 271 

uge of forty days and nights, and the same 

number of days in which the waters remained 

upon the face of the earth ; the Lenten season 

of forty days' fast observed by Christians with 

reference to the fast of Jepus in the Wilderness, 

and by the Hebrews to the earlier desert fast 

for a similar period ; of the forty years spent in 

the Desert by Moses and Elijah and the Israelites, 

which succeeded the concealment of 

Moses the same number of years in the land of 

Midian . Moses was forty days and nights on 

the Mount. The days for embalming the dead 

were fort The forty years of the reign of 

Saul, of David, and of Solomon ; the forty 

days of grace allotted to Nineveh for repentance 

; the forty days' fast before Christmas 

in the Greek Church ; as well as its being the 

number of days of mourning in Assyria, 

Phenicia, and Egypt, to commemorate the 

death and burial of their Sun God ; and as well 

the period in the festivals of the resurrection 

of Adonis and Osiris; the period of forty days 

thus being a bond by which the whole world 

ancient and modern, Pagan, Jewish, and 

Christian, is united in religious sympathy . 

Hence, it was determined as the period of 

mourning by the Supreme Council of the 

A . A. Scottish Rite of the Northern Jurisdiction 

U . S. 

Forty-Seventh Problem . The forty-seventh 

problem of Euclid's first book, which has 

been adopted as a symbol in the Master's 

Degree, is thus enunciated : "In any rightangled 

triangle, the square which is described 

upon the side subtending the right 

angle is equal to the squares described upon 

the sides which contain the right angle ." 

Thus, in a triangle whose perpendicular is 3 

feet, the square of which is 9, and whose base 

is 4 feet, the square of which is 16, the hypothenuse, 

or subtending side, will be 5 feet, 

the square of which will be 25, which is the 

sum of 9 and 16 . This interesting problem, on 

account of its great utility in making calculations 

and drawing plans for buildings, is sometimes 

called the "Carpenter's Theorem ." 

For the demonstration of this problem the 

world is indebted to Pythagoras, who, it is 

said, was so elated after making the discovery, 

that he made an offering of a hecatomb, or a 

sacrifice of a hundred oxen, to the gods . The 

devotion to learning which this religious act 

indicated in the mind of the ancient philosopher 

has induced Masons to adopt the problem 

as a memento, instructing them to be 

lovers of the arts and sciences . 

The triangle, whose base is 4 parts, whose 

perpendicular is 3, and whose hypothenuse is 

5, and which would exactly serve for a demonstration 

of this problem, was, according to 

Plutarch, a symbol frequently employed by 

the Egyptian priests, and hence it is called by 

M . Jomard, in his Exposition du Systeme 

Met ' des Anciens Egyptiens, the Egyptian 

trianglg e . It was, with the Egyp tians, the 

symbol of universal nature, the base representing 

Osiris, or the male principle ; the perpendicular 

Isis, or the female principle ; and 

the hypothenuse, Hors, their son, or the 

produce of the two principles . They added 

that 3 was the first perfect odd number, that 

4 was the square of 2, the first even number, 

and that 5 was the result of 3 and 2 . 

But the Egy~t~ians made a still more important 

use of this triangle . It was the standard 

of all their measures of extent, and was 

applied by them to the building of the pyramids. 

The researches of M . Jomard, on the 

Egyptian system of measures, published in 

the magnificent work of the French savants on 

Egypt, has placed us completely in possession 

of the uses made by the Egyptians of this fortyseventh 

problem of Euclid, and of the triangle 

which formed the diagram by which it was 

demonstrated . 

If we inscribe within a circle a triangle, 

whose perpendicular shall be 300 parts, whose 

base shall be 400 parts, and whose hypothenuse 

shall be 500 parts, which, of course, bear 

the same proportion to each other as 3, 4, and 

5 ; then if we let a perpendicular fall from the 

angle of the perpendicular and base to the 

hypothenuse, and extend it through the hypothenuse 

to the circumference of the circle, 

this chord or line will be equal to 480 parts, and 

the two segments of the hypothenuse, on each 

side of it, will be found equal, respectively, to 

180 and 320. From the point where this cord 

intersects the hypothenuse let another line fall 

perpendicularly to the shortest side of the triangle, 

and this line will be equal to 144 parts, 

while the shorter segment, formed by its junction 

with the perpendicular side of the triangle, 

will be equal to 108 parts . Hence, we may derive 

the following measures from the diagram : 

500, 4801 400, 320, 180, 144, and 108, and all 

these without the slightest fraction . Supposing, 

then, the 500 to be cubits, we have 

the measure of the base of the great pyramid 

of Memphis . In the 400 cubits of the 

base of the triangle we have the exact 

length of the Egyptian stadium . The 320 

gives us the exact number of Egyptian 

cubits contained in the Hebrew and Babylonian 

stadium . The stadium of Ptolemy is 

represented by the 480 cubits, or length of 

the line falling from the right angle to the 

circumference of the circle, through the hypothenuse. 

The number 180, which expresses 

the smaller segment of the hypothenuse being 

doubled, will give 360 cubits, which will be 

the stadium of Cleomedes . By doubling the 

144, the result will be 288 cubits, or the length 

of the stadium of Archimedes ; and by doubling 

. the 108, we produce 216 cubits, or the 

precise value of the lesser Egyptian stadium . 

In this manner, we obtain from this triangle 

all the measures of length that were in use 

among the Egyptians ; and since this triangle, 

whose sides are equal to 3, 4, and 5, was the 

very one that most naturally would be used in 

demonstrating the forty-seventh problem of 

Euclid ; and since by these three sides the 

Egyptians symbolized Osiris, Isis, and Horus, 

or the two producers and the product, the 

very principle, expressed in symbolic language, 

which constitutes the terms of the problem 

as enunciated by Pythagoras, that the

272 FORTY-TWO 

FOUR 

sum of the squares of the two sides will 

produce the square of the third, we have 

no reason to doubt that the forty-seventh 

problem was well known to the Egyptian 

priests, and by them communicated to Pythagoras 

. 

Dr. Lardner, in his edition of Euclid, says : 

" Whether we consider the forty-seventh proposition 

with reference to the peculiar and 

beautiful relation established in it, or to its 

innumerable uses in every department of 

mathematical science, or to its fertility in the 

consequences derivable from it, it must certs,inly 

be esteemed the most celebrated and 

important in the whole of the elements, if not 

in the whole range, of mathematical science . 

It is by the influence of this proposition, and 

that which establishes the similitude of equiangular 

triangles (in the sixth book), that 

geometry has been brought under the dominion 

of algebra ; and it is upon the same principles 

that the whole science of trigonometry is 

founded. 

"The XXXIId and XLVIIth propositions 

are said to have been discovered by Pythagoras, 

and extraordinary accounts are given of 

his exultation upon his first perception of 

their truth. It is, however supposed by some 

that Pythagoras acquired a knowledge of 

them in E5ypt, and was the first to make them 

known in Greece ." 

Forty-Two. The number of judges required 

to sit by the body of the Egyptian dead 

pending the examination, and without which 

the deceased had no portion in Amenti . 

(See Truth.) 

Forty-Two-Lettered Name . (See Twelve- 

Lettered Name .) 

Foul. The ballot-box is said to be "foul" 

when, in the ballot for the initiation or advancement 

of a candidate, one or more black 

balls are found in it . 

Foundation-Stone . This term has been 

repeatedly used by. Dr . Oliver, and after him 

by some other writers, to designate the chief 

or corner-stone of the Temple or any other 

building. Thus, Oliver says, "the Masonic 

days proper for laying the foundation-stone of 

a Mason's Lodge are from the 15th of April to 

the 15th of May" ; evidently meaning the 

corner-stone. The usage is an incorrect one . 

The foundation-stone, more properly the stone 

of foundations, is very different from the corner-stone 

. 

Foundation, Stone of. (See Stone of 

Foundation.) 

Fountain . In some of the high degrees 

a fountain constitutes a part of the furniture 

of the initiation . In the science of symbology, 

the fountain, as representing a stream of 

continually flowing water, is a symbol of refreshment 

to the weary ; and so it might be 

applied in the degrees m which it is found, although 

there is no explicit interpretation of it 

in the ritual, where it seems to have been introduced 

rather as an exponent of the dampness 

and darkness of the place which was a 

refuge for criminals and a spot fit for crime . 

Brother Pike refers to the fountain as "tra- 

dition, a slender stream flowing from the Past 

into the Present, which, even in the thickest 

darkness of barbarism, keeps alive some memory 

of the Old Truth in the human heart ." 

But this beautiful idea is not found in the symbolism 

as interpreted in the old rituals . 

Four . Four is the tetrad or quarternary of 

the Pythagoreans, and it is a sacred number in 

the high degrees. The Pythagoreans called it a 

perfect number, and hence it has been adopted 

as a sacred number in the Degree of Perfect 

Master . In many nations of antiquity the 

name of God consists of four letters, as the 

ADAD, of the Syrians, the AMus of the Egyptians, 

the oEOZ of the Greeks, the DEus of the 

Romans, and preeminently the Tetragrammaton 

or four-lettered name of the Jews. But 

in Symbolic Masonry this number has no 

special significance . 

Four Crowned Martyrs . The legend of 

"The Four Crowned Martyrs" should be interesting 

to Masonic scholars, because it is one 

of the few instances, perhaps the only one, in 

which the church has been willing to do honor 

to those old workers in stone, whose services it 

readily secured in the Medieval ages, but with 

whom, as with their successors the modern 

Freemasons, it has always appeared to be in a 

greater or less degree of antagonism . Besides, 

these humble but true-hearted confessors of the 

faith of Christianity were adopted by the 

Stonemasons of Germany as the patron saints 

of Operative Masonry, just as the two Saints 

John have been since selected as the patrons of 

the Speculative branch of the Institution . 

The late Dr . Christian Ehrmann, of Strasburg, 

who for thirty years had devoted his attention 

to this and to kindred subjects of Masonic 

archeology, has supplied us with the 

most interesting details of the life and death 

of the Four Crowned Martyrs . 

The Roman Church has consecrated the 

8th of November to the commemoration of 

these martyrs, and yearly, on that day offers 

up the prayer : "Grant, we beseech thee, 0 

Almighty God, that as we have been informed 

of the constancy of the glorious martyrs in the 

profession of Thy faith, so we may experience 

their kindness in recommending us to Thy 

mercy." The Roman Breviary of 1474 is more 

explicit, and mentions them particularly by 

name . 

It is, therefore, somewhat remarkable, that, 

although thus careful in their commemoration, 

the missals of the church give us no information 

of the deeds of these holy men . It 

is only from the breviaries that we can learn 

anything of the act on which the commemoration 

in the calendar was founded . Of these 

breviaries, Ehrmann has given full citations 

from two : the Breviary of Rome, published in 

1474, and the Breviary of Spire, published in 

1478. These, with some few extracts from 

other books on the subject, have been made 

accessible to us by George Moss, in his interesting 

work entitled, Freimaurerei in ihrer 

wahren Bedeutung, or Freemasonry in its true 

significance. 

The $reviarium Romanum is much more

FOUR 

FOUR 273 

complete in its details than the Breviarium 

Spirense ; and yet the latter contains a few 

incidents that are not related in the former . 

Both agree in applying to the Four Crowned 

Martyrs the title of "quadratarii ." Now 

quadratarius, in the Latin of the lower age, 

signified a Stone-s quarer or a Mason . This 

will remind us of the passage in the Book of 

Kings, thus translated in the authorized version 

: "And Solomon's builders and Hiram's 

builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers 

." It is evident from the use of this word 

"quadratarii" in the ecclesiastical legends, as 

well as from the incidents of the martyrdom 

itself, that the four martyrs were not simply 

sculptors, but stone-cutters and builders of 

temples : in other words, Operative Masons . 

Nor can we deny the probability of the supposition, 

that they were members of one of 

those colleges of architects, which afterward 

gave birth to the gilds of the Middle Ages, 

the corporations of builders, and through these 

to the modern Lodges of Freemasons . Supposing 

the le gend to be true, or even admitting 

that it is only symbolical, we must acknowledge 

that there has been good reason why the 

Operative Masons should have selected these 

martyrs as the patron saints of their profession 

. 

And now let us apply ourselves to the 

legend . Taking the Roman Breviary as the 

groundwork, and only interpolating it at the 

proper points with the additional incidents 

related in the Breviary of Spire, we have the 

following result as the story of the Four 

Crowned Martyrs . 

In the last quarter of the third century 

Diocletian was emperor of the Roman Empire 

. In his reign commenced that series 

of persecutions of the Christian church which 

threatened at one time to annihilate the new 

religion, and gave to the period among Christain 

writers the name of the Era of Martyrs . 

Thousands of Christians, who refused to violate 

their consciences by sacrificing to the 

heathen gods, became the victims of the 

bigotry and intolerance, the hatred and the 

cruelty, of the Pagan priests and the Platonic 

philosophers ; and the scourge, the cross, or the 

watery grave daily testified to the constancy 

and firmness of the disciples of the prophet of 

Nazareth . 

Diocletian had gone to the province of 

Pannonia, that he might b y his own presence 

superintend the bringing of metals and stones 

from the neighboring mines of Noricum 

wherewith to construct a temple consecrated 

to the sun-god, Apollo . Among the six hundred 

and twenty-two artisans whom he had 

collected together for this purpose were fourby 

name Claudius, Castorius, Sym phorianus, 

and Nichostratus-said to have been distinguished 

for their skill as Stonemasons . 

They had abandoned the old heathen faith 

and were in secret Christians, doing all their 

work as Masons in the name of the Lord Jesus 

Christ . 

The Breviary of Spires relates here an additional 

occurrence, which is not contained in 

the Breviary of Rome, and which, as giving a 

miraculous aspect to the legend, must have 

made it doubly acceptable to the pious Christians 

of the fifteenth century, upon whose 

religious credulity one could safely draw without 

danger of a protest . 

It seems that, in company with our four 

blessed martyrs, there worked one Simplicius, 

who was also a Mason but a heathen . While 

he was employed in labor near them, he wondered 

to see how much they surpassed in skill 

and cunning all the other artisans . They 

succeeded in all that they attempted, while 

he was unfortunate, and always breaking his 

working tools . At last he approached Claudius 

and said to him : 

"strengthen, I beseech thee, my tools, that 

they may no longer break ." 

Claudius took them in his hands, and said : 

"In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ be 

these tools henceforth strong and faithful to 

their work ." 

From this time, Simplicius did his work 

well, and succeeded in all that he attempted 

to do. Amazed at the chan ge, Simplicius 

was continually asking his fellow-workmen 

how it was that the tools had been so strengthened 

that now they never broke . At length 

Claudius replied : 

"God, who is our Creator, and the Lord of 

all things has made his creatures strong ." 

Then gimplicius in quired : 

"Was not this done by the God Zeus?" 

To this Claudius replied : 

"Repent, 0 m y brother, of what thou hast 

said, for thou hast blasphemed God, our 

Creator, whom alone we worship ; that which 

our own hands have made we do not recognize 

as a God ." 

With these and such sentences they converted 

Simplicius to the Christian faith, who, 

being baptized by Cyrillus, bishop of Antioch, 

soon afterward suffered martyrdom for his refusal 

to sacrifice to the Pagan gods . 

But to return from this e pisode to the legend 

of the Four Martyrs : It happened that one 

day Diocletian issued an order, that out of a 

piece of marble should be constructed a noble 

statue of Apollo sitting in his chariot . And 

now all the workmen and the philosophers began 

to consult on the subject, and each one 

had arrived at a different opinion . 

And when at length they had found a huge 

block of stone, which had been brought from 

the Island of Tkasos, it proved that the marble 

was not fit for the statue which Diocletian 

had commanded ; and now began a great war 

of words between the masters of the work and 

the philosophers. But one day the whole of 

the artisans, six hundred and twenty-two in 

number, with five philosophers, came together, 

that they might examine the defects 

and the veins of the stone, and there arose a 

still more wonderful contest between the 

workmen and the philosophers . 

Then began the philosophers to rail against 

Claudius, Symphorianus, Nichostratus, and 

Simplicius, and said 

"Why do ye not hearken to the commands

274 FOUR 

FOUR 

of our devout emperor, Diocletian, and obey 

his will." 

And Claudius answered and said : 

" Because we cannot offend our Creator and 

commit a sin, whereof we should be found 

guilty in his sight ." 

Then said the philosophers : 

you are Chris- 

"From this it appears that 

tians ." 

And Claudius replied : 

"Truly we are Christians ." 

Hereupon the philosophers 

chose other 

Masons and caused them to make a statue 

of EsQapius out of the stone which had been 

rejected, which, after thirty-one days, they 

finished and presented to the philosophers . 

These then informed the emperor that the 

statue of Esculapius was finished, when he 

ordered it to be brought before him for inspection. 

But as soon as he saw it he was 

greatly astonished, and said : 

"This is a proof of the skill of these men, 

who receive my approval as sculptors ." 

It is very apparent that this, like all other 

legends of the church, is insufficient in its details, 

and that it leaves many links in the 

chain of the narrative to be supplied by the 

fancy or the judgment of the readers. It is 

equally evident from what has already been 

said, in connection with what is subsequently 

told, that the writer of the legend desired to 

make the impression that it was through the 

influence of Claudius and the other Christian 

Masons that the rest of the workmen were 

persuaded that the Thasian stone was defective 

and unfit for the use of a sculptor ; that 

this was done by them because they were unwilling 

to engage in the construction of the 

statue of a Pagan god ; that this was the cause 

of the controversy between the workmen and 

the philosophers ; that the latter denied the 

defectiveness of the stone ; and, lastly, that 

they sought to prove its fitness by causing 

other Masons, who were not Christians, to 

make out of it a statue of Esculapius . These 

explanations are necessary to an understanding 

of the legend, which proceeds as follows : 

As soon as Diocletian had expressed his 

admiration of the statue of Esculapius, the 

philosopher said : 

" Most mighty Cnsar, know that these men 

whom your majesty has praised for their skill 

in Masonry, namely, Claudius, Symphorianus, 

Nichostratus, and Castorius, are Christians, 

and by magic spells or incantations make men 

obedient to their will ." 

Then said Diocletian : 

"If they have violated the laws, and if 

your accusations be true let them suffer the 

punishment of sacrilege? 

But Diocletian, in consideration of their 

skill, sent for the Tribune Lampadius, and 

said to him : 

"If they refuse to offer sacrifice to the sungod 

Apollo, then let them be scourged with 

scorpions . But if they are willing to do so, 

then treat them with kindness ." 

For five days sat Lampadius in the same 

place, before the temple of the sun-god, and 

called on them by the proclamation of the 

herald, and showed them many dreadful 

things, and all sorts of instruments for the 

punishment of martyrs, and then he said to 

them : 

"Hearken to me and avoid the doom of 

martyrs, and be obedient to the mighty 

prince, and offer a sacrifice to the sun-god, 

for no, longer can I speak, to you in gentle 

words ." 

But Claudius replied for himself and for 

his companions with great boldness : 

"This let the Emperor Diocletian know : 

that we truly are Christians, and never can 

depart from the worship of our God ." 

Thereupon the Tribune Lampadius, becoming 

enraged, caused them to be stripped 

and to be scourged with scorpions, while a 

herald, by proclamation, announced that this 

was done because they had disobeyed the 

commands of the emperor . In the same hour 

Lampadius, being seized by an evil spirit, died 

on his seat of judgment . 

As soon as the wife and the domestics of 

Lampadius heard of his death, they ran with 

great outcries to the palace. Diocletian, 

when he had learned what had happened, 

ordered four leaden coffins to be made, and 

that-Claudius and his three companions 

being placed therein alive-they should be 

thrown into the river Danube. This order 

Nicetius, the assistant of Lampadius, caused 

to be obeyed, and thus the faithful Masons 

suffered the penalty and gained the crown of 

martyrdom. 

There are some legend books which give 

the names of the Four Crowned Martyrs as 

Severus, Severianus, Carpophorus, and Victorinus, 

and others again which speak of 

five confessors who, a few years afterward, 

suffered martyrdom for refusing to sacrifice 

to the Pagan gods, and whose names being 

at the time unknown, Pope Melchiades 

caused them to be distinguished in the church 

calendar as the Four Crowned Martyrs : an 

error, says Jacob de Voragine, which, although 

subsequently discovered, was never corrected . 

But the true legend of the Four Crowned 

Martyrs is that which has been given above 

from the best authority, the Roman Breviary 

of 1474. 

"On the other side of the Esquiline," says 

Mrs. Jameson (in her Sacred and Legendary 

Art, vol . ii., p . 624), "and on the road leading 

from the Coliseum to the Lateran, surmounting 

a heap of sand and ruins, we come to the 

church of the ` Quattro Coronati,' the Four 

Crowned Brothers. On this spot, some time 

in the fourth century, were found the bodies 

of four men who had suffered decapitation, 

whose names being then unknown, they were 

merely distinguished as CORONATI, crownedthat 

is, with the crown of martyrdom ." 

There is great obscurity and confusion in 

the history of these . 

Their church, Mrs . Jameson goes on to say, 

is held in particular respect by the builders 

and stone-cutters of Rome . She has found 

allusion to these martyr Masons not only in

FOUR 

FOUR 275 

Roman art, but in the old sculpture and 

stained glass of Germany . Their e i, _.'es, she 

tells us, are easily distinguished by tee fact, 

that they stand in a row, bearing palms, with 

crowns upon their heads and various Masonic 

implements at their feet-such as the rule, 

the square, the mallet, and the chisel . 

They suffered death on the 8th of November, 

287, and hence in the Roman Catholic missal 

that day is dedicated to their commemoration . 

From their profession as Stonemasons and 

from the pious firmness with which they refused, 

at the cost of their lives, to consecrate 

their skill in their art to the construction of 

Pagan temples, they have been adopted by 

the Stonemasons of Germany as the Patron 

Saints of Operative Masonry . Thus the oldest 

regulation of the Stonemasons of Strasburg, 

which has the date of the year 1459, commences 

with the following invocation : "In 

the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 

the Holy Ghost, and of our gracious Mother 

Mary and also of her Blessed Servants, 

the Pour Crowned Martyrs of everlasting 

memory." 

Such allusions are common in the German 

Masonic documents of the Middle Ages . It 

is true, however, that the English Masons 

ceased at a later period to refer in their Constitutions 

to those martyrs, although they undoubtedly 

borrowed many of their usages 

from Germany. Yet the Regius Manuscript 

of the Constitutions of Masonry, the oldest of 

the English Records, which is supposed to 

have been written about the year 1390, under 

the title of "Ars Quatuor Coronatorum," gives 

a rather copious detail of the legend, which is 

here inserted with only those slight alterations 

of its antiquated phraseology which are necessary 

to render it intelligible to modern readers, 

although in doing so the rhyme of the original 

is somewhat destroyed : 

"Pray we now to God Almighty, 

And to His Mother, Mary bright, 

That we may keep these articles here 

And these points well altogether, 

As did those holy martyrs four 

That in this Craft were of great honour . 

They were as good Mason as on earth shall go, 

Gravers and image makers they were also, 

For they were workmen of the best, 

The emperor had them in great liking ; 

He willed of them an image to make, 

That might be worshiped for his sake ; 

Such idols he had in his day 

To turn the people from Christ's law, 

But they were steadfast in Christ's law 

And to their Craft, without denial ; 

They loved well God and all his lore, 

And were in his service evermore. 

True men they were, in that day, 

And lived well in God's law ; 

They thought no idols for to make, 

For no good that they might take ; 

To believe on that idol for their god, 

They would not do so, though he were mad, 

For they would not forsake their true faith, 

And believe on his false law . 

The emperor caused to take them at once 

And put them in a deep prison . 

The sorer he punished them in that place, 

The more joy was to them of Christ's grace . 

Then when he saw no other one, 

To death he let them then go . 

Who so will of their life more know, 

By the book he may it show, 

In the legends of the saints, 

The names of the four crowned ones . 

Their feast will be, without denial, 

After All Hallows, the eighth day." 

(vv. 497-534 .) 

The devotion of these saints, which led to 

the introduction of their legend into an ancient 

Constitution of Masonry, shows how 

much they were reverenced by the Craft . 

In fact., the Four Crowned Martyrs were to 

the Stone-cutters of Germany and to the 

earlier Operative Masons of England what 

St . John the Baptist and St . John the Evangelist 

became to their successors, the Speculative 

Freemasons of the eighteenth century . 

[From them the famous literary Lodge-the 

Quatuor Coronati, of London, England-has 

been so named .] 

Fourfold Cord. In the ritual of the Past 

Master's Degree in America we find the following 

expression : "A twofold cord is strong, 

a threefold cord is stronger, but a fourfold 

cord is not easily broken ." The expression is 

taken from a Hebrew proverb which is to be 

found in the Book of Ecclesiastes (iv. 12) : 

"And if one prevail against him, two shall 

withstand him ; and a threefold cord is not 

quickly broken ." The form of the Hebrew 

proverb has been necessarily changed to suit 

the symbolism of the degree . 

Four New Years. According to the Talmud 

there were four New Years . The first of . 

Nisan was the new year for kings and festivals ; 

the reign of a king was calculated from this 

date. The first of Elul was a new year for the 

tithing of cattle . The first of Tishri was a 

new year for civil years, for years of release, 

jubilees, and planting . The first of Shebat 

was a new year for the tithing of trees . 

"Four Old Lodges." Of the four old 

Lodges which constituted the Grand Lodge of 

England, on St . John the Baptist's day, 1717, 

the "Lodge of Antiquity," No . 2, London, was 

the first . The Lodge meets by "Time Immemorial 

Constitution," having no warrant, 

and, until the "Union," was first on the 

roll ; a decision, however, by ballot, lost it its 

numerical priority . As Lodges were known 

by the house in which they met, Antiquity 

Lodge was designated "The West India and 

American." 

"The Royal Somerset House and Inverness," 

No . 4, London, is the junior of the four 

Lodges which constituted the Grand Lodge . 

At that time it met at the "Rummer and 

Grapes" Tavern, Westminster, and subsequently 

at the "Horn," which latter gave the 

Lodge a name for many years. This Lodge 

now represents three united Lodges, the names 

of two of which are to be found in its present 

designation . 

Of the four "original" Lodges, two only 

have been on the roll from 1740 as of "Time 

Immemorial Constitution ." The original 

"No. 2" ceased working about 1736 and

276 FOURTEEN 

FRANCE 

was erased in 1740, and "No . 3" accepted a 

"New Constitution" (now No . 12) and is 

known as "Fortitude and Cumberland ." 

The four original Lodges, after the issue of 

the "Regulations" of 1723, simply enjoyed the 

advantage of being ahead of all the Warrant 

Lodges, the privilege of assembling by "Time 

Immemorial Constitution," and the honor of 

having established the first Grand Lodge in 

the universe . (See Freemasonry, Early British 

.) 

Fourteen. It is only necessary to remind 

the well-informed Mason of the fourteen days 

of burial mentioned in the legend of the Third 

Degree. Now, this period of fourteen was not 

in the opinion of Masonic symbologists, an 

arbitrary selection, but was intended to refer 

to or symbolize the fourteen days of lunary 

darkness, or decreasing light, which intervene 

between the full moon and its continued decrease 

until the end of the lunar month. In 

the Egyptian mysteries, the body of Osiris 

is said to have been cut into fourteen pieces by 

Typhon, and thrown into the Nile . Plutarch 

speaking of this in his treatise On Isis aru 

Osiris, thus explains the symbolism of the 

number fourteen, which comprises the Masonic 

idea : "The body of Osiris was cut," says 

Plutarch, "into fourteen pieces ; that is, into 

as many parts as there are days between the 

full moon and the new . This circumstance 

has reference to the gradual diminution of the 

lunary light during the fourteen days that 

follow the full moon . The moon, at the end 

of fourteen days, enters Taurus, and becomes 

united to the sun, from whom she collects fire 

upon her disk during the fourteen days which 

follow . She is then found every month in 

conjunction with him in the superior parts of 

the signs. The equinoctial year finishes at 

the moment when the sun and moon are found 

united with Orion, or the star of Orus, a constellation 

placed under Taurus, which unites 

itself to the Neomenia of spring. The moon 

renews herself in Taurus, and a few days afterward 

is seen, in the form of a crescent, in the 

following sign, that is, Gemini, the home of 

Mercury. Then Orion, united to the sun in 

the attitude of a formidable warrior precipitates 

Scorpio, his rival, into the shades of 

night ; for he sets every time Orion appears 

above the horizon . The day becomes lengthened, 

and the germs of evil are by degrees 

destroyed . It is thus that the poet Nonnus 

pictures to us Typhon conquered at the end 

of winter, when the sun arrives in Taurus, and 

when Orion mounts into the heavens with 

him! ) 

France. The early history of Masonry in 

France is, from the want of authentic documents, 

in a state of much uncertainty . Moss, 

in his Geschichte der Freimaurerei in Frankreich 

(vol. i ., p . 14) says, in reference to the 

introduction of Freemasonry into that kingdom, 

that the earliest date of any certainty is 

1725 . Yet he copies the statement of the 

Sgeau Rompu--a work published in 1745- 

that the earliest recognized date of its introduction 

is 1718 ; and the Abb6 Robin says that 

nothing of it is to be found farther back than 

1720 . 

Lalande, the great astronomer, was the author 

of the article on Freemasonry in the 

Encyclopedia Methodique, and his account has 

been generally recognized as authentic by 

succeeding writers. According to him, Lord 

Derwentwater, the Chevalier Maskeleyne, 

Mr. Heguetty, and some other Englishmen 

(the names being corrupted, of course, according 

to French usage), founded, in 1725, the 

first Lodge in Paris . It was held at the house 

of an English confectioner named Hure, in the 

Rue de Boucheries . In ten years the number 

of Lodges in Paris had increased to six, and 

there were several also in the provincial towns . 

As the first Paris Lodge had been opened 

by Lord Derwentwater, he was regarded as 

the Grand Master of the French Masons, 

without any formal recognition on the part 

of the brethern, at least until 1736, when the 

six Lodges of Paris formally elected Lord 

Harnouester as Provincial Grand Master* ; 

in 1738, he was succeeded by the Duke 

d'Antin ; and on the death of the Duke, in 

1743, the Count de Clermont was elected to 

supply his place . 

Organized Freemasonry in France dates 

its existence from this latter year . In 1735 

the Lodges of Paris had petitioned the Grand 

Lodge of England for the establishment of a 

Provincial Grand Lodge, which, on political 

grounds, had been refused . In 1743, however, 

it was granted, and the Provincial 

Grand Lodge of France was constituted under 

the name of the "Grand Loge Anglaise de 

France." The Grand Master, the Count de 

Clermont, was, however, an inefficient officer ; 

anarchy and confusion once more invaded the 

Fraternity ; the authority of the Grand Lodge 

was prostrated ; and the establishment of 

Mother Lodges in the provinces, with the 

original intention of superintending the proceedings 

of the distant provincial Lodges, instead 

of restoring harmony, as was vainly expected, 

widened still more the breach . For, 

assuming the rank and exercising the functions 

of Grand Lodges, they ceased all correspondence 

with the metropolitan body, and became 

in fact its rivals . 

Under these circumstances, the Grand 

Lodge declared itself independent of England 

in 1755, and assumed the title of the "Grande 

Loge de France." It recognized only the three 

degrees of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master 

Mason, and was composed of the Grand 

Officers to be elected out of the body of the 

Fraternity, and of the Masters for life of the 

Parisian Lodges ; thus formally excluding the 

provincial Lodges from any participation in 

the government of the Craft . 

But the proceedings of this body were not 

less stormy than those of its predecessor . 

The Count de Clermont appointed, in suc- 

* Bro . R. F. Gould, in his Concise History of 

Freemasonry (p . 355), considers that the name 

" Harnouester " is probably a corruption of "Derwentwater,"

FRANCE 

FRANCE 277 

cession, two deputies, both of whom had been 

displeasing to the Fraternity. The last 

Lacorne, was a man of such low origin an 

rude manners, that the Grand Lodge refused 

to meet him as their presiding officer . Irritated 

at this pointed disrespect, he sought in 

the taverns of Paris those Masters who had 

made a traffic of initiations, but who, heretofore, 

had submitted to the control, and been 

checked by the authority of, the Grand Lodge . 

From among them he selected officers devoted 

to his service, and undertook a complete reorganization 

of the Grand Lodge. 

The retired members, however, protested 

against these illegal proceedings ; and in the 

subsequent year, the Grand Master consented 

to revoke the authority he had bestowed upon 

Lacorne, and appointed as his deputy, M . 

Chaillou de Jonville. The respectable members 

now returned to their seats in the Grand 

Lodge ; and in the triennial election which took 

place in June, 1765 the officers who had been 

elected during the Deputy Grand Mastership 

of Lacorne were all removed. The displaced 

officers protested, and published a defamatory 

memoir on the subject, and were in consequence 

expelled from Masonry by the Grand 

Lodge. Ill feeling on both sides was thus 

engendered, and carried to such a height, 

that, at one of the communications of the 

Grand Lodge, the expelled brethren, attempting 

to force their way in, were resisted with 

violence . The next day the lieutenant of 

police issued an edict forbidding the future 

meetings of the Grand' Lodge . 

The expelled party, however, still continued 

their meetings. The Count de Clermont 

died in 1771 ; and the excluded brethren 

having invited the Duke of Chartres (afterward 

Duke of Orleans) to the Grand Mastership, 

he accepted the appointment . They 

now offered to unite with the Grand Lodge, 

on condition that the latter would revoke the 

decree of expulsion. The proposal was accepted, 

and the Grand Lodge went once more 

into operation . 

Another union took place, which has since 

considerably influenced the character of 

French Masonry . During the troubles of the 

preceding years, Masonic bodies were instituted 

in various parts of the kingdom, 

which professed to confer degrees of a higher 

nature than those belonging to Craft Masonry, 

and which have since been known by the name 

of the High Degrees . These Chapters assumed 

a right to organize and control Symbolic 

or Blue Lodges, and this assumption has 

been a fertile source of controversy between 

them and the Grand Lodge . By the latter 

body they had never been recognized, but the 

Lodges under their direction had often been 

declared irregular, and their members expelled . 

They now, however, demanded a recognition, 

and proposed, if their request was complied 

with, to bestow the government of the "hautes 

grades" upon the same person who was at the 

head of the Grand Loge . The compromise 

was made, the recognition was decreed, and 

the Duke of Chartres was elected Grand Mas- 

ter of all the Councils, Chapters, and Scotch 

Lodges of France . 

But peace was not yet restored . The party 

who had been expelled, moved by a spirit of 

revenge for the disgrace formerly inflicted on 

them, succeeded in obtaining the appointment 

of a committee which was empowered to prepare 

the new Constitution . All the Lodges of 

Paris and the provinces were requested to appoint 

deputies, who were to form a convention 

to take the new CQnstitution into consideration 

. This convention, or, as they called it, 

National Assembly, met at Paris in December 

1771 . The Duke of Luxemburg presided, and 

on the twenty-fourth of that month the Ancient 

Grand Lodge of France was declared 

extinct, and in its place another substituted 

with the title of Grand Orient de France . 

Notwithstanding the declaration of extinction 

by the National Assembly, the Grand 

Lodge continued to meet and to exercise its 

functions. Thus the Fraternity of France 

continued to be harassed, by the bitter contentions 

of these rival bodies, until the commencement 

of the revolution compelled both 

the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge to 

suspend their labors . 

On the restoration of civil order, both bodies 

resumed their operations, but the Grand 

Lodge had been weakened by the death of 

many of the perpetual Masters, who had 

originally been attached to it ; and a better 

spirit arising, the Grand Lodge was, by a 

solemn and mutual declaration, united to the 

Grand Orient on the 28th of June, 1799 . 

Dissensions, however, continued to arise 

between the Grand Orient and the different 

Chapters of the high degrees . Several of those 

bodies had at various periods given in their 

adhesion to the Grand Orient, and again violated 

the compact of peace . Finally, the 

Grand Orient, perceiving that the pretensions 

of the Scottish Rite Masons would be a perpetual 

source of disorder, decreed on the 16th 

of September, 1805, that the Supreme Council 

of the Thirty-third Degree should thenceforth 

become an independent body, with the 

power to confer warrants of constitution for all 

the degrees superior to the Eighteenth, or Rose 

Croix ; while the Chapters of that and the inferior 

degrees were placed under the exclusive 

control of the Grand Orient . 

But the concordat was not faithfully observed 

by either party, and dissensions 

continued to exist with intermittent and 

unsuccessful attempts at reconciliation, which 

was, however, at last effected in some sort in 

1841 . The Masonic obedience of France is 

now divided between the two bodies, and the 

Grand Orient and the Supreme Council now 

both exist as independent powers in French 

Masonry. The constant tendency of the former 

to interfere in the administration of other 

countries would furnish an unpleasant history 

for the succeeding thirty years, at last terminated 

by the refusal of all the Grand Lodges 

in the United States, and some in Europe, to 

hold further Masonic communication with it ; 

a breach which every good Mason must desire

278 FRANCIS 

FRANKLIN 

to see eventually healed. One of the most 

extraordinary acts of the Grand Orient of 

France has been the abolition in 1871 of the 

office of Grand Master, the duties being performed 

by the President of the Council of the 

Order. 

Discussion and an attempted avoidance of a 

threatening Masonic calamity by a large number 

of the Fraternity of France did not avail to 

prevent the General Assembl of the Grand 

Orient of France from competing its overthrow 

and that of its subordinates by the 

almost unanimous adoption of the now famous 

amendment of Art . I . of the Constitution of 

Masonry, on September 14, 1877 . 

The following is the text of the amendment 

and of the original second paragraph which 

was expunged : 

Orip;inal paragraph : "Freemasonry has for 

its principles the existence of God, the immortality 

of the soul, and the solidarity of 

mankind " 

Substituted amendment : "Whereas, Freemasonry 

is not a religion, and has therefore no 

doctrine or dogma to affirm in its Constitution, 

the Assembly adopting the Vaeu IX., has 

decided and decreed that the second paragraph 

of Article I. of the Constitution shall be 

erased, and that for the words of the said 

article the following shall be substituted : I. 

Being an institution essentially philanthropic, 

philosophic, and progressive, Freemasonry 

has for its object, search after truth, study of 

universal morality, sciences and arts, and the 

practice of benevolence . It has for its 

principles, absolute liberty of conscience and 

human solidarity, it excludes no person on 

account of his belief and its motto is Liberty, 

Equality, and Fraternity." 

The adoption of the above was after a full 

and deliberate consideration by its constituents, 

who for more than a year were in the 

throes of deep deliberation and judgment . 

[The Grand Lodge of England appointed a 

committee to consider this action of the Grand 

Orient in thus expunging the existence of 

T . G. A. O. T. U . from its tenets, and they 

reported that such alteration is "opposed to 

the traditions, practice and feelings of all true 

and genuine Masons from the earliest to the 

present time" ; and it was resolved that foreign 

brethren could only be received as visitors if 

they had been initiated in a Lodge professing 

belief in T. G. A . O . T . U ., and would themselves 

acknowledge such belief to be an 

essential landmark of the Order. Similar 

action was taken by other Grand Lodges, and 

wherever the English language is spoken the 

Grant Orient of France is no longer regarded 

as a Masonic body . E . L. . H] 

Francis H., Emperor of Germany, was a 

bitter enemy of Freemasonry . In 1789, he 

ordered all the Lodges in his dominions to be 

closed, and directed all civil and military 

functionaries to take an oath never to unite 

with any secret society, under pain of exemplary 

punishment and destitution of office . 

In 1794, he proposed to the diet of Ratisbon 

the suppression of the Freemasons, the Illumi- 

nati, and all other secret societies . The diet, 

controlled by the influence of Prussia, Brunswick, 

and Hanover, refused to accede to the 

proposition, replying to the emperor that he 

might interdict the Lodges in his own states . 

but that others claimed Germanic liberty . 

In 1801, he renewed his opposition to secret 

societies, and especially to the Masonic 

Lodges, and all civil, military, and ecclesiastical 

functionaries were restrained from taking 

any part in them under the penalty of forfeiting 

their offices . 

Francken, Henry A. The first Deputy 

Inspector General appointed by Stephen 

Morin, under his commission from the Emperors 

of the East and West . Francken received 

his degrees and his appointment at 

Kingston, Jamaica . The date is not known, 

but it must have been between 1762 and 1767 . 

Francken soon afterward repaired to the 

United States, where he gave the appointment 

of a Deputy to Moses M . Hayes, at Boston, 

and organized a council of Princes of Jerusalem 

at Albany . He may be considered as the first 

propagator of the high degrees in the United 

States. 

Franc-Macon, Franc-Magonnerle. The 

French names of Freemason and of Freemasonry 

. The construction of these words is not 

conformable to the genius or the idiom of the 

French language, which would more properly 

employ the terms "Macon libre," and "Ma- 

9onnerie libre" ; and hence Laurens, in his 

Essais historiques et critiques sur la Franc 

Maconnerie, adduces their incorporation into 

the language as an evidence that the Institution 

in France was derived directly from 

England, the words being a literal and unidiomatic 

translation of the English titles . 

But he blunders in supposing that Franc- 

Mason and Franc-Masonry are any part of the 

English language . 

Frankfort-on-the-Main . A Provincial 

Grand Lodge was established in this city, in 

1766, by the Grand Lodge of England . In 

the dissensions which soon after prevailed 

among the Masons of Germany, the Provincial 

Grand Lodge of Frankfort, not finding itself 

supported by its mother Grand Lodge, declared 

itself independent in 1783. Since 1823, 

it has worked under the title of the "Grosse 

Mutterloge des Eklektischen Freimaurer- 

Bandes zu Frankfurt A . M." 

It has now 21 Lodges and 9 "Circles" under 

its jurisdiction . 

Franklin, Benjamin. This sage and 

patriot was born in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, 

on the 6th of January, 1706 . He 

was most probably initiated in 1731 in the St . 

John's Lode at Philadelphia (Gould's Hist . 

of F . M ., iii . 429 .) In 1734 he was elected 

Grand Master of the Provincial Grand Lodge 

of Pennsylvania ; and in November of the 

same year Franklin applied to Henry Price, 

who had received from England authority 

to establish Masonry in this country, for a 

confirmation of those powers conferred by 

the first deputation or warrant . It is probable 

that the request was granted, although

FRANKS 

FREDERICK 279 

no record of the fact can be found . In 1734, 

Franklin edited an edition of Anderson's Constitutions, 

which was probably the first Masonic 

work published in America . 

In 1743 Thomas Oxnard was appointed Provincial 

Grand Master of all North America 

and he appointed Franklin Provincial Gram 

Master of Pennsylvania. 

While Franklin was in France as the Ambassador 

from this country, he appears to 

have taken much interest in Masonry . He 

affiliated with the celebrated Lodge of the 

Nine Sisters, of which Lalande, Count de 

Gebelin, and other celebrities of French literature, 

were members . He took a prominent 

part in the initiation of Voltaire, and on his 

death acted as Senior Warden of the Lodge 

of Sorrow held in his memory . The Lodge 

of the Nine Sisters held Franklin in such 

esteem that it struck a medal in his honor, of 

which a copy, supposed to be the only one 

now in existence, belongs to the Provincial 

Grand Lodge of Mecklenburg. [E . L . H .] 

Franks, Order of Regenerated . A polittical 

brotherhood that was instituted in 

France in 1815, flourished for a while, and 

imitated in its ceremonies the Masonic 

fraternity . 

Frater. Latin, Brother . A term borrowed 

from the monks by the Military Orders 

of the Middle Ages, and applied by the members 

to each other . It is constantly employed 

in England by the Masonic Knights Templays, 

and is beginning to be adopted, although not 

very generally,, in the United States. When 

speaking of two or more, it is an error of 

ignorance, sometimes committed, to call them 

fraters . The correct plural is fratres. 

Fraternally. The usual mode of subscription 

to letters written by one Mason to 

another is, "I remain, fraternally, yours ." 

Fraternity . The word was originally used 

to designate those associations formed m the 

Roman Catholic Church for the pursuit of 

special religious and ecclesiastical purposes, 

such as the nursing of the sick, the support of 

the poor, the practise of particular devotions, 

etc. They do not date earlier than the thirteenth 

century . The name was subsequently 

applied to secular associations, such as the 

Freemasons . The word is only a Latin form 

of the Anglo-Saxon Brotherhood. 

In the earliest lectures of the last century 

we find the word fraternity alluded to in the 

following formula : 

"Q . How many particular points pertain 

to a Freemason? 

"A . Three : Fraternity, Fidelity, and Taciturnity 

. 

"Q. What do they represent? 

"A . Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth 

among all Right Masons ." 

Fraternize. To recognize as a brother ; to 

associate with Masonically . 

Frederick of Nassau . Prince Frederick, 

son of the King of the Netherlands, and for 

many years the Grand Master of the National 

Grand Lodge of that kingdom . He was ambitious 

of becoming a Masonic reformer, and 

in addition to his connection with the Charter 

of Cologne, an account of which has been 

given under that head, he attempted, in 1819, 

to introduce a new Rite . He denounced the 

high degrees as being contrary to the true 

intent of Masonry ; and in a circular to all the 

Lodges under the obedience of the National 

Grand Lodge, he proposed a new system, to 

consist of five degrees, namely, the three 

symbolic, and two more as complements or 

illustrations of the third, which he called 

Elect Master and Supreme Elect Master . 

Some few Lodges adopted this new system 

but most of them rejected it . The Grand 

Chapter, whose existence it had attacked, 

denounced it . The Lodges practising it in 

Belgium were dissolved in 1830, but a few of 

them probably still remain in Holland . The 

full rituals of the two supplementary degrees 

are printed in the second volume of Hermes, 

and an attentive perusal of them does not give 

an exalted idea of the inventive genius of the 

Prince. 

Frederick the Great. Frederick II ., 

King of Prussia, surnamed the Great, was born 

on the 24th of January, 1712, and died on the 

17th of August, 1786, at the age of seventyfour 

years and a few months. He was initiated 

as a Mason, at Brunswick, on the night 

of the 14th of August, 1738, not quite two 

years before he ascended the throne . 

In English, we have two accounts of this 

initiation,-one by Campbell, in his work on 

Frederick the Great and his Times and the 

other by Carlyle in his History of Frederick 

the Second . Both are substantially the same, 

because both are merely translations of the 

original account given by Bielfeld in his 

Freundschaftliche Briefe, or Familiar Letters. 

The Baron von Bielfeld was, at the time, 

an intimate companion of the Prince, and was 

present at the initiation . 

Bielfeld tells us that in a conversation 

which took place on the 6th of August at Loo 

(but Carlyle corrects him as to time and 

place, and says it probably occurred at Minden, 

on the 17th of July), the Institution of 

Freemasonry had been enthusiastically lauded 

b~y the Count of Lippe Buckeburg. The 

Crown Prince soon after privately expressed 

to the Count his wish to join the society . Of 

course, this wish was to be gratified . The 

necessary furniture and asistance for conferring 

the degrees were obtained from the Lodge 

at Hamburg. Biefeld gives an amusing account 

of the embarrassments which were 

encountered in passing the chest containing 

the Masonic implements through the customhouse 

without detection . Campbell, quoting 

from Bielfeld, says : 

"The whole of the 14th (August) was spent 

in pre ations for the Lodge, and at twelve 

at ni t the Prince Royal arrived, accompani 

by Count Wartensleben, a captain in 

the king's regiment at Potsdam . The Prince 

introduced him to us as a candidate whom he 

very warmly recommended, and begged that he 

might be admitted immediately after himself . 

At the same time, he desired that he might be

280 FREDERICK 

FREE 

treated like any private individual, and that 

none of the usual ceremonies might be altered 

on his account . Accordingly, he was admitted 

in the customary form, and I could not 

sufficiently admire his fearlessness his composure, 

and his address. After the double 

reception, a Lodge was held. All was over by 

four in the morning, and the Prince returned 

to the ducal palace, apparently as well pleased 

with us as we were charmed with him ." 

Of the truth of this account there never 

has been any doubt . Frederick the Great was 

certainly a Mason . But Carlyle, in his usual 

sarcastic vein, adds : "The Crown Prince 

prosecuted his Masonry at Reinsberg or elsewhere, 

occasionally, for a year or two, but was 

never ardent in it, and very soon after his 

accession left off altogether . . . A Royal 

Lodge was established at Berlin, of which the 

new king consented to be patron ; but he never 

once entered the palace, and only his portrait 

(a welcomely good one, still to be found there) 

presided over the mysteries of that establishment." 

Now how much of truth with the sarcasm, 

and how much of sarcasm without the truth, 

there is in this remark of Carlyle, is just what 

the Masonic world is bound to discover . 

Until further light is thrown upon the subject 

by documentary evidence from the Prussian 

Lodges, the question can not be definitely 

answered . But what is the now known further 

Masonic history of Frederick? 

Bielf eld tells us that the zeal of the Prince f or 

the Fraternity induced him to invite the Baron 

Von Oberg and himself to Reinsberg, where, 

in 1739 they founded a Lodge, into which 

Keyserling, Jordan, Moolendorf, Queis, and 

Fredersdorf (Frederick's valet) were admitted . 

Bielfeld is again our authority for stating 

that on the 20th of June, 1740, King Frederick-for 

he had then ascended the throneheld 

a Lodge at Charlottenburg, and, as 

Master in the chair, initiated Prince William 

of Prussia, his brother the Margrave Charles 

of Brandenburg and Frederick William, Duke 

of Holstein. The Duke of Holstein was seven 

y ears afterward elected Adjutant Grand 

Master of the Grand Lodge of the Three 

Globes at Berlin. 

We hear no more of Frederick's Masonry 

in the printed records until the 16th of July, 

1774, when he granted hisprotection to the 

National Grand Lodge of Germany, and officially 

approved of the treaty with the Grand 

Lodge of England, by which the National 

Grand Lodge was established . In the year 

1777, the Mother Lodge, "Royal York of 

Friendship," at Berlin, celebrated, by a festival, 

the king's birthday, on which occasion 

Frederick wrote the following letter, which, as 

it is the only printed declaration ofhis opinion 

of Freemasonry that is now extant, is well 

worth copying : 

"I cannot but be sensible of the new homage 

of the Lodge `Royal York of Friendship' on 

the occasion of the anniversary of my birth, 

bearing, as it does, the evidence of its zeal and 

attachment for my person . Its orator has 

well expressed the sentiments which animate 

all its labors ; and a society which employs itself 

only in sowing the seed and bringing forth 

the fruit of every kind of virtue in my deminions 

may always be assured of my protection . 

It is the glorious task of every good sovereign 

and I will never cease to fulfil it. And so I 

pray God to take you and your Lodge under 

his holy and deserved protection . Potsdam, 

this 14th of February 1777-Frederick ." 

Frederick Henry Louis, * Prince of Prussia, 

was received into Masonry at Berlin by 

Frederick the Great, his brother, in 1740 . 

Frederick William III . King of Prussia, 

and, although not a Freemason, a generous 

patron of the Order . On December 29 1797, 

he wrote to the Lodge Royal York of F&iendship, 

at Berlin, these words : "I have never 

been initiated, as every one knows, but I am 

far from conceiving the slightest distrust of the 

intentions of the members of the Lodge . I 

believe that its design is noble, and founded 

on the cultivation of virtue ; that its methods 

are legitimate, and that every political tendency 

is banished from its operations. Hence 

I shall take pleasure in manifesting on all 

occasions my good-will and my affection to 

the Lodge Royal York of Friendship, as well 

as to every other Lodge in my dominions ." 

In a similar tone of kindness toward Masonry, 

he wrote three months afterward to Fessler . 

And when he issued, October 20, 1798, an 

edict forbidding secret societies, he made a 

special exemption in favor of the Masonic 

Lodges. To the time of his death, he was 

always the avowed friend of the Order . 

Free. The word "free," in connection 

with "Mason," originally signified that the 

person so called was free of the company or 

gild of incorporated Masons . For those 

Operative Masons who were not thus made 

free of the gild, were not permitted to work 

with those who were . A similar regulation 

still exists in many parts of Europe, although 

it is not known to this country . The term 

appears to have been first thus used in the 

tenth century, when the traveling Freemasons 

were incorporated by the Roman Pontiff . 

(See Traveling Freemasons .) 

In reference to the other sense of free as 

meaning not bound, not in captivity, it is a rule 

of Masonry that no one can be initiated who 

is at the time restrained of his liberty . 

The Grand Lodge of England extends this 

doctrine, that Masons should be free in all 

their thoughts and actions, so far, that it will 

not permit the initiation of a candidate who is 

*Frederick did not in his latter days take the 

active interest in Masonry that had distinguished 

his early life before coming to the 

throne . It cannot be established that he ever 

attended a meeting after he became king, though 

many such efforts have been attempted . Some 

over-zealous persons have claimed that he established 

the A. and A .S.R. of the Thirty-third 

Degree, but the Grand Lodge of the Three 

Globes at Berlin, as well as many European 

historians, have often shown this to have been 

impossible . 

(E . E . C,]

FREE 

FREEDOM 281 

only temporarily in a place of confinement . In 

the year 1783, the Master of the Royal Military 

Lodge at Woolwich (No . 371) being confined, 

most probably for debt, in the King's 

Bench prison, at London, the Lodge, which 

was itinerant in its character and allowed to 

move from place to place with its regiment, 

adjourned, with its warrant of Constitution, 

to the Master in prison, where several Masons 

were made . The Grand Lodge, being informed 

of the circumstances, immediately 

summoned the Master and Wardens of the 

Lodge "to answer for their conduct in making 

Masons in the King's Bench prison," and, at 

the same time, adopted a resolution, affirming 

that "it is inconsistent with the _principles of 

Masonry for any Freemasons' odge to be 

held, for the purposes of making, passing, or 

raising Masons, in any prison or place of confinement." 

(Constitutions, 1784, p . 349 .) 

Free and Accepted . The title" Free and 

Accepted" first occurs in the Roberts Print of 

1722, which is headed The Old Constitutions 

belonging to the Ancient and Honourable Society 

of Free and Accepted Masons, and was adopted 

by Dr. Anderson in the second edition of the 

Book of Constitutions, published in 1738, the 

title of which is The New Book of Constitutions 

of the Antient and Honourable Fraternity 

of Free and Accepted Masons . In the first 

edition of 1723 the title was, The Constitutions 

of the Freemasons. The newer title continued 

to be used by the Grand Lodge of England, 

in which it was followed by those of Scotland 

and Ireland ; and a majority of the Grand 

Lodges in this country have adopted the same 

style, and call themselves Grand Lodges of 

Free and Accepted Masons . (See Accepted .) 

The old lectures formerly used in England 

give the following account of the origin of the 

term : 

"The Masons who were selected to build 

the Temple of Solomon were declared FREE 

and were exempted, together with their descendants, 

from imposts, duties, and taxes . 

They had also the privilege to bear arms . At 

the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, 

the posterity of these Masons were 

carried into captivity with the ancient Jews . 

But the good-will of Cyrus gave them permission 

to erect a second Temple, having set 

them at liberty for that purpose. It is from 

this epoch that we bear the name of Free and 

Accepted Masons ." 

Free Born. In all the old Constitutions, 

free birth is required as a requisite to the reception 

of Apprentices . Thus the Lansdowne 

MS . says, "That the prentice be able of birth, 

that is, freeborn ." So it is in the Edinburgh 

Kilwinning, the York, the Antiquity, and in 

every other manuscript that has been so far 

discovered . And hence, the modern Constitutions 

framed in 1721 continue the regulation 

. After the abolition of slavery in the 

West Indies by the British Parliament, the 

Grand Lodge of England on September 1, 

1847, changed the word "free-born" into 

"freeman," but the ancient landmark never 

has been removed in America . 

The non-admission of a slave seems to have 

been founded upon the best of reasons; because, 

as Freemasonry involves a solemn contract, 

no one can legally bind himself to its 

performance who is not a free agent and the 

master of his own actions. That the restriction 

is extended to those who were originally 

in a servile condition, but who may have since 

acquired their liberty, seems to depend on the 

principle that birth in a servile condition is 

accompanied by a degradation of mind and 

abasement of spirit which no subsequent dis. 

enthralment can so completely efface as to 

render the party qualified to perform his duties, 

as a Mason, with that "freedom, fervency, 

and zeal" which are said to have distinguished 

our ancient brethren . "Children," says Oliver, 

"cannot inherit a free and noble spirit except 

they be born of a free woman ." 

The same usage existed in the spurious Freemasonry 

or the mysteries of the ancient world, 

There, no slave, or man born in slavery, could 

be initiated ; because the prerequisites imperatively 

demanded that the candidate should 

not only be a man of irreproachable manners, 

but also a free-born denizen of the country in 

which the mysteries were celebrated . 

Some Masonic writers have thought that in 

this regulation, in relation to free birth, some 

allusion is intended, both in the mysteries and 

in Freemasonry, to the relative conditions and 

characters of Isaac and Ishmael . The former 

-the accepted one, to whom the promise was 

given-was the son of a free woman, and the 

latter, who was cast forth to have "his hand 

against every man and every man's hand 

against him," was the child of a slave . Wherefore, 

we read that Sarah demanded of Abraham, 

"Cast out this bondwoman and her son ; 

for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir 

with my son ." Dr . Oliver, in speaking of the 

grand festival with which Abraham celebrated 

the weaning of Isaac, says that be 

"had not paid the same compliment at the 

weaning of Ishmael, because he was the son of 

a bondwoman, and consequently could not be 

admitted to participate in the Freemasonry 

of his father, which could only be conferred on 

free men born of free women ." The ancient 

Greeks were of the same opinion ; for they 

used the word Souxorpeaeia, or "slave manners," 

to designate any very great impropriety 

of manners . 

Freedom. This is defined to be a state of 

exemption from, the control or power of 

another . The doctrine that Masons should 

enjoy unrestrained liberty, and be free in all 

their thoughts and actions, is carried so far in 

Masonry, that the Grand Lodge of England 

will not permit the initiation of a candidate 

who is only temporarily deprived of his liberty, 

or even in a place of confinement . (See 

Free .) 

It is evident that the word freedom is used 

in Masonry in a symbolical or metaphysical 

sense differing from its ordinary signification . , 

While, in the application of the words free 

born and freeman, we use them in their usual 

legal acceptation, we combine freedom with 

I

282 FREEDOM 

FREEMASON 

fervency and zeal as embodying a symbolic 

idea. Gadicke, under the word Freiheit, in his 

Freimaurer-Lexicon, thus defines the word : 

"A word that is often heard among us, but 

which is restricted to the same limitation as 

the freedom of social life . We have in our assemblies 

no freedom to act each one as he 

pleases . But we are, or should be, free from the 

dominion of passion, pride, prejudice, and all 

the other follies of human nature . We are free 

from the false delusion that we need not be 

obedient to the laws ." Thus he makes it 

equivalent to integrity; a sense that I think it 

bears in the next article . 

Freedom, Fervency, and Zeal . The earliest 

lectures in the eighteenth century designated 

freedom, fervency, and zeal as the qualities 

which should distinguish the servitude of 

Apprentices, and the same symbolism is found 

in the ritual of the present day. The word 

freedom is not here to be taken in its modern 

sense of liberty, but rather in its primitive 

Anglo-Saxon meaning of frankness, generosity, 

a generous willingness to work or perform one's 

duty. So Chaucer uses it in the Prologue to 

the Canterbury Tales (1 . 43) : 

"A knight there was, and that a worthy man, 

That fro the time that he first began 

To riden out, he loved chivalrie, 

Trouthe and Honour, Freedom and Courtesy." 

(See Fervency and Zeal.) 

Freeman . The Grand Lodge of England, 

on September 1, 1847, erased from their list of 

the qualifications of candidates the word "freeborn," 

and substituted for it " free-man ." 

Their rule now reads, "every candidate must 

be a freeman ." This has been generally considered 

an unauthorized violation of a landmark . 

Freemason. One who has been initiated 

into the mysteries of the Fraternity of Freemasonry 

. Freemasons are so called to distinguish 

them from the Operative or Stone- 

Masons, who constituted an inferior class of 

workmen, and out of whom they sprang. (See 

Stone-Masons and Traveling Freemasons .) The 

meaning of the epithet free, as applied to 

Mason, is given under the word Free . In the 

old lectures of the last century a Freemason 

was described as being "a freeman, born of a 

freewoman, brother to a king, fellow to a 

prince, or companion to a beggar, if a Mason," 

and by this was meant to indicate the universality 

of the brotherhood . 

The word "Freemason" was until recently 

divided into two words, sometimes with and 

sometimes without a hyphen ; and we find 

in all the old books and manuscripts " Free 

Mason" or "Free-Mason ." But this usage 

has been abandoned by all good writers, and 

"Freemason" is now always spelled as one 

word . The old Constitutions constantly used 

the word Mason. Yet the word was employed 

at a very early period in the parish registers of 

England, and by some writers . Thus, in the 

register of the parish of Astbury we find these 

items : 

"1685 . Smallwood, Jos ., fils Jos . Henshaw, 

Freemason, bapt. 3° die Nov. 

"1697 . Jos. fil Jos . Henshaw, Freemason, 

buried 7 April ." 

But the most singular passage is one found 

in Cawdray's Treasurie of Similies, published 

in 1609, and which he copied from Bishop 

Coverdale's translation of Werdmuller's A 

Spiritual and most Precious Perle, which was 

published in 1550 . It is as follows : "As the 

Free-Mason heweth the hard stones . . 

even so God the Heavenly Free-Mason buildeth 

a Christian church ." But, in fact, the 

word was used at a much earlier period 

and occurs, Steinbrenner says (Orig . and 

Early Hist. of Mas., p . 110), for the first 

time in a statute passed in 1350, in the 

twenty-fifth year of Edward I ., where the 

wages of a master Freemason are fixed at 

4 pence, and of other masons at 3 pence. 

The original French text of the statute is 

"Mestre de franche-peer." "Here," says 

Steinbrenner, "the word Freemason evidently 

signifies a free-stone mason--one who works in 

free-stone, (Fr . franche-peer, i . e ., franchepierre,) 

as distinguished from the rough 

mason, who merely built walls of rough, unhewn 

stone ." This latter sort of workmen was 

that class called by the Scotch Masons cowans, 

whom the Freemasons were forbidden to work 

with, whence we get the modern use of that 

word . Ten years after, in 1360, we have a 

statute of Edward III ., in which it is ordained 

that "every mason shall finish his work, be it 

of free-stone or of rough-stone," where the 

French text of the statute is "de franche-pere 

ou de grosse-ere ." Thus it seems evident 

that the word free-mason was originally used 

in contradistinction to rough-mason . The old 

Constitutions sometimes call these latter 

masons rough-layers . 

[Dr . Murray's New English Dictionary has 

the following (s.v. Freemason) : 

"The precise import with which the adj . 

was originally used in this designation has been 

much disputed. Three views have been propounded. 

(1) The suggestion that free mason 

stands for free-stone mason would appear unworthy 

of attention, but for the curious fact 

that the earliest known instances of any similar 

appellation are mestre mason de franche peer, 

`master mason of free stone' (Act 25, Edw . 

III ., at . II ., c . 3, A. D . 1350), and sculptores 

lapidum liberorum, 'carvers of free stones,' 

alleged to occur in a document of 1217 (tr . 

Findel's Hist. Mas ., 51, citing Wyatt Papworth) 

: the coincidence, however, seems to be 

merely accidental . (2) The view most generally 

held is that free masons were those who 

were `free' of the masons' guild . Against this 

explanation many forcible objections have 

been brought by Mr . G. W. Speth, who suggests 

(3) that the itinerant masons were called 

'free' because they claimed exemption from 

the control of the local guilds of the towns in 

which they temporarily settled . (4) Perhaps 

the best hypothesis is that the term refers to 

the mediaeval practice of emancipating skilled 

artisans, in order that they might be able to 

travel and render their services wherever any 

great building was in process of construction . '

FREEMASONRY 

FREEMASONRY 283 

And then the following meanings are given : 

"1 . A member of a certain class of skilled 

workers in stone, in the 14th and following 

centuries often mentioned in contradistinction 

to `rough masons,' 'ligiers,' etc . 

They travelled from place to place, finding 

employment wherever important buildings 

were being erected, and had a system of secret 

signs and passwords by which a craftsman who 

had been admitted on giving evidence of competent 

skill could be recognized . In later use 

(16-18th c .) the term seems often to be used 

merely as a more complimentary synonym of 

`mason,' implying that the workman so designated 

belonged to a superior grade ." 

The earliest instance quoted of the word in 

this sense is in a list of the London City Companies 

of 1376 . 

"2 . A member of the fraternity called more 

fully, Free and Accepted Masons . 

"Early in the 17th c ., the societies of freemasons 

(in sense 1) began to admit honorary 

members, not connected with the building 

trades, but supposed to be eminent for 

architectural or antiquarian learning . These 

were called accepted masons, though the term 

free masons was often loosely applied to 

them ; and they were admitted to a knowledge 

of the secret signs, and instructed in the legendary 

history of the craft, which had already 

begun to be developed . The distinction of 

being an àccepted mason' became a fashionable 

object of ambition, and before the 

end of the 17th c . the object of the societies 

of freemasons seems to have been chiefly 

social and convivial . In 1717, under the 

guidance of the physicist J. T . Desaguliers, 

four of these societies or `lodges' in London 

united to form a `grand lodge,' with a new constitution 

and ritual, and a system of secret 

signs : the object of the society as reconstituted 

being mutual help and the promotion of 

brotherly feeling among its members ." 

The earliest instance quoted of the word in 

this sense is in Ashmole's diary under date 

1646 . (See Ashmole .) [E. L. H.] 

Gould in his concise History says : "Two 

curious coincidences have been connected with 

the above year (1375) . The first, that the 

earliest copy of the manuscript constitutions 

(Regius MS .) refers to the customs of that 

period ; the second, that the formation of a 

wonderful society, occasioned by a combination 

of masons undertaking not to work without 

an advance of wages, when summoned 

from several counties by writs of Edward III ., 

to rebuild and enlarge Windsor Castle, under 

the direction of William of Wykeham, has 

been placed at the same date. It is said also 

that these masons agreed on certain signs and 

tokens by which they might know one another, 

and render mutual assistance against 

impressment ; and further agreed not to work 

unless free and on their own terms . Hence 

they called themselves Free-Masons." 

[E . E . C .] 

Freemasonry, Early British. Bro . 

Robert Freke Gould, in his History of F . M. 

(i., p . 381), writes : "The minutes of Scottish 

Lodges from the sixteenth century, and evidences 

of British Masonic life dating farther 

back by some two hundred years (than the 

second decade of the last century) were actually 

left unheeded by our premier historiographer, 

although many of such authentic and 

invaluable documents lay ready to hand, only 

awaiting examination, amongst the muniments 

in the old Lodge chests . . . . By the collection 

and comparatively recent publication of 

many of the Interesting records above alluded 

to, so much evidence has been accumulated respecting 

the early history, progress, and character 

of the craft as to be almost embarrassing, 

and the proposition may be safely advanced, 

that the Grand Lodges of Great Britain are 

the direct descendants, by continuity and absorption, 

of the ancient Freemasonry which 

immediately preceded their institution, which 

will be demonstrated without requiring the 

exercise of either dogmatism or credulity . 

"The oldest Lodges in Scotland possess 

registers of members and meetings, as well as 

particulars of their laws and customs, ranging 

backward nearly three hundred years. (These) 

will form an important link in the chain which 

connects what is popularly known as the 

Lodges of Modern Freemasonry, with their 

operative and speculative ancestors ." 

There are no Lodge records in England of 

the seventeenth century, and records of only 

one between 1700 and 1717 . 

The original St . Clair Charters (q. v .) in the 

custody of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, 

dated, respectively, 1601-2 and 1628, are referred 

to by Gould . Then are considered the 

Schaw Statutes, No . 1, of A.D . 1598 (see 

Schaw Manuscript), the Schaw Statutes, No . 

2, of A .D . 1599, and their relevancy to 

"Mother Kilwinning " Lodge, Ayrshire, No . 0, 

with an important certificate from William 

Schaw, which proves that the document of 

1599 was intended exclusively for the Masons 

under the jurisdiction of the Kilwinning 

Lodge . The subject of the "Lodge of Edinburgh," 

No . 1, 

and its career from its earliest 

records, dating back to 1599, down to the year 

1736, when the Grand Lodge of Scotland was 

inaugurated, as most fully described in Lyon's 

history of this ancient Lodge, passes under 

review; then appears, as Bro . Gould says, 

one of the adornments of that history in the 

facsimile of the record of that Lodge, showing 

that the earliest minute of the presence of a 

speculative freeman Mason in a Lodge, and 

taking part in its deliberations, is dated June 

8, 1600. (Hist. ofF. M., i ., 406 .) It is to be 

noted that "the admission of General Alexander 

Hamilton, on May 20, 1640, and of the 

Right Hon. Sir Patrick Hume, Bart ., on December 

27, 1667, are specially recorded as constituting 

these intrants 'Felow and Mr off the 

forsed craft,' and `Fellow of craft (and Master) 

of this lodg,' respectively." (Ibid ., p . 408 .) 

It is assumed that Master simply meant a 

compliment ; certainly, there was nothing corresponding 

with the ceremony of a Master 

Mason's Degree at that time. Many of the 

operatives did not view the introduction

284 FREEMASONRY 

FREE-WILL 

of the speculative element with favor, and 

at one time they were arrayed in hostile 

camps ; but eventually those who supported 

the "Gentlemen" or "Geomatic Masons" 

won the day, the "Domatics" having to succumb 

. In the Lodge of Aberdeen, the 

majority in A.D . 1670 were actually nonoperative 

or speculative members . 

On March 2, 1653, appears the important 

fact of the election of a "joining member." 

Again, Lyon declares that the reference to 

"frie mesones," in the minute of December 

27, 1636, is the earliest instance yet discovered 

of "Free-Mason" being applied to designate 

members of the Mason craft, and considers 

that it is used as an abbreviation of 

the term "Freemen Masons ." But while 

concurring therein, as did Bro . Hughan, 

Gould thinks the word freemason may be 

traced back to 1581 when the "Melrose" 

version of the "Old t harges" was originally 

written . 

"Canongate Kilwinning" Lodge, No . 2, 

was commissioned or warranted by the Lodge 

of Kilwinning, No. 0, granting powers to 

several of their own members resident in 

the Canongate, Edinburgh, and dated December 

201 1677 . This, Bro. Gould says, was 

a direct invasion of jurisdiction, for it was 

not simply a charter to enable their members 

to meet as Masons in Edinburgh, but 

also to act as independently as "Mother Kilwinning" 

herself, with a separate existence, 

which was the actual result that ensued. 

(Ibid ., p . 410 .) 

" Scoon and Perth" Lodge No . 8 is much 

older than No . 2, althougi fourt t on the 

roll, though the authorities state that it 

existed "before 1658," and the Grand Lodge 

acknowledges this date at the present time, 

placing Nos . 0 and 1, however, as "before 

1598," and No . 57 (Haddington) at 1599, 

there being also many bearing seventeenth 

century designations . (Ibid ., p. 411 .) 

The Lodge of "Glasgow St. John," No . 3, 

bis, is next mentioned as "an old Lodge, 

undoubtedly, though its documents do not 

date back as far as some of its admirers have 

declared." (Ibid., p . 413 .) The Rev . A. T . 

Grant is quoted as saying that every line is 

inconsistent with the charter phraseology of 

the period to which it has been assigned. But 

Mr. W. P . Buchan states that the first notice 

in the minutes of the "Glasgow Incorporation 

of Masons" bears date September 22, 1620, 

viz ., " Entry of Apprentices to the Lodge 

of Glasgow, the last day of Dec ., 1613 years, 

compeared John Stewart, &c ." It was 

placed on the roll of the Grand Lodge of 

Scotland in 1850 as No. 3, bis ; it was exclusively 

operative. 

"Glasgow Kilwinning" Lodge, No . 4, dates 

from 1735 . 

"Canongate and Leith, Leith and Canongate" 

Lodge, No . 5, is authoritatively acknowledged 

as dating from 1688 . 

Lodge of "Old Kilwinning St . John," Inverness, 

No. 6, was granted a Charter of 

Confirmation on November 30, 1737, its exist- 

ence being admitted from the year 1678, but 

a cloud rests upon the latter record . 

" Hamilton Kilwinning" Lodge, No. 7, is 

considered to date from the year 1695 . 

Thus Bro . Gould, in his remarkable History, 

continues quoting old Charters, Laws, 

Statutes, etc., back even to the sixteenth century, 

in a most interesting manner, dissenting 

largely from the early history of Bro . 

George H. Fort, and as well from the Antiquities 

of Freemasonry, by Bro . Findel. (See 

"Four Old Lodges .") 

Freemasonry, History of . See : The History 

of Freemasonry, by Albert Gallatin Mackey 

and William R . Singleton, published in seven 

volumes by The Masonic History Company, 

New York. The History of Freemasonry, by 

Robert Freke Gould, published in six volumes, 

London . The History of Freemasonry, by J . 

G . Findel, published in eight volumes, Leipzig 

; second edition, London, 1869 . 

See also : The Antiquity of Freemasonry ; 

Origin of Freemasonry ; Operative Freemasonry 

and Speculative Freemasonry . 

Freemasons of the Church . An architectural 

college was organized in London, 

in the year 1842, under the name of "Freemasons 

of the Church for the Recovery, 

Maintenance, and Furtherance of the True 

Principles and Practice of Architecture ." 

The founders of the association announced 

their objects to be "the rediscovery of the 

ancient principles of architecture ; the sanction 

of good principles of building, and the 

condemnation of bad ones ; the exercise of 

scientific and experienced judgment in the 

choice and use of the proper materials ; the 

infusion, maintenance, and advancement of 

science throughout architecture ; and eventually, 

by developing the powers of the college 

upon a just and beneficial footing, to reform 

the whole practice of architecture, to raise 

it from its present vituperated condition, 

and to bring around it the same unquestioned 

honor which is at present enjoyed 

by almost every other profession ." One of 

their members has said that the title assumed 

was not intended to express any conformity 

with the general body of Freemasons, but 

rather as indicative of the profound views of 

the college, namely, the recovery, maintenance, 

and furtherance of the free principles and 

practise of architecture ; and that, in addition, 

they made it an object of their exertions to 

preserve or effect the restoration of architectural 

remains of antiquity, threatened unnecessarily 

with demolition or endangered by decay . 

But it is evident, from the close connection of 

modern Freemasonry with the building gilds 

of the Middle Ages, that any investigation 

into the condition of Medieval architecture 

must throw light on Masonic history . 

Free-Will and Accord . There is one 

peculiar feature in the Masonic Institution 

that must commend it to the respect of every 

generous mind. In other associations it is 

considered meritorious in a member to exert 

his influence in obtaining applications for 

admission ; but it is wholly uncongenial with

FREE-WILL 

FRENCH 285 

the spirit of our Order to persuade anyone 

to become a Mason . Whosoever seeks a 

knowledge of our mystic rites, must first be 

prepared for the ordeal in his heart ; he must 

not only be endowed with the necessary moral 

qualifications which would fit him for admission 

into our ranks, but he must come too, 

uninfluenced by friends and unbiased by 

unworthy motives . This is a settled landmark 

of the Order ; and, therefore, nothing 

can be more painful to a true Mason than 

to see this landmark violated by young and 

heedless brethren . For it cannot be denied 

that it is sometimes violated ; and this habit 

of violation is one of those unhappy influences 

sometimes almost insensibly exerted upon 

Masonry by the existence of the many secret 

societies to which the present age has given 

birth, and which resemble Masonry in nothing 

except in having some sort of a secret ceremony 

of initiation . These societies are 

introducing into some parts of America 

such phraseology as a "card" for a "demit," 

or "worthy" for "worshipful," or "brothers" 

for "brethren." And there are some men 

who, coming among us imbued with the 

principles and accustomed to the usages of 

these modern societies, in which the persevering 

solicitation of candidates is considered 

as a legitimate and even laudable practise, 

bring with them these preconceived notions, 

and consider it their duty to exert all their 

influence in persuading their friends to become 

members of the Craft . Men who thus misunderstand 

the true policy of our Institution 

should be instructed by their older and more 

experienced brethren that it is wholly in 

opposition to all our laws and principles to 

ask any man to become a Mason, or to exercise 

any kind of influence upon the minds of others, 

except that of a truly Masonic life and a 

practical exemplification of its tenets, by 

which they may be induced to ask admission 

into our Lodges . We must not seek-we 

are to be sought . 

And if this were not an ancient law, embedded 

in the very cement that upholds our 

system, policy alone would dictate an adherence 

to the voluntary usage . We need 

not now fear that our Institution will suffer 

from a deficiency of members . Our greater 

dread should be that, in its rapid extension, 

less care may be given to the selection of 

candidates than the interests and welfare 

of the Order demand . There can, therefore, 

be no excuse for the practise of persuading 

candidates, and every hope of safety in 

avoiding such a practise . It should always be 

borne in mind that the candidate who comes 

to us not of his own "free-will and accord," 

but induced by the persuasions of his friends 

-no matter how worthy he otherwise may be 

-violates, by so coming, the requirements 

of our Institution on the very threshold of 

its temple, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a 

hundred, fails to become imbued with that 

zealous attachment to the Order which is 

absolutely essential to the formation of 

true Masonic character . 

a 

Freimaurer. German for Freemason. 

Mauer means "a wall," and mauern, "to 

build a wall ." Hence, literally, freimaurer 

is a "builder of walls" who is free of his 

gild, from the fact that the building of walls 

was the first occupation of masons . 

Frelmaurerel. German for Freemasonry . 

French, Benjamin Brown . A distinguished 

Mason of the United States, who 

was born at Chester, in New Hampshire, 

September 4, 1800, and died at the city of 

Washington, where he had long resided, on 

August 12, 1870. He was initiated into 

Masonry in 1825, and during his whole life 

took an active interest in the affairs of the 

Fraternity . . He served for many years as 

General Grand Secretary of the General 

Grand Chapter, and Grand Recorder of the 

Grand Encampment of the United States . 

In 1846, soon after his arrival in Washington 

he was elected Grand Master of the Grand 

Lodge of the District, a position which he 

repeatedly occupied. In 1859, be was elected 

Grand Master of the Templars of the United 

States, a distinguished position which he held 

for six years, having been reelected in 1862 . 

His administration, during a period of much 

excitement in the country, was marked by 

great firmness, mingled with a spirit of conciliation. 

He was also a prominent member 


and at the time of his death was the Lieutenant 

Grand Commander of the Supreme 

Council for the . Southern Jurisdiction of 


Bro . French was possessed of much intellectual 

ability, and contributed no small 

share of his studies to the literature of Masonry 

. His writings, which have not yet been 

collected, were numerous, and consisted of 

Masonic odes, many of them marked with 

the true poetic spirit, eloquent addressee on 

various public occasions, learned dissertations 

on Masonic law, and didactic essays, which 

were published at the time in various periodicals 

. His decisions on Templar law have always 

been esteemed of great value . 

French Rite. (Rite Francais ou Modern.) 

The French or Modern Rite is one of the 

three principal Rites of Freemasonry. It 

consists of seven degrees, three symbolic 

and four higher, viz . : 1 . Apprentice ; 2 . 

Fellow-Craft ; 3 . Master ; 4. Elect ; 5 . Scotch 

Master ; 6. Knight of the East ; 7 . Rose Croix . 

This Rite is practised in France, in Brazil, 

and in Louisiana. It was founded, in 1786, 

by the Grand Orient of France, who, unwilling 

to destroy entirely the high degrees 

which were then practised by the different 

Rites, and yet anxious to reduce them to a 

smaller number and to greater simplicity, 

extracted these degrees out of the Rite of 

Perfection, making some few slight modifications 

. Most of the authors who have 

treated of this Rite have given to its symbolism 

an entirely astronomical meaning . 

Among these writers, we may refer to Ragon, 

in his Cours Philosophique, as probably the 

most scientific .

286 FRERES 

FURNITURE 

Ragon, in his Tuileur General (p . 51), says 

that the four degrees of the French Rite, 

which were elaborated to take the place of 

the thirty de grees of the Scottish Rite, 

have for their basis the four physical proofs 

to which the recipiendary submits in the 

First Degree. And that the symbolism 

further represents the sun in his annual 

progress through the four seasons. Thus, the 

Elect Degree represents the element of Earth 

and the season of Spring; the Scottish Master 

represents Air and the Summer ; the Knight 

of the East rep resents Water and Autumn ; 

and the Rose Croix represents Fire; but he 

does not claim that it is consecrated to Winter, 

although that would be the natural conclusion. 

The original Rose Croix was an eminently 

Christian degree, which, being found inconvenient, 

was in 1860 substituted b y the 

Philosophic Rose Croix which now forms 

the summit of the French Rite . 

Freres Pontifes. See Bridge Builders of 

the Middle Ages . 

Frey or Freta. Grimme, in his Deutsche 

Mythologie (pp. 191, 279), traces the name 

Freia through the ancient Teutonic dialects 

and explains it to signify plenty and beauty. 

Also, see Thorpe Northern Mythology, (vol . i ., 

pp . 197, 198) . The column or pillar set apart 

to the goddess Frey in the temple of Upsala 

became the pillar of beauty or plenteousness . 

Bro . Fort says, in his Antiquities (ch . 27), 

the three divinities in the Norse temple at 

Upsala, in Denmark, Odin Thor, and Frey, 

were typical supports of the universe-Wisdom, 

Strength, and Beauty-or the three 

of the ten columns in the Hebrew se hiroth, 

in the Jewish philosophy, designate as Sapientia, 

Pulchritudo, and Fundamentum ; 

which, like the three columns existing in a 

Lodge of Freemasons, symbolize the moralistic 

pillars of the world, represented by 

the Lodge itself. An additional significant 

fact confronts us at this point : the column 

of Beauty or Plenty, originally emblematic 

of Frey, is situated in the south of the Lodge . 

A Masonic symbol--sheaf of grain-always 

suspended above that station, denotes plenteousness 

. Freia may also be comparatively 

described as the Scandinavian Isis . 

Friendly Societies. Societies first established 

toward the end of the last century, 

in England, for the relief of mechanics, 

laborers, and other persons who derived their 

support from their daily toil. By the weekly 

payment of a stipulated sum, the members 

secured support and assistance from the 

society when sick, and payment of the expenses 

of burial when they died . These 

societies gave origin to the Odd Fellows and 

other similar associations, but they have no 

relation whatever to Freemasonry . 

Friend of St. John. The Sixth Degree 

of the system practised by the Grand Lodge 

of Sweden . It is comprehended in the degree 

of Knight of the East and West . 

Friend of Truth . The Fifth Degree 

of the Rite of African Architects . 

Friendship. Leslie, in 1741, delivered 

the first descant on Friendship, as peculiarly 

a Masonic virtue. He was followed by 

Hutchinson, Preston and other writers, and 

now in the modern lectures it is adop ted as 

one of the precious jewels of a Master Mason . 

Of universal friendship, blue is said to be the 

symbolic color . "In regular gradation," 

says Munkhouse (Disc ., i ., 17), "and by an 

easy descent, brotherly love extends itself 

to lesser distinct societies or to particular 

individuals, and thus becomes friendship 

either of convenience or of personal affection . 

Cicero says, "Amicitia nisi inter bonus non 

potent," Friendship can exist only among 

the good . 

Fund of Benevolence. A fund established 

in 1727 by the Grand Lodge of England 

and solely devoted to charity. The 

regulations for its management are as follows : 

Its distribution and application is directed 

by the Constitutions to be monthly, for which 

purpose a Board of Benevolence is holden on 

the last Wednesday of every month except 

December, when it is on the third Wednesday . 

This Lodge consists of all the present and 

past Grand Officers, all actual Masters of 

Lodges, and twelve Past Masters . The 

brother presiding is bound strictly to enforce 

all the regulations of the Craft respecting 

the distribution of the fund, and must be 

satisfied, before any petition is read, that all 

the required formalities have been complied 

with . To every petition must be added a 

recommendation, signed in open Lodge by 

the Master, Wardens, and a majority of the 

members then present, to which the petitioner 

does or did belong, or from some other contributing 

Lodge, certifying that they have 

known him to have been in reputable or at 

least tolerable, circumstances, and that he 

has been not less than five years a subscribing 

member to a regular Lodge . 

Fund, Grand Masters' . A fund over 

which the G. Master of the United G . Lodge 

of England exercises exclusive control . It 

originated with a sum of £2,730 subscribed 

by the Craft in 1870, when the Earl of Zetland 

retired from the Grand Mastership, and is 

known as "The Zetland Fund ." 

Funds of the Lodge . The funds of 

the Lodge are p laced in the keeping of the 

Treasurer, to whom all moneys received by 

the Secretary must be immediately paid . 

Hence each of these officers is a check on 

the other . And hence, too, the "Thirtynine 

Regulations" of 1721 say that the 

Grand Treasurer should be "a brother of 

good worldly substance" (Constitutions, 1723, 

p . 62) lest impecuniosity should tempt him 

to mate use of the Lodge funds . 

Funeral Rites. See Burial. 

Furlac . A word in the high degrees, 

whose etymology is uncertain but probably 

Arabic. It is said to signify the angel of the 

earth . 

Furniture of a Lodge . The Bible 

square, and compasses are technically said 

to constitute the furniture of a Lodge . They

FUSTIER 

G 287 

are respectfully dedicated to God, the Master 

of the Lodge, and the Craft . Our English 

brethren differ from us in their explanation 

of the furniture. Oliver gives their illustration 

from the English lectures, as follows : 

"~he Bible is said to derive from God 

to man in general ; because the Almighty 

has been pleased to reveal more of His divine 

will by that holy book than by any other 

means . The Compasses being the chief 

implement used in the construction of all 

architectural plans and designs, are assigned 

to the Grand Master in particular as emblems 

of his dignity, he being the chief head and 

ruler of the Craft . The square is given 

to the whole Masonic body, because we are 

all obligated within it, and are consequently 

bound to act thereon ." (Landmarks, i ., 169 .) 

But the lecture of the early part of the last 

century made the furniture consist of the 

Mosaic Pavement, Blazing Star, and the Indented 

Tarsel, while the Bible, square, and 

compass were considered as additional 

furniture . 

Fustier. An officer of the Grand Orient 

of France in the beginning of this century . 

In 1810, he published, and presented to the 

Grand Orient, a Geographical Chart of the 

Lodges in France and its Dependencies . He 

was the author of several memoirs, dissertations, 

etc ., on Masonic subjects, and 

of a manuscript entitled Nomenclature Alphabetique 

des Grades . Oliver (Landmarks, 

ii ., 95) says that he promulgated a new system 

of sixty-four degrees. But he seems to have 

mistaken Fustier's catalogue of degrees invented 

by others for a system established 

by himself . No record can be found elsewhere 

of such a system . Lenning says 

(Encyc. der Freimaurerei) that Fustier was a 

dealer in Masonic decorations and in the 

transcript of rituals, of which he had made 

a collection of more than four hundred, which 

he sold at established prices . 

Future Life. Lorenzo de Medici said 

that all those are dead, even for the present 

life, who do not believe in a future state . 

The belief in that future life, it is the object 

of Freemasonry, as it was of the ancient 

initiations, to teach . 

Fylfot . An ancient symbol well known 

among Heralds . It is sometimes 

known as the crux dissimulata, 

found in the catacombs of Rome, 

and forms one of the symbols of the 

degree of Prince of Mercy, Scottish 

Rite System . It is a form of the "Swastika ." 

(See Jaina Cross .) 

aG. (Hebrew, a . Chaldaic, or 

hieroglyphic .) The seventh letter of 

the English and Roman alphabets . 

In the Greek and many other alphabets 

it is the third in place ; in the 

I 

Russian, Wallachian, and some others it is 

the fourth ; in the Arabic the fifth, and in 

the Ethiopian the twentieth . 

In Hebrew it is called "Gimel," is of the 

numerical value of 3, and its signification is 

camel. It is associated with the third sacred 

name of God in Hebrew, 511a (Ghadol), 

magnus . In Masonry it is given as the initial 

of God . The Masonic use of the letter 

tends to the belief of a modern form in the 

ceremony of the Fellow-Craft Degree . (See 

G. 0. D .) 

G . As in all Roman Catholic and in 

many Protestant churches the cross, engraved 

or sculptured in some prominent 

position, will be found as the expressive 

symbol of Christianity, so in every Masonic 

Lodge a letter G may be seen in the east, 

either painted on the wall or sculptured in 

wood or metal, and suspended over the 

Master's chair . This is, in fact, if not the 

most prominent, certainly the most familiar, 

of all the symbols of Freemasonry . It is 

the one to which the poet Burns alluded in 

G 

those well-known and often-quoted lines, 

in which he speaks of 

" that hieroglyphic bright, 

Which none but Craftsmen ever saw" ; 

that is to say, ever saw understandinglyever 

saw, knowing at the same time what it 

meant. 

There is an uncertainty as to the exact 

time when this symbol was first introduced 

into Speculative Masonry . It was not derived, 

in its present form, from the Operative 

Masons of the Middle Ages, who bestowed 

upon Freemasonry so much of its 

symbolism, for it is not found among the 

architectural decorations of the old cathedrals. 

Dr . Oliver says it was "in the old 

lectures" ; but this is an uncertain expression . 

From Prichard's Masonry Dissected, which 

was published in 1730, it would seem that 

the symbol was not in use at that date. But 

it may have been omitted . If Tubal Cain, 

which was published in 1767, is, as it purported 

to be, identical with Prichard's work, 

the question is settled ; for it contains the 

lecture on the letter G, to which reference 

will directly be made . 

It is, however, certain that the symbol 

was well known and recognized in 1766, and

288 G 

G 

some few years before. The book entitled 

the first edition of 

Solomon in all his Glory, 

which appeared in that year, and which is a 

translation of "Le Mason demasque," contains 

the reference to and the explanation of the 

symbol . The work contains abundant internal 

evidence that it is a translation, and 

hence the symbol may, like some others of 

the system subsequent to 1717, have been 

first introduced on the Continent, and then 

returned in the translation, all of which 

would indicate a date some years anterior 

to 1776 for the time of its adoption . 

In the ritual contained in Tubal Cain 

(p. 18) or, if that be only a reprint, in Ma- 

that is to say, in 1768 or in 

sonry lyisseeted, 

1730, there is a test which is called "The 

Repeating the Letter G," and which Dr . 

Oliver gives in his Landmarks (i., 454) as a 

part of the "old lectures ." It is doggerel 

verse, and in the form of a catechism between 

an examiner and a respondent, a form greatly 

affected in these old lectures, and is as follows : 

"Rnsr .-In the Midst of Solomon's Temple 

there stands a G, 

A letter for all to read and see ; 

But few there be that understand 

What means the letter G . 

"Ex .-My friend, if you pretend to be 

Of this Fraternity, 

You can forthwith and rightly tell 

What means that letter G . 

"Rnsr.-By sciences are brought about, 

Bodies of various kinds, 

Which do appear to perfect sight ; 

But none but males shall know my 

mind . 

"Ex.-the Right shall. 

"Rnsr.-If Worshipful . 

"Ex.-Both Right and Worshipful I am ; 

To hail you I have command, 

That you forthwith let me know, 

As I you may understand . 

"Rnsr.-By letters four and science five, 

This G aright doth stand, 

In a due art and proportion ; 

You have your answer, Friend ." 

And now as to the signification of the 

symbol. We may say, in the first place, 

that the explanation is by no means, and 

never has been, esoteric . As the symbol itself 

has always been exposed to public view, 

forming, as it does, a prominent part of the 

furniture of a Lodge, to be seen by everyone, 

so our Masonic authors, from the earliest 

times, have not hesitated to write, openly 

and in the plainest language, of its signification 

. The fact is, that the secret instruction 

in reference to this symbol relates not 

to the knowledge of the symbol itself, but to 

the mode in which, and the object for which, 

that knowledge has been obtained . 

Hutchinson, who wrote as early as 1776, 

says, in his Spirit of Masonry (Lect. viii .), 

"It is now incumbent on me to demonstrate 

to you the great signification of the letter 

G, wherewith Lodges and the medals of 

Masons are ornamented . 

"To apply its signification to the name of 

God only is depriving it of part of its Masonic 

import ; although I have already shown that 

the symbols used in Lodges are expressive 

of the Divinity's being the great object of 

Masonry, as Architect of the world . 

"This significant letter denotes Geometry, 

which, to artificers, is the science by which 

all their labours are calculated and formed ; 

and to Masons, contains the determination, 

definition, and proof of the order, beauty 

and wonderful wisdom of the power of God 

in His creation ." 

Again, Dr. Frederick Dalcho, a distinguished 

Mason of South Carolina, in one 

of his Orations, 

"The letter 

delivered and published in 

1801, uses the following language : 

G, which ornaments the Master's 

Lodge, is not only expressive of the 

name of the Grand Architect of the universe, 

but also denotes the science of Geometry, so 

necessary to artists. But the adoption of it 

by Masons implies no more than their respect 

for those inventions which demonstrate to 

the world the power, the wisdom, and beneficence 

of the Almighty Builder in the works 

of the creation ." (P . 27 .) 

Lastly, Dr . Oliver has said, in his Golden 

Remains of the Early Masonic Writers, that 

"the term G. A . O. T . U . is used among 

Masons for this great and glorious Being, 

designated by the letter G, that it may be 

applied by every brother to the object of 

his adoration ." 

More quotations are unnecessary to show 

that from the earliest times, since the adoption 

of the letter as a symbol, its explanation 

has not been deemed an esoteric or secret 

part of the ritual . No Masonic writer has 

hesitated openly to give an explanation of 

its meaning. The mode in which, and the 

purpose for which, that explanation was 

obtained are the only hidden things about 

the symbol . 

It is to be regretted that the letter G, as 

a symbol, was ever admitted into the Masonic 

system . The use of it, as an initial, 

would necessarily confine it to the English 

language and to modern times . It wants, 

therefore, as a symbol, the necessary characteristics 

of both universality and antiquity. 

The Greek letter gamma is said to 

have been venerated by the Pythagoreans 

because it was the initial of yewp4rptaa, or 

But this veneration could not 

Geometry . 

have been shared by other nations whose 

alphabet had no gamma, and where the 

word for geometry was entirely different . 

There can be no doubt that the letter G 

is a very modern symbol, not belonging to 

any old system anterior to the origin of the 

English language . It is, in fact, a corruption 

of the old Hebrew Kabbalistic symbol, the 

letter yod `, by which the sacred name of 

God-in fact, the most sacred name, the 

Tetragrammaton-is expressed . This letter, 

yod, is the initial letter of the word 71fi',

GABAON 

GAEDICKE 289 

or Jehovah, and is constantly to be met with 

among Hebrew writers, as the abbreviation 

or symbol of that most holy name, which, 

indeed, was never written at length . Now, 

as G is in like manner the initial of God, 

the English equivalent of the Hebrew Jehovah, 

the letter has been adopted as a symbol 

intended to supply to modern Lodges the 

place of the Hebrew symbol . First adopted 

by the English ritual makers, it has, without 

remark, been transferred to the Masonry of 

the Continent, and it is to be found as a 

symbol in all the systems of Germany, France, 

Spain, Italy, Portugal, and every other 

country where Masonry has been introduced ; 

although in Germany only can it serve, as it 

does in England, for an intelligent symbol . 

The letter G, then, has in Masonry the 

same force and signification that the letter 

yod had among the Kabbalists . It is only a 

symbol of the Hebrew letter, and, as that 

is a symbol of God, the letter G is only a 

symbol of a symbol . As for its reference 

to geometry, Kloss the German Masonic 

historian, says that the old Operative Masons 

referred the entire science of geometry to 

the art of building, which gave to the modern 

English Masons occasion to embrace the 

whole system of Freemasonry under the 

head of Geometry, and hence the symbol 

of that science, as well as of God, was adopted 

for the purpose of giving elevation to the 

Fellow-Craft's Degree . 

Indeed, the symbol, made sacred by its 

reference to the Grand Geometrician of the 

universe, was well worthy to be applied to 

that science which has, from the remotest 

times, been deemed synonymous with Masonry 

. 

Gabaon . A significant word in the high 

degrees. Oliver says (Landm ., i ., 335), "in 

philosophical Masonry, heaven, or, more correctly 

speaking, the third heaven, is denominated 

Mount Gabaon, which is feigned to be 

accessible only by the seven degrees that 

compose the winding staircase. These are 

the degrees terminating in the Royal Arch ." 

Gabaon is defined to signify "a high place ." 

It is the Septuagint and Vulgate form of 

1l ;7:a, Gibeon, which was the city in which 

the tabernacle was stationed during the 

reigns of David and Solomon . The word 

means a city built on a hill, and is referred 

to in 2 Chron . i . 3. "So Solomon, and all 

the congregation with him, went to the high 

place that was at Gibeon ; for there was the 

tabernacle of the congregation of God ." 

In a ritual of the middle of the last century, 

it is said that Gabanon is the name 

of a Master Mason . This word is a striking 

evidence of the changes which Hebrew 

words have undergone in their transmission 

to Masonic rituals, and of the almost impossibility 

of tracing them to their proper 

root . It would seem difficult to find a connection 

between Gabanon and any known 

Hebrew word. But if we refer to Guillemain's 

Ritual of Adonhiramite Masonry, we 

will find the following passage : 

"Q. How is a Master called? 

"A . Gabaon, which is the name of the place 

where the Israelites deposited the ark in the 

time of trouble . 

"Q . What does this signify? 

"A . That the heart of a Mason ought to be 

pure enough to be a temple suitable for God ." 

(P. 95.) 

There is abundant internal evidence that 

these two rituals came from a common source, 

and that Gabaon is a French distortion, as 

Gabanon is an English one, of some unknown 

word-connected, however, with the Ark of 

the Covenant as the place where that article 

was deposited . 

Now, we learn from the Jewish records that 

the Philistines, who had captured the ark, 

deposited it "in the house of Abinadab that 

was in Gibeah" ; and that David, subsequently 

recapturing it, carried it to Jerusalem 

but left the tabernacle at Gibeon . The 

ritualist did not remember that the tabernacle 

at Gibeon was without the ark, but supposed 

that .it was still in that sacred shrine . 

Hence, Gabaon or Gabanon must have been 

corrupted from either Gibeah or Gibeon, because 

the ark was considered to be at some 

time in both places. But Gibeon had already 

been corrupted by the Septuagint and the Vulgate 

versions intoGabaon; and this undoubtedly 

is the word from which Gabanon is derived, 

through either the Septuagint or the Vulgate, 

or perhaps from Josephus, who calls it Gabao . 

Gabaonne . In French Masonic language, 

the widow of a Master Mason . Derived from 

Gabaon . 

Gabor. Heb ., 1:a, strong . A significant 

word in the high degrees . 

Gabriel. Heb ., a man of God . The 

name of one of the archangels, referred to in 

some of the high degrees . He interpreted to 

Daniel the vision of the ram and the he-goat, 

and made the prophecy of the "seventy 

weeks" (Dan . viii . and ix .) ; he announced 

the future appearance of the Messiah (Dan . 

ix . 21, 27) . In the New Testament he foretold 

to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist 

(Luke i . 19), and to Mary the birth of Christ 

(Luke i . 26) . Among the Rabbis Gabriel is 

entrusted with the care of the souls of the 

dead, and is represented as having taught 

Joseph the seventy languages spoken at Babel . 

In addition, he was the only angel who could 

speak Chaldee and Syriac . The Talmud speaks 

of him as the Prince of Fire, the Spirit presiding 

over thunder . The Mohammedans 

term him the Spirit of Truth, and believe 

that he dictated the Koran to Mohammed . 

Gaedicke, Johann Christian . A bookseller 

of Berlin, born on the 14th of December, 

1763, and initiated into Masonry in 1804 . He 

took much interest in the Order, and was the 

author of several works, the most valuable 

and best known of which is the Freimaurer- 

Lexicon, or Freemasons' Lexicon, published in 

1818 ; which, although far inferior to that of 

Leaning, which appeared four years afterward, 

is, as a pioneer work, very creditable to 

its author. The Lexicon was translated into

290 GAGE 

GEDALIAH 

Engmasonslish and published in the London Free- 

' Magazine . 

Gage. See Twenty-four-Inch Gage . 

Galahad. Also spelled Galaad . Most probably 

a corruption of Gilead . Said in the 

old rituals to have been the keeper of the 

Seals in the Scottish degree of Knights of the 

Ninth, Arch or Sacred Vault of James VI . 

G :. A .• . .• . .• . . • . 

Great Architect of the Universe, which see . 

Gangler . The title given to the candidate 

in the Scandinavian mysteries, signifying wanderer 

. The application is also made to the sun . 

Garinus. Said in the old ritual of the degree 

of Knights of the East and West to have 

been the Patriarch of Jerusalem, between 

whose hands the first Knights of that Order 

took, in 1182, their vows . It is a corruption, 

by the French ritualists, of Garimond or Garimund, 

Patriarch of Jerusalem, before whom 

the Hospitalers took their three vows of obedience, 

chastity, and poverty . 

Gassicourt, Cadet de . An apothecary of 

Paris, who, in the year 1796, published a work 

entitled Le Tombeau de Jacques Molai, ou histoire 

secrete et abregee des inities anciens et modernes 

. In this book which embraced all the 

errors of Barruel and Robison, he made the 

same charges of atheism and conspiracy 

against the Fraternity, and loaded the Chevalier 

Ramsay with the most vehement indignation 

as a libertine and traitor . But 

De Gassicourt subsequently acknowledged his 

folly in writing against a society of which he 

really knew nothing . In fact, in 1805, he solicited 

admission into the Order, and was initiated 

in the Lodge "1'Abeille," at Paris, 

where, in the various offices of Orator and 

Master, which he filled, he taught and recommended 

that Institution which he had once 

abused ; and even on a public occasion pronounced 

the eulogy of- that Ramsay whom he 

had formerly anathematized . 

Gaston, John . Grand Duke of Tuscany ; 

in 1737 he inaugurated a persecution against 

the Freemasons in his dominions . 

Gates of the Temple . In the system of 

Freemasonry, the Temple of Solomon is represented 

as having a gate on the east, west, 

and south sides, but none on the north . In 

reference to the historical Temple of Jerusalem, 

such a representation is wholly incorrect . 

In the walls of the building itself there were no 

places of entrance except the door of the porch, 

which gave admission to the house . But in the 

surrounding courts there were gates at every 

point of the compass. The Masonic idea of 

the Temple is, however, entirely symbolic . 

The Temple is to the Speculative Mason only 

a symbol, not an historical building, and the 

gates are imaginary and symbolic also . They 

are, in the first place, symbols of the progress 

of the sun in his daily course, rising in the east, 

culminating to the meridian in the south, and 

setting in the west . They are also, in the allegory 

of life, which it is the object of the Third 

Degree to illustrate, symbols of the three stages 

of youth, manhood, and old age, or, more 

properly, of birth, lite, and death. 

Gaudlnl, Theobald de . Known as the 

monk Gaudini. Elected Grand Master of 

Templars, 1291 ; died 1301 . 

Gauntlets . Gloves formerly made of steel 

and worn by knights as a protection to their 

hands in battle. They have been adopted in 

the United States, as a part of the costume of a 

Knights Templar, under a regulation of the 

Grand Encampment, which directs them to be 

"of buff leather, the flap to extend four inches 

upwards from the wrist, and to have the 

appropriate cross embroidered in gold, on 

the proper colored velvet, two inches in 

length." 

Gavel. The common gavel is one of the 

working tools of an Entered Apprentice . It is 

made use of by the Operative Mason to break 

off the corners of the rough ashlar, and thus 

fit it the better for the builder's use, and is 

therefore adopted as a symbol in Speculative 

Masonry, to admonish us of the duty of 

divesting our minds and consciences of all 

the vices and impurities of life, thereby fitting 

our bodies as living stones for that spiritual 

building not made with hands, eternal in the 

heavens. 

It borrows its name from its shape, being 

that of the gable or gavel end of a house ; and 

this word again comes from the German gipfel 

a summit, top, or peak-the idea of a pointed 

extremity being common to all . 

The true form of the gavel is that of the 

stone-mason's hammer. 

It is to be 

made with a cutting 

edge, as in the annexed 

engraving 

that "to break it may off be used the 

corners of rough 

stones," an operation which could never be 

effected by the common hammer or mallet . 

The gavel thus shaped will give, when looked 

at in front, the exact representation of the 

gavel or gable end of a house, whence, as has 

been already said, the name is derived . 

"Hiram," 

The gavel 

because, 

of the 

like 

Master 

that architect, 

is also called 

it governs 

the Craft and keeps order in the Lodge, 

a 

as he did in the Temple . 

Gebal . A city of Phoenicia, on the Mediterranean, 

and under Mount Lebanon . It was 

the Byblos of the Greeks, where the worship 

of Adonis, the Syrian Thammuz, was celebrated. 

The inhabitants, who were Giblites 

or, in Masonic language, Giblemites, are 

said to have been distinguished for the art of 

stone-carving, and are called in the 1st Book 

of Kings" stone-squarers ." (See Giblim .) 

Gedallah . The second officer in a Council 

of Superexcellent Masters represents Gedaliah 

the son of Pashur . An historical error 

has crept into the ritual of this degree in reference 

to the Gedaliah who is represented in 

it . I have sought to elucidate the question 

in my work on Cryptic Masonry in the following 

manner : 

There are five persons of the name of Gedaliah 

who are mentioned in Scripture, but

GEMARA 

GENERAL 291 

only two of them were contemporary with the 

destruction of the Temple. 

Gedaliah the son of Pashur is mentioned by 

the prophet Jeremiah (xxxviii . 1) as a prince 

of the court of Zedekiah . He was present at its 

destruction, and is known to have been one 

of the advisers of the king . It was through 

his counsels, and those of his colleagues, that 

Zedekiah was persuaded to deliver up the 

prophet Jeremiah to death, from which he was 

rescued only by the intercession of a eunuch of 

the palace . 

The other Gedaliah was the son of Ahikam . 

He seems to have been greatly in favor with 

Nebuchadnezzar, for after the destruction of 

Jerusalem, and the deportation of Zedekiah, 

he was appointed by the Chaldean monarch 

as his satrap or governor over Judea . He took 

up his residence at Mizpah, where he was 

shortly afterward murdered by Ishmael, one 

of the descendants of the house of David. 

The question now arises, which of these two 

is the one referred to in the ceremonies of a 

Council of Superexcellent Masters? I think 

there can be no doubt that the founders of the 

degree intended the second officer of the Council 

to represent the former, and not the latter 

Gedaliah-the son of Pashur, and not Gedaliah 

the son of Ahikam ; the prince of Judah, 

and not the governor of Judea . 

We are forced to this conclusion by various 

reasons . The Gedaliah represented in the 

degree must have been a resident of Jerusalem 

during the siege, and at the very time of 

the assault, which immediately preceded the 

destruction of the Temple and the city. Now, 

we know that Gedaliah the son of Pashur was 

with Hezekiah as one of his advisers . On the 

other hand, it is most unlikely that Gedaliah 

the son of Ahikam could have been a resident 

of Jerusalem, for it is not at all probable that 

Nebuchadnezzar would have selected such a 

one for the important and confidential office 

of a satrap or governor . We should rather 

suppose that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam had 

been carried away to Babylon after one of the 

former sieges ; that he had there, like Daniel, 

gained by his good conduct the esteem and respect 

of the Chaldean monarch ; that he had 

come back to Judea with the army ; and that, 

on the taking of the city, he had been appointed 

governor by Nebuchadnezzar . Such 

being the facts, it is evident that he could not 

have been in the council of King Zedekiah, 

advising and directing his attempted escape . 

The modern revivers of the degree of Superexcellent 

Master have, therefore, been wrong 

in supposing that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, 

and afterward governor of Judea, was 

the person represented by the second officer of 

the Council. He was Gedaliah the son of 

Pashur, a wicked man, one of Zedekiah's 

princes, and was most probably put to death 

by Nebuchadnezzar, with the other rinces 

and nobles whom he captured in the pins of 

Jericho . 

Gemara . See Talmud. 

General Assembly . See Assembly. 

General Grand Chapter . Until the year 

1797, the Royal Arch Degree and the degrees 

subsidiary to it were conferred in America, 

either in irresponsible bodies calling themselves 

Chapters, but obedient to no superior 

authority, or in Lodges working under a 

Grand Lodge Warrant . On the 24th of October, 

1797, a convention of committees from 

three Chapters, namely, St . Andrew's Chapter 

of Boston, Temple Chapter of Albany, and 

Newburyport Chapter, was held at Boston, 

which recommended to the several Chapters 

within the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 

Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, 

and New York to hold a convention at 

Hartford on the fourth Wednesday of January 

ensuing, to form a Grand Chapter for the said 

States. 

Accordingly, on the 24th of January, 1798, 

delegates from St . Andrew's Chapter of Boston, 

Mass . ; King Cyrus Chapter of Newburyport, 

Mass . ; Providence Chapter of 

Providence, R . I . ; Solomon Chapter of Derby, 

Conn . ; Franklin Chapter of Norwich, Conn . ; 

Franklin Chapter of New Haven, Conn . ; and 

Hudson Chapter of Hudson, N . Y. ; to which 

were the next day added Temple Chapter of 

Albany, N . Y., and Horeb Chapter of Whitestown, 

N. Y., assembled at Hartford in Convention, 

and, having adopted a Constitution 

organized a governing body which they styled 

"The Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the Northern 

States of America ." This body assumed 

in its Constitution jurisdiction over only the 

States of New England and New York, and 

provided that Deputy Grand Chapters, subject 

to its obedience, should be organized in 

those States. Ephraim Kirby, of Litchfield, 

Conn ., was elected Grand High Priest ; and it 

was ordered that the first meeting of the 

Grand Chapter should be held at Middletown, 

Conn ., on the third Wednesday of September 

next ensuing. 

On that day the Grand Chapter met, but 

the Grand Secretary and Grand Chaplain 

were the only Grand Officers present . The 

Grand King was represented by a proxy . The 

Grand Chapter, however, proceeded to an 

election of Grand Officers, and the old officers 

were elected . The body then adjourned to 

meet in January, 1799, at Providence, R . I . 

On the 9th of January, 1799, the Grand 

Chapter met at Providence, the Deputy Grand 

Chapters of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 

and New York being represented . At this 

meeting, the Constitution was very considerably 

modified, and the Grand Chapter assumed 

the title of "The General Grand Chapter 

of Royal Arch Masons for the six Northern 

States enumerated in the preamble ." The 

meetings were directed to be held septennially 

; and the Deputy Grand Chapters were 

in future to be called "State Grand Chapters." 

No attempt was, however, made in words to 

extend the jurisdiction of the General Grand 

Chapter beyond the States already named . 

On the 9th of January, 1806, a meeting of 

the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter was 

held at Middletown, representatives being 

present from the States of Rhode Island, Con-

292 GENERAL 

GENERAL 

necticut, Vermont, and New York . The Constitution 

was again revised . The title was for 

the first time assumed of "The General Grand 

Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for the United 

States of America," and jurisdiction was extended 

over the whole country . This year 

may, therefore, be considered as the true date 

of the establishment of the General Grand 

Chapter . 

In 1826 the septennial meetings were abolished, 

and the General Grand Chapter has 

ever since met triennially. 

The General Grand Chapter consists of the 

present and past Grand High Priests, Deputy 

Grand High Priests, Grand Kings and Scribes 

of the State Grand Chapters, and the Past 

General Grand Officers . 

The officers are a General Grand High 

Priest, Deputy General Grand High Priest, 

General Grand King, General Grand Scribe, 

General Grand Treasurer, General Grand Secretary, 

General Grand Chaplain, General 

Grand Captain of the Host, and General Grand 

Royal Arch Captain . 

It originally possessed large prerogatives, 

extending even to the suspension of Grand 

Chapters ; but by its present Constitution it 

has "no power ofdiscipline, admonition, censure, 

or instruction over the Grand Chapters, 

nor any legislative powers whatever not specially 

granted" by its Constitution . It may, 

indeed, be considered as scarcely more than 'a 

great Masonic Congress meeting triennially 

for consultation . But even with these restricted 

powers, it is capable of doing much 

good. 

General Grand High Priest. The presiding 

officer of the General Grand Chapter of 

the United States of America . He is elected 

every third year by the General Grand Chapter. 

The title was first assumed in 1799, although 

the General Grand Chapter did not at 

that time extend its jurisdiction beyond six of 

the Northern States . 

General Grand Lodge . Ever since the 

Grand Lodges of this country began, at the 

commencement of the Revolutionary War to 

abandontheir dependence on the Grand Lodges 

of England and Scotland-that is to say, as 

soon as they emerged from the subordinate 

position of Provincial Grand Lodges, and were 

compelled to assume a sovereign and independent 

character-attempts have, from time to 

time, been made by members of the Craft to 

destroy this sovereignty of the State Grand 

Lodges, and to institute in its place a superintendmg 

ower, to be constituted either as a 

Grand Master of North America or as a General 

Grand Lodge of the United States . Led, 

perhaps, by the analogy of the united Colonies 

under one federal head, or, in the very 

commencement of the Revolutionary struggle, 

controlled by long habits of dependence on the 

mother Grand Lodges of Europe, the contest 

had no sooner begun, and a disseverance 

of political relations between England and 

America taken place, than the attempt was 

made to institute the office of Grand Master 

of the United States, the, 9bject being-of 

which there can hardly be a doubt-to invest 

Washington with the distinguished dignity . 

The effort emanated, it appears, with the 

military Lodges in the army . For a full account 

of it we are indebted to the industrious 

researches of Bro . E . G . Storer, who published 

the entire Minutes of the "American Union 

Lodge," attached to the Connecticut line, in 

his work on The Early Records of Freemasonry 

in the State of Connecticut . 

On the 27th of December, 1779, the Lodge 

met to celebrate the day at Morristown, in 

New Jersey, which, it will be remembered, was 

then the winter-quarters of the army. At that 

communication-at which, it may be remarked, 

by the way, "Bro . Washington" is 

recorded among the visitors-a petition was 

read, representing the present state of Freemasonry 

to the several Deputy Grand Masters 

in the United States of America, desiring them 

to adopt some measures for appointing a 

Grand Master over said States. 

The petition purports to emanate from 

"Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in the 

several lines of the army" ; and on its being 

read, it was resolved that a committee be appointed 

from the different Lodges in the army, 

and from the staff, to meet in convention at 

Morristown on the 7th of February next . Accordingly, 

on the 7th of Februaryy, 1780, a 

convention, called in the records ` a committee," 

met at Morristown . This convention 

adopted an address to the "Grand Masters 

of the several Lodges in the respective 

United States ." The recommendations of this 

address were that the said Grand Masters 

should adopt and pursue the most necessary 

measures for establishing one Grand Lodge in 

America, to preside over and govern all other 

Lodges of whatsoever degree or denomination, 

licensed or to be licensed, upon the continent ; 

that they should nominate, as Grand Master 

of said Lodge, a brother whose merit and capacity 

may be adequate to a station so important 

and elevated ; and that his name 

should be transmitted "to our Grand Mother 

Lodge in Europe" for approbation and confirmation. 

This convention contained delegates from 

the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, 

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 

and Maryland . Between the time of its 

conception, on the 27th of December, 1779, 

and that of its meeting on the 7th of February, 

1780, that is to say in January, 1780 the 

Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania had hQ an 

emergent meeting, and in some measure anticipated 

the proposed action of the convention 

by electing General Washington Grand Master 

of the United States . 

From the contemporaneous character of 

these events, it would seem probable that 

there was some concert of action between the 

Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and the Masons 

of Morristown . Perhaps, the initiative having 

been taken by the latter in December, the 

former determined to give its influence, in January, 

to the final recommendations which 

were to be made in the following February .

GENERAL 

GENERAL 293 

All this, however, although plausible, is but 

conjecture. Nothing appears to have resulted 

from the action of either body . The only 

further reference which I find to the subject, 

in subsequent Masonic documents, is the declaration 

of a convention held in 1783, to organize 

the Grand Lodge of Maryland, where it 

is remarked that "another Grand Lodge was 

requisite before an election could be had of a 

Grand Master for the United States ." 

But the attempt to form a General Grand 

Lodge although, on this occasion, unsuccessful, 

was soon to be renewed . In 1790, the 

proposition was again made by the Grand 

Lodge of Georgia, and here, true to the Roman 

axiom, Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in 

illis, the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania became 

the opponent of the measure, and declared it 

to be impracticable . 

Again, in 1799, the Grand Lodge of South 

Carolina renewed the proposition, and recommended 

a convention to be held at the city of 

Washington for the purpose of establishing a 

"Superintending Grand Lodge of America." 

The reasons assigned by the Grand Lodge of 

South Carolina for making this proposition are 

set forth in the circular which it issued on the 

subject to its sister Grand Lodges . They are 

"to draw closer the bonds of union between 

the different Lodges of the United States, and 

to induce them to join in some systematic plan 

whereby the drooping spirit of the Ancient 

Craft may be revived and become more generally 

useful and beneficial, and whereby Ancient 

Masonry, so excellent and beautiful in 

its primitive institution, may be placed upon 

such a respectable and firm basis in this western 

world as to bid defiance to the shafts of 

malice or the feeble attempts of any foreign 

disclaimers to bring it into disrepute ." The 

allusion here is to the Abbe Barruel, who had 

just published his abusive and anti-Masonic 

History of Jacobinism . 

Several Grand Lodges acceded to the proposition 

for holding a convention, although 

they believed the scheme of a "Superintending 

Grand Lodge" inexpedient and impracticable 

; but they were willing to send delegates 

for the purpose of producing uniformity 

in the Masonic system . The convention, however 

did not assemble . 

Tie proposition was again made in 1803, by 

the Grand Lodge of North Carolina, and with 

a like want of success . 

In 1806, the subject of a General Grand 

Lodge was again presented to the consideration 

of the Grand Lodges of the Union, and 

propositions were made for conventions to be 

held in Philadelphia in 1807, and in Washington 

city in 1808, neither of which was 

convened . The Proceedings of the various 

Grand Lodges in the years 1806, 1807, and 

1808 contain allusions to this subject, most 

of them in favor of a convention to introduce 

uniformity, but unfavorable to the permanent 

establishment of a General Grand Lodge. 

North Carolina, however, in 1807, expressed 

the opinion that "a National Grand Lodge 

should possess controlling and corrective 

powers over all Grand Lodges under its jurisdiction." 

An unsuccessful attempt was again made to 

hold a convention at Washington in January, 

1811, "for the purpose of forming a Superintending 

Grand Lodge of America ." 

After the failure of this effort, the Grand 

Lodge of North Carolina, which seems to have 

been earnest in its endeavors to accomplish 

its favorite object, again proposed a convention, 

to be convoked at Washington in 1812 . 

But the effort, like all which had preceded it, 

proved abortive . No convention was held . 

The effort seems now, after all these discouraging 

attempts, to have been laid upon the 

shelf for nearly ten years . At length, however, 

the effort for a convention which had so often 

failed was destined to meet with partial success, 

and one rather extemporaneous in its 

character was held in Washington on the 8th 

of March, 1822 . Over this convention, which 

the Grand Lodge of Maryland rather equivocally 

describes as "composed of members of 

Congress and strangers," the renowned orator 

and statesman Henry Clay presided . A strong 

appeal, most probably from the facile pen of 

its eloquent president, was made to the Grand 

Lodges of the country to concur in the establishment 

of a General Grand Lodge . But the 

appeal fell upon unwilling ears, and the Grand 

Lodges continued firm in their opposition to 

the organization of such a superintending 

body . 

The subject was again brought to the attention 

of the Fraternity by the Grand Lodge 

of Maryland, which body, at its communication 

in May, 1845, invited its sister Grand 

Lodges to meet in convention at Baltimore on 

the 23d of September, 1847, for the purpose 

of reporting a Constitution of a General Grand 

Lodge. 

This convention met at the appointed time 

and place, but only seven Grand Lodges were 

represented by twice that number of delegates 

. A Constitution was formed for a 

"Supreme Grand Lodge of the United States," 

which was submitted for approval or rejection 

to the Grand Lodges of the Union . The opinion 

expressed of that Constitution by the Grand 

Lodge of Ohio, "that it embraced, in several 

of its sections, indefinite and unmeaning 

powers, to which it was impossible to give a 

definite construction, and that it gave a jurisdiction 

to the body which that Grand Lodge 

would in no event consent to," seems to have 

been very generally concurred in by the other 

Grand bodies, and the "Supreme Grand 

Lodge of the United States" never went into 

operation . The formation of its Constitution 

was its first, its last, and its only act . 

The next action that we find on this much 

discussed subject was by the Grand Lodge of 

New York, which body recommended, in 1848, 

that each of the Grand Lodges should frame 

the outlines of a General Grand Constitution 

such as would be acceptable to it, and send it 

with a delegate to a convention to be holden 

at Boston in 1850, at the time of meeting 

of the General Grand Chapter and General

294 GENERAL 

GENUFLECTION 

Grand Encampment. The committee of the 

Grand Lodge of New York, who mace this 

recommendation, also presented the outlines 

of a General Grand Constitution . 

This instrument defines the jurisdiction of 

the proposed General Grand Lodge as intended 

to be "over all controversies and disputes 

between the different Grand Lodges 

which may become parties to the compact, 

when such controversies are referred for decision 

; and the decisions in all cases to be final 

when concurred in by a majority of the Grand 

Lodges present" ; but it disclaims all appeals 

from State Grand Lodges or their subordinates 

in matters relating to their own internal 

affairs . It is evident that the friends of the 

measure had abated much of their pretensions 

since the year 1779, when they wanted a 

Grand Lodge of America, "to preside over and 

govern all other Lodges of whatsoever degree 

or denomination licensed or to be licensed, 

on the continent . ' 

The Grand Lodge of Rhode Island also submitted 

the draft of a General Grand Constitution, 

more extensive in its details than that 

presented by New York, but substantially the 

same in principle . The Grand Lodge of the 

District of Columbia also concurred in the 

proposition . The convention did not, however, 

meet; for the idea of a Supreme Grand 

Lodge was still an unpopular one with the 

Craft . In January, 1850, Texas expressed the 

general sentiment of the Fraternity when it 

said : "The formation of a General Grand 

Lodge will not accomplish the desired end . 

The same feeling and spirit that now lead to 

difficulties between the different Grand 

Lodges would produce insubordination and 

disobedience of the edicts of a General Grand 

Lodge ." 

But another attempt was to be made by its 

friends to carry this favorite measure, and a 

convention of delegates was held at Lexington, 

Ky., in September, 1853, during the session 

of the General Grand Chapter and Encampment 

at that city . This convention did 

little more than invite the meeting of a fuller 

convention, whose delegates should be clothed 

with more plenary powers, to assemble at 

Washington in January, 1855 . 

The proposed convention met at Washington, 

and submitted a series of nine propositions 

styled "Articles of Confederation ." The 

gist of these articles is to be found in the 

initial one, and is in these words : "All matters 

of difficult which may hereafter arise in any 

Grand Loge, or between two or more Grand 

Lodges of the United States, which cannot by 

their own action be satisfactorily adjusted or 

disposed of, shall, if the importance of the case 

or the common welfare of the Fraternity demand 

it, be submitted, with accompanying 

evidence and documents, to the several Grand 

Lodges in their individual capacities ; and the 

concurrent decision thereon of two-thirds of 

the whole number, officially communicated 

shall be held authoritative, binding, and final 

on all parties concerned ." 

The provisions of these articles were to be 

considered as ratified, and were to take effect 

as soon as they were approved by twenty 

Grand Lodges of the United States . It is needless 

to say that this approbation was never received, 

and the proposed confederation failed 

to assume a permanent form . 

It will be perceived that the whole question 

of a General Grand Lodge is here, at once and 

in full, abandoned. The proposition was simply 

for a confederated league, with scarcely a 

shadow of power to enforce its decisions, with 

no penal jurisdiction whatsoever, and with no 

other authority than that which from time to 

time, might be delegated to it by the voluntary 

consent of the parties entering into the 

confederation. If the plan had been adopted 

the body would, in all probability, have died 

in a few years of sheer debility. There was 

no principle of vitality to keep it together . 

But the friends of a General Grand Lodge 

did not abandon the hope of effecting their 

object, and in 1857 the Grand Lodge of Maine 

issued a circular, urging the formation of a 

General Grand Lodge at a convention to be 

held at Chicago in September, 1859, during 

the session of the General Grand Chapter and 

General Grand Encampment at that city . 

This call was generally and courteously responded 

to ; the convention was held, but it 

resulted in a failure . Other attempts have 

been made by its friends to carry this measure, 

but with no results . 

Generalissimo. The second officer in a 

Commandery of Knights Templar, and one 

of its representatives in the Grand Commandery. 

His duty is to receive and communicate 

all orders, signs, and petitions ; to 

assist the Eminent Commander, and, in his 

absence, to preside over the Commandery . 

His station is on the right of the Eminent 

Commander, and his jewel is a square, surmounted 

by a paschal lamb . 

The use of the title in Templarism is of very 

recent origin, and peculiar to America. No 

such officer was known in the old Order . It is, 

besides inappropriate to a subordinate officer, 

being derived from the French generalissime, 

and that from the Italian generalissimo, both 

signifying a supreme commander. It has the 

same meaning in English . 

Gentleman Mason. In some of the old 

lectures of the last century this title is used as 

equivalent to Speculative Freemason. Thus 

they had the following catechism : 

"Q . What do you learn by being a Gentleman 

Mason? 

"A . Secrecy, Morality, and Good-Fellowship 

. 

"Q. What do you learn by being an Operative 

Mason? 

"A . Hew, Square, Mould stone, lay a 

Level, and raise a Perpendicular ." 

Hence we see that Gentleman Mason was in 

contrast with Operative Mason . 

Genuflection. Bending the knees has, in 

all ages of the world, been considered as an 

act of reverence and humility, and hence Pliny, 

the Roman naturalist, observes, that "a certain 

degree of religious reverence is attributed

GEOMATIC 

GERMANY 295 

to the knees of a man ." Solomon placed himself 

in this position when he prayed at the 

consecration of the Temple ; and Masons use 

the same posture in some portions of their 

ceremonies, as a token of solemn reverence . 

In Ancient Craft Masonry, during prayer, it is 

the custom for the members` to stand, but in 

the higher degrees, kneeling and generally on 

one knee, is the more usual !orm . 

Geomatic . See Domatic. 

Geometrical Master Mason . A term in 

use in England during the last century . By 

the primitive regulations of the Grand Chapter, 

an applicant for the Royal Arch Degree 

was required to produce a certificate that he 

was "a Geometrical Master Mason," and had 

passed the chair. The word Geometrical was 

here synonymous with Speculative . 

Geometric Points . In the language of 

French Masonry, this name is given to the 

four cardinal points of the compass, because 

they must agree with the four sides of a regular 

Temple or Lodge . They are a symbol of regularity 

and perfection . 

Geometry . In the modern rituals, geometry 

is said to be the basis on which the superstructure 

of Masonry is erected ; and in the 

Old Constitutions of the Medieval Freemasons 

of England the most prominent place of 

all the sciences is given to geometry, which is 

made synonymous- with Masonry. Thus, in 

the Regius MS., which dates not later than the 

latter part of the fourteenth century, the Constitutions 

of Masonry are called "the Constitutions 

of the art of geometry according to 

Euclid," the words geometry and Masonry 

being used indifferently throughout the document 

; and in the Harleian No . 2054 MS . it is 

said, "thus the craft Geometry was governed 

there, and that worthy Master (Euclid) gave 

it the name of Geometry, and it is called 

Masonrie in this land long after." In another 

part of the same MS . it is thus defined : "The 

fifth science is called Geometry and it teaches 

a man to mete and measure of the earth and 

other things, which science is Masonrie ." 

The Egyptians were undoubtedly one of 

the first nations who cultivated geometry as a 

science. "It was not less useful and necessary 

to them," as Goguet observes (Orig . 

des Lois ., I ., iv., 4), "in the affairs of life, than 

agreeable to their speculatively philosophical 

gemus ." From Egypt, which was the parent 

both of the sciences and the mysteries of the 

Pagan world, it passed over into other countries 

; and geometry and Operative Masonry 

have ever been found together, the latter carrying 

into execution those designs which were 

first traced according to the principles of the 

former . 

Speculative Masonry is, in like manner, 

intimately connected with geometry . In deference 

to our operative ancestors, and, in fact, 

as a necessary result of our close connection 

with them, Speculative Freemasonry derives 

its most important symbols from this parent 

science. Hence it is not strange that Euclid, 

the most famous of geometricians, should be 

spoken of in all the Old Records as a founder 

of Masonry in Egypt, and that a special legend 

should have been invented in honor of his 

memory . 

Georgia . Freemasonry was introduced at 

a very early period into the province of Georgia 

. Roger Lacey is said to have been the 

first Provincial Grand Master, and to him the 

warrant for Solomon's Lodge, at Savannah, 

was directed in 1735 . Rockwell (Ahim. Rez ., 

p . 323) denies this, and thinks that there was 

an earlier Lodge organized by Lacey, perhaps 

in 1730. The original warrant of Solomon's 

Lodge has, however, been destroyed, and we 

have no authentic evidence on the subject ; 

although it is very generally conceded that the 

introduction of organized Masonry into Georgia 

does not date later than the year 1735 . 

There is no evidence, except tradition, of the 

existence of an earlier Lodge . In 1786, the 

Independent Grand Lodge of Georgia was 

formed, Samuel Elbert, the last Provincial 

Grand Master resigning his position to William 

Stephen, who was elected, the first Grand 

Master . 

Gerbier, Doctor . An energetic Mason, 

and, as mentioned in The Royal Masonic Cyclopcedia, 

one of their removable Masters of the 

ancient Grand Lodge of France . He is said to 

have fabricated the title of the Metropolitan 

Chapter of France, which it was pretended 

had emanated from Edinburgh, in 1721 . 

German Union of Two and Twenty. 

A secret society founded in Germany, in 1786, 

by Dr. Bahrdt, whose only connection with 

Freemasonry was that Bahrdt and the twentyone 

others who founded it were Masons, and 

that they invited to their cooperation the 

most distinguished Masons of Germany . 

The founder professed that the object of the 

association was to diffuse intellectual light, to 

annihilate superstition, and to perfect the 

human race . Its instruction was divided into 

six degrees, as follows : 1 . The Adolescent ; 

2 . The Man ; 3 . The Old Man ; 4. The Mesopolite 

; 5 . The Diocesan ; 6 . The Superior . 

The first three degrees were considered a preparatory 

school for the last three, out of which 

the rules of the society were chosen . It lasted 

only four years, and was dissolved by the imprisonment 

of its founder for a political libel, 

most of its members joining the Illuminati . 

The publication of a work in 1789 entitled 

Mehr Noten als Text, etc., i . e ., More Notes 

than Text, or The German Union of XXII 

which divulged its secret organization, tended 

to hasten its dissolution . (See Bahrdt .) 

Germany. Of all countries Germany plays 

the most important part in the history of ancient 

Masonry, since it was there that the 

gilds of Operative Stone-Masons first assumed 

that definite organization which subsequently 

led to the establishment cf Speculative Freemasonry. 

But it was not until a later date 

that the latter institution obtained a footing 

on German soil. Findel (Hist ., p . 238) says 

that as early as 1730 temporary Lodges, occupied 

only in the communication of Masonic 

knowledge and in the study of the ritual, were 

formed at different points . But the first reg-

296 GHLMOUL 

GILDS 

ular Lodge was established at Hamburg, in 

1733, under a warrant of Lord Strathmore, 

Grand Master of England ; which did not, 

however, come into active operation until 

four years later . Its progress was at first slow ; 

and nowhere is Freemasonry now more popular 

or more deserving of popularity . Its 

scholars have brought to the study of its antiquities 

and its philosophy all the laborious 

research that distinguishes the Teutonic 

mind, and the most learned works on these 

subjects have emanated from the German 

press . The detailed history of its progress 

would involve the necessity of no ordinary 

volume, 

Ghemoul Binah Thebounah . (Prudence 

in the midst of vicissitude .) The name 

of the seventh step of the mystical Kadosh 

ladder of the A. A. Scottish Rite . 

Ghiblim . The form in which Dr. Anderson 

spells Giblim. In the Book of Constitutions 

(ed. 1738, page 70) it is stated that in 1350 

"John de Spoulee, call'd Master of the Ghiblim," 

rebuilt St. George's chapel . 

Gibalim . A Masonic corruption of Giblim, 

the Giblites, or men of Gebal . (See Giblim 

.) 

Gibeah. A Hebrew word signifying a 

"hill," and giving name to several towns and 

places in ancient Palestine. The only one 

requiring special mention is "Gibeah of 

Benjamin," a small city about four miles north 

of Jerusalem . It was the residence, if not the 

birthplace, of King Saul. 

In the French Rite it symbolically refers to 

the Master, who must be pure in heart, that 

the High and Holy One may dwell therein . 

The word is also used in the Swedish Rite . 

Giblim. Heb ., D~Ma . A significant word 

in Masonry. It is the plural of the Gentile 

noun Gibli (the g pronounced hard), and 

means, according to the idiom of the Hebrew, 

Giblites, or inhabitants of the city of Gebal . 

The Giblim, or Giblites, are mentioned in 

Scripture as assisting Solomon's and Hiram's 

builders to prepare the trees and the stones for 

building the Temple, and from this passage it 

is evident that they were clever artificers . 

The passage is in 1 Kings v . 18, and, in our 

common version, is as follows : "And Solomon's 

builders and Hiram's builders did hew 

them and the atone-squarers ; so they prepare 

timber and stones to build the house," 

where the word translated in the authorized 

version by stone-squarers is, in the original, 

Giblim . It is so also in that translation known 

as the Bishop's Bible. The Geneva version 

has masons. The French version of Martin 

has tailleurs de pierres, following the English ; 

but Luther, in his German version, retains the 

original word Giblim . 

It is probable that the English translation 

followed the Jewish Targum, which has a word 

of similar import in this passage. The error 

has, however, assumed importance in the Masonic 

ritual, where Giblim is supposed to be 

synonymous with a Mason . And Sir Wm . 

Drummond confirms this by saying in his 

Origins (vol. iii ., b. v ., ch. iv ., p . 129) that 

"the Gibalim were Master Masons who put 

the finishing hand to King Solomon's Temple." 

(See Gebal .) 

Gilds . The word gild, guild, or geld, from 

the Saxon gildan, to pay, originally meant a 

tax or tribute, and hence those fraternities 

which, in the early ages contributed sums to a 

common stock, were called Gilds . Cowell, the 

old English jurist, defines a Gild to be "a fraternity 

or commonalty of men gathered together 

into one combination, supporting their 

common charge by mutual contribution ." 

Societies of this kind, but not under the 

same name, were known to the ancient Greeks 

and Romans, and their artificers and traders 

were formed into distinct companies which occupied 

particular streets named after them . 

But according to Dr . Lujo Brentano, who 

published, in 1870, an essay on The History and 

Development of Gilds, England is the birthplace 

of the Medieval Gilds, from whom he 

says that the modern Freemasons emerged . 

They existed, however, in every countyy of 

Europe, and we identify them in the Compagnons 

de la Tour of France, and the Baucorporationen 

of Germany. The difference 

however, was that while they were patronized 

by the municipal authorities in England, they 

were discouraged by both the Church and 

State on the Continent . 

The Gilds in England were of three kinds, 

Religious Gilds, Merchant Gilds, and Craft 

Gilds, specimens of all of which still exist although 

greatly modified in their laws and usages 

. The Religious or Ecclesiastical Gilds 

are principally found in Roman Catholic 

countries, where, under the patronage of the 

Church, they often accomplish much good by 

the direction of their benevolence to particular 

purposes. Merchant Gilds are exemplified in 

the twelve great Livery Companies of London . 

And the modern Trades Unions are nothing 

else but Craft Gilds under another name . 

But the most interesting point in the history 

of the Craft Gilds is the fact that from them 

arose the Brotherhoods of the Freemasons . 

Brentano gives the following almost exhaustive 

account of the organization and customs 

of the Craft Gilds : 

"The Craft Gilds themselves first sprang 

up amongst the free craftsmen, when they 

were excluded from the fraternities which had 

taken the place of the family unions, and later 

among the bondmen, when they ceased to belong 

to the familia of their lord . Like those 

Frith Gilds, the object of the early Craft Gilds 

was to create relations as if among brothers ; 

and above all things, to grant to their members 

that assistance which the member of a family 

might expect from that family. As men s 

wants had become different, this assistance no 

longer concerned the protection of life, limbs, 

and property, for this was provided for by the 

Frith Gilds, now recognized as the legitimate 

authority ; but the principal object of the 

Craft Gilds was to secure their members in 

the independent unimpaired, and regular 

earning of their daily bread by means of their 

craft .

GILDS 

GILGUL 297 

"The very soul of the Craft Gild was its 

meetings, which brought all the Gild brothers 

together every week or quarter . These meetings 

were always held with certain ceremonies, 

for the sake of greater solemnity . The box, 

having several locks like that of the Trade 

Unions, and containing the charters of the 

Gild, the statutes, the money, and other valuable 

articles, was opened on such occasions, 

and all present had to uncover their heads . 

These meetings possessed all the rights which 

they themselves had not chosen to delegate . 

They elected the presidents (originally called 

Aldermen, afterwards Masters and Wardens) 

and other officials, except in those cases already 

mentioned, in which the Master was 

appointed by the king, the bishop, or the authorities 

of the town. As a rule, the Gilds 

were free to choose their Masters, either from 

their own members, or from men of higher 

rank, though they were sometimes limited in 

their choice to the former. 

"The Wardens summoned and presided at 

the meetings, with their consent enacted ordinances 

for the regulation of the trade, saw 

these ordinances properly executed, and 

watched over the maintenance of the customs 

of the Craft . They had the right to examine 

all manufactures, and a right of search for all 

unlawful tools and products. They formed, 

with the assistance of a quorum of Gild brothers, 

the highest authority in all the concerns of 

the Gild. No Gild member could be arraigned 

about trade matters before any other judge . 

We have still numerous documentary proofs 

of the severity and justice with which the 

Wardens exercised their judicial duties. Whenever 

they held a court, it was under special 

forms and solemnities ; thus, for instance in 

1275 the chief Warden of the masons building 

Strasburg cathedral held a court sitting under 

a canopy . 

"Besides being brotherhoods for the care of 

the temporal welfare of their members the 

Craft Gilds were, like the rest of the Gilds, at 

the same time religious fraternities . In the 

account of the origin of the Company of Grocers, 

it is mentioned that at the very first meeting 

they fixed a stipend for the priest, who had 

to conduct their religious services and pray 

for their dead. In this respect the Craft Gilds 

of all countries are alike ; and in reading their 

statutes, one might fancy sometimes that the 

old craftsmen cared only for the wellbeing of 

their souls . All bad particular saints for patrons, 

after whom the society was frequently 

called ; and, where it was possible, they chose 

one who had some relation to their trade . 

They founded masses, altars, and painted 

windows in cathedrals ; and even at the present 

day their coats of arms and their gifts 

range proudly by the side of those of kings and 

barons . Sometimes individual Craft Gilds 

appear to have stood in special relation to a 

particular church, by virtue of which they had 

to perform special services, and received in 

return a special share in all the prayers of the 

clergy of that church . In later times, the 

Craft Gilds frequently went in solemn pro- 

cession to their churches . We find innumerable 

ordinances also as to the support of the 

sick and poor ; and to afford a settled asylum 

for distress, the London Companies early 

built dwellings near their halls. The chief 

care, however, of the Gildmen was always directed 

to the welfare of the souls of the dead . 

Every year a requiem was sung for all departed 

Gild brothers, when they were all mentioned 

by name ; and on the death of any member, 

special services were held for his soul, and distribution 

of alms was made to the poor, who, 

in return, had to offer up prayers for the dead, 

as is still the custom in Roman Catholic countries 

." 

In a History of the English Guilds, edited by 

Toulmin Smith from old documents in the 

Record Office at London, and published by 

the Early English Text Society, we find many 

facts confirmatory of those given by Brentano, 

as to the organization of these Gilds . 

The testimony of these old records shows 

that a religious element pervaded the Gilds, 

and exercised a very powerful influence over 

them . Women were admitted to all of them, 

which Herbert (Liv . Comp ., i ., 83) thinks was 

borrowed from the Ecclesiastical Gilds of 

Southern Europe ; and the brethren and sisters 

were on terms of complete equality . There 

were fees on entrance, yearly and special payments, 

and fines for wax for lights to burn at 

the altar or in funeral rites . The Gilds had 

set days of meeting, known as "morning 

speeches," or "days of spekyngges totiedare 

for here comune profyte," and a grand festival 

on the patron saint's day, when the members 

assembled for worship, almsgiving, feasting, 

and for nourishing of brotherly love . Mystery 

plays were often performed . They had a 

treasure-chest, the opening of which was a 

sign that business had begun. While it remained 

open all stood with uncovered heads, 

when cursing and swearing and all loose conduct 

were severely punished . The Gild property 

consisted of land, cattle, money, etc . The 

expenditure was on the sick poor and aged, in 

making good losses by robbery etc . Loans 

were advanced pilgrims assisted, and, in one 

city, "any good girl of the Gild" was to have a 

dowry on marriage, if her father could not provide 

it . Poor travelers were lodged and fed . 

Roads were kept in repair, and churches were 

sustained and beautified . They wore a particular 

costume, which was enforced by their 

statutes, whence come the liveries of the London 

Companies of the present day and the 

"clothing of the Freemasons . 

An investigation of the usages of these 

Medieval Gilds, and a comparison of their 

regulations with the old Masonic Constitutions, 

will furnish a fertile source of interest 

to the Masonic archeologist, and will throw 

much light on the early history of Freemasonry 

. (See Gilds in Eleventh Edition of the 

Britannica Cyclopedia .) 

Gilead . See Galahad . 

Gilgul, Doctrine of. We learn from Bro . 

Kenneth R . H. Mackenzie's Royal Masonic 

Cyclopwdia that "Certain of the learned Jews

298 GILKES 

GLOBE 

have believed, for many centuries, in the doctrine 

of Gilgul, according to which the bodies 

of Jews deposited in foreign tombs contain 

within them a principle of soul which cannot 

rest until, by a process called by them `the 

whirling of the soul,' the immortal particle 

reaches once more the sacred soil of the Promised 

Land. This whirling of souls was supposed 

to be accomplished by a process somewhat 

similar to that of the metempsychosis of 

the Hindus, the psychical spark being conveyed 

through bird, beast, or fish, and, sometimes, 

the most minute insect . The famous 

Rabbi Akiba (followed by the Rabbis Judah 

and Meir) declared that none could come to 

the resurrection save those of the Jews who 

were buried in the Holy Land, or whose remains 

were, in the process of ages, gradually 

brought thither. IPicart's wonderful and 

laborious work there are many references to 

this doctrine . The learned may consult further 

authorities on this curious subject in the 

Kabbala Denudata of Heinrich Khunrath, 

1677 ." 

Gilkes, Peter William . Born in London 

in 1765, and died in 1833 . He was celebrated 

for his perfect knowledge of the ritual 

of Ancient Craft Masonry according to the 

English ritual, which he successfully taught 

for many years . His reputation in England as 

a Masonic teacher was very great . 

Girdle . In ancient symbology the girdle 

was always considered as typical of chastity 

and purity . In the Brahmanical initiations, 

the candidate was presented with the Zennar, 

or sacred cord,. as a part of the sacred garments 

; and Gibbon says that "at the age of 

puberty the faithful Persian was invested 

with a mysterious girdle ; fifteen genuflections 

were required after he put on the sacred 

girdle ." The old Templars assumed the obligations 

of poverty, obedience, and chastity ; 

and a girdle was given them, at their initiation, 

as a symbol of the last of the three vows . 

As a symbol of purity, the girdle is still used 

in many chivalric initiations, and may be 

properly considered as the analogue of the 

Masonic apron. 

Glaire, Peter Maurice. A distinguished 

Mason, who was born in Switzerland in 1743, 

and died in 1819. In 1764, he went to Poland, 

and became the intimate friend of King 

Stanislaus Poniatowski, who confided to him 

many important diplomatic missions . During 

his residence in Poland, Glaire greatly 

patronized the Freemasons of that kingdom, 

and established there a Rite of seven degrees . 

He returned to Switzerland in 1788, where 

he continued to exercise an interest in Freemasonry 

and in 1810 was elected Grand 

Master for three years, and in 1813 for life, 

of the Roman Grand Orient of Helvetia, 

which body adopted his Rite . 

Glastonbury, Holy Thorn of. There 

is an ancient market town in County Somerset, 

Eng ., with a po pulation of 3,700 . which 

owes its origin to a celebrated abbey, founded, 

according to tradition, in 60 A.D. We are 

further told that Joseph of Arimathea was 

the founder, and the "miraculous thorn" 

which flowered on Christmas day was believed 

by the common people to be the veritable 

staff with which Joseph aided his steps from 

the Holy Land . The tree was destroyed 

during the civil wars, but grafts flourish in 

neighboring gardens. Glastonbury has the 

honor of ranking St. Patrick (415 A.D.) and 

St . Dunstan among its abbots . In 1539, 

Henry VIII . summoned Abbot Whiting to 

surrender the town and all its treasures, and 

on his refusal condemned him to be hanged 

and quartered, and the monastery confiscated 

to the king's use, which sentence was immediately 

carried into execution . King Arthur 

is said to be buried in this place . 

Gleason, Benjamin . A lecturer and 

teacher of the Masonic ritual, according to 

the system of Webb, in the Grand Lodge of 

Massachusetts, from 1806 to 1842 . Gleason 

is said to have been a man of liberal education, 

and a graduate in 1802 of Brown University . 

He became soon after a pupil of Thomas 

Smith Webb, whose lectures he taught in 

Massachusetts and elsewhere . The assertion 

of some writers that Gleason went to 

England and lectured before the Grand 

Lodge of England, which recognized his or 

Webb's system as being the same as that of 

Preston, is highly improbable and wants 

confirmation. 

Globe. In the Second Degree, the celestial 

and terrestrial globes have been adopted as 

s bols of the universal extension of the 

rder, and as suggestive of the universal 

claims of brotherly love. The symbol is a 

very ancient one, and is to be found in the 

religious systems of many countries. Among 

the Mexicans the globe was the symbol of 

universal power . But the Masonic symbol 

appears to have been derived from, or at 

least to have an allusion to the Egyptian 

symbol of the winged globe. there is nothing 

more common among the Egyptian monuments 

than the symbol of a globe supported 

on each side by a serpent, and accompanied 

with wings extended wide beyond them, 

occupying nearly the whole of the entablature 

above the entrance of many of their 

temples. We are thus reminded of the 

globes on the pillars at the entrance of the 

Temple of Solomon . The winged globe, 

as the symbol of Cneph, the Creator Sun, 

was adopted by the Egyptians as their national 

device, as the Lion is that of England, or 

the Eagle of the United States . In the 

eighteenth chapter of Isaiah (v . i .), where 

the authorized version of King James's Bible 

has "Woe to the land shadowing with wins, " 

Lowth, after Bochart, translates, "Hol to 

the land of the winged cymbal," supposing 

the Hebrew ~3 7.V to mean the sistrum 

which was a round instrument, consisting of 

a broad rim of metal, having rods passing 

through it, and some of which, extending 

beyond the sides, would, says Bishop 

Lowth, have the appearance of wings, and 

be expressed by the same Hebrew word . 

But _ Rosellini translates the passage differ-

GLORY 

GLOVES 299 

ently, and says, "Ho, land of the winged 

globe . " 

Dudley, in his Naology (p . 13), says that 

the knowledge of the spherical figure of the 

earth was familiar to the Egyptians in the 

early ages, in which some of their temples 

were constructed . Of the round figure 

described above, he says that although it be 

called a globe, an egg, the symbol of the world 

was perhaps intended ; and he thinks that 

if the globes of the Egyptian entablatures 

were closely examined, they would perhaps 

be found of an oval shape, figurative of the 

creation, and not bearing any reference to 

the form of the world . 

The interpretation of the Masonic globes, 

as a symbol of the universality of Masonry, 

would very well agree with the idea of the 

Egyptian symbol referring to the extent of 

creation . That the globes on the pillars, 

placed like the Egyptian symbol before 

the temple, were a representation of the 

celestial and terrestrial globes, is a very 

modern idea . In the passage of the Book 

of Kings, whence Masonry has derived its 

ritualistic description, it is said (1 Kings 

vii . 16), "And he made two chapiters of 

molten brass, to set upon the tops of the 

pillars ." In the Masonic ritual it is said 

that "the pillars were surmounted by two 

pomels or globes." Now pomel, J ,r ice, is 

the very word employed by Rabbi Solomon 

in his commentary on this passage, a word 

which signifies a globe or spherical body . 

The Masonic globes were really the chapiters 

described in the Book of Kings . Again 

it is said (1 Kings vii . 22), "U5pon the top 

of the pillars was lily work . ' We now 

know that the plant here called the lily was 

really the lotus, or the Egyptian water-lily . 

But among the Egyptians the lotus was a 

symbol of the universe ; and hence, although 

the Masons in their ritual have changed the 

expanded flower of the lotus, which crowned 

the chapiter and surmounted each pillar 

of the porch, into a globe, they have retained 

the interpretation of universality . The Egyptian 

globe or egg and lotus or lily and the 

Masonic globe are all symbols of something 

universal, and the Masonic idea has only 

restricted by a natural impulse the idea to 

the universality of the Order and its benign 

influences . But it is a pity that Masonic 

ritualists did not preserve the Egyptian and 

Scriptural symbol of the lotus surrounding 

a ball or sphere, and omit the more modern 

figures of globes celestial and terrestrial . 

Glory, Symbol of . The Blazing Star 

in the old lectures was called "the glory 

in the center," because it was placed in the 

center of the floor-cloth, and represented 

the glorious name of Deity . Hence, Dr . 

Oliver gives to one of his most interesting 

works, which treats of the symbolism of the 

Blazing Star, the title of The Symbol of Glory . 

Gloves. In the continental Rites of 

Masonry, as practised in France, in Germany, 

and in other countries of Europe, it 

is an invariable custom to present the new- 

ly initiated candidate not only, as we do, 

with a white leather apron, but also with 

two pair of white kid gloves-one a man's 

pair for himself, and the other a woman'sto 

be presented by him in turn to his wife 

or his betrothed, according to the custom 

of the German Masons, or, according to the 

French, to the female whom he most esteems, 

which, indeed, amounts, or should amount, 

to the same thing . 

There is in this, of course, as there is 

in everything else which pertains to Freemasonry, 

a symbolism . The gloves given 

to the candidate for himself are intended 

to teach him that the acts of a Mason should 

be as pure and spotless as the gloves now 

given to him . In the German Lodges, the 

word used for acts is, of course, handlung, 

or handlings, "the works of his hands," which 

makes the symbolic idea more impressive . 

Dr . Robert Plot-no friend of Masonry, 

but still a historian of much researchsays, 

in his Natural History of Staffordshire, 

that the Society of Freemasons in his time 

(and be wrote in 1686) presented their candidates 

with gloves for themselves and their 

wives. This shows that the custom, still 

preserved on the Continent of Euro p e, once 

was practised in England ; although there, 

as well as in America, it is discontinued, 

which is perhaps to be regretted . 

But although the presentation of the 

gloves to the candidate is no longer practised 

as a ceremony in England or America, 

yet the use of them as a part of the proper 

professional clothing of a Mason m the 

duties of the Lodge or in processions, is 

still retained ; and in many well-regulated 

Lodges the members are almost as regularly 

clothed in their white gloves as in their 

white aprons . 

The symbolism of the gloves, it will be 

admitted, is in fact but a modification of 

that of the apron . They both signify the 

same thing, both are allusive to a purification 

of life . "Who shall ascend," says the 

Psalmist, "into the hill of the Lord? or who 

shall stand in his holy place? He that 

hath clean hands and a pure heart." The 

apron may be said to refer to the "pure 

heart" ; the gloves, to the "clean hands." 

Both are significant of purification-of that 

purification which was always symbolized 

by the ablution which preceded the ancient 

initiations into the sacred mysteries . But 

while our American and English Masons 

have adhered only to the apron, and rejected 

the gloves as a Masonic symbol, the latter 

appear to be far more important in symbolic 

science, because the allusions to pure or 

clean hands are abundant in all the ancient 

writers. 

"Hands," says Wemyss, in his Clavis 

Symbolica, "are the symbols of human actions-pure 

hands are pure actions ; unjust 

hands are deeds of injustice . There are 

numerous references in sacred or profane 

writers to this symbolism. The washing 

of the hands has the outward sign of an

300 GLOVES 

GNOSTICS 

internal purification . Hence, the Psalmist 

says, "I will wash my hands in innocence, 

and I will encompass thine altar, Jehovah." 

In the Ancient Mysteries, the washing of 

the hands was always an introductory ceremony 

to the initiation, and, of course, it 

was used symbolically to indicate the necessity 

of purity from crime as a qualification 

of those who sought admission into 

the sacred Rites- and hence on a temple in 

the island of Crete this inscription was 

placed : "Cleanse your feet, wash your hands, 

and then enter ." 

Indeed, the washing of hands, as symbolic 

of purity, was among the ancients a 

peculiarly religious rite . No one dared to 

p ray to the gods until he had cleansed his 

h ands. Thus, Homer makes Hector say, 

"I dread with unwashed hands to bring 

My incensed wine to Jove an offering." 

The same practise existed among the 

Jews ; and a striking instance of the symbolism 

is exhibited in that well-known action 

of Pilate, who when the Jews clamored 

for Jesus that tiey might crucify him, 

appeared before the people, and, having 

taken water, washed his h ands, saying at 

the same time, "I am innocent of the blood 

of this just man . See ye to it ." In the 

Christian church of the Middle Ages, gloves 

were always worn by bishops or priests 

when in the performance of ecclesiastical 

functions. They were made of linen and 

were white ; and Durandus, a celebrated 

ritualist, says that "by the white gloves 

were denoted chastity and purity, because 

the hangs were thus kept clean and free 

from all impurity ." 

There is no necessity to extend examples 

any further . There is no doubt that the 

use of the gloves in Masonry is a symbolic 

idea, borrowed from the ancient and universal 

language of symbolism, and was intended, 

like the apron, to denote the necessity 

of purity of life . 

The builders, who associated in companies, 

who traversed Europe and were engaged 

in the construction of palaces and 

cathedrals, have left to us, as their descendants, 

their name, their technical language, 

and the apron, that distinctive piece 

of clothing by which they protected their 

garments from the pollutions of their laborious 

employment . Did they also bequeath 

to us their gloves? This is a question which 

some modern discoveries will at last enable 

us to solve. 

M . Didron, in his Annales Arehfo s, 

presents us with an engraving copied rom 

the painted glass of a window in the Cathedral 

of Chartres, in France . The painting 

was executed in the thirteenth century, and 

represents a number of Operative Masons 

at work . Three of them are adorned with 

laurel crowns. May not these be intended 

to represent the three officers of a Lodge? 

All of the Masons wear gloves. M . Didron 

remarks that in the old documents which 

he has examined mention is often made of 

gloves which are intended to be presented 

to Masons and stone-cutters. In a subsequent 

number of the Annales, he gives the 

following three examples of this fact : 

In the year 1331, the Chatelan of Villaines, 

in Duemois, bought a considerable 

quantity of gloves to be given to the workmen 

in order, as it is said, "to shield their 

hands from the stone and lime ." 

In October, 1383, as he learns from a 

document of that period, three dozen pair 

of gloves were bought and distributed to 

the Masons when they commenced the buildings 

at the Chartreuse of Dijon . 

And, lastly, in 1486 or 1487, twenty-two 

pair of gloves were given to the Masons 

and stone-cutters who were engaged in work 

at the city of Amiens . 

It is thus evident that the builders-the 

Operative Masons--of the Middle Ages wore 

gloves to protect their hands from the effects 

of their work. It is equally evident that 

the Speculative Masons have received from 

their operative predecessors the gloves as 

well as the apron, both of which, being 

used by the latter for practical uses, have 

been, in the spirit of symbolism, appropriated 

by the former to "a more noble and 

glorious purpose ." 

Gnostics. The general name of Gnostics 

has been employed to designate several sects 

that sprung up in the eastern parts of the 

Roman Empire about the time of the advent 

of Christianity ; although it is supposed that 

their principal doctrines had been taught 

centuries before in many of the cities of 

Asia Minor . The word Gnosticism is derived 

from the Greek Gnosis or knowledge, and 

was a term used in the earliest days of philosophy 

to signify the science of Divine things, 

or, as Matter says, "superior or celestial knowledge 

." He thinks the word was first used 

by the Jewish philosophers of the famous 

school of Alexandria . The favorite opinion 

of scholars is that the sect of Gnostics arose 

among the philosophers who were the converts 

of Paul and the other Apostles, and who 

sought to mingle the notions of the Jewish 

Egyptian school, the speculations of the Kabbalists, 

and the Grecian and Asiatic doctrines 

with the simpler teachings of the new 

religion which they had embraced . They 

believed that the writings of the Apostles 

enunciated only the articles of the vulgar 

faith ; but that there were esoteric traditions 

which had been transmitted from generation 

to generation in mysteries, to which they 

gave the name of Gnosticism or Gnosis. King 

says (Gnostics, p . 7) that they drew the 

materials out of which they constructed their 

system from two religions, viz ., the Zend- 

Avesta and its modifications in the Kabbala, 

and the reformed Brahmanical religion, as 

taught by the Buddhist missionaries . 

Notwithstanding the large area of country 

over which this system of mystical philosophy 

extended, and the number of different 

sects that adopted it, the same fundamental

GOAT 

GODFATHER 301 

doctrine was everywhere held by the chiefs 

of Gnosticism . This was that the visible 

creation was not the wort of the Supreme 

Deity, but of the Demiurgus, a simple 

emanation, and several degrees removed 

from the Godhead . To the , latter, indeed, 

styled by them "the unknown Father," 

they attributed the creation of the intellectual 

world, the Eons and Angels, while they 

made the creation of the world of matter 

the work of the Demiurgus . 

Gnosticism abounded in symbols and 

legends, in talismans and amulets, many 

of which were adopted into the popular 

superstitions of the Medieval ages . It is, 

too, interesting to the student of Masonic 

antiquities because of its remote connection 

with that Order, some of whose symbols 

have been indirectly traced to a Gnostic 

origin . The Druses of Mount Lebanon 

were supposed to be a sect of Gnostics ; and 

the constant intercourse which was maintained 

during the Crusades between Europe 

and Syria produced an effect upon the 

Western nations through the influence of 

the pilgrims and warriors . 

Toward the Manicheans, the most prominent 

offshoot of Gnosticism, the Templars 

exercised a tolerant spirit very inconsistent 

with the professed objects of their original 

foundation, which led to the charge that 

they were affected by the dogmas of Manicheism 

. 

The strange ceremonies observed in the 

initiation into various secret societies that 

existed in the Lower Empire are said to 

have been modeled on the Gnostic Rites of 

the Mithraic Cave . 

The architects and stone-masons of the 

Middle Ages borrowed many of the principles 

of ornamentation, by which they decorated 

the ecclesiastical edifices which they 

constructed, from the abstruse symbols of 

the Gnostics . 

So, too, we find Gnostic symbols in the Hermetic 

Philosophy and in the system of Rosicrucianism 

; and lastly, many of the symbols 

still used by Freemasonry-such, for 

instance, as the triangle within a circle, the 

letter G, and the pentacle of Solomonhave 

been traced to a Gnostic source . 

Goat, Riding the . The vulgar idea 

that "riding the goat" constitutes a part 

of the ceremonies of initiation in a Masonic 

Lodge has its real origin in the superstition 

of antiquity . The old Greeks and Romans 

portrayed their mystical god Pan in horns 

and hoof and shaggy hide, and called him 

"goat-footed." When the demonology of 

the classics was adopted and modified by 

the early Christians, Pan gave way to Satan, 

who naturally inherited his attributes ; so 

that to the common mind the Devil was 

represented by a he-goat, and his best known 

marks were the horns, the beard, and the 

cloven hoofs . Then came the witch stories 

of the Middle Ages, and the belief in the 

witch orgies, where, it was said, the Devil 

appeared riding on a goat . These orgies 

of the witches, where, amid fearfully blasphemous 

ceremonies, they practised initiation 

into their Satanic Rites, became, to the 

vulgar and the illiterate, the type of the 

Masonic Mysteries ; for, as Dr . Oliver says, 

it was in England a common belief that the 

Freemasons were accustomed in their Lodges 

"to raise the Devil ." So the "riding of the 

goat," which was believed to be practised 

by the witches, was transferred to the Freemasons 

; and the saying remains to this day 

although the belief has very long since died 

out . 

G. O . D. The initials of Gomer, Oz 

Dabar. It is a singular coincidence, and 

worthy of thought, that the letters composing 

the English name of Deity should 

be the initials of the Hebrew words wisdom, 

strength, and beauty ; the three great pillars, 

or metaphorical supports, of Masonry . They 

seem to present almost the only reason that 

can reconcile a Mason to the use of the 

initial "G" in its conspicuous suspension 

in the East of the Lodge in place of the 

Delta. The incident seems to be more than 

an accident . 

1~ - 1 Dabar, Wisdom, D . 

ty Oz, Strength, O . 

In; Gomer, Beauty, G. 

Thus the initials conceal the true meaning 

God . A belief in the existence of God 

is an essential point of Speculative Masonryso 

essential, indeed, that it is a landmark of 

the Order that no Atheist can be made a 

Mason . Nor is this left to an inference ; 

for a specific declaration to that effect is 

demanded as an indispensable preparation 

for initiation. And hence Hutchinson says 

that the worship of God "was the first and 

corner-stone on which our originals thought 

it expedient to place the foundation of Masonry 

." The religion of Masonry is cosmopolitan, 

universal ; but the required belief 

in God is not incompatible with this universality 

; for it is the belief of all peoples . "Be 

assured," says Godfrey Higgins, "that God 

is equally present with the pious Hindoo 

in the temple, the Jew in the synagogue, the 

Mohammedan in the mosque, and the Christian 

in the church ." There never has been a 

time since the revival of Freemasonry, when 

this belief in God as a superintending power 

did not form a part of the system. The 

very earliest rituals that are extant, going 

back almost to the beginning of the eighteenth 

century, contain precisely the same question 

as to the trust in God which is found in 

those of the present day ; and the oldest manuscript 

constitutions, dating as far back as 

the fifteenth century at least, all commence 

with, or contain, an invocation to the 

"Mighty Father of Heaven ." There never 

was a time when the dogma did not form 

an essential part of the Masonic system . 

God and His Temple, Knight of. A 

degree mentioned by Fustier . 

Godfather . In French Lodges the member 

who introduces a candidate for initiation 

is called his "parrain," or "godfather ."

302 GOETHE 

GON1 ALGN 

Goethe, John Wolfgang von. This 

illustrous German poet was much attached 

to Freemasonry. He was initiated on the 

eve of the festival of St . John the Baptist, 

in 1780 ; and on the eve of the same festival 

in 1830, the Masons of Weimar celebrate 

the semi-centennial anniversary of his admission 

into the Order, of which, in a letter 

to the musical composer, Zeeter, who had 

been, like himself, initiated on the same day 

fifty years before, he speaks with great 

gratification as his "Masonic jubilee." He 

says, "The gentlemen have treated this 

epoch with the greatest courtesy . I responded 

to it in the most friendly manner on the 

following day." Goethe's writings contain 

many favorable allusions to the Institution. 

Goetla. A contradistinctive term to 

Theurgia, the first signifying black magic 

the latter white magic . The demons oi 

darkness were invoked and no crime or 

horror stayed the power. Alchemy and 

chemistry were the powerful arms relied on . 

Golden Candlestick . The golden candlestick 

which was made by Moses for the 

service of the tabernacle, and was afterward 

deposited in the holy place of the 

temple to throw light upon the altar of 

incense, and the table of shewbread, was 

made wholly of pure gold, and had seven 

branches ; that is, three on each side, and 

one in the center . These branches were at 

equal distances, and each one was adorned 

with flowers like lilies, gold knobs after the 

form of an apple, and similar ones resembling 

an almond . Upon the extremities of the 

branches were seven golden lamps, which 

were fed with pure olive-oil, and lighted 

every evening by the priests on duty . Its 

seven branches are explained in the Ineffable 

degrees as symbolising the seven planets . 

It is also used as a decoration in Chapters of 

the Royal Arch, but apparently without any 

positive symbolic signification . 

Golden Fleece. In the lecture of the 

First Degree, it is said of the Mason's apron, 

that it is "more ancient than the Golden 

Fleece or Roman Eagle, more honorable 

than the Star and Garter ." The reference 

is here evidently not to the Argonautic 

expedition in search of the golden fleece, 

nor to the deluge, of which that event is 

supposed to have been a figure, as Dr . Oliver 

incorrectly supposes (Symb . Dict .), but to 

certain decorations of honor with which 

the apron is compared. The eagle was to 

the Romans the ensign of imperial power ; 

the Order of the Golden Fleece was of high 

repute as an Order of Knighthood. It was 

established in Flanders, in 1429, by the 

Duke of Burgundy, who selected the fleece 

for its badge because wool was the staple 

production of the country . It has ever 

been considered, says Clark one of the 

most illustrious Orders in Europe. The 

Order of the Garter was, and is still considered, 

the highest decoration that can be 

bestowed upon a subject by a sovereign of 

Great Britain . Thus, the apron is proudly 

compared with the noblest decorations of 

ancient Rome and of modem Europe . But 

the Masons may have been also influenced 

in their selection of a reference to the Golden 

Fleece, by the fact that in the Middle Ages 

it was one of the most important symbols 

of the Hermetic philosophers . 

Golden Key, Knight of the . See 

Knight of the Golden Key . 

Golden Lion of Hesse-Cassel, Order 

of the. Instituted by Frederick II ., 14th 

of August, 1770, under a decree of 6th July, 

to recompense virtue and merit. The 

Grand Master is the reigning sovereign of 

Hesse-Cassel. Motto, "Virtute et Fidelitate. 

" 

Golden Stole of Venice . (Cavaliers 

delta Stola d'Oro .) An ancient order of 

knighthood conferred by the republic of 

Venice . The number of knights was unlimited 

. The decoration, wom over the 

left shoulder, was richly embroidered with 

flowers of gold, and being in width a handbreadth, 

fell behind and before to the knee . 

An ambassador, for some distinctive service, 

was deemed worthy . The ducal robe was 

of red material . 

Gold Thaler, or Gold Giilden, we are 

informed in Kenning's Cyclopcedia of Freemasonry, 

is the St . John's offering, as it 

was called under the strict observance in 

Germany, and which amounted to one ducat, 

or, at the least, one and two-thirds of a 

thaler, which was paid by every member 

on St . John's Day . This practise is still 

kept up in many German Lodges for the 

benefit of the poor fund . 

Golgotha . Greek, roxyoSa, from the 

Hebrew, r*~, Gulgoleth, "a skull ." The 

name given by the Jews to Calvary, the 

place of Christ's crucifixion and burial . 

It is a significant word in Templar Masonry . 

(See Calvary .) 

Gomel. (Heb., 7Yà, L., retribuens .) 

Irregularly given as Gomer and Gomez. A 

word found in the Twenty-sixth Degree A . 

A . Scottish Rite, signifying reward. 

Gonfalon . (Ital ., Gonfalon, O . German, 

Gundfano .) An ecclesiastical war flag or 

banner, a standard ; used in several of the 

chivalric degrees of Masonry . The chief 

magistrates in Italian cities when bearing 

this ensign are known as Gonfaloniers. The 

banner is triune, of white silk, trimmed and 

mounted with gold .

GOODALL 

GORMOGONS 303 

Goodall . The reputed author of the 

exposure of Masonry, known as "Jachin and 

Boaz ." It is said that he was at one time 

Master of the W . India and American Lodge, 

now known as the Lodge of Antiquity . but 

this statement has never been confirmed . 

Good Samaritan . An androgynous, 

honorary or side degree conferred in the 

United States with rather impressive ceremonies 

. It is, of course, as a degree to be 

conferred on females, unconnected with 

Masonic history or traditions, but draws its 

allusions from the fate of Lot's wife, and 

from the parable of the Good Samaritan 

related in the Gospels. The passages of 

Scripture which refer to these events are 

read during the ceremony of initiation . This 

degree is to be conferred only on Royal 

Arch Masons and their wives, and in conferring 

it two Good Samaritans must always 

be present, one of whom must be a Royal 

Arch Mason . Much dignity and importance 

bas been given to this degree by its possessors ; 

and it is usual in many places for a certain 

number of Good Samaritans to organize 

themselves into regular, but of course independent, 

bodies to hold monthly meetings 

under the name of Assemblies, to elect 

proper officers, and receive applications for 

initiation . In this manner the assemblies 

of Good Samaritans, consisting of male and 

female members, bear a very near resemblance 

to the female Lodges, which, under 

the name of "Maconnerie d'Adoption," 

prevail in France . 

Good Shepherd . Our Savior called 

himself the Good Shepherd . Thus, in 

St . John's Gospel (x. 14, 15, 16), he says : 

"I am the Good Shepherd, and know my 

sheep, and am known of mine . As the 

Father knoweth me, even so know I the 

Father : and I lay down my life for the sheep . 

And other sheep I have, which are not of 

this fold : them also must I bring, and they 

shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one 

fold, and one Shepherd ." Hence, in Masonic 

as well as in Christian symbolism, 

Christ is naturally called the Good Shepherd . 

Good Shepherd, Sign of the . When 

Jesus was relating (Luke xv .) the parable 

in which one having lost a sheep goes into 

the wilderness to search for it he said : "And 

when he hath found it, he layeth it * on his 

shoulders, rejoicing." Mr . Hettner, a German 

writer on Greek customs, says : "When 

the Greek carries home his lamb, he slings 

it round his neck, holding it by the feet 

crossed over the breast . This is to be seen 

with us also, but the sight is especially 

attractive at Athens, for it was in this manner 

that the ancients represented Hermes as 

the guardian and multiplier of flocks ; so 

stood the statue of Hermes at Olympia, 

Occhalia, and Tanagra . Small marble statues 

of this kind have even come down to us, one 

of which is to be seen in the Pembroke collection 

at Wilton House ; another, a smaller 

one, in the Stoa of Hadrian, at Athens . 

This representation, however, appears most 

frequently in the oldest works of Christian 

art, in which the laden Hermes is turned 

into a laden Christ, who often called himself 

the Good Shepherd, and expressly says 

in the Gospel of St . Luke, that when the 

shepherd finds the sheep, he lays it joyfully 

on his shoulder." 

Now, although the idea of the Good 

Shepherd may have been of Pagan origin, 

yet derived from the parable of our Savior 

in St . Luke and his language in St . John, 

it was early adopted by the Christians as a 

religious emblem . The Good Shepherd bearing 

the sheep upon his shoulders, the two 

hands of the Shepherd crossed upon his 

breast and holding the legs of the sheep, 

is a very common subject in the paintings 

of the earliest Christian era . It is an expressive 

symbol of the Savior's love-of 

him who taught us to build the new temple 

of eternal life-and, consequently, as Didron 

says, "the heart and imagination of Christians 

have dwelt fondly upon this theme ; it has 

been unceasingly repeated under every 

possible aspect, and may be almost said to 

have been worn threadbare by Christian 

art . From the earliest ages, Christianity 

completely made it her own ." And hence 

the Christian degree of Rose Croix has very 

naturally appropriated the "sign of the 

Good Shepherd," the representation of 

Christ bearing his once lost but now recovered 

sheep upon his shoulders, as one of its most 

impressive symbols . 

Goose and Gridiron . An alehouse with 

this sign, in St . Paul's Church Yard, London . 

In 1717, the Lodge of Antiquity met at the 

Goose and Gridiron, and it was there that 

the first quarterly communication of the 

Grand Lodge of England, after the revival 

of 1717, was held on the 24th of June, 1717 . 

It was the headquarters of a musical society, 

whose arms-a lyre and a swan-were converted 

into Goose and Gridiron. 

Gormogons . A secret society established 

in 1724, in England, in opposition 

to Freemasonry . One of its rules was that 

no Freemason could be admitted until he 

was first degraded, and had then renounced 

the Masonic Order . It was absurdly and 

intentionally pretentious in its character ; 

claiming, in ridicule of Freemasonry, a great 

antiquity, and pretending that it was descended 

from an ancient society in China . 

There was much antipathy between the 

two associations, as will appear from the 

following doggerel, published in 1729, by 

Henry Carey : 

"The Masons and the Gormogons 

Are laughing at one another, 

While all mankind are laughing at them ; 

Then why do they make such a pother? 

"They bait their hook for simple gulls, 

And truth with bam they smother ; 

But when they 've taken in their culls, 

Why then 't is-Welcome, Brother!" 

The Gormogons made a great splutter in 

their day, and published many squibs against

304 GOTHIC 

GRAMMAR 

Freemasonry ; yet that is still living, while 

the Gormogons were long ago extinguished . 

They seemed to have flourished for but a 

very few years . 

[Bro. R. F . Gould has collected all that 

is known about the Gormogons in his article 

on the Duke of Wharton, in vol . viii . of 

Ars Quatuor Coronatorum.] 

Gothic Architecture. Of all the styles 

of architecture, the Gothic is that which is 

most intimately connected with the history 

of Freemasonry, having been the system 

peculiarly practised by the Freemasons of 

the Middle Ages . To what country or 

people it owes its origin has never been 

satisfactorily determined ; although it has 

generally been conjectured that it was of 

Arabic or Saracenic extraction, and that it 

was introduced into Europe by persons 

returning from the Crusades . The Christians 

who had been in the Holy Wars received 

there an idea of the Saracenic works, which 

they imitated on their return to the West, 

and refined on them as they proceeded in 

the building of churches . The Italians, 

Germans, French, and Flemings, with Greek 

refugees, united in a fraternity of architects 

and ranged from country to country, and 

erected buildings according to the Gothic 

style, which they had learned during their 

visits to the East, and whose fundamental 

principles they improved by the addition of 

other details derived from their own architectural 

taste and judgment . Hence Sir 

Christopher Wren thinks that this style of the 

Medieval Freemasons should be rather called 

the Saracenic than the Gothic . This style, 

which was distinguished, by its pointed arches, 

and especially by the perpendicularity of its 

lines, from the rounded arch and horizontal 

lines of previous styles, was altogether in the 

hands of those architects who were known, 

from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries, as 

Freemasons, and who kept their system of 

building as a secret, and thus obtained an entire 

monopoly of both domestic and ecclesiastical 

architecture . At length, when the gilds 

or fraternities of Freemasons, "who alone," 

says Mr . Hope, "held the secrets of Gothic 

art " were dissolved, the style itself was lost, 

and was succeeded by what Paley says (Man. 

of Goth . Arch ., p. 15) was "a worse than 

brazen era of architecture ." (For further details, 

see Traveling Freemasons.) 

Gothic Constitutions . A title sometimes 

given to the Constitutions which are supposed 

to have been adopted by the Freemasons at 

the City of York, in the tenth century, and so 

called in allusion to the Gothic architecture 

which was introduced into England by the 

Fraternity . A more correct and more usual 

designation of these laws is the York Constitutions, 

which see . 

Gould, Robert Freke . This well-known 

historian of Freemasonry has had a very varied 

career . Born in 1836, he entered the English 

army at the age of eighteen, becoming a 

lieutenant in the same year, and serving with 

distinction in North China in 1860-2. On 

his return to England he studied law and became 

a barrister in 1868. 

He was initiated at Ramsgate in the Royal 

Navy Lodge, No . 429, and was Master of the 

Inhabitants' Lodge at Gibraltar, also of the 

Meridian Lodge, No . 743, a Military Lodge 

attached to his regiment. Afterward he held 

the Chair of the Moira, Quatuor Coronati and 

Jerusalem Lodges. In 1880 he was appointed 

Senior Grand Deacon of England. 

He has been a constant writer in the Masonic 

press since 1858 ; in 1879 he published 

The Four Old Lodges and The Atholl Lodges, 

and in 1899 a book on Military Lodges. 

But his "magnum opus" is his stupendous 

History of Freemasonry in three large volumes, 

which occupied him from 1882 to 1887, which 

was followed in 1903 by A Concise History of 

Freemasonry abridged from the larger work 

and brought up to date . [E . L. H .] 

Gourgas, John James Joseph . A merchant 

of New York, who was born in France 

in 1777, and received a member of the Scottish 

Rite in 1806 . His name is intimately 

connected with the rise and progress of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in the 

Northern Jurisdiction of the United States . 

Through his representations and his indefatigable 

exertions, the Mother Council at' 

Charleston was induced to denounce the Consistory 

of Joseph Cerneau in the City of New 

York, and to establish there a Supreme Council 

for the Northern Jurisdiction, of which 

Bro . Gourgas was elected the Secretary-General 

. He continued to hold this office until 

1832, when he was elected Sovereign Grand 

Commander . In 1851, on the removal of the 

Grand East of the Supreme Council to Boston, 

he resigned his office in favor of Bro. Giles 

Fonda Yates, but continued to take an active 

interest, so far as his age would permit, in the 

Rite until his death, which occurred at New 

York on February 14, 1865, at the ripe old age 

of eighty-eight, and being at the time probably 

the oldest possessor of the Thirtieth Degree 

in the world . Bro . Gourgas was distinguished 

for the purity of his life and the 

powers of his intellect . His Masonic library 

was very valuable, and especially rich in manuscripts 

. His correspondence with Dr . Moses 

Holbrook . at one time Grand Commander of 

the Southern Council, is in the Archives of 

that body, and bears testimony to his large 

Masonic attainments . 

Grades . Degrees in Masonry are sometimes 

so called . It is a French word . (See 

Degrees .) 

Grain of Mustard, Order of the . (Ger ., 

Der Orden vans Senf Korn.) An order instituted 

in Germany, based on Mark iv . 30 and 

32, the object being the propagation of morality 

. 

Grammar . One of the seven liberal arts 

and sciences, which forms, with Logic and 

Rhetoric, a triad dedicated to the cultivation 

of language. "God," says Sanctius, "created 

man the participant of reason ; and as he 

willed him to be a social being, he bestowed 

upon him the gift of language, in the perfect-

GRAND 

GRAND 305 

ing of which there are three aids . The first 

is Grammar, which rejects from language all 

solecisms and barbarous expressions ; the 

second is Logic, which is occupied with the 

truthfulness of language ; and the third is 

Rhetoric, which seeks only the adornment of 

language ." 

Grand Architect . A degree in several of 

the Rites modeled upon the Twelfth of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is, 1 . 

The Sixth Degree of the Reform of St . Martin ; 

2 . The Fourteenth of the Rite of Elected Cohens 

; 3 . The Twenty-third of the Rite of Mizraim 

; and 4. The Twenty-fourth of the Metropolitan 


Grand Chapter. A Grand Chapter consists 

of the High Priests, Kings, and Scribes 

for the time being, of the several Chapters 

under its jurisdiction, of the Past Grand and 

Deputy Grand High Priests, Kings, and 

Scribes of the said Grand Chapter. In some 

Grand Chapters Past High Priests are admitted 

to membership, but in others they are 

not granted this privilege, unless they shall 

have served as Grand and Deputy Grand 

High Priests, Kings, or Scribes . Grand 

Chapters have the sole government and superintendence 

of the several Royal Arch Chapters 

and Lodges of Most Excellent Past and Mark 

Masters within their several jurisdictions . 

Until the year 1797, there was no organization 

of Grand Chapters in the United States. 

Chapters were held under the authority of a 

Master's Warrant, although the consent of a 

neighboring Chapter was generally deemed expedient. 

But in 1797, delegates from several 

of the Chapters in the Northern States assembled 

at Boston for the purpose of deliberating 

on the expediency of organizing a Grand 

Chapter for the government and regulation of 

the several Chapters within the said States. 

This convention prepared an address to the 

Chapters in New York and New England, 

disclaiming the power of any Grand Lodge to 

exercise authority over Royal Arch Masons, 

and declaring it expedient to establish a Grand 

Chapter . In consequence of this address, delegates 

from most of the States above mentioned 

met at Hartford in January, 1798, and 

organized a Grand Chapter, formed and 

adopted a Constitution, and elected and installed 

their officers . This example was 

quickly followed by other parts of the Union, 

and Grand Chapters now exist in nearly all the 

States . (See General Grand Chapter .) 

The officers of a Grand Chapter are usually 

the same as those of a Chapter, with the distinguishing 

prefix of "Grand" to the titles . 

The jewels are also the same, but enclosed 

within a circle . In England and Scotland the 

Grand Chapter bears the title of Supreme 

Grand Chapter . 

Grand Commander. The presiding officer 

of a Grand Commandery of Knights Templar 

. 

Grand Commander of the Eastern Star . 

(Grand Commandeur de l'Etoile d'Orient .) A 

degree in Pyron's collection . 

Grand Conclave. The title of the presid- 

ing body of Templarism in England is the 

"Grand Conclave of the Religious and Military 

Order of Masonic Knights Templar ." 

Grand Conservators . On July 1, 1814, 

the Grand Mastership of the Order in France, 

then held by Prince Cambaceres, was, in consequence 

of the political troubles attendant 

upon the restoration of the monarchy, declared 

vacant by the Grand Orient . On August 

12th, the Grand Orient decreed that the 

functions of Grand Master should be provisionally 

discharged by a commission consisting 

of three Grand Officers, to be called 

Grand Conservators, and Macdonald, Duke of 

Tarentum, the Count de Beurnonville, and 

Timbrune, Count de Valence, were appointed 

to that office. 

Grand Consistory. The governing body 

over a State of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite ; subject, however, to the superior 

jurisdiction of the Supreme Council of 

the Thirty-third . The members of the Grand 

Consistory are required to be in possession of 

the Thirty-second Degree . 

Grand Council . The title given to the 

first three officers of a Royal Arch Chapter. 

Also the name of the superintending body of 

Cryptic Masonry in any jurisdiction . It is 

composed of the first three officers of each 

Council in the jurisdiction . Its officers are : 

Most Puissant Grand Master, Thrice IllustriousDeputyGrand 

Master, IllustriousGrand 

Conductor of the Works, Grand Treasurer, 

Grand Recorder, Grand Chaplain, Grand Marshal, 

Grand Captain of the Guards, Grand Conductor 

of the Council, and Grand Steward . 

Grand Director of the Ceremonies . An 

important officer in the United Grand Lodge 

of gland ; a similar office to that of Grand 

Master-General of Ceremonies of a Supreme 

Council, upon whom the order of the Grand 

Body largely depends, and who has charge of 

the service or ceremonies of whatever nature 

that may transpire . 

Grand East . The city in which the Grand 

Lodge, or other governing Masonic Body, is 

situated, and whence its official documents 

emanate, is called the Grand East . Thus, a 

document issued by the Grand Lodge of 

Massachusetts would be dated from the 

"Grand East of Boston," or if from the 

Grand Lodge of Louisiana, it would be the 

"Grand East of New Orleans ." The place 

where a Grand Lodge meets is therefore called 

a Grand East . The word is in constant use 

on the Continent of Europe and in America, 

but seldom employed in England, Scotland, 

or Ireland . 

Grand Elect, Perfect and Sublime 

Mason . The Fourteenth Degree of the A . A . 

Scottish Rite . (See Perfection, Lodge of .) 

Grand Encampment . See Encampment, 

Grand . 

Grand High Priest . The presiding officer 

of a Grand Royal Arch Chapter in the American 

system . The powers and prerogatives of 

a Grand High Priest are far more circumscribed 

than those of a Grand Master . As 

the office has been constitutionally created by

306 GRAND 

GRAND 

the Grand Chapter, and did not precede it as 

that of Grand M asters did the Grand Lodges, 

he possesses no inherent prerogatives, but 

those only which are derived from and delegated 

to him by the Constitution of the Grand 

Chapter and regulations formed under it for 

the government of Royal Arch Masonry . 

Grand Inquiring Commander. The 

Sixty-sixth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Grand Inspector, Inquisitor Commander. 

The Thirty-first Degree of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is 

not an historical degree, but simply a judicial 

power of the higher degrees . The place of 

meeting is called a Supreme Tribunal. The 

decorations are white, and the presiding officer 

is styled Most Perfect President . The jewel 

of the degree is a Teutonic cross of silver attached 

to white watered ribbon . 

Grand Lodge. A Grand Lodge is the dogmatic 

and administrative authority of Ancient 

Craft Masonry, or the three Symbolic degrees 

. It is defined in the Regulations of 

1721 as "consisting of and formed by the 

Masters and Wardens of all the regular Lodges 

upon record, with the Grand Master at their 

head and his Deputy on his left hand, and 

the (errand Wardens in their proper places." 

(Constitutions, 1723, p . 61 .) This definition 

refers to a very modern organization, for of 

Grand Lodges thus constituted we have no 

written evidence previous to the year 1717, 

when Freemasonry was revived in England . 

Previous to that time the administrative authority 

of the Craft was exercised by a General 

Assembly of the Masons of a jurisdiction 

which met annually . (See Assembly .) The 

true history of Grand Lodges commences, 

therefore, from what has been called the era of 

the revival. 

In 1716, four old Lodges in London, determined, 

if possible, to revive the Institution 

from its depressed state, and accordingly they 

met in February, 1717, at the Apple-Tree 

Tavern (whose name has thus been rendered 

famous for all time) ; and after placing the 

oldest Master Mason, who was the Master of 

a Lodge, in the chair they constituted themselves 

into a Grand Lodge, and forthw th 

" revived the quarterly communications of the 

officers of Lodges (call'd the Grand Lodge) ." 

(Constitutions, 1738, p . 109 .) On the following 

St . John the Baptist's Day, the Grand 

Lodge was duly organized, and Mr . Anthony 

Sayer was elected Grand Master, who appointed 

his Wardens, and commanded the 

Masters and Wardens of Lodges to meet the 

Grand Officers every quarter in communication 

. From that time Grand Lodges have been 

uninterruptedly held ; receiving, however, at 

different periods, various modifications . 

A Grand Lodge is invested with power and 

authority over all the Craft within its jurisdiction 

. It is the Supreme Court of Appeal in 

all Masonic cases, and to its decrees implicit 

obedience must be paid by every Lodge and 

every Mason situated within its control . The 

government of Grand Lodges is, therefore, 

completely despotic. While a Grand Lodge 

exists, its edicts must be respected and obeyed 

without examination by its subordinate 

Lodges. 

This autocratic power of a Grand Lodge 

is based upon a principle of expediency, and 

derived from the fundamental law established 

at the organization of Grand Lodges in the 

beginning of the last century . In so large a 

body as the Craft, it is absolutely necessary 

that there should be a supreme controlling 

body to protect the Institution from anarchy, 

and none could be more conveniently selected 

than one which, by its representative character, 

is, or ought to be, composed of the united 

wisdom, prudence, and experience of all the 

subordinate Lodges under its obedience ; so 

that the voice of the Grand Lodge is nothing 

else than the voice of the Craft expressed by 

their representatives. Hence the twelfth of 

the General Regulations declares that "the 

Grand Lodge consists of, and is formed by, the 

Masters and Wardens of all the particular 

Lodges upon record." (Constitutions, 1738, 

p. 158 .) 

So careful has the Institution been to preserve 

the dogmatic and autocratic power of 

the Grand Lodge, that all elected Masters 

are required, at the time of their installation, 

to make the following declaration : 

"You agree to hold in veneration the original 

rulers and patrons of the Order of Freemasonry, 

and their regular successors, supreme 

and subordinate, according to their stations ; 

and to submit to the awards and resolutions 

of your brethren in general Lodge convened, 

in every case, consistent with the Constitutions 

of the Order. 

"You promise to pay homage to the Grand 

Master for the time being, and to his officers 

when duly installed, and strictly to conform to 

every edict of the Grand Lodge ." 

The organization of new Grand Lodges in 

America has followed that adopted, in essential 

particulars, by the four Lodges which established 

the Grand Lodge of . England in 

1717. When it is desired to organize a Grand 

Lodge, three or more legally constituted 

Lodges, working in any State, territory, or 

other independent political division, where no 

Grand Lodge already exists, may meet in convention, 

adopt by-laws, elect officers, and organize 

a Grand Lodge . The Lodges within its 

jurisdiction then surrender their Warrants of 

constitution to the Grand Lodges from which 

they respectively had received them, and accept 

others from the newly organized Grand 

Lodge, which thenceforward exercises all 

Masonic jurisdiction over the State in which 

it has been organized . 

A Grand Lodge thus organized consists of 

the Masters and Wardens of all the Lodges 

under its jurisdiction, and such Past Masters 

as may enroll themselves or be elected as 

members. Past Masters are not, however, 

members of the Grand . Lodge by inherent 

right, but only by courtesy, and no Past Mas- 

ter can remain a member of the Grand Lodge 

unless he is attached to some subordinate 

Lodge in its jurisdiction .

GRAND 

GRAND 307 

All Grand Lodges are governed by the following 

officers : Grand Master Deputy Grand 

Master, Senior and Junior Gtrand Wardens, 

Grand Treasurer, and Grand Secretary . 

These are usually termed the Grand Officers ; 

in addition to them there are subordinate 

officers appointed by the Grand Master and 

the Grand Wardens, such as Grand Deacons, 

Grand Stewards, Grand Marshal, Grand Pursuivant, 

Grand Sword-Bearer, and Grand 

Tiler ; but their number and titles vary in different 

Grand Lodges . 

Grand Lodge Manuscript, No .1 . A roll 

of parchment, nine inches in length and five 

in breadth, containing the Legend of the 

Craft and the Old Charges . It is preserved 

in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of England, 

having been bought in 1839 for £25 . 

It was dated by its writer 1583 . It has been 

reproduced in Hughan's Old Charges, 1872 ; 

in Sadler's Masonic Facts and Fictions, and 

in facsimile by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge . 

Grand Master . The presiding officer of 

the Symbolic degrees in a jurisdiction . He 

presides, of course, over the Grand Lodge, and 

has the right not only to be present, but also 

to preside in every Lodge, with the Master of 

the Lodge on his left hand, and to order his 

Grand Wardens to attend him, and act as 

Wardens in that particular Lodge . He has the 

right of visiting the Lodges and inspecting 

their books and mode of work as often as he 

pleases, or, if unable to do so, he may depute 

his Grand Officers to act for him . He has the 

power of granting dispensations for the formation 

of new Lodges ; which dispensations are 

of force until revoked by himself or the Grand 

Lodge . He may also grant dispensations for 

several other purposes, for which see the 

article Dispensation . Formerly, the Grand 

Master appointed his Grand Officers, but this 

regulation has been repealed, and the Grand 

Officers are now all elected by the Grand 

Lodges . [Except in England, where the Grand 

Master appoints all but the Grand Treasurer .] 

When the Grand Master visits a Lodge, he 

must be received with the greatest respect, 

and the Master of the Lodge should always 

offer him the chair, which the Grand Master 

may or may not accept at his pleasure . 

Should the Grand Master die, or be absent 

from the jurisdiction during his term of office, 

the Deputy Grand Master assumes his powers, 

or, if there be no Deputy, then the Grand 

Wardens according to seniority . 

The following is a list of the Grand Masters 

of the Grand Lodge of England, established 

in 1717 and afterward known as the "Moderns" 

: 

1717 . Anthony Sayer . 

1718 . George Payne . 

1719 . J . T. Desaguliers, LL .D., F .R .S . 

1720 . George Payne . 

1721 . John, Duke of Montague . 

1722 . Philip, Duke of Wharton . 

1723 . Francis, Earl of Dalkeith . 

1724 . Charles, Duke of Richmond . 

1725 . James, Lord Paisley . 

1726 . William, Earl of Inchiquin . 

1727 . Henry, Lord Coleraine. 

1728 . James, Lord Kingston . 

1729-30 . Thomas, Duke of Norfolk . 

1731 . Thomas, Lord Level . 

1732 . Anthony, Viscount Montague . 

1733 . James, Earl of Strathmore . 

1734 . John, Earl of Crawford. 

1735 . Thomas, Viscount Weymouth . 

1736 . John, Earl of Londoun . 

1737 . Edward, Earl of Darnley. 

1738 . Henry, Marquess of Carnarvon . 

1739 . Robert, Lord Raymond . 

1740 . John, Earl of Kintore . 

1741 . James, Earl of Morton . 

1742-3 . John, Viscount Dudley and Ward . 

1744 . Thomas, Earl of Strathmore . 

1745-6 . James Lord Cranstoun . 

1747-51 . Wm ., Lord Byron . 

1752-3 . John, Lord Carysfort . 

1754-6 . James, Marquess of Carnarvon . 

1757-61 . Sholts, Lord Aberdour . 

1762-3 . Washington, Earl Ferrers. 

1764-6 . Cadwallader, Lord Blaney . 

1767-71 . Henry, Duke of Beaufort . 

1772-6 . Robert, Lord Petre. 

1777-82 . George, Duke of Manchester. 

2- . H . R . H. The Duke of Cumberland . 

18~ } H . R . H. The Prince of Wales . 

1813 . H. R . H . The Duke of Sussex . 


of the Atholl or "Ancients" Grand Lodge : 

1753 . Robert Turner . 

1754-5 . Hon . Edward Vaughan . 

1756-9 . Earl of Blessington . 

1760-65 . Thomas, Earl of Kelly. 

1766-70 . Hon . Thos . Mathew . 

1771-4 . John, 3d Duke of Atholl . 

1775-81 . John, 4th Duke of Atholl . 

1782 . Vacant . 

1783-90 . Randal, Earl of Antrim . 

1791- 

John, 4th Duke of Atholl. 

1813 . } 

1813 . H . R. H . The Duke of Kent . 


of the United Grand Lodge of England from 

the union of "Ancients" and "Moderns" in 

1813 : 

1813-43 . H . R . H. The Duke of Sussex . 

1844-70 . Earl of Zetland . 

1870-4 . Marquess of Ripon . 

1874- ? H . R . H . The Prince of Wales . 

1901 . 

1901. H . R . H . The Duke of Connaught . 

Grand Master Architect . (Grand Maitre 

Architect.) The Twelfth Degree in the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite . This is strictly 

a scientific degree, resembling in that respect 

the degree of Fellow-Craft . In it the principles 

of architecture and the connection of 

the liberal arts with Masonry are unfolded . 

Its officers are three-a Master, and two 

Wardens . The Chapter is decorated with 

white and red hangings, and furnished with

308 GRAND 

GRAND 

the five orders of architecture, and a case 

of mathematical instruments . The apron is 

white, lined with blue ; and the jewel is a gold 

medal, on which are engraved the orders of 

architecture . It is suspended by a stonecolored 

ribbon. 

Grand Master Mason . The title given to 

the Grand Master in the Grand Lodge of Scotland 

. 

Grand Master of all Symbolic Lodges . 

(Venerable Maitre de toutes les Loges .) The 

Twentieth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite . The presiding of&cer is styled 

Venerable Grand Master, and is assisteby 

two Wardens in the west . The decorations of 

the Lodge are blue and yellow. The old ritual 

contains some interesting instructions respecting 

the first and second Temple . 

Among the traditions preserved by the possessors 

of this degree, is one which states that 

after the third Temple was destroyed by Titus, 

the son of Vespasian, the Christian Freemasons 

who were then in the Holy Land, being 

filled with sorrow, departed from home with 

the determination of building a fourth, and 

that, dividing themselves into several bodies, 

they dispersed over the various parts of Europe. 

The greater number went to Scotland, 

and repaired to the town of Kilwinning, where 

they established a Lodge and built an abbey, 

and where the records of the Order were deposited 

. This tradition, preserved in the original 

rituals, is a very strong presumptive evidence 

that the degree owed its existence to the 

Templar system of Ramsay . 

Grand Master of Light . One of the various 

names bestowed on the degree of Knight 

of St. Andrew . 

Grand Offerings . According to the English 

system of lectures, three important events 

recorded in Scripture are designated as the 

three grand offerings of Masonry, because 

they are said to have occurred on Mount Moriah, 

which symbolically represents the ground 

floor of the Lodge . These three grand offerings 

are as follows : The first grand offering 

was when Abraham prepared to offer up his 

son Isaac ; the second was when David built 

an altar to stay the pestilence with which his 

people were afflicted ; and the third was when 

Solomqn dedicated to Jehovah the Temple 

which he had completed. (See Ground Floor 

of the Lodge .) 

Grand Officers . The elective officers of 

a superintending Masonic body, such as 

Grand Lodge, Grand Chapter, etc ., are so 

called . The appointed officers are designated 

as subordinate officers, but this distinction 

is not always strictly observed . 

Grand Orient . Most of the Grand 

Lodges established by the Latin races, such as 

those of France, Spain, Italy, and the South 

American States, are called Grand Orients . 

The word is thus, in one sense, synonymous 

with Grand Lodge ; but these Grand Gents 

have often a more extensive obedience than 

Grand Lodges, frequently exercising jurisdiction 

over the highest degrees, from which English 

and American Grand Lodges refrain . 

Thus the Grand Orient of France exercises 

jurisdiction not only over the seven degrees of 

its own Rite, but also over the thirty-three of 

the Ancient and Accepted, and over all the 

other Rites which are practised in France . 

Grand Orient is also used in English and 

especially in American, Masonry to indicate 

the seat of the Grand Lodge of highest Masonic 

power, and is thus equivalent to Grand 

East, which see. 

Grand Pontiff . (Grand Pontife ou Sublime 

Ecossais .) The Nineteenth Degree of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The 

degree is occupied in an examination of the 

Apocalyptic mysteries of the New Jerusalem . 

Its officers are a Thrice Puissant and one 

Warden . The Thrice Puissant is seated in 

the east on a throne canopied with blue, and 

wears a white satin robe. The Warden is in the 

west, and holds a staff of gold . The members 

are clothed in white, with blue fillets embroidered 

with twelve stars of gold, and are called 

True and Faithful Brothers. The decorations 

of the Lodge are blue sprinkled with gold 

stars . 

Grand Principals. The first three officers 

of the Grand Chapter of England are so called . 

They are respectively designated as Z ., H ., 

and J., meaning Zerubbabel, Haggai, and 

Joshua. 

Grand Prior. 1 . Each chief or conventual 

bailiff of the eight languages of the Order of 

Malta-was called a Grand Prior . There were 

also other Grand Priors, under whom were 

several Commanderies . The Grand Priors of 

the Order were twenty-six in number . 2. 

The third officer in the Supreme Council of 

the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for 

the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States . 

(See Prior.) 

Grand Secretary . The recording and corresponding 

officer of a Grand Lodge, whose 

signature must be attached to every document 

issued from the Grand Lodge ; where 

there is no Grand Register or Keeper of the 

Seals, he is the custodian of the Seal of the 

Grand Lodge . The Regulations of 1722 had 

provided for the office, but no appointment 

was made until 1723, when William Co er 

was chosen by the Grand Lodge . The o ce 

was therefore at first an elective one, but Anderson, 

in his edition of 1738, says that "ever 

since, the new Grand Master, upon his commencement, 

appoints the Secretary, or continues 

him by returning him the books ." 

(P. 161 .) This usage is still pursued by the 

modern Grand Lodge of England ; but in 

every jurisdiction of this country the office of 

Grand Secretary is an elective one . The jewel 

of the Grand Secretary is a circle enclosing 

two pens crossed. His badge of office was 

formerly a bag . (See Bag.) 

Grand Stewards. Officers of a Grand 

Lodge, whose duty it is to prepare and serve 

at the Grand Feast . This duty was at first 

performed by the Grand Wardens, but in 1721 

they were authorized "to take some Stewards 

to their assistance." (Constitutions, 1738, 

p . 112 .) This was sometimes done and some-

GRAND 

GRASSE 309 

times omitted, so that often there were no 

Stewards. In 1728 (ibid., p . 123), the Stewards, 

to the number of twelve, were made 

permanent officers ;' and it was resolved that 

in future, at the annual election, each Steward 

should nominate his successor . At present, 

in the Grand Lodge of England, nineteen 

Grand Stewards are annually appointed from 

nineteen different Lodges. Each Lodge recommends 

one of its subscribing members, who 

is nominated by the former Steward of that 

Lodge, and the appointment is made by the 

Grand Master. The number of Grand Stewards 

in this country seldom exceeds two, and 

the appointment is made in some Grand 

Lodges by the Grand Master, and in others 

by the Junior Grand Warden . The jewel of a 

Grand Steward is a cornucopia within a circle, 

and his badge of office a white rod . 

Grand Stewards' Lodge . According to 

the Constitutions of England, the past and 

present Grand Stewards constitute a Lodge, 

which has no number, but is registered in the 

Grand Lodge books at the head of all other 

Lodges . It is represented in the Grand 

Lodge by its Master, Wardens ? and Past 

Masters, but has no power of making Masons . 

The institution has not been introduced into 

this country except in the Grand Lodge of 

Maryland, where the Grand Stewards' Lodge 

acts as a Committee of Grievances during the 

recess of the Grand Lodge . 

Grand Tiler. An officer who performs in a 

Grand Lodge the same duties that a Tiler does 

in a subordinate Lodge . The Grand Tiler is 

prohibited from being a member of the Grand 

Lodge, because his duties outside of the door 

would prevent his taking part in the deliberations 

of the body . 

Grand Treasurer . The office of Grand 

Treasurer was provided for by the Regulations 

of 1722, and in 1724, on the organization 

of the Committee of Charity, it was enacted 

that a Treasurer should be appointed . 

But it was not until 1727 that the office appears 

to have been really filled by the selection 

of Nathaniel Blakerby . But as he was elected 

Deputy Master in the same year, and 

yet continued to perform the duties of Treasurer, 

co-t2 it does not appear to have been considered 

as a distinct appointment . In 1738, he 

demitted the office, when Revis, the Grand 

Secretary, was appointed . But he declined 

on the ground that the offices of Secretary and 

Treasurer should not be held by the same person-"the 

one being a check on the other ." 

(Constitutions, 1738, p . 184 .) So that, in 1739, 

it was made a permanent office of the Grand 

Lodge by the appointment of Bro . John Jesse . 

It is an elective office ; and it was provided, 

by the Old Regulations, that he should be 

"a brother of good worldly substance ." The 

duties are similar to those of the Treasurer of 

a subordinate Lodge. The jewel is a circle 

enclosing two keys crossed, or in saltire . According 

to ancient custom, his badge of office 

was a white staff, but this is generally disused 

in this country . 

Grand Wardens . 

The Senior and Junior 

Grand Wardens are the third and fourth officers 

of a Grand Lodge . Their duties do not 

differ very materially from those of the corresponding 

officers of a subordinate Lodge, 

but their powers are of course more extensive . 

The Grand Wardens succeed to the government 

of the Craft, in order of rank, upon the 

death or absence from the jurisdiction of the 

Grand and Deputy Grand Masters. (See 

Succession to the Chair .) 

It is also their prerogative to accompany 

the Grand Master in his visitations of the 

Lodges, and when there to act as his Wardens . 

In the absence of the Senior Grand Warden, 

the Junior does not occupy the west, but retains 

his position in the south . Having been 

elected and installed to preside in the south, 

and to leave that station only for the east, the 

temporary vacancy in the west must be supplied 

by the appointment by the Grand Master 

of some other brother . (See Wardens .) 

On the same principle, the Senior Grand 

Warden does not supply the place of the absent 

Deputy Grand Master, but retains his 

station in the west . 

The Old Charges of 1722 required that no 

one could be a Grand Warden until he had 

been the Master of a Lodge. The rule still 

continues in force, either by specific regulations 

or by the force of usage . 

By the Regulations of 1721, the Grand 

Master nominated the Grand Wardens, but if 

his nomination was not approved, the Grand 

Lodge proceeded to an election. By the present 

Constitutions of England the power of 

appointment is vested absolutely in the Grand 

Master . In this country the Grand Wardens 

are elected by the Grand Lodge . 

Grasse Tilly, Alexandre Frangols Auguste, 

Comte de . He was the son of the 

Comte de Grasse who commanded the 

French fleet that had been sent to the assistance 

of the Americans in their revolutionary 

struggle . De Grasse Tilly was born at 

Versailles, in France, about the year 1766. 

He was initiated in the Mother Scottish 

Lodge du Contrat Social, and subsequently, 

going over to America, resided for some 

time in the island of St . Domingo, whence 

he removed to the city of Charleston, in 

South Carolina, where, in 1796, he affiliated 

with the French Lodge la Candeur . In 1799, 

he was one of the founders of the Lodge la 

Reunion Francaise, of which be was at one 

time the Venerable or Master . In 1802, the 

Comte de Grasse was a member of the Supreme 


Rite, which had been established the year 

before at Charleston ; and in the same year he 

received a patent as Grand Commander for 

life of the French West India islands. In 

1802 he returned to St. Domingo, and established 

a Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite 

at Port au Prince . In 1804 he went to Europe, 

and labored with great energy for the 

extension of the Ancient and Accepted Rite . 

On September 22, 1804, he founded at Paris 

a Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite, of which body he was

310 GRAVE 

GREETING 

until 1806, the Grand Commander . On 

March 5, 1805, he organized a Supreme Council 

at Milan in Italy, and on July 4, 1811, another 

at Madrid, in' Spain . The Comte de 

Grasse was an officer in the French army and 

was taken prisoner by the English and detained 

in England until 1815, when he returned 

to Paris . He immediately resumed his 

functions as Grand Commander of a body 

which took the unauthorized pretentious title 

of the Supreme Council of America . For 

several years Scottish Masonry in France was 

convulsed with dissensions, which De Grasse 

vainly labored to reconcile . Finally, in 1818, 

he resigned his post as Grand Commander, 

and was succeeded' by the Comte Decazes . 

From that period he appears to have passed 

quietly out of the Masonic history of France, 

and probably died soon after. 

Grave. The grave is, in the Master's Degree, 

the analogue of the pastes, couch or 

coffin, in the Ancient Mysteries, and is intended 

scenically to serve the same purpose . 

The grave is, therefore, in that degree, intended, 

in connection with the sprig of acacia, 

to teach symbolically the great Masonic doctrine 

of a future life . 

Gravelot . The name of the second of the 

three conspirators in the Master's Degree, according 

to the Adonhiramite Rite . The others 

are Romvel and Abiram . The etymology of 

Gravelot is unknown. 

Great Architect of the Universe. The 

title applied in the technical language of Freemasonry 

to the Deity . It is appropriate that 

a society founded on the principles of architecture, 

which symbolizes the terms of that 

science to moral purposes, and whose members 

profess to be the architects of a spiritual 

temple should view the Divine Being, under 

whose holy law they are constructing that edifice, 

as their Master Builder or Great Architect 

. Sometimes, but less correctly, the title 

"Grand Architect of the Universe" is found . 

Great Priory. The ruling body of the 

Order of the Temple for England, Wales and 

Canada is so called . 

Greater Lights. See Lights, Greater, Bible, 

Square and Compasses . 

Greece . In 1867, the first steps were taken 

to establish a Grand Lodge in Greece by the 

Lodges which had been recently founded there 

by the Grand Orient of Italy, but owing to 

various causes the organization did not succeed, 

and until 1872 the Grecian Lodges were 

presided over by a Deputy Grand Master, appointed 

by and the representative of the 

Grand Orient of Italy . 

On July 22, 1872, the Lodges of Greece met 

at Athens, and organized the Grand Lodge of 

Greece, electing His Imperial Highness Prince 

Rhodocanakis the first Grand Master . 

At the same time a Supreme Council of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was organized 

. The seat of both bodies is at Athens. 

Greece, Mysteries In. The principal 

Pagan mysteries celebrated in Greece were 

the Eleusinian and the Bacchic. (See Eleusinian 

Mysteries .) 

Green. Green, as a Masonic color, is almost 

confined to the four degrees of Perfect 

Master, Knight of the East, Knight of the 

Red Cross, and Prince of Mercy. In the degree 

of Perfect Master it is a symbol of the 

moral resurrection of the candidate, teaching 

him that being dead to vice he should hope to 

revive in virtue . 

In the degree of Knight of the Red Cross, 

this color is employed as a symbol of the immutable 

nature of truth, which, like the bay 

tree, will ever flourish in immortal green . 

This idea of the unchanging immortality of 

that which is divine and true, was always connected 

by the ancients with the color of green . 

Among the Egyptians, the god Phtha, the 

active spirit, the creator and regenerator of 

the world, the goddess Pascht, the Divine preserver, 

and Thoth, the instructor of men in 

the sacred doctrines of truth, were all painted 

in the hieroglyphic system with green flesh . 

Portal says, in his essay on Symbolic Colors= 

that "green was the symbol of victory" ; and 

this reminds us of the motto of the Red Cross 

Knights, "magna est veritas et praevalebit" 

-great is truth and mighty above all things ; 

and hence green is the symbolic color of that 

degree. 

In the degree of Prince of Mercy, or the 

Twenty-sixth Degree of the Scottish Rite, 

green is also symbolic of truth, and is the appropriate 

color of the degree, because truth is 

there said to be the palladium of the Order. 

In the degree of Knight of the East, in the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, green is 

also the symbolic color . We may very readily 

suppose, from the close connection of this 

degree in its ritual with that of the Companion 

of the Red Cross, that the same symbolic explanation 

of the color would apply to both, . 

and I think that such an explanation might 

very properly be made ; but it is generally 

supposed by its possessors that the green of 

the Knights of the East alludes to the waters 

of the river Euphrates, and hence its symbolism 

is not moral but historical . 

The evergreen of the Third Degree is to the 

Master Mason an emblem of immortality . 

Green was with the Druids a symbol of hope, 

and the virtue of hope with a Mason illustrates 

the hope of immortality . In all the Ancient 

Mysteries, this idea was carried out, and green 

symbolized the birth of the world, and the 

moral creation or resurrection of the initiate . 

If we apply this to the evergreen of the Master 

Mason we shall again find a resemblance, for 

the acacia is emblematic of a new creation of 

the body, and a moral and physical resurrection. 

Greeting. This word means salutation, 

and, under the form of "Thrice Greeting," it 

is very common at the head of Masonic documents 

. In the beginning of the last century 

it was usual at the meeting of Masons to say, 

"God's good greeting be to this our happy 

meeting ." Browne gives the formula as practised 

in 1800 : "The recommendation I bring 

is from the right worthy and worshipful brothers 

and fellows of the Holy Lodge of St . John,

GRi GORIANS 

GUIBBS 311 

who greet your worship well ." This formula 

is obsolete, but the word greeting is still in use 

among Freemasons . In Masonic documents 

it is sometimes found in the form of S .' . S .' . 

S.' ., which three letters are the initials of the 

Latin word salutem or health, three times rep 

eated, and therefore equivalent to "Thrice 

Greeting." 

Gregorlans. An association established 

early in the eighteenth century in ridicule of 

and in opposition to the Freemasons . There 

was some feud between the two Orders, but 

the Gregorians at last succumbed, and long 

ago became extinct . They lasted, however, at 

least until the end of the century, for there is 

extant a Sermon preached before them in 

1797. They must too, by that time, have 

changed their character, for Prince William 

Frederick of Gloucester was then their presiding 

officer; and Dr . Munkhouse, the author of 

that sermon, who was a very ardent Mason, 

tpeaks in high terms of the Order as an ally of 

Freemasonry, and distinguished for its "benign 

tendency and salutary effects ." 

Grelnemann, Ludwig. A Dominican 

monk, who, while preaching a course of Lenten 

sermons at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1779, endeavored 

to prove that the Jews who crucified 

Jesus were Freemasons ; that Pilate and Herod 

were Wardens in a Masonic Lodge ; and that 

Judas, before he betrayed his Lord, had been 

initiated in the synagogue, the thirty pieces of 

silver which he returned being the amount of 

his fee for initiation . With discourses like 

these, Greinemann, who had threatened, if his 

followers would assist him, he would slay every 

Freemason he met with his own hand, so excited 

the people, that the magistrates were 

compelled to issue an edict forbidding the assemblies 

of the Freemasons . Peter Schuff, . a 

Capuchin, also vied with Greinemann in the 

labor of persecution, and peace was not restored 

until the neighboring free imperial 

states threatened that, if the monks did not 

refrain from stirring up the mob against Freemasonry, 

they should be prohibited from collecting 

alms in their territories . 

Grip . In early Masonic works this is 

called the " gr ipe . ' German Masons call it 

der Gruff, and French ones, l'attouchement . 

Groton. In the Leland Manuscript, a 

corruption of Crotona, where Pythagoras established 

his school . 

Ground Floor of the Lodge. Mount 

Moriah, on which the Temple of Solomon was 

built, is symbolically called the ground floor of 

the Lodge, and hence it is said that "the Lodge 

rests on holy ground ." This ground-floor of 

the Lod g e is remarkable f or three great events 

recorded in Scripture, which are called "the 

three grand offerings of Masonry ." It was 

here that Abraham prepared, as a token of his 

faith, to offer up his beloved son Isaac-this 

was the first grand offering ; it was here that 

David, when his peo ple were afflicted with a 

pestilence, built an altar, and offered thereon 

peace-offerings and burnt-offerings to appease 

the wrath of God-this was the second grand 

offering ; and lastly, it was here that, when 

the Temple was completed, King Solomon 

dedicated that magnificent structure to the 

service of Jehovah, with the offering of pious 

prayers and many costly presenta--and this 

was the third grand offering . 

This sacred spot was once the threshingfloor 

of Ornan the Jebusite, and from him 

David purchased it for fifty shekels of silver . 

The Kabbalists delight to invest it with still 

more solemn associations, and declare that it 

was the spot on which Adam was created and 

Abel slain . (See Holy Ground .) 

Ground Floor of King Solomon's Temple. 

This is said to have been a Mosaic pavement, 

consisting of black and white stones 

laid lozengewise, and surrounded by a tesselated 

border. The tradition of the Order is 

that Entered Apprentices' Lodges were held 

on the ground floor of King Solomon's Temple 

; and hence a Mosaic pavement, or a carpet 

representing one, is a very common decoration 

of Masonic Lodges. (See Mosaic 

Pavement and Grand Offerings .) 

Grumbach, Sylvester . Mentioned in the 

legend of the Strict Observance, and was the 

reputed Grand Master of the Templars from 

1330 to 1332, and was the twenty-second 

Grand Master. 

Guard. See Due Guard. 

Guard of the Conclave . See Knight of 

the Christian Mark . 

Guards . Officers used in working the rituals 

of the Red Cross and Templar degrees . 

They do not constitute regular officers of a 

Council or Commandery, but are appointed 

pro re natd . 

Guerrier de Dumast . A distinguished 

French Mason, born at Nancy on February 

26, 1796 . He is the author of a poem entitled 

La MaConnerie, in three cantos, enriched with 

historical, etymological, and critical notes 

published in 1820 . For this work he receive 

from the Lodge Freres Artistes, of which he 

was the orator, a gold medal. He was the 

author of several other works, both Masonic 

and secular . 

Gugomos, Baron Von . An impostor in 

Masonry, who, in 1775, appeared in Germany, 

and, being a member of the Order of Strict Observance, 

claimed that he had been delegated 

by the Unknown Superiors of the Holy See at 

Cyprus to establish a new Order of Knights 

Templars . Calling himself Dux and High 

Priest, he convoked a Masonic Congress at 

Wiesbaden, which, notwithstanding the warning 

of Dr. Bode, was attended by many influential 

members of the Fraternity . His pretensions 

were so absurd, that at length his 

imposture was detected, and he escaped 

secretly out of Wiesbaden . In 1786, Gugomos 

confessed the imposition, and, it is said 

asserted that he had been employed as a too 

by the Jesuits to perform this part, that Freemasonry 

might be injured . 

Guibbs . The names given to the Assassins 

of the Third Degree by some of the inventors 

of the high degrees, are of so singular 

a form as to have almost irresistibly led to the 

conclusion that these names were bestowed by

312 GUILLEMAIN 

GYPSIES 

the adherents of the house of Stuart upon some 

of their enemies as marks of infamy . Such, 

for instance, is Romvel, the name of one of the 

Assassins in certain Scottish degrees, which 

is probably a corruption of Cromwell . Jubelum 

Guibbs, another name of one of these traitors, 

has much puzzled the Masonic etymologists . 

I think that I have found its origin in the 

name of the Rev . Adam Gib, who was an antiburgher 

clergyman of Edinburgh. When 

that city was taken possession of by the young 

Pretender, Charles Edward, in 1745 the 

clergy generally fled . But Gib removes only 

three miles from the city, where, collecting his 

loyal congregation, he hurled anathemas for 

five successive Sundays against the Pretender, 

and boldly prayed for the downfall of 

the rebellion . He subsequently joined the 

loyal army, and at Falkirk took a rebel prisoner 

. So active was Gib in his opposition to 

the cause of the house of Stuart, and so obnoxious 

had he become, that several attempts 

were made by the rebels to take his life . On 

Charles Edward's return to France he erected 

in 1747 his "Primordial Chapter ; ' at Arras ; 

and in the composition of the high degrees 

there practised, it is very probable that he bestowed 

the name of his old enemy Gib on the 

most atrocio p s of the Assassins who figure in 

the legend of Third Degree . The letter u was 

doubtless inserted to prevent the French, in 

pronouncing the name, from falling into the 

soft sound of the G and calling the word Jib . 

The additional b and s were the natural and 

customary results of a French attempt to spell 

a foreign proper name. (See Arras, Primordial 

Chapter of.) 

Guillemain de St. Victor, Louis . A distinguished 

French writer, who published several 

works on Freemasonry, the most valuable 

and best known of which is his Recueil 

Precieux de la Magonnerie Adonhiramite, first 

issued at Paris in 1782 . This work, of which 

several editions were published, contains the 

catechisms of the first four degrees of Adoniramite 

Masonry, and an account of several 

other degrees, and is enriched with many 

learned notes. Ragon, who speaks highly of 

the work, erroneously attributes its authorship 

to the celebrated Baron de Tschoudy . 

Gustavus IV ., King of Sweden . He was 

initiated into Masonry, at Stockholm, on the 

10th of March, 1793 . Ten years after, on the 

9th of March, 1803, Gustavus issued an Ordonnance 

by which he required all the secret 

societies in his dominions to make known to 

the stadtholders of the cities where they resided, 

and in the provinces to his governors, 

not only the formula of the oath which they 

administered to their members, but the duties 

which they prescribed, and the object of their 

association ; and also to submit at any time to 

a personal inspection by the officers of government 

. But at the end of the Ordonnance the 

King says : "The Freemasons, who are under 

our immediate protection, are alone excepted 

from this inspection, and from this Ordonnance 

in general." 

Guttural Point of Entrance . 

From the 

Latin gutter, the throat. The throat is that 

avenue of the body which is most employed in 

the sins of intemperance, and hence it suggests 

to the Mason certain symbolic instructions 

in relation to the virtue of temperance . 

(See Points of Entrance Perfect .) 

Gymnosophist . The Eighth Degree of 

the Kabbalistic Rite . 

Gymnosophists . (Signifying "naked 

sages.") A name given by the Greeks to 

those ancient Hindu philosophers who lived 

solitarily in the woods, wore little or no clothing, 

and addicted themselves to mystical contemplation 

and the practise of the most rigorous 

asceticism . Strabo divides them into 

Brahmans and Samans, the former of whom 

adhered to the strictest principles of caste, 

while the latter admitted any one into their 

number regarding whose character and kindred 

they were satisfied . They believed in 

the immortality of the soul and its migration 

into other bodies . They practised celibacy, 

abstained from wine, and lived on fruits . 

They held riches in contempt, and abstained 

from sensual indulgences . 

Gypsies . Cornelius Van Paun, more generally 

known as De Paun, in his Philosophical 

Researches on the Egyptians and Chinese (Paris, 

1774), advances the theory that Freemasonry 

originated with the Gypsies . He says : "Every 

person who was not guilty of some crime could 

obtain admission to the lesser mysteries . 

Those vagabonds called Egyptian priests in 

Greece and Italy required considerable sums 

for initiation ; and their successors, the Gypsies, 

practise similar mummeries to obtain 

money . And thus was Freemasonry introduced 

into Europe ." But De Paun is remarkable 

for the paradoxical character of his opinions. 

Mr . James Simpson, who has written 

a rather exhaustive History of the Gypsies 

(1866), finds (p. 387) "a considerable resemblance 

between Gypsyism, in its harmless 

aspect, and Freemasonry-with this difference, 

that the former is a general, while the 

latter is a special, society ; that is to say, the 

Gypsies have the language, or some of the 

words and the signs peculiar to the whole 

race, which each individual or class will use 

for different purposes . The race does not 

necessarily, and does not in fact, have intercourse 

with every other member of it . In that 

respect they resemble any ordinary community 

of men ." And he adds : "There axe many 

Gypsies Freemasons ; indeed, they are the 

very people to push their way into a Masons' 

Lodge ; for they have secrets of their own, and 

are naturally anxious to pry into those of 

others, by which they may be benefited . I was 

told of a Gypsy who died, lately, the Master 

of a Masons' Lodge . A friend, a Mason told 

me the other day of his having entered a louse 

in Yetholm where were five Gypsies, all of 

whom responded to his Masonic signs." But 

it must be remembered that Simpson is writing 

of the Gypsies of Scotland, a kingdom 

where the race is considerably advanced above 

those of any other country in civilization and 

in social position.

H 

H. (Heb . M, Cheth ; the hieroglyph was an 

altar thus, and 

finally the Hebrew 

M .) The 

eighth letter in 

AI A- 

the alphabet, 

and in the Hebrew has the value in number of 

8, while the Heb . ' 1, He, which is of the same 

hieroglyphic formation, has the numerical 

valuation of 5 . 

H. . A . . B . • . An abbreviation of Hiram 

Abif . 

Habakkuk . (Heb . 7171, a struggler, a 

favorite .) The eighth of the twelve minor 

prophets . No account is contained in the 

Book of Habakkuk, either of the events of his 

life or the data when he lived . He is believed 

by many to have flourished about 630 B .c . 

In the Thirty-second Degree of the A . A . 

Scottish Rite, his name answers to the passwords 

Tuesday and Xerxes . 

Habin. (Heb . I'11, intelligius .) Name of 

the initiate in the Fourth Degree of the modern 

French Rite, sometimes given as Johaben, 

or Jabin . 

Habramah or Jabamiah. (Fanum excelsum 

.) Said to be used in the Thirtieth Degree 

of the A . A . Scottish Rite in France ; it is 

not used in America . 

Racquet, G . A French notary at Port-au- 

Prince, subsequently a member of the Grand 

Orient of Paris, and President of the Royal 

Arch Chapter at Paris in 1814 . 

Hadeeses . An Arabic word, signifying the 

traditions handed down by Mohammed and 

preserved by ' the Mohammedan doctors . 

They are said to amount to 5266 in number . 

Many of the traditions of Mohammedan Masonry 

are said to be borrowed from the 

Hadeeses, just as much of the legendary lore 

of European Masonry is to be found in the 

Jewish Talmud . 

Hfifedha. The second of the four gods 

worshiped by the Arab tribe of Ad, before the 

time of Mohammed, to which Hfld, or Heber, 

was sent. These were SAkia, the god of rain ; 

Hafedha, the preserver from danger ; Razeka, 

the provider of food ; and S51ema, the god of 

health . 

Hagar. The old lectures taught the doctrine, 

and hence it was the theory of the 

Masons of the eighteenth century, that the 

landmark which requires all candidates for initiation 

to be free born is derived from the fact 

that the promise which was given to Isaac, the 

free-born son of Abraham and Sarah, was 

denied to Ishmael, the slave-born son of the 

Egyptian bondwoman Hagar . This theory is 

entertained by Oliver in all his writings, as a 

part of the old Masonic system . (See Free 

Born .) 

Haggai . According to Jewish tradition, 

Haggai was born in Babylon during the captivity, 

and being a young man at the time of 

the liberation by Cyrus, he came to Jerusalem 

H 

HALL 313 

in company with Joshua and Zerubbabel, to 

aid in the rebuilding of the Temple . The 

work being suspended during the reigns of the 

two immediate successors of Cyrus, on the accession 

of Darius, Haggai urged the renewal of 

the undertaking, and for that purpose obtained 

the sanction of the king . Animated by 

the courage and patriotism of Haggai and 

Zechariah, the people prosecuted the work 

with vigor, and the second Temple was completed 

and dedicated in the year 516 B .c. 

In the Royal Arch system of America, Haggai 

represents the scribe, or third officer of a 

Royal Arch Chapter . In the English system 

he represents the second officer, and is called 

the prophet . 

Hague, The . A city of the Netherlands, 

formerly South Holland . Freemasonry was 

introduced there in 1731 by the Grand Lodge 

of England, when an occasional Lodge was 

opened for the initiation of Francis, Duke of 

Lorraine, afterward Emperor of Germany. 

Between that year and 1735 an English and a 

Dutch Lodge were regularly instituted, from 

which other Lodges in I olland subsequently 

proceeded . In 1749, the Lodge at The Hague 

assumed the name of "The Mother Lodge of 

the Royal Union," whence resulted the National 

Grand Lodge, which declared its independence 

of the Grand Lodge of England in 

1770 . (See Netherlands .) 

Hah . The Hebrew definite article 1, "the ." 

It forms the second syllable of the Substitute 

Word . 

Hail or Hale. This word is used among 

Masons with two very different signification . 

1 . When addressed as an inquiry to a visiting 

brother it has the same import as that in 

which it is used under like circumstances by 

mariners . Thus : "Whence do you bail?" 

that is,"Of what Lodge are you a member?" 

Used in this sense, it comes from the Saxon 

term of salutation "H . L," and should be 

spelled "hail ." 2. Its second use is confined 

to what Masons understand by the "tie," and 

in this sense it signifies to conceal, being derived 

from the Saxon word "JELAN," to hide, 

the e being pronounced in Anglo-Saxon as a 

in the word fate . By the rules of etymology, 

it should be spelled "hale," but is usually 

spelled "hele ." The preservation of this Saxon 

word in the Masonic dialect, while it has 

ceased to exist in the vernacular, is a striking 

proof of the antiquity of the Order and its 

ceremonies in England . "In the western parts 

of England," says Lord King (Crit . Hist . Ap . 

Creed, p . 178), "at this very day, to hele over 

anything signifies, among the common people, 

to cover it ; and he that covereth an house with 

tile or slate is called a helliar ." 

Hall Committee . A committee established 

in all Lodges and Grand Lodges which 

own the building in which they meet, to which 

is entrusted the supervision of the building . 

The Grand Lodge of England first appointed

314 HALL 

HALL 

its Hall Committee in 1773, for the purpose of 

superintending the erection of the hall which 

had been projected . 

Hall, Masonic . For a long time after the 

revival of Masonry in 1717, Masonic Lodges 

continued to meet, as they had done before 

that period, in taverns . Thus, the Grand 

Lodge of England was organized, and, to use 

the language of Anderson, "the quarterly communications 

were revived," by four Lodges, 

whose respective places of meeting were the 

Goose and Gridiron Ale-House, the Crown 

Ale-House, the Apple-Tree Tavern and the 

Rummer and Grapes Tavern. For many 

years the Grand Lodge held its quarterly 

meetings sometimes at the Apple-Tree, but 

principally at the Devil Tavern, and kept 

the Grand Feast at the hall of one of the 

Livery Companies. The first Lodge in Paris 

was organized at a tavern kept in the Rue 

des Boucheries by one Hure and the Lodges 

subsequently organized in h'rance continued 

to meet, like those of England, in public 

houses. The custom was long followed in 

other countries of Europe . In America the 

practise ceased only at a comparatively recent 

period, and it is possible that in some obscure 

villages it has not yet been abandoned . 

At as early a period as the beginning of the 

fourteenth century, the Gilds, or Livery 

Companies, of London, had their halls or 

places of meeting, and in which they stored 

their goods for sale . At first these were 

mean buildings, but gradually they rose 

into importance, and the Goldsmith's Hall, 

erected in the fifteenth century, is said to 

have been an edifice of large dimensions 

and of imposing appearance . These halls, 

probably, as they were very common in the 

eighteenth century, were suggestive to the 

Freemasons of similar edifices for their own 

Fraternity ; but undoubtedly the necessity, 

as the Association grew into importance, 

of a more respectable, more convenient 

and more secure locality than was afforded 

by temporary resort to taverns and alehouses 

must have led to the erection of 

isolated edifices for their own special use . 

The first Masonic Hall of which we have 

any account is the one that was erected by 

the Lodge at Marseilles, in France, in the 

year 1765 . Smith describes it very fully in 

his Use and Abuse of Freemasonry (p . 165), and 

calls it "a very magnificent hall ." In 1773, 

the Grand Lodge of England made preliminary 

arrangements for the construction of a 

hall, a considerable sum having been already 

subscribed for that purpose . On the 1st of 

May, 1775, the foundation-stone of the 

new edifice was laid in solemn form, according 

to a ceremonial which was then adopted, and 

which, with a few modifications, continues to 

be used at the present day on similar occasions 

. On the foundation-stone it was 

designated as Aula Latamorum, "The Freemasons' 

Hall . " It was finished in less than 

twelve months, and was dedicated, on the 

23d of May, 1776, to Masonry, Virtue, Universal 

Charity and Benevolence; a formula 

still adhered to without variation in the 

English and American rituals . 

In the same year, the Lodge at Newcastle, 

stimulated by the enterprise of the London 

Freemasons, erected a hall ; an example 

which was followed, two years afterward, 

by the Lodge of Sunderland . And after 

this the erection of isolated halls for Masonic 

purposes became common not only in England, 

Scotland, and Ireland, but all over 

the Continent, wherever the funds of a Lodge 

would permit of the expenditure . 

In America, Lodges continued to be held 

in taverns up to a very recent period. It 

is not now considered reputable ; although, 

as has been already remarked, the custom 

is, perhaps, not entirely discontinued, especially 

in remote country villages . It is 

impossible to tell at what precise period 

and in what locality the first Masonic Hall 

was erected in this country . It is true that 

in a Boston paper of 1773 we find (Moore's 

Mag., xv ., 162) an advertisement summoning 

the Masons to celebrate the festival of 

St . John the Evangelist at "Freemasons' 

Hall" ; but, on examination, we learn that 

this was no other than a room in the Green 

Dragon Tavern . Other buildings, such as 

the Exchange Coffee-House, only partially 

used for Masonic purposes, were subsequently 

erected in Boston, and received by courtesy, 

but not by right, the name of "Masonic 

Halls" ; but it was not until 1832 that the 

first independent hall was built in that city, 

which received the name of the Masonic 

Temple, a title which has since been very 

usually conferred on the halls in the larger 

cities. We may suppose that it was about 

this time, when a resuscitation of Masonic 

energy which had been paralyzed by the 

anti-Masonic opposition, had commenced 

to develop itself, that the Lodges and Grand 

Lodges began to erect halls for their peculiar 

use. At present there is no dearth of these 

buildings for Masonic use of imposing 

grandeur and architectural beauty to be 

found scattered all over the land . 

In America, as well as in Britain, the 

construction of Masonic Halls is governed 

by no specific rules, and is too often left to 

the judgment and taste of the architect, and 

hence, if that person be not an experienced 

Freemason, the building is often erected 

without due reference to the ritual requirements 

of the Order. But in these particulars, 

says Oliver, the Masons of the Continent 

are governed by a Ritual of Building, and 

he quotes, as a specimen of the Helvetian 

Ritual in reference to the laying of the 

foundation-stone of a Masonic Hall, the 

following directions : 

"A Mason, assisted by two others, if there 

be a dearth of workmen, or distress, or war, 

or peril, or threats of danger, may begin the 

work of building a Lodge ; but it is better 

to have seven known and sworn workmen . 

The Lodge is, as we know, due east and 

west ; but its chief window or its chief door 

must look to the east. On a day allowed

HALL 

HALL 315 

and a place appointed, the whole company 

of builders set out after high noon to lay 

the first stone ." 

Far more practical are the directions of 

Dr . Oliver himself for the construction of a 

Masonic Hall, given in his Book of the Lodge 

(ch . iii.), which is here condensed . 

"A Masonic Hall should be isolated, and, 

if possible, surrounded with lofty walls, so 

as to be included in a court, and apart from 

any other buildings, to preclude the possibility 

of being overlooked by cowans or 

eavesdroppers . As, however, such a situation 

in large towns can seldom be obtained, 

the Lodge should be formed in an upper 

story ; and if there be any contiguous buildings, 

the windows should be either in the 

roof, or very high from the floor . These 

windows ought to be all on one side-the 

south, if practicable-and furnished with 

proper ventilation, that the brethren be not 

incommoded, when pursuing their accustomed 

avocations, by the heat of the Lodge . 

The room, to preserve a just proportion, 

must, of course, be lofty . It should be furnished 

with a pitched roof, open within, 

and relieved with an ornamental framework 

of oak, or painted so as to represent that 

species of timber . It should be supported 

on corbels running along the cornice, on 

which should be engraven Masonic ornaments 

. The dimensions of the room, in 

length and breadth, will depend in a great 

measure on the situation of the Lodge, or 

the space which is assigned for its position ; 

and this will often be extremely circumscribed 

in a large and populous place, where 

building land is scarce and dear, or the fund 

inadequate to any extensive operations . 

But in all cases a due proportion should be 

observed in the several members of the fabric 

wherever it is practicable, that no unsightly 

appearance may offend the eye, by disturbing 

that general harmony of parts which constitutes 

the beauty and excellence of every 

architectural production . 

"The principal entrance to the Lodge 

room ought to face the east, because the east 

is a place of light both physical and moral ; 

and therefore the brethren have access to 

the Lodge by that entrance, as a symbol of 

mental illumination . The approaches to 

the Lodge must be angular, for a straight 

entrance is unmasonic and cannot be tolerated 

. The advance from the external avenue 

to the east ought to consist of three lines 

and two angles . The first line passes through 

a small room or closet for the accommodation 

of visitors . At the extremity of this apartment 

there ought to be another angular 

passage leading to the Tiler's room adjacent 

to the Lodge ; and from thence, by another 

right angle, you are admitted into the presence 

of the brethren with your face to the Light . 

"In every convenient place the architect 

should contrive secret cryptae or closets . 

They are of indispensable utility ; but in 

practice are not sufficiently attended to in 

this country . On the Continent they are 

numerous, and are dignified with the name 

of chapels . Two of these apartments have 

already been mentioned-a room for visitors 

and the Tiler's room ; added to which 

there ought to be a vestry, where the ornaments, 

furniture, jewels, and other regalia 

are deposited . This is called the treasury, 

or Tiler's conclave, because these things are 

under his especial charge, and a communication 

is usually made to this apartment 

from the Tiler's room . There ought to be 

also a chapel for preparations, hung with 

black, and having only one small light, 

placed high up, near the ceiling ; a chapel 

for the dead furnished with a table, on 

which are a lamp and emblems of mortality ; 

the Master's conclave, where the records, 

the warrants, the minutes, and every written 

document are kept. To this room the 

Worshipful Master retires when the Lodge 

is called from labor to refreshment, and at 

other times when his presence in the Lodge 

is not essential ; and here he examines the 

visitors, for which purpose a communication 

is formed between his conclave and the 

visitor's chapel . It is furnished with blue . 

And here he transacts the Lodge business 

with his Secretary . The Ark of the Covenant 

is also deposited in this apartment . None 

of these closets should exceed twelve feet 

square, and may be of smaller dimensions, 

according to circumstances . In the middle 

of the hall there should be a movable trapdoor 

in the floor, seven feet long and three or 

four feet broad, opening into a small crypt, 

about three feet in depth, the use of which 

is known to none but perfect Masons, who 

have passed through all the symbolical degrees 

. All of these particulars may not be 

e ually necessary to the construction of a 

asonic Hall ; but a close attendance to 

their general spirit and direction, or to 

similar regulations, should be impressed on 

every Lodge that undertakes the construction 

of a building exclusively for Masonic 

purposes ; and such a building only is entitled 

to be called a Masonic Hall ." 

The division in the American Rite of the 

degrees among different bodies imposes the 

necessity, or at least the convenience, when 

erecting a Masonic Hall in this country, 

of appropriating some of the rooms to the 

uses of Ancient Craft Lodges, some to Royal 

Arch Chapters, some to Royal and Select 

Councils, and some to Commanderies of 

Knights Templars . It is neither proper 

nor convenient that a Chapter should be 

held in a Lodge ; and it is equally expedient 

that the Asylum of a Commandery should 

be kept separate from both . 

All of these rooms should be oblong in 

form, lofty in height, with an elevated dais 

or platform in the east, and two doors in the 

west, the one in the northwest corner leading 

into the preparation room, and the other 

communicating with the Tiler's apartment . 

But in other respects they differ . First, 

as to the color of the decorations . In a 

Lodge room the predominating color should

316 HALL 

HAMBURG 

be blue, in a Chapter red, and in a Council 

and Commandery black . 

In a Lodge room the dais should be elevated 

on three steps, and provided with a 

pedestal for the Master, while on each side 

are seats for the Past Masters, and dignitaries 

who may visit the Lodge. The pedestal 

of the Senior Warden in the west should 

be elevated on two steps and that of the 

Junior Warden in the south on one . 

A similar arrangement, either permanent 

or temporary, should be provided in the 

Chapter room for working the intermediate 

degrees ; but the eastern dais should be 

supplied with three pedestals instead of one, 

for the reception of the Grand Council . The 

tabernacle also forms an essential part of 

the Chapter room . This is sometimes 

erected in the center of the room, although 

the consistency of the symbolism would 

require that the whole room, during the 

working of the Royal Arch Degree, should 

be deemed a tabernacle, and then the veils 

would, with propriety, extend from the 

ceiling to the floor, and from one side of the 

room to the other. There are some other 

arrangements required in the construction 

of a Chapter room, of which it is unnecessary 

to speak . 

Councils of Royal and Select Masters are 

usually held in Chapter rooms, with an entire 

disregard of the historical teachings 

of the degrees. In a properly constructed 

Council chamber, which, of course, would 

be in a distinct apartment, there should be 

no veils, but nine curtains of a stone color ; 

and these, except the last, starting from one 

side of the room, should stop short of the 

other, so as to form a narrow passage between 

the wall and the extremities of the 

curtains, reaching from the door to the 

ninth curtain, which alone should reach 

across the entire extent of the room . These 

are used only in the Select Degree, and can 

be removed when the Royal Master is to 

be conferred . Unlike a Lodge and Chapter, 

in a Council there is no dais or raised platform 

; but three tables, of a triangular form, 

are placed upon the level of the floor in the 

east . It is, however, very seldom that the 

funds of a Council will permit of the indulgence 

in a separate room, and those bodies 

are content to work, although at a disadvantage, 

in a Chapter room . 

It is impossible, with any convenience, 

to work a Commandery in a Lodge, or even 

a Chapter room . The officers and their 

stations are so different, that what is suitable 

for one is unsuitable for the other . The 

dais, which has but one station in a Lodge 

and three in a Chapter, requires four in a 

Commandery, the Prelate taking his proper 

place on the right of the Generalissimo . But 

there are other more important differences . 

The principal apartment should be capable 

of a division by a curtain, which should 

separate the Asylum proper from the rest 

of the room, as the mystical veil in the ancient 

Church shut off the prospect of the altar, 

during the eucharistic sacrifice, from the 

view of the catechumens . There are several 

other rooms required in the Templar ritual 

which are not used by a Lodge, a Chapter, 

or a Council, and which makes it necessary 

that the apartments of a Commandery should 

be distinct . A banquet-room in close proximity 

to the Asylum is essential ; and convenience 

requires that there should be an 

armory for the deposit of the arms and 

costume of the Knights. But it is unnecessary 

to speak of reflection rooms, and other 

places well known to those who are familiar 

with the ritual, and which cannot be dispensed 

with. 

Hallelujah . (Praise the Lord .) Expression 

of applause in the degree of Sublime 

Ecossais, Heavenly Jerusalem, and 

others. 

Halliwell Manuscript. The earliest of 

the old Constitutions. It is in poetic form, 

and was probably transcribed in 1390 from 

an earlier copy. The manuscript is in the 

King's Library of the British Museum . It 

was published in 1840 by James O. Halliwell, 

and again in 1844, under the title of 

The Early History of Freemasonry in England. 

The Masonic character of the poem 

remained unknown until its discovery by 

Mr . Halliwell, who was not a Mason, because 

it was catalogued as A Poem of Moral 

Duties . 

It is now more commonly known as the 

"Regius MS .," because it formed part of 

the Royal Library commenced by Henry 

VII . and presented to the British Museum 

by George II . [E . L . H .1 

Hamaliel . The name of the angel that, 

in accordance with the Kabbalistical system, 

governs the planet Venus . 

Hamburg. In 1733, the Earl of Strathmore, 

Grand Master of England, granted a 

deputation "to eleven German gentlemen, 

good Brothers, for constituting a Lodge at 

Hamburg." (Anderson, Constitutions, 1738, 

p . 194 .) Of the proceedings of this Lodge 

we have no information . In 1740, Bro . 

Luettman brought from England a Warrant 

for the establishment of a Lodge, and a patent 

for himself, as Provincial Grand Master of 

Hamburg and Lower Saxony . In October 

1741, it assumed the name of Absalom and 

in the same year the Provincial Grand lodge 

of Hamburg and Saxony was opened, a body 

which, Findel says (p . 239), was the oldest 

Mother Lodge in Germany . About the year 

1787, the Provincial Grand Lodge adopted 

the newly-invented Rite of Frederick L. 

Schroder, consisting of only three degrees . 

In 1801, it declared itself an independent 

Grand Lodge, and has so continued . The 

Grand Lodge of Hamburg practises Schroder's 

Rite. (See SchrOder .) There is also in Hamburg 

a sort of Chapter, which was formed by 

Schroder under the title . of Geschichtliche 

Engbund, or Historical Select Union. It 

was intended as a substitute for Fessler's 

degrees of Knowledge, the members of which 

employ their time in studying the various

HAMILTON 

HARLEIAN 317 

systems of Masonry . The Mutter-Bund of 

the Confederacy of Hamburg Lodges, which 

make up this system, is independent of the 

Grand Lodge. The two authorities are 

entirely distinct, and bear much the same 

relation to each other as the Grand Lodges 

and Grand Chapters of the United States . 

Hamilton, Hon . Robert M .A ., M .D . 

Born 1820 ; died May, 1880, at Jamaica, of 

which island he was District Grand Master . 

This English gentleman was a member of 

the Queen's Body Guard . He was appointed 

District G . Master of Jamaica, November 5, 

1858 ; District G. Supt . of Royal Arch Masons, 

January 10, 1859; Prov . G . M . M . M ., 

1877 ; and was a supernumerary member of the 

Supreme Council, 33d, of England, and Prov . 

G . Master of the Royal Order of Scotland . 

Hand. In Freemasonry, the hand as 

a symbol holds a high place, because it is 

the principal seat of the sense of feeling so 

necessary to and so highly revered by Masons 

. The same symbol is found in the 

most ancient religions, and some of their 

analogies to Masonic symbolism are peculiar. 

Thus, Horapollo says that among 

the Egyptians the hand was the symbol of 

a builder, or one fond of building, because all 

labor proceeds from the hand . In many of 

the Ancient Mysteries the hand, especially 

the left, was deemed the symbol of equity . 

In Christian art a hand is the indication 

of a holy person or thing. In early Medieval 

art, the Supreme Being was always 

represented by a hand extended from a 

cloud, and generally in the act of benediction 

. The form of this act of benediction, 

as adopted by the Roman Church, which 

seems to have been borrowed from the symbols 

of the Phrygian and Eleusinian priests 

or hierophants, who used it in their mystical 

processions, presents a singular analogy, 

which will be interesting to Mark Master 

Masons, who will recognize in it a symbol 

of their own ritual . In the benediction 

referred to, as given in the Latin 

Church, the thumb, index, and 

middle fingers are extended, and 

the two others bent against the 

palm . The church explains this 

position of the extended thumb 

and two fingers as representing 

the Trinity ; but the older symbol of the 

Pagan priests, which was precisely of the 

same form, must have had a different meaning 

. A writer in the British Magazine (vol. 

i ., p . 565) thinks that the hand, which was 

used in the Mithraic mysteries in this position, 

was symbolic of the Light emanating 

not from the sun, but from the Creator, 

directly as a special manifestation ; and he 

remarks that chiromancy or divination by 

the hand is an art founded upon the notion 

that the human hand has some reference to 

the decrees of the supreme power peculiar to 

it above all other parts of the microcosmusman 

. Certainly, to the Mason, the hand 

is most important as the symbol of that 

mystical intelligence by which one Mason 

knows another "in the dark as well as in 

the light ." 

Hand, Left . See Left Hand . 

Hand, Right. See Right Hand. 

Hand to Back . See Points of Fellowship . 

Hand to Hand. See Points of Fellowship . 

Hands, United . Clasped hands are a 

symbol of fidelity and trust . A Spanish 

work was published at Vittoria, in 1774, 

where three hands are shown united in the 

vignette on the title . 

Hanover. Freemasonry was introduced 

into Hanover, in the year 1744, by the 

organization of the Lodge "Frederick" ; 

which did not, however, get into active 

operation, in consequence of the opposition 

of the priests, until two years after . A 

Provincial Grand Lodge was established 

in 1755, which in 1828 became an independent 

Grand Lodge . In 1866, in consequence 

of the war between Austria and 

Prussia, Hanover was annexed to the latter 

country. There being three Grand Lodges 

at that time in Prussia, the king deemed it 

inexpedient to add a fourth, and, by a cabinet 

order of February 17 ? 1867, the Grand 

Lodge of Hanover was dissolved . Most of 

the Hanoverian Lodges united with the 

Grand Lodge Royal York at Berlin, and a 

few with the Grand Lodge of the Three 

Globes. 

Haphtzlel. (Heb . ~t~' 13E1, Voluntas Dei.) 

A covered word used in the Twenty-third 

Degree of the A . A . Scottish Rite . 

Har. The name of the second king in 

the Scandinavian Mysteries . 

Haram, Grand . The Seventy-third Degree 


Harbinger . The title of an officer in 

the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher and 

also in the Knights of St . John the 'Evangelist 

. 

Hardie, James . A Mason of New York 

who published, in 1818, a work entitle 

The New Freemasons' Monitor and Masonic 

Guide. It evinces considerable ability, is 

more valuable than the Monitors of Webb 

and Cross, and deserved a greater popularity 

than it seems to have received . 

Harleian Manuscripts. An old record 

of the Constitutions of Freemasonry, so 

called because it forms No . 2054 of the 

collection of manuscripts in the British Museum, 

which were originally collected by 

Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, the celebrated 

prime minister of Queen Anne and known 

as the "Bibliotheca Harleian,' 7 or Harleian 

Library . The MS . consists of four leaves, 

containing six and a half pages of close 

writing in a cramped hand, said to be that 

of Randle Holmes, Chester Herald, who 

died in 1699 . The MS . was first published 

by Bro . William James Hughan, in his 

Masonic Sketches and Reprints . The Manuscript 

was carefully transcribed for Bro . 

Hughan by a faithul copyist, and its correctness 

was verified by Mr . Sims, of the 

MS . department of the British Museum . 

Bro . Hughan places the date of the record

318 HARMONY 

HARODIM 

in the middle of the seventeenth century, 

and in this he is probably correct . 

"The two following folios," says the Rev . 

Mr . Woodford, "in the volume (viz ., 33 and 

34) are of a very important character, inasmuch 

as the secrets of Freemasonry are 

referred to in the òbligation' taken by 

Initiates, and the sums are recorded which 

William Wade give to be a Freemason,' 

and others who were admitted members of 

the Lodge . The amounts varied from five 

shillings to a pound, the majority being 

ten shillings and upwards . The fragment 

on folio 33 is as follows, and was written 

about the same time as the MS . Constitutions 

: 

" `There is severall words & signes of a 

free mason to be reveiled to yu wch as yu will 

answr before God at the Great & terrible 

day of Judgmt yu keep secret & not to revaile 

the same in the heares of any person 

or to any but to the Mrs. & fellows of the 

said society of free masons so helpe me 

God, etc.' " 

A facsimile of the MS . has been published 

by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge . 

There is another MS . in the same collection 

marked No . 1492, the date of which is conjectured 

to be about 1650, or rather later . 

It was copied by Bro . Henry Phillips, and 

first published in the Freemasons' Quarterly 

Review in 1836, pp . 288-295 . The copy, however, 

unfortunately, is not an exact one, as 

Mr. E. A. Bond, of the Museum, who compared 

a part of the transcript with the original, 

says that " the copyist has overlooked 

peculiarities in many instances." It is important 

in containing the "Oath of Secrecy," 

which is in the following words : 

"I, A . B . Doe, in the presence of Almighty 

God, and my fellows and Brethren here 

present, promise and declare that I will 

not at any time hereafter, by any Act, or 

Circumstance whatsoever, directly or indirectly 

publish, discover, reveale, or make 

knowne any of the Secrets, priviledges, or 

Counsels of the Fraternity or fellowship of 

Freemasonry, which at this time, or any time 

hereafter shall be made known unto me ; soe 

helpe nice God and the holy contents of this 

book. " 

A facsimile of this MS . also has been published 

by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge . 

Harmony . It is a duty especially entrusted 

to the Senior Warden of a Lodge, 

who is figuratively supposed to preside over 

the Craft during the hours of labor, so to 

act that none shall depart from the Lodge 

dissatisfied or discontented, that harmony 

may be thus preserved, because, as the 

ritual expresses it, harmony is the strength 

and support of all well-regulated institutions. 

Harmony, Universal. See Mesmeric 

Masonry. 

Harnouester. Lord Harnouester is said 

to have been elected by the four Lodges of 

Paris, as the second Grand Master of France, 

in 1736, succeeding the Earl of Derwentwater . 

Nothing is known of this nobleman in contemporary 

history . Burke makes no allusion 

to him in his Extinct Peerages, and probably 

the name has undergone one of those indecipherable 

mutations to which French 

writers are accustomed to subject all foreign 

names; indeed, Bro. R. F . Gould, in his Concise 

History of Freemasonry (p . 355), considers 

that the name may even be a corruption 

of "Derwentwater ." [E. L. H.] 

Harodim . We owe the Masonic use 

of this word to Anderson, who first employed 

it in the Book of Constitutions, where he 

tells us that "there were employed about 

the Temple no less than three thousand and 

six hundred Princes or Master Masons to 

conduct the work," and in a note he says 

that "in 1 Kings v . 16 they are called Harodim, 

Rulers or Provosts." (Constitutions, 

1723, p. 10 .) The passage here alluded to 

may be translated somewhat more literally 

than in the authorized version, thus : "Besides 

from the chiefs or princes appointed by 

Solomon who were over the work, there were 

three thousand and three hundred harodim 

over the people who labored at the work ." 

Harodim, in Hebrew C'1'VI, is a grammatically 

compounded word of the plural 

form, and is composed of the definite article 

1, HAD, the or those, and a participle of 

the verb X11, radah, to rule over, and means, 

therefore, those who rule over, or overseers . 

In the parallel passage of 2 Chronicles ii . 18, 

the word used is Menatzchim, which has a 

similar meaning. But from the use of this 

word Harodim in 1 Kings, and the commentary 

on it by Anderson, it has come to 

pass that Harodim is now technically used 

to signify "Princes in Masonry ." They 

were really overseers of the work, and hence 

the Masonic use of the term is not altogether 

inappropriate . Whoever inspects the two 

parallel passages in 1 Kings v . 16 and 2 Chron . 

ii. 18, will notice an apparent discrepancy . 

In the former it is said that there were three 

thousand and three hundred of these overseers, 

and in the latter the number is increased 

to three thousand and six hundred . 

The commentators have noted but not explained 

the incongruity . Lee, in his Temple 

of Solomon, attempts to solve it by supposing 

that "possibly three hundred at a second 

review might be added to the number of 

officers for the greater care of the business ." 

This is not satisfactory ; not more so is the 

explanation offered by myself, many years 

ago, in the Lexicon of Freemasonry . It is 

much more reasonable to suspect a clerical 

error of some old copyist which has been 

perpetuated . There is room for such an 

inadvertence, for there is no very great 

difference between TAT ' the Hebrew for three, 

and VT, which is six. The omission of the 

central letter would create the mistake . 

Masonic writers have adhered to the three 

thousand and six hundred, which is the 

enumeration in Chronicles. 

[A degree bearing this name was commonly 

conferred by the Lodges in the county of

HARODIM 

HARRIS 319 

Durham, England, during the latter half 

of the eighteenth century, but what its exact 

nature was has now been forgotten .-E . L . H .] 

Harodim, Grand Chapter of . An institution 

under the title of the "Grand Chapter 

of the Ancient and Venerable Order of Harodim" 

was established in London, in the year 

1787, by the celebrated Masonic lecturer, 

William Preston . He thus defines, in his 

Illustrations, its nature and objects : (12th 

ed ., p . 310 .) 

"The mysteries of this Order are peculiar 

to the institution itself ; while the lectures 

of the Chapter include every branch of the 

Masonic system, and represent the art of 

Masonry in a finished and complete form. 

"Different classes are established, and 

particular lectures restricted to each class . 

The lectures are divided into sections, and 

the sections into clauses . The sections are 

annually assigned by the Chief Harod to a 

certain number of skilful Companions in 

each class, who are denominated Sectionists 

; and they are empowered to distribute 

the clauses of their respective sections, with 

the approbation, of the Chief Harod and 

General Director, among the private companions 

of the Chapter, who are denominated 

CLAUSEHO DERS . Such Companions 

as by assiduity become possessed of all the 

sections in the lecture are called Lecturers ; 

and out of these the General Director is always 

chosen . 

"Every Clauseholder, on his appointment, 

is presented with a ticket, signed by the 

Chief Harod, specifying the clause allotted 

to him . This ticket entitles him to enjoy 

the rank and privileges of a Clauseholder 

in the Chapter ; and no Clauseholder can 

transfer his ticket to another Companion, 

unless the consent of the Council has been 

obtained for that purpose, and the General 

Director has approved the Companion to 

whom it is to be transferred as qualified to 

bold it . In case of the death, sickness, or 

non-residence in London of any Lecturer, 

Sectionist, or Clauseholder, another Companion 

is appointed to fill up the vacancy 

for the time being, that the lectures may be 

always complete ; and during the session 

a public lecture is usually delivered at stated 

times . 

"The Grand Chapter is governed by a 

Grand Patron, two Vice Patrons, a chief 

Ruler, and two Assistants, with a Council 

of twelve respectable Companions, who are 

chosen annually at the Chapter nearest to 

the festival of St . John the Evangelist ." 

The whole system was admirably adapted 

to the purposes of Masonic instruction and 

was intended for the propagation of: the 

Prestonian system of lectures, but it no 

longer exists . 

Harodim, Prince of. In the old lectures 

of the Ineffable degrees, it is said that Tito, 

the oldest of the Provosts and Judges, was 

the Prince of Harodim, that is, chief of the 

three hundred architects who were the 

Harodim, or additional three hundred added 

to the thirty-three thousand Menatzchim 

mentioned in Chronicles, and who thus make 

up the number of three thousand six hundred 

recorded in the 1st Book of Kings, and who 

in the old lecture of the degree of Provost 

and Judge are supposed to have been the 

Harodim or Rulers in Masonry . The statement 

is a myth ; but it thus attempts to 

explain the discrepancy alluded to in the 

article Harodim . 

Harpocrates . The Greek god of silence 

and secrecy . He was, however, a divinity 

of the Egyptian mythology ; his true name 

being, according to Bunsen and Lepsius, 

Har-pi-chrati, that is, Horus the child ; and 

he is supposed to have been the son of Osiris 

and Isis . He is represented as a nude figure, 

sitting sometimes on a lotus flower, either 

bareheaded or covered by an Egyptian miter, 

but always with his finger pressed upon his 

lips . Plutarch thinks that this gesture was 

an indication of his childlike and helpless 

nature ; but the Greeks, and after them the 

Romans, supposed it to be a symbol of silence ; 

and hence, while he is sometimes described 

as the god of the renewed year, whence peach 

blossoms were consecrated to him because 

of their early appearance in spring, he is 

more commonly represented as the god of 

silence and secrecy . Thus, Ovid says of 

him : 

"Quique premit vocem digitoque silentia 

suadet." 

He who controls the voice and persuades to 

silence with his finger . 

In this capacity, his statue was often 

placed at the entrance of temples and places 

where the mysteries were celebrated, as an 

indication of the silence and secrecy that 

should there be observed . Hence the finger 

on the lips is a symbol of secrecy, and has 

so been adopted in Masonic symbolism . 

Harris, Thaddeus Mason . The Rev . 

Thaddeus Mason Harris, D .D ., an American 

Masonic writer of some reputation, was 

born in Charlestown, Mass ., July 7, 1767, 

and graduated at Harvard University in 1787 . 

He was ordained as minister of a church 

in Dorchester in 1793, and died at Boston, 

April 3, 1842 . He held at different times 

the offices of Deputy Grand Master, Grand 

Chaplain, and Corresponding Grand Secretary 

of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts . 

"His first great Masonic work, says Huntoon 

(Eulogy), "was the editing of a collation, 

revision, and publication of the `Constitutions 

of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of 

Free and Accepted Masons,' a quarto volume, 

printed at Worcester, Mass ., 1792 ; a work 

which he accomplished with the accustomed 

diligence and fidelity with which he performed 

every enterprise confided to his care . His 

various occasional addresses while Grand 

Chaplain of the Grand Lodge, Masonic 

defences, and his volume of Masonic Discourses, 

published in 1801, constitute a large 

and valuable portion of the Masonic classic 

literature of America ."

320 HARUSPICES 

HEBREW 

Haruspices, Order of. The word Haruspex 

comes from a Sanskrit word "hires," meanmg 

entrails ; therefore implying a soothsayer 

or aruspice . The founder of the Etruscan 

order was Tages, doubtless a myth of selfcreative 

power. This order is claimed to have 

been reestablished in Rome at the time of 

the foundation of the city . It embraced two 

divisions, those who formed their judgment 

from the movements and habits of animals 

as well as the flight of birds, and those who 

judged and foretold events by the inspection 

of the entrails of newly killed animals . 

These were the precursors of naturalists and 

physiologists . 

Hasidim, Sovereign Prince . The Seventy-fifth 

and Seventy-sixth degrees of the Rite 

of Mizraim. It should be Chasidim, which 

see . 

Hat. To uncover the head in the presence 

of superiors has been, among all Christian 

nations, held as a mark of respect and reverence 

. The Eastern nations uncover the feet 

when they enter a place of worship ; the 

Western uncover the head . The converse 

of this is also true ; and to keep the head 

covered while all around are uncovered is a 

token of superiority of rank or office . The king 

remains covered, the courtiers standing around 

him take off their hats . 

Haupt-Hutte. Among the German Stone- 

Masons of the Middle Ages, the original Lodge 

at Strasburg was considered as the head of the 

Craft, under the title of the Haupt-HUtte, or 

Grand Lodge . 

Hautes Grades . French. High Degrees, 

which see . 

Hayti . Freemasonry, which had been in 

existence for several years in the island of 

Hayti, was entirely extinguished by the revolution 

which drove out the white inhabitants . 

In 1809, the Grand Lodge of England granted 

a charter for a Lodge at Port-au-Prince, and 

for one at Cayes. In 1817, it constituted two 

others, at Jeremias and at Jacmel . Subsequently, 

a Provincial Grand Lodge was established 

under obedience to England . January 

25 1824, this Provincial Grand Lodge 

declared its independence and organized the 

Grand Orient of Hayti, which is still in existence. 

Heal. A technical Masonic term which 

signifies to make valid or legal . Hence one 

who has received a degree in an irregular manner 

or from incompetent authority is not recognized 

until he has been healed . The precise 

mode of healing depends on circumstances . 

If the Lodge which conferred the degree was 

clandestine, the whole ceremony of initiation 

would have to be repeated . If the authority 

which conferred the degree was only irregular, 

and the question was merely a technical one 

of legal competence, it has been supposed that 

it was only necessary to exact an obligation 

of allegiance, or in other words to renew the 

covenant . 

Hearing . One of the five senses, and an 

important symbol in Masonry, because it is 

through it that we receive instruction when 

ignorant, admonition when in danger, reproof 

when in error, and the claim of a brother who 

is in distress . Without this sense, the Mason 

would be crippled in the performance of all his 

duties ; and hence deafness is deemed a disqualification 

for initiation . 

Heart . Notwithstanding that all the modern 

American Masonic Manuals and Masters' 

Carpets from the time of Jeremy L . Cross exhibit 

the picture of a heart among the emblems 

of the Third Degree, there is no such 

symbol in the ritual. But the theory that 

every man who becomes a Mason must first 

be prepared in his heart was advanced among 

the earliest lectures of the last century, and 

demonstrates, as Krause properly remarks, in 

Speculative Masonry, an internal principle 

which addresses itself not simply to the outward 

conduct, but to the inner spirit and conscience 

of all men who seek its instructions . 

Heart of Hiram Abif . There is a legend 

in some of the high degrees and in continental 

Masonry that the heart of Hiram Abif was 

deposited in an urn and placed upon a monument 

near the holy of holies; and in some of 

the tracing boards it is represented as a symbol 

. The myth, for such it is, was probably 

derived from the very common custom in the 

Middle Ages of persons causing their bodies 

to be dismembered after death for the pur p ose 

of having parts of them buried in a church, or 

some place which had been dear to them in 

life . Thus Hardynge, in his Metrical Chronicle 

of England, tells us of Richard I . that 

"He queatbed his corpse then to be buried 

At Fount Everard, there at his father's feete ; 

* * * * * * * * * * 

His herte invyncyble to Rome be sent full mete 

For their great truth and stedfast great constance 

." 

The Medieval idea has descended to modern 

times ; for our present lectures say that the 

ashes of Hiram were deposited in an urn . 

Hebrew Chronology . The ecclesiastical 

year commences 1st Nisan March, but the 

civil reckoning begins 1st 'i'ishri, September, 

which is New Year's Day . 

The following dates are accepted by the 

Hebrews, as given by Dr . Zunz in Remarks 

prefacing "The 24 Books of the Holy Scriptures 

according to the Massoretic Text" : 

BEFORE COMMON ERA. 

3988, Creation . 

2332, Flood . 

2040, Abraham born . 

1575, Moses born . 

1495, Exodus . 

1051, David acknowledged king . 

1015, First Temple commenced . 

586, First Temple destroyed . 

536, Cyrus's Decree. 

516, Second Temple completed . 

330, Alexander conquers Palestine . 

The succeeding dates are in accord with the 

research of other authorities .

HEBREW 

HENRIETTA 321 

The Temple was dedicated on five occasions 

: 

1st. B .C . 1004, 15th day of Tishri (Ethanim 

and Abib) (1 Kings viii . 2-62) . 

2d . B .C . 726, when purified from the abominations 

of Ahaz . 

3d . B.C . 516 3d Adar, upon completion of 

Zerubbabel's Temple . 

4th . B .C . 164, 25th Kislev, after the victory 

of Judas Maccabaeus over the Syrians, the 

service lasted eight days . 

5th . B .C . 22, upon completion of Herod's 

Temple . 

The three Temples were destroyed on the 

same day and month of the year . The "threefold 

destruction" of the Temple took place on 

the 9th Ab, or fifth ecclesiastical month . The 

destruction of the Solomonian Temple, by 

Nebuchadnezzar, took place B .c . 588, or four 

hundred and sixteen years after dedication . 

The taking of the city of Jerusalem by Titus 

is commemorated as a fast day on the 17th 

Tamuz . 

Passover, 14th Nisan ; "Little" Passover, 

15th Iyar . 

Pentecost, or "First Fruits," commemorating 

the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, 

6th Sivan . 

Great Day of Atonement, 10th Tishri . 

Feast of Tabernacles, 15-21 Tishri . 

Fast for commencement of siege of Jerusalem 

by Nebuchadnezzar, 10th day of Tebeth . 

Feast of Purim, 14th and 15th Adar . 

King Cyrus liberated the Jews, B .C. 538 . 

King Darius confirmed the decree, B.C . 520. 

(See Cyrus .) 

Hebrew Faith . See Talmud . 

Hecart, Gabriel Antoine Joseph . A 

French Masonic writer, who was born at Valenciennes 

in 1755, and died in 1838 . He made 

a curious collection of degrees, and invented a 

system of five, namely : 1 . Knight of the Prussian 

Eagle ; 2 . Knight of the Comet; 3. The 

Scottish Purifier ; 4 . Victorious Knight ; 5 . 

Scottish Trinitarian or Grand Master Commander 

of the Temple . This cannot be called 

a Rite, because it was never accepted and 

practised by any Masonic authority . It is 

known in nomenclatures as Hecart's system . 

He was the author of many dissertations and 

didactic essays on Masonic subjects . He at 

one time proposed to publish his collection of 

degrees with a full explanation of each, but did 

not carry his design into execution. Many of 

them are cited in this work . 

Height of the Lodge. From the earth to 

the highest heavens . A symbolic expression . 

(See Form of the Lodge .) 

Heldmann, Dr. Friedrich. He was a 

professor of political science in the Academy 

of Bern in Switzerland, and was born at 

Margetshochheim, in Franconia, November 

24, 1770 . He was one of the most profound 

of the German investigators into the history 

and philosophy of Masonry . He was initiated 

into the Order at Freiburg, in 1809, and, devoting 

himself to the study of the works of 

Fessler and other eminent scholars, he resolved 

to establish a system founded on a collation of 

all the rituals, and which should be more in 

accordance with the true design of the Institution 

. For this purpose, in 1816, he organized 

the Lodge zur Brudertreue at Aarau, in 

Switzerland, where he then resided as a professor. 

For the Lodge he prepared a Manual, 

which he proposed to publish . But the Helvetian 

Directory demanded that the manuscript 

should be given to that body for 

inspection and correction, which the Lodge, 

unwilling to submit to such a censorship, refused 

to do . Heldmann, being reluctant to 

involve the Lodge in a controversy with its 

superiors, withdrew from it . He subsequently 

published a valuable work entitled Die drei 

altesten geschichtlichen Denkmale der deutschen 

Freimaurerbruderschaft ; i . e ., The three oldest 

Memorials of the German Masonic Brotherhood, 

which appeared at Aarau in 1819. In 

this work, which is chiefly founded on the 

learned researches of Krause, the Constitutions 

of the Stone-Masons of Strasburg were 

published for the first time. 

Heler, A . A tiler or tegulator . From the 

Anglo-Saxon " helan ." Also written "Hillyar" 

and "Hilliar." 

Helmet . A defensive weapon wherewith 

the head and neck are covered . In heraldry, 

it is a mark of chivalry and nobility . It was, 

of course, a part of the armor of a knight, and 

therefore, whatever may be the head covering 

adopted by modern Knights Templars, it is 

in the ritual called a helmet . 

Helmets, To Deposit . In Templar ritualism, 

to lay aside the covering of the head . 

Helmets, To Recover . In Templar ritualism, 

to resume the covering of the head . 

Help . See Aid and Assistance . 

Hemming, Samuel, D .D . Previous to 

the union of the two Grand Lodges of England 

in 1813, the Prestonian system of lectures was 

practised by the Grand Lodge of Modern 

Masons, while the Atholl Masons recognized 

higher degr ees, and varied somewhat in their 

ritual of the lower . When the union was consummated, 

and the United Grand Lodge of 

England was organized, a compromise was 

effected and Dr. Hemming, who was the 

Senior brand Warden, and had been distinguished 

for his skill as the Master of a Lodge 

and his acquaintance with the ritual, was appointed 

to frame a new system of lectures . 

The Prestonian system was abandoned, and 

the Hemming lectures adopted in its place, 

not without the regret of many distinguished 

Masons, among whom was Dr. Oliver. Among 

the innovations of Dr. Hemming, which are to 

be regretted, are the abolition of the dedication 

to the two Saints John, and the substitution 

for it of a dedication to Solomon . Some other 

changes that were made were certainly no 

improvements . 

Henrietta Maria. The widow of Charles 

I ., of England . It is asserted, by those who support 

the theory that the Master's Degree was 

invented by the adherents of the exiled house 

of Stuart, and that its legend refers to the 

death of Charles I. and the restoration of his

322 HENRY 

HERMES 

son, that in the technical Masonic expression 

of the "widow's son," the allusion is to the 

widow of the decapitated monarch . Those 

who look farther for the foundation of the 

legend give, of course no credence to a statement 

whose plausibility depends only on a 

coincidence. 

Henry VI . King of England from 1422 to 

1461 . This monarch is closely connected 

with the history of Masonry because, in the 

beginning of his reign and during his minority, 

the celebrated "Statute of Laborers," which 

prohibited the congregations of the Masons, 

was passed by an intolerant Parliament, and 

because of the questions said to have been proposed 

to the Masons by the king, and their 

answers, which are contained in what is called 

the "Leland Manuscript," a document which, 

if authentic, is highly important ; but of 

whose authenticity there are as many oppugners 

as there are defenders . 

Heredom . In what are called the "high 

degrees" of the continental Rites, there is 

nothing more puzzling than the etymology of 

this word . We have the Royal Order of Heredom, 

given as the ne plus ultra of Masonry in 

Scotland, and in almost all the Rites the Rose 

Croix of Heredom, but the true meaning of the 

word is apparently unknown . Ragon, in his 

Orthodoxie Mafonnique (p . 91), asserts that it 

has a political signification, and that it was 

invented between the years 1740 and 1745, by 

the adherents of Charles Edward the Pretender, 

at the Court of St . Germain, which was 

the residence, during that period, of the unfortunate 

prince, and that in their letters to 

England, dated from Heredom, they mean to 

denote St . Germain. He supposes it to be 

derived from the Medieval Latin word "hceredum," 

signifying "a heritage," and that it 

alludes to the Castle of St . Germain, the only 

heritage left to the dethroned sovereign . But 

as Ragon's favorite notion was that the 

hautes grades were originally instituted for the 

purpose of aiding the house of Stuart in its 

restoration to the throne, a theory not now 

generally accepted, at least without modification, 

this etymology must be taken with 

some grains of allowance. The suggestion is, 

however, an ingenious one. 

In some of the old manuscripts the word 

Heroden is found as the name of a mountain 

in Scotland ; and we sometimes find in the 

French Cahiers the title of "Rose Croix de 

Heroden ." There is not a very great difference 

in the French pronunciation of Heredom and 

Heroden, and one might be a corruption of the 

other . I was once inclined to this theory ; but 

even if it were the correct one we should gain 

nothing, for the same difficulty would recur 

in tracing the root and meaning of Heroden . 

The most plausible derivation is one given 

in 1858, by a writer in the London Freemasons' 

Magazine. He thinks it should be spelled 

"Heredom," and traces it to the two Greek 

words, Iepbs, hieros holy, and SG,aos, domos, 

house. It would thus refer to Masonry as 

symbolically the Holy House or Temple. In 

this way the title of Rose Croix of Heredom 

would signify the Rosy Cross of the Holy 

House of Masonry. This derivation is now 

very generally recognized as the true one . 

[But according to this view the word should 

be "Hierodom ."-E . L . H.1 

Hermalmes . A corruption of Hermes, 

found in some of the old Constitutions . 

Hermandad, The . (Spanish, "Brotherhood 

.") An association of the principal cities 

of Castile and Aragon bound by a solemn 

league for the defense of their liberties in time 

of trouble. The sovereigns approved this 

brotherhood as agents for suppressing the increasing 

power of the nobles, and without cost 

to the government . The Hermandad was first 

established in Aragon in the thirteenth century, 

and in Castile about thirty years later, 

while, in 1295, thirty-five cities of Castile and 

Leon formed a joint confederacy, pledging 

themselves to take summary vengeance on 

every robber noble who injured a member of 

the association. The Santa, or Holy Brotherhood, 

finally checked so effectually the outrages 

of the nobles, that Isabella of Castile, 

in 1496, obtained the sanction of the Cortez 

to reorganize and extend it over the whole 

kingdom. 

Hermes . In all the old manuscript records 

which contain the Legend of the Craft, 

mention is made of Hermes as one of the 

founders of Masonry. Thus, in the" Grand 

Lodge, No . 1, MS .," whose date is 1583-and 

the statement is substantially and almost verbally 

the same in all the others-that "The 

great Hermarines that was Cubys sonne, the 

which Cubye was Semmes sonne, that was 

Noes sonne. This same Hermarines was 

afterwards called Herpes the father of Wysdome 

; he found one of the two pillars of stone, 

and found the science written therein, and he 

taught it to other men ." 

There are two persons of the name of 

Hermes mentioned in sacred history . The 

first is the divine Hermes, called by the 

Romans Mercury. Among the Egyptians he 

was known as Thoth. Diodorus Siculus describes 

him as the secretary of Osiris ; he is 

commonly supposed to have been the son of 

Mizraim, and Cumberland says that he was 

the same as Osiris . There is, however, much 

confusion among the mythologists concerning 

his attributes . 

The second was Hermes Trismegistus or 

the Thrice Great, who was a celebrated Egyptian 

legislator, priest, and philosopher, who 

lived in the reign of Ninus, about the year of 

the world 2670 . He is said to have written 

thirty-six books on theology and philosophy, 

and six upon medicine, all which are lost . 

There are many traditions of him ; one of 

which, related by Eusebius, is that he introduced 

hieroglyphics into Egypt . This Hermes 

Trismegistus, although the reality of his existence 

is doubtful, was claimed by the alchemists 

as the founder of their art, whence it is 

called the Hermetic science, and whence we 

get in Masonry, Hermetic Rites and Hermetic 

degrees. It is to him that the Legend of the 

Craft refers ; and, indeed, the York Constitu-

HERMETIC 

HEXAGON 323 

tions, which are of importance, though not 

probably of the date of 926, assigned to them 

by Krause, give him that title, and say that he 

brought the custom of making himself understood 

by signs with him to Egypt . In the 

first ages of the Christian church, this mythical 

Egyptian philosopher was in fact considered 

as the inventor of everything known to the 

human intellect . It was fabled that Pythaa 

oras and Plato had derived their knowledge 

from him, and, that he had recorded his inventions 

on pillars . The Operative Masons, 

who wrote the old Constitutions, obtained 

their acquaintance with him from the Polycronycon 

of the monk Ranulf Higden, which 

was translated from the Latin by Trevisa, 

and printed by William Caxton in 1482 . It is 

repeatedly quoted in the Cooke MS ., whose 

probable date is the latter part of the fifteenth 

century, and was undoubtedly familiar to the 

writers of the other Constitutions. 

Hermetic Art. The art or science of Alchemy, 

so termed from Hermes Trismegistus, 

who was looked up to by the alchemists as the 

founder of their art . The Hermetic philosophers 

say that all the sages of antiquity, 

such as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, 

were initiated into the secrets of their 

science ; and that the hieroglyphics of Egypt 

and all the fables of mythology were invented 

to teach the dogmas of Hermetic philosophy . 

(See Alchemy.) 

Hermetic Philosophy . Pertaining or 

belonging to that species of philosophy which 

pretends to solve and explain all the phenomena 

of nature from the three chemical 

principles, salt, sulphur, and mercury . 

Also that study of the sciences as pursued by 

the Rosicrucian fraternity. A practise of 

the arts of alchemy and similar pursuits, 

involving a duplex symbolism with their peculiar 

distinctions . 

Hermetic Rite . A Rite established by 

Pernetty at Avignon, in France, and more 

commonly called the Illuminati of Avignon . 

(See Avignon, Illuminati of .) 

Herodem . See Heredom . 

Herodem, Royal Order of. See Royal 

Order of Scotland . 

Heroden . "Heroden," says a MS . of the 

Ancient Scottish Rite, "is a mountain situated 

in the northwest of Scotland, where the first 

or metropolitan Lodge of Europe was held ." 

The word is not now used by Masonic writers, 

and was, undoubtedly, a corruption of Heredom 

. 

Heroine of Jericho . An androgynous degree 

conferred, in America, on Royal Arch 

Masons, their wives, and daughters . It is 

intended to instruct its female recipients in 

the claims which they have upon the protection 

of their husbands' and fathers' companions, 

and to communicate to them an effectual 

method of proving those claims . An instance 

of friendship extended to the whole family of 

a benefactress by those whom she had benefited, 

and of the influence of a solemn contract 

in averting danger, is referred to in the case 

of Rahab, the woman of Jericho, from whom 

the degree derives its name ; and for this purpose 

the second chapter of the Book of Joshua 

is read to the candidate . When the degree is 

received by a male, he is called a Knight of 

Jericho, and when by a female, she is termed a 

Heroine . It is a side or honorary degree, and 

may be conferred by any Royal Arch Mason 

on a candidate qualified to receive it . 

Herring, James . Born in London, England, 

January 12, 1794 ; died in France, 

October 8, 1867 ; buried in Greenwood 

Cemetery, New York, October 27, 1867 . The 

family emigrated to America in 1805 . James 

was initiated in Solomon's Lode, Somerville, 

N ew Jersey, in 1816 . He was M aster of Clinton 

Lodge, New York City, in 1827, 1828, 

1832, and 1834, a period when the anti- 

Masonic spirit was in its zenith . He, with the 

remaining members of Clinton Lodge, united 

with St . John's, No . 1, and met in union December 

18, 1834 . He instituted the formation 

of the Lodge of Strict Observance, which was 

constituted by Grand Lodge, December 27, 

1843, R . W. Bro . Herring being the Master, 

with which Lodge he remained until his death . 

On September 3, 1828, he was appointed 

Assistant Grand Secretary, and on June 3, 

1829, was elected Grand Secretary, which 

office he retained until 1846 . He sided with 

the "Phillips" or "Herring" Grand Body at 

the split in Grand Lodge on June 5, 1849, and 

remained its Grand Secretary until 1858, 

when, in June, the two Grand Lodges were 

fused . He was a delegate to the Convention 

of Grand Lodges held in Washington March 

7, 1842 . Bro . Herring delivered the oration, 

on August 25, 1847, in St . John's Lodge, in 

commemoration of the M . W . G. Masters, 

Morgan Lewis and Alex . H . Robertson, and 

other eminent Masons, on the occasion of the 

First Lodge of Sorrow held in America in the 

English language . He was exalted in Jerusalem 

Chapter, No. 8, R . Arch, N. Y., January 

5, 1817, dubbed a Knights Templar in 

Columbian Commandery, No . 1, N . Y., and 

was received a Sov. G . I. General, Thirtythird 

Degree Scottish Rite . Bro . Herring was 

a P . H . Priest, P . G . G . Sec . of the G . G . Chapter, 

U. S ., P . G . Master of the G . Encampment, 

N . Y ., and Officer of the G . G . Encampment 

of U . S ., and P. G . Representative of the Orients 

of Brazil and France . 

Hesed . A corruption of Chesed, which see. 

Hesse-Cassel . Freemasonry appears to 

have been founded in this electorate in 1743 ; 

by a Lodge at Marburg, called " Zu den drei 

Lowen," which afterward took the name 

of "Mart Aurel zum flammenden Stern ." 

A Lodge also appears to have existed in 1771, 

at Cassel, called "Zum blauen Lowen ." In 

1817 the Grand Mother Lodge of Hesse-Cassel 

was founded, which lasted until 1821, when 

the government closed all Lodges . In 1849 

one was reopened by General von Helmschwerdt, 

but it was closed in 1855 . It is now 

understood that this Lodge has been reopened . 

Hexagon . A figure of six equal sides constitutes 

a part of the camp in the Scottish 

degree of Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret .

324 HIBBUT 

HIGH 

Stieglitz, in an essay on the symbols of Freemasonry, 

published in 1825, in the Altenburg 

Zeitschrift, says that the hexagon, formed 

by six triangles, whose apices converge to a 

point, making the following figure, 

r 

is a symbol of the universal creation, the six 

points crossing the central point ; thus assimilating 

the hexagon to the older symbol of the 

point within a circle . 

Hibbut-Hakkeber. (Beating of the sepulcher 

.) A Mohammedan belief as to the state 

of the soul after death. The form and mode 

of judgment is explained in Al Koran . The 

sarcophagus of an orthodox Moslem is so constructed 

that the deceased can sit upright 

when notified by his angel of the approach 

of the examiners, who question him as to 

his faith in the unity of God and the mission 

of Mohammed . Satisfactory answers insure 

peace ; but if to the contrary, he is beaten on 

the temples with iron maces until he roars 

with anguish . The two angels, Monker and 

Nakfl, then press the earth upon the body, 

which is gnawed and stung by ninety-nine 

seven-headed dragons until the day of resurrection 

. As the Mohammedan was an imitative 

religion, we naturally look for the origin 

of its customs and beliefs in older faiths ; thus 

the Hibbut-Hakkeber is found in the Jewish, 

which taught that the angel of death would 

sit on a new-made grave, the soul would return 

to the body, which would stand up, the 

angel striking it thrice with a chain, half iron 

and half fire ; at the first blow all the limbs 

were loosened, at the second the bones were 

dispersed, but gathered again by angels, and 

the third stroke reduces it to dust . This need 

not occur to those who died on the Sabbath 

or in the land of Israel . (See Gilgul.) 

Hieroglyphics. From two Greek words 

which signify the engraving of sacred things . 

Hieroglyphics are properly the expressions of 

ideas by representations of visible objects, 

and the word is more peculiarly applied to 

that species of picture-writing which was in 

use among the ancient Egyptians, whose 

priests by this means concealed from the profane 

that knowledge which they communicated 

only to their initiates . Browne says 

(Master Key, p . 87), "The wages amongst 

Masons have ever corresponded with those 

of the ancientEgyptians . Their Philosophers, 

unwilling to expose their Mysteries to vulgar 

Curiosity, couched the Principles of their 

Learning and Philosophy under Hieroglyphical 

Figures and Allegorical Emblems, and expressed 

their notions of Government by Signs 

and Symbols, which they communicated to 

the Magi, or wise Men only, who were solemnly 

obligated never to reveal them ." 

Hierogrammatists . The title of those 

priests in the Egyptian mysteries to whom 

were confided the keeping of the sacred records 

. Their duty was also to instruct the 

neophytes in the ritual of initiation, and to 

secure its accurate observance . 

Hieronymites . A hermit order established 

in the fourteenth century, formed 

from the third Order of St . Francis . Followers 

of Thomas of Siena, who established 

themselves among the wild districts of the 

Sierra Morena, and so forming a community, 

obtained approval of Pope Gregory XI. in 

1374. 

Hierophant. From the Greek, iepo*dvrgr, 

which signifies one who explains the sacred 

things . The Hierophant was, in the Ancient 

Mysteries, what the Master is in a Masonic 

Lodge-he who instructed the neophyte in 

the doctrines which it was the object of the 

mysteries to inculcate . 

Hierophant or Mystagog. The Chief 

Priest of the Eleusinians, selected from the 

grade of Eumolpidens . He was selected for 

his imposing personal presence, and his 

dignity was sustained by the grandeur of 

his attire, his head encircled with a costly 

diadem. He was required to be perfect in 

animal structure, without blemish, and in the 

vigor of life, with a commanding voice . He 

was presumed to be surrounded by a halo 

of holiness. His duty was to maintain and 

also expound the laws . He was the introductor 

of the novices into the Eleusinian 

Temple, and passed them from the lesser 

into the greater mysteries, where he became 

the Demiurg, and impressed the initiate 

while instructing him by his manner and 

voice . His title of Nystagog was awarded 

because he alone revealed the secret or 

mystery . 

Hierophylax. Title of the guardian of 

the holy vessels and vestments, as used in 

several Rites . 

High Degrees . Not long after the introduction 

of Freemasonry on the Continent, 

in the beginning of the eighteenth century, 

three new degrees were invented and named, 

Ecossais, Novice, and Knights Templar . 

These gave the impulse to the invention of 

many other degrees all above the Master's 

Degree. To these the name of hautes grades 

or high degrees was given . Their number 

is very great. Many of them now remain 

only in the catalogues of Masonic collectors, 

or are known merely by their titles ; while 

others still exist, and constitute the body 

of the different Rites. The word is not 

properly applicable to the Royal Arch or 

degrees of the English and American systems, 

which are intimately connected with the 

Master's Degree, but is confined to the 

additions made to Ancient Craft Masonry 

by continental ritualists. These degrees 

have, from time to time, met with great 

opposition as innovations on Ancient Masonry, 

and some of the Grand Lodges have

HIGHEST 

HIGH 325 

not only rejected them, but forbidden their 

cultivation by those who are under their 

obedience. But, on the other hand, they 

have been strenuously supported by many 

who have believed the Ancient Craft degrees 

do not afford a sufficient field for the expansion 

of Masonic thought . A writer in 

the London Freemasons' Magazine (1858, 

i ., 1167) has expressed the true theory on 

this subject in the following language : 

"It is the necessary consequence of an 

exclusive addiction to Craft Masonry that 

the intellectual and artistic development 

of the minds of the members must suffer, 

the ritual sink to formalism, and the administration 

fall into the hands of the lower 

members of the Order, by a diminution in 

the initiations of men of high intellectual 

calibre, and by the inactivity, or practical 

secession, of those within the Order . The 

suppression of the higher degrees, that is, 

of the higher Masonry, may be agreeable to 

those who are content to possess the administrative 

functions of the Order without genuine 

qualifications for their exercise, but it 

is a policy most fatal to the true progress 

of the Order . When Masonry has so fallen, 

to restore the higher degrees to their full 

activity is the measure essential for restoring 

the efficacy of Masonry within and 

without. Thus, in the last century, when 

Craft Masonry had spread rapidly over the 

whole of Europe, a reaction set in, till the 

heads of the Order brought the high degrees 

into vigor, and they continued to exercise 

the most powerful influence ." 

Highest of Hills. In the Old York 

Lectures was the following passage : "Before 

we had the convenience of such wellformed 

Lodges, the Brethren used to meet 

on the highest of hills and in the lowest of 

valleys . And if they were asked why they 

met so high, so low, and so very secret, 

they replied-the better to see and observe 

all that might ascend or descend ; and in 

case a cowan should appear, the Tiler might 

give timely notice to the Worshipful Master, 

by which means the Lodge might be 

closed, the jewels put by, thereby preventing 

any unlawful intrusion ." Commenting 

on this, Dr . Oliver (Landm ., i., 319) says : 

" Amongst other observances which were 

common to both the true and spurious 

Freemasonry, we find the practice of performing 

commemorative rites on the highest 

of hills and in the lowest of valleys . This 

practice was in high esteem amongst all the 

inhabitants of the ancient world, from a 

fixed persuasion that the summit of mountains 

made a nearer approach to the celestial 

deities, and the valley or holy cavern 

to the infernal and submarine gods than 

the level country ; and that, therefore, the 

prayers of mortals were more likely to be 

heard in such situations." Hutchinson also 

says : "The highest hills and the lowest 

valleys were from the earliest times esteemed 

sacred, and it was supposed that the Spirit 

of God was peculiarly diffusive in those 

places." The sentiment was expressed in 

the language of the earliest lectures of the 

eighteenth century, and is still retained, 

without change of words, in the lectures 

of the present day . But introduced, at 

first, undoubtedly with special reference 

to the ancient worship on "high places," 

and the celebration of the mysteries in the 

caverns of initiation, it is now retained 

for the purpose of giving warning and instruction 

as to the necessity of security and 

secrecy in the performance of our mystical 

rites, and this is the reason assigned in 

the modern lectures . And, indeed, the 

notion of thus expressing the necessity of 

secrecy seems to have been early adopted, 

while that of the sacredness of these places 

was beginning to be lost sight of ; for in a 

lecture of the middle of the last century, 

or perhaps earlier, it was said that "the 

Lodge stands upon holy ground, or the 

highest hill or lowest vale, or in the Vale 

of Jehosophat, or any other secret place ." 

The sacredness of the spot is, it is true, 

here adverted to, but there is an emphasis 

given to its secrecy . 

This custom of meeting on the "highest 

hills and in the lowest valleys" seems to have 

prevailed at Aberdeen, Scotland, for they 

say : "We ordain that no Lodge beholden 

within a dwelling-house where there is people 

living in it, but in the open fields, except 

it be ill weather, and then let a house be 

chosen that no person shall heir or sie us ." 

Also, "We ordain lykewayes that all entering 

prentieses be entered in our ancient outfield 

Lodge in the mearnes in the Parish of 

Negg, at the Stonnies at the poynt of the 

Ness." [E . E . C .] 

High Grades. Sometimes used for High 

Degrees, which see . 

High Priest . The presiding officer of 

a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons according 

to the American system . His title is "Most 

Excellent," and he represents Joshua, or 

Jeshua, who was the son of Josedech, and 

the High Priest of the Jews when they returned 

from the Babylonian exile. He is 

seated in the east, and clothed in the apparel 

of the ancient High Priest of the Jews. He 

wears a robe of blue, purple, scarlet, and 

white linen, and is decorated with a breastplate 

and miter . On the front of the miter 

is inscribed the words, "HOLINESS TO THE 

LORD ." His jewel is a miter . 

High Priesthood, Order of. This order 

is an honorarium, to be bestowed upon 

the High Priest of a Royal Arch Chapter 

in the United States, and consequently no 

one is legally entitled to receive it until he 

has been duly elected to preside as High 

Priest in a regular Chapter of Royal Arch 

Masons. It should not be conferred when a 

less number than three duly qualified High 

Priests are present . Whenever the ceremony 

is performed in ample form, the assistance 

of at least nine High Priests, who 

have received it, is requisite . The General 

Grand Chapter of the United States has

326 HIGH 

HIGH 

decided that although it is highly expedient 

that every High Priest should receive 

the order, yet its possession is not essentially 

necessary as a qualification for the discharge 

of his official duties . 

REVERSE. 

OBVERSE . 

The jewel of the degree consists of a plate 

of gold in the form of a triple triangle, a 

breastplate being placed over the point of 

union . In front, the face of each triangle 

is inscribed with the Tetragrammaton, 

rflrr ; on the other side, the upper triangle 

has the following mystical notation, 

o ~ 0 ; the two lower triangles have 

the Hebrew letters t and 7 inserted upon 

them . Each side of each triangle should 

be one inch in length, and may be ornamented 

at the fancy of the wearer. The 

breastplate may be plainly engraved or set 

with stones . It was adopted in 1856, on the 

suggestion of the author of this work, at a 

very general but informal meeting of Grand 

and Past Grand High Priests during the 

session of the General Grand Chapter held 

at Hartford, Conn . It is now in general use . 

It is impossible, from the want of authentic 

documents, to throw much light 

upon the historical origin of this degree . 

No allusion to it can be found in any ritual 

works out of America, nor even here anterior 

to about the end of the last and beginning 

of this century . Webb is the first 

who mentions it, and gives it a place in the 

series of capitular degrees . The question 

has, however, been exhaustively examined 

by Bro . William Hacker, Past Grand 

High Priest of Indiana, who has paid much 

attention to the subject of American Masonic 

archeology . In a letter to the author in August, 

1873, he sought to investigate the 

origin of this Order, and I gladly avail myself 

of the result of his inquiries . 

Thomas Smith Webb," Says Bro. 

Hacker, "in the first edition of his Monitor, 

published in 1797, makes no mention of it . 

But in the second edition, published in 

1802, he gives a monitorial ritual for the 

Order ; or, as he terms it, Observations on 

the Order of , High Priests . 

"Now, I infer, as we find no mention 

of the Order in the edition of 1797, and a 

monitorial ritual appearing in the edition 

of 1802, that at some time between those 

dates we must look for the true origin of 

the Order . 

"Turning then to the proceedings of the 

General Grand Chapter of the United States, 

we find that at the Communication held in 

the city of Providence in the State of Rhode 

Island, on the 9th clay of January, 1799, 

Benjamin Hurd, Jr ., Thomas S . Webb, 

and James Harrison were appointed ` a committee 

to revise the Constitution, and report 

such alterations and amendments thereto 

as they shall find necessary to be made .' 

" The next day, January 10, 1799, Webb 

as chairman of the committee, submitted 

their report which was adopted as reported . 

In Article N . of that Constitution, we find 

the forms for constituting new Chapters 

and installing High Priests fully laid down 

and provided for . In those forms, after 

certain ceremonies had been gone through 

with, Àll the Companions, except High 

Priests and Past High Priests, are requested 

to withdraw, while the new High Priest is 

solemnly bound to the performance of his 

duties ; and after the performance of other 

necessary ceremonies, not proper to be 

written, they are permitted to return .' 

"Now, right here the question naturally 

arises, What were those òther necessary 

ceremonies not proper to be written'? A 

few lines farther on we find this language 

laid down : Ìn consequence of your cheerful 

acquiescence with the charges and regulations 

just recited, I now declare you duly 

installed and anointed High Priest of this 

new Chapter.' Now do not the words 

ànd anointed,' as here used, fully answer 

the question as to what those òther necessary 

ceremonies' were? It seems so to me . 

"Upon this theory, then, we have Thomas 

Smith Webb and his associates on the committee, 

Benjamin Hurd, Jr., and James 

Harrison, as the authors of the Order . It 

was adopted by the General Grand Chapter 

on the 10th day of January, 1799, when it 

became a part of the constitutional requirements 

of Royal Arch Masonry so far 

at least as the authority of 'Genera the l 

Grand chapter extended . 

"Following this matter out, we find that 

this provision of the Constitution was retained 

until the Triennial Communication 

held in the city of Lexington, Kentucky, 

on the 19th day of September, 1853 when, 

on motion of Companion Gould, the section 

was repealed ; thus leaving the Order 

of High Priesthood the exclusive property 

of those who were in possession of it . 

"Where these Excellent Companions got

HIGH 

HIGH 327 

the original thought or germ out of which 

the Order was formed will have, perhaps, to 

be left to conjecture ; yet even here I think 

we may find some data upon which to found 

a conclusion . 

"In setting about the formation of an 

order suitable for the office of High Priest, 

what could be more natural or appropriate 

than to take the scriptural history of the 

meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek, 

Priest of the Most High God ; the circumstances 

which brought that meeting about ; 

the bringing forth the bread and wine ; the 

blessing, etc . ; and the anointing of Aaron 

and his sons to the Priesthood under the 

Mosaic dispensations . It does seem to me 

that these would be the most natural sources 

for any one to go to for facts and circumstances 

to work into an order of this kind . 

"We can illustrate this point farther by 

reference to a note found in an old ritual 

of the `Mediterranean Pass,' as then-and 

perhaps it may be so now-conferred under 

the Grand Priory of England and Wales, preparatory 

to the Order of Malta . That note 

read as follows : 

" Ìn some Priories the candidate partakes 

of bread from the point of a sword, and 

wine from a chalice placed upon the blade, 

banded to him by the Prelate .' 

"Again, in an old manuscript of the ritual 

of the Royal Grand Conclave of Scotland, 

now also lying before me, I find similar 

language used in the ritual of the Templars' 

Order . How well the thoughts contained 

in these extracts have been worked into the 

Order of High Priest, every well-informed 

High Priest must very well understand . 

"But the question now comes up : were 

Webb and his associates in possession of 

these rituals at the time they originated the 

Order of High Priesthood? I think they 

were, and for these reasons : In these rituals 

to which I have referred I find these exressions 

used : `That I will not shed the 

Mood of a K . T . unlawfully ;' `the skull to 

be laid open, and all the brains to be exposed 

to the scorching rays of the sun ;' with several 

other familiar expressions, which every 

Royal Arch Mason will readily recognize 

as appropriately wrought into Webb's Royal 

Arch Degree. 

"From the foregoing facts, as well as 

others not stated, I infer that Thomas 

Smith Webb with his co-advisers, Benjamin 

Hurd, Yr ., and James Harrison, were 

the true authors of the Order ; that it dates 

from the 10th day of January, 1799, at 

which time it was adopted by the General 

Grand Chapter, and became a part of the 

constitutional regulations and requirements 

of Royal Arch Masonry so far as the authority 

of the General Grand Chapter extended, 

and that it continued as such until 

the 19th day of September, 1853, when it 

was repealed, as before stated . 

"A thought or two further, and I will 

have done . Webb, in arranging the Order, 

evidently intended that it should be con- 

ferred as a part of the installation ceremonies 

of a High Priest ; and whether he ever conferred 

it at any other time or in any other 

manner I have been unable to learn, as I 

have never met with any one who claimed 

to have received the Order from him . At 

what time and by whom it was first conferred 

as a separate ceremonial is equally unknown 

to me. All I have yet been able to find 

upon this point is in Cross's Chart, where, 

in the edition of 1826, and it may also be 

in the earlier editions, I find it arranged as 

a separate ceremonial, and disconnected with 

the ceremonies of installation . 

"The earliest authentic record of the organization 

of a Council of High Priests I 

have yet found is in the proceedings of the 

Grand Chapter of Ohio in 1828, where it 

appears that a Council was duly formed, 

rules adopted for its government, and a full 

list of officers elected, with Companion 

John Snow as President . 

"It is more than probable that the Order 

has always been conferred, west of the 

mountains, as a separate ceremonial, and 

never as a part of the installation ceremonies . 

It is well known that John Snow, who no 

doubt brought it with him when he came to 

the West, always so conferred it, and not 

then until the applicant had been regularly 

elected and installed as High Priest of his 

Chapter. I have also met with those who 

claimed to have received it from the celebrated 

Lorenzo Dow, of whom it is further 

alleged that he always required an election 

and installation as a prerequisite to the Order . 

With these facts before us, and I have no 

doubt of the truth of every word of them, 

I would ask of those who have attempted 

to heap such obloquy and derision upon the 

Order, as Dr. Mitchell and others who have 

followed him, to point us to any other single 

order or degree of Masonry that can be traced 

so successfully to the source from whence it 

came ; that has in it more of the elements 

of sublimity and impressiveness, and that is 

more scripturally and Masonically appropriate 

for that for which it was intended, than has 

this much-maligned Order of High Priesthood 

; remembering also that it was established 

upon the constitutional authority of 

the General Grand Chapter of the United 

States, which is, and ever has been, the 

highest authority in Royal Arch Masonry 

in the United States . And again, among 

the names of those zealous companions who 

participated in its adoption stands that 

of the Honorable De Witt Clinton, for 

so many years the zealous and efficient 

General Grand High Priest . Then I say, 

when we take all these facts together, as 

they stand recorded before us, I think the 

question as to the origin and authenticity 

may be considered as fully settled ." 

High Priest of the Jews . The important 

office of the High Priesthood was 

instituted by Moses after the completion of 

the directions for erecting the tabernacle, 

and was restricted to Aaron and his de-

328 HIGH 

HINDUSTAN 

scendants, and was so confined until the 

time of the Asmonean dynasty, when it 

passed into the family of Judas Maccabmus . 

The High Priest was at the head not only 

of ecclesiastical but of civil affairs, presiding 

in the Sanhedrim and judging the people . 

He superintended the Temple, directing the 

mode of worship, and preserving the building 

from profanation . He was inducted into 

his office by anointment and sacrifices, and 

was invested with a peculiar dress . This 

dress, as the Rabbis describe it, consisted 

of eight parts, namely, the breastplate, the 

ephod, with its curious girdle, the robe 

of the ephod, the miter, the broidered coat, 

and the girdle . The materials of which 

these were composed were gold, blue, red, 

purple, and fine white linen . As these garments 

are to a certain extent represented 

in the vestment of a High Priest of a Royal 

Arch Chapter, a brief description of them 

may be expedient : 

The High Priest was first clothed in a 

pair of linen drawers . Over this was a coat 

or shirt of fine linen reaching to his feet, 

and with sleeves extending to his wrists . 

Over this again was a robe of blue, called 

the coat of ephod . It was without sleeves, 

but consisted of two pieces, one before and 

another behind, having a large opening in 

the top for the passage of the head, and another 

on each side to admit the arms . It 

extended only to the middle of the legs, 

and its skirt was adorned with little golden 

bells and pomegranates . Above all these 

vestments was placed the ephod, which has 

already been described as a short garment 

coming down only to the breast before, but 

somewhat longer behind, without sleeves, 

and artificially wrought with gold, and blue, 

and purple, and scarlet, in embroidery of 

various figures . It was looped on the shoulders 

with two onyx stones, on each of 

which was inscribed the names of six of the 

tribes. On the front of the ephod he wore 

the breastplate ; at solemn ministrations a 

miter of fine linen of a blue color. This was 

wrapped in several folds, and worn about 

his head in the manner of a Turkish turban, 

except that it was without a crown, being 

open on top, and sitting on his head like a 

garland . In front of it there hung down 

upon his forehead a square plate of gold, 

called the plate of the golden crown, upon 

which were inscribed the words HOLINESS 

TO THE LORD, which were engraved in the 

ancient Hebrew or Samaritan characters. 

The vestments of a High Priest of a Royal 

Arch Chapter are intended to representthough 

the representation is imperfectthe 

gorgeous apparel of the Jewish Pontiff . 

They are a miter, breastplate, and a robe of 

four colors . To these the Masonic ritualists 

have ascribed a symbolic signification . 

The miter teaches the High Priest the 

dignity of his office ; the breastplate, his 

responsibility to the laws and ordinances 

of the Institution and that the honor and 

interest of the C=hapter should be always 

near his heart ; and the robe, the different 

graces and virtues which are symbolized 

by the various colors of which it is composed . 

High Twelve . The hour of noon or 

twelve o'clock in the day, when the sun is 

high in the heavens, in contradistinction 

to low twelve, or midnight, when the sun is 

low down beneath the earth . The expression 

is always used, in Masonic language, to 

indicate the hour of noon, at which time, 

as the tradition tells us, the Craft in the 

Temple were called from labor to refreshment. 

The phrase was used in the earliest 

rituals of the last century . The answer in 

the old catechisms to the question, "What's 

a clock?" was always, "High Twelve ." 

Hindustan, Mysteries of . Of all the 

ethnic religions, that of Hindustan is admitted 

to be the oldest, for its Vedas or sacred books 

claim an antiquity of nearly forty centuries . 

However Brahmanism may have been corrupted 

in more modern times, in its earliest 

state it consisted of a series of doctrines which 

embraced a belief in a Supreme Being and in 

the immortality of the soul . All primitive 

religions were more or less mystical, and that 

of India formed no exception to the - rule. 

Oliver, . in his History of Initiation, has given 

a very succinct account of the Brahmanical 

mysteries, collected from the most authentic 

sources, such as Maurice, Colebrook, 

Jones, and Faber . His description refers 

almost exclusively to the reception and 

advancement of a Brahman in his sacred 

profession ; for the initiations of India, like 

those of Egypt, were confined to the priesthood 

. All Brahmans, it is true, do not 

necessarily belong to the sacerdotal order, 

but every Brahman who has been initiated, 

and thus been made acquainted with the 

formulas of worship, may at any time become 

an officiating priest . The ceremonies 

of initiation, as they have been described 

by Oliver, were celebrated in spacious caverns, 

the principal of which were Elephanta 

and Salsette, both situated near Bombay . 

The mysteries were divided into four degrees, 

and the candidate was permitted to perform 

the probation of the first at the early age 

of eight years . It consisted simply in the 

investiture with the linen garment and Zennar 

or sacred cord ; of sacrifices accompanied by 

ablutions ; and of an explanatory lecture. 

The aspirant was now delivered into the care 

of a Brahman, who thenceforth became his 

spiritual guide, and prepared him by repeated 

instructions and a life of austerity 

for admission into the second degree . To 

this, if found qualified, he was admitted at 

the requisite age . The probationary ceremonies 

of this degree consisted in an incessant 

occupation in prayers, fastings, ablutions, 

and the study of astronomy . Having 

undergone these austerities for a sufficient 

period, he was led at night to the gloomy 

caverns of initiation, which had been duly 

prepared for his reception . 

The interior of this cavern was brilliantly 

illuminated, and there sat the three chief

19INDUSTAN 

HIRAM 329 

hierophants, in the east, west, and south, 

representing the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and 

Siva, surrounded by the attendant mystagogues, 

dressed in appropriate vestments . 

After an invocation to the sun, the aspirant 

was called upon to promise that he 

would be obedient to his superiors, keep 

his body pure, and preserve inviolable 

secrecy on the subject of the mysteries . He 

was then sprinkled with water, an invocation 

of the Deity was whispered in his ear ; 

he was divested of his shoes, and made to 

circumambulate the cavern three times, in 

imitation of the course of the sun, whose 

rising was personated by the hierophant 

representing Brahma, stationed in the east, 

whose meridian height by the representative 

of Siva in the south, and whose setting by 

the representative of Vishnu in the west . He 

was then conducted through seven ranges 

of dark and gloomy caverns, during which 

period the wailing of Mahadeva for the loss 

of Siva was represented by dismal howlings . 

The usual paraphernalia of flashes of light, of 

dismal sounds and horrid phantoms, was 

practised to intimidate or confuse the aspirant 

. After the performance of a variety 

of other ceremonies, many of which we can 

only conjecture, the candidate reached the 

extremity of the seven caverns ; he was now 

prepared for enlightenment by requisite instruction 

and the administration of a solemn 

oath . 

This part of the ceremonies being concluded, 

the sacred conch was blown, the 

folding-doors were suddenly thrown open, 

and the aspirant was admitted into a spacious 

apartment filled with dazzling light, 

ornamented with statues and emblematical 

figures, richly decorated with gems, and 

scented with the most fragrant perfumes . 

This was a representation of Paradise . 

The candidate was now supposed to be 

regenerated, and he was invested by the 

chief Brahman with the white robe and 

tiara ; a cross was marked upon his forehead, 

and a tau upon his breast, and he 

was instructed in the signs, tokens, and 

lectures of the Order . He was presented 

with the sacred belt, the magical black 

stone, the talismanic jewel to be worn upon 

his breast, and the serpent stone, which, as 

its name imported, was an antidote against 

the bite of serpents . And, lastly, he was 

entrusted with the sacred name, known 

only to the initiated . This ineffable name 

was AUM, which, in its triliteral form, was 

significant of the creative, preservative, and 

destroying power, that is, of Brahma, Vishnu, 

and Siva . It could not be pronounced, but 

was to be the subject of incessant silent contemplation 

. The symbols and the aporrheta, 

or secret things of the mysteries, were now 

explained . 

Here ended the Second Degree . The 

Third took place when the candidate had 

grown old, and his children had all been 

provided for . This consisted in a total 

exclusion in the forest, where, as an anchorite, 

he occupied himself in ablutions, prayers, 

and sacrifices. 

In the Fourth Degree he underwent still 

greater austerities, the object of which was to 

impart to the happy sage who observed them 

a portion of the Divine nature, and to secure 

him a residence among the immortal gods . 

The object of the Indian mysteries appears, 

says Oliver, to have been to teach the unity of 

God and the necessity of virtue . The happiness 

of our first parents, the subsequent depravity 

of the human race, and the universal 

deluge were described in a manner which 

showed that their knowledge must have been 

derived from an authentic source . 

Hinnom . A deep valley south of Mt . 

Moriah, known as Gehenna ; in which carrion 

was cast as food for vultures . The holy valley 

of judgment, Jehoshaphat, has been improperly 

substituted for Hinnom . 

Hiram. The gavel, when wielded by the 

Master of the Lodge, is sometimes called the 

Hiram, because as the workmen at the Temple 

were controlled and directed by Hiram, 

the chief builder, so the Master preserves 

order in the Lodge by the proper use of the 

gavel. 

Hiram or Huram. In Hebrew, t or 

=Vi, meaning noble-born. The more correct 

pronunciation, according to the true value of 

the Hebrew letters, is Khuram or Khurum; 

but universal Masonic usage renders it now 

impossible, or, at least, inexpedient, to make 

the change . The name of the King of Tyre is 

spelled Hiram everywhere in Scripture except 

in 1 Chronicles xiv . 1, where it occurs as 

Huram. In 1 Chron . xiv . 1, the original 

Hebrew text has Hiram, but the Masorites 

in the margin direct it to be read Huram . In 

our authorized version, the name is spelled 

Hiram, which is also the form used in the Vulgate 

and in the Targums ; the Septuagint has 

Xezpdµ, or Cheiram . 

Hiram Abif . There is no character in the 

annals of Freemasonry whose life is so dependent 

on tradition as the celebrated architect 

of King Solomon's Temple . Profane history 

is entirely silent in respect to his career, 

and the sacred records supply us with only 

very unimportant items . To fill up the space 

between his life and his death, we are necessarily 

compelled to resort to those oral legends 

which have been handed down from the ancient 

Masons to their successors . Yet, looking 

to their character, I should be unwilling to 

vouch for the authenticit of all ; most of 

them were probably at first symbolical in 

their character ; the symbol in the lapse of 

time having been converted into a myth, and 

the myth, by constant repetition, having assumed 

the formal appearance of a truthful 

narrative . Such has been the case in the history 

of all nations . But whatever may have 

been their true character, to the Mason, at 

least, they are interesting, and cannot be altogether 

void of instruction . 

When King Solomon was about to build a 

temple to Jehovah, the difficulty of obtaining 

skilful workmen to superintend and to exe-

330 HIRAM 

HIRAM 

cute the architectural part of the undertaking 

was such ; that he found it necessary to request 

of his friend and ally, Hiram, King of 

Tyre, the use of some of his most able builders 

; for the Tyrians and Sidonians were celebrated 

artists, and at that time were admitted 

to be the best mechanics in the world . 

Hiram willingly complied with his request, 

and despatched to his assistance an abundance 

of men and materials, to be employed in 

the construction of the Temple, and among 

the former, a distinguished artist, to whom 

was given the superintendence of all the workmen, 

both Jews and Tyrians, and who was in 

possession of all the skill and learning that 

were required to carry out, in the most efficient 

manner, all the plans and designs of 

the King of Israel . 

Of this artist whom Freemasons recognize 

sometimes as Iiiram the Builder, sometimes 

as the Widow's Son, but more commonly as 

Hiram Abif, the earliest account is found in 

the 1st Book of Kings (vii . 13, 14), where the 

passage reads as follows : 

"And King Solomon sent and fetched 

Hiram out of Tyre. He was a widow's son 

of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a 

man of Tyre, a worker in brass, and he was 

filled with wisdom and understanding, and 

cunning to work all works in brass . And he 

came to King Solomon and wrought all his 

work ." 

He is next mentioned in the 2d Book of 

Chronicles (ch . ii . 13, 14), in the following 

letter from Hiram of Tyre to King Solomon . 

" And now I have sent a cunning man, 

endued with understanding, of Huram my 

father's. The son of a woman of the daughters 

of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, 

skilful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, 

in iron, in stone and in timber, in purple, in 

blue and in fine linen and in crimson ; also to 

grave any manner of graving, and to find out 

every device which shall be put to him, with 

thy cunning men, and with the cunning men 

o 

f my lord David, thy'father ." 

In reading these two descriptions, everyone 

will be at once struck with an apparent contradiction 

in them in relation to the parentage 

of their subject . There is no doubt-for in 

this both passages agree that his father was a 

man of Tyre ; but the discrepancy is in reference 

to the birthplace of his mother, who in 

one passage is said to have been "of the tribe 

of Naphtali," and in the other, "of the daughters 

of Dan." Commentators have, however, 

met with no difficulty in reconciling the contradiction, 

and the suggestion of Bishop Patrick 

is now generally adopted on this subject . 

He supposes that she herself was of the tribe 

of Dan, but that her first husband was of the 

tribe of Naphtali, by whom she had this son ; 

and that when she was a widow, she married 

a man of Tyre, who is called Hiram's father 

because he bred him up and was the husband 

of his mother . 

Hiram Abif undoubtedly derived much of 

his knowledge in mechanical arts from that 

man of Tyre who had married his mother, 

and we may justly conclude that he increased 

that knowledge by assiduous study and constant 

intercourse with the artisans of Tyre, 

who were greatly distinguished for their- attainments 

in architecture . Tyre was one of 

the principal seats of the Dionysiac fraternity 

of artificers, a society engaged exclusively in 

the construction of edifices, and living under a 

secret organization, which was subsequently 

imitated by the Operative Freemasons . Of 

this association, it is not unreasonable to suppose 

that Hiram Abif was a member, and that 

on arriving at Jerusalem he introduced among 

the Jewish workmen the same exact system 

of discipline which he had found of so much 

advantage in the Dionysiac associations at 

home, and thus gave, under the sanction of 

King Solomon, a peculiar organization to the 

Masons who were engaged in building the 

Temple . 

Upon the arrival of this celebrated artist 

at Jerusalem, which was in the year n .c . 

1012, he was at once received into the intimate 

confidence of Solomon, and entrusted with 

the superintendence of all the workmen, both 

Tyrians and Jews, who were engaged in the 

construction of the building . He received the 

title of "Principal Conductor of the Works," 

an office which, previous to his arrival, had 

been filled by Adoniram, and, according to 

Masonic tradition, formed with Solomon and 

King Hiram of Tyre, his ancient patron, the 

Supreme Council of Grand Masters, in which 

everything was determined in relation to the 

construction of the edifice and the government 

of the workmen . 

The Book of Constitutions, as it was edited 

by Entick (ed . 1756, p . 19), speaks of him in 

the following language : "This inspired master 

was, without question, the most cunning, skilful, 

and curious workman that ever lived ; 

whose abilities were not confined to building 

only, but extended to all kinds of work, 

whether in gold, silver, brass or iron ; whether 

in linen, tapestry or embroidery ; whether 

considered as architect, statuary, founder or 

designer, separately or together, he equally 

excelled . From his designs and under his direction, 

all the rich and splendid furniture of 

the Temple and its several appendages were 

begun, carried on, and finished . Solomon appointed 

him, in his absence, to fill the Chair 

as Deputy Grand Master, and in his presence, 

Senior Grand Warden, Master of Work, 

and general overseer of all artists, as well those 

whom David had formerly procured from 

Tyre and Sidon, as those Hiram should now 

send ." 

This statement requires some correction . 

According to the most consistent systems 

and the general course of the traditions, there 

were three Grand Masters at the building of 

the Temple, of whom Hiram Abif was one, 

and hence in our Lodges he always receives 

the title of a Grand Master . We may, however, 

reconcile the assertion of Anderson, that 

he was sometimes a Deputy Grand Master, 

and sometimes a Senior Grand Warden, by 

supposing that the three Grand Masters were,

ITALY 

JACOBINS 359 

were established under his auspices . In 1738, 

Pope Clement XIV . issued his bull forbidding 

all congregations of Freemasons, which was 

followed in January, 1739, by the edict of 

Cardinal Firrao, which inflicted the penalty of 

death and confiscation of goods on all who 

should contravene the Papal order . Several 

arrests were made at Florence by the Inquisition, 

but, through the intercession of the 

Grand Duke, the persons who had been arrested 

were set at liberty. 

For many years Freemasonry held but a 

precarious existence in Italy, the persecutions 

of the Church preventing any healthy growth . 

The Masons continued to meet, although generally 

in secret . The Masons of Rome struck 

a medal, in 1746, in honor of Martin Folkes ; 

and the author of Anti Saint-Nicaise says 

that there was a Grand Lodge at Naples in 

1756, which was in correspondence with the 

Lodges of Germany. Naples, indeed, seems to 

have been for a long time the only place where 

the Lodges were in any kind of activity . In 

1776, Queen Caroline exerted her interest in 

behalf of the Order. Smith, writing in 1783 

(Use and Abuse, p . 211), says, "At present 

most of the Italian nobles and dignified ecclesiastics 

are Freemasons, who hold their 

meetings generally in private houses, though 

they have established Lodges at Naples, Leghorn, 

Venice, Verona, Turin, Messina, in the 

island of Sicily, Genoa, and Modena." 

In 1805 a Supreme Council of the Ancient 

and Accepted Rite was established at Milan 

by Count de Grasse-Tilly, and Prince Eugene 

accepted the offices of Grand Commander of 

the Council and Grand Master of the Grand 

Orient . 

When, by the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, 

the liberal policy of France was withdrawn 

from Italy, to be again substituted by the ignorance 

of the Bourbon dynasty and the bigotry 

of the Roman Church, Italian Masonry 

ceased any longer to have an existence nor did 

it revive until 1860. But the centralization of 

Italy, and the political movements that led to 

it, restored Italy to freedom and intelligence, 

and Freemasonry had again found, even beneath 

the shadow of the Vatican, a congenial 

soil . 

A Lodge was established at Turin in 1859, 

and a Grand Lodge in 1861 . A Grand Orient 

was subsequently established by Garibaldi, 

who adopted the system of the Scottish Rite . 

A Supreme Council was also formed at Naples . 

Internal dissensions, however, unfortunately 

took place . The Grand Orient was removed 

from Turin to Florence, when many resignations 

took place, and a recusant body was 

formed . But peace at length prevailed, and 

at a Constituent Assembly held at Rome on 

April 28, 1873, "the fundamental bases of 

Italian Masonic Fraternity " were adopted ; 

and "the Grand Orient of Italy" was now in 

successful operation. There was also a Supreme 

Council of the Scottish Rite . 

Itratics, Order of. A society of adepts, 

engaged in the search for the Universal Medicine 

; is now extinct . Mentioned by Fustier . 

(Inveni Verbum in Ore 

Leon-i8 .) Initial letters of significant words 

used in the Thirteenth Degree, A. A . Scottish 

Rite. They have reference to the recovery of 

the key of the Sacred Ark, which contains certain 

treasures. The Ark and its key having 

been lost in the forest during a battle which 

occurred when the Jews were journeying 

through the wilderness, the key was found in 

the mouth of a lion, who dropped it upon the 

ground on the approach of the Israelites . 

Much symbolical teaching is deduced from the 

historical myth . 

Ivory Key. The symbolic jewel of the 

Fourth Degree, A . A . Scottish Rite. On the 

wards of the key is the Hebrew letter zain . 

Izabud . A corruption of Zabud, which 

see . 

Izads . The twenty-eight creations of the 

beneficent deity Ormudz, or Auramazda, in 

the Persian religious system . 

J. The tenth letter in the English alphabet 

. It is frequently and interchangeably 

used with I, and written in Hebrew as Yod ('), 

with the numerical value of 10, and having 

reference to the Supreme . 

JaaborouHammaim . 

aqua transibunt .) A word of covered significancy 

in the Fifteenth Degree of the A . A . 

Scottish Rite . It also has reference to the 

L. D . P. (See Liber. ) 

Jabescheh . (Heb ., 1Vr, Earth .) Also 

written Jebschah. (See L .N . .R . .L .) 

Jabulum. A corrupted word used in two 

of the degrees of the A . A. Scottish Rite, the 

Thirteenth and Seventeenth . The true word 

J 

and its meaning, however, are disclosed to 

the initiate . 

Jachin . Hence called by Dudley and 

some other writers, who reject the ponits, 

ichin. It is the name of the right-hand pillar 

facing eastward (i . e ., on the south), that stood 

at the porch of King Solomon's Temple . It is 

derived from two Hebrew words 1' 

"God," and I'D', iachin, "will establish. eIt, ' 

signifies, therefore, "God will establish," and 

is often called "the pillar of establishment." 

Jachinal . A Gallic corruption of Shekinah, 

to be found only in the French Cahiers of the 

high degrees. 

Jacobins. A political sect that sprang up

360 JACOB'S 

JACOB'S 

in the beginning of the French Revolution, 

and which gave origin to the Jacobin clubs, so 

well known as having been the places where 

the leaders of the Revolution concocted their 

plans for the abolition of the monarchy and 

the aristocracy. Lieber says that it is a most 

surprising phenomenon that "so large a body 

of men could be found uniting rare energy 

with execrable vice, political madness, and 

outrageous cruelty, committed always in the 

name of virtue ." Barruel, in his Histoire de 

Jacobinisme, and Robison, in his Proofs of a 

Conspiracy, both endeavor to prove that there 

was a coalition of the revolutionary conspirators 

with the Illuminati and the Freemasons 

which formed the Jacobin clubs, those 

bodies being, as they contend, only Masonic 

Lodges in disguise . The falsity of these 

charges will be evident to anyone who reads 

the history of French Masonry during the 

Revolution, and more especially during that 

part of the period known as the "Reign of 

Terror," when the Jacobin clubs were in most 

vigor . The Grand Orient, in 1788, declared 

that a politico-Masonic work, entitled Les 

Jesuites chasses de la Magonnerie et leer Poignard 

brisi par les Masons, was the production 

of a perverse mind, prepared as a poison for 

the destruction of Masonry, and ordered it 

to be burned. During the Revolution, the 

Grand Orient suspended its labors, and the 

Lodges in France were dissolved ; and in 

1793, the Duke of Orleans, the head of the 

Jacobins, who was also, unfortunately, Grand 

Master of the French Masons, resigned the 

latter position, assigning as a reason that he 

did not believe that there should be any mystery 

nor any secret society in a republic . It is 

evident that the Freemasons, as an Order, 

held themselves aloof from the political contests 

of that period . 

Jacob's Ladder. The introduction of 

Jacob's ladder into the symbolism of Speculative 

Masonry is to be traced to the vision of 

Jacob, which is thus substantially recorded in 

the twenty-eighth chapter of the Book of Genesis 

: When Jacob, by the command of his 

father Isaac, was journeying toward Padanaram, 

while sleeping one night with the bare 

earth for his couch and a stone for his pillow, 

he beheld the vision of a ladder, whose foot 

rested on the earth and whose top reached to 

heaven . Angels were continually ascending 

and descending upon it, and promised him the 

blessing of a numerous and happy posterity . 

When Jacob awoke, he was filled with pious 

gratitude and consecrated the spot as the 

house of ood . 

This ladder, so remarkable in the history of 

the Jewish people, finds its analogue in all the 

ancient initiations . Whether this is to be attributed 

simply to a coincidence-a theory 

which but few scholars would be willing to 

accept-or to the fact that these analogues 

were all derived from a common fountain of 

symbolism, or whether, as suggested by Oliver, 

the origin of the symbol was lost among the 

practises of the Pagan rites, while the symbol 

itself was retained, it is, perhaps, impossible 

authoritatively to determine . It is, however 

certain that the ladder as a symbol of moral 

and intellectual progress existed almost universally 

in antiquity, presenting itself either 

as a succession of steps of gates, of degrees, or 

in some other modified form. The number of 

the steps varied ; although the favorite one 

appears to have been seven, in reference, apparently, 

to the mystical character almost 

everywhere given to that number . 

Thus, in the Persian mysteries of Mithras, 

there was a ladder of seven rounds, the passage 

through them being symbolical of the 

soul's approach to perfection . These rounds 

were called gates, and, in allusion to them, the 

candidate was made to pass through seven 

dark and winding caverns, which process was 

called the ascent of the ladder of perfection . 

Each of these caverns was the representative 

of a world, or state of existence through which 

the soul was supposed to pass in its progress 

from the first world to the last, or the world 

of truth . Each round of the ladder was said 

to be of metal of increasing purity, and was 

dignified also with the name of its protecting 

planet . Some idea of the construction of this 

symbolic ladder may be obtained from the following 

table : 

7 Gold, Sun, Truth. [Blessed. 

6 Silver, Moon, Mansion of the 

5 Iron, Mars, World of Births. 

4 Tin, Jupiter, Middle World . 

3 Copper, Venus, Heaven. [ence. 

2 Quicksilver, Mercury, World of Preexist- 

1 Lead, Saturn, First World . 

In the mysteries of Brahma we find the 

same reference to the ladder of seven steps . 

The names of these were not different, and 

there was the same allusion to the symbol of 

the universe. The seven steps were emblematical 

of the seven worlds which constituted 

the Indian universe . The lowest was the 

Earth; the second, the World of Preexistence 

; the third, Heaven ; the fourth, the 

Middle World, or intermediate region between 

the lower and upper worlds ; the fifth, 

the World of Births, in which souls are again 

born ; the sixth, the Mansion of the Blessed ; 

and the seventh, or topmost round, the Sphere 

of Truth, and the abode of Brahma . Dr. 

Oliver thinks that in the Scandinavian mysteries 

the tree Yggrasil was the representative 

of the mystical ladder. But although the ascent 

of the tree, like the ascent of the ladder, 

was a change from a lower to a higher spherefrom 

time to eternity, and from death to lifeyet 

the unimaginative genius of the North 

seems to have shorn the symbolism of many of 

its more salient features. 

Among the Kabbalists, the ladder was represented 

by the ten Sephiroths, which, commencing 

from the bottom, were the Kingdom, 

Foundation, Splendor, Firmness, Beaut~, 

Justice, Mercy, Intelligence, Wisdom and the 

Crown, by which we arrive at the En Soph, 

or the infinite . 

In the higher Masonry we find the ladder of 

Kadosh, which consists of seven steps, thus

JACOB'S 

JACOB'S 361 

commencing from the bottom : Justice, 

Equity, Kindness, Good Faith, Labor, Patience, 

and Intelligence . The arrangement of 

these steps, for which we are indebted to modern 

ritualism, does not seem to be perfect ; but 

yet the idea of intellectual progress to perfection 

is carried out by making the topmost 

round represent Wisdom or Understanding . 

The Masonic ladder which is presented in 

the symbolism of the First Degree ought really 

to consist of seven steps, which thus ascend : 

Temperance, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, 

Faith, Hope, and Charity ; but the earliest 

examples of it present it only with three, referring 

to the three theological virtues whence 

it is called the theological ladder . It seems 

therefore, to have been settled by general 

usage that the Masonic ladder has but three 

steps . 

As a symbol of progress, Jacob's ladder was 

early recognized . Picus of Mirandola, who 

wrote in the sixteenth century, in his oration, 

"De Hominis Dignitate," says that Jacob's 

ladder is a symbol of the progressive scale of 

intellectual communication betwixt earth and 

heaven ; and upon the ladder, as it were, step 

by step, man is permitted with the angels to 

ascend and descend until the mind finds 

blissful and complete repose in the bosom of 

divinity. The highest step he defines to be 

theology, or the study and contemplation of 

the Deity in his own abstract and exalted 

nature . 

Other interpretations have, however, been 

given to it . The Jewish writers differ very 

much in their expositions of it . Thus, a writer 

of one of the Midrashes or Commentaries 

finding that the Hebrew words for Ladder and 

Sinai have each the same numerical value of 

letters, expounds the ladder as typifying the 

giving of the law on that mount . Aben Ezra 

thought that it was a symbol of the human 

mind, and that the angels represented the 

sublime meditations of man . Maimonidea 

supposed the ladder to symbolize nature in its 

operations ; and, citing the authority of a 

Midrash which gives to it four steps, says that 

they represent the four elements ; the two 

heavier, earth and water, descending by their 

specific gravity, and the two lighter, fire and 

air, ascending from the same cause. Abarbanel, 

assuming the Talmudic theory that 

Luz, where Jacob slept, was Mount Moriah, 

supposes that the ladder, resting on the spot 

which afterward became the holy of holies ' 

was a prophetic symbol of the building of the 

Temple . And, lastly, Raphael interprets the 

ladder, and the ascent and the descent of the 

angels, as the prayers of man and the answering 

inspiration of God. Fludd, the Hermetic 

philosopher, in his Philosophia Mosaica 

(1638), calls the ladder the symbol of the triple 

world, moral, physical, and intellectual ; and 

Nicolai says that the ladder with three steps 

was, among the Rosicrucian Freemasons in 

the seventeenth century, a symbol of the 

knowledge of nature. Finally, Krause says, 

in his drei altesten Kunsturkunden (ii ., 481), 

that a Brother Keher of Edinburgh, whom he 

describes as a skilful and truthful Mason, had 

in 1802 assured the members of a Lodge at 

Altenberg that originally only one Scottish 

degree existed whose object was the restoration 

of James h . 

to the throne of England, and 

that of that restoration Jacob's ladder had 

been adopted by them as a symbol . Of this 

fact he further said that an authentic narrative 

was contained in the Archives of the 

Grand Lodge of Scotland . Notwithstanding 

Lawrie's silence on the subject, Krause is inclined 

to believe the story, nor is it in all its 

parts altogether without probability . It is 

more than likely that the Chevalier Ramsay, 

who was a warm adherent of the Stuarts, 

transferred the symbol of the mystical ladder 

from the Mithraic mysteries, with which he 

was very familiar, into his Scottish degrees, 

and that thus it became a part of the symbolism 

of the Kadosh system . In some of the 

political Lodges instituted under the influence 

of the Stuarts to assist in the restoration of 

their house, the philosophical interpretation 

of the symbol may have been perverted to a 

political meaning, and to these Lodges it is to 

be supposed that Keher alluded ; but that the 

Grand Lodge of Scotland had made any official 

recognition of the fact is not to be believed. 

Lawrie's silence seems to be conclusive 

. 

In the Ancient Craft degrees of the York 

Rite, Jacob's ladder was not an original symbol 

. It is said to have been introduced by 

Dunckerley when he reformed the lectures . 

This is confirmed by the fact that it is not 

mentioned in any of the early rituals of the 

last century, nor even by Hutchinson, who 

had an excellent opportunity of doing so in his 

lecture on the Nature of the Lode, where he 

speaks of the covering of the Loge, but says 

nothing of the means of reaching it, which he 

would have done, had he been acquainted 

with the ladder as a symbol . Its first appearance 

is in a Tracing Board, on which the date 

of 1776 is inscribed, which very well agrees 

with the date of Dunckerley's improvements . 

In this Tracing Board, the ladder has but 

three rounds; a change from the old sevenstepped 

ladder of the mysteries ; which however, 

Preston corrected when he described it 

as having many rounds, but three principal 

ones . 

As to the modern Masonic symbolism of the 

ladder, it is, as I have already said, a symbol 

of progress such as it is in all the old initiations 

. Its three principal rounds, representing 

Faith, Hope, and Charity, present us with 

the means of advancing from earth to heaven, 

from death to life-from the mortal to immortality 

. Hence its foot is placed on the ground 

floor of the Lodge, which is typical of the 

world, and its top rests on the covering of the 

Lodge, which is symbolic of heaven . 

In the Prestonian lecture, which was elaborated 

out of Dunckerle 's system, the ladder 

is said to rest on the Holy Bible, and to reach 

to the heavens. This symbolism is thus explained 

"By the doctrines contained in the Holy

362 JACQUES 

JAPANESE 

Bible we are taught to believe in the Divine 

dispensation of Providence, which belief 

strengthens our Faith, and enables us to ascend 

the first step . 

"That Faith naturally creates in us a Hope 

of becoming partakers of some of the blessed 

promises therein recorded, which Hope enables 

us to ascend the second step . 

"But the third and last being Charity comprehends 

the whole, and he who is possessed 

of this virtue in its ample sense, is said to have 

arrived at the summit of his profession, or, 

more metaphorically, into an ethereal mansion 

veiled from the mortal eye by the starry firmament 

." 

In the modern lectures, the language is 

materially changed, but the idea and the 

symbolism are retained unaltered . 

The delineation of the ladder with three 

steps only on the Tracing Board of 1776, 

which is a small one, may be attributed to 

notions of convenience . But the Masonic 

ladder should properly have seven steps, 

which represent the four cardinal and the 

three theological virtues . 

Jacques de Molay . See Molay, James de . 

Jafuhar. The second king in the Scandinavian 

mysteries . The synonym for Thor . 

Jah . In Hebrew, 'T'. Maimonides calls it 

the "two-lettered name," and derives it from 

the Tetragrammaton, of which he says it is 

an abbreviation . Others have denied this, 

and assert that Jah is a name independent of 

Jehovah, but expressing the same idea of the 

Divine Essence. It is uniformly translated in 

the authorized version of the Bible by the 

word Loin, being thus considered as synonymous 

with Jehovah, except in Psalm lxviu . 4, 

where the original word is preserved : "Extol 

him that rideth upon the heavens by his name 

JAH," upon which the Targum comment is : 

"Extol him who sitteth on the throne of flory 

in the ninth heaven ; YAH is his name.' It 

seems, also, to have been well known to the 

Gentile nations as the triliteral name of God ; 

for, although biliteral among the Hebrews, it 

assumed among the Greeks the triliteral form, 

as IAa . Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, says 

that this was the sacred name of the Supreme 

Deity ; and the Clarian Oracle being asked 

which of the gods was Jao, replied, "The initiated 

are bound to conceal the mysterious 

secrets . Learn thou that IAtt, is the Great God 

Supreme who ruleth over all ." (See Jehovah.) 

Jaheb . (Heb., 1'1', concedens.) A sacred 

name used in the Thirteenth Degree of the 

A . A. Scottish Rite . 

Jaina Cross . Used by several orders, and 

found in the abbeys of Great Britain 

and on the monuments of India. 

Its signifieations are many . This 

cross was adopted by the Jainas, a 

heterodox sect of the Hindus, who 

dissent from Brahmanism and deny the Vedas, 

and whose adherents are found in every province 

of Upper Hindustan . They are wealthy 

and influential, and form an important division 

of the population of India . This symbol is 

also known as the Fylfot or Swastika . It is a 

religious symbol mentioned by Weaver in his 

Funeral Monuments, by Dr . H . Schliemann as 

having been found in the presumed ruins of 

Troy, by De Rossi and others in the Catacombs 

of Christian Rome, and there termed 

the Crux dissimulata . It has been found on 

almost every enduring monument on the 

globe, of all ages, and in both hemispheres . 

Jainas. See Jaina Cross. 

Jamblichus . It is strange that the old 

Masons, when inventing their legend, which 

gave so prominent a place to Pythagoras as 

"an ancient friend and brother," should have 

entirely forgotten his biographer, Jamblichus, 

whose claims to their esteem and veneration 

are much greater than those of the Samian 

sa ge . Jamblichus was a Neoplatonic philosopher, 

who was born at Chalcis, in Calo, Syria, 

and flourished in the fourth century . He was 

a pupil of Porphyry, and was deeply versed in 

the philosophic systems of Plato and Pythagoras, 

and, like the latter, had studied the mystical 

theology of the Egyptians and Chaldeans 

whose Divine origin and truth he attempts to 

vindicate . He maintained that man, through 

theurgic rites and ceremonies, might commune 

with the Deity ; and hence he attached 

great importance to initiation as the means 

of inculcating truth . He carried his superstitious 

veneration for numbers and numerical 

formula to a far greater extent than did the 

school of Pythagoras ; so that all the principles 

of his philosophy can be represented by 

numbers . 

Thus, he taught that one, or the monad, 

was the principle of all unity as well as diversity 

; the duad, or two was the intellect ; 

three the soul ; four, the principle of universal 

harmony ; eight, the source of motion ; 

nine, perfection • and ten, the result of all the 

emanations of the to en. It will thus be seen 

that Jamblichus while adop ting the general 

theory of numbers that distinguished the 

Pythagorean school, differed very materially 

in his explanations . He wrote many philosophical 

works on the basis of these principles, 

and was the author of a Life of Pythagoras, 

and a Treatise of the Mysteries. Of all the 

ancient philosophers, his system assimilates 

him most-if not in its details, at least in its 

spirit-to the mystical and symbolic character 

of the Masonic philosophy . 

James H . and III. of Scotland . See 

Stuart Masonry . 

Jaminim or laminim. (Heb., water .) 

(See L% N .- .R .- .1 .- .) 

Janitor. A door-keeper . The word Sentinel, 

which in a Royal Arch Chapter is the 

proper equivalent of the Tiler in a Lodge, is in 

some jurisdictions replaced by the word Janitor. 

There is no good authority for the 

usage. 

Japan. Freemasonry was introduced in 

Japan by the establishment at Yokohama, in 

1865, of a Lodge by the Grand Lodge of England 

. A Masonic hall was built at Yokohama 

in 1869 . 

Japanese Faith . See Kofiki; also Nihongi.

JAPIIET 

JEHO"VAU 363 

Japhet . Heb ., re`. The eldest son of 

Noah. It is said that the first ark-the ark 

of safety, the archetype of the tabernaclewas 

constructed by Shem, Ham, and Japhet 

under the superintendence of Noah . Hence 

these are significant words in the Royal Arch 

Degree . 

dasher, Book of. (Heb., Sepher hayashar, 

The Book of the Upright .) One of the 

lost books of the ancient Hebrews, which is 

quoted twice (Josh . x. 13 ; 2 Sam. i . 18) . A 

Hebrew minstrelsy, recording the warlike 

deeds of the national heroes, and singing the 

praises of eminent or celebrated men . An 

original is said to be in the library at Samarkand 

. 

Jasper. Heb ., TV' . A precious stone of a 

dullish green color, which was the last of the 

twelve inserted in the high priest's breastplate, 

according to the authorized version ; 

but the Vulgate translation more correctly 

makes it the third stone of the second row . It 

represented the tribe of Zebulun . 

Jebusite . See Oman . 

Jedadiah . A special name given to King 

Solomon at his birth. It signifies "beloved of 

God ." 

Jehoshaphat. East of Jerusalem, between 

Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives, 

lies the Valley of Jehoshaphat . In the most 

recent rituals this word has lost its significance, 

but in the older ones it played an important 

part . There was in reality no such 

valley in ancient Judea, nor is there any mention 

of it in Scripture, except once by the 

prophet Joel . The name is altogether modern 

. But, as the Hebrew means the judgment 

of God, and as the prophecy of Joel declared 

that God would there judge the heathen for 

their deeds against the Israelites, it came at 

last to be believed by the Jews, which belief 

is shared by the Mohammedans, that the Valley 

of Jehoshaphat is to be the place of the last 

judgment . Hence it was invested with a peculiar 

degree of sanctity as a holy place . The 

idea was borrowed by the Masons of the last 

century, who considered it as the symbol of 

holy ground . Thus, in the earliest rituals we 

find this language : 

"Where does the Lodge stand?" 

"Upon holy ground, or the highest hill or 

lowest vale, or in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, 

or any other secret place ." 

This reference to the Valley of Jehoshaphat 

as the symbol of the ground floor of the Lodge 

was in this country retained until a very recent 

period ; and the expression which alludes 

to it in the ritual of the Second Degree has only 

within a few years past been abandoned . 

Hutchinson referred to this symbolism, when 

he said that the Spiritual Lodge was placed in 

the Valley of Jehoshaphat to imply that the 

principles of Masonry are derived from the 

knowledge of God, and are established in the 

judgments of the Lord. 

Jehovah . JEHOVAH is, of all the significant 

words of Masonry, by far the most important 

. Reghellini very properly calls it 

"the basis of our dogma and of our mysteries ." 

In Hebrew it consists of four letters, and 

hence is called the Tetragrammaton, or fourlettered 

name ; and because it was forbidden 

to a Jew, as it is to a Mason, to pronounce it, 

it is also called the Ineffable or Unpronounceable 

name . For its history we must refer to 

the sixth chapter of Exodus (verses 2, 3) . 

When Moses returned discouraged from his 

first visit to Pharaoh, and complained to the 

Lord that the only result of his mission had 

been to incense the Egyptian king, and to excite 

him to the exaction of greater burdens 

from the oppressed Israelites, God encouraged 

the patriarch by the promise of the great 

wonders which he would perform in behalf of 

his people, and confirmed the promise by imparting 

to him that sublime name by which 

he had not hitherto been known : "And God," 

says the sacred writer, "spake unto Moses, 

and said unto him, I am Jehovah : and I appeared 

unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto 

Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name JEHovAn 

was I not known unto them ." 

This Ineffable name is derived from the 

substantive verb hayah, to be; and combining, 

as it does, in its formation the present, 

past, and future significations of the verb, it is 

considered as designating God in his immutable 

and eternal existence. This idea is carried 

by the Rabbis to such an extent, that 

Menasseh Ben Israel says that its four letters 

may be so arranged by permutations as to 

form twelve words, every one of which is a 

modification of the verb to be, and hence it is 

called the nomen substantive vel essentim, the 

name of his substance or existence . 

The first thing that attracts our attention in 

the investigation of this name is the ancient 

regulation, still existing, by which it was made 

unlawful to pronounce it . This, perhaps, 

originally arose from a wish to conceal it from 

the surrounding heathen nations, so that they 

might not desecrate it by ap p lying it to their 

idols. Whatever may have been the reason, 

the rule was imperative among the Jews. 

The Talmud, in one of its treatises, the "Sanhedrim," 

which treats of the question, Who of 

the Israelites shall have future life and who 

shall not? says : "Even he who thinks the 

name of God with its true letters forfeits his 

future life ." Abraham Ben David Halevi, 

when discussing the names of God, says : 

"But the name fl T' we axe not allowed to 

pronounce. In its original meaning it is conferred 

upon no other being, and therefore we 

abstain from giving any explanation of it ." 

We learn from Jerome, Origen, and Eusebius 

that in their time the Jews wrote the name in 

their copies of the Bible in Samaritan instead 

of Hebrew letters, in order to veil it from the 

inspection of the profane . Capellus says that 

the rule that the holy name was not to be pronounced 

was derived from a tradition, based 

on a passage in Leviticus (xxiv. 16), which 

says that he who blasphemeth the name of 

Jehovah shall be put to death ; and he translates 

this passage, "whosoever shall pronounce 

the name Jehovah shall suffer death," because 

the word nokeb, here translated "to

364 JEHOVAH 

JEHOVAH 

blaspheme," means also "to pronounce distinctly, 

to call by name ." Another reason for 

the rule is to be found in a rabbinical misinterpretation 

of a passage in Exodus . 

In the third chapter of that book, when 

Moses asks of God what is His name He replies 

"I AM THAT I Am; and He said, Thus 

shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 

I AM hath sent me unto you," and he adds, 

"this is my name forever ." Now, the Hebrew 

word I AM is 1~1K, Ehyeh . But as Mendelssohn 

has correctly observed, there is no essential 

difference between M' MX, in the sixth 

chapter and 11'1' in the third, the former being 

the first person singular, and the latter the 

third person of the same verb (the future used 

in the present sense of the verb to be) ; and 

hence what was said of the name Ehyeh was 

applied by the Rabbis to the name Jehovah . 

But of Ehyeh God had said, "this is my name 

forever." Now the word forever is represented 

in the original by Ohy' l'olam; but the Rabbis, 

says Capellus, by the change of a single 

letter, made l'olam, forever read as if it 

had been written l'alam which means "to be 

concealed," and hence the passage was translated 

"this is my name to be concealed " instead 

of "this is my name forever ." An~ thus 

Josephus, in writing upon this subject, uses 

the following expressions : "Whereupon God 

declared to Moses His holy name, which had 

never been discovered to men before ; concerning 

which it is not lawful for me to say 

any more." In obedience to this law, whenever 

the word Jehovah occurs to a Jew in 

reading, he abstains from pronouncing it, and 

substitutes in its place the word 1]`lis, Adonai . 

Thus, instead of saying "holiness to Jehovah," 

as it is in the original, he would say "holiness 

to Adonai." And this same reverential reticence 

has been preserved by our translators in 

the authorized version, who, wherever Jehovah 

occurs, have, with a few exceptions, translated 

it by the word "Lord," the very passage 

just quoted, being rendered "holiness to the 

Lord ." 

Maimonides tells us that the knowledge of 

this word was confined to the hachamin or 

wise men, who communicated its true pronunciation 

and the mysteries connected with 

it only on the Sabbath day, to such of their 

disciples as were found worthy ; but how it 

was to be sounded, or with what vocal sounds 

its four letters were to be uttered, was utterly 

unknown to the people. Once a year, namely, 

on the day of atonement, the holy name was 

pronounced with the sound of its letters and 

with the utmost veneration by the high priest 

in the Sanctuary. The last priest who pronounced 

it, says Rabbi Bechai, was Simeon 

the Just, and his successors used in blessing 

only the twelve-lettered name . After the destruction 

of the city and Temple by Vespasian, 

the pronunciation of it ceased, for it 

was not lawful to pronounce it anywhere except 

in the Temple at Jerusalem, and thus the 

true and genuine pronunciation of the name 

was entirely lost to the Jewish people . Nor is 

it now known how it was originally pro- 

nounced. The Greeks called it JAO ; the 

Romans, JovA ; the Samaritans always pronounced 

it JAHVE . 

The task is difficult to make one unacquainted 

with the peculiarities of the Hebrew 

language comprehend how the pronunciation 

of a word whose letters are preserved can be 

wholly lost . It may, however, be attempted . 

The Hebrew alphabet consists entirely of consonants. 

The vowel sounds were originally 

supplied by the reader while reading, he being 

previously made acquainted with the correct 

pronunciation of each word ; and if he did not 

possess this knowledge, the letters before him 

could not supply it, and he was, of course, unable 

to pronounce the word. Every Hebrew, 

however, knew from practise the vocal sounds 

with which the consonants were pronounced 

in the different words, in the same manner 

as every English reader knows the different 

sounds of a in hat, hate, far, was, and that knt 

is pronounced knight. The words "God save 

the republic," written in the Hebrew method, 

would appear thus : "Gd sv th rpblc." Now, 

this incommunicable name of God consists of 

four letters, Yod, He, Vau, and He, equivalent 

in English to the combination JHVH . It 

is evident that these four letters cannot, in 

our language, be pronounced, unless at least 

two vowels be supplied . Neither can they in 

Hebrew. In other words the vowels were 

known to the Jew, because he heard the words 

continually pronounced, just as we know that 

Mr. stands for Mister, because we continually 

hear this combination so pronounced . But the 

name of God, of which these four letters are 

symbols, was never pronounced, but another 

word, Adonai, substituted for it ; and hence, 

as the letters themselves have no vocal power, 

the Jew, not knowing the implied vowels, was 

unable to supply them, and thus the pronunciation 

of the word was in time entirely lost . 

Hence some of the most learned of the Jewish 

writers even doubt whether Jehovah is the 

true pronunciation, and say that the recovery 

of the name is one of the mysteries that will be 

revealed only at the coming of the Messiah . 

They attribute the loss to the fact that the 

Masoretic or vowel points belonging to another 

word were applied to the sacred name, 

whereby in time a confusion occurred in its 

vocalization . 

In the Ineffable degrees of the Scottish Rite, 

there is a tradition that the pronunciation 

varied among the patriarchs in different ages . 

Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah pronounced 

it Juha ; Shem, Arphaxad, Selah Heber, and 

Peleg pronounced it Jeva; Reu, S~erug, Nahor, 

Terah, Abraham, Isaac, and Judah, called it 

Jova; by Hezrom and Ram it was pronounced 

Jevo ; by Aminadab and Nasshon, Jevah; by 

Salmon, Boaz, and Obed, Johe ; by Jesse and 

David, Jehovah. And they imply that none of 

these was the right pronunciation, which was 

only in the possession of Enoch, Jacob, and 

Moses, whose names are therefore, not mentioned 

in this list . In all these words it must 

be noticed that the J is to be pronounced as 

Y, the a as in father, and the e as a in fate .

JEHOVAH 

JEHOVAH 365 

Thus, Je-ho-vah would be pronounced Yayho-vah 

. 

The Jews believed that this holy name, 

which they held in the highest veneration, was 

possessed of unbounded powers . "He who 

pronounces it," said they, "shakes heaven and 

earth, and inspires the very angels with astonishment 

and terror . There is a sovereign 

authority in this name : it governs the world 

by its power . The other names and surnames 

of the Deity are ranged about it like officers 

and soldiers about their sovereigns and generals 

: from this king-name they receive their 

orders, and obey ." 

It was called the Shem hamphorash, the 

explanatory or declaratory name, because it 

alone, of all the Divine names, distinctly explains 

or declares what is the true essence of 

the Deity . 

Among the Essenes this sacred name, 

which was never uttered aloud, but always in 

a whisper, was one of the mysteries of their 

initiation, which candidates were bound by a 

solemn oath never to divulge . 

It is reported to have been, under a modified 

form, a password in the Egyptian mysteries, 

and none, says Schiller, dare enter the temple 

of Serapis who did not bear on his breast or 

forehead the name Jao or Je-ha-ho ; a name 

almost equivalent in sound to that of Jehovah, 

and probably of identical import ; and no name 

was uttered in Egypt with more reverence . 

The Rabbis asserted that it was engraved 

on the rod of Moses, and enabled him to perform 

all his miracles. Indeed, the Talmud says 

that it was by the utterance of this awful 

name, and not by a club, that he slew the 

Egyptian ; although it fails to tell us how he 

got at that time his knowledge of it . 

That scurrilous book of the Jews of the Middle 

Ages, called the Toldoth Jeshu, attributes 

all the wonderful works of Jesus Christ to the 

potency of this incommunicable name, which 

he is said to have abstracted from the Temple, 

and worn about him . But it would be tedious 

and unprofitable to relate all the superstitious 

myths that have been invented about 

this name. 

And now as to the grammatical signification 

of this important word . Gesenius (Thesaur 

., ii ., 577) thinks-and many modern 

scholars agree with him-that the word is the 

future form of the Hiphil conjugation of the 

verb to be, pronounced Yavah, and therefore 

that it denotes "He who made to exist, called 

into existence," that is, the Creator . The 

more generally accepted definition of the name 

is, that it expresses the eternal and unchangeable 

existence of God in respect to the past, 

the present, and the future . The word 111' is 

derived from the substantive verb 71"1, hayah, 

to be, and in its four letters combines those of 

the past, present and future of the verb . The 

letter ' in the begm' ning, says Buxtorf (de 

Nomine, v.), is a characteristic of the future ; 

the 1 in the middle, of the participle or present 

time ; and the 1 at the end, of the past . Thus, 

out of 111` we get 1'1, he was; '111, he is ; 

and he will be. Hence, among other 

titles it received that of nomen essentice, because 

it shows the essential nature of God's 

eternal existence . The other names of God 

define His power, wisdom, goodness, and other 

qualities ; but this alone defines His existence . 

It has been a controverted point whether 

this name was made known for the first time 

to Moses, or whether the patriarchs had been 

previously acquainted with it. The generally 

recognized opinion now is, and the records 

of Genesis and Exodus sustain it, that the 

name was known to the patriarchs, but not in 

its essential meaning, into which Moses was 

the first to be initiated . In the language of 

Aben Ezra, "Certainly the name was already 

known to the patriarchs, but only as an uncomprehended 

and unmeaning noun, not as a 

descriptive, appellative one, indicative of the 

attributes and qualities of the Deity ." "It is 

manifest," says Kallisch (Comm . on Ex .), 

"that Moses, in being initiated into the holy 

and comprehensive name of the Deity, obtains 

a superiority over the patriarchs, who, 

although perhaps from the beginning more believing 

than the long-wavering Moses, lived 

more in the sphere of innocent, childlike obedience 

than of manly, spiritual enlightenment." 

This, too, is the Masonic doctrine . In 

Freemasonry the Holy Name is the representative 

of the Word, which is itself the symbol 

of the nature of God . To know the Word 

is to know the true nature and essence of the 

Grand Architect . 

When the pronunciation of the name was 

first interdicted to the people is not certainly 

known . Leusden says it was a rabbinical prohibition, 

and was probably made at the second 

Temple. The statement of the Rabbi 

Bechai, already cited, that the word was pronounced 

f or the last time by Simeon, before the 

spoliation by the Roman emperor Vespasian, 

would seem to indicate that it was known at 

the second Temple, although its utterance was 

forbidden, which would coincide with the Masonic 

tradition that it was discovered while the 

foundations of the second Temple were being 

laid . But the general opinion is, that the prohibition 

commenced in the time of Moses the 

rabbinical writers tracing it to the law o? Leviticus, 

already cited . This, too, is the theory 

of Masonry, which also preserves a tradition 

that the prohibition would have been removed 

at the first Temple, had not a well-known occurrence 

prevented it . But this is not to be 

viewed as an historic statement, but only as a 

medium of creating a symbol. 

The Jews had four symbols by which they 

expressed this Ineffable name of God : the 

first and most common was two Yods, with a 

Sheva and the point Kametz underneath, 

thus, s,t ; the second was three points in a 

radiated form like a diadem thus, \l/, to represent, 

in all probability, the sovereignty of 

God ; the third was a Yod within an equilateral 

triangle, which the Kabbalists explained 

as a ray of light, whose luster was too transcendent 

to be contemplated by human eyes ; 

and the fourth was the letter V, which is the 

initial letter of Shadai, "the Almighty," and

366 JEHOVAH 

JEHOVAH 

was the symbol usually placed upon their 

phylacteries . Buxtorf mentions a fifth method 

which was by three Yods, with a Kametz underneath 

1 . 9 , enclosed in a circle . 

In Freemasonry, the equilateral triangle, 

called the delta, with or without a Yod in the 

center, the Yod alone, and the letter G, are 

recognized as symbols of the sacred and Ineffable 

name. 

The history of the introduction of this 

word into the ritualism of Freemasonry would 

be highly interesting, were it not so obscure . 

Being in almost all respects an esoteric symbol, 

nearly all that we know of its Masonic relations 

is derived from tradition ; and as to 

written records on the subject, we are compelled, 

in general, to depend on mere intimations 

or allusions, which are not always distinct 

in their meaning . In Masonry, as in the 

Hebrew mysteries, it was under the different 

appellations of the Word, the True Word, or 

the Lost Word, the symbol of the knowledge 

of Divine Truth, or the true nature of God . 

That this name, in its mystical use, was not 

unknown to the Medieval Freemasons there 

can be no doubt. Many of their architectural 

emblems show that they possessed this knowledge 

. Nor can there be any more doubt that 

through them it came to their successors, the 

Freemasons of the beginning of the eighteenth 

century . No one can read the Defence of 

Masonry, written in 1730, without being convinced 

that the author (probably Martin 

Clare, q. v.) was well acquainted with this 

name ; although he is, of course, careful to 

make no very distinct reference to it, except 

in one instance . "The occasion," he says, 

"of the brethren searching so diligently for 

their Master was, it seems, to receive from him 

the secret Word of Masonry, which should be 

delivered down to their fraternity in after 

ages." (Constitutions, 1738, p . 225.) 

It is now conceded, from indisputable evidence, 

that the holy name was, in the earlier 

years, and, indeed, up to the middle of the last 

century attached to the Third Degree, and 

then called the Master's Word . On some early 

tracing boards of the Third Degree among the 

emblems displayed is a coffin, on which is inscribed, 

in capital letters, the word JEHO- 

VAH . Hutchinson, who wrote in 1774 

makes no reference whatever to the Royal 

Arch, although that system had, by that time, 

been partially established in England ; but 

in his lectures to Master Masons and on the 

Third Degree refers to "the mystic word, 

the Tetragrammaton." (Lecture X ., p . 180 .) 

Oliver tells us distinctly that it was the Master's 

Word until Dunckerley took it out of the 

degree and transferred it to the Royal Arch . 

That it was so on the Continent we have the 

unmistakable testimony of Guiliemain de St . 

Victor, who says, in his Adonhiramite Masonry 

(p . 90), that Solomon placed a medal on the 

tomb of Hiram, "on which was engraved Jehova, 

the old Master's Word, and which signifies 

the Supreme Being." 

So far, then, these facts appear to be established 

: that this Ineffable name was known to 

the Operative Freemasons of the Middle Ages ; 

that it was derived from them by the S peculative 

Masons, who, in 1717, revived the 

Order in England ; that they knew it as Master 

Masons ; and that it continued to be the 

Master's Word until late in that century, 

when it was removed by Dunckerley into the 

Royal Arch . 

Although there is, perhaps, no point in the 

esoteric system of Masonry more clearly established 

than that the Tetragrammaton is 

the true omnific word, yet innovations have 

been admitted, by which, in some jurisdictions 

in this country, that word has been 

changed into three others, which simply signify 

Divine names in other languages, but 

have none of the sublime symbolism that belongs 

to the true name of God . It is true 

that the General Grand Chapter of the United 

States adopted a regulation disapproving of 

the innovation of these explanatory words, 

and restoring the Tetr agr ammaton- but this 

declaration of what might almost to considered 

a truism in Masonry has been met with 

open opposition or reluctant obedience in 

some places . 

The Grand Chapter of England has fallen 

into the same error, and abandoned the teachings 

of Dunckerley, the founder of the Royal 

Arch in that country, as some of the Grand 

Chapters in America did those of Webb, who 

was the founder of the system here . It is well 

therefore, to inquire what was the omnific word 

when the Royal Arch system was first invented 

. 

We have the authority of Oliver, who had 

the best opportunity of any man in England 

of knowing the facts, for saying that Dunckerley 

established the Royal Arch for the modern 

Grand Lodge ; that he wisely borrowed 

many things from Ramsay and Dermott ; and 

that he boldly transplanted the word Jehovah 

from the Master's Degree and placed it in his 

new system. 

Now, what was "THE Woan" of the Royal ~~ 

Arch, as understood by Dunckerley? We 

have no difficulty here, for he himself answers 

the question . To the first edition of the Laws 

and Regulations of the Royal Arch, published 

in 1782, there is prefixed an essay on Freemasonry, 

which is attributed to Dunckerley . 

In this he makes the following remarks : 

"It must be observed that the expression 

THE Woan is not to be understood as a watchword 

only, after the manner of those annexed 

to the several degrees of the Craft ; but also 

theologically, as a term, thereby to convey to 

the mind some idea of that Grand Being who is 

the sole author of our existence ; and to carry 

along with it the most solemn veneration for 

his sacred Name and Word, as well as the most 

clear and perfect elucidation of his power and 

attributes that the human mind is capable of 

receiving . And this is the light in which the 

* But more recent authorities, such as R . F . 

Gould (Hilt . of F. M.) and H . Sadler (Life of 

Dunckerley), have cast great doubt on these 

statements (see Dunckerley) . [E. L. H .]

JEHOVAH 

JENA 367 

Name and Word hath always been considered, 

from the remotest ages, amongst us Christians 

and the Jews ." 

And then, after giving the well-known history 

from Josephus of the word which, to remove 

all doubt of what it is Le says is the 

"Sheen Hamphorash, or the Unutterable 

Name," he adds : "Philo, the learned Jew, 

tells us not only that the word was lost, but 

also the time when, and the reason why. But, 

to make an end of these unprofitable disputes 

among the learned, be it remembered that 

they all concur with the Royal Arch Masons 

in others much more essential : first, that the 

Name or Word is expressive of Sari-ExrsT_ 

ENCE AND ETERNITY ; and, secondly, that it 

can be applicable only to that GREAT BErNo 

who WAS and is and WILL BE ." 

Notwithstanding this explicit and unmistakable 

declaration of the founder of the English 

Royal Arch, that the Tetragrammaton is 

the omnific word, the present system in England 

has rejected it, and substituted in its 

place three other words, the second of which is 

wholly unmeaning . 

In the American system, as revised by 

Thomas Smith Webb, there can be no doubt 

that the Tetragrammaton was recognized as 

the omnific word . In the Freemasons' Monitor, 

prepared by him for monitorial instruction, he 

has inserted, among the passages of Scripture 

to be read during an exaltation, the following 

from Exodus, which is the last in order, and 

which anyone at all acquainted with the ritual 

will at once see is appropriated to the time 

of the euresis or discovery of the Word . 

"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto 

him, I am the Lord, and I appeared unto 

Abraham, and unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by 

the name of God Almighty, but by my name 

JEHOVAH was I not known to them ." 

From this it will be evident that Webb recognized 

the word Jehovah, and not the three 

other words that have since been substituted 

for them by some Grand Chapters in America 

and which it is probable were originally used 

by Webb as merely explanator y or declare, 

tory of the Divine nature of the other and 

principal word . And this is in accordance with 

one of the traditions of the degree, that they 

were placed on the substitute ark around the 

real word, as a key to explain its signification . 

To call anything else but this four-lettered 

name an omnific word-an all-creating and 

all-performing word-either in Masonry or in 

Hebrew symbolism, whence Masonry erived 

it, is to oppose all the doctrines of the Talmudists, 

the Kabbalists, and the Gnostics, 

and too repudiate the teachings of every Hebrew 

scholar from Buxtorf to Gesenius . To 

fight the battle against such odds is to secure 

defeat. It shows more of boldness than of 

discretion . And hence the General Grand 

Chapter of the United States has very wisely 

restored the word Jehovah to its proper place . 

It is only in the York and in the American 

Rites that this error has ever existed . In every 

other Rite the Tetragrammaton is recognized 

as the true word . 

Jephthah . A Judge of Israel, and the 

leader of the Gileadites in their war against 

the Ephraimites, which terminated in the 

slaughter of so many of the latter at the 

passes of the river Jordan . (See Ephraimites.) 

Jephthah's Daughter . The First Degree 

in the American Order of the Eastern 

Star, or Adoptive Rite . It inculcates obedience 

. Color, blue . (See Eastern Star, Order 

of the .) 

Jericho, Heroine of . See Heroine of 

Jericho. 

Jermyn, Henry . Anderson says (Constitutions, 

1738, p . 101) that Henry Jermyn 

Earl of St. Albans, was Grand Master and 

held a General Assembly on the 27th of December, 

1663, at which six regulations (which 

he quotes) were made . Roberts, in his edition 

of the Old Constitutions printed in 1722, the 

earliest printed Masonic book that we have, 

refers also to this General Assembly ; the date 

of which he, however, makes the 8th of December 

. Roberts gives what he calls the Additional 

Orders and Constitutions . The Harleian 

MS., in the British Museum, numbered 

1942, which Hughan supposes to have the date 

of 1670, and which he has published in his 

Old Charges of the British Freemasons (p . 52, 

ed . 1872), contains also six "new articles ." 

The articles in Roberts's and the Harleian MS . 

are identical, but the wording is slightly altered 

by Anderson after his usual fashion . Of these 

new articles, one of the most important is that 

which prescribes that the society of Freemasons 

shall thereafter be governed by a 

Master and Wardens . Bro . Hughan thinks 

that there is no evidence of the statement 

that a General Assembly was held in 1663 . 

But it would seem that the concurring testimony 

of Roberts in 1722, and of Anderson in 

1738, with the significant fact that the charges 

are found in a manuscript written seven years 

after, give some plausibility to the statement 

that a General Assembly was held at that 

time. 

Jekson. This word is found in the French 

Cahiers of the high degrees. It is undoubtedly 

a corruption of Jacquesson, and this a 

mongrel word compounded of the French 

Jacques and the English son, and means the 

son of James, that is, James II . It refers to 

Charles Edward the Pretender, who was the 

son of that abdicated and exiled monarch . It 

is a significant relic of the system attempted 

to be introduced by the adherents of the house 

of Stuart, and by which they expected to enlist 

Masonry as an instrument to effect the 

restoration of the Pretender to the throne of 

England . For this purpose they had altered 

the legend of the Third Degree, making it 

applicable to James II ., who, being the son of 

Henrietta Maria, the widow of Charles I ., was 

designated as "the widow's son ." 

Jena, Congress of. Jena is a city of Saxe- 

Weimar, in Thuringia . A Masonic Congress 

was convoked there in 1763, by the Lodge 

of Strict Observance, under the presidency of 

Johnson, a Masonic charlatan, whose real 

name was Becker . In this Congress the doc-

368 JERUSALEM 

JEWEL 

trine was announced that the Freemasons 

were the successors of the Knights Templar, 

a dogma peculiarly characteristic of the Rite 

of Strict Observance. In the year 1764, a 

second Congress was convoked by Johnson or 

Leucht with the desire of authoritatively 

establishing his doctrine of the connection 

between Templarism and Masonry . The 

empirical character of Johnson was here discovered 

by the Baron Hund, and he was 

denounced, and subsequently punished at 

Magdeburg by the public authorities . 

Jerusalem . The capital of Judea, and 

memorable in Masonic history as the place 

where was erected the Temple of Solomon. It 

is early mentioned in Scripture, and is supposed 

to be the Salem of which Melchizedek 

was king. At the time that the Israelites entered 

the Promised Land the city was in possession 

of the Jebusites, from whom, after the 

death of Joshua, it was conquered, and afterward 

inhabited by the tribes of Judah and 

Benjamin . The Jebusites were not, however, 

driven out ; and we learn that David purchased 

Mount Moriah from Ornan or Araunah 

the Jebusite as a site for the Temple . It is 

only in reference to this Temple that Jerusalem 

is connected with the legends of Ancient 

Craft Masonry . In the degrees of chivalry 

it is also important, because it was the city 

where the holy places were situated, and for 

the possession of which the Crusaders so long 

and so bravely contested. It was there, too, 

that the Templars and the Hospitalers were 

established as Orders of religious and military 

knighthood . 

Modern Speculative Masonry was introduced 

into Jerusalem by the establishment of 

a Lodge in 1872, the warrant for which, on 

the application of Robert Morris and others, 

was granted by the Grand Lodge of Canada . 

Recently a Lodge has been warranted in 

England to meet at Chester, but to be in due 

course removed to Jerusalem, named "King 

Solomon's Temple," No . 3464. 

Jerusalem, Knight of. See Knight of 

Jerusalem . 

Jerusalem, New . The symbolic name of 

the Christian church (Rev . xxi. 2-21 ; iii. 12) . 

The Apostle John (Rev . xxi .), from the summit 

of a high mountain, beheld, in a pictorial 

symbol or scenic representation, a city resplendent 

with celestial brightness, which 

seemed to descend from the heavens to the 

earth . It was stated to be a square of about 

400 miles, or 12,000 stadia, equal to about 

16,000 miles in circumference-of course, a 

mystical number, denoting that the city was 

capable of holding almost countless myriads 

of inhabitants . The New Jerusalem was 

beheld, like Jacob's ladder, extending from 

earth to heaven . It plays an important part 

in the ritual of the Nineteenth Degree, or 

Grand Pontiff of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite, where the descent of the New 

Jerusalem is a symbol of the descent of the 

empire of Light and Truth upon the earth . 

Jerusalem, Prince of. See Prince of 

Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem Word . In the Grand Mystery 

of the Freemasons Discovered of 1724 occurs 

the following question and answer : 

" Q. Give me the Jerusalem Word . 

"A . Giblin." 

The origin of this phrase may perhaps be 

thus traced . The theory that after the completion 

of the Temple a portion of the workmen 

traveled abroad to seek employm ent, 

while another portion remained at Jerusalem, 

was well known to the Fraternity at the 

beginning of the last century . It is amply 

detailed in that old manuscript known as the 

York MS ., which is now lost, but was translated 

by Krause, and inserted in his Kunsturkunden 

. It may be supposed that this 

"Jerusalem Word" was the word which the 

Masons used at Jerusalem, while the "Universal 

Word," which is given in the next question 

and answer, was the word common to the 

Craft everywhere . The Jerusalem Word, as 

such, is no longer in use but the Universal 

Word is still found in the first Degree . 

Jesse . A large candlestick, of metal, with 

many sconces, hanging from the ceiling, and 

symbolically referring to the Branch of Jesse . 

Jesuits . In the last century the Jesuits 

were charged with having an intimate connection 

with Freemasonry, and the invention 

of the degree of Kadosh was even attributed to 

those members of the Society who constituted 

the College of Clermont . This theory of a 

Jesuitical Masonry seems to have originated 

with the Illuminati who were probably governed 

in its promuigation by a desire to depreciate 

the character of all other Masonic 

systems in comparison with their own, where 

no such priestly interference was permitted . 

Barruel scoffs at the idea of such a connection 

and calls it (Hist. de Ja ., iv ., 287) 

"la fable de la Franc-MKonnerie Jesuitique ." 

For once he is right . Like oil and water, 

the tolerance of Freemasonry and the intolerance 

of the " Society of Jesus " cannot commingle 

. 

Yet it cannot be denied that, while the 

Jesuits have had no part in the construction of 

pure Freemasonry, there are reasons for believing 

that they took an interest in the invention 

of some degrees and systems which 

were intended to advance their own interests . 

But wherever they touched the Institution 

they left the trail of the serpent . They sought 

to convert its pure philanthropy and toleration 

into political intrigue and religious bigotry 

. Hence it is believed that they had 

something to do with the invention of those 

degrees, which were intended to aid the exiled 

house of Stuart in its efforts to regain the 

English throne, because they believed that 

would secure the restoration in England of 

the Roman Catholic religion. Almost a library 

of books has been written on both 

sides of this subject in Germany and in 

France . 

Jetzirah, Book of. See Jezirah . 

Jewel of an Ancient Grand Master. A 

Masonic tradition informs us that the jewel of 

an ancient Grand Master at the Temple was

JEWEL 

JEWELS 369 

the square and compass with the letter G between 

. This was the jewel worn by Hiram 

Abif on the day which deprived the Craft of 

his invaluable services, and which was subsequently 

found upon him . 

Jewel, Member's . In many Lodges, especially 

among the Germans, where it is 

called "Mitglieder Zeichen," a jewel is provided 

for every member, and presented to 

him on his initiation or alliliation . It is to be 

worn from the buttonhole, and generally contains 

the name of the Lodge and some Masonic 

device . 

Jewels, Immovable. See Jewels of a 

Lodge . 

Jewels, Movable . See Jewels of a Lodge . 

Jewels of a Lodge . Every Lodge is furnished 

with six jewels, three of which are movable 

and three immovable . They are termed 

jewels, says Oliver, because they have a moral 

tendency which renders them jewels of inestimable 

value . The movable jewels, so called 

because they are not confined to any particular 

part of the Lodge, are the rough ashlar, 

the perfect ashlar, and the trestle-board . The 

immovable jewels are the square, the level, 

and the plumb. They are termed immovable, 

because they are appropriated to particular 

parts of the Lodge, where alone they should 

be found namely, the square to the east, the 

level to the west, and the plumb to the south . 

In the English system the division is the reverse 

of this. There, the square, level, and 

plumb are called movable jewels, because 

they pass from the three officers who wear 

them to their successors . 

Jewels, Official . Jewels are the names applied 

to the emblems worn by the officers of 

Masonic bodies as distinctive badges of their 

offices . For the purpose of reference, the 

jewels worn in Symbolic Lodges, in Chapters, 

Councils, and Encampments are here appended. 

1 . In Symbolic Lodges . 

W. . Master wears a square . 

Senior Warden " a level . 

Junior Warden " a plumb . 

Treasurer cross keys . 

Secretary " cross pens . 

Senior Deacon " 

square and compass, 

sun in the center . 

Junior Deacon " square and compass, 

moon in the center . 

Steward " a cornucopia . 

Tiler " cross swords . 

The jewels are of silver in a subordinate 

Lodge and of gold in a Grand Lodge . In 

English Lodges, the jewel of the Deacon is a 

dove and olive branch . 

2 . In Royal Arch Chapters. 

High Priest wears a miter . 

King " a level surmounted by a 

crown . 

Scribe 

a plumb-rule surmounted 

by a turban . 

Captain of the Host 

Principal Sojourner 

Royal Arch Captain " 

Grand Master of the 

it 

Veils 

wears a triangular plate 

inscribed with 

a soldier . 

a triangular plate 

inscribed with 

a pilgrim. 

a sword . 

a sword . 

The other officers as in a Symbolic Lodge 

All the jewels are of gold, and suspended 

within an equilateral triangle . 

3 . In Royal and Select Councils . 

T . I . Grand Master 

wears a trowel and 

square . 

I. Hiram of Tyre " a trowel and 

level . 

Principal Conductor of 

the Works 

It 

a trowel and 

plumb. 

Treasurer " a trowel and 

cross keys. 

Recorder " a trowel and 

cross pens . 

Captain of the Guards " a trowel and 

sword. 

Steward " a trowel and 

cross swords . 

Marshal " a trowel and 

baton . 

If a Conductor of the Council is used, he 

wears a trowel and baton, and then a scroll is 

added to the Marshal's baton to distinguish 

the two officers . 

All the jewels are of silver, and are enclosed 

within an equilateral triangle . 

4. In Commanderies of Knights Templars . 

Em't Commander wears a cross surmounted 

by rays of light . 

Generalissimo " a square surmounted 

by a paschal lamb . 

Captain-General " a level surmounted 

by a cock . 

Prelate a triple triangle . 

Senior Warden " a hollow square and 

sword of justice . 

Junior Warden 

" eagle and flaming 

sword . 

Treasurer " cross keys . 

Recorder " cross pens . 

Standard-Bearer " a plumb surmounted 

by a banner . 

Warder " a square plate inscribed 

with a 

trumpet and cross 

swords . 

Three Guards " a square plate inscribed 

with a 

battle-ax . 

The jewels are of silver . 

Jewels, Precious . In the lectures of the 

Second and Third degrees, allusion is made to 

certain moral qualities, which, as they are intended 

to elucidate and impress the most important 

moral principles of the degree, are for

370 JEWISH 

JOHN'S 

theirgreat value called the Precious Jewels of 

a Fellow-Craft and the Precious Jewels of a 

Master Mason. There are three in each de- 

Reel and they are referred to by the Alarm . 

eir explanation is esoteric . 

Jewish Rites and Ceremonies. A period 

of excitement in favor of the rites of Judaism 

centered upon and pervaded the people of 

various nations during the early portion of the 

fourteenth century . The ceremonies grew and 

took fast hold upon the minds of the Romans, 

and, combining with their forms, spread to 

Constantinople and northwest to Germany 

and France . The Jewish rites, traditions, and 

legends thus entered the mystic schools. It 

was during this period that the legend of Hiram 

first became known (Bro . G . H . Fort), and 

Jehovah's name, and mystic forms were transmitted 

from Byzantine workmen to Teutonic 

sodalities and German gilds . Thus also, when 

the Christian enthusiasm pervades the North, 

Paganism gave way, and the formal toasts 

at the ceremonial banquets were drunk in 

the name of the saints in lieu of those of the 

Pagan gods . 

Jews, Disqualification of. The great 

principles of religious and political toleration 

which peculiarly characterize Freemasonry 

would legitimately make no religious faith 

which recognized a Supreme Being a disqualification 

for initiation . But, unfortunately, 

these principles have not alwaysbeenregarded, 

and from an early period the German Lodges, 

and especially the Prussian, were reluctant to 

accord admission to Jews . This action has 

given great offense to the Grand Lodges of 

other countries which were more liberal in 

their views, and were more in accord with the 

Masonic spirit, and was productive of dissensions 

among the Masons of Germany, many 

of whom were opposed to this intolerant policy 

. But a better spirit now prevails ; and 

very recently the Grand Lodge of the Three 

Globes at Berlin, the leading Masonic body of 

Prussia, has removed the interdict, and Judaism 

is there no longer a disqualification for 

initiation . 

Jezeeds . A Mohammedan sect in Turkey 

and Persia, which took its name from the 

founder, Jezeed, a chief who slew the sons of 

Ali, the father-in-law of Mohammed . They 

were ignorant in the extreme, having faith in 

both the Hebrew Bible and Koran ; their 

hymns were addressed, without distinction, to 

Moses, Christ, or Mohammed . 

Jezirah or Jetzirah, Book of. M"13` 

"TO ii e. Book of the Creation . A Kabbalistic 

worir, wLch is claimed by the Kabbalists as 

their first and oldest code of doctrines, although 

it has no real affinity with the tenets of the 

Kabbala . The authorship of it is attributed 

to the patriarch Abraham ; but the actual date 

of its first appearance is supposed to be about 

the ninth century . Steinschneider says that 

it opens the literature of the Secret Doctrine . 

Its fundamental idea is, that in the ten digits 

and the twenty letters of the Hebrew alphabet 

we are to find the origin of all things . Landauer, 

a German Hebraist, thinks that the 

author of the Jetzirah borrowed his doctrine 

of numbers from the School of Pythagoras, 

which is very probable. The old Masons, it is 

probable, derived some of their mystical ideas 

of sacred numbers from this work. 

Joabert. This, according to the legends 

of the high degrees, was the name of the chief 

favorite of Solomon, who incurred the displeasure 

of Hiram of Tyre on a certain occasion, 

but was subsequently pardoned, and, on 

account of the great attachment he had shown 

to the person of his master, was appointed the 

Secretary of Solomon and Hiram in their most 

intimate relations . He was afterward . still 

further promoted by Solomon, and appointed 

with Tito and Adoniram a Provost and Judge . 

He distinguished himself in his successful efforts 

to bring certain traitors to condign punishment, 

and although by his rashness he at 

first excited the anger of the king, he was subsequently 

forgiven, and eventually received 

the highest reward that Solomon could bestow 

by being made an Elect, Perfect, and 

Sublime Mason . The name is evidently not 

Hebrew, or must at least have undergone 

much corruption, for in its present form it cannot 

be traced to a Hebrew root. Lenning says 

(Encyclopadie) that it is Johaben, or, more 

properly, Ihaoben, which he interprets the Son 

of God ; but it would be difficult to find any 

such meaning according to the recognized 

rules of the Hebrew etymology . 

Joachim, Order of. A secret association 

instituted in Germany toward the end of the 

last century. Its recipients swore that they 

believed in the Trinity, and would never waltz . 

None but nobles, their wives and children, 

were admitted . It had no connection with 

Masonry . 

Jobei. (Heb., ~n1`, jubilans .) A name of 

God used in the Thirteenth Degree, A. A . 


Jochebed. (Heb ., '1»1`, God-glorified.) 

The wife of Amram, and mother of Miriam, 

Moses, and Aaron . 

Johaben . (Heb., Latin, Filius Dei .) 

A name of continuous use in the A . A . Scottish 

Rite, and also mentioned in the Fourth and 

Fifth degrees of the modern French Rite . 

Johannite Masonry. A term introduced 

by Dr . Oliver to designate the system of Masonry, 

of which the two Sts. John are recognized 

as the patrons, and to whom the Lodges 

are dedicated, in contradistinction to the more 

recent system of Dr. Hemming, in which the 

dedication is to Moses and Solomon . Oliver 

was much opposed to the change, and wrote an 

interesting work on the subject entitled A 

Mirror for the Johannite Masons, which was 

published in 1848. According to his definition, 

the system practised in the United States 

is Johannite Masonry . 

Johannites. A Masonico-religious sect 

established in Paris, in 1814, by Fabre-Paliprat, 

and attached to the Order of the Temple, 

of which he was the Grand Master . (See 

Levitikon and Temple, Order of the .) 

John's Brothers . In the charter of Cologne, 

it is said that before the year 1440 the

JOHNSON 

JONES 371 

eociety of Freemasons was known by no other 

name thaw that of "John's Brothers," Joannaeorum 

fratrum ; that they then began to be 

called at Valenciennes, Free and Accepted 

Masons and that at that time, in some parts 

of Flanders, by the assistance and riches of the 

brotherhood, the first hospitals were erected 

for the relief of such as were afflicted Nvith St . 

Anthony's fire . In another part of the charter 

it is said that the authors of the associations 

were called "Brothers consecrated to 

John" fratres Joanni Sacros-because "they 

followed the example and imitation of John 

the Baptist ." 

Johnson . Sometimes spelled Johnstone . 

An adventurer, and Masonic charlatan, whose 

real name was Leucht . He assumed Masonry 

as a disguise under which he could carry on his 

impositions . He appeared first at Jena, in the 

beginning of the year 1763, and proclaimed 

that he had been deputed by the chiefs of 

Templar Masonry in Scotland to introduce a 

reform into the German Lodges . He established 

a Chapter of Strict Observance (the 

Rite then dominating in Germany), and assumed 

the dignity of Grand Prior . He made 

war upon Rosa, the founder of the Rosaic Rite, 

and upon the Grand Lodge of the Three 

Globes, which then sustained that enthusiast . 

Many of the German Lodges succumbed to his 

pretensions, and, surrendering their Warrants, 

gave in their adhesion to Johnson . Von Hund 

himself was at first deceived by him ; but in 

1764, at Altenberg, having discovered that 

Johnson had been formerly under the name of 

Becker, the secretary of tie Prince of Bernber~, 

whose confidence he had betrayed ; that 

during the seven years' war he had been wandering 

about, becoming finally, the servant of 

a Mason, whose papers he had stolen, and that 

by means of these papers he had been passing 

himself as that individual, B . von Hund denounced 

him as an impostor . Johnson fled, 

but was subsequently arrested at Magdeburg, 

and imprisoned in the fortress of Wartzberg, 

where in 1773 he died suddenly . 

John the Baptist. See Saint John the 

Baptist. 

John the Evangelist . See Saint John the 

Evangelist. 

Joinvilie, Chaillou de. See Chaillou de 

Joinville. 

Jokshan . (Heb .,,Tnj)`, fowler.) The second 

son of Abraham and Keturah, whose sons appear 

to be the ancestors of the Sabeans and 

Dedanites, who inhabited part of Arabia Felix . 

(Same as Jeksan .) 

Jones, Inigo. One of the most celebrated 

of English architects, and hence called the 

Vitruvius of England . He was born at London 

on July 15, 1573, and died June 21, 1652, in 

the seventy-ninth year of his age . He was 

successively the architect of three kings- 

James I ., Charles I., and Charles II .-and 

during his long career superintended the erection 

of many of the most magnificent public 

and private edifices in England, among which 

were the Banqueting-House of Whitehall, and 

the old church of St . Paul's . Jones's official 

position placed him, of course, in close connection 

with the Operative Masons . Anderson, 

seizing on this circumstance, says that 

James I . "approved of his being chosen Grand 

Master of England, to preside over the 

Lodges" (Constitutions, 1738, p . 98) ; but the 

Earl of Pembroke being afterward chosen 

Grand Master, he appointed Jones his Deputy . 

These statements are copied by Entick and 

Noorthouck in their respective editions of 

the Book of Constitutions ; but it, is hardly 

necessary to say that they need historical confirmation 

. Preston says : 

"During his administration, several learned 

men were initiated into the Order, and the society 

considerably increased in consequence 

and reputation . Ingenious artists daily resorted 

to England, where they met with great 

encouragement ; Lodges were instituted as 

seminaries of instruction in the sciences and 

polite arts, after the model of the Italian 

schools ; the communications of the Fraternity 

were established, and the annual festivals 

regularly observed ." 

There may be exaggeration or assumption 

in much of this, but it cannot be denied that 

the office of Jones as "King's Architect," and 

his labors as the most extensive builder of his 

time, must have brought him into close intimacy 

with the associations of Operative Masons, 

which were being rapidly influenced by a 

speculative character . It will be remembered 

that six years before Jones's death, Elias Ashmole 

was, by his own account, made a Freemason 

at Warrington, and Jones the architect 

and builder could hardly have taken less interest 

in the society than Ashmole the astrologer 

and antiquary . We have, perhaps, a 

right to believe that Jones was a Freemason. 

Jones, Stephen . A miscellaneous writer 

and Masonic author of some celebrity . He 

was born at London in 1764, and educated at 

St. Paul's school . He was, on leaving school, 

placed under an eminent sculptor, but, on account 

of some difference, was removed and 

apprenticed to a printer . On the expiration of 

his articles, he was engaged as corrector of the 

press, by Mr . Strahan, the king's printer . 

Four years afterward, he removed to the 

office of Mr . Thomas Wright, where he remained 

until 1797, when the death of his employer 

dissolved his immediate connection 

with the printing business . He then became 

the editor of the Whitehall Evening Post, and, 

on the decline of that paper, of the General 

Evening Post, and afterward of the European 

Magazine . His contributions to literature 

were very various . He supervised an edition 

of Reed's Biographia Dramatica, an abridgment 

of Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, 

and also abridgments of many other 

popular works . But, he is best known in 

general literature by his Pronouncing and Explanatory 

Dictionary of the English Language, 

published in 1798 . This production, although 

following Walker's far superior work, was 

very favorably received by the public . 

In Masonry, Stephen Jones occupied a very 

high position . He was a Past Master of the

372 JOPPA 

JOSHUA 

Lodge of Antiquity, of which William Preston 

was a member, and of whom Jones was an intimate 

friend, and one of his executors . Preston 

had thoroughly instructed him in his 

system, and after the death of that distinguished 

Mason, he was the first to fill the appointment 

of Prestonian lecturer . In 1797 he 

published Masonic Miscellanies in Prose and 

Poetry, which went through many editions, 

the last being that of 1811 . In a graceful dedication 

to Preston he acknowledges his indebtedness 

to him for any insight that he may 

have acquired into the nature and design of 

Masonry . In 1816 he contributed the article 

"Masonry or *reemasonry" to the Encyclopedia 

Londinensis . In 1821 after the 

death of Preston, he published an edition of the 

Illustrations, with Additions and Corrections . 

Bro . Matthew Cooke (London Freemasons' 

Magazine, September, 1859) says of him : 

"In the Masonic Craft, Bro . Jones was very 

deeply versed . He was a man of genial sympathies, 

and a great promoter of social gatherings." 

John Britton the architect, who knew 

him well, says of him (Autobiog ., p . 302), that 

"he was a man of mild disposition, strict honesty, 

great industry, and unblemished character 

." In his latter days he was in embarrassed 

circumstances, and derived pecuniary 

aid from the Literary Fund. He died, on December 

20, 1828, of dropsy, in King Street, 

Holborn, London . 

Joppa. A town of Palestine and the seaport 

of Jerusalem, from which it is distant 

about forty miles in a westerly direction . It 

was here that the King of Tyre sent ships 

laden with timber and marble to be forwarded 

overland to Solomon for the construction of 

the Temple . Its shore is exceedingly rough, 

and much dreaded by navigators, who, on account 

of its exposure, and the perpendicularity 

of its banks, are compelled to be perpetually 

on their guard . The following extract 

from the narrative of the Baron Geramb, a 

Trappist, who visited the Holy Land in 1842, 

will be interesting to Mark Masters . "Yesterday 

morning at daybreak, boats put off and 

surrounded the vessel to take us to the town 

(of Joppa), the access to which is difficult on 

account of the numerous rocks that present to 

view their bare flanks . The walls were covered 

with spectators, attracted by curiosity . The 

boats being much lower than the bridge, upon 

which one is obliged to climb, and having no 

ladder, the landing is not effected without danger. 

More than once it has happened that passengers, 

in springing out, have broken their 

limbs ; and we might have met with the like 

accident, if several persons had not hastened to 

our assistance ." (Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and 

Mount Sinai, vol . i., p. 27 .) The place is now 

called Jaffa. 

Joram . (Heb ., D11y, excelsus.) One of 

three architects sent by Solomon to superintend 

the cutting and preparing of timber . 

Jordan. A river of Judea, on the banks of 

which occurred the slaughter of the Ephraimites, 

which is alluded to in the Second Degree . 

Jordan, Charles Stephen . Secret coun- 

selor of the King of Prussia, and Vice-President 

of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, 

was born in the year 1700, and died in the 

year 1745. In the year 1740, he founded 

with the Baron von Bielfeld, the Lodge of 

Three Globes at Berlin, of which he was Secretary 

until the time of his death . 

Jordan, Fords of the . The exact locality 

of these fords (or "passages," as the Bible 

terms them) cannot now be designated, but 

most likely they were those nearly due east 

of Seikoot, and opposite Mizpah . At these 

fords, in summer time, the water is not more 

than three or four feet deep, the bottom being 

composed of a hard limestone rock . If, as 

some think, the fords thirty miles higher up 

are those referred to the same desexiption will 

apply . At either place, the Jordan is about 

eighty feet wide ; its banks encumbered by 

a dense growth of tamarisks, cane, willows, 

thorn bushes, and other low vegetation of the 

shrubby and thorny sorts, which make it difficult 

even to approach the margin of the 

stream . The Arabs cross the river at the present 

day, at stages of low water, at a number of 

fords, from the one near the point where the 

Jordan leaves the sea of Galilee, down to the 

Pilgrims' Ford, six miles above the Dead Sea . 

(Morris, Freemasonry in the Holy Land, p . 316 .) 

Joseph II. This emperor of Germany, 

who succeeded his mother Maria Theresa, at 

one time encouraged the Masons in his dominions, 

and, notwithstanding the efforts of the 

priests to prevent it, issued a decree in 1785, 

written, says Lenning, by his own hand, 

which permitted the meetings of Lodges 

under certain restrictions as to number . In 

this decree he says : 

"In return for their compliance with this 

ordinance, the government accords to the 

Freemasons welcome, protection, and liberty ; 

leaving entirely to their own direction the control 

of their members and their constitutions . 

The government will not attempt to penetrate 

into their mysteries . 

"Following these directions, the Order of 

Freemasons, in which body are comprised a 

great number of worthy men who are wellknown 

to me, may become useful to the 

state ." 

But the Austrian Masons did not enjoy this 

tolerance long ; the Emperor at length yielded 

to the counsels and the influence of the bigoted 

priesthood, and in 1789 the ordinance was 

rescinded, and the Lodges were forbidden to 

congregate under the severest penalties . 

Josephus, Flavlus . A Jewish author who 

lived in the first century, and wrote in Greek, 

among other works, a History of the Jews, to 

which recourse has been had in some of the 

high degrees, such as the Prince of Jerusalem 

and Knight of the Red Cross, or Red Cross of 

Babylon, for details in framing their rituals . 

Joshaphat, Son of Ahilud . The name of 

the Orator in the degree of Provost and Judge, 

A . A. Scottish Rite . 

Joshua. The high priest who, with Zerubbabel 

the Prince of Judah, superintended 

the rebuilding of the Temple after the Baby-

JOURNEY 

JURISDICTION 373 

Ionian captivity . He was the high priest by 

lineal descent from the pontifical family, for 

he was the son of Josadek, who was the son of 

Seraiah, who was the high priest when the 

Temple was destroyed by the Chaldeans . He 

was distinguished for the zeal with which he 

prosecuted the work of rebuilding, and opposed 

the interference of the Samaritans . He 

is represented by the High Priest in the Royal 

Arch Degree according to the York and American 

Rites . 

Journey. Journeywork, or work by the 

day, in contradistinction to task, or work by 

the piece, and so used in all the old Constitutions. 

Thus, in the Dowland MS ., there is 

the charge "that noe maister nor fellows, put 

no lord's work to taske that was want to goe 

to jornaye ." It was fairer to the lord and to 

the craftsman to work by the day than by the 

piece. 

Journeyman . When the Lodges were altogether 

operative in their character, a Mason, 

having served his apprenticeship, began to 

work for himself, and he was then called a 

journeyman ; but he was required, within a 

reasonable period (in Scotland it was two 

years), to obtain admission into a Lodge, when 

he was said to have passed a Fellow-Craft . 

Hence the distinction between Fellow-Crafts 

and journeymen was that the former were and 

the latter were not members of Lodges . Thus, 

in the minutes of St. Mary's Chapel Lodge of 

Edinburgh, on the 27th of December, 1689, it 

was declared that "No Master shall employ a 

person who has not been passed a Fellow 

Craft in two years after the expiring of his apprenticeship" 

; and the names of several journeymen 

are given who had not complied with 

the law . A similar regulation was repeated 

by the same Lodge in 1705, complaint having 

been made "that there are several Masters 

of this house that tolerate jurnimen to work 

up and down this citie contrary to their oath 

of admission" ; and such journeymen were 

forbidden to seek employment . The patronage 

of the Craft of Freemasons was bestowed 

only on those who had become "free of the 

gil " 

Jova. A significant word in the high degrees. 

It is a corrupted form of the Tetragrammaton. 

Jua. A corrupted form of the Tetragrammaton, 

and a significant word in the high 

degrees . 

Jubal Cain. Erroneously used for Tubal 

Cain, which see. Jubal was the second son 

of Lamech by his first wife, Ada, and was the 

founder of the science of music ; while the 

third son, Tubal Cain, was a famous smithwright 

. 

Jubela-o-m . The mythical names of assassins, 

the true interpretation of which is 

only known to the initiate who is an esoteric 

student . 

Judah. The whole of Palestine was sometimes 

called the land of Judah, because Judah 

was a distinguished tribe in obtaining possession 

of the country . The tribe of Judah bore 

a lion in its standard, and hence the Ma- 

sonic allusion to the Lion of the tribe of 

Judah. (See also Genesis xlix. 9, "Judah is a 

lion's whelp .") 

Judah and Benjamin . Of the twelve 

tribes of Israel who were, at various times, 

carried into captivity, only two, those of Judah 

and Benjamin, returned under Zerubbabel to 

rebuild the second Temple . Hence, in the high 

degrees, which are founded on events that occurred 

at and after the building of the second 

Temple, the allusions are made only to the 

tribes of Judah and Benjamin . 

Judith. (Heb ., i1"11,T1 .) Used in the 

French Adoptive Masonry, and in the Fifth 

Degree of Sovereign Illustrious Ecossais . 

Jug Lodges . An opprobrious epithet bestowed, 

during the anti-Masonic excitement, 

upon certain assemblages of worthless men 

who pretended to confer the degrees upon 

candidates weak enough to confide in them . 

They derived their instructions from the socalled 

expositions of Morgan, and exacted a 

trifling fee for initiation, which was generally 

a jug of whisky, or money enough to buy one . 

They were found in the mountain regions of 

North and South Carolina and Georgia . 

Junior Adept. (Junior Adeptus .) One of 

the degrees of the German Rose Croix . 

Junior Entered Apprentice . According 

to the rituals of the early part of the last 

century, the Junior Entered Apprentice was 

placed in the North, and his duty was to keep 

out all cowans and eavesdroppers . There was 

also a Senior Entered Apprentice, and the two 

seem to have occupied, in some manner, the 

positions now occupied by the Senior and 

Junior Deacons. (See Senior Entered Apprentice 

.) 

Junior Overseer . The lowest officer in a 

Mark Lodge . When Royal Arch Chapters 

are opened in the Mark Degree, the duties of 

the Junior Overseer are performed by the 

Grand Master of the First Veil . 

Junior Warden . The third officer in a 

Symbolic Lodge. He presides over the Craft 

during the hours of refreshment, and, in the 

absence of the Master and Senior Warden, he 

performs the duty of presiding officer . Hence, 

if the Master and Senior Warden were to 

die or remove from the jurisdiction, the Junior 

Warden would assume the chair for the remainder 

of the term . The jewel of the 

Junior Warden is a plumb, emblematic of the 

rectitude of conduct which should distinguish 

the brethren when, during the hours of refreshment, 

they are beyond the precincts of 

the Lodge. His seat is in the South, and he 

represents the Pillar of Beauty . He has placed 

before him, and carries in procession, a column, 

which is the representative of the lefthand 

pillar which stood at the porch of the 

Temple . (See Wardens .) 

The sixth officer in a Commandery of 

Knights Templar is also styled Junior Warden . 

His duties, especially in the reception of candidates, 

are very important . His jewel of 

office is an Eagle holding a Flaming Sword . 

Jurisdiction of a Grand Lodge . The 

jurisdiction of a Grand Lodge extends over

374 JURISDICTION 

JUST 

every Lodge working within its territorial 

limits, and over all places not already occupied 

by a Grand Lodge . The territorial 

limits of a Grand Lodge are determined in 

general by the political boundaries of the 

country in which it is placed . Thus the territorial 

limits of the Grand Lodge of New York 

are circumscribed within the settled boundaries 

of that State . Nor can its jurisdiction extend 

beyond these limits into any of the 

neighboring States . The Grand Lodge of New 

York could not, therefore, without an infringement 

of Masonic usage, grant a Warrant of 

Constitution to any Lodge located in any 

State where there was already a Grand Lodge . 

It might, however, charter a Lodge in a Territory, 

where there is not in existence a Grand 

Lodge of that Territory . Thus the Lodges of 

Franceheldtheirallegianceto theGrandLodge 

of England until the formation of a Grand 

Lodge of France, and the Grand Lodges of 

both England, Scotland, and France granted 

Warrants to various Lodges in America until 

after the Revolution, when the States began 

to organize Grand Lodges for themselves . For 

the purposeof avoiding collision and unfriendly 

feeling, it has become the settled usage, that 

when a Grand Lodge has been legally organized 

in a State, all the Lodges within its limits 

musts urrender the charters which they have 

received from foreign bddies, and accept new 

ones from the newly established Grand . Lodge . 

This is the settled and well-recognized law of 

American and English Masonry . But the continental 

Masons, and especially the Germans, 

have not so rigidly interpreted this law of unoccupied 

territory ; and there have been in 

France, and still are in Germany, several 

Grand Lodges in the same kingdom exercising 

coordinate powers . 

Jurisdiction of a Lodge . The jurisdiction 

of a Lodge is geographical or personal . 

The geographical jurisdiction of a Lodge is that 

which it exercises over the territory within 

which it is situated, and extends to all the 

Masons, affiliated and unaffiliated, who -live 

within that territory . This jurisdiction extends 

to a point equally distant from the adjacent 

Lodge . Thus, if two Lodges are situated 

within twenty miles of each other, the 

geographical jurisdiction of each will extend 

ten miles from its seat in the direction of 

the other Lodge . But in this case both Lodges 

must be situated in the same State, and hold 

their Warrants from the same Grand Lodge ; 

for it is a settled point of Masonic law that no 

Lodge can extend its geogr aphical jurisdiction 

beyond the territorial limits of its own 


The personal jurisdiction of a Lodge is that 

penal jurisdiction which it exercises over its 

own members wherever they may be situated . 

No matter how far a Mason may remove from 

the Lodge of which he is a member, his allegiance 

to that Lodge is indefeasible so long as 

he continues a member, and it may exercise 

penal jurisdiction over him . 

Jurisdiction of a Supreme Council. 

The Masonic jurisdiction of the whole territory 

of the United States for the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite was divided between 

the Southern and Northern Supreme Councils 

in accordance with a special concession 

made by the former body in 1813, when the 

latter was organized . By this concession the 

Northern Supreme Council has jurisdiction 

over the States of Maine, New Hampshire, 

Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 

New York, New Jersey, Delaware, 

Pennsylvania Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana ; 

all the other Atates and Territories are under 

the jurisdiction of the Southern Supreme 

Council. 

Justice. One of the four cardinal virtues, 

the practise of which is inculcated in the First 

Degree . The Mason who remembers how emphatically 

he has been charged to preserve 

an upright position in all his dealings with 

mankind, should never f ail to act justly to himself, 

to his brethren, and to the world . This 

is the corner-stone on which alone he can expect 

"to erect a superstructure alike honorable 

to himself and to the Fraternity." In 

iconology, Justice is usually represented as a 

matron with bandaged eyes, holding in one 

hand a sword and in the other a pair of scales 

at equipoise . But in Masonry the true symbol 

of Justice, as illustrated in the First Degree 

is the feet firmly planted on the ground, and 

the body upright. 

Justification . The Fifth Degree in the 

Rite of Fessler . 

Just Lodge . A Lodge is said to be Just, 

Perfect, and Regular under the following circumstances 

: Just, when it is furnished with 

the three Great Lights ; Perfect, when it contains 

the constitutional number of members ; 

and Regular, when it is working under a Charter 

of Warrant of Constitution emanating 

from the legal authority.

KABBALA 375 

H. (Heb ., 5, Caph, signifying hollow of the 

hand .) This is the eleventh letter of the English 

alphabet and in Hebrew 

has the numerical 

value of 20 . In the Chaldaic 

or hieroglyphic it is represented 

by a hand . 

Haaba . The name of the holy temple of 

Mecca, which is to the Mohammedans what 

the Temple of Solomon was to the Jews . It is 

certainly older, as Gibbon admits, than the 

Christian era, and is supposed, by the tradition 

of the Arabians, to have been erected 

in the nineteenth century B .c ., by Abraham, 

who was assisted by his son Ishmael . It derives 

its name of Kaaba from its cubical form, 

it being fifteen feet long, wide, and high . It 

has but one aperture for light, which is a door 

in the east end . In the northeast corner is 

a black stone, religiously venerated by the 

Mussulmans, called "the black stone of the 

Kaaba," around which cluster many traditions . 

One of these is that it came down from Paradise, 

and was originally as white as milk, but 

that the sins of mankind turned it black ; another 

is, that it is a ruby which was originally 

one of the precious stones of heaven, but that 

God deprived it of its brilliancy, which would 

have illuminated the world from one end to 

the other. Syed Ahmed, who, for a Mussulman 

has written a very rational History of 

the loly Mecca (London, 1870), says that the 

black stone is really a piece of rock from the 

mountains in the vicinity of Mecca ; that it 

owes its black color to the effects of fire ; and 

that before the erection of the temple of the 

Kaaba, it was no other than one of the numerous 

altars erected for the worship of God, and 

was, together with other stones, laid up in 

one of the corners of the temple at the time of 

its construction. It is, in fact, one of the 

relics of the ancient stone worship ; yet it reminds 

us of the foundation-stone of the Solomonic 

Temple, to which building the temple 

of the Kaaba has other resemblances . Thus, 

Syed Ahmed, who, in opposition to most 

Christian writers, devoutly believes in its 

Abrahamic or n, says that (p . 6) "the temple 

of the Kaaba was built by Abraham in 

conformity with those religious practices according 

to which, after a lapse of time, the descendants 

of his second son built the Temple 

of Jerusalem ." 

Kabbala. The mystical philosophy or 

theosophy of the Jews is called the Kabbala . 

The word is derived from the Hebrew 5Z7, 

Kabal, signifying to receive, because it is the 

doctrine received from the elders . It has sometimes 

been used in an enlarged sense, as comprehending 

all the explanations, maxims, and 

ceremonies which have been traditionally 

handed down to the Jews ; but in that more 

limited acceptation, in which it is intimately 

connected with the symbolic science of Freemasonry, 

the Kabbala may be defined to be a 

system of philosophy which embraces certain 

mystical interpretations of Scripture, and 

metaphysical speculations concerning the 

Deity, man, and spiritual beings. In these 

interpretations and speculations, according to 

the Jewish doctors, were enveloped the most 

profound truths of religion, which, to be comprehended 

by finite beings, are obliged to be 

revealed through the medium of symbols and 

allegories. Buxtorf (Lex. Talm.) defines the 

Kabbala to be a secret science, which treats in 

a mystical and enigmatical manner of things 

divine, angelical, theological, celestial, and 

metaphysical ; the subjects being enveloped 

in striking symbols and secret modes of teaching 

. Much use is made of it in the high degrees, 

and entire Rites have been constructed 

on its principles . Hence it demands a place 

in any general work on Masonry . 

In what estimation the Kabbala is held by 

Jewish scholars, we may learn from the traditions 

which they teach, and which Dr . Ginsburg 

has given in his exhaustive work (Kabbalah, 

p . 84), in the following words : 

"The Kabbalah was first taught by God 

himself to a select company of angels, who 

formed a theosophic school in Paradise . 

After the fall, the angels most graciously communicated 

this heavenly doctrine to the disobedient 

child of earth, to furnish the protoplasts 

with the means of returning to their 

pristine nobility and felicity . From Adam it 

passed over to Noah, and then to Abraham, 

the friend of God, who emigrated with it to 

Egypt, where the patriarch allowed a portion 

of this mysterious doctrine to ooze out . It 

was in this way that the Egyptians obtained 

some knowledge of it, and the other Eastern 

nations could introduce it into their philosophical 

systems . Moses, who was learned 

in all the wisdom of Egypt, was first initiated 

into it in the land of his birth, but became 

most proficient in it during his wanderings in 

the wilderness, when he not only devoted to it 

the leisure hours of the whole forty years, but 

received lessons in it from one of the angels . 

By the aid . of this mysterious science the lawgiver 

was enabled to solve the difficulties 

which arose during his management of the 

Israelites, in spite of the pilgr~mages, wars, 

and the frequent miseries of the nation . He 

covertly laid down the principles of this secret 

doctrine in the first four books of the Pentateuch, 

but withheld them-from Deuteronomy . 

This constitutes the former the man, and the 

latter the woman . Moses also initiated the 

seventy elders into the secrets of this doctrine, 

and they again transmitted them from hand to 

hand . Of all who formed the unbroken line 

of tradition, David and Solomon were first 

initiated into the Kabbalah . No one, however, 

dared to write it down till Simon ban 

Jochai, who lived at the time of the destruction 

of the second Temple . Having been condemned 

to death by Titus, Rabbi Simon man-

376 KABBALA 

KABBALA 

aged to escape with his son, and concealed 

himself in a cavern, where he remained for 

twelve years . Here in this subterranean abode, 

he occupied himself entirely with the contemplation 

of the sublime Kabbalah, and was constantly 

visited by the prophet Elias who disclosed 

to him some of its secrets, which were 

still concealed from the theosophical Rabbi . 

Here too, his disciples resorted to be initiated 

by their master into these divine mysteries ; 

and here Simon ben Jochai expired with this 

heavenly doctrine in his mouth, whilst discoursing 

on it to his disciples . Scarcely had 

his spirit departed, when a dazzling light filled 

the cavern, so that no one could look at the 

Rabbi ; whilst a burning fire appeared outside, 

forming as it were a sentinel at the entrance 

of the cave, and denying admittance to 

the neighbors . It was not till the light inside, 

and the fire outside, had disappeared, that the 

disciples perceived that the lamp of Israel was 

extinguished. As they were preparing for his 

obsequies, a voice was heard from heaven, 

saying, `Come ye to the marriage of Simon b . 

Jochai ; he is entering into peace, and shall 

rest in his chamber!' A flame preceded the 

coffin which seemed enveloped by and burning 

lie fire . And when the remains were deposited 

in the tomb, another voice was heard 

from heaven, saying, `This is he who caused 

the earth to quake and the kingdoms to shake!' 

His son, R. Eliezer, and his secretary, R . Abba, 

as well as his disciples, then collated R . Simon 

b. Jochai's treatises, and out of these composed 

the celebrated work called Sohar, (11D,) 

i . e. Splendor, which is the grand storehouse 

of I~abbalism ." 

The Kabbala is divided into two kinds, the 

Practical and the Theoretical . The Practical 

Kabbala is occupied in instructions for the 

construction of talismans and amulets, and 

has no connection with Masonic science . The 

Theoretical Kabbala is again divided into the 

Dogmatic and the Literal . The Dogmatic 

Kabbala is the summary of the rabbinical theosophy 

and philosophy . The Literal Kabbala 

is the science which teaches a mystical mode of 

explaining sacred things by a peculiar use of 

the letters of words, and a reference to their 

value . Each of these divisions demands a 

separate attention . 

I. Trm DOGMATIC KABBALA . The origin 

of the Kabbala has been placed by some scholars 

at a period posterior to the advent of 

Christianity, but it is evident, from the traces 

of it which are found in the Book of Daniel, 

that it arose at a much earlier day . It has 

been supposed to be derived originally from 

the system of Zoroaster, but whether its inventors 

were the contemporaries or the successors 

of that philosopher and reformer it is 

impossible to say . The doctrine of emanation 

is, says King (Gnostics, p . 10), "the soul, 

the essential element of the Kabbala- it is 

likewise the essential element of ioroastrism." 

But as we advance in the study of 

each we will find important differences, showing 

that, while the idea of the Kabbalistic theosophy 

was borrowed from the Zendavesta, 

the sacred book of the Persian sage, it was not 

a copy, but a development of it . 

The Kabbalistic teachin* of emanation is 

best understood by an examination of the doctrine 

of the Sephiroth . 

The Supreme Being, say the Kabbalists, is 

an absolute and inscrutable unity, having 

nothing without him and everything within 

him. He is called ~ÌD ,`K, EN SOPH, "The 

Infinite One ." In this infinitude he cannot be 

comprehended by the intellect, nor described 

in words intelligible by human minds, so as to 

make his existence perceptible . It was necessary, 

therefore, that, to render himself comprehensible, 

the En Soph should make himself 

active and creative . But he could not become 

the direct creator ; because, being infinite, he 

is without will, intention, thought, desire, or 

action, all of which are qualities of a finite 

being only . The En Soph, therefore, was 

compelled-to create the world in an indirect 

manner by ten emanations from the infinite 

light which he was and in which he dwelt . 

These ten emanations are the ten Sephiroth, 

or Splendors of the Infinite One, and the way 

in which they were produced was thus : At 

first the En Soph sent forth into space one 

spiritual emanation . This first Sephirah is 

called 1nD, Kether, "the Crown," because it 

occupies the highest position. This first 

Sephirah contained within it the other nine, 

which sprang forth in the following order : At 

first a male, or active potency, proceeded from 

it, and this, the second Sephirab, is called 

,1T»n, Chocmah or"Wisdom .' This sent forth 

an opposite, female or passive potency, named 

1~'Z, Binah or "Intelligence . ' These three 

Sephiroth constitute the first triad, and out of 

them proceeded the other seven. From the 

junction of Wisdom and Intelligence came the 

fourth Sephirah, called 1Dn, Chesed or 

"Mercy ." This was a male potency, and from 

it emanated the fifth Sephirah, named 111]a 

Giburah or "Justice ." The union of Mercy and 

Justice produced the sixth Sephirah, n1XEn, 

Tiphereth or "Beauty" ; and these three constitute 

the second triad . From the sixth 

Sephirah came forth the seventh Sephirah, 11=, 

Nitzach or "Firmness." This was a male potency, 

and produced the female potency 

named 171, Hod or "Splendor ." From these 

two proceeded Ì1D', Isod or "Foundation " • 

and these three constituted the third triad of 

the Sephiroth. Lastly, from the Foundation 

came the tenth Sephirah, called rl)D Yt Malcuth 

or "Kingdom, ' which was at the foot of 

all, as the Crown was at the top . 

This division of the ten Sephiroth into three 

triads was arranged into a form called by the 

Kabbalists the Kabbalistic Tree, or the Tree 

of Life, as shown in the diagram on opposite 

page . 

In this diagram the vertical arrangement of 

the Sephiroth is called "Pillars ." Thus the 

four Sephiroth in the center are called the 

"Middle Pillar" ; the three on the right, the 

"Pillar of Mercy" ; and the three on the left, 

the "Pillar of Justice ." They allude to these 

two qualities of God, of which the benignity

KABBALA 

KABBALA 377 

of the one modifies the rigor of the other, so 

that the Divine Justice is always tempered by 

the Divine Mercy . C . W . King in his Gnostics 

(p. 12), refers the right-hand pillar to the 

Pillar Jachin, and the left-hand pillar to the 

Pillar which stood at the porch of the 

Temple p • and p two," illars he says, 

"figure ~argely amongst all the secret societies 

of modern tmaes, and naturally so ; for these 

illuminati have borrowed, without understanding 

it, the phraseology of the Kabbalists 

and the Valentinians." But an inspection of 

the arrangement of the Sephiroth will show, if 

he is correct in his general reference, that he 

has transposed the pillars. Firmness would 

more naturally symbolize Boaz or Strength, 

as Splendor would Jachin or Establishment . 

These ten Sephiroth are collectively denominated 

the archetypal man, the Microcosm, as 

the Greek philosophers called it, and each of 

them refers to a particular part of the body . 

Thus the Crown is the head ; Wisdom, the 

brain ; and Intelligence, the heart, which was 

deemed the seat of understanding . These 

three represent the intellectual ; and the first 

triad is therefore called the Intellectual World . 

Mercy is the right arm, and Justice the left 

arm, and Beauty is the chest. These three represent 

moral qualities ; and hence the second 

triad is called the Moral World. Firmness is 

the right leg, Splendor the left leg, and Foundation 

the privates . These three represent power 

and stability; and hence the third triad is 

called the Material World . Lastly, Kingdom is 

the feet, the basis on which all stand, and represents 

the harmony of the whole archetypal 

man . 

Again, each of these Sephiroth was represented 

by a Divine name and by an Angelic 

name, which may be thus tabulated : 

Sephiroth. Divine Names. Angelic Names . 

Crown, Eheyeh, Chajoth, 

Wisdom, Jah, Ophanim, 

Intelligence, Jehovah, Arelim, 

Mercy, El, Cashmalim, 

Justice, Eloha, Seraphim, 

Beauty, Elohim, Shinanim, 

Firmness, Jehovah Sabaoth, Tarshishim, 

Splendor, Elohim Sabaoth, Beni Elohim, 

Foundation, El Chai, Ishim, 

Kingdom. Adonai. Cherubim. 

These ten Sephiroth constitute in their 

totality the Atzilatic world or the world of 

emanations, and from it proceeded three other 

worlds, each having also its ten Sephiroth, 

namely, the Briatic world or the world of creation 

; the Jetziratic world or the world of 

formation ; and the Ashiatic world or the 

world of action : each inhabited by a different 

order of beings. But to enter fully upon 

the nature of these worlds would carry us too 

far into the obscure mysticism of the Kabbala. 

These ten Sephiroth, represented in their 

order of ascent from the lowest to the highest, 

from the Foundation to the Crown, forcibly 

remind us of the system of Mystical Ladders 

which pervaded all the ancient as well as the 

modern initiations ; the Brahmanical Ladder 

of the Indian mysteries ; the Ladder of Mith 

ras, used in the Persian mysteries ; the Scandinavian 

Ladder of the Gothic mysteries, and 

in the Masonic mysteries the Ladder of Kadosh 

; and lastly, the Theological Ladder of 

the Symbolical degrees . 

II . THE LrrERAL KABBALA. This division 

of the Kabbalar being, as has already been 

said, occupied in the explanation of sacred 

words by the value of the letters of which they 

are composed, has been extensively used by 

the inventors of the high degrees in the symbolism 

of their significant words . It is divided 

into three species : Gematria, Notaricon, and 

Temura . 

1 . Gematria . This word which is evidently 

a rabbinical corruption of the Greek geometria, 

is defined by Buxtorf to be "a species of the 

Kabbala which collects the same sense of different 

words from their equal numerical 

value ." The Hebrews, like other ancient nations, 

having no figures in their language, 

made use of the letters of their alphabet instead 

of numbers, each having a numerical 

value. Gematria is, therefore, a mode of con-

378 KABBALISTIC 

KADOSH 

templatin words according to the numerical 

value of heir letters . 

Any two words, the letters of which have 

the same numerical value, are mutually convertible, 

and each is supposed to contain the 

latent signification of the other . Thus the 

words in Genesis xlix . 10, "Shiloh shall 

come," are supposed to contain a prophecy of 

the Messiah, because the letters of "Shiloh 

shall come," r15`ttJk:`, and of "Messiah," '1`27 110, 

both have the numerical value of 358, according 

to the above table . By Gematria, applied 

to the Greek language, we find the identity of 

Abraxas and Mithras, the letters of each 

word having in the Greek alphabet the equal 

value of 365 . This is by far the most common 

mode of applying the literal Kabbala . 

2. Notaricon is derived from the Latin notarius, 

a shorthand writer or writer in cipher . 

The Roman Notarii were accustomed to use 

single letters, to signify whole words with 

other methods of abbreviation, by marks 

called "note ." Hence, among the Kabbalists, 

notaricon is a mode of constructing one 

word out of the initials or finals of many, or a 

sentence out of the letters of a word, each letter 

being used as the initial of another word . 

Thus of the sentence in Deuteronomy xxx .12, 

"Who shall go up for us to heaven?" in He- 

word 0`tp is Hebrew, and signifies Tale or corer 

secrated and is thus intended to denote the 

elevated character of the degree and the sublimity 

of the truths which distinguish it and 

its possessors from the other degrees . Pluche 

says that in the East, a person preferred to 

honors bore a scepter, and sometimes a plate 

of gold on the forehead, called a Kadosh, to 

apprise the people that the bearer of this 

mark or rod was a public person, who possessed 

the privilege of entering into hostile 

camps without the fear of losing his personal 

liberty . 

The degree of Kadosh, though found in 

many of the Rites and in various countries, 

seems, in all of them, to have been more or less 

connected with the Knights Templar . In 

some of the Rites it was placed at the head of 

the list, and was then dignified as the ne plus 

ultra of Masonry . 

It was sometimes given as a separate order 

or Rite within itself, and then it was divided 

into the three degrees of Illustrious Knight of 

the Temple, Knight of the Black Eagle, and 

Grand Elect . 

Oliver enumerates five degrees of Kadosh : 

the Knight Kadosh ; Kadosh of the Chapter 

of Clermont ; Philosophical Kadosh ; Kadosh 

Prince of Death ; and Kadosh of the Ancient 

brew . Z7`7 71 1:5 1 I `n, the initial letters of and Accepted Scottish Rite .' 

The French rituals speak of seven : Kadosh 

each word are taken to form the word 15`n, 

of the Hebrews ; Kadosh of the first Christians 

; Kadosh of the Crusades ; Kadosh of the 

"circumcision," and the finals to form 11,x`, 

"Jehovah" ; hence it is concluded that Jehovah 

Templars ; Kadosh of Cromwell or the Puritans 

; Kadosh of the Jesuits ; and the True 

hath shown circumcision to be the way to 

heaven . Again : the six letters of the first 

word in Genesis, i1, V1-) : "in the beginning," 

Kadosh . But the correctness of this enumeration 

is doubtful, for it cannot be sustained by 

are made use of to form the initials of six 

words which constitute a sentence signifying 

documentary evidence. In all of these Kadoshes 

the doctrine and the modes of recog- 

that "In the beginning God saw that Israel 

nition are substantially the same, though in 

would accept the law," 11in ~?rlv *Zrr 

most of them the ceremonies of initiation 

=n5K r r, mrK7 : . 

differ . 

3 . Temura is a rabbinical word which signifies 

permutation . Hence temura is a Kabba- 

Ragon mentions a Kadosh which is said to 

have been established at Jerusalem in 1118 ; 

listic result produced by a change or permutation 

of the letters of a word . Sometimes the 

but here he undoubtedly refers to the Order of 

Knights Templar. He gives also in his Tuileur 

General the nomenclature of no less than 

letters are transposed to form another word, 

as in the modern anagram ; and sometimes 

fourteen Kadosh degrees . 

the letters are changed for others, according 

The doctrine of the Kadosh system is that 

to certain fixed rules of alphabetical permutation, 

the 1st letter being placed for the 22d, 

the persecutions of the Knights Templar by 

Philip the Fair of France, and Pope Clement 

the 2d for the 21st, the 3d for the 20th, and so 

V ., however cruel and sanguinary in its results, 

did not extinguish the Order, but it con- 

on . It is in this way that Babel, 5 ::, is made 

out of Sheshach, JV1V, and hence the Kabbalists 

tinued to exist under the forms of Freemasonry. 

say that when Jeremiah used the word 

Sheshach (xxv . 26), he referred to Babel . That the ancient Templars are the 

modern Kadoshes, and that the builder at the 

Kabbalistie Companion . A degree found Temple of Solomon is now replaced by James 

in the archives of the Mother Lodge of the 

Philosophical Rite of France . 

de Molay, the martyred Grand Master of the 

Templars, the assassins being represented by 

Kadiri, Order of. A secret society existing 

the King of France, the Pope, and Naffodei 

in Arabia, which so much resembles Free- 

masonry in its object and forms, that Lieut . 

Burton, who succeeded in obtaining initiation 

into it, calls the members "Oriental Freemasons 

the informer against the Order ; or, it is sometimes 

said, by the three informers, Squin de 

Florian, Naffodei, and the Prior of Montfauccon 

. 

." Burton gives a very interesting As to the history of the Kadosh degree, it is 

account of the Order in his Pilgrimage to El said to have been first invented at Lyons, in 

Medinah and Mecca . 

France, in 1743, where it appeared under the 

Kadosh . The name of a very important name of the Petit Elu . This degree, which is 

degree in many of the Masonic Rites. The said to have been based upon the Templar doe-

KADOSH 

KENTUCKY 379 

trine heretofore referred to, was afterward 

developed into the Kadosh, which we find in 

1758 incorporated as the Grand Elect Kadosh 

into the system of the Council of Emperors 

of the East and West, which was that year 

formed at Paris, whence it descended to the 

Scottish Rite Masons . 

Of all the Kadoshes, two only are now important, 

viz . : the Philosophic Kadosh, which 

has been adopted by the Grand Orient of 

France, and the Knight Kadosh, which constitutes 

the Thirtieth Degree of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite, this latter being 

the most generally diffused of the Kadoshes . 

Kadosh, called also the Holy Man . (Kadosch 

ou l'HommeSaint.) The Tenth and last 

degree of the Rite of Martinism . 

Kadosh, Grand, Elect Knight . The 

Sixty-fifth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Kadosh, Knight . The Thirtieth Degree 

of the Scottish Rite . (See Knight Kadosh .) 

Kadosh of the Jesuits . According to 

Thory (Act . Lat ., i ., 320), this degree is said to 

have been invented by the Jesuits of the College 

of Clermont. The statement is not well 

supported . De Bonneville's Masonic Chapter 

of Clermont was probably, either with or 

without design, confounded with the Jesuitical 

College of Clermont . (See Jesuits .) 

Kadosh, Philosophic. A modification of 

the original Kadosh, for which it has been substituted 

and adopted by the Grand Orient of 

France . The military character of the Order 

is abandoned, and the Philosophic Kadosh 

wear no swords . Their only weapon is the 

WORD . 

Kadosh, Prince . A degree of the collection 

of Pyron . 

Kadosh Prince of Death . The Twentyseventh 

Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Kamea. Hebrew, P"nP, an amulet . More 

particularly applied by the Kabbalists to 

magic squares inscribed on paper or parchment, 

and tied around the neck as a safeguard 

against evil . (See Magic Squares .) 

Kansas . In the year 1855 there were three 

Lodges in Kansas, holding warrants from the 

Grand Lodge of Missouri . On November 14, 

1855, two of these Lodges met in convention 

at Leavenworth . In consequence of the absence 

of the third Lodge, the convention adjourned 

until December 27 1855, on which 

day the two Lodges of SmitLton and Leavc ;nworth 

met, and, Wyandot Lodge being again 

absent, the delegates of these two Lodges organized 

the Grand Lodge of Kansas, and 

elected Richard R . Rees Grand Master . 

But these proceedings were considered illegal, 

in consequence of the convention having 

been formed by two instead of three Lodges ; 

and, accordingly, another convention of the 

three chartered Lodges in the Territory was 

held March 17, 1856, and the proceedings of 

the previous convention ratified by a reenactment, 

the same Grand Master being reelected 

. There are 389 Lodges under the 

Grand Lodge of Kansas . 

The Grand Royal Arch Chapter was established 

January 27, 1866 . 


Masters was organized December 12, 1867 . 

The Grand Commandery was organized 

December 29, 1868 . 

Karmatians. A Mohammedan sect that 

became notorious from its removal of the celebrated 

black stone of the Kaaba, and, after 

retaining it for twenty-two years, voluntarily 

surrendered it . Founded by Karmata at 

Irak in the ninth century . 

Kasideans . A Latinized spelling of Chasidim, 

which see. 

Katharsis . Greek, rca8aposs . The ceremony 

of purification in theAncient Mysteries . 

Miiller says (Dorians i, 384) that "one of the 

important parts of the* Pythagorean worship 

was the pcsan, which was sung to the lyre in 

spring-time by a person sitting in the midst of 

a circle of listeners : this was called the katharsis 

or purification ." 

Keeper of the Seals. An officer called 

Garde des Sceaux in Lodges of the French Rite . 

It is also the title of an officer in Consistories 

of the Scottish Rite . The title sufficiently indicates 

the functions of the office . 

Kellermann, Marshal . Duke de Valmy, 

born 1770, died 1835 . Member of the Supreme 

Council and Grand Officer of Honor of 

G . 0 . of France ; elected 1814 . Served in the 

battles of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Waterloo . 

Kelly, Christopher . A Masonic plagiarist, 

who stole bodily the whole of the typical 

part of the celebrated work of Samuel 

Lee entitled Orbis Miraculum, or The Temple 

of Solomon pourtrayed by Scripture Light, and 

published it as his own under the title of Solomon's 

Temple spiritualized ; setting forth the 

Divine Mysteries of the Temple, with an account 

of its Destruction . He prefaced the book 

with An Address to all Free and Accepted Masons 

. The first edition was published at 

Dublin in 1803, and on his removal to America 

he published a second in 1820, at Philadelphia 

. Kelly was, unfortunately, a Freemason, 

but not an honest one . 

Kenning's Masonic Cyelopaedia . Edited 

by Rev. A . F . A . Woodford, in London, contemporaneously 

with the Encydopwdia of 

Dr . A . G . Mackey, in America, but published 

by the well-known Bro . George Kenning, 

198 Fleet Street, London, to whom the work 

is dedicated in affectionate terms . Kenning's 

Cyclopa:dia is rendered unusually invaluable 

in consequence of the fulness of its bibliography. 

Moss's well-known Bibliographie 

der Freimaurer does not become so great a necessity, 

having Kenning; yet other subjects 

have not been permitted to suffer in consequence 

of the numerous short biographic 

sketches . The work is an admirably arranged 

octavo of nearly seven hundred pages . 

Kentucky. Organized Freemasonry was 

introduced by the Grand Lodge of Virginia, 

which, in the year 1788, granted a charter for 

Lexington Lodge, No . 25, at Lexington . This 

was the first Lodge instituted west of the Alleghany 

Mountains . 

Three other Lodges were subsequently chartered 

by Virginia, namely, at Paris, George-

380 KEY 

KEYSTONE 

town, and Frankford, and a nation 

granted for a fifth at Shelbyville . ese five 

Lodges met in convention at Lexin on on 

September 8, 1800 . Having resolv that it 

was expedient to organize a Grand Lodge, an 

address was prepared to the Grand Lodge of 

Virginia, an the convention adjourned to October 

16th . On that day it reassembled and 

organized the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, William 

Murray being elected Grand Master . 

Chapters of Royal Arch Masons, independent 

of the Grand Lodge, were first established 

by Thomas Smith Webb in 1816, and 

the Grand Chapter was formed December 4, 

1817 . 


Masters was organized December 10, 1827. 

The Grand Encampment (now the Grand 

Commandery) was organized October 5, 1847 . 

Scottish Masonry was introduced into Kentucky, 

and the Grand Consistory organized at 

Louisville, in August 1852, by Bro . Albert G . 

Mackey, Secretary-~eneral of the Supreme 

Council for the Southern Jurisdiction . 

Key. "The key," says Dr. Oliver (Landm ., 

i., 180, note), "is one of the most important 

symbols of Freemasonry. It bears the appearance 

of a common metal instrument, confined 

to the performance of one simple act . 

But the well-instructed brother beholds in it 

the symbol which teaches him to keep a tongue 

of good report, and to abstain from the debasing 

vices of slander and defamation." Among 

the ancients the key was a symbol of silence 

and circumspection ; and thus Sophocles alludes 

to it in the (Edipus Coloneus (1051), 

where he makes the chorus speak of "the 

golden key which had come upon the tongue of 

the ministering hierophant in the mysteries of 

Eleusis-ròv ,cal Xpvoea rcx-a s &l yXc ,ro S€SaKe 

spomr6mov evµoXrcaav ." Callimachus says that 

the priestess of Ceres bore a key as the ensign 

of her mystic office . The key was in the mysteries 

of Isis a hieroglyphic of the opening or 

disclosing of the heart and conscience, in the 

kingdom of death, for trial and judgment . 

In the old rituals of Masonry the key was 

an important symbol and Dr . Oliver regrets 

that it has been abandoned in the modern system 

. In the rituals of the First Degree, in the 

eighteenth century, allusion is made to a key 

by whose help the secrets of Masonry are to be 

obtained, which key "is said to hang and not to 

lie, because it is always to hang in a brother's 

defence and not to lie to his prejudice ." It was 

said, too, to hang "by the thread of life at the 

entrance," and was closely connected with the 

heart, because the tongue "ought to utter 

nothing but what the heart dictates ." And, 

finall , this key is described as being "compose 

of no metal, but a tongue of good 

report." In the ritual of the Master's Degree 

in the Adonhi ramite Rite, we find this catechism 

: 

"Q. What do you conceal? 

"A . All the secrets which have been intrusted 

to me . 

",Q. Where do you conceal them? 

"A . In the heart . 

"Q. Have you a key to gain entrance there? 

"A . Yes, Right Worshipful . 

"Q. Where do you keep it? 

"A . In a box of coral which opens and shuts 

only with ivory keys . 

"Q. Of what metal is it composed? 

"A . Of none . It is a tongue obedient to 

reason, which knows only how to speak well of 

those of whom it s eaks in their absence as in 

their presence ." (Reeueil Pr6cieux, p . 87 .) 

All of this shows that the key as a symbol 

was formerly equivalent to the modern symbol 

of the "instructive tongue," which, however, 

with almost the same interpretation, has 

now been transformed to the Second or Fellow- 

Craft's Degree. The key, however, is still 

preserved as a symbol of secrecy in the Royal 

Arch Degree ; and it is also presented to us in 

the same sense in the ivory key of the Secret 

Master, or Fourth Degree of the Scottish Rite, 

In many of the German Lodges an ivory key is 

made a part of the Masonic clothing of each 

brother, to remind him that he should lock up 

or conceal the secrets of Freemasonry in his 

heart . 

But among the ancients the key was also a 

symbol of power ; and thus among the Greeks 

the title of KAe1SovXos, or key-bearer, was bestowed 

upon one holding high office ; and with 

the Romans, the keys -are given to the bride 

on the day of marriage, as a token that the 

authority of the house was bestowed upon 

her ; and if afterward divorced, they were 

taken from her, as a symbol of the deprivation 

of her office. Among the Hebrews the key was 

used in the same sense. "As the robe and the 

baldric," says Lowth (Is ., p . 2, s. 4), "were the 

ensigns of power and authority, so likewise 

was the key the mark of office, either sacred 

or civil." Thus in Isaiah it is said : "The key 

of the house of David will I lay upon his 

shoulders ; so he shall open, and none shall 

shut ; and he shall shut, and none shall open " 

(xxii. 22) . Our Savior expressed a similar 

idea when he said to St . Peter, "I will give 

unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven ." 

It is in reference to this interpretation of the 

symbol, and not that of secrecy that the key 

has been adopted as the officia' jewel of the 

treasurer of a Lodge, because he has the purse, 

the source of power, under his command . 

Key of Masonry. See Knight of the Sun . 

Keystone. The stone placed in the center 

of an arch which preserves the others in 

their places, and secures firmness and stability 

to the arch. As it was formerly the custom of 

Operative Masons to place a peculiar mark on 

each stone of a building to designate the workman 

by whom it had been adjusted, so the 

Keystone was most likely to receive the most 

prominent mark, that of the superintendent 

of the structure . Such is related to have occurred 

to that Keystone which plays so important 

a part in the legend of the Royal Arch 

Degree. 

The objection has sometimes been made 

that the arch was unknown in the time of 

Solomon . But this objection has been completely 

laid at rest by the researches of an-

KHEM 

KILWINNING 381 

tiquaries and travelers within a few years 

past . Wilkinson discovered arches with regular 

keystones in the doorways of the tombs 

of Thebes, the construction of which he traced 

to the year 1540 B .c ., or 460 years before the 

building of the Temple of Solomon. And Dr . 

Clark asserts that the Cyclopean gallery of 

Tiryns exhibits lancet-shaped arches almost as 

old as the time of Abraham . In fact at the 

Solomonic era, the construction of tce arch 

must have been known to the Dion sian artificers, 

of whom, it is the receive theory, 

many were present at the building of the 

Temple . 

Rhem . The Egyptian Deity, Amon, in 

the position metaphorically used in representations 

of Buddha and by the Hermetic 

philosophers, one hand toward Heaven and 

the other toward Nature . 

Khepra. An Egyptian Deity, presiding 

over transformation, and represented with the 

beetle in place of a head . 

Kher-heb. The Master of Ceremonies in 

the Egyptian system of worship . 

KhesvanorChesvan . (31tin .) The same 

Hebrew month as Marchesvan, which see . 

Khetem el Nabllm . Mohammed, the 

seal of the prophets . 

Khon . The title given to the dead, subject 

to examination as depicted in ch . 125 of 

the Book of the Dead in the Egyptian Ritual . 

Khotbah . The Confession of Faith under 

the Mohammedan law . 

Khurum-Abi . A variation of the name of 

Hiram Abi. 

Kl. A word used in the old Ritual of the 

Eighth Degree of the A . A. Scottish Rite . 

winning. As the city of York claims 

to be the birthplace of Masonry in England, 

the obscure little village of Kilwinning is entitled 

to the same honor with respect to the 

origin of the Order in the sister kingdom of 

Scotland . The claim to the honor, however, 

in each case, depends on the bare authority of 

a legend, the authenticity of which is now 

doubted by many Masonic historians . A 

place, which, in itself small and wholly undistinguishable 

in the political, the literary, or 

the commercial annals of its country, has become 

of great importance in the estimation 

of the Masonic antiquary from its intimate 

connection with the history of the Institution . 

The Abbey of Kilwinning is situated in the 

bailiwick of Cunningham, about three miles 

north of the royal burgh of Irving, near the 

Irish Sea. The abbey was founded in the year 

1140, by Hugh Morville, Constable of Scotland, 

and dedicated to St . Winning, being intended 

for a company of monks of the Tyronesian 

Order, who had been brought from 

Kelso . The edifice must have been constructed 

at great expense, and with much magnificence, 

since it is said to have occupied several 

acres of ground in its whole extent . 

Lawrie (Hist . of Freemasonry, 1804) says 

that, by authentic documents as well as by 

other collateral arguments which amount almost 

to a demonstration, the existence of the 

Kilwinning Lodge has been traced back as far 

as the end of the fifteenth century . But we 

know that the body of architects who pe rambulated 

the Continent of Europe under the 

name of "Traveling Freemasons," flourished 

at a much earlier period ; and we learn, also, 

from Lawrie himself, that several of these 

Masons traveled into Scotland, about the beginning 

of the twelfth century. Hence, we 

have every reason to suppose that these 

men were the architects who constructed the 

Abbe at Kilwinning, and who first establishethe 

Institution of Freemasonry in Scotland 

. If such be the fact, we must place the 

origin of the first Lodge in that kingdom at an 

earlier date, by three centuries, than that 

claimed for it by Lawrie, which would bring 

it much nearer, in point of time, to the great 

Masonic Assembly, which is traditionally said 

to have been convened in the year 926, by 

Prince Edwin, at York, in England . 

There is some collateral evidence to sustain 

the probability of this early commencement of 

Masonry in Scotland . It is very generally 

admitted that the Royal Order of Herodem 

was founded by King Robert Bruce, at Kilwinning. 

Thory, in the Acta Latomorum, 

gives the following chronicle : "Robert Bruce, 

King of Scotland, under the title of Robert I ., 

created the Order of St . Andrew of Chardon, 

after the battle of Bannockburn, which was 

fought on the 24th of June, 1314. To this 

Order was afterwards united that of Herodem 

for the sake of the Scotch Masons, who formed 

a part of the thirty thousand troops with 

whom he had fought an army of one hundred 

thousand Englishmen . King Robert reserved 

the title of Grand Master to himself and his 

successors forever, and founded the Royal 

Grand Lodge of Herodem at Kilwinning ." 

Dr. Oliver says that "the Royal Order of 

Herodem had formerly its chief seat at Kilwinning 

; and there is every reason to think 

that it and St . John's Masonry were then governed 

by the same Grand Lodge ." 

In 1820, there was published at Paris a record 

which states that in 1286 James, Lord 

Stewart, received the Earls of oloucester and 

Ulster into his Lodge at Kilwinning ; which 

goes to prove that a Lodge was then existing 

and in active operation at that place. 

The modern iconoclasts, however, who are 

leveling these old legends with unsparing 

hands, have here been at work. Bro . D . 

Murray Lyon has attacked the Bruce legend, 

and in the London Freemasons' Magazine 

(1868, p . 141) says : "Seeing that the fraternity 

of Kilwinning never at any period practised 

or acknowledged other than Craft degrees, 

and have not preserved even a shadow 

of a tradition that can in the remotest degree 

be held to identify Robert Bruce with the 

holding of Masonic Courts, or the Institution 

of a Secret Order at Kilwinning, the fraternity 

of the 'Herodim' must be attributed to another 

than the hero of Bannockburn, and a 

birthplace must be sought for it in a soil 

still more favorable to the growth of the high 

grades than Scotland has hitherto proved ." 

He intimates that the legend was the inven-

382 KILWINNING 

KING 

tion of the Chevalier Ramsay, whose birthplace 

was in the vicinity of Kilwinning . 

I confess that I look upon the legend and 

the documents that contain it with some favor, 

as at least furnishing the evidence that there 

has been among the Fraternity a general belief 

of the antiquity of the Kilwinning Lodge . 

Those, however, whose faith is of a more 

hesitating character, will find the most satisfactory 

testimonies of the existence of that 

Lodge in the beginni ng of the fifteenth century. 

At that period, when James II . was on 

the throne, the Barons of Roslin, as hereditary 

Patrons of Scotch Masonry, held their annual 

meetings at Kilwinning, and the Lodge at that 

place granted Warrants of Constitution for 

the formation of subordinate Lodges in other 

parts of the kingdom . The Lodges thus 

formed in token of their respect for, and submission 

to, the mother Lodge whence they derived 

their existence, affixed the word Kilwinning 

to their own distinctive name ; many 

instances of which are still to be found on the 

register of the Grand Lodge of Scotland-such 

as Canongate Kilwinning, Greenock Kilwinning, 

Cumberland Kilwinning, etc . 

But, in process of time, this Grand Lodge at 

Kilwinning ceased to retain its supremacy, 

and finally its very existence . As in the case 

of the sister kingdom, where the Grand Lodge 

was removed from York, the birthplace of 

Enpjish Masonry, to London, so in Scotland, 

the supreme seat of the Order was at length 

transferred from Kilwinning to the metropolis 

; and hence, in the doubtful document entitled 

the "Charter of Cologne," which purports 

to have been written in 1542, we find, in 

a list of nineteen Grand Lodges in Europe, 

that that of Scotland is mentioned as sitting 

at Edinburgh, under the Grand Mastership of 

John Bruce. In 1736, when the Grand Lodge 

of Scotland was organized, the Kilwinning 

Lodge was one of its constituent bodies, and 

continued in its obedience until 1743 . In that 

year it petitioned to be recognized as the 

oldest Lodge in Scotland ; but as the records of 

the original Lodge had been lost, the present 

Lodge could not prove, says Lawrie, that it 

was the identical Lodge which had first practised 

Freemasonry in Scotland . The petition 

was therefore rejected, and, in consequence, 

the Kilwinning Lodge seceded from 

the Grand Lodge and established itself as an 

independent body. It organized Lodges in 

Scotland ; and several instances are on record 

of its issuing charters as Mother Kilwinning 

Lodge to Lodges in foreign countries . Thus, it 

granted one to a Lodge in Virginia in 1758, 

and another in 1779 to some brethren in Ireland 

calling themselves the Lodge of High 

Knights Templar . But in 1807 the Mother 

Lodge of Kilwinning renounced all right of 

granting charters, and came once more into 

the bosom of the Grand Lodge, bringing with 

her all her daughter Lodges . 

Here terminates the connection of Kilwinning 

as a place of any special importance 

with the Masonry of Scotland . As for the 

abbey, the stupendous fabric which was exe- 

toted by the Freemasons who first migrated 

into Scotland, its history, like that of the 

Lodge which they founded, is one of decline 

and decay . In 1560, it was in a great measure 

demolished by Alexander, Earl of Glencairne 

in obedience to an Order from the States o 

Scotland, in the exercise of their usurped authority 

during the imprisonment of Mary 

Stuart. A few years afterward, a part of the 

abbey chapel was repaired and converted into 

the parish church, and was used as such until 

about the year 1775, when, in consequence of 

its ruinous and dangerous state, it was pulled 

down and an elegant church erected in the 

modern style. In 1789, so much of the ancient 

abbey remained as to enable Grose, the 

antiquary, to take a sketch of the ruins ; but 

now not a vestige of the building is to be found, 

nor can its exact site be ascertained with any 

precision. 

Kilwinning Manuscript . Also called the 

Edinburgh Kilwinning. This manuscript derives 

its name from its being written in a small 

quarto book, belonging to the celebrated 

"Mother Kilwinning Lodge" of Scotland . 

For its publication, the Masonic Fraternity is 

indebted to Bro . William James Hughan, who 

has inserted it in his Unpublished Records of 

the Craft, from a copy made for him from tha 

original by Bro . D . Murray Lyon, of Ayr, 

Scotland . Bro. Lyon, "whilst glancing at the 

minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh from De, 

cember 27, 1675, till March 12, 1678 wa% 

struck with the similarity which the land, 

writing bore to that in which the Kilwinning 4 

copy of the Narrative of the Founding of the 

Craft of Masonry is written, and upon closer 

examination he was convinced that in both 

cases the caligraphy is the same ." (History of 

the Lodge of Edinburgh, p . 107 .) It was prob . 

ably written in 1665. The Anglican phraseology, 

and the fact that one of the charges re . 

quires that Masons should be "liedgemen to 

the King of England," conclusively show that 

the manuscript was written in England and 

introduced into Scotland . It is so much like 

the text of the Grand Lodge MS ., published by 

Bro . Hughan in his Old Charges of British Freemasons, 

that, to use the language of Bro. 

Woodford, "it would pass as au indifferent 

copy of that document ." 

Kilwinning, Mother Lodge . For an account 

of this body, which was fur some time, 

the rival of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, see 

Kilwinning . 

Kilwinning System . The, Masonry practised 

in Scotland, so called bee .ause it is supposed 

to have been instituted at the Abbey of 

Kilwinning . Oliver uses the term in his 

Mirror for the Johannite Masons (p. 120) . 

(See Saint John's Masonry .) 

King . The second offic..r in a Royal Arch 

Chapter in America. He ire the representative 

of Zerubbabel, prince or governor of 

Judah . When the Chapt r meets as a Lodge 

of Mark, Past, or Most Excellent Masters, the 

king acts as Senior Warden . 

After the rebuilding of the second Temple 

the government of the Jews was administered

KING 

KNEE 383 

by the high priests as the vicegerents of the 

kings of Persia, to whom they paid tribute . 

This is the reason that the high priest is the 

presiding officer in a Chapter, and the king 

only a subordinate . But m the Chapters of 

England and Ireland, the king is made the 

presiding officer. The jewel of the king is a 

level surmounted by a crown suspended within 

a triangle . 

King of the Sanctuary. A side degree 

formerly conferred in the presence of five 

Past Masters, now in disuse . 

King of the World . A degree in the system 

of the Philosophical Rite . 

Kings, The Five . The sacred code of the 

older Chinese . The word king signifies web 

of cloth, or the warp that keeps the threads in 

position, or upon which we may weave the 

somber and golden colors that make up this 

life's pictured history . This great light in 

Chinese secret societies contains the best sayings 

of the best sages on the ethico-political 

duties of life . They cannot be traced to a 

period beyond the tenth century B .c ., although 

the religion is believed to be older . 

Some of the superior classes of Chinese are 

believers in the great philosopher Lao-tse, and 

others in the doctrines of Confucius . The 

two religions appear to be twin in age, not 

strikingly dissimilar, and each has been given 

a personality in color in accordance with the 

character of ethics believed in by the two 

writers . Lao-tse and Confucius were the revivers 

of an older religion, the former of whom 

was born 604 B .c ., and the latter fifty-four 

years subsequently . 

The five kings are, the Yih-King, or Book of 

Changes ; the Shi-King, or Book of Songs ; 

the Shu-King, or Book of Annals ; the Ch'un 

Ts'iu, or "Spring and Autumn" ; and the Li- 

King, or Book of Rites. The fourth book was 

composed by Confucius himself, while the 

first three are supposed to have been compiled 

by him, and the fifth by his disciples from his 

teachings . 

Dr . Legge, late Professor of Chinese at Oxford, 

England, and Dr . Medhurst assert that 

there are no authentic records in China earlier 

than 1100 B .c ., and no alphabetical writing 

before 1500 B .c . 

The grandeur of the utterances and brilliancy 

of the intellectual productions of Confucius 

and Mencius, as law-givers and expounders 

of the sacred code of the Chinese, 

called The Five Kings, are much to be admired, 

and are the trestle-board of fully 

80,000,000 of the earth's po,Pulation . 

Kislev or Chislev. (177 .) The third 

month of the Hebrew civil year, and corresponding 

with the months November and 

December, beginning with the new moon of 

the former . 

Kiss, Fraternal . The Germans call it der 

bruder kuss ; the French, le baiser fraternal . 

It is the kiss given in the French and German 

Lodges by each brother to his right and left 

hand neighbor when the labors of the Lodge 

are closed . It is not adopted in the English 

or American systems of Ancient Craft Ma- 

sonry, although practised in some of the high 

degrees . 

Kiss of Peace. In the reception of an Ancient 

Knight Templar, it was the practise for 

the one who received him to greet him with a 

kiss upon the mouth . This, which was called 

the osculum pacis, or kiss of peace, was borrowed 

by the Templars from the religious orders, 

in all of which it was observed . It is 

not practised in the receptions of Masonic 

Templarism . 

Kloss, Georg Burkh . Franz . A celebrated 

German Masonand Doctorof Medicine 

who was born in 1788 . Dr . Kloss was initiated 

into Masonry early in life. He reorganized the 

Eclectic Grand Lodge, of which he was several 

times Grand Master . He resided at 

Frankfort-on-the-Main, where he enjoyed a 

high reputation as a physician . He was the 

possessor of an extensive Masonic library, and 

devoted himself to the study of the antiquities 

and true character of the Masonic institution, 

insomuch that he was styled the "teacher of 

the German Freemasons ." Kloss'a theory was 

that the present Order of Freemasons found 

its origin in the stone-cutters and building 

corporations of the Middle Ages . He delivered, 

in the course of his life, many valuable 

historical discourses before the Lodge Zur 

Einigheit, several of which were printed and 

published : Annals of the Lodge Zur Einigheit, 

Frankfort, 1840 ; Freemasonry in its true 

meaning, from the ancient and genuine documents 

of the Stonemasons, Leipsic, 1846 ; A 

History of Freemasonry in England, Scotland, 

and Ireland, Leipsic, 1848 ; A History of the 

Freemasons of France, from genuine documents, 

Darmstadt, 1852 ; and a Bibliography of Freemasonry, 

Frankfort, 1844 . This last is a 

most valuable contribution to Masonic literature. 

It contains a list of more than six 

thousand Masonic works in all languages, 

with critical remarks on many of them . Dr . 

Kloss died at Frankfort, February 10, 1854 . 

Bro . Meisinger, who delivered his funeral 

eulogy, said of him : "He had a rare amount 

of learning, and was a distinguished linguist ; 

his reputation as a physician was deservedly 

great ; and he added to these a friendly, tender 

amiable disposition, with great simplicity and 

uprightness of character." 

Kneeling . Bending the knees has, in all 

ages of the world, been considered as an act 

of reverence and humility, and hence Pliny, 

the Roman naturalist, observes, that "a certain 

degree of religious reverence is attributed 

to the knees of man ." Solomon placed himself 

in this position when he prayed at. the consecration 

of the Temple ; and Masons use the 

same posture in some portions of their ceremonies, 

as a token of solemn reverence . In 

the act of prayer, Masons in the lower degrees 

adopt the standing posture, which was the 

usage of the primitive Church, where it was 

symbolic of the resurrection ; but Masons in 

the higher . degrees generally kneel on one 

knee . 

Knee to Knee . When, in his devotions to 

the G. A . O . T . U., he seeks forgiveness for the

384 KNEWT-NEB-S 

KNIGHTHOOD 

past and strength for the future, the Mason is 

taught that he should, in these offices of devotion, 

join his brother's name with his own . 

The prerogative that Job, in his blindness, 

thought was denied to him, when he exclaimed, 

"Oh that one might plead for a man with God, 

as a man pleadeth for his neighbor!" is here 

not only taught as a right, but inculcated as a 

duty ; and the knee is directed to be bent in 

intercession, not for ourselves alone, but for 

the whole household of our brethren . 

Knewt-neb-s . The Egyptian goddess personifying 

the West, facing the East . 

Knife and Fork Degree . Those Masons 

who take more delight in the refreshments of 

the banquet than in the labors of the Lodge, 

and who admire Masonry only for its social aspect, 

are ironically said to be "Members of 

the Knife and Fork Degree ." 

The sarcasm was first uttered by Dermott, 

when he said in his Ahiman Rezon (p . 36), 

speaking of the Moderns, that "it was also 

thought expedient to abolish the old custom of 

studying geometry in the Lodge ; and some of 

the young brethren made it appear that a good 

knife and fork in the hands of a dexterous 

brother, over proper materials, would give 

greater satisfaction and add more to the rotundity 

of the Lodge than the best scale and 

compass in Europe . 

Knigge, Adolph Franz Friederich Ludwig, 

Baron von . He was at one time among 

the most distinguished Masons of Germany ; 

for while Weishaupt was the ostensible inventor 

and leader of the system of Bavarian 

Illnminism, it was indebted for its real form 

and organization to the inventive genius of 

Knigge. He was born at Brendenbeck, near 

Hanover, October 16, 1752 . He was initiated, 

January 20, 1772, in a Lodge of Strict 

Observance at Cassel, but does not appear at 

first to have been much impressed with the 

Institution, for, in a letter to Prince Charles 

of Hesse, he calls its ceremonies "absurd, juggling 

tricks ." Subsequently his views became 

changed, at least for a time . When, in 1780, 

the Marquis de Costanzo was despatched by 

Weishaupt to Northern Germany to props, 

gate the Order of the Illuminati, he made the 

acquaintance of Knigge, and succeeded in 

gaining him as a disciple . Knigge afterward 

entered into a correspondence with Weishaupt, 

in consequence of which his enthusiasm was 

greatly increased . After some time, in reply 

to the urgent entreaties of Knigge for more 

light, Weishaupt confessed that the Order was 

as yet in an unfinished state, and actually existed 

only in his own brain ; the lower classes 

alone having been organized . Recognizing 

Knigge's abilities, he invited him to Bavaria, 

and promised to surrender to him all the manuscript 

materials in his possession, that 

Knigge might out of them, assisted by his own 

invention, construct the high degrees of the 

Rite . 

Knigge accordingly repaired to Bavaria in 

1781, and when he met Weishaupt, the latter 

consented that Knigge should elaborate the 

whole system up to the highest mysteries . 

This task Knigge accomplished, and entered 

into correspondence with the Lodges, 

exerting all his talents, which were of no mean 

order, for the advancement of the Rite . He 

brought to its aid the invaluable labors of 

Bode, whom he prevailed upon to receive the 

degrees. 

After Knigge had fully elaborated the system, 

and secured for it the approval of the 

Areopagites, he introduced it into his district, 

and began to labor with every prospect of 

success. But Weishaupt now interfered ; and, 

notwithstanding his compact with Knigge, he 

made many alterations and additions which 

he imperiously ordered the Provincial Directors 

to insert in the ritual . Knigge, becoming 

disgusted with this proceeding, withdrew from 

the Order and soon afterward entirely from 

Freemasonry, devoting the rest of his life to 

general literature . He died at Bremen, May 

6, 1796 . 

Knigge was a man of considerable talents, 

and the author of many books, both Masonic 

and non-Masonic. Of these the following are 

the most important. A work published anonymously 

in 1781, entitled Ueber Jesuiten, 

Freimaureren and deutsche Rosenkreuzer, i . e ., 

"On the Jesuits, Freemasons and Rosicrueians" 

; Versuch caber die Freimaurerei, i. e ., 

"Essay on Freemasonry," in 1784 ; Beytrag 

zur neuesten Geschiehte des Freimaurerordens, 

i. e ., "Contribution towards the latest History 

of the Order of Freemasons," in 1786 ; 

and, after he had retired from the Illuminati, 

a work entitled Philo's endliche Erklarung, or 

"Philo's final Declaration," 1788, which professed 

to be his answer to the numerous inquiries 

made of him in reference to his connection 

with the Order . 

Among his most popular non-Masonic 

works was a treatise on Social Philosophy, 

with the title of Ueber den Umgang mit Menschen, 

or, "On Conversation with Men ." 

This work, which was written toward the close 

of his life, was very favorablyreceived throughout 

Germany, and translated into man 

languages . Although abounding in many 

mirable remarks on the various relations and 

duties of life, to the Mason it will be particularly 

interesting as furnishing a proof of the 

instability of the author's opinions, for, with 

all his abilities, Knigge evidently lacked a 

well-balanced judgment . Commencing life 

with an enthusiastic admiration for Freemasonry, 

in a few years he became disgusted with 

it ; no long time elapsed before he was found 

one of its most zealous apostles ; and again retiring 

from the Order he spent his last days in 

writing against it . In his Conversation with 

Men, is a long chapter on Secret Societies, in 

which he is scarcely less denunciatory of them 

than Barruel or Robison. 

Knighthood. The Saxon word cniht, 

from which we get the English knight, signified 

at first a youth, and then a servant, or one 

who did domestic service, or a soldier who did 

military service, which might either be on foot 

or on horseback ; but the French word chevalier 

and the German ritter both refer to his

KNIGHTHOOD 

KNIGHTHOOD 385 

equestrian character . 

that the German kings and chiefs were attended 

in war and peace by a select body of 

faithful servants, and although the Anglo- 

Saxon kings and thanes had their military attendants, 

who served them with a personal 

fealty, the knight, in the modern acceptation 

of the word, did not appear until the establishment 

in France of the order of chivalry . 

Thence knighthood rapidly passed into the 

other countries of Christendom ; for it always 

was a Christian institution . 

The st ages through which a candidate 

passed until his full investiture with the rank 

Although Tacitus says' altogether an idle spectator of the contest . In 

the shock of battle, the two lines of knights, 

with their lances in rest, fell impetuously on 

each other ; some, who were thrown from their 

horses, drew their swords or battle-axes to defend 

themselves and to make new attacks, 

while advantage was sought by their enemies 

over those who had been thrown . During all 

this time, the Squire was attentive to every 

motion of his master . In the one case, to give 

him new arms, or to supply him with another 

horse ; to raise him up when he fell, and to 

of knighthood were three : the Page, the 

Squire or Esquire, and the Knight . 

1 . The Page . The child who was destined 

to knighthood continued until he was seven 

years old in the charge of women, who gave 

him that care which his tender age required . 

He was then taken from them and placed in 

the hands of a governor, who prepared him by 

a robust and manly education for the labors 

and dangers of war. He was afterward put 

into the household of some noble, where he 

first assumed the title of a Page . His employments 

were to perform the service of a domestic 

about the person of his master and mistress 

; to attend them in the chase, on their 

journeys, their visits, and their walks ; to 

carry their messages, or even to wait on them 

at table. The first lessons given to him were 

in the love of God and attachment to and 

respect for females . His religious education 

was not neglected, and he was taught a veneration 

for all sacred things . His instructions 

in respect to manners, conversation, and virtuous 

habits were all intended to prepare him 

for his future condition as a knight . 

2 . The Squire . The youth, on emerging 

from the employment of a Page, took on him 

that of Squire, called in French ecuyer . This 

promotion was not unaccompanied by an appropriate 

ceremony . The Page who was to 

be made a Squire was presented to the altar 

by his father and mother, or by those who represented 

them, each holding a lighted taper in 

his hand . The officiating priest took from the 

altar a sword and belt, on which he bestowed 

several benedictions, and then placed them on 

the youth, who from that time constantly 

wore them . The Squires were divided into 

various classes, each of whose employment 

was different. To some, as to the chamberlains, 

was committed the care of the gold and 

silver of the household ; others, as the constable, 

had the charge of the table utensils ; 

others were carvers, and others butlers . But 

the most honorable and the only one connected 

immediately with chivalry was the 

squire of Honor or the Body Squire . He was 

immediately attached to some knight, whose 

standard he carried . He helped to dress and 

undress him, and attended him morning and 

evening in his apartment . On a march, he 

led the war-horse of his master and carried his 

sword, his helmet, and his shield . In the 

hour of battle, the Squire, although he did not 

actually take a part in the combat, was not 

ward off the strokes aimed at him ; while in 

the other case, he seconded the knight by every 

means that his skill, his valor, and his zeal 

could suggest, always, however, within the 

strict bounds of the defensive, for the Squire 

was not permitted by the laws of chivalry to 

engage in offensive combat with a knight . 

3 . The Knight. These services merited 

and generall y received from the knight the 

most grateful acknowledgment, and in time 

the high honor of the badge of knighthood bestowed 

by his own hand, for every knight 

possessed the prerogative of making other 

knights . 

The age of twenty-one was that in which 

the youthful Squire, after so many proofs of 

zeal, fidelity, and valor, might be admitted to 

the honor of knighthood . The rule as to age 

was not, however, always observed . Sometimes 

the Squire was not knighted until he 

was further advanced in years, and in the case 

of princes the time was often anticipated . 

There are instances of infants, the sons of 

kings, receiving the dignity of knighthood . 

The creation of a knight was accompanied 

by solemn ceremonies, which some writers 

have been pleased to compare to those of the 

Church in the administration of its sacraments, 

and there was, if not a close resemblance, 

a manifest allusion in the one to the 

other . The white habit and the bath of the 

knight corresponded to the form of baptism ; 

the stroke on the neck and the embrace given 

to the new knight were compared to the ceremony 

of confirmation ; and as the godfather 

made a present to the child whom he held at 

the font, so the lord who conferred knighthood 

was expected to make a gift or grant some 

peculiar favor to the knight whom he had 

dubbed . 

The preliminary ceremonies which prepared 

the neophyte for the sword of chivalry were 

as follows : austere fasts ; whole nights passed 

in prayers in a church or chapel ; the sacraments 

of confession, penance, and the eucharist 

; bathings, which prefigured purity of 

manners and life ; a white habit as a symbol 

of the same purity, and in imitation of the 

custom with new converts on their admission 

into the Church, and a serious attention to 

sermons, were all duties of preparation to be 

devoutly performed by the Squire previous 

to his being armed with the weapons and decorated 

with the honors of knighthood . 

An old French chronicler thus succinctly 

details the ceremony of creation and investiture. 

The neophyte bathes ; after which,

I 

386 KNIGHTHOOD 

KNIGHTHOOD 

clothed in white apparel, he is to watch all 

night in the church, and remain there in 

prayer until after the celebration of high mass . 

The communion being then received, the 

youth solemnly raises his joined hands and his 

eyes to heaven, when the priest who had administered 

the sacrament passes the sword 

over the neck of the youth and blesses it . 

The candidate then kneels at the feet of the 

lord or knight who is to arm him. The lord 

asks him with what intent he desires to enter 

into that sacred Order, and if his views tend 

only to the maintenance and honor of religion 

and of knighthood . The lord, having received 

from the candidate a satisfactory reply 

to these questions, administers the oath of 

reception, and gives him three strokes on the 

neck with the flat side of the sword, which he 

then girds upon him . This scene passes sometimes 

in a hall or in the court of a palace, or, in 

time of war, in the open field . 

The girding on of the sword was accompanied 

with these or similar words : "In the 

name of God, of St . Michael, and of St . George 

I make thee a knight : be brave, be hardy, and 

be loyal." And then the kneeling candidate 

is struck upon the shoulder or back of the 

neck by him who confers the digruty, with 

the flat of the sword, and directed to rise in 

words like these : "Arise, Sir Damian " ; a 

formula still followed by the sovereigns of 

England when they confer the honor of 

knighthood . And hence the word "Sir," 

which is equivalent to the old French "Sire," 

is accounted, says Ashmole, "parcel of their 

style ." 

Sir William Segar, in his treatise on Civil 

and Military Honor, gives the following account 

of the ceremonies used in England in the 

sixth century : 

"A stage was erected in some cathedral, or 

spacious place near it, to which the gentleman 

was conducted to receive the honor of knighthood 

. Being seated on a chair decorated 

with green silk, it was demanded of him if he 

were of a good constitution, and able to undergo 

the fatigue required in a soldier ; also 

whether he were a man of good morals, and 

what credible witnesses he could produce to 

affirm the same . 

"Then the Bishop or Chief Prelate of the 

Church administered the following oath : 

`Sir, you that desire to receive the honor of 

knighthood, swear before God and this holy book 

that you will not fight against his Majesty, that 

now bestoweth the order of knighthood upon you . 

You shall also swear to maintain and defend 

all Ladies, Gentlemen, Widows and Orphans ; 

and you shall shun no adventure of your person 

in any war wherein you shall happen to be .' 

"Te oath being taken, two Lords led him 

to the King, who drew his sword, and laid it 

upon his head, saying, God and St . George (or 

what other saint the King pleased to name,) 

inviolable . 

make thee a good knight ; after which seven 

Ladies dressed in white came and girt a sword 

to his side and four knights put on his spurs . 

"These ceremonies being over the Queen 

took him by the right hand, and a Duchess 

by the left, and leading him to a rich seat 

placed him on an ascent where they seated 

m, the King sitting on Lis right hand, and 

the Queen on his left . 

"Then the Lords and Ladies also sat down 

upon other seats, three descents under the 

King ; and being all thus seated, they were entertained 

with a delicate collation ; and so the 

ceremony ended ." 

The manner of arming a newly made knight 

was first to put on the spurs, then the coat of 

mail, the cuirass, the brasset or casque, and 

the gauntlets. The lord or knight conferring 

the honor then girded on the sword, which 

last was considered as the most honorable 

badge of chivalry, and a symbol of the labor 

that the knight was in future to encounter . 

It was in fact deemed the real and essential 

part of the ceremony, and that which actually 

constituted the knight . Du Cange, in his 

Glossarium, defines the Latin word militare, 

in its medieval sense, as signifying "to make a 

knight," which was, he says, "balteo militari 

accingere," i . e., to gird on him the knightly 

belt; and it is worthy of remark, that cingulus, 

which in ure Latin signifies a belt, came in 

the later Latin of Justinian to denote the military 

profession . I need not refer to the common 

expression, "a belted knight," as indicating 

the close connection between knighthood and 

the girding of the belt . It was indeed the 

belt and sword that made the knight . 

The oath taken by the knight at his reception 

devoted him to the defense of religion and 

the Church, and to the protection of widows, 

orphans, and all of either sex who were powerless, 

unhappy, or suffering under injustice 

and oppression ; and to shrink from the performance 

of these duties whenever called 

upon, even at the sacrifice of his life, was to 

incur dishonor for the rest of his days . 

Of all the laws of chivalry, none was maintained 

with more rigor than that which secured 

respect for the female sex . "If an honest 

and virtuous lady," says Brantome, "will 

maintain her firmness and constancy, her 

servant that is to say, the knight who had 

devoted himself to her service, must not even 

spare his life to protect and defend her, if she 

runs the least risk either of her fortune, or her 

honor or of any censorious word, for we are 

bound by the laws of Chivalry to be the champions 

of women's afflictions ." 

Nor did any human law insist with so much 

force as that of chivalry upon the necessity of 

an inviolable attachment to truth . Adherence 

to his word was esteemed the most honorable 

part of a knight's character. Hence to 

give the lie was considered the most mortal 

and irreparable affront, to be expiated only by 

blood . 

An oath or solemn promise given in the 

name of a knight was of all oaths the most 

Knights taken in battle engaged 

to come of their own accord to prison whenever 

it was required by their captors, and on 

their word of honor they were readily allowed 

liberty for the time for which they asked it ; 

for no one ever doubted that they would ful-

KNIGHTHOOD 

KNIGHTHOOD 3 87 

fil their engagements . Sovereigns considered 

their oath of knighthood as the most solemn 

that they could give, and hence the Duke of 

Bretagne, having made a treaty of peace with 

Charles VI . of France, swore to its observance 

"by the faith of his body and the 

loyalty of his knighthood ." 

It is scarcely necessary to say that generous 

courage was an indispensable quality of a 

knight . An act of cowardice, of cruelty, or 

of dishonorable warfare in battle, would overwhelm 

the doer with deserved infamy. In 

one of the tenzones, or poetical contests of the 

Troubadours, it is said that to form a perfect 

knight all the tender offices of humanity 

should be united to the greatest valor, and 

pity and generosity to the conquered associated 

with the strictest justice and integrity . 

Whatever was contrary to the laws of war was 

inconsistent with the laws of chivalry . 

The laws of chivalry also enforced with peculiar 

impressiveness sweetness and modesty 

of temper, with that politeness of demeanor 

which the word courtesy was meant perfectly 

to axp ress. An uncourteous knight would 

have been an anomaly . 

Almost all of these knightly qualities are 

well expressed by Chaucer in the Prologue to 

his Knight's Tale (1 . 43-50 ; 67-72) : 

"A knight there was, and that a worthy man, 

That from the time that he first began 

To riden out he loved chivalry, 

Truth and honor, freedom and courtesy. 

Full worthy was he in his lord's war 

And thereto had he ridden, no man farther ; 

As well in Christendom as in Heatheness, 

And ever honored for his worthiness . 

"And ever more he had a sovereign price, 

And though that he was worthy, he was wise 

And of his port as meek as is a maid . 

He never yet no villainy not said 

In all his life unto no manner wight, 

He was a very perfect, gentle knight .", 

The most common and frequent occasions 

on which knights were created, independent 

of those which happened in war, were at the 

great feasts of the Church, and especially at 

the feast of Pentecost ; also at the publications 

of peace or a truce, the coronations of 

kings, the birth or baptism of princes, and the 

days on which those princes had themselves 

received knighthood . But a knight could at 

any time confer the distinction on one whom 

he deemed deserving of it . 

There was a distinction between the titles 

as well as the dress of a knight and a squire . 

The knight was called Don, Sire, Messire, or, 

in English, Sir-a title not bestowed upon a 

squire : and while the wife of the former was 

called a Lady, that of the latter was only a 

Gentlewoman . The wife of a knight was 

sometimes called Militissa, or female knight . 

In their dresses and their harness, knights 

were entitled to wear gold and golden decorations, 

while the squires were confined to the 

use of silver . Knights alone had a right to 

wear, for the lining of their cloaks and mantles, 

ermine, sable, and meniver, which were 

the most valuable furs ; while those of a less 

costly kind were for the squires . The long and 

trailing mantle, of a scarlet color, and lined 

with ermine or other precious furs, which was 

called the Mantle of Honor, was especially reserved 

for the knight . Such a mantle was always 

presented by the kings of France to 

knights whom they created . The mantle was 

considered the most august and noble decoration 

that a knight could wear, when he was not 

dressed in his armor . The official robes still 

worn by many magistrates in Europe are derived 

from the knightly Mantle of Honor . 

It should be remarked that the order of 

knighthood, and the ceremonies accompanying 

the investiture of a knight, were of a symbolic 

character, and are well calculated to remind 

the Freemason of the symbolic character 

of his own Institution. 

The sword which the knight received was 

called "the arms of mercy," and he was told 

to conquer his enemies by mercy rather than 

by force of arms . Its blade was two-edged, to 

remind him that he must maintain chivalry 

and justice, and contend only for the support 

of these two chief pillars of the temple of honor . 

The lance represented Truth, because truth, 

like the lance, is straight . The coat of mail was 

the symbol of a fortress erected against vice ; 

for, as castles are surrounded by walls and 

ditches, the coat of mail is closed in all its 

parts, and defends the knight against treason, 

disloyalty, pride, and every other evil passion . 

The rowels of the spur were given to urge the 

possessor on to deeds of honor and virtue . 

The shield, which he places betwixt himself 

and his enemy, was to remind him that the 

knight is a shield interposed between the 

prince and the people, to preserve peace and 

tranquillity . 

In a Latin manuscript of the thirteenth 

century, copied by Anstis (App ., p . 95),. will 

be found the following symbolical explanation 

of the ceremonial of knighthood . The 

bath was a symbol of the washing away of sin 

by the sacrament of baptism . The bed into 

which the novice entered and reposed after 

the bath, was a symbol of the peace of mind 

which would be acquired by the virtue of chivalry. 

The white garments with which he was 

afterward clothed, were a symbol of the purity 

which a knight should maintain . The 

scarlet robe put on the newly made knight 

was symbolic of the blood which he should be 

ready to shed for Christ and the Church . The 

dark boots are a sign of the earth, whence we 

all came, and to which we are all to return . 

The white belt is a symbol of chastity . The 

golden spur symbolizes promptitude of action . 

The sword is a symbol of severity against the 

attacks of Satan ; its two edges are to teach 

the knight that he is to defend the poor 

against the, rich, and the weak against the 

powerful. The white fillet around the head is 

a symbol of good works . The slaps, or blow 

was in memorial of him who made him a 

knight . 

There was one usage of knighthood which is 

peculiarly worthy of attention . The love of


KNIGHTHOOD 

glory, which was so inspiring to the knights of 

chivalry, is apt to produce a spirit of rivalry 

and emulation that might elsewhere prove the 

fruitful source of division and discord . But 

this was prevented by the fraternities of arms 

so common among the knights . Two knights 

who had, perhaps, been engaged in the same 

expeditions, and had conceived for each other 

a mutual esteem and confidence, would enter 

into a solemn compact by which they became 

and were called "Brothers in arms ." Under 

this compact, they swore to share equally the 

labors and the glory, the dangers and the 

profits of all enterprises, and never, under any 

circumstances, to abandon each other . The 

brother in arms was to be the enemy of those 

who were the enemies of his brother, and the 

friend of those who were his friends ; both of 

them were to divide their present and future 

wealth, and to employ that and their lives for 

the deliverance of each other if taken prisoner . 

The claims of a brother in arms were paramount 

to all others, except those of the sovereign 

. If the services of a knight were demanded 

at the same time by a lady and by a 

brother in arms, the claim of the former gave 

way to that of the latter . But the duty which 

was owing to the prince or to the country was 

preferred to all others, and hence brothers in 

arms of different nations were only united together 

so long as their respective sovereigns 

were at peace, and a declaration of war between 

two princes dissolved all such confraternities 

between the subjects of each. But 

except in this particular case, the bond of 

brotherhood was indissoluble, and a violation 

of the oath which bound two brothers together 

was deemed an act of the greatest infamy 

. They could not challenge each other . 

They even wore in battle the same habits and 

armor, as if they desired that the enemy 

should mistake one for the other, and thus 

that both might incur an equal risk of the 

dangers with which each was threatened . 

Knights were divided into two ranks, 

namely, Knights Bachelors and Knights Bannerets. 

The Knight BaBachelor was of the lower rank, 

and derived his title most probably from the 

French bas chevalier . In the days of chivalry, 

as well as in later times, this dignity was conferred 

without any reference to a qualification 

of property . Many Knights Bachelors were 

in fact mere adventurers, unconnected by 

feudal ties of any sort, who offered their services 

in war to any successful leader, and 

found in their sword a means of subsistence, 

not only by pay and plunder, but in the regularly 

established system of ransom, which 

every knight taken in action paid for his liberty. 

The Knight Bachelor bore instead of a 

square banner a pointed or triangular ensign, 

which was forked by being extended in two 

comets or points, and which was called a pennon 

. The triangular banner, not forked, was 

called a pennoncel, and was carried by a 

squire . 

The Knight Banneret, a name derived from 

banneret, a little banner, was one who pos- 

sessed many fiefs, and who was obliged to 

serve in war with a large attendance of followers 

. 

If a knight was rich and powerful enough 

to furnish the state or his sovereign with a 

certain number of armed men, and to entertain 

them at his own expense, permission was 

accorded to him to add to his simple designation 

of Knight or Knight Bachelor, the more 

noble and exalted title of Knight Banneret . 

This gave him the right to carry a square banner 

on the top of his lance . Knights Bachelors 

were sometimes made Bannerets on the 

field of battle, and as a reward of their prowess, 

by the simple ceremony of the sovereign cutting 

off with his sword the cornets or points of 

their pennons, thus transforming them into 

square banners . Clark, in his History of 

Knighthood (vol . i ., p . 73), thus describes this 

ceremony in detail : 

"The king or his general at the head of his 

army drawn up in order of battle after a victory, 

under the royal standard displayed, attended 

by all the officers and nobility present, 

receives the knight led between two knights 

carrying his pennon of arms in his hand, the 

heralds walking before him, who proclaim his 

valiant achievements for which he has deserved 

to be made a Knight Banneret, and to 

display his banner in the field ; then the king 

or general says to him, Advancez toy banneret, 

and causes the point of his pennon to be rent 

off ; then the new knight, having the trumpets 

before him sounding, the nobility and officers 

bearing him company, is sent back to his tent, 

where they are all entertained ." 

But generally the same ceremonial was used 

in times of peace at the making of a Knight 

Banneret as at the institution of barons, viscounts, 

earls, and the other orders of nobility, 

with whom they claimed an almost equality 

of rank . 

Not long after the institution of knighthood 

as an offshot of chivalry, we find, besides the 

individual Knights Bachelors and Knights 

Bannerets, associations of knights banded together 

for some common purpose, of which 

there were two classes . First : Fraternities 

possessing property and rights of their own as 

independent bodies into which knights were 

admitted as monks were into religious foundations 

. Of this class may be mentioned, as 

examples, the three great religious Ordersthe 

Templars, the Hospitalers, and the Teutonic 

Knights . 

The second class consisted of honorary associations 

established by sovereigns within 

their respective dominions, consisting of members 

whose only common tie is the possession 

of the same titular distinction . Such are most 

of the European orders of knighthood now existing, 

as the Knights of the Garter in England, 

the Knights of St . Andrew in Russia, and 

the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Spain . 

The institution of these titular orders of 

knighthood dates at a much more recent 

period than that of the Fraternities who constitute 

the first class, for not one of them can 

trace its birth to the time of the Crusades, at

KNIGHTHOOD 

KNIGHTHOOD 389 

which time the Templars and similar orders 

sprang into existence . 

Ragon, in his Cours Philosophique, attempts 

to draw a parallel between the institution of 

knighthood and that of Freemasonry, such as 

that there were three degrees in one as there 

are in the other, and that there was a close 

resemblance in the ceremonies of initiation 

into both orders . He thus intimates for them 

a common origin ; but these parallels should 

rather be considered simply as coincidences . 

The theory first advanced by the Chevalier 

Ramsay and adopted by Hund and the disciples 

of the Rite of Strict Observance, that 

all Freemasons are Templars, and that Freemasonry 

is a lineal successor of ancient knighthood, 

is now rejected as wholly untenable and 

unsupported by any authentic history . The 

only connection between knighthood and 

Freemasonry is that which was instituted 

after the martyrdom of James de Molay, when 

the Knights Templar sought concealment and 

security in the bosom of the Masonic Fraternity. 

When one was made a knight, he was said 

to be dubbed . This is a word in constant use 

in the Medieval manuscripts . In the old 

Patavian statutes, "Miles adobatus," a 

dubbed knight, is defined to be "one who, by 

the usual ceremonies, acuires the dignity 

and profession of chivalry." The Provengal 

writers constantly employ the term to dub, 

"adouber," and designate a knight who has 

one through the ceremony of investiture as 

Fùn chevalier adoube," a dubbed knight. 

Thus, in the Romaunt d'Auberi, the Lady 

d'Auberi says to the king : 

"Sire, dit elle, par Dieu de Paradis 

Soit adouber mes fibres auberis ." 

That is, "Sire, for the love of the God of 

Paradise, let my brothers be dubbed." 

The meaning of the word then is plain : to 

dub, is to make or create a knight . But its 

derivation is not so easily settled amid the 

conflicting views of writers on the subject . 

The derivation by Menage from duplex is 

not worth consideration . Henschell's, from a 

Provengal word adobare, "toe quip," although 

better, is scarcely tenable . The derivation 

from the Anglo-Saxon dubban, "to strike or 

give a blow," would be reasonable, were it not 

presumable that the Anglo-Saxons borrowed 

their word from the French and from the usages 

of chivalry . It is more likely that dubban 

came from adouber, than that adouber 

came from dubban . The Anglo-Saxons took 

their forms and technicalities of chivalry from 

the French . After all, the derivation proposed 

by Du Cange is the most plausible and 

the one most generally adopted, because it is 

supported by the best authorities . He says 

that it is derived from the Latin adoptare, to 

adopt, "quod qui aliquem armis instruit ac 

Mihtem facit, eum quodammodo adoptat in 

filium," i . e ., "He who equips any one with 

arms, and makes him a knight, adopts him, as 

it were, as a son ." To dub one as a knight is, 

then, to adopt him into the order of chivalry . 

The idea was evidently taken from the Roman 

law of adoptatio, or adoption, where, as in conferring 

knighthood, a blow on the cheek was 

given . 

The word accolade is another term of chivalry 

about which there is much misunderstanding. 

It is now supposed to mean the 

blow of the sword, given by the knight conferring 

the dignity, on the neck or shoulder of 

him who received it . But this is most probably 

an error . The word is derived, says Brewer 

(Dict . Phr . and Fab .) from the Latin ad collum, 

"around the necI " and signifies the embrace 

"given by the Orand Master when he 

receives a neophyte or new convert ." It was 

an early custom to confer an embrace and the 

kiss of peace upon the newly made knight 

which ceremony, Ashmole thinks, was called 

the accolade . Thus, in his History of the Order 

of the Garter (p . 15), he says : "The first Christian 

kings, at giving the belt, kissed the new 

knight on the left cheek, saying : In the honor 

of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, I 

make you a knight . It was called the osculum 

pads, the kiss of favor or of brotherhood 

[more correctly the kiss of peace], and is presumed 

to be the accolade or ceremony of embracing, 

which Charles the Great used when 

he knighted his son Louis the DE;bonnair." 

In the book of Johan de Vignay, which was 

written in the fourteenth century, this kiss of 

peace is mentioned together with the accolade : 

"Et le Seigneur leur doit dormer une collie en 

signe de proeste et de hardement, et que it 

leur souveigne de celui noble homme qui la 

fait chevalier . Et done lee doit le Seigneur 

baisier en la bouche en signe de paix et 

d'amour" ; i . e ., "And the lord ought to give 

him [the newly-made knight] an accolade as a 

symbol of readiness and boldness, and in memory 

of the nobleman who has made him a 

knight ; and then the lord ought to kiss him 

on the mouth as a sign of peace and love ." 

In an old manuscript in the Cottonian Library, 

entitled "The manner of makynge 

Knyghtes after the custome of Engelande," 

copy of which is inserted in Anstis's 

=Y torical Essay on the Knighthood of the His- 

Bath 

(Append., p . 99), is this account of the embrace 

and kiss, accompanied with a blow on 

the neck : "Thanne shall the Squyere lift up 

his armes on high, and the Kynge shall put 

his armes about the nekke of the Squyer, and 

lyftynge up his right hande he shall smyte the 

Squyer in the nekke, seyeng thus : Be ye a 

good Knyhte ; kissing him ." Anstis himself is 

quite confused in his description of the ceremonial, 

and enumerates "the blow upon the 

neck, the accolade, with the embracing and 

kiss of peace," as if they were distinct and separate 

ceremonies ; but in another part of his 

book he calls the accolade "the laying hands 

upon the shoulders ." I am inclined to believe, 

after much research, that both the blow on 

the neck and the embrace constituted properly 

the accolade . This blow was sometimes 

given with the hand, but sometimes with the 

sword . Anstis says that "the action which 

fully and finally impresses the character of


KNIGHT 

knighthood is the blow given with the hand 

upon the neck or shoulder ." But he admits 

that there has been a controversy among 

writers whether the blow was heretofore given 

with a sword or by the bare hand upon the 

neck (p. 73) . 

The mystical signification which Caseneuve 

gives in his Etymologies (voc . Accollee) is ingenious 

and appropriate, namely, that the 

blow was given on the neck to remind him who 

received it that he ought never, by flight from 

battle, to give an enemy the opportunity of 

striking him on the same place . 

But there was another blow, which was 

given in the earliest times of chivalry, and 

which has by some writers been confounded 

with the accolade, which at length came to 

be substituted for it . This was the blow on 

the cheek, or, in common language the box 

on the ear, which was given to a knight at 

his investiture . This blow is never called 

the accolade by the old writers, but generally 

the alapa, rarely the gautada. Du Cange 

says that this blow was sometimes given on 

the neck, and that then it was called the 

colaphus, or by the French colic, from col, 

the neck . Duchesne says the blow was always 

given with the hand, and not with the 

sword . 

Ashmole says : "It was in the time of 

Charles the Great the way of knighting by 

the colaphum, or blow on the ear, used in sign 

of sustaining future hardships, . . . a custom 

long after retained in Germany and France. 

Thus William, Earl of Holland, who was to be 

knighted before he could be emperor, at his 

being elected king of the Romans, received 

knighthood by the box of the ear, etc ., from 

John, king of Bohemia, A. D . 1247." 

Both the word alapa and the ceremony 

which it indicated were derived from the form 

of manumission among the Romans, where 

the slave on being freed received a blow called 

alapa on the cheek, characterized by Claudian 

as "felix injuria," a happy injury, to remind 

him that it was the last blow he was compelled 

to submit to : for thenceforth he was to be 

a freeman, capable of vindicating his honor 

from insult. The alapa, in conferring knighthood, 

was employed with a similar symbolism . 

Thus in an old register of 1260, which gives an 

account of the knighting of Hildebrand by the 

Lord Ridolfonis, we find this passage, which 

I give in the original, for the sake of the one 

word gautata, which is unusual : "Postea 

Ridolfonus de more dedit illi gautatam et 

dixit illi. Tu es miles nobilis milithe equestris, 

et hint gautata est in recordationem, illius 

qui to armavit militem, et hcec gautata debet 

esse ultima injuria, quam patienter acceperis." 

That is : "Afterwards Ridolfonus gave him in 

the customary way the blow, and said to him : 

Thou art a noble Knight of the Equestrian 

Order of Chivalry, and this blow is given in 

memory of him who bath armed thee as a 

knight, and it must be the last injury which 

thou shalt patiently endure ." The first reason 

assigned for the blow refers to an old custom 

of cuffing the witnesses to a transaction, to 

impress it on their memory . Thus, by the 

riparian law, when there was a sale of land, 

some twelve witnesses were collected to see 

the transfer of property and the payment of 

the price, and each received a box on the ear, 

that he might thus the better remember the 

occurrence . So the knight received the blow 

to make him remember the time of his receiving 

his knighthood and the person who conferred 

it . 

For the commission of crime, more especially 

for disloyalty to his sovereign, a knight 

might be degraded from the Order ; and this 

act of degradation was accompanied with 

many ceremonies, the chief of which was the 

hacking off his spurs. This was to be done 

for greater infamy, not by a knight, but by the 

master cook . Thus Stow says that, at the 

making of Knights of the Bath, the king's 

master cook stood at the door of the chapel, 

and said to each knight as he entered, "Sir 

Knight, look that you be true and loyal to the 

king my master, or else I must hew these 

spurs from your heels ." His shield too was reversed, 

and the heralds had certain marks 

called abatements, which they placed on it to 

indicate his dishonor. 

M . de St. Palaye concludes his learned and 

exhaustive Memoires sur l'ancienne Chevalerie 

with this truthful tribute to that spirit of 

chivalry in which ancient knighthood found 

its birth, and with it I may appropriately 

close this article : 

"It is certain that chivalry, in its earliest 

period, tended to promote order and good 

morals ; and although it was in some respects 

imperfect, yet it produced the most accomplished 

models of public valor and of those 

pacific and gentle virtues that are the ornaments 

of domestic life ; and it is worthy of 

consideration, that in an age of darkness, 

most rude and unpolished, such examples 

were to be found as the results of an institution 

founded solely for the public welfare, as 

in the most enlightened times have never been 

surpassed and very seldom equalled ." 

Knight . 1 . An order of chivalry . (See 

Knighthood and Knight Masonic .) 

2 . The Eleventh and last degree of the 

Order of African Architects . 

Knight, Black. See Black Brothers. 

Knight Commander. (Chevalier Commandeur.) 

1 . The Ninth Degree of the Rite of 

Elect Cohens . 2 . A distinction conferred by 

the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction 

of the United States on deserving Honorary 

Thirty-thirds and Sublime Princes of 

the Royal Secret . It is conferred by a vote of 

the Supreme Council, and is unattended with 

any other ceremony than the presentation of a 

decoration and a patent . 

Knight Commander of the Temple. 

See Sovereign Commander of the Temple . 

Knight Commander of the White and 

Black Eagle. (Chevalier Commandeur de 

l'Aigle blanc et noir .) Tha Eightieth Degree of 


France .

KNIGHT KNIGHT 391 

Knight Crusader . (Chevalier Croise.) 

Thory says (Act. Lat ., i ., 303) that this is a 

chivalric degree, which was communicated to 

him by a member of the Grand Lodge of 

Copenhagen . He gives no further account 

of its character . 

Knight Elect of Fifteen . 1 . The Sixteenth 


Rite, more commonly called Illustrious Elect 

of the Fifteen. (See Elect of Fifteen .) 

2 . The Tenth Degree of the Chapter of 

Emperors of the East and West . 

3 . The Eleventh Degree of the Rite of 

Mizraim . 

Knight Elect of Twelve, Sublime . The 

Eleventh Degree of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite, sometimes called "Twelve Illustrious 

Knights ." After vengeance had been taken 

upon the traitors mentioned in the degrees of 

Elected Knights of Nine and Illustrious 

Elected of Fifteen, Solomon, to reward those 

who had exhibited their zeal and fidelity in inflicting 

the required punishment, as well as to 

make room for the exaltation of others to the 

degree of Illustrious Elected of Fifteen, appointed 

twelve of these latter, chosen by ballot, 

to constitute a new degree on which he 

bestowed the name of Sublime Knights 

Elected, and gave them the command over 

the twelve tribes of Israel . The Sublime 

Knights rendered an account each day to Solomon 

of the work that was done in the Temple 

by their respective tribes, and received their 

pay . The Lodge is called a Chapter . In the 

old rituals Solomon presides, with the title of 

Thrice Puissant, and instead of Wardens, 

there are a Grand Inspector and a Master of 

Ceremonies . In the modern ritual of the 

Southern Jurisdiction, the Master and Wardens 

represent Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, and 

Adoniram, and the style of the Master and 

Senior Warden is Thrice Illustrious . The 

room is hung with black, sprinkled with white 

and red tears . 

The apron is white, lined and bordered with 

black, with black strings ; on the flap, a flaming 

heart . 

The sash is black, with a flaming heart on 

the breast, suspended from the right shoulder 

to the left hip . 

The jewel is a sword of justice . 

This is the last of the three Elus which are 

found in the Ancient Scottish Rite . In the 

French Rite they have been condensed into 

one, and make the Fourth Degree of that 

ritual, but not, as Ragon admits, with the 

happiest effect. 

Knight Evangelist. A grade formerly in 

the archives of the Lodge of St . Louis des 

Amis Rcunis at Calais. (Thory, Acta Lat ., 

i., 312 .) 

Knight Hospitaler . See Knight of Malta. 

Knight, Illustrious or Illustrious Elect . 

(Chevalier Illustre or Elu Illustre .) The Thirteenth 


Knight Jupiter . (Le Chevalier Jupiter .) 

The Seventy-eighth Degree of the collection 

of Peuvret . 

Knight Kadosh, formerly called Grand 

Elect Knight Kadosh . (Grand Elu du Chevalier 

Kadosch .) The Knight Kadosh is the Thirtieth 


Scottish Rite, called also Knight of the White 

and Black Eagle. While retaining the general 

Templar doctrine of the Kadosh system, it 

symbolizes and humanizes the old lesson of 

vengeance . It is the most popular of all the 

Kadoshes . 

In the Knight Kadosh of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite, the meetings are 

called Councils . The principal officers are, 

according to the recent rituals, a Commander, 

two Lieutenant Commanders, called also 

Prior and Preceptor ; a Chancellor, Orator, 

Almoner, Recorder, and Treasurer . The 

jewel, as described in the ritual of the Southern 

Supreme Council, is a double-headed eagle, 

displayed resting on a teutonic cross, the eagle 

silver, the cross gold enameled red . The 

Northern Council uses instead of the eagle 

the letters J. B . M . The Kadoshes, as representatives 

of the Templars, adopt the Beauscant 

as their standard . In this degree, as in 

all the other Kadoshes, we find the mystical 

ladder of seven steps . 

Knight Kadosh of Cromwell . Ragon 

says of this (Tuileur, p . 171), that it is a pretended 

degree, of which he has four copies, 

and that it appears to be a monstrosity invented 

by an enemy of the Order for the purposes 

of calumniation . The ritual says that 

the degree is conferred only in England and 

Prussia, which is undoubtedly untrue . 

Knight Masonic . The word knight, prefixed 

to so many of the high degrees as a part 

of the title, has no reference whatever to the 

orders of chivalry, except in the case of 

Knights Templar and Knights of Malta . The 

word, in such titles as Knight of the Ninth 

Arch, Knight of the Brazen Serpent, etc ., has 

a meaning totally unconnected with Medieval 

knighthood . In fact, although the English, 

German, and French words Knight, Ritter, 

and Chevalier, are applied to both, the Latin 

word for each is different. A Masonic knight 

is, in Latin, eques ; while the Medieval writers 

always called a knight of chivalry miles . So 

constant is this distinction, that in the two instances 

of Masonic knighthood derived from 

the chivalric orders, the Knights Templar and 

the Knight of Malta, this word miles is used, 

instead of eques, to indicate that they are not. 

really degrees of Masonic knighthood. Thus 

we say Miles Templarius and Miles Melitce . 

If they had been inventions of a Masonic ritualist, 

the titles would have been Eques Templarius 

and Eques Melitce . 

The eques, or Masonic knight, is therefore 

not, in the heraldic sense, a knight at all . The 

word is used simply to denote a position higher 

than that of a mere Master ; a position calling, 

like the "devoir" of knighthood, for the performance 

of especial duties . As the word 

"prince," in Masonic language, denotes not 

one of princely rank, but one invested with 

a share of Masonic sovereignty and command, 

so "knight" denotes one who is expected to 

be distinguished with peculiar" fidelity to the

392 KNIGHT 

KNIGHTS 

cause in which he has enlisted . It is simply, 

as has been said, a point of rank above that of 

the Master Mason . It is, therefore, confined 

to the high degrees . 

Knight Mahadon. (Chevalier Mahadon .) 

A degree in the Archives of the Lodge of St . 

Louis des Amis Rkunis at Calais . 

Knight of Asia, Initiated. See Asia, 

Initiated Knights of. 

Knight of Athens. (Chevalier d'AthMes .) 

1 . The Fifty-second Degree of the Rite 

of Mizraim. 2. A degree in the nomenclar 

ture of Fustier. 3 . A degree in the Archives 

of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Rite 

in France . 

Knight of Aurora . (Chevalier de l'Aurore 

.) A degree belonging to the Rite of Palestine 

. It is a modification of the Kadosh, and 

is cited in the collection of Fustier. In the collection 

of M . Viany, it is also called Knight of 

Palestine . 

Knight of Beneficence . (Chevalier de la 

Bienfaisance .) The Forty-ninth Degree of 


France. It is also called Knight of Perfect 

Silence. 

Knight of Brightness. (Chevalier de la 

Clarte.) The Seventh and last degree of the 

system of the Clerks of Strict Observance, 

called also Magus . 

Knight of Christ . After the dissolution 

of the Templars in the fourteenth century, 

those knights who resided in Portugal retained 

the possessions of the Order in that 

country, and perpetuated it under the name of 

the Knights of Christ . Their badge is a red 

cross pattee, charged with a plain white cross . 

(See Christ, Order of.) 

Knight of Constantinople. A side degree 

; instituted, doubtless, by some lecturer ; 

teaching, however, an excellent moral lesson 

of humility. Its history has no connection 

whatever with Masonry . The degree is not 

very extensively diffused ; but several Masons, 

especially in the Western States, are in possession 

of it . It may be conferred by any 

Master Mason on another ; although the 

proper performance of the ceremonies requires 

the assistance of several. When the 

degree is formally conferred, the body is called 

a Council, and consists of the following officers 

: Illustrious Sovereign, Chief of the Artisans, 

Seneschal, Conductor Prefect of the 

Palace, and Captain of the Guards. 

Knight of Hope . 1 . A species of androgynous 

Masonry, formerly practised in France . 

The female members were called Dames or 

Ladies of Hope . 2 . A synonym of Knight of 

the Morning Star, which see. 

Knight of Iris . (Chevalier de l'Iris .) 

The Fourth Degree of the Hermetic Rite of 

Montpellier . 

Knight of Jerusalem. (Chevalier deJe,-u 

salem .) The Sixty-fifth Degree of the collection 


Knight of Justice. Knights Hospitalers 

of St . John of Jerusalem or Knights of Malta 

were called, in the technical language of the 

Order, Knights of Justice . 

Knights of Malta. This Order, which at 

various times in the progress of its history received 

the names of Knights Hospitalers 

Knights of St . John of Jerusalem, Knights of 

Rhodes, and, lastly, Knights of Malta, was 

one of the most important of the religious and 

military orders of knighthood which sprang 

into existence during the Crusades which were 

instituted for the recovery of the Holy Land . 

It owes its origin to the Hospitalers of Jerusalem, 

that wholly religious and charitable Order 

which was established at Jerusalem, in 1048 

by pious merchants of Amalfi for the succor of 

poor and distressed Latin pilgrims. (See Hos- 

~italers of Jerusalem .) This society, established 

when Jerusalem was in possession of the 

Mohammedans, passed through many vicissitudes, 

but lived to see the Holy cty conquered 

by the Christian knights . It then received 

many accessions from the Crusaders, 

who, laying aside their arms, devoted themselves 

to the pious avocation of attending the 

sick . It was then that Gerard, the Rector of 

the Hospital, induced the brethren to take 

upon themselves the vows of poverty, obedience, 

and chastity, which they did at the 

hands of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who 

clothed them in the habit selected for the 

Order, which was a plain, black robe bearing 

a white cross of eight points on the left breast . 

This was in the year 1099, and some writers 

here date the beginning of the Order of 

Knights of Malta . But this is an error . It 

was not until after the death of Gerard that 

the Order assumed that military character 

which it ever afterward maintained, or, in 

other words, that the peaceful Hospitalers of 

Jerusalem became the warlike Knights of St . 

John. 

In 1118, Gerard, the Rector of the Hospital, 

died, and was succeeded by Raymond du Puy, 

whom Marulli, the old chronicler of the Order, 

in his Vite de' Gran Maestri (Napoli, 1636), 

calls "secondo Rettore e primo Maestro ." 

The peaceful habits and monastic seclusion 

of the Brethren of the Hospital, which had 

been fostered by Gerard, no longer suited the 

warlike emus of his successor . He therefore 

proposed a change in the character of the society, 

by which it should become a military 

Order, devoted to active labors in the field 

and the protection of Palestine from the encroachments 

of the infidels. This proposition 

was warmly approved by Baldwyn II ., King 

of Jerusalem who, harassed by a continual 

warfare, glaxly accepted this addition to his 

forces . The Order having thus been organized 

on a military basis, the members took a 

new oath, at the hands of the Patriarch of 

Jerusalem, by which they bound themselves 

to defend the cause of Christianity against the 

infidels in the Holy Land to the last drop of 

their blood, but on no account to bear arms 

for any other purpose . 

This act, done in 1118, is considered as the 

beginning of the establishment of the Order 

of Knights Hospitalers of St . John, of which 

Raymond du Puy is, by all historians, deemed 

the first Grand Master .

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 393 

By the rule established by Du Puy for the 

government of the Order, it was divided into 

three classes, namely, 1 . Knights, who were 

called Knights of Justice ; 2 . Chaplains ; and 

3 . Serving Brothers ; all of whom took the 

three vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty 

. There was also attached to the institution 

a body of men called Donats, who, 

without assuming the vows of the Order, were 

employed in the different offices of the hospital, 

and who wore what was called the demicross, 

as a badge of their connection . 

The history of the Knights from this time 

until the middle of the sixteenth century is but 

a chronicle of continued warfare with the enemies 

of the Christian faith . When Jerusalem 

was captured by Saladin, in 1187, the Hospitalers 

retired to Margat, a town and fortress 

of Palestine which still acknowledged the 

Christian sway . In 1191, they made Acre, 

which in that year had been recaptured by 

the Christians, their principal place of residence 

. For just one hundred years the 

knights were engaged, with varying success, in 

sanguinary contests with the Saracens and 

other infidel hordes, until Acre, the last 

stronghold of the Christians in the Holy Land, 

having fallen beneath the blows of the victorious 

Moslems, Syria was abandoned by the 

Latin race, and the Hos italers found refuge 

in the island of Cyprus, were they established 

their convent . 

The Order had been much attenuated by its 

frequent losses in the field, and its treasury 

had been impoverished . But commands were 

at once issued by John de Villiers, the Grand 

Master, to the different Grand Priories in 

Europe, and large reinforcements in men and 

money were soon received, so that the Fraternity 

were enabled again to open their hospital 

and to recommence the practise of their 

religious duties . No longer able to continue 

their military exploits on land, the knights 

betook themselves to their galleys, and, while 

they protected the pilgrims who still flocked 

in vast numbers to Palestine, gave security to 

the Christian commerce of the Mediterranean . 

On sea, as on land, the Hospitalers still 

showed that they were the inexorable and tertrible 

foes of the infidels, whose captured vessels 

soon filled the harbor of Cy prus . 

But in time a residence in Cyprus became 

unpleasant . The king, by heavy taxes and 

other rigorous exactions, had so disgusted 

them, that they determined to seek some other 

residence . The neighboring island of Rhodes 

had long, under its independent princes, been 

the refuge of Turkish corsairs ; a name equivalent 

to the more modern one of pirates . Fulk 

de Villaret, the Grand Master of the Hospital, 

having obtained the approval of Pope Clement 

and the assistance of several of the European 

States, made a descent upon the island, and, 

after months of hard fighting, on the 15th of 

August, 1310, planted the standard of the 

Order on the walls of the city of Rhodes ; and 

the island thenceforth became the home of the 

Hoe italers, whence they were often called 

the ' to of Rhodes. 

The Fraternity continued to reside at 

Rhodes for two hundred years, acting as the 

outpost and defense of Christendom from the 

encroachments of the Ottoman power. Of this 

long period, but few years were passed in 

peace, and the military reputation of the 

Order was still more firmly established by the 

prowess of the knights . These two centuries 

were marked by other events which had an 

important bearing on the fortunes of the institution 

. The rival brotherhood of the Templars 

was abolished b y the machinations of a 

pope and a king of France, and what of its 

revenues and possessions was saved from the 

spoliation of its enemies was transferred to the 

Hospitalers . 

There had always existed a bitter rivalry 

between the two Orders, marked by unhappy 

contentions, which on some occasions, while 

both were in Palestine, amounted to actual 

strife. Toward the Knights of St . John the 

Templars had never felt nor expressed a very 

kindly feeling ; and now this acceptance of an 

unjust appropriation of their goods in the hour 

of their disaster, keenly added to the sentiment 

of ill-will, and the unhappy children of 

De Molay, as they passed away from the theater 

of knighthood, left behind them the bitterest 

imprecations on the disciples of the Hospital 

. 

The Order, during its residence at Rhodes, 

also underwent several changes in its organization, 

by which the simpler system observed 

during its infancy in the Holy Land was rendered 

more perfect and more complicated . 

The greatest of all these changes was in the 

character of the European Commanderies . 

During the period that the Order was occupied 

in the defense of the holy places, and losing 

large numbers of its warriors in its almost continual 

battles, these Commanderies served as 

nurseries for the preparation and education of 

young knights who might be sent to Palestine 

to reinforce the exhausted ranks of their 

brethren . But now, secured in their island 

home, Jerusalem permanently in possession 

of the infidel, and the enthusiasm once inspired 

b y Peter the Hermit forever dead, there 

was no longer need for new Crusaders . But 

the knights, engaged in strengthening and 

decorating their insular possession by erecting 

fortifications for defense, and palaces and convents 

for residence, now required large additions 

to their revenue to defray the expenses 

thus incurred . Hence the Commanderies were 

the sources whence this revenue was to be derived 

; and the Commanders, once the Principals, 

as it were, of military schools, became 

lords of the manor in their respective provinces 

. There, by a judicious and economical 

administration of the property which had 

been entrusted to them, by the cultivation of 

gardens and orchards by the rent received 

from arable and meadow lands, of mills and 

fisheries appertaining to their estates, and 

even by the voluntary contributions of their 

neighbors, and by the raising of stock, they 

were enabled to add greatly to their income . 

Of this one-fifth was claimed, under the name

p 

394 KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 

of responsions, as a tribute to be sent annually 

to Rhodes for the recuperation of the always 

di min ishing revenue of the Order . 

Another important change in the organization 

of the Order was made at a General Chapter 

held about 1320 at Montpellier, under the 

Grand Mastershi of Villanova . The Order 

was there divided into languages, a division 

unknown during its existence in Palestine . 

These languages were at first seven in number, 

but afterward increased to eight, by the 

subdivision of that of Aragon . The principal 

dignities of the Order were at the same time 

divided among these languages, so that a 

articular dignity should be always enjoyed 

bby the same language . These languages, and 

the dignities respectively attached to them, 

were as follows : 

1 . Provence : Grand Commander . 

2 . Auvergne : Grand Marshal . 

3 . France : Grand Hospitaler . 

4 . Italy : Grand Admiral . 

5. Aragon : Grand Conservator. 

6 . Germany : Grand Bailiff . 

7 . Castile : Grand Chancellor . 

8 . England : Grand Tureopolier . 

But perhaps the greatest of all changes was 

that which took place in the personal character 

of the Knights . "The Order," says 

Taafe (Hist., iv ., 234), "had been above two 

hundred years old before it managed a boat, 

but was altogether equestrian during its two 

first, and perhaps most glorious, centuries ." 

But on settling at Rhodes, the knights began 

to attack their old enemies by sea with the 

same prowess with which they had formerly 

met them on land, and the victorious contests 

of the galleys of St . John with the Turkish 

corsairs, who were infesting the Mediterranean, 

proved them well entitled to the epithet 

of naval warriors . 

In the year 1480, Rhodes was unsuccessfully 

besieged by the Ottoman army of Mohammed 

II., under the command of Paleologus 

Pasha. After many contests, the Turks were 

repulsed with great slaughter . But the attack 

of the Sultan Solyman, forty-four years afterward, 

was attended with a different result, and 

Rhodes was surrendered to the Turkish forces 

on the 20th of December, 1522 . The terms of 

the capitulation were liberal to the knights, 

who were permitted to retire with all their personal 

property; and thus, in the Grand Mastership 

of L'Isle Adam, Rhodes ceased forever 

to be the home of the Order, and six days 

afterward, on New Year's Day, 1523, the fleet, 

containing the knights and four thousand of 

the inhabitants, sailed for the island of 

Candia. 

From Candia, where the Grand Master remained 

but a short time, he proceeded with 

his knights to Italy . Seven long years were 

p assed in negotiations with the monarchs of 

Europe, and in the search for a home . At 

length, the Emperor Charles V ., of Germany, 

vested in the Order the complete and perpetual 

sovereignty of the islands of Malta and 

Gozo, and the city of Tripoli; and in 1530, 

the knights took formal possession of Malta, 

where, to borrow the language of Porter (Hilt ., 

ii ., 33), "for upwards of two centuries and a 

half, waved the banner of St . John, an honor 

to Christianity and a terror to the infidel of 

the East ." From this time the. Order received 

the designation of "Knights of Malta," a title 

often bestowed upon it, even in official documents, 

in the place of the original one of 

" Kn ights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem 

." 

For 268 years the Order retained possession 

of the island of Malta . But in 1798 it was surrendered 

without a struggle b y Louis de Hompesch, 

the imbecile and pusillanimous Grand 

Master, to the French army and fleet under 

Bonaparte ; and this event may be considered 

as the commencement of the suppression of 

the Order as an active power . 

Hompesch, accompanied by a few knights, 

embarked in a few days for Trieste, and subsequently 

retired to Montpellier, where he 

resided in the strictest seclusion and poverty 

until May 12, 1805, when he died, leaving behind 

him not enough to remunerate the physicians 

who had attended him . 

The great body of the knights proceeded 

to Russia, where the Emperor Paul had a few 

years before been proclaimed the protector 

of the Order . On the 27th of October, 1798 a 

Chapter of such of the knights as were in §t . 

Petersburg was held, and the Emperor Paul I . 

was elected Grand Master . This election was 

made valid, so far as its irregularities would 

permit, by the abdication of Hompesch in 

July, 1799 . 

At the death of Paul in 1801, his successor 

on the throne, Alexander, appointed Count 

Soltikoff as Lieutenant of the Mastery, and 

directed him to convene a Council at St. Petersburg 

to deliberate on future action . This 

assembly adop ted a new statute for the election 

of the Grand Master, which provided 

that each Grand Priory should in a Provincial 

Chapter nominate a candidate, and that out 

of the persons so nominated the Pope should 

make a selection . Accordingly, in 1802, the 

Pope appointed John de Tommasi, who was 

the last knight that bore the title of Grand 

Master . 

On the death of Tommasi, the Pope declined 

to assume any longer the res ponsibility 

of nominating a Grand Master, and appointed 

the Bailiff Guevarr Luardo simply as Lieutenant 

of the Mastery, a title afterward held 

by his successors, Centelles, Busca, De Candida, 

and Collavedo . In 1826 and 1827, the 

first steps were taken for the revival of the 

English language, and Sir Joshua Meredith, 

Bart ., who had been made a knight in 1798 by 

Hompesch, being appointed Lieutenant Prior 

of England, admitted many English gentlemen 

into the Order . 

But the real history of the Order of St . John 

of Jerusalem ends with the disgraceful capitulation 

at Malta in 1798 . All that has since remained 

of it, all that now remains-however 

imposing may be the titles assumed-is but 

the diluted shadow of its former existence .

KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 395 

The organization of the Order in its days of 

prosperity was very complicated, partaking 

both of a monarchist and a republican character 

. Over all presided a Grand Master, who, 

although invested with extensive powers, was 

still controlled by the legislative action of the 

General Chapter . 

The Order was divided into eight languages 

over each of which presided one of the Grand 

dignitaries with the title of Conventual Bailiff. 

These dignitaries were the Grand Commander, 

the Grand Marshal, the Grand Hospitaler, 

the Grand Conservator, the Grand 

Turcopolier, the Grand Bailiff, and the Grand 

Chancellor. Each of these dignitaries resided 

in the palace or inn at Malta which 

was appropriated to his language . In every 

province there were one or more Grand Priories 

presided over by Grand Priors, and beneath 

these were the Commanderies, over 

each of which was a Commander . There were 

scattered through the different countries of 

Europe 22 Grand Priories and 596 Commanderies. 

Those who desired admission into the Order 

as members of the first class, or Knights of 

Justice, were required to produce proofs of 

noble descent . The ceremonies of initiation 

were public and exceedingly simple, consisting 

of little more than the taking of the necessary 

vow. In this the Hos italers differed from 

the Templays, whose formula of admission 

was veiled in secrecy. Indeed, Porter (Hist ., 

i., 203) attributes the escape of the former 

Order from the accusations that were heaped 

upon the latter, and which led to its dissolution, 

to the fact that the Knights "abjured 

all secrecy in their forms and ceremonies ." 

The Order was dissolved in England by 

Henry VIII ., and, although temporarily restored 

by Mary, was finally abolished in England 

. A decree of the Constituent Assembly 

abolished it in France in 1792 . By a decree of 

Charles IV., of Spain, in 1802, the two languages 

of Aragon and Castile became the 

Royal Spanish Order of St . John, of which he 

declared himself the Grand Master . 

Now, only the languages of Germany and 

Italy remain . The Order is, therefore, at 

this day in a state of abeyance, if not of disintegration, 

although it still maintains its 

vitality, and the functions of Grand Master 

are exercised by a Lieutenant of the Magistery, 

who resides at Rome . Attempts have 

also been made, from time to time, to revive 

the Order in different places, sometimes 

with and sometimes without the legal sanction 

of the recognized head of the Order. For instance, 

there are now in England two bodiesone 

Catholic, under Sir George Bowyer, and 

the other Protestant, at the head of which is 

the Duke of Manchester ; but each repudiates 

the other . But the relic of the old and valiant 

Order of Knights Hospitalers claims no connection 

with the branch of Masonry which 

bears the title of Knights of Malta, and hence 

the investigation of its present condition is no 

part of the province of this work . 

Knight of Malta, Masonic . 

The degree 

of Knight of Malta is conferred in the United 

States as "an appendant Order" in a Commandery 

of Knights Templar . There is a 

ritual attached to the degree, but very few are 

in possession of it, and it is generally communicated 

after the candidate has been created 

a Knights Templar ; the ceremony consisting 

generally only in the reading of the 

passage of Scripture prescribed in the Monitors, 

and the communication of the modes of 

recognition . 

How anything so anomalous in history as 

the commingling in one body of Knights Templar 

and Knights of Malta, and making the 

same person a representative of both Orders, 

first arose, it is now difficult to determine . It 

was, most probably, a device of Thomas S . 

Webb, and was, it may be supposed, one of 

the results of a too great fondness for the accumulation 

of degrees. Mitchell, in his History 

of Freemasonry (ii., 83), says : "The degree, 

so called, of Malta, or St . John of Jerusalem, 

crept in, we suppose, by means of a 

bungler, who, not knowing enough of the ritual 

to confer it properly, satisfied himself by 

simply adding a few words in the ceremony of 

dubbing ; and thus, by the addition of a few 

signs and words but imperfectly understood, 

constituted a Knights Templar also a Knight 

of Malta, and so the matter stands to this 

day." I am not generally inclined to place 

much confidence in Mitchell as an historian ; 

yet I cannot help thinking that in this instance 

his guess is not very far from the truth 

although, as usual with him, there is a tinge of 

exaggeration in his statement . 

There is evidence that the degree was introduced 

at a very early period into the Masonry 

of this country . In the Constitution of 

the "United States Grand Encampment," 

adopted in 1805 one section enumerates 

"Encampments of Knights of Malta, Knights 

Templars, and Councils of Knights of the 

Red Cross," now Companions of the Red 

Cross. It will be observed that the Knight 

of Malta precedes the Knights Templar ; 

whereas, in the present system, the former is 

made the ultimate degree of the series. Yet, 

in this Constitution, no further notice is taken 

of the degree ; for while the fees for the Red 

Cross and the Templar degrees are prescribed, 

there is no reference to any to be paid for 

that of Malta. In the revised Constitution of 

1816, the order of the series was changed to 

Red Cross, Templar, and Malta, which arrangement 

has ever since been maintained . 

The Knights of Malta are designated as one of 

the "Appendant Orders," a title and a subordinate 

position which the pride of the old 

Knights of Malta would hardly have permitted 

them to accept . 

In 1856, the Knights Templar of the United 

States had become convinced that the incororation 

of the Order of Malta with the 

Knights Templar, and making the same person 

the possessor of both Orders, was so absurd a 

violation of all historic truth that at the 

session of the General Grand Encampment in 

that year, at Hartford, Connecticut, on the

896 KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 

suggestion of the author, the degree was unanimously 

stricken from the Constitution ; but 

at the session of 1862, in Columbus, Ohio, it 

was, I think, without due consideration restored, 

and is now communicated in the Commanderies 

of Knights Templar . 

There is no fact in history better known 

than that there existed from their very birth 

a rivalry between the two Orders of the Temple 

and of St . John of Jerusalem, which sometimes 

burst forth into open hostility . Porter 

says (Hist . K . of Malta, i . 107), speaking of 

the dissensions of the two orders "instead of 

confining their rivalry to a friendly emulation, 

whilst combating against their common foe, 

they appeared more intent upon thwarting 

and frustrating each other, than in opposing 

the Saracen." 

To such an extent had the quarrels of the 

two Orders proceeded, that Pope Alexander 

III . found it necessary to interfere ; and in 

1179 a hollow truce was signed by the rival 

houses of the Temple and the Hospital; the 

terms of which were, however, never strictly 

observed by either side. On the dissolution 

of the Templars so much of their possessions 

as were not confiscated to public use were 

ven by the sovereigns of Europe to the 

'ghts of Malta, who accepted the gift without 

compunction . And there is a tradition 

that the surviving Templars, indignant at the 

spoliation and at the mercenary act of their 

old rivals in willingly becoming a party to 

the robbery, solemnly registered a vow never 

thereafter to recognize them as friends . 

The attempt at this day to make a modern 

Knights Templar accept initiation into a 

hated and antagonistic Order is to display a 

lamentable ignorance of the facts of history . 

Another reason why the degree of Knight of 

Malta should be rejected from the Masonic 

system is that the ancient Order never was a 

secret association . Its rites of reception were 

open and public, wholly unlike anything in 

Masonry. In fact, historians have believed 

that the favor shown to the Hospitalers, and 

the persecutions waged against the Templars, 

are to be attributed to the fact that the latter 

Order had a secret system of initiation which 

did not exist in the former . The ritual of reception, 

the signs and words as modes of recognition 

now practised in the modern Masonic 

ceremonial, are all a mere invention of a very 

recent date. The old Knights knew nothing 

of such a system . 

A third, and perhaps the best, reason for 

rejecting the Knights of Malta as a Masonic 

degree is to be found in the fact that the 

Order still exists, although in a somewhat 

decayed condition ; and that its members, 

claiming an uninterrupted descent from the 

Knights who, with Hompesch, left the island 

of Malta in 1797 and threw themselves under 

the protection oti Paul of Russia, utterly disclaim 

any connection with the Freemasons, 

and almost contemptuously repudiate the socalled 

Masonic branch of the Order . In 1858, 

a manifesto was issued by the supreme authority 

of the Order, dated from "the Magisterial 

Palace of the Sacred Order" at Rome which, 

after stating that the Order, as it then existed, 

consisted only of the Grand Priories 

in the Langues of Italy and Germany, the 

knights in Prussia, who trace descent from the 

Grand Bailiwick of Brandenburg, and a few 

other knights who had been legally received 

by the Mastership and Council, declares that : 

"Beyond and out of the above-mentioned 

Langues and Priories, and excepting the 

knights created and constituted as aforesaid, 

all those who may so call or entitle themselves 

are legally ignored by our Sacred Order ." 

There is no room there provided for the 

so-called Masonic Knights of Malta . But 

a writer in Notes and Queries (3d Ser ., iii ., 

413), who professes to be in possession of the 

degree, says, in reply to an inquiry, that the 

Masonic degree "has nothing whatever to do 

with the Knights Hospitalers of St . John of 

Jerusalem." This is most undoubted) true 

in reference to the American degree . Neither 

in its form, its ritual, the objects it professes, 

its tradition, nor its historical relations, is it 

in the slightest degree assimilated to the ancient 

Order of Hospitalers, afterward called 

Knights of Rhodes, and, finally, Knights of 

Malta. To claim therefore, to be the modern 

representativesdthat Order, to wear its dress 

to adopt its insignia, to flaunt its banners, and 

to leave the world to believe that the one is but 

the uninterrupted continuation of the other, 

are acts which must be regarded as a very 

ridiculous assumption, if not actually entitled 

to a less courteous appellation. 

For all these reasons, I think that it is much 

to be regretted that the action of the Grand 

Encampment in repudiating the degree in 

1856 was reversed in 1862 . The degree has no 

historical or traditional connection with Masonry 

; holds no proper place in a Comman. 

dery of Templars, and ought to be wiped out 

of the catalogue of Masonic degrees .' 

Knight of Masonry, Terrible . (Chevalier 

Terrible de la Magonnerie .) A degree contained 

in the collection of Le Page . 

Knight of Palestine . (Chevalier de la 

Palestine .) 1 . The Sixty-third Degree of the 

Rite of Mizraim . 2 . The Ninth Degree of 

the Reform of St . Martin . 3 . One of the 

series of degrees formerly iven in the Baldwyn 

Encampment of England, and said to 

have been introduced into Bristol, in 1800, by 

some French refugees under the authority of 

the Grand Orient of France . 

* A different view is now generally held by 

Templars regarding the Knights of Malta, and a 

modified ritual has been adopted from the Canadian 

work wherethe Malta istheprincipal degree 

of their Priories . The adoption of this ritual 

among the Commanderies of America is optional, 

but when once adopted must be conformed to 

in their work . This change was brought about 

by the visiting influence from Canada and also 

the reasons for the Malta being a degree of 

chivalry. For a similar reason the Knights of 

the Red Cross has been justly changed to Companion 

of the Red Cross, and properly never deserved 

a place in the degrees of chivalry, as the 

ritual plainly shows . [E. E. C .1

KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 397 

Knight of Patmos . An apocalyptic degree 

mentioned by Oliver in his Landmarks . 

It refers, he says, to the banishment of St . 

John . 

servance, which am . 

Knight of Rhodes . 1 . One of the titles 

given to the Knights Hospitalers in conseuence 

of their long residence on the island of 

odes . 2 . A degree formerly conferred in 

the Baldwyn Encampment at Bristol, England. 

It seems in some way to have been 

confounded with the Mediterranean Pass. 

Knight of Rose Croix . See Rose Croix . 

Knight of St . Andrew, Grand Scottish. 

(Grand Ecossais de Saint Andre .) Sometimes 

called "Patriarch of the Crusades ." The 

Twenty-ninth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite . Its ritual is founded on 

a legend, first promulgated by the Chevalier 

Ramsay, to this effect : that the Freemasons 

were originally a society of knights founded in 

Palestine for the purpose of building Christian 

churches ; that the Saracens, to prevent the 

execution of this design, sent emissaries among 

them, who disguised themselves as Christians, 

and were continually throwing obstacles in 

their way ; that on discovering the existence 

of these spies, the knights instituted certain 

modes of recognition to serve as the means of 

detection ; that they also adopted symbolic 

ceremonies for the purpose of instructing the 

proselytes who had entered the society in the 

forms and principles of their new religion ; and 

finally that the Saracens, having become too 

powerful for the knights any longer to contend 

with them, they had accepted the invitation 

of a king of England, and had removed 

into his dominions, where they thenceforth devoted 

themuives to the cultivation of architecture 

and the fine arts . On this mythical 

legend, which in reality was only an application 

of Ramsay's theory of the origin of Freemasonry 

the Baron de Tschoudy is said about 

the middle of the last century, to have formed 

this degree, which Ragon says (Orthod. Mason ., 

p . 138) at his death in 1769, he bequeathed in 

manuscri ~t- to the 6ouncil of Emperors of the 

East and West . On the subsequent extension 

of the twenty-five degrees of the Rite of Perfection, 

instituted by that body, to the thirtythree 

degrees of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite this degree was adopted as the twentyninth 

and as an appropriate introduction to 

the knights of Kadosh, which it immediately 

precedes . Hence the jewel, a St . Andrew's 

cross, is said, b~ yRagon, to be only a concealed 

form of the Templar Cross . In allusion to 

the time of its supposed invention, it has been 

called "Patriarch of the Crusades ." On account 

of the Masonic instruction which it contains, 

it also sometimes receives the title of 

"Grand Master of Light ." 

The Lodge is decorated with red hang- 

Knight of Perfumes . (Chevalier des Parfums 

.) The Eighth Degree of the Rite of the 

East (Rite d'Orient) according to the nomenclature 

ings supported by white columns . 

of Fustier . 

Knight of Pure Truth . (Chevalier de la 

Pure Veritk.) Thory mentions this as a secret 

society instituted by the scholars of the Jesuitical 

college at Tulle . It could scarcely have 

been Masonic . 

Knight of Purity and Light . (Ritter der 

Klarheit and desLichts .) The Seventh and last 

degree of the Rite of the Clerks of Strict Ob- 

There are 

eighty-one lights, arranged as follows : four in 

each corner before a St . Andrew's cross, two 

before the altar, and sixty-three arranged by 

nines in seven different parts of the room . 

There are three officers, a Venerable Grand 

Master and two Wardens . The jewel is a St . 

Andrew's cross, appropriately decorated, and 

suspended from a green collar bordered with 

red. 

In the ritual of the Southern Jurisdiction, 

the leading idea of a communication between 

the Christian knights and the Saracens has 

been preserved ; but the ceremonies and the 

legend have been altered . The lesson intended 

to be taught is toleration of religion . 

This degree also constitutes the sixty-third 

of the collection of the Metropolitan Chapter 

of France ; the fifth of the Rite of Clerks of 

Strict Observance ; and the twenty-first of 

the Rite of Mizraim . It is also to be found in 

many other systems . 

Knight of St . Andrew, Free . (Chevalier 

libre de Saint-Andre .) A degree found in the 

collection of Pyron . 

Knight of St . Andrew of the Thistle . 

(Chevalier Ecossais de S . Andre du Chardon.) 

The Seventy-fifth Degree of the collection of 

the Metropolitan Chapter of France . 

Knight of St. John of Jerusalem . 1 . 

The original title of the Knights of Malta and 

derived from the church and monastery built 

at Jerusalem in 1048 by the founders of the 

Order, and dedicated to St . John the Baptist . 

(See night of Malta.) 

2. A mystical degree divided into three sections, 

which is found in the collection of Lemanceau. 

Knight of St . John of Palestine . (Chevalier 

de Sainte Jean de la Palestine .) The 

Forty-eighth Degree of the Metropolitan 


Knight of the Altar. (Chevalier de 

l'Autel.) The Twelfth Degree of the Rite of the 

East according to the nomenclature of Fustier . 

Knight of the American Eagle . An 

honorary degree invented many years ago in 

Texas or some other of the Western States . 

It was founded on incidents of the American 

Revolution and gave an absurd legend of 

Hiram Abif's boyhood . It is believed to be 

now obsolete . 

Knight of the Anchor. (Chevalier do 

l'Ancre.) 1 . An androgynous degree. (See 

Anchor, Order of Knights and Ladies o}' the .) 

2 . The Twenty-first Degree of the collection 


Knight of the Ape and Lion . Gt dicke 

says (Freimaurer-Lex .) that this Order appeared 

about the year 1780, but that its existence 

was only made known by its extinction . 

It adopted the lion sleeping with open eyes as 

a symbol of watchfulness, and the ape as a

398 KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 

symbol of those who imitate without due 

penetration. The members boasted that they 

possessed all the secrets of the Ancient Templars, 

on which account they were persecuted 

by the modern Order . The lion and ape, as 

symbols of courage and address, are found in 

one of the degrees described m the Franc- 

Magons Ecrases . 

Knight of the Arch . (Chevalier de 

l'Arche.) A degree found in the nomenclature 


Knight of the Argonauts . (Chevalier des 

Argonautes .) The first point of the Sixth Degree, 

or Knight of the Golden Fleece of the 

Hermetic Rite of Montpellier. 

Knight of the Banqueting Table of the 

Seven Sages. (Chevalier de la Table du Banquet 

des Sept Sages .) A degree in the Archives 

of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic Scottish 

Rite . 

Knight of the Black Eagle. (Chevalier de 

l'Aigle noir .) 1 . The Seventy-sixth Degree of 


France ; called also Grand Inquisitor, Grand 

Inspector, Grand Elu or Elect, in the collection 

of Le Rouge . 2 . The Thirty-eighth Degree 


Knight of the Brazen Serpent . (Chevalier 

du Serpent d'Airain .) The Twenty-fifth 

Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite. The history of this degree is founded 

upon the circumstances related in Numbers 

ch . xxi . ver . 6-9 : "And the Lord sent fiery 

serpents among the people, and they bit the 

people ; and much people of Israel died . Therefore 

the people came to Moses, and said, We 

have sinned ; for we have spoken against the 

Lord, and against thee : pray unto the Lord 

that he take away the serpents from us . And 

Moses prayed for the people . And the 

Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery 

serpent, and set it upon a pole : and it shall 

come to pass, that every one that is bitten, 

when he looketh upon it shall live . And Moses 

made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a 

pole ; and it came to pass, that if a serpent had 

bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of 

brass, he lived." In the old rituals the Lodge 

was called the Court of Sinai ; the presiding 

officer was styled Most Puissant Grand Master, 

and represented Moses ; while the two 

Wardens, or Ministers, represented Aaron and 

Joshua. The Orator was called Pontiff ; the 

Secretary, Grand Graver ; and the candidate, 

a Traveler . In the modern ritual adopted in 

this country, the Council represents the camp 

of the Israelites . The first three officers represent 

Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, and are 

respectively styled Most Puissant Leader, 

Valiant Captain of the Host, and Illustrious 

Chief of the Ten Tribes. The Orator represents 

Eleazar ; the Secretary, Ithamar ; the 

Treasurer, Phinehas ; and the candidate an 

intercessor for the people . The jewel is a crux 

ansata, with a serpent entwined around it . 

On the upright of the cross is engraved `tr,, 

khalati, I have suffered, and on the arms jI11nN1~, 

nakhushtan, a serpent . The French ritualists 

would have done better to have substituted 

for the first word "t11tUtt, khatati, I have sinned ; 

the original in Numbers being 1]KUtt, Kathanu, 

we have sinned . The apron is white, 

lined with black, and symbolically decorated . 

There is an old legend which says that this 

degree was founded in the time of the Crusades, 

by John Ralph, who established the 

Order in the Holy Land as a military and 

monastic society and gave it the name of the 

Brazen Serpent, because it was a part of their 

obligation to receive and gratuitously nurse 

sick travelers, to protect them against the attacks 

of the Saracens, and escort them safely 

to Palestine ; thus alluding to the healing and 

saving virtues of the Brazen Serpent among 

the Israelites in the wilderness . 

Knight of the Burning Bush. (Chevalier 

duBuisson ardent.) A theosophic degree of the 

collection of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic 


Knight of the Chanuca . (Chevalier de 

la Kanuka .) The Sixty-ninth Degree of the 

Rite of Mizraim . The 71=r1 or Chanuca, is 

the feast of the dedication celebrated by the 

Jews in commemoration of the dedication of 

the Temple by Judas Maccabeeus after its pollution 

by the Syrians . In the ritual of the degree, 

the Jewish lighting of seven lamps, one 

on each day, is imitated, and therefore the 

ceremony of initiation lasts for seven days . 

Knight of the Christian Mark. Called 

also Guard of the Conclave. A degree formerly 

conferred in the United States on Knights 

Templar in a body called a Council of the 

Trinity. The legend of the Order is that it was 

organized by Pope Alexander for the defense 

of his person, and that its members were selected 

from the Knights of St . John of Jerusalem. 

In the ceremonies there is a reference 

to the tau cross or mark on the forehead, 

spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel, and hence 

the name of the degree . The motto of the 

Order is, "Christus regnat, vincit, triumphat . 

Rex regnantium, _ Dominus dominantium ." 

Christ reigns, conquers, and triumphs . King 

of kings and Lord of lords . 

Knight of the Columns. (Chevalier des 

Colonises .) The Seventh Degree of the Rite 

of the East according to the nomenclature of 

Fustier. 

Knight of the Comet . (Chevalier de la 

Comete.) A degree found in the collection of 

Hecart . 

Knight of the Cork . (Chevalier du Boor 

chon .) An androgynous secret society established 

in Italy after the Papal bull excommunicating 

the Freemasons, and intended by its 

founders to take the place of the Masonic institution. 

Knight of the Courts . (Chevalier des 

Parvis .) The Third Degree of the Rite of the 


Knight of the Crown . (Chevalier de la 

Couronne .) A degree in the collection of Pyron. 

Knight of the Door. (Chevalier de la 

Porte .) The Fourth Degree of the Rite of the 


Knight of the Dove. The Knights and 

Ladies of the Dove (Chevaliers et Chevalieres

KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 399 

de la Colombe) was an androgynous secret society 

framed on the model of Freemasonry, 

and instituted at Versailles in 1784 . It had but 

an ephemeral existence . 

Knight of the Eagle . (Chevalier de 

l'Aigle .) 1 . The First Degree of the Chapter 

of Clermont . 2. The Third Degree of the 

Clerks of Strict Observance. 3 . The Fiftysixth 

Degree of the collection of the Metropolitan 

Chapter of France . 4. It was also one 

of the degrees of the Chapter of the Grand 

Lodge Royal York of Berlin . 5 . The Thirtyseventh 


Thory (Ac t ., i ., 291) says it was also one of 

the appellations of the degree more commonly 

called Perfect Master in Architecture, which is 

the Fourteenth of the Primitive Scottish Rite, 

and is found also in some other systems. 

Knight of the Eagle and Pelican . One 

of the appellations of the degree of Rose Croix 

because the jewel has on one side an eagle and 

on the other a pelican, both at the foot of the 

cross, in allusion to the symbolism of the degree 

. (See Rose Croix, Prince of.) 

. Knight of the Eagle reversed . (Chevalier 

de l'Aigle renverse .) Thory (Aeta Lat ., i ., 

292) records this as a degree to be found in the 

Archives of the Scottish Lodge Saint Louis des 

Amis Reunis at Calais. In heraldic phrase, 

an eagle reversed is an eagle with the wings 

drooping. 

Knight of the East. (Chevalier d'Orient .) 

This is a degree which has been extensively 

diffused through the most important Rites, 

and it owes its popularity to the fact that it 

commemorates in its legend and its ceremonies 

the labors of the Masons in the construction of 

the second Temple . 

1 . It is the Fifteenth Degree of the Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite, the description 

of which will apply with slight modifications 

to the same degree in all the other Rites . It is 

founded upon the history of the assistance 

rendered by Cyrus to the Jews, who permitted 

them to return to Jerusalem, and to 

commence the rebuilding of the house of the 

Lord . Zerubbabel, therefore, as the Prince 

of the Jews, and Cyrus the King of Persia, as 

his patron, are important personages in the 

drama of reception ; which is conducted with 

great impressiveness even in the old and somewhat 

imperfect ritual of the last century, but 

which has been greatly improved in the modern 

rituals adopted by the Supreme Councils 

of the United States. 

The cordon of a Knight of the East is a 

broad green watered ribbon, worn as a baldric 

from left to right . The sash or girdle is of 

white watered silk, edged above, and fringed 

below with gold . On it is embroidera 

bridge, with the letters L. D . P . on the arch, 

and also on other parts of the girdle human 

heads, and mutilated limbs, and crowns, and 

swords . The apron is crimson, edged with 

green, a bleeding head and two swords crossed 

on the flap, and on the apron three triangles 

interlaced formed of triangular links of chains . 

The jewel is three triangles interlaced enclosing 

two naked swords . 

Scripture and the traditions of the Order 

furnish us with many interesting facts in relation 

to this degree. The Knights of the 

East are said to derive their origm from the 

captivity of the Israelites in Babylon . After 

seventy-two years of servitude, they were 

restored to liberty by Cyrus, King of Persia, 

through the intercession of Zerubbabel, a 

prince of the tribe of Judah, and Nehemias, a 

holy man of a distinguished family, and permitted 

to return to Jerusalem and rebuild 

the Temple . 

2 . It is the Sixth Degree of the French Rite . 

It is substantially the same as the preceding 

degree . 

3 . The Sixth Degree of the old system of 

the Royal York Lodge of Berlin . 

4 . The Fifteenth Degree of the Chapter of 

the Emperors of the East and West, and this 

was most probably the original degree . 

5. The Fifty-second Degree of the collection 


6. The Forty-first Degree of the Rite of 

Mizraim . 

7. The Sixth Degree of the Rite of Philalethes 

. 

8. The Eleventh Degree of the Adonhiramite 

Rite. 

9. It is also substantially the Tenth Degree, 

or Knight of the Red Cross of the American 

Rite. Indeed, it is found in all the Rites and 

systems which refer to the second Temple . 

Knight of the East and West . (Chevalier 

d'Orient et d'Occident .) 1 . The Seventeenth 

Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite . The oldest rituals of the degree were 

very imperfect, and did not connect it with 

Freemasonry . They contained a legend that 

upon the return of the knights from the Holy 

Land, in the time of the Crusaders, they organized 

the Order, and that in the year 1118 

the first knights, to the number of eleven, took 

their vows between the hands of Garinus, 

patriarch . The allusion, here, is evidently to 

the Knights Templar ; and this legend would 

most probably indicate that the degree originated 

with the Templar system of Ramsay . 

This theory is further strengthened by the 

other legend, that the Knights of the East 

represented the Masons who remained in the 

East after the building of the first Temple, 

while the Knights of the East and West represented 

those who traveled West and disseminated 

the Order over Europe, but who returned 

during the Crusades and reunited with 

their ancient brethren, whence we get the 

name . 

The modern ritual as used in the United 

States has been greatly enlarged . It still retains 

the apocalyptic character of the degree 

which always attached to it, as is evident from 

the old tracing-board, which is the figure described 

in the first chapter of the Revelation 

of St . John . The jewel is a heptagon inscribed 

with symbols derived from the Apocalypse, 

among which are the lamb and the book with 

seven seals . The apron is yellow lined and 

edged with crimson . In the old ritual its 

device was a two-edged sword . In the new one

400 KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 

it is a tetractys of ten dots . This is the first of 

the philosophical degrees of the Scottish Rite . 

2. The Seventeenth Degree of the Chapter of 

Emperors of the East and West . 

Knight of the Eastern Star. (Chevalier 

de l'Etoile d'Orient .) The Fifty-seventh Degree 

of the collection of the Metropolitan 


Knight of the East, Victorious . (Chevalier 

victorieux de l'Orient .) A degree found in 

the collection of Hocart . 

Knight of the East, White. (Chevalier 

d'Orient.) The Fortieth Degree of the Rite of 

Mizraim . 

Knight of the Election . (Chevalier du 

Choix .) The Thirty-third Degree of the Rite 

of Mizraim. 

Knight of the Election, Sublime . (Chevalier 

sublime du Choix .) The Thirty-fourth 


Knight of the Golden Eagle . (Chevalier 

de l'Aigle d'or.) A degree in the collection of 

Pyron . 

Knight of the Golden Fleece. (Chevalier 

de la Toisson d'or .) The Sixth Degree of the 

Hermetic Rite of Montpellier . 

Knight of the Golden Key . (Chevalier 

de la Clef d'or.) The Third Degree of the 

Hermetic Rite of Montpellier . 

Knight of the Golden Star . (Chevalier 

de l'Etoile d'or.) A degree contained in the 

collection of Peuvret . 

Knight of the Grand Arch . (Chevalier 

de la Grande Arche .) A degree which Thory 

(Acta Lat ., i . 295) says is contained in the 

Archives of tie Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis 

Reunis at Calais . 

Knight of the Holy City, Beneficent . 

(Chevalier bienfaisant de la Cite Sainte .) The 

Order of Beneficent Knights of the Holy City 

of Jerusalem was created, according to Ragon, 

at Lyons, in France, in 1782 1 by the brethren 

of the Lodge of Chevaliers Bienfaisants . But 

Thory (Acts Lat . i . 299) says it was rectified at 

the Congress of 'Vilhelmsbad . Both are perhaps 

right . It was probably first invented at 

Lyons, at one time a prolific field for the 

hautes grades, and afterward adopted at Wilhelmsbad, 

whence it began to exercise a great 

influence over the Lodges of Strict Observance . 

The Order professed the Rite of Martinism ; 

but the members attempted to convert Freemasonry 

into Templarism, and transferred all 

the symbols of the former to the latter system . 

Thus, they interpreted the two pillars of the 

porch and their names as alluding to Jacobus 

Burgandus or James the Burgundian, meaning 

James de Molay, the last Grand Master of the 

Templars ; the three gates of the Temple signified 

the three vows of the Knights Templar, 

obedience, poverty, and chastity ; and the 

sprig of acacia referred to that which was 

planted over the ashes of De Molay when they 

were transferred to Heredom in Scotland . 

The Order and the doctrine sprang from the 

Templar system of Ramsay . The theory of 

its Jesuitic ongin can scarcely be admitted . 

Knight of the Holy Sepulcher . 1 . As a 

Masonic degree, this was formerly given in 

what were called Councils of the Trinity, next 

after the Knight of the Christian Mark ; but 

it is no longer conferred in America, and may 

now be considered as obsolete . The Masonic 

legend that it was instituted by St . Helena, the 

mother of Constantine, in 302, after she had 

visited Jerusalem and discovered the cross, 

and that, in 304, it was confirmed b Pope 

Marcellinus, is altogether apocryphal. The 

military Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher 

still exists ; and Mr. Curzon, in his Visits 

to the Monasteries in the Levant, states that the 

Order is still conferred in Jerusalem but only 

on Roman Catholics of noble birth, by the 

Reverendissimo or Superior of the Franciscans, 

and that the accolade, or blow of knighthood, 

is bestowed with the sword of Godfrey de 

Bouillon, which is preserved, with his spurs, in 

the sacristy of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

Madame Pfeiffer, in her Travels in the 

Holy Land, confirms this account . Dr . Heylin 

says that the Order was instituted in 1099, 

when Jerusalem was regained from the Saracens 

by Philip of France . Faryn, in his 

Theatre d' Honneur, gives a different account 

of the institution. He says that while the 

Saracens possessed the city they permitted 

certain canons regular of St . Augustine to have 

the custody of the Holy Sepulcher . Afterward 

Baldwyn, King of Jerusalem, made them 

Men-of-Arms and Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, 

and ordained that they should continue 

to wear their white habits, and on the breast 

his own arms, which were a red cross potent 

between four Jerusalem crosses . Their rule 

was confirmed by Pope Innocent III . The 

Grand Master was the Patriarch of Jerusalem . 

They engaged to fight against infidels, to protect 

pilgrims, to redeem Christian captives, 

hear Mass every day, recite the hours of the 

cross, and bear the five red crosses in memory 

of our Savior's wounds . On the loss of the 

Holy Land, they retired to Perugia, in Italy, 

where they retained their white habit, but 

assumed a double red cross . In 1484, they 

were incorporated with the Knights Hospitalers, 

who were then at Rhodes, but in 1496, 

Alexander VI . assumed, for himself and the 

Popes his successors, the Grand Mastership, 

and empowered the Guardian of the Holy 

Sepulcher to bestow Knighthood of the Order 

u pon pilgrims . Unsuccessful attempts were 

made Ey PhiliII ., of Spain, in 1558, and the 

Duke of Nevers, in 1625, to restore the Order . 

It is now found only in Jerusalem, where it is 

conferred, as has been already said, by the 

Superior of the Franciscans . 

2 . It is also the Fiftieth Degree of the 


Knight of the Interior . (Chevalier de 

l'Interieur .) The Fifth Degree of the Rite of 

the East according to the nomenclature of 

Fustier . 

Knight of the Kabbala . (Chevalier de la 

Cabale .) The Eighth Degree of the collection 


Knight of the Lilies of the Valley . This 

was a degree conferred by the Grand Orient of 

France as an appendage to Templarism . Th$

KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 401 

Knights Templar who received it were constituted 

Knts Commanders . 

Knight of the Lion . (Chevalier du Lion .) 

The Twentieth Degree of the . Metropolitan 

Chapter of France. 

Knight of the Mediterranean Pass . An 

honorary degree that was formerly conferred 

in Encampments of Knights Templar but is 

now disused . Its meetings were called Councils 

; and its ritual which was very impressive 

supplies the tradition that it was founded 

about the year 1367, in consequence of certain 

events which occurred to the Knights of Malta . 

In an excursion made by a party of these 

knights in search of forage and provisions, 

they were attacked while crossing the river 

Offanto (the ancient Aufidio) by a large body 

of Saracens, under the command of the renowned 

Amurath I . The Saracens had concealed 

themselves in ambush, and when the 

knights were on the middle of the bridge which 

spanned the river, they were attacked by a 

sudden charge of their enemies upon both 

extremities of the bridge . A long and sanguinary 

contest ensued ; the knights fought 

with their usual valor, and were at length 

victorious . The Saracens were defeated with 

such immense slaughter that fifteen hundred 

of their dead bodies encumbered the bridge, 

and the river was literally stained with their 

blood . In commemoration of this event, and 

as a reward for their valor, the victorious 

knights had free permission to pass and repass 

in all the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea 

without danger of molestation, whence the 

name of the degree is derived . As the latter 

part of this legend has not been verified by 

voyagers in the Mediterranean, the degree has 

long been disused . Dr . Mackey says that he 

had a ritual of it, which was in the handwriting 

of Dr . Moses Holbrook, the Grand Commander 

of the Southern Supreme Council of 

the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite . 

Knight of the Moon . A mock Masonic 

society established in the last century in London 

. it ceased to exist in the year 1810 . 

Knight of the Morning Star. Called 

also Knight of Hope . A degree in the Archives 

of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophical 

Rite, which is said to be a modification 

of the Kadosh . 

Knight of the Ninth Arch . The Thirteenth 


Scottish Rite, called also the "Royal Arch of 

Solomon," and sometimes the "Royal Arch of 

Enoch ." It is one of the most interesting and 

impressive of what are called the Ineffable 

degrees . Its legend refers to Enoch and to 

the method by which, notwithstanding the 

destructive influence of the deluge and the 

lapse of time, he was enabled to preserve important 

secrets to be afterward communicated 

to the Craft . According to the present ritual, 

its principal officers are a Thrice Puissant 

Grand Master representing King Solomon, 

and two Wardens, representing the King of 

Tyre and the Inspector Adoniram . Bodies of 

this degree are called Chapters. The color is 

black strewed with tears . The jewel is a 

circular medal of gold, around which is inscribed 

the following letters : R . S. R . S . T. P . 

S . R . I . A . Y . E. S ., with the date AnnoEnochi 

2995. On the reverse is a blazing triangle 

with the Tetragrammaton in the center in 

Samaritan letters . 

This degree claims great importance in the 

history of Masonic ritualism. It is found, 

under various modifications, in almost all the 

Rites ; and, indeed, without it, or something 

like it, the symbolism of Freemasonry cannot 

be considered as complete . Indebted for its 

origin to the inventive genius of the Chevalier 

Ramsay, it was adopted by the Council of the 

Emperors of the East and West, whence it 

passed into the Ancient and Accepted Rite . 

Though entirely different in its legend from 

the Royal Arch of, the York and American 

Rites, its symbolic design is the same, for one 

common thought of a treasure lost and found 

pervades them all . Vassal, who is exceedingly 

flippant in much that he has written of 

Ecossism, says of this degree, that, "considered 

under its moral and religious aspects, 

it offers nothing either instructive or useful ." 

It is evident that he understood nothing of 

its true symbolism . 

Knight of the North . (Chevalier du 

Nord.) A degree in the Archives of the Lodge 

of Saint Louis des Amis Reunis at Calais . 

Thory (Acta Lat ., i ., 328) mentions another 

degree called Sublime Knight of the North, 

which he says is the same as one in the collection 

of Peuvret, which has the singular title 

of Daybreak of the Rough Ashlar, Point du 

Jour de la Pierre Brute . 

Knight of the Phenix. (Chevalier du 

Phenix .) The Fourth Degree of the Philosophic 


Knight of the Prussian Eagle . (Chevalier 

de l'Aigle Prussien .) A degree in the collection 

of H4cart . 

Knight of the Puriflcatory . (Chevalier 

du Purificatoire .) The Sixteenth Degree of 

the Rite of the East according to the nomenclature 


Knight of the Pyramid . (Chevalier de 

la Pyramide.) The Seventh Degree of the 

Kabbalistic Rite . 

Knight of the Rainbow . (Chevalier de 

l'Arc-en-ciel .) The Sixty-eighth Degree of the 

Rite of Mizraim . 

Knight of the Red Cross . This degree, 

whose legend dates it far anterior to the 

Christian era, and in the reign of Darius, 

has no analogy with the chivalric orders of 

knighthood . It is purely Masonic, and intimately 

connected with the Royal Arch Degree, 

of which, in fact, it ought rightly to be 

considered as an appendage. It is, however, 

now always conferred in a Commandery of 

Knights Templar in this country, and is given 

as a preliminary to reception in that degree . 

Formerly, the degree was sometimes conferred 

in an independent council, which Webb 

(edit. 1812, p . 123) defines to be "a council 

that derives its authority immediately from 

the Grand Encampm~e~nt unconnected with an 

Encampment of Knights Templars ." The

402 KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 

embassy of Zerubbabel and four other Jewish 

chiefs to the court of Darius to obtain the 

protection of that monarch from the encroachments 

of the Samaritans, who interrupted the 

labors in the reconstruction of the Temple, 

constitutes the legend of the Red Cross Degree . 

The history of this embassy is found in the 

eleventh book of the Antiquities of Josephus, 

whence the Masonic ritualists have undoubtedly 

taken it . The only authority of Josephus 

is the apocryphal record of Esdras, and 

the authenticity of the whole transaction is 

doubted or denied by modern historians . The 

legend is as follows : After the death of Cyrus, 

the Jews, who had been released by him 

from their captivity, and permitted to return 

to Jerusalem, for the purpose of rebuilding 

the Temple, found themselves obstructed in 

the undertaking by the neighboring nations, 

and especially by the Samaritans . Hereupon 

they sent an embassy, at the head of 

which was their prince, Zerubbabel, to Darius, 

the successor of Cyrus, to crave his interposition 

and protection . Zerubbabel awaiting 

a favorable opportunity, succeeded not only 

in obtaining his request, but also in renewing 

the friendship which formerly existed between 

the king and himself. In commemoration of 

these events, Darius is said to have instituted 

a new order, and called it the Knights of the 

East . They afterward assumed their present 

name from the red cross borne in their banners. 

Webb, or whoever else introduced it 

into the American Templar system, undoubtedly 

took it from the Sixteenth Degree, or 

Prince of Jerusalem of the Ancient and Accepted 

Rite . It has, within a few years, been 

carried into England, under the title of the 

"Red Cross of Babylon ." In New Brunswick, 

it has been connected with Cryptic Masonry . 

It is there as much out of place as it is in a 

Commandery of Knights Templar. Its only 

true connection is with the Royal Arch Degree . 

Knight of the Red Eagle . (Chevalier de 

l'Aigle rouge.) The Thirty-ninth Degree 

of the Rite of Mizraim . The red eagle forms 

a part of the arms of the House of Brandenburg, 

and the Order of Knights of the Red 

Eagle was instituted, in 1705, by George 

William, hereditary Prince of Bayreuth. In 

1792, it was placed among the Prussian orders . 

The Masonic degree has no connection with 

the political order . The Mizraimites appropriated 

all titles that they fancied . 

Knight of the Rose . (Chevalier de la 

Rose .) The Order of the Knights and Ladies 

of the Rose (Chevaliers et Chevalieres de la Rose) 

was an order of adoptive or androgynous Masonry, 

invented in France toward the close of 

the eighteenth century . M . de Chaumont, 

the Masonic secretary of the Due de Chartres, 

was its author . The princi al seat of the 

order was at Paris . The hallof meeting was 

called the Temple of Love. It was ornamented 

with garlands of flowers, and hung 

round with escutcheons on which were painted 

various devices and emblems of gallantry . 

There were two presiding officers, a male and 

female, who were styled the Hierophant and 

the High Priestess . The former initiated men, 

and the latter, women. In the initiations, 

the Hierophant was assisted by a conductor 

or deacon called Sentiment, and the High 

Priestess by a conductress or deaconess called 

Discretion . The members received the title 

of Knights and Nymphs. The Knights wore 

a crown of myrtle, the Nymphs, a crown of 

roses . The Hierophant and High Priestess 

wore in addition, a rose-colored scarf, on 

which were embroidered two doves within a 

wreath of myrtle. During the time of initiation, 

the hall was lit with a single dull taper 

but afterward it was brilliantly illuminated 

by numerous wax candles . 

When a candidate was to be initiated, he 

or she was taken in charge, according to the 

sex, by the conductor or conductress, divested 

of all weapons, jewels, or money, hoodwinked, 

loaded with chains, and in this condition conducted 

to the door of the Temple of Love, 

where admission was demanded by two 

knocks . Brother Sentiment then introduced 

the candidate by order of the Hierophant or 

High Priestess, and he or she was asked his 

or her name, country, condition of life, and, 

lastly, what he or she was seeking. To this 

the answer was, "Happiness ." 

The next question proposed was, " What is 

your age ? " The candidate, if a male, replied, 

"The age to love" ; if a female, " The age to 

please and to love ." 

The candidates were then interrogated concerning 

their private opinions and conduct in 

relation to matters of gallantry . The chains 

were then taken from them, and they were 

invested with garlands of flowers which were 

called "the chains of love ." In this condition 

they were made to traverse the apartment 

from one extremity to another, and then back 

in a contrary direction, over a path inscribed 

with love-knots. The following obligation 

was then administered : 

"I promise and swear by the Grand Master 

of the Universe never to reveal the secrets of 

the Order of the Rose ; and should I fail in this 

my vow, may the mysteries I shall receive add 

nothing to my pleasures, and instead of the 

roses of happiness may I find nothing but the 

thorns of repentance ." 

The candidates were then conducted to the 

mysterious groves in the neighborhood of the 

Temple of Love, where the Knights received a 

crown of myrtle, and the Nymphs a simple 

rose. During this time a soft, melodious 

march was played by the orchestra . After 

this, the candidates were conducted to the 

altar of mystery, placed at the foot of the 

Hierophant's throne, and there incense was 

offered up to Venus and her son . If it was a 

Knight who had been initiated, he now exchanged 

his crown of myrtle for the rose of the 

last initiated Nymph ; and if a Nymph, she 

exchanged her rose for the myrtle crown of 

Brother Sentiment . The Hierophant now 

read a copy of verses in honor of the god of 

Mystery, and the bandage was at length 

taken from the eyes of the candidate . Delicious 

music and brilliant lights now added

KNIGHT 

KNIGHT 403 

to the charms of this enchanting scene, in the 

midst of which the Hierophant communicated 

to the candidate the modes of recognition 

peculiar to the Order . (Clavel, Hist. Pitt., 

115-7 .) 

The Order had but a brief existence . In 

1784, F . B. von Grossing invented, in Germany, 

an Order bearing a similar name, but 

its duration was as ephemeral as that of the 

French one. 

Knight of the Rosy and Triple Cross . 

(Chevalier de la Rose et Triple Croix .) A degree 

in the Archives of the Lodge of Saint 

Louis des Anais Reunis at Calais . 

Knight of the Rosy Cross . See Royal 

Order of Scotland . 

Knight of the Round Table. (Chevalier 

de la Table ronde .) A degree in the Archives 

of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Reunis 

at Calais. 

Knight of the Round Table of King 

Arthur. (Chevalier de la Table ronde du Roi 

Arthur.) 1 . Thory (ActaLat . i, 341) says that 

this is a degree of the Primitive Rite ; but 

neither Dr. Mackey nor the Rev. A . F. A . 

Woodford (Kenning's Masonic Cyclopcedia) 

has been able to trace the degree . Dr. 

Mackey says that he has seen the manuscript 

of a degree of this name written many years 

ago, which was in the possession of Bro. 

C . W . Moore, of Boston. It was an honorary 

degree, and referred to the poetic legend of 

King Arthur and his knights . 

Knight of the Royal Ax . (Chevalier de 

la royale Hache .) The Twenty-second Degree 


called also Prince of Libanus, or Lebanon . It 

was instituted to record the memorable services 

rendered to Masonry by the "mighty 

cedars of Lebanon ." The legend of the degree 

informs us that the Sidonians were employed 

in cutting cedars on Mount Libanus or Lebanon 

for the construction of Noah's ark . 

Their descendants subsequently cut cedars 

from the same place for the ark of the covenant 

; and the descendants of these were again 

employed in the same offices, and in the 

same place, in obtaining materials for building 

Solomon's Temple . Lastly, Zerubbabel emloyed 

them in cutting the cedars of Lebanon 

por the use of the second Temple . This celebrated 

nation formed colleges on Mount Lebanon, 

and in their labors always adored the 

Great Architect of the Universe . No doubt 

this last sentence refers to the Druses, that 

secret sect of Theists who still reside upon 

Mount Lebanon and in the adjacent parts of 

Syria and Palestine, and whose mysterious 

ceremonies have attracted so much of the 

curiosity of Eastern travelers . 

The apron of the Knights of the Royal Ax 

is white, lined and bordered with purple. On 

it is painted a round table, on which are laid 

several architectural plans . On the flap is a 

three-headed serpent . The jewel is a golden 

ax, having on the handle and blade the initials 

of several personages illustrious in the 

history of Masonry. The places of meeting 

in this degree are called "Colleges ." This de- 

gree is especially interesting to the Masonic 

scholar in consequence of its evident reference 

to the mystical association of the Druses, 

whose connection with the Templars at the 

time of the Crusades forms a yet to be investigated 

episode in the history of Freemasonry. 

Knight of the Sacred Mountain . (Chevalier 

de la Montagne Sacree .) A degree in the 

Archives of the Lodge of Saint'Louis des Amis 

Reunis at Calais . 

Knight of the Sanctuary . (Chevalier 

du Sanctuaire.) The Eleventh Degree of the 

Rite of the East according to the collection of 

Fustier. 

Knight of the Sepulcher . The Sixth 

Degree of the system of the Grand Lodge 

Royal York at Berlin . 

Knight of the South . (Chevalier du Sud.) 

The Eighth Degree of the Swedish Rite, better 

known as the Favorite of St . John . 

Knight of the Star . (Chevalier de l'Etoile.) 

A degree in the collection of Pyron . 

Knight of the Sun . (Chevalier du Soleil.) 

The Twenty-eighth Degree of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite, called also Prince of 

the Sun, Prince Adept, and Key of Masonry, 

or Chaos Disentangled . It is a Kabbalistic 

and Hermetic degree, and its instructions 

and symbols are full of the Kabbala and Alchemy. 

Thus, one of its favorite words is Stibium, 

which, with the Hermetic Philosophers, 

meant the primal matter of all things . The 

principal officers are Father Adam and 

Brother Truth, allegorizing in the old rituals 

the search of Man after Truth . The other 

officers are named after the seven chief angels, 

and the brethren are called Sylphs, or, in the 

American ritual, Aralim or Heroes . The jewel 

is a golden sun, having on its reverse a hemisphere 

with the six northern signs of the zodiac . 

There is but one light in the Lodge, which 

shines through a globe of glass . 

This degree is not confined to the Scottish 

Rite, but is found sometimes with a different 

name, but with the same Hermetic design, 

more or less developed in other Rites . Ragon, 

with whom Delaunay and Chemin-Dupontes 

concur, says that it is not, like many of the 

high degrees, a mere modern invention, but 

that it is of the highest antiquity ; and was, in 

fact, the last degree of the ancient initiations 

teaching, under an Hermetic appearance, the 

doctrines of natural religion, which formed an 

essential part of the Mysteries . But Ragon 

must here evidently refer to the general, philosophic 

design rather than to the particular 

organization of the degree . Thory (Acts Lat., 

i ., 339), with more plausibility, ascribes its invention 

as a Masonic degree to Pernetty, the 

founder of the Hermetic Rite . Of all the high 

degrees, it is, perhaps, the most important and 

the most interesting to the scholar who desires 

to investigate the true secret of the Order. 

Its old catechisms, now unfortunately too 

much neglected, are full of suggestive thoughts, 

and in its modern ritual, for which we are indebted 

to the inventive genius of Bro . Albert 

Pike, it is by far the most learned and 

philosophical of the Scottish degrees .

404 KNIGHT 

KNIGHTS 

Knight of the Sword. (Chevalier de cident.) 1. The Sixty-fourth Degree of the 

l'Epee.) One of the titles of the Scottish Rite collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

degree of Knight of the East . So called in allusion 

to the legend that the Masons at the Rite of Mizraim . 

France. 2 . The Forty-seventh Degree of the 

second Temple worked with the trowel in one Knight of the White and Black Eagle . 

hand and the sword in the other . Du Cange, (Chevalier de l'Aigle blanc et noir.) One of the 

on the authority of Arnoldus Lubeckius, describes 

an Order, in the Middle Ages, of and Accepted Scottish Rite, or Knight Ka- 

titles of the Thirtieth Degree of the Ancient 

Knights of the Sword (Milites Gladii), who, dosh . In the Rite of Perfection of the Emperors 

having vowed to wield the sword for God's 

service, wore a sword embroidered on their 

mantles as a sign of their profession, whence 

of the East and West, it constituted 

the Twenty-fourth Degree, under the title of 

Knig ht Commander of the White and Black 

they took their name . But it was not connected 

Eagle. The white eagle was the emblem of 

with the Masonic degree . 

the eastern empire, and the black of the 

west- 

Knight of the Tabernacle. In the Minute 

Book of the "Grand Lodge of all England," 

extracts from which are given by Bro . 

Hughan in his Unpublished Records (p . 146), 

we find the expression Knight of the Tabernacle, 

used in the year 1780, as synonymous 

with Knight Templar . 

Knight of the Tabernacle of the Divine 

Truths. (Chevalier du Tabernacle des Verites 

divines .) A degree cited in the nomenclature 


Knight of the Temple. (Chevalier du 

Temple .) This degree is common to all the 

systems of Masonry founded on the Templar 

doctrine . 

1 . It is a synonym of Knights Templar . 

2. The Eighth Degree of the Rite of the 

Philalethes . 

3 . The Sixty-ninth Degree of the collection 


4. The Sixth Degree of the Clerks of Strict 

Observance . 

5. The Ninth Degree of the Rite of the East 

according to the nomenclature of Fustier . 

6. The Thirty-sixth Degree of the Rite of 

Mizraim . 

Knight of the Three Kings . An American 

side degree of but little importance . Its 

history connects it with the dedication of the 

first Temple, the conferrer of the degree representing 

King Solomon . Its moral tendency 

appears to be the inculcation of reconciliation 

of grievances among Masons by friendly conference 

. It may be conferred by any Master 

Mason on another . 

Knight of the Throne . (Chevalier du 

Tr6ne .) The Second Degree of the Rite of the 

East according to the nomenclature of Fustier 

. 

Knight of the Triple Cross . (Chevalier 

de la Triple Croix .) The Sixty-sixth Degree of 


France . 

Knight of the Triple Period . (Chevalier 

de la Triple Periode .) A degree in the Archives 

of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Reunis 

at Calais . 

Knight of the Triple Sword . (Chevalier 

de la Triple Epee .) A degree in the collection 

of Pyron . 

Knight of the Two Crowned Eagles. 

(Chevalier des teux Aigles Couronnees.) The 

Twenty-second Degree of the collection of the 


Knight of the West . (Chevalier d'Oc 

ern . Hence we have the Knights of the 

White Eagle in Russia, and the Knights of the 

Black Eagle in Prussia, as orders of chivalry . 

The two combined were, therefore, appropriately 

(so far as the title is concerned) adopted 

by the Council which assumed Masonic jurisdiction 

over both empires . 

Knight of the White Eagle . The Sixtyfourth 

Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . As a 

political order, that of the Knights of the 

White Eagle was instituted by Wladistas, 

King of Poland, in 1325 . It is still conferred 

by the Czar of Russia . 

Knight of Unction . (Chevalier d'Onetion 

.) The Fifty-first Degree of the collection 


Knight, Perfect . (Chevalier Parfait .) A 

degree of the Ancient Chapter of Clermont 

found in the Archives of the Mother Lodge of 

the Philosophic Rite . 

Knight, Professed. See Eques Professus. 

Knight, Prussian . See Noachite . Also 

the Thirty-fifth Degree of the Rite of Mizraim . 

Knight Rower . (Chevalier Rameur .) The 

Order of the Knights and Ladies Rowers 

(Ordre des Chevaliers Rameurs et Chevalieres 

Rameures) was an androgynous and adoptive 

Rite, founded at the city of Rouen, in France, 

in 1738, and was therefre one of the earliest 

instances of the adoptive system . It met 

with very little success . 

Knight, Royal Victorious . (Chevalier 

royal Victorieux.) A degree formerly conferred 

in the Chapter attached to the Grand 

Orient of Bologne . 

Knight, Sacrificing . (Chevalier Sacrifiant 

.) A degree found in the Archives of the 

Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis R6unis at 

Calais. 

Knight, Victorious . (Chevalier Victorieux 

.) A degree contained in the collection 

of Hecart . 

Knights of the East, Council of. (Conseil 

des Chevaliers d'Orient .) A Chapter of High 

Degrees, under this name, was established at 

Paris, on July 22, 1762, by one Pirlet, a tailor, 

as the rival of the Council of Emperors of the 

East and West . Baron de Tschoudy became 

one of its members . 

Knights Templar . The piety or the superstition 

of the age had induced multitudes of 

pilgrims in the eleventh and twelfth centuries 

to visit Jerusalem for the purpose of offering 

their devotions at the sepulcher of the Lord 

and the other holy place in that city . Many

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 405 

of these religious wanderers were weak or 

aged, almost all of them unarmed, and thousands 

of them were subjected to insult to pillage 

and often to death, inflicted by the 

hordes of Arabs who, even after the capture 

of Jerusalem by the Christians, continued to 

infest the seacoast of Palestine and the roads 

to the capital. 

To protect the pious pilgrims thus exposed 

to plunder and bodily outrage, nine French 

knights, the followers of Baldwyn, united, in 

the year 1118, in a military confraternity or 

brotherhood in arms, and entered into a solemn 

compact to aid each other in clearing the 

roads, and in defending the pilgrims in their 

passage to the holy city . 

Two of these knights were Hugh de Payens 

and Godfrey de St . Aldemar . Raynouard 

(Les Templiers) says that the names of the 

other seven have not been preserved in history, 

but Wilke (Geschichte des T. H. Ordens) 

gives them as Roral, Gundemar, Godfrey 

Bisol, Payens de Montidier, Archibald de St . 

Aman, Andre de Montbar, and the Count of 

Provence . 

Uniting the monastic with the military character, 

they took, in the presence of the Patriarch 

of Jerusalem the usual vows of poverty, 

chastity, and obedience, and with great humility 

assumed the title of "Poor Fellow Soldiers 

of Christ ." Baldwyn, the King of Jerusalem, 

assigned for their residence a part of his palace 

which stood near the former site of the 

Temple ; and the Abbot and Canons of the 

Temple gave them, as a place in which to store 

their arms and magazines, the street between 

the palace and the Temple, whence they derived 

the name of Templars ; a title which 

they ever afterward retained . 

Raynouard says that Baldwyn sent Hugh 

de Payens to Europe to solicit a new crusade, 

and that while there he presented his companions 

to Pope Honorius II ., from whom he 

craved permission to form wreligious military 

order in imitation of that of the Hospitalers . 

The pontiff referred them to the ecclesiastical 

council which was then in session at Troyes, in 

Champagne. Thither De Payens repaired 

and re presented to the fathers the vocation of 

himself and his companions as defenders of the 

pilgrim ; the enterprise was approved, and St . 

Bernard was directed to prescribe a rule for 

the infant Order . 

This rule, in which the knights of the Order 

are called Pauper" commilitis Christi et Temple 

Salomonis, or "The Poor Fellow Soldiers 

of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon," is 

still extant. It consists of seventy-two chapters, 

the details of which are remarkable for 

their ascetic character . It enjoined severe 

devotional exercises, self-mortification, fasting, 

and prayer. It prescribed for the professed 

knights white garments as a symbol of 

a pure life ; esquires and retainers were to be 

clothed in black . To the white dress, Pope 

Eugenius II . subsequently added a red cross, 

to be worn on the left breast as a symbol of 

martyrdom. 

Hugh de Payens, thus provided with a rule 

that gave permanence to his Order, and encouraged 

by the approval of the Church, returned 

to Jerusalem, carrying with him many 

recruits from among the noblest families of 

Europe . 

The Templars soon became preeminently 

distinguished as warriors of the cross. St . 

Bernard, who visited them in their Temple 

retreat, speaks in the warmest terms of their 

self-deniatheir frugality, their modesty, 

their piety, and their bravery . " Their 

arms," he says, "are their only finery, and 

they use them with courage, without dreading 

either the number or the strength of the barbarians 

. All their confidence is in the Lord 

of Hosts, and in fighting for his cause they 

seek a sure victory or a Christian and honorable 

death ." 

Their banner was the Beauseant, of divided 

white and black, indicative of peace to their 

friends, but destruction to their foes . At their 

reception each Templar swore never to turn 

his back on three enemies, but should he be 

alone, to fight them if they were infidels . It 

was their wont to say that a Templar ought 

either to vanquish or die, since he had nothing 

to give for his ransom but his girdle and his 

knife . 

The Order of the Temple, at first exceedingly 

simple in its organization became in a 

short time very complicated. 1?n the twelfth 

century it was divided into three classes, 

which were Kn ights, Chaplains, and Serving 

Brethren. 

1 . The Knights . It was required that whoever 

presented himself for admission into' the 

Order must prove that he was sprung from a 

knightly family, and was born in lawful wedlock 

; that he was free from all previous obligations 

; that he was neither married nor betrothed 

; that he had not made any vows of 

reception in another Order ; that he was not 

involved in debt ; and finally, that he was of a 

sound and healthy constitution of body . 

2 . The Chaplains . The Order of the Temple, 

unlike that of the Hospitalers, consisted 

at first only of laymen . But the bull of Pope 

Alexander III ., issued in 1162, gave the Templars 

permission to receive into their houses 

spiritual persons who were not bound by previous 

vows, the technical name of whom was 

chaplains . They were required to serve a 

novitiate of a year . The reception was, except 

in a few points not applicable to the clergy, 

the same as that of the knights, and they 

were required to take only the three vows of 

poverty, chastity, and obedience. Their duties 

were to perform all religious offices, and to 

officiate at all the ceremonies of the Order, 

such as the admission of members at installations, 

etc. Their privileges were, however, unimportant, 

and consisted principally in sitting 

next to the Master, and being first served at 

table . 

3 . The Serving Brethren . The only qualifi 

cation required of the serving brethren, was, 

that they should be free born and not slaves ; 

yet it is not to be supposed that all the persons 

of this class were of mean condition. Many

406, KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 

men, not of noble birth, but of wealth and 

high position were found among the serving 

brethren. They fought in the field under the 

knights, and performed at home the menial 

offices of the household . At first there was 

but one class of them, but afterward they 

were divided into two-the Brethren-at-Arms 

and the Handicraft Brethren . The former were 

the soldiers of the Order . The latter, who were 

the most esteemed, remained in the Preceptories, 

and exercised their various trades, such 

as those of farriers, armorers, etc. The reception 

of the serving brethren did not differ, 

except in some necessary particulars, from 

that of the knights . They were, however, by 

the accident of their birth, precluded from promotion 

out of their class . 

Besides these three classes there was a 

fourth-not, however, living in the bosom of 

the Order-who were called Afliati or the 

Affiliated . These were persons of various 

ranks and of both sexes, who were recognized 

by the Order, though not openly connected 

with it, as entitled to its protection and admitted 

to a participation in some of its privileges, 

sueh as protection from the interdicts 

of the Church, which did not apply to the 

members of the Order. 

There was also a class called Donates or 

Donats. These were either youths whom 

their parents destined for the service of the 

Order when they had attained the proper age 

or adults who had bound themselves to aid 

and assist the Order so long as they lived, 

solely from their admiration of it, and a desire 

to share its honors . 

Over these presided the Grand Master, more 

usually styled, in the early days of the Order, 

simply the Master of the Temple. In the 

treaty of peace executed in 1178, between the 

Templars and the Hospitalers, Odo de St . 

Armand calls himself "Humble Master of the 

Order of the Temple ." But in after times this 

spirit of humility was lost sight of, and the 

title of Grand Master was generally accorded 

to him . His allowances were suitable to the 

distinguished rank he held, for in the best days 

of the Order the Grand Master was considered 

as the equal of a sovereign . 

The Grand Master resided originally at 

Jerusalem ; afterward, when that city was 

lost, at Acre, and finally at Cyprus. His duty 

always required him to be in the Holy Land ; 

he consequently never resided in Europe . He 

was elected for life from among the knights in 

the following manner : On the death of the 

Grand Master, a Grand Prior was chosen to 

administer the affairs of the Order until a successor 

could be elected . When the day which 

had been appointed for the election arrived 

the Chapter usually assembled at the chief 

seat of the Order ; three or more of the most 

esteemed knights were then proposed ; the 

Grand Prior collected the votes, and he who 

had received the greatest number was nominated 

to be the electing Prior . An Assistant 

was then associated with him, in the person 

of another knight . These two remained all 

night in the chapel, engaged in prayer . In the 

morning, they chose two others, and these 

four, two more, and so on until the number of 

twelve (that of the apostles) had been selected 

. The twelve then selected a Chaplain . 

The thirteen then proceeded to vote for a 

Grand Master, who was elected by a majority 

of the votes. When the election was completed, 

it was announced to the assembled brethren ; 

and when all had promised obedience, the 

Prior, if the person was present, said to him 

" In the name of God the Father, the Son, and 

the Holy Ghost, we have chosen, and do 

choose thee, Brother N ., to be our Master." 

Then, turning to the brethren, he said, " Beloved 

Sirs and Brethren, give thanks unto 

God ; behold here our Master." The Chaplains 

then chanted the Te Deum ; and the 

brethren, taking their new Master in their 

arms, carried him into the chapel and placed 

him before the altar, where he continued 

kneeling, while the brethren prayed, and the 

Chaplains repeated the Kyrie Eleison, the 

Paten Noster, and other devotional exercises . 

Next in rank to the Grand Master was the 

Seneschal, who was his representative and 

lieutenant. Then came the Marshal, who was 

the General of the Order . Next was the 

Treasurer, an office that was always united 

with that of Grand Preceptor of Jerusalem. 

He was the Admiral of the Order. The Draper, 

the next officer in rank, had charge of the 

clothing of the Order. He was a kind of Commissary 

General. The Turcopolier was the 

Commander of the light-horse. There was also 

a class of officers called Visitors, whose duties, 

as their name imports, was to visit the different 

Provinces, and correct abuses. There were 

also some subordinate offices appropriated to 

the Serving Brethren, such as Sub marshal, 

Standard Bearer, Farrier, etc. 

These officers, with the Grand Preceptors of 

the Provinces and the most distinguished 

knights who could attend constituted the 

General Chapter or great legislative assembly 

of the Order, where all laws and regulations 

were made and great officers elected . 

This assembly was not often convened, and 

in the intervals its powers were exercised by 

the Chapter of Jerusalem . 

The Order thus organized, as it increased 

in prosperity and augmented its possessions 

in the East and in Europe, was divided into 

Provinces, each of which was governed by a 

Grand Preceptor or Grand Prior ; for the titles 

were indiscriminately used . That, however, 

of Preceptor was peculiar to the Templars, 

while that of Prior was common both to them 

and to the Knights Hospitalers of St . John . 

These Provinces were fifteen in number, and 

were as follows : Jerusalem, Tripolis, Antioch, 

Cyprus, Portugal, Castile and Leon, Aragon, 

France and Auvergne, Normandy, Aquitaine, 

Provence, England, including Scotland and 

Ireland ; Germany, Upper and Central Italy, 

and Ap ulia and Sicily . Hence it will be seen 

that there was no part of Europe, except the 

impoverished kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, 

and Norway, where the Templars had not extended 

their possessions and their influence .

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 407 

In all the Provinces there were numerous 

temple-houses called Preceptories, presided 

over by a Preceptor. In each of the larger 

Preceptories there was a Chapter, in which 

local regulations were made and members were 

received into the Order . 

The reception of a knight into the Order was 

a very solemn ceremonial . It was secret, 

none but members of the Order bein g permitted 

to be present . In this it differed from 

that of the Knights of Malta, whose form of 

reception was open and public ; and it is to 

this difference, between a public reception 

and a secret initiation, that may, perhaps, be 

attributed a portion of the spirit of persecution 

exhibited by the Church to the Order in 

its latter days . 

Of this reception, the best and most authentic 

account is given by Munter in his 

Statutenbuch des Ordens der Tempelherren 

(pp. 29-42), and on that I shall principally rely . 

On the day of the reception, the Master 

and the knights being in the Chapter, the 

Master said : 

"Beloved Knights and Brethren, ye see that 

the majority are willing that this man shall be 

received as a brother . If there be among 

you any one who knows anything concerning 

him, wherefor he cannot rightfully become a 

brother, let him say so . For it is better that 

this should be made known beforehand than 

after he has been brought before us ." All 

being silent, the candidate is conducted into 

an adjoining chamber. Two or three of the 

oldest knights are sent to him to warn him of 

the difficulties and hardships that he will have 

to encounter ; or, as the Benedictine rule says 

all the hard and rough ways that lead to 

-"omnia dura et aspera, per quse itur ad 

Deum ." 

They commenced by saying : "Brother, do 

you seek the fellowship of the Order?" If he 

replied affirmatively, they warned him of the 

rigorous services which would be demanded 

of him . Should he reply that he was willing 

to endure all for the sake of God and to become 

the slave of the Order, they further asked 

him if he were married or betrothed ; if he had 

ever entered any other Order ; if he owed more 

than he could pay ; if he was of sound body ; 

and if he was of free condition? If his replies 

were satisfactory, his examiners returned 

to the Chapter room and made report ; whereupon 

the Master again inquired if any one 

present knew anything against the candidate . 

All being silent, he asked : "Are you willing 

that he should be received in God's-name?" 

and all the knights answered : "Let him be received 

in God s name ." His examiners then 

returned to him and asked him if he still persisted 

in his intention . If he replied that he 

did, they gave him the necessary instructions 

how he should act, and led him to the door of 

the Chapter room. There entering he cast 

himself on his knees before the Master, with 

folded hands, and said : "Sir, I am come before 

God, before you and the brethren, and 

pray and beseech you, for God and our dear 

Lady's sake, to admit me into your fellowship 

and to the good deeds of the Order, as one who 

will for all his life long be the servant and slave 

of the Order ." 

The Master replied : "Beloved Brother, 

you are desirous of a great matter, for you see 

nothing but the outward shell of our Order . 

It is only the outward shell when you see that 

we have fine horses and rich caparisons, that 

we eat and drink well, and are splendidly 

clothed . From this you conclude that you 

will be well off with us. But you know not the 

rigorous maxims which are in our interior . 

For it is a hard matter for you, who are your 

own master, to become the servant of another . 

You will hardly be able to perform, in future, 

what you wish yourself. For when you wish 

to be on this side of the sea, you will be sent 

to the other side ; when you will wish to be in 

Acre, you will be sent to the district of Antioch, 

to Tripolis, or to Armenia ; or you will be 

sent to Apulia to Sicily, or to Lombardy, or 

to Burgundy, France, England, or any other 

country where we have houses and possessions . 

When you will wish to sleep, you will be 

ordered to watch ; when you will wish to 

watch, then you will be ordered to go to bed ; 

when you will wish to eat, then you will be 

ordered to do something else . And as both 

we and you might suffer great inconvenience 

from what you have, mayhap, concealed from 

us, look here on the holy Evangelists and the 

word of God, and answer the truth to the questions 

which we shall put to you ; for if you lie, 

you will be perjured and may be expelled the 

Order, from which Go od keep you!" 

The questions which had been before asked 

him by his examiners were then repeated more 

at large, with the additional one whether fie 

had made any contract with a Templar or 

an other person to secure his admission . 

answers being satisfactory, the Master 

proceeded : "Beloved Brother, take good heed 

that you have spoken truth to us, for should 

you in any one point have spoken falsely, you 

would be put out of the Order, from which 

God preserve you . Now, beloved Brother, 

heed well what we shall say to you . Do you 

promise God and Mary, our dear Lady, that 

your life long you will be obedient to the Master 

of the Temple and the Prior who is set over 

you? " 

"Yes, Sir, God willing." 

"Do you promise God and Mary, our dear 

Lady all your life long to live chaste in your 

bodyt? " 

"Yes, Sir, God willing ." 

"Do you p romise God and Mary, our dear 

Lady, your life long to observe the laudable 

manners and customs of our Order, those 

which now are and those which the Master 

and knights may hereafter ordain?" 


"Do you promise God and M ary, our dear 

Lady, that your life long you will, with the 

power and strength that God gives you, help 

to conquer the holy land of Jerusalem, and 

with your best power you will help to keep and 

guard that which the Christians possess?" 

"Yes, Sir, God willing."

408 KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 

"Do you promise God and Mary, our dear 

Lady, never to hold this Order for stronger or 

weaker, for worse or for better, but with the 

permission of the Master or the convent which 

has the authority? " 


"Finally, do you promise God and Mary, 

our dear Lady, that you will never be present 

when a Christian shall be unjustly and unlawfully 

despoiled of his heritage, and that you 

will never by counsel or act take part therein?" 

"Yes, Sir, God willing." 

Then the Master said : "Thus, in the name 

of God and Mary our dear Lady, and in the 

name of St . Peter of Rome, and our Father the 

Pope, and in the name of all the Brethren of 

the Temple, we receive you to all the good 

works of the Order which have been done from 

the beginning, and shall be done to the end, 

you, your father, your mother, and all your 

lineage, who you are willing shall have a share 

therein . In like manner do you receive us 

into all the good works which you have done 

or shall do . We assure you bread and water, 

and the poor clothing of the Order, and toil 

and labor in abundance." 

The Chaplain then read the 133d Psalm and 

the prayer of the Holy Ghost, Deus qui cords 

fidelium, and the brethren repeated the Lord's 

prayer . The Prior and the Chaplain gave the 

recipient the fraternal kiss . He was then 

seated before the Master, who delivered to 

him a discourse on his duties and obligations 

as a member of the Order . 

These duties may be thus summed up : He 

was never to assault a Christian, nor swear, 

nor receive any attendance from a woman 

without the permission of his superiors ; not 

to kiss a woman, even his mother or sister ; to 

hold no child to the baptismal font ; and 

to abuse no man, but to be courteous to all . 

He was to sleep in a linen shirt, drawers and 

hose, and girded with a small girdle ; to attend 

Divine service punctually, and to begin 

and end his meals with a prayer . 

Such is the formula of reception, which has 

been collected by Munter from the most authentic 

sources . It is evident, however, that 

it is not complete . The secret parts of the 

ritual are omitted, so that the formula is here 

something like what a Freemason would call 

the monitorial part of the instruction . Munter 

does not even give the form of the oath taken 

by the candidate ; although Raynouard says 

that it is preserved in the Archives of the 

Abbey of Alcobaza, in Aragon, and gives it in 

the following words, on the authority of Henriguez 

in his Regula, etc., Ordinis Cisterniensis: 

"I swear to consecrate my discourse, my 

arms, my faculties, and my life, to the defence 

of the sacred mysteries of the faith, and 

to that of the unity of God . I also~ promise to 

be submissive and obedient to the Grand Master 

of the Order . . . At all times that it may 

be necessary, I will cross the seas to go to battle; 

I will contribute succor against infidel 

kings and princes ; Twill not turn my back on 

three foes ; and even if I be alone, I will fight 

them if they are infidels ." 

The fact that the Templars had a secret 

initiation is now generally conceded, although 

a few writers have denied it . But the circumstantial 

evidence in its favor is too great 

to be overcome by anything except positive 

proof to the contrary, which has never been 

adduced . It is known that at these receptions 

none but members of the Order were admitted 

; a prohibition which would have been 

unnecessary if the ceremonies had not been 

secret . In the meetings of the General Chapter 

of the Order, even the Pope's Legate was 

refused admission . 

It would not be fair to quote the one hundred 

and twenty accusations preferred against 

the Templars by Clement, because they were 

undoubtedly malicious falsehoods invented by 

an unprincipled Pontiff pandering to the 

cupidity of an avaricious monarch ; but yet 

some of them are of such a nature as to indicate 

what was the general belief of men at the 

time. Thus, Art . 32 says : "Quod receptiones 

istius clandestine faciebant" ; i. e., that 

they were wont to have their receptions in secret. 

The 100th is in these words : "Quod sic se 

includunt ad tenenda capitula ut omnes januas 

domus et eccleshe in quibus tenent capitula 

ferment adeo firmiter quod nullus sit nec 

esse possit accessus ad eos nec juxta : ut possit 

quicunque videre vel audire de factis veldictis 

eorum" ; i . e., that when they held their 

Chapters, they shut all the doors of the house or 

church in which they met so closely that no one 

could approach near enough to see or hear what 

they were doing and saying . And the next 

article is more particular, for it states that, 

to secure themselves against eavesdroppers, 

they were accustomed to place a watch, as 

we should now say a tiler, upon the roof of 

the house, "excubicum super tectum," who 

could give the necessary warning . 

Of course it is impossible to obtain an accurate 

knowledge of all the details of this 

secret reception of the ancient Templars, 

since it must have been generally oral ; but 

I have always been inclined to think, from 

allusions here and there scattered through 

the history of their customs, that many of its 

features have descended to us, and are to be 

found in the ritual of initiation practised by 

the Masonic Knights Templar . 

The dress of the Templars was prescribed 

for them by St . Bernard, in the rule which he 

composed for the government of the Order, 

and is thus described in Chapter XX . 

"To all the professed 

knights, both in 

winter and summer, 

we give, if they can 

be procured, white garments, 

that those who 

have cast behind them 

a dark life, may know 

that they are to commend 

themselves to 

their Creator by a 

pure and white life ." The white mantle was 

therefore the peculiar vestment of the Templars, 

as the black was of the Hospitalers .

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 409 

The general direction of St . Bernard as to 

clothing was afterward expanded, so that the 

dress of a Templar consisted of a long, white 

tunic, nearly resembling that of a priest's in 

shape, with a red cross on the front and back ; 

under this was his linen shirt clasped by a 

girdle . Over all was the white mantle with 

the red cross pattee . The head was covered by 

a cap or hood attached to the mantle . The 

arms were a sword, lance, mace, and shield . 

Although at first the Order adopted as a seal 

the representation of two knights riding on 

one horse, as a mark of their poverty, subsequently 

each knight was provided with three 

horses, and an esquire selected usually from 

the class of Serving Brethren . 

To write the history of the Templar Order 

for the two centuries of its existence would, 

says Addison, be to write the Latin history of 

Palestine, and would occupy a volume . Its 

details would be accounts of glorious struggles 

with the infidel in defense of the Holy Land, 

and of Christian pilgrimage, sometimes successful 

and often disastrous ; of arid sands 

well moistened with the blood of Christian 

and Saracen warriors ; of disreputable contests 

with its rival of St . John ; of final 

forced departure from the places which its 

prowess had conquered, but which it had 

not strength to hold, and of a few years of 

luxurious, and it may be of licentious indolence, 

terminated by a cruel martyrdom and 

dissolution . 

The fall of Acre in 1292, under the vigorous 

assault of the Sultan Mansour, led at once 

to the evacuation of Palestine by the Christians 

. The Knights Hospitalers of St . John 

of Jerusalem, afterward called Knights of 

Rhodes, and then of Malta, betook themselves 

to Rhodes, where the former, assuming a naval 

character, resumed the warfare in their galleys 

against the Mohammedans . The Templars, 

after a brief stay in the island of 

Cyprus, retired to their different Preceptories 

in Europe. 

Porter (Hist . K . of Malta, i ., 174) has no 

panegyric for these recreant knights. After 

eulogizing the Hospitalers for the persevering 

energy with which, from their island home of 

Rhodes, they continued the war with the infidels, 

he says : 

"The Templar, on the other hand, after a 

brief sojourn in Cyprus, instead of rendering 

the smallest assistance to his chivalrous and 

knightly brethren in their new undertaking, 

hurried with unseemly haste to his numerous 

wealthy European Preceptories, where the 

grossness of his licentiousness, the height of his 

luxury, and the arrogance of his pride, soon 

rendered him an object of the most invincible 

hatred among those who possessed ample 

power to accomplish his overthrow . During 

these last years of their existence little can be 

said in defense of the Order ; and although the 

barbarous cruelty with which their extinction 

was accomplished has raised a feeling of compassion 

in their behalf, which bids fair to efface 

the memory of their crimes, still it cannot be 

denied that they had of late years so far de- 

viated from the original purposes of their 

Institution as to render them highly unfit depositaries 

of that wealth which had been 

bequeathed to them for purposes so widely different 

from those to which they had appropriated 

it." 

The act of cruelty and of injustice by which 

the Templar Order was dissolved in the fourteenth 

century, has bequeathed an inglorious 

memory on the names of the infamous king 

and no less infamous pope, who accomplished 

it. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, 

the throne of France was filled by 

Philip the Fair, an ambitious, a vindictive 

and an avaricious prince . In his celebra 

controversy with Pope Boniface, the Templars 

had, as was usual with them, sided with the 

pontiff and opposed the king ; this act excited 

his hatred : the Order was enormously wealthy ; 

this aroused his avarice ; their power interfered 

with his designs of political aggrandizement 

; and this alarmed his ambition . He, 

therefore, secretly concerted with Pope Clement 

V . a plan for their destruction, and the 

appropriation of their revenues . Clement, 

by his direction, wrote in June, 1306, to 

De Molay, the Grand Master, who was then 

at Cyprus, inviting him to come and consult 

with him on some matters of great importance 

to the Order . De Molay obeyed the 

summons, and arrived in the beginning of 

1307 at Paris, with sixty knights and a large 

amount of treasure. He was immediately 

imprisoned, and, on the thirteenth of October 

following, every knight in France was, in consequence 

of the secret orders of the king, arrested 

on the pretended charge of idolatry, 

and other enormous crimes, of which Squin de 

Flexian, a renegade and expelled Prior of 

the Order, was said to have confessed that 

the knights were guilty in their secret 

Chapters . 

What these charges were has not been left 

to conjecture . Pope Clement sent a list of the 

articles of accusation, amounting to one hundred 

and twenty in number, to all the archbishops, 

bishops, and Papal commissaries 

upon which to examine the knights who should 

be brought before them . This list is still in 

existence, and in it we find such charges as 

these : 1 . That they required those who were 

received into the Order to abjure Christ, the 

Blessed Virgin, and all the saints . 7 . That 

they denied that Christ had suffered for man's 

redemptipn. 9. That they made their re 

cipient spit upon the cross or the crucifix . 

14. That they worshiped a cat in their assemblies 

. 16 . That they did not believe in the 

eucharistic sacrifice . 20 . That they said 

that the Grand Master had the power of absolution 

. 26. That they practised obscene 

ceremonies in their receptions . 32. That 

their receptions were secret ; a charge repeated 

in articles 97, 98, 99, 100, and 101, in 

different forms . 42 . That they had an idol, 

which was a head with one or with three faces, 

and sometimes a human skull . 52, 53 . That 

they exercised magic arts . 

On such preposterous charges as these the

410 KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 

knights were tried, and of course, as a foregone 

conclusion, condemned . On the 12th of 

May, 1310, fifty-four of the knights were publicly 

burnt, and on the 18th of March, 1313, 

De Molay, the Grand Master, and the three 

principal dignitaries of the order, suffered 

the same fate . They died faithfully asserting 

their innocence of all the crimes imputed 

to them. The Order was now, by the energy 

of the King of France, assisted by the spiritual 

authority of the pope suppressed throughout 

Europe . So much of its vast possessions as 

were not appropriated by the different sovereigns 

to their own use, or to that of their f avorites, 

was bestowed upon the Order of the 

Knights of Malta, whose acceptance of the 

donation did not tend to diminish the ill 

feeling which had always existed between the 

members of the two Orders . 

As to the story of the continuation of the 

Order, after the death of James de Molay, by 

Johannes Larmenius, under the authority of 

a charter of transmission given to him by 

De Molay a few days before his death, 

that subject is more appropriately treated 

in the history of the Order of the Temple, 

which claims by virtue of this charter, to 

be the regular successor of the ancient 

Order . 

From the establishment of the Order by 

Hugh de Payens, until its dissolution during 

the Mastership of De Molay, twenty-two 

Grand Masters presided over the Order, of 

whom the following is an accurate list, compiled 

on the authority of Addison . The roll 

of Grand Masters in the Rite of Strict Observance, 

and that in the Order of the Tem- 

[Adler, de Drusis], who was well acquainted 

with the history and customs of Syria, that 

the Knights Templar were actually members 

of the Syriac fraternities ." 

Even if this hypothesis were true, although 

it might probably suggest the origin of the 

secret reception of the Templars, it would not 

explain the connection of the modern Templars 

with the Freemasons, because there is no 

evidence that these Syriac fraternities were 

Masonic . 

There are four sources from which the Masonic 

Templars are said to have derived their 

existence ; making, therefore, as many different 

divisions of the Order . 

1 . The Templars who claim John Mark 

Larmenius as the successor of James de 

Molay . 

2. Those who recognize Peter d'Aumont as 

the successor of De Molay . 

3. Those who derive their Templarism 

from the Count Beaujeu, the nephew of 

Mola 

4. Those who claim an independent origin, 

and repudiate alike the authority of Larmenius, 

of Aumont, and of Beaujeu . 

From the first class spring the Templars of 

France, who professed to have continued the 

Order by authority of a charter given by De 

Molay to Larmenius. This body of Templars 

designate themselves as the "Order of the 

Temple." Its seat is in Paris . The Duke of 

Sussex received from it the degree and the authority 

to establish a Grand Conclave in England. 

He did so ; and convened that body 

once, but only once. During the remaining 

years of his life, Templarism had no activity 

m England, as he discountenanced all Chrisplar, 

differ in several names ; 

are destitute of authenticity . 

but these rolls 

1. Hugh de Payens, elected in 1118. 

2. Robert of Burgundy, " 1136. 

3 . Everard de Barri, 1146. 

4 . Bernard de Tremellay, " 1151 . 

5 . Bertrand de Blanquefort, " 1154. 

91 

6. Philip of Naplous, 

1167. 

7. Odo de St . Amand, " 1170. 

8 . Arnold de Troye, " 1180. 

9. Gerard de Ridefort, " 1185. 

10. Brother Walter, 

1189. 

11 . Robert de Sable, " 1191. 

12. Gilbert Horal, " 1195. 

13. Philip de Plessis, " 1201 . 

14. William de Chartres, " 1217. 

15. Peter de Montaigu, " 1218. 

16. Hermann de Perigord, " 1236. 

17 . William de Sonnac, 1245. 

18 . Reginald de Vichier, " 1252. 

19 . Thomas Berard, " 1256. 

20. William de Beaujeu, " 1273. 

21. Theobald de Gaudini, " 1291 . 

22 . James de Molay, 1297. 

(See Trans . Quar . Car., vol. XX.) 

Knights Templar, Masonic. The connection 

of the Knights Templar with the Freemasons 

may much more plausibly be traced 

than that of the Knights of Malta . Yet, unfortunately, 

the sources from which informa- 

`{ 

tion is to be derived are for the most part 

traditionary ; authentic dates and documents 

are wanting. Tradition has always been inclined 

to trace the connection to an early period, 

and to give to the Templar system of 

secret reception a Masonic character, derived 

from their association during the Crusades 

with the mystical Society of the Assassins in 

Syria . Lawrie (Hist ., p . 87), or Sir David 

Brewster, the real author of the work which 

bears Lawrie's name, embodies the tradition 

in this form : 

"Almost all the secret associations of the 

ancients either flourished or originated in 

Syria and the adjacent countries . It was 

here that the Dionysian artists, the Essenes 

and the Kasideans arose . From this country 

also came several members of that trading association 

of Masons which appeared in Europe 

during the dark ages ; and we axe assured, 

that, notwithstanding the unfavorable condition 

of that province, there exists at this 

day, on Mount Libanus, one of these Syriac 

fraternities . As the Order of the Templars 

therefore, was originally formed in Syria, and 

existed there for a considerable time, it would 

be no improbable supposition that they received 

their Masonic knowledge from the 

Lodges in that quarter . But we are fortunately, 

in this case, not left to conjecture, for 

we are expressly informed by a foreign author

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 411 

tian and chivalric Masonry . (Sae Temple, 

Order of the.) 

The second division of Templars is that 

which is founded on the theory that Peter 

d'Aumont fled with several knights into 

Scotland, and there united with the Freemasons 

. This legend is intimately connected 

with Ramsay's tradition-that Freemasonry 

sprang from Templarism, and that all Freemasons 

are Knights Templar . The Chapter 

of Clermont adopted this theory ; and in establishing 

their high degrees asserted that 

they were derived from these Templars of 

Scotland . The Baron Hund carried the the- 

E' 

into Germany, and on it established his 

Rite of Strict Observance, which was a Templar 

system. Hence the Templars of Germany 

must be classed under the head of the 

followers of Aumont. (See Strict Observance .) 

The third division is that which asserts 

that the Count Beaujeu, a nephew of the last 

Grand Master, De Molay and a member of the 

Order of Knights of Christ-the name assumed 

by the Templars of Portugal-had received 

authority from that Order to disseminate 

the degree . He is said to have carried 

the degree and its ritual into Sweden, where 

he incorporated it with Freemasonry. The 

story is, too, that Beaujeu collected his uncle's 

ashes and interred them in Stockholm, where a 

monument was erected to his memory . Hence 

the Swedish Templar Masons claim their descent 

from Beaujeu, and the Swedish Rite is 

through this source a Templar system . 

Of the last class, or the Templars who rec- 

'zed the authority of neither of the leaders 

w o have been mentioned, there were two subdivisions, 

the Scotch and the English ; for it is 

only in Scotland and England that this independent 

Templarism found a foothold . 

It was only in Scotland that the Templars 

endured no persecution . Long after the dissolution 

of the Order in every other country 

of Europe, the Scottish Preceptor' es continued 

to exist, and the knights lived undisturbed . 

One portion of the Scottish Templars entered 

the army of Robert Bruce, and, after the 

battle of Bannockburn, were merged in the 

" Royal Order of Scotland," then established 

by him . (See Royal Order of Scotland .) 

Another portion of the Scottish Templars 

united with the Knights Hospitalers of St . 

John . They lived amicably in the same 

houses, and continued to do so until the 

Reformation . At this time many of them embraced 

Protestantism . Some of them united 

with the Freemasons, and established "the 

Ancient Lodge" at Stirling, where they conferred 

the degrees of Knight of the Sepulcher, 

Knight of Malta, and Knights Templar . It 

is to this division that we are to trace the 

Masonic Templars of Scotland . 

The Roman Catholic knights remaining 

in the Order placed themselves under David 

Seaton. Lord Dundee afterward became their 

Grand Master. Charles Edward, the "Young 

Pretender," is said to have been admitted into 

the Order at Holyrood House, Edinbur on 

September 24, 1745, and made the rand 

Master. He is also said, but without any 

proof, to have established the Chapter of 

Arras and the high degrees .* To this branch, 

I think, there can be but little doubt that we 

are to attribute the Templar system of the 

Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite as developed 

in its degree of Kadosh . 

The English Masonic Templars are most 

probably derived from that body called the 

"Baldwyn Encampment," or from some one 

of the four coordinate Encampments of London, 

Bath, York, and Salisbury, which it is 

claimed were formed by the members of the 

Preceptory which had long existed at Bristol, 

and who on the dissolution of their Order, are 

supposed to have united with the Masonic 

Fraternity. The Baldwyn Encampment claims 

to have existed from "time immemorial"- 

an indefinite period-but we can trace it back 

far enough to give it a priority over all other 

English Encampments . From this division 

of the Templars, repudiating all connection 

with Larmenius, with Aumont, or any other of 

the self-constituted leaders, but tracing its 

origin to the independent action of knights 

who fled for security and for perpetuity into 

the body of Masonry, we may be held justly 

entitled to derive the Templars of the United 

States. 

Of this brief statement, we may make the 

following summary : 

1 . From Larmenius came the French Templars 

. 

2. From Aumont, the German Templars of 

Strict Observance. 

3 . From Beaujeu, the Swedish Templars 

of the Rite of Zinnendorf . 

4 . From the Protestant Templars of Scotland 

and the Ancient Lodge of Stirling, the 

Scotch Templars . 

5 . From Prince Charles Edward and his adherents, 

the Templars of the Ancient and Accepted 

Scottish Rite. 

6 . From the Baldwyn Encampment and its 

coordinates, the old English and the American 

Templars . 

The GOVERNMENT of Masonic Knights 

Templar in the United States is vested, first, 

in Commanderies, which confer the Red Cross 

and Templar degrees and instruct in the 

secrets of Malta . t The usual expression, that 

a candidate after being made a Fights Templar 

is also created a Knight of Malta, involves 

an absurdity . No man being a Knights 

Templar could, by the original statutes, be a 

member of any other Order ; and it is to be regretted 

that the wise provision of the Grand 

Encampment in 1856, which struck the degree 

of Malta from the ritual of the Commanderies, 

should have been in 1862 unwisely repealed . 

The secrets in which the candidate is instructed 

are the modern inventions of the Masonic 

Knights of Malta . The original Order 

had no secrets . 

* For a critical examination of this story see 

Hughan's Jacobite Lodge at Rome, ch . 3 . 

[E . L . H .] 

t See foot-note after Knights of Malta .

412 KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 

Commanderies are under the control of 

Grand Commanderies in States in which those 

bodies exist . Where they do not, the Warrants 

are derived directly from the Grand Encampment 

. 

The supreme authority of the Order is exercised 

by the Grand Encampment of the 

United States, which meets triennially . The 

presiding officer is a Grand Master . 

The Cosruxx of the Knights Templar of the 

United States is of two kinds . First, the original 

uniform, which was in general use until 

the year 1859, and is still used by Commanderies 

which were in existence before that 

time. It is thus described : 

The suit is black, with black gloves. A 

black velvet sash, trimmed with silver lace, 

crosses the body from the left shoulder to right 

hip, having at its end a cross-hilted .dagger, a 

black rose on the left shoulder, and a Maltese 

cross at the end . Where the sash crosses the 

left breast, is a nine-pointed star in silver, 

with a cross and serpent of gold in the center, 

within a circle, around which are the words, 

"in hoc signo vinces." The apron is of black 

velvet, in triangular form, to represent the 

delta, and edged with silver lace . On its flap 

is placed a triangle of silver, perforated with 

twelve holes, with a cross and serpent in the 

center ; on the center of the apron are a skull 

and crossbones, between three stars of seven 

points, having a red cross in the center of each . 

The belt is black to which is attached a crosshilted 

sword . 'the caps vary in form and 

decoration in different Encampments . The 

standard is black, bearing a nine-pointed cross 

of silver, having in its center a circle of green, 

with the cross and serpent in gold, and the 

motto around "in hoc signo vinces ." 

In 1859 the Grand Encampment enacted 

a statute providing that all Commanderies 

which might be thereafter chartered should 

rovide a new costume of an entirely different 

d, which should also be adopted by thold 

Commanderies whenever they should change 

their uniform . This new costume was further 

altered in 1862 and is now of the following 

description, as detailed in the statute : 

Full Dress .-Black frock coat, black pantaloons, 

scarf, sword, belt, shoulder straps, gauntlets, 

and chapeau, with appropriate trimmings . 

Fatigue Dress .-Same as full dress, except 

for chapeau a black cloth cap, navy form, with 

appropriate cross in front, and for gauntlets, 

white gloves . 

Scarf .-Five inches wide in the whole, of 

white, bordered with black one inch on either 

side, a strip of navy lace one-fourth of an inch 

wide, at the inner edge of the black . On the 

front center of the scarf a metal star of nine 

points, in allusion to the nine founders of the 

Temple Order, enclosing the Passion Cross, 

surrounded by the Latin motto, "in hoc 

signo vines" ; the star to be three and threequarter 

inches in diameter . The scarf to be 

worn from the right shoulder to the left hip, 

with the ends extending six inches below the 

point of intersection. 

Chapeau.-The military chapeau, trimmed 

with black binding, one white and two black 

plumes, and appropriate cross on the left side . 

Gauntlets .-Of buff leather, the flap to extend 

four inches upward from the wrist, and 

to have the appropriate cross embroidered in 

gold, on the proper colored velvet, two inches 

in length . 

Sword .-Thirty-four to forty inches, inclusive 

of scabbard ; helmet head, cross handle 

and metal scabbard. 

nelt.-fled enameled or patent leather, two 

inches wide, fastened round the body with 

buckle or clasp . 

From what has been said it will appear 

that there are two modes of cress or costume 

in use among the Templars of the United 

States--one, the old or "black uniform," 

which was adopted at the first organization of 

the Order in this country and which is still 

used by the old Commanderies which were in 

existence previous to the year 1859 ; and the 

new or "white uniform," which was adopted 

by the Grand Encampment in that year and 

which has been prescribed for all Commanderies 

chartered since that year . 

This difference of costume has recently 

been the occasion of much discussion in the 

Order. In 1872 Sir J . Q A . Fellows, the 

Grand Master, thinking that it was his duty 

to enforce a uniform dress in the Order, issued 

his decree requiring all the Commanderies in 

the United States which were then using 

"the black uniform," to abandon it, and to 

adopt "the white uniform," which had been 

origmally ordered in 1859, and subsequently 

amended in 1862. Much opposition has been 

manifested to this order in the Commanderies 

and Grand Commanderies where the black 

costume was in use . The Grand Master's 

interpretation of the statute of the Grand Encampment 

has been doubted or denied, and 

the order has been virtually disobeyed by 

most, if not by all of them . The question has 

assumed great importance in consequence of 

the feeling that has been created, and is therefore 

worthy of discussion. Dr . Mackey's 

views were against the correctness of the 

Grand Master's interpretation of the law, and 

so were those of the living Past Grand Masters 

of the Order. It is, however, but fair to say 

that some distinguished Templars have been 

of a different opinion . The following views 

advanced by Dr. Mackey in the National 

Freemason in December, 1872, express what he 

thought was the true condition of the question. 

Previous to the year 1859 the costume of 

the Knights Templar of this country was 

determined only by a traditional rule, and 

consisted of a ack dress, with the richly decorated 

baldric and apron ; the latter intended 

to show the connection which existed between 

the Order and Ancient Craft Masonry . 

In 1856, at Hartford, a new Constitution 

was proposed and adopted, with the exception 

of the part that referred to costume . Sir 

Knight Mackey, from the committee on the 

Constitution, made a report on the subject of 

dress, as a part of the Constitution ; but the

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 413 

consideration of this report was postponed 

until the next triennial meeting . The changes 

in costume proposed by the committee were 

not very great ; the baldric and the essential 

apron were preserved, and a white tunic, not 

hitherto used was recommended . 

At the session of 1859, at Chicago, the subject 

of dress was alluded to by the Grand Master 

in his address ; and his remarks, together 

with the report of the committee made in 

1856, were referred to a special committee of 

seven, of which the Grand Master was chairman 

and Sir Knights Doyle, Pike, Simons, 

Matey, Morris, and French were the members 

. 

This committee reported a uniform which 

made material differences in the dress theretofore 

worn, and especially by the rejection of 

the apron and the introduction of a white 

tunic and a white cloak . These last were favorite 

notions of Grand Master Hubbard, and 

they were adopted by the committee mainly 

in deference to his high authority . 

The proposed measure met at first with 

serious opposition, partly on account of the 

rejection of the apron, which many Templars 

then held, as they do now, to be an essential 

feature of Masonic Templarism, and a tangible 

record of the union at a specific period in 

history of the two Orders ; but mainly, perhaps, 

on account of the very heavy expense 

and inconvenience which would devolve on 

the old Commanderies, if they were required 

at once to throw aside their old dress and provide 

a new one . 

This opposition was only quelled by the 

agreement on a compromise, by which the old 

Commanderies were to be exempted from the 

operation of the law . The regulations for the 

new costume were then passed and the compromise 

immediately after adopted in the 

words of the following resolution, which was 

proposed by Sir Knight Doyle, who was one of 

the committee 

"Resolved, That the costume this day 

adopted by the Grand Encampment be, and 

the same is hereby, ordered to be worn by all 

Commanderies chartered at this Communication, 

or that shall hereafter be established in 

this jurisdiction, and by all Commanderies 

heretofore existing, whenever they shall procure 

a new costume" ; and all State Grand 

Commanderies were directed to enforce it in 

all subordinates that may hereafter be chartered 

in their respective jurisdictions . 

This was a compromise, nothing more or 

less, and so understood at the time. The old 

Commanderies were then in the majority, and 

would not have consented to any change in= 

volving so much expenditure, unless they had 

been relieved from the burden themselves . 

But the white tunic and cloak were never 

popular with the knights, who had been requu 

ed by the regulations of 1859 to wear them . 

In consequence of this, at the session in 1862, 

on motion of Sir Knight Bailey, "the subjectmatter 

of costume and the resolution relating 

thereto were referred to a Select Committee of 

Five." 

This committee made a report, in which 

they "proposed" a uniform . The record says 

that "the report was agreed to, and the uniform 

was adopted ." But there are some points 

in this report that are worthy of notice . In 

the first place, not a word is said about the 

compromise resolution adopted in 1859, although 

it was referred to the committee . 

That resolution was not repealed by any action 

taken at the session of 1862, and still 

must remain in force . It secured to the old 

Commanderies the right to wear the old black 

costume ; a right which could not be taken 

from them, except by a repeal of the resolution 

conferring the right. Nothing need be said 

of the manifest injustice of repealing a resolution 

granted by the friends of a measure to its 

opponents to remove their opposition . In 

1859, the promise was made to the old Commanderies, 

that if they would agree to a certain 

uniform, to be prescribed for new Commanderies, 

their own old, traditional costume 

should never be interfered with . Might 

could, it is true, repeal this compromise ; but 

Right would, for that purpose, have to be sacrificed 

. But the fact is, that the sense of right 

in the Grand Encampment prevented such an 

act of discourtesy, "not to put too fine a point 

upon it," and no one can find in the proceedings 

of the Grand Encampment any act which repeals 

the compromise resolution of 1859 ; and 

this has been the opinion and the decision of 

all the Grand Masters who have wielded the 

baculus of office, except the present one . 

But, in the second place, the report of 1862 

shows clearly that the object of the committee 

was to recommend a change in the uniform 

that had been adopted for new Commanderies 

in 1859, and which had become objectionable 

on account of the tunic and cloak, and that 

they did not intend to refer at all to the old 

dress of the old Commanderies . 

In the report the committee say : "The objections 

advanced to the costume adopted at 

the last Triennial Conclave of this Grand 

Body are want of adaptation to the requirements 

of our modern Templars, its liability to 

injury and its expensiveness ." Now, who advanced 

these objections? Clearly, not the old 

Commanderies. They were well satisfied 

with the mode of dress which they had received 

from their fathers ; and which was dear 

to them for its solemn beauty and its traditional 

associations ; and the right to wear 

which had been secured to them in 1859, with 

the understanding that if they ever desired, of 

their own accord, to lay it aside, they would 

then adopt, in its stead, the regulation dress of 

the Grand Encampment . But this was to be 

for their own free action . 

It was very evident that the old Commanderies 

had never complained that the tunics 

and cloaks were from their material expensive 

and from their color liable to injury. The old 

Commanderies did not use these expensive 

and easily soiled garments . It was the new 

Commanderies that had made the objection, 

and for them the legislation of 1862 was undertaken.

414 KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 

Dr . Mackey held, therefore, that the compromise 

resolution of 1859 still remains in 

force ; that even if the Grand Encampment 

had the right to repeal it, which he did not 

admit it never has enacted any such re al ; 

that the old Commanderies have the right to 

wear the old black uniform, and that the legislation 

of 1862 was intended only to affect the 

new Commanderies which had been established 

since the year 1859, when the first dress 

lation was adopted . 

t would scarcely be proper to close this 

article on Masonic Templarism without some 

reference to a philological controversy which 

has recently arisen among the members of the 

Order in the United States in reference to the 

question whether the proper title in the plural 

is "Knights Templars" or "Knights Templar 

." This subject was first brought to the 

attention of the Order by the introduction, in 

the session of the Grand Encampment in 1871, 

of the following resolutions by Sir Knight 

Charles F . Stansbury, of Washington City . 

"Resolved, That the proper title of the 

Templar Order is `Knights Templars,' and 

not `Knights Templar,' as now commonly 

used under the sanction of the example of this 

Grand Encampment . 

"Resolved, That the use of the term 

`Knights Templar' is an innovation, in violation 

of historic truth, literary usage, and the 

philology and grammar of the English lan- 

TThis~report was referred to a committee, 

who reported "that this Grand Encampment 

has no authority to determine questions of 

'historic truth, literary usage and the philology 

and grammar of the English language' " ; 

and they asked to be discharged from the further 

consideration of the subject. This report 

is not very creditable to the committee, 

and puts a very low estimate on the character 

of the Grand Encampment . Certainly, it is 

the duty of every body of men to inquire 

whether the documents issued under their 

name are in violation of these principles, and 

if so, to correct the error . If a layman 

habitually writes bad English, it shows that he 

is illiterate ; and the committee should have 

sought to preserve the Grand Encampment 

from a similar charge . It should have investigated 

the subject, which to scholars is of 

more importance than they seemed to consider 

it ; they should have defended the 

Grand Encampment in the use of the term, 

or have recommended its abandonment . 

Moreover the Grand Recorder reports that 

on examination he finds that the title Knights 

Tern piers was always used until 1856, when it 

was changed to K nights Templar; and the 

committee should have inquired by whose authority 

the change was made . But having 

failed to grapple with the question of good 

English, the Craft afterward took the subject 

up, and a long discussion ensued in the different 

Masonic journals, resulting at last in 

the expression, by the beat scholars of the 

Order, of the opinion that Knights Templars 

was correct, because it was in accordance with 

the rules of good English, and in unexceptional 

agreement with the usage of all literary men 

who have written on the subject. 

Bro . Stansbury, in an article on this 

question which he ublished in Mackey's 

National Freemason (., 191), has almost exhausted 

the subject of authority and grammatical 

usage . He says : " That it is an innovation 

in violation of historic truth is 

proved by reference to all historical authorities. 

I have made diligent researches in the 

Congressional Library, and have invoked the 

aid of all my friends who were likely to be able 

to assist me in such an investigation, and so 

far from finding any conflict of authority on 

the question, I have never been able to discover 

a single historical authority in favor of 

any other title than `Knights Templars .' 

"I refer to the following list of authorities : 

Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana, 

Chambers's Encyclopedia, London Encyclopedia, 

Encyclopedia Metropolitana, Penny 

Cyclopedia Cottage Cyclopedia, Rees's Cyclopedia,Wade'sBritishChronology, 

Blair's Chronological 

Tables, Chambers's Miscellany (Crusades), 

Chambers's Book of Days, Addison's 

Knights Templars, Pantalogia, Boutelle's Heraldry, 

Hallam's Middle Ages, Lingard's History 

of England; Glossographia Anglicana 

Nova, 1707 ; Blackstone's Commentaries, vol . 

i ., p. 406 ; Appleton's Cyclopedia of Biography 

(Molai) ; Townsend's Calendar of Knights, 

London 1828 ; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History 

(ed . 1832), vol. ii., p . 481 ; Dugdale's 

Monasticon Anglicanum v ol. vi ., p . 813 ; 

Hayden's Dictionary of bates ; Becton's Dictionary 

of Universal Information; Burne's 

Sketch of the History of the Knights Templars ; 

Laurie's History of Freemasonry ; Taffe's History 

of Knights of Malta ; London Freemasons' 

Magazine; Sutherland's Achievements of 

Knights of Malta; Clark's History of Knighthood; 

Ashmole's History of the Order of the 

Garter; Turner's England in the Middle Ages; 

Brande's Encyclopedia ; Tanner's Notitia 

Monastica, 1744, pp. 307-310 . 

"These will, perhaps, suffice to show what, 

in the opinion of historical authorities, is the 

proper title of the Order . In all of them, the 

term 'Knights Templars' is the only one employed 

. 

"They might, perhaps, be sufficient also on 

the question of literary usage ; but on that 

point I refer, in addition, to the following : 

"London Quarterly Review, 1829, p. 608 . 

Article : 'History of the Knights Templars .' 

"Edinburgh Review, October, 1806, p . 196. 

Review of M. Renouard's work, Les Templiers 

. 

"Eclectic Review 1842, p . 189. Review of 

the History of the Knights Templars, the 

Temple Church, and the Temple, by Chas. G. 

Addison. The running title is History of the 

Knights Tern piers . 

"Retrospective Review, 1821, vol. iv. p. 250 . 

Review of the History of the Templars, by' 

Nicholas Gaulterius, Amsterdam 1703. The 

running title is History of the kN414; Ternplars.

KNIGHTS 

KNIGHTS 415 

" In Dr . Mackey's various Masonic works 

both titles are occasionally used ; but that fact 

is fully explained in the letter from that distinguished 

Masonic authority, with which I 

shall conclude this article ." 

On the philological and grammatical question, 

it mainly turns on the inquiry whether 

the word Templar is a noun or an adjective . 

I think it may be safely asserted that every 

dictionary of the English language in which 

the word occurs, gives it as a noun, and as a 

noun only. This is certainly the fact as to 

Johnson's Dictionary, Webster's Dictionary, 

Cole's Dictionary, Crabb's Dictionary (Technological), 

Imperial Dictionary, Craig's Dictionary 

(Universal), and Worcester's Dictionary 

. 

If, then, the word " Templar" is a noun, we 

have in the combination-"Knights Templar 

"-two nouns, referring to the same person, 

one of which is in the plural, and the other 

in the singular . The well-known rule of apposition, 

which prevails in almost, if not quite 

all, languages, requires nouns under these circumstances 

to agree in number and case . This 

is, in fact, a principle of general grammar, 

founded in common sense . The combination 

"Knights Templar " is therefore false in grammar, 

if the word "Templar" is a noun . But 

some may say that it is a noun used as an adjective-a 

qualifying noun-a very common 

usage in the English tongue . If this were so 

the combination " Knights Templar" would 

still be entirely out of harmony with the usage 

of the language in regard to qualifying nouns, 

the invariable practise being to place the adjective 

noun before the noun which it qualifies 

. A few familiar examples will show this . 

Take the following : mansion house, bird cage, 

sea fog, dog days, mouse trap, devil fish, ink 

stand, and beer cask . In every case the generic 

word follows the qualifying noun . 

But if we even went to the length of admitting 

the word "Templar" to be an adjective, 

the combination "Knights Templar" would 

still be contrary to the genius of the language, 

which, except in rare cases, places the adjective 

before the noun which it qualifies . 

In poetry, and in some technical terms of 

foreign origin, the opposite practise prevails . 

The analogy of the usage, in reference to 

the designations of other Orders of knighthood, 

is also against the use of " Knights 

Templar ." We have Knights Commanders, 

Knights Bachelors, Knights Bannerets, 

Knights Baronets, and Knights Hospitalers . 

Against all this, the only thing that can be 

pleaded is the present usage of the Grand 

Encampment of the United States, and of 

some Commanderies which have followed 

in its wake . The propriety of this usage is 

the very question at issue ; and it would be 

curious reasoning, indeed, that would cite the 

fact of the usage in proof of its propriety. If 

the Templars of to-day are the successors of 

De Molay and Hugh de Payens, the preservation 

and restoration of the correct title of the 

Order cannot be a matter of indifference to 

them. 

In coming to the consideration of the question, 

it appears that it must be examined in 

two ways, grammatically and traditionally : 

in other words, we must inquire, first, which of 

these two expressions better accords with the 

rules of English grammar ; and, secondly, 

which of them has the support and authority 

of the best English writers . 

1 . If we examine the subject grammatically, 

we shall find that its proper decision depends 

simply on the question : Is " Templar" 

a noun or an adjective? If it is an adjective, 

then "Knights Templar" is correct, because 

adjectives in English have no plural form . It 

would, however, be an awkward and unusual 

phraseology, because it is the almost invariable 

rule of the English language that the 

adjective should precede and not follow the 

substantive which it qualifies. 

But if "Templar" is a substantive or noun, 

then, clearly, " Knights Templar" is an ungrammatical 

phrase, because "Templar" 

would then be in apposition with " Knights," 

and should be in the same regimen ; that is to 

say, two nouns coming together, and referring 

to the same person or thing, being thus said to 

be in apposition, must agree in number and 

case . Thus we say King George or Duke William, 

when King and George, and Duke and 

William are in apposition and in the singular ; 

but speaking of Thackeray's " Four Georges," 

and intending to designate who they were by 

an explanatory noun in ap osition, we should 

put both nouns in the plural, and say "the 

four Georges, Kings of England ." So when we 

wish to designate a simple Knight, who is not 

only a Knight, but also belongs to that branch 

of the Order which is known as Templars, we 

should call him a "Knight Templar ' ; and if 

there be two or more of these Templars, we 

should call them "Knights Templars," just as 

we say "Knight Hospitaler" and "Knights 

Hospitalers ." 

Now there is abundant evidence, in the beet 

works on the subject, of the use of the word 

" Templar" as a substantive, and none of its 

use as an adjective . 

It would be tedious to cite authorities, but 

a reference to our best English writers will 

show the constant employment of "Templar" 

as a substantive only. The analogy of 

the Latin and French languages supports this 

view, for "Templarius" is a noun in Latin, 

as "Templier" is in French . 

2 . As to traditional authority, the usage of 

good writers, which is the "jus et norms loquendi," 

is altogether in favor of "Knights 

Templars" and not "Knights Templar ." 

In addition to the very numerous authorities 

collected by Bro . Stansbury from the 

shelves of the Congressional Library, Dr . 

Mackey collated all the authorities in his own 

library . 

All the English and American writers, Masonic 

and unmasonic,except some recentAmerican 

ones, use the plural of Templar to designate 

more, than one Knight . In a few instances 

Dr. Mackey found "Knight Templare," but 

never "Knights Templar .' The very recent

416 KNIGHTS 

KORAH 

American use of this latter phrase is derived 

from the authority of the present Constitution 

of the Grand Encampment of the United 

States, and is therefore the very point in 

controversy . The former Constitution used 

the phrase `Knights Templars.' "On the 

whole," Dr . Mackey concludes, "I am satisfied 

that the expression `Knights Templar' is 

a violation both of the grammatical laws of 

our language and of the usage of our best 

writers on both sides of the Atlantic, and it 

should therefore, I think, be abandoned ." * 

Knights of St. John the Evangelist of 

Asia in Europe . Founded at Schleswig and 

Hamburg by Count of Ecker and Eckhoffen 

in 1786 out of his Order of the "True Light,"; 

founded the previous year. 

Knights of the True Light . A degree 

founded by Count of Ecker and Eckhoffen, in 

1785 . 

Knocks, Three . When the Craft were to 

be called to labor in old North Germany, "the 

Master should give three knocks a Pallirer 

two, consecutively ; and in case the Craft at 

large were imperatively demanded, one blow 

must be struck, morning, 

midday, or at eventide 

." (Ordnung der 

1462, Art . 

28 .) Fort, in his Early History, etc ., says, 

"three strokes by a Master convened all the 

members of that degree ; two strokes by the 

Pallirer called the Fellows, and by a single 

blow each member was assembled in Lodge . 

In the opening and closing of Teutonic tribunals 

of justice, the judge carried a staff or 

mace, as an emblem of jurisdiction, and order 

was enjoined by a blow on the pedestal by the 

Arbiter." 

An exposure of Masonry called The Three 

Distinct Knocks, was issued in 1760. Dermott 

(Ahiman Rezon, 1764, p . iii .) says Daniel 

Tadpole was the editor, but this is probably 

intended for a joke . 

Knowledge. In the dualism of Masonry, 

knowledge is symbolized by light, as ignorance 

is by darkness. To be initiated, to receive 

light is to acquire knowledge ; and the cry of 

the neophyte for light is the natural aspiration 

of the soul for knowledge . 

Knowledge, Degrees of. See Degrees of 

Knowledge . 

Kojiki . (Book of Ancient Traditions .) The 

oldest monument of Shintoism, in ancient 

religion of Japan . It is written m pure Japanese, 

and was composed by order of the 

Mikado Gemmio, A.D. 712, and first printed 

about 1625 . The adherents of Shmtoism 

number about 14,000,000 . 

Konx Ompax. There is hardly anything 

that has been more puzzling to the learned 

than the meaning and use of these two apparently 

barbarous words. Bishop Warburton 

says (Div . Leg., I ., ii ., 4), but without giving 

his authority, that in the celebration of the 

Eleusinian mysteries, "the assembly was dismissed 

with these two barbarous words, Kom 

OmnAg" ; and he thinks that this "shows the 

* Knights Templar is the form now -adopted. 

[E. E . C .] 

Mysteries not to have been originally Greek." 

Le Clerc (Bib. Univ ., vi ., 86) thinks that the 

words seem to be only an incorrect pronunciation 

of hots and omphets, which, he says, signify 

in the Phcenician language, "watch, and 

abstain from evil." Potter also (Gr . Ant., 346) 

says that the words were used in the Eleusinian 

mysteries . 

The words occur in none of the old Greek 

lexicons, except that of Hesychius, where 

they are thus defined : 

"K6yt o orat . An acclamation used by those 

who have finished anything. It is also the 

sound of the judge's ballots and of the clepsydra. 

The Athenians used the word blops ." 

The words were always deemed inexplicable 

until 1797, when Captain Wilford offered, in 

the Asiatic Researches (vol . v ., p . 300), the following 

explanation . He there says that the 

real words are Candsha Om Pacsha ; that they 

are pure Sanskrit ; and are used to this day by 

the Brahmans at the conclusion of their religious 

rites . Candsha signifies the object of our 

most ardent wishes . Om is the famous monosyllable 

used both at the beginning and conclusion 

of a prayer or religious rite, like our 

word Amen . Pacsha exactly answers to the 

obsolete Latin word vix ; it signifies change, 

course, stead, place, turn of work, duty, fortune, 

etc ., and is particularly used in pouring 

water in honor of the gods . 

Uwaroff (Ess . sur les Myst. d'Eleus.) calls 

this "the most important of modern discoveries 

." Creuzer, Schelling, and Monter also 

approve of it . 

Not so with Lobeck, who, in his Aglaophamus 

(p . 775), denies not only that such words 

were used in the Eleusinian mysteries, but the 

very existence of the words themselves. He 

says that in the title of the article in Hesychius 

there is a misprint . Instead of K6yt 

6µ,rdt, it should be K6yt 6µ. ,rtft, where 6µ is 

the usual abbreviation of dµotms, like or similar 

to ; so that the true reading would be Kofl 

6µotms ,rat, or konx, like pax ; and he confirms 

this by referring to ,rat, to which Hesychius 

gives the same meaning as he does to 

rcoyt . This is too simple for Godfrey Higgins 

who calls it (Anacal ., i ., 253) "a pretended 

emendation." It is nevertheless very ingenious, 

and is calculated to shake our belief that 

these words were ever used in the Eleusinian 

Rites, notwithstanding the learned authority 

of Meursius, Warburton, Lempriere, Creuzer, 

Uwaroff, and others . 

Korah . The son of Izhar, uncle of Moses, 

who was famed for beauty and wealth . It 

is related that he refused to give aims, as 

Moses had commanded, and brought a villainous 

charge against Moses, who complained 

thereof to God ; the answer was that the earth 

would obey whatever command he should 

give ; and Moses said, "O earth, swallow them 

up" i then Korah and his confederates were 

sinking into the ground, when Korah pleaded 

for mercy, which Moses refused . Then God 

said, "Moses, thou hadst no mercy on Korah, 

though he asked pardon of thee four times ; 

but I would have had compassion on him if he

KORAN 

KRAUSE 417 

had asked pardon of me but once"Al Beiddwi. 

Koran. The sacred book of the Mohammedans, 

and believed by them to contain a 

record of the revelations made by God to Mohammed, 

and afterward dictated by him to an 

amanuensis, since the prophet could neither 

read nor write. In a Lodge consisting wholly 

of Mohammedans, the Koran would be esteemed 

as the Book of the Law, and take the 

place on the altar which is occupied in Christian 

Lodges by the Bible. It would thus become 

the symbol to them of the Tracing- 

Board of the Divine Architect . But, unlike 

the Old and New Testaments, the Koran has 

no connection with, and gives no support to, 

any of the Masonic legends or symbols, except 

in those parts which were plagiarized by 

the prophet from the Jewish and Christian 

Scriptures . Finch, however, in one of his 

apocryphal works, produced a system of Mohammedan 

Masonry, consisting of twelve degrees, 

founded on the teachings of the Koran, 

and the Hadeeses or traditions of the prophet . 

This system was a pure invention of Finch 

Krause, Carl Christian Friedrich. One 

of the most learned and laborious Masons of 

Germany, and one who received the smallest 

reward and the largest persecution for his 

learning and his labors. The record of his life 

reflects but little credit on his contemporaries 

who were high in office, but it would seem low 

in intellect . Findel (Hist . of F. M ., p . 628) 

calls them "the antiquated German Masonic 

world ." Dr . Krause was born at Eisenberg, a 

small city of Altenberg, May 6, 1781 . He was 

educated at Jena, where he enjoyed the instructions 

of Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling . 

While making theology his chief study, he devoted 

his attention at the same time to philosophy 

and mathematics. In 1801, he obtained 

his degree as Doctor of Philosophy, and 

established himself at the University of Jena 

as an extraordinary professor . There he remained 

until 1805, marrying in the meantime 

a lady of the name of Fuchs, with whom he 

passed thirty years, leaving as the fruit of his 

union eight sons and five daughters . 

In 1805, Krause removed to Dresden, and 

remained there until 1813 . In April, 1805, he 

was initiated into Freemasonry in the Lodge 

"Archimedes ." As soon as he had been initiated, 

he commenced the study of the Institution 

by the reading of every Masonic work 

that was accessible . It was at this time that 

Krause adopted his peculiar system of philosophy, 

which was founded on the theory that 

the collective life of man-that is to say, of 

humanity-was an organic and harmonious 

unity ; and he conceived the scheme of a formal 

union of the whole race of mankind into one 

confederacy, embracing all partial unions of 

church organizations, of State government, 

and of private, social aggregations, into one 

general confederation, which should labor, 

irrespective of political, ecclesiastical, or 

rsonal influences, for the universal and uniorm 

culture of mankind. Of such a confederation 

he supposed that he could see the 

germ in the Order of Freemasonry, which, 

therefore, it was his object to elevate to that 

position . 

He first submitted these views in a series of 

lectures delivered before the Lodge "Zu den 

drei Schwertern" in Dresden, of which he had 

been appointed the Orator. They were received 

with much approbation, and were published 

in 1811 under the title of the Spiritualization 

of the Genuine Symbols of Freemasonry . 

In these lectures, Krause has not confined 

himself to the received rituals and accustomed 

interpretations, but has adopted a 

system of his own . This is the course that 

was pursued by him in his greater work, the 

Kunsturkunden ; and it was this which partly 

gave so much offense to his Masonic, but not 

his intellectual, superiors . In 1810, he published, 

as the result of all his labors and researches, 

his greatest work, the one on which 

his reputation principally depends, and which, 

notwithstanding its errors, is perhaps one of 

the most learned works that ever issued from 

the Masonic press. This is Die drei dltesten 

Kunsturkunden der Freimaurerbriidersehaft, 

or "The Three Oldest Professional Documents 

of the Brotherhood of Freemasons ." 

The announcement that this work was 

shortly to appear, produced the greatest excitement 

in the Masonic circles of Germany . 

The progressive members of the Craft looked 

with anxious expectation for the new discoveries 

which must result from the investigations 

of an enlightened mind . The antiquated 

and unprogressive Masons, who were opposed 

to all discussion of what they deemed 

esoteric subjects, dreaded the effects of such a 

work on the exclusiveness of the Order . Hence 

attempts were made by these latter to suppress 

the publication . So far were these efforts carried, 

that one of the German Grand Lodges 

offered the author a large amount of money 

for his book, which proposal was of course rejected 

. After the publication, the Grand 

Master of the three Grand Lodges sought 

every means of excommunicating Krause and 

Mossdorf, who had sustained him in his views . 

After much angry discussion, the Dresden 

Lodge, "Zu den drei Schwertern," was prevailed 

upon to act as executioner of this ignorant 

spirit of fanaticism, and Krause and 

Mossdorf, two of the greatest lights that ever 

burst upon the horizon of Masonic literature, 

were excommunicated . Nor did the persecution 

here cease . Krause experienced its effects 

through all the remaining years of his 

life . He was prevented on frequent occasions, 

by the machinations of his Masonic enemies, 

from advancement in his literary and professional 

pursuits, and failed through their influence 

to obtain professorships to which, from 

his learning and services, he was justly entitled . 

Findel (p . 629) has approvingly quoted Dr . 

Schauberg as calling this " the darkest page 

in the history of German Freemasonry .' 

In 1814 Krause removed to Berlin . In 

1821 he traveled through Germany, Italy, 

and France, and in 1823 established himself at 

Gottingen, where he gave lectures on philoso-

418 KRAUSE 

KUN 

phy until 1830. He then removed to Munich, 

where he died September 27, 1832 . Besides 

his contributions to Freemasonry, Krause 

was an extensive writer on philosophical subjects. 

His most important works are his 

Lectures on the System of Philosophy, 1828, and 

his Lectures on the Fundamental Truths of 

Science, 1829 ; both published at Gottingen . 

His great work, however to which he owes 

his Masonic fame, is his kunsturkunden . He 

commences this work by a declaration of his 

design in writing it, which was twofold : first, 

to enlighten the brotherhood in reference to 

the three oldest documents in possession of 

the Craft, by a philological and philosophical 

examination of these records; and secondly, 

and with a higher purpose, to call their attention 

to a clear perception of the fundamental 

idea of a general union of mankind, to be accomplished 

by a reorganization of their own 

brotherhood . To the rituals of the present 

day he objected as wanting in scientific formula, 

and he thought that out of these old 

records they might well construct a better 

and more practical system . 

But with all his learning, while his ideas of 

reform, if properly carried out, would undoubtedly 

advance and elevate the Masonic 

Institution, he committed grave errors in his 

estimation of the documents that he has made 

the groundwork of his system . 

The three documents which he has presented 

as the oldest and most authentic records 

of the Fraternity are : 1 . The wellknown 

Leland Manuscript, a document of 

whose authenticity there are the gravest 

doubts ; 2 . The Entered Apprentice's Lecture, 

a document published early in the eighteenth 

century, to which, in his second edition, he 

has added what he calls the New English Lecture 

; but it is now known that Krause's Lecture 

is by no means the oldest catechism extant 

; and, 3 . The York Constitution, which, 

claiming the date of 926, has been recently 

suspected to be not older than the early part 

of the eighteenth century . 

Notwithstanding these assumptions of authenticity 

for documents not really authentic, 

the vast learning of the author is worthy of all 

admiration . His pages are filled with important 

facts and suggestive thoughts that 

cannot fail to exert an influence on all Masonic 

investigations . Krause cannot but be considered 

as one of the founders of a new Masonic 

literature, not for Germany alone, but 

for the whole world of Masonic students . 

Krause Manuscript. A title sometimes 

ven to the so-called York Constitutions, a 

rman translation of which was published by 

Krause, in 1810, in his Kunsturkunden . (See 

York Constitutions and Manuscripts, Apocryphal 

.) 

Krishna or Christna. One of the Trimurti 

in the Hindu religious system . The 

myth proceeds to state that Devanaguy, upon 

the appearance of Vishnu, fell in a profound 

ecstasy, and having been overshadowed (Sanskrit), 

the spirit was incarnated, and upon the 

birth of a child, the Virgin and Son were conducted 

to a sheepfold belonging to Nanda, on 

the confines of the territory of Madura . The 

newly born was named Krishna (in Sanskrit, 

sacred) . The Rajah of Madura had been informed 

in a dream that this son of Devanaguy 

should dethrone and chastise him for all his 

crimes ; he therefore sought the certain destruction 

of the child, and ordained the massacre, 

in all his states, of all the children of the 

male sex born during the night of the birth of 

Krishna . A troop of soldiers reached the 

sheepfold of Nanda, the lord of a small village 

on the banks of the Ganges, and celebrated 

for his virtues . The servants were about to 

arm in defense, when the child, who was at 

his mother's breast, suddenly grew to the appearance 

and size of a child ten years of age, . 

and running amused himself amidst the flock 

of sheep . The exploits of this wonder child, 

his preaching the new or reformed doctrine of 

India, his disciples and loved companion Ardjouna, 

the parables, philosophic teaching, the 

myth of his transfiguration, his ablutions in 

the Ganges before his death, and tragic end, 

together with the story of his revival after 

three days, and ascension, are graphically told 

by many authors, perhaps more brilliantly in 

La Bible dens l'Inde, as translated into English 

by Louis Jacolliot . 

Kulma. The Hindustani Confession of 

Faith. 

Kum, Kivi. These two words, pronounced 

koom and keevy, are found as ceremonial words 

in one of the high degrees . They are from the 

Hebrew, and are interpreted as meaning 

arise! and kneel! They are not significant 

words, having no symbolic allusion, and 

seem to have been introduced merely to mark 

the Jewish origin of the degree in which they 

are employed . In the modern rituals they 

are disused . 

Kun . Arabic for Be, the creative fiat of 

God.

L 

L . (Heb ., ~ ; Samaritan, 2f .) The shape of 

the twelfth English letter is borrowed from 

that of the Oriental lomad, coinciding with the 

Samaritan . The numerical value in Hebrew 

is thirty . The Roman numeral L is fifty . 

Hebrew name of Deity, as an equivalent, is 

it, Limmud, or Doctus . This letter also signifies 

a stimulus, generally female . 

Laanah . (Heb ., MN) Wormwood, a 

word used in the Order of Ishmael . 

Labady. A member of the G . Loge de 

France, banished, in 1766, for alleged libel . 

An exile to Blois, in October, 1767, for permitting 

Masonic assemblies at his residence contrary 

to the orders of the government . 

Labarum . The monogram of the name of 

Christ, formed by the first two letters of that 

name, XPIZTOZ, in Greek . It is the celebrated 

sign which the legend says appeared 

in the sky at noonday to the Emperor 

Constantine, and which was afterward 

placed by him upon his standard. 

Hence it is sometimes called 

the Cross of Constantine . It was 

adopted as a symbol by the early Christians, 

and frequent instances of it are to be found in 

the catacombs. According to Eusebius, the 

Labarum was surrounded by the motto EN 

TOTTtI NIKA, or "conquer by this," which 

has been Latinized into in hoc sign winces, the 

motto assumed by the Masonic Knights Templar 

. The derivation of the word Labarum is 

uncertain. (See In hoc signo winces .) 

Labor . It is one of the most beautiful 

features of the Masonic Institution, that it 

teaches not only the necessity, but the nobility 

of labor . From the time of opening to that of 

closing, a Lodge is said to be at labor . This is 

but one of the numerous instances in which the 

terms of Operative Masonry are symbolically 

applied to Speculative ; for, as the Operative 

Masons were engaged in the building 

of material edifices, so Free and Accepted 

Masons are supposed to be employed in the 

erection of a superstructure of virtue and morality 

upon the foundation of the Masonic 

principles which they were taught at their 

admission into the Order. When the Lodge is 

engaged in reading petitions, hearing reports, 

debating financial matters, etc ., it is said to be 

occupied in business; but when it is engaged 

in the form and ceremony of initiation into 

any of the degrees, it is said to be at work . 

Initiation is Masonic labor. This phraseology 

at once suggests the connection of our speculative 

system with an operative art that preceded 

it, and upon which it has been founded . 

"Labor," says Gadicke, "is an important 

word in Masonry ; indeed, we might say the 

most important . For this, and this alone, 

does a man become a Freemason . Every 

other object is secondary or incidental . Labor 

is the accustomed design of every Lodge 

meeting. But do such meetings always furnish 

evidence of industry? The labor of an 

L 

LABORERS 419 

Operative Mason will be visible, and he will 

receive his reward for it, even though the 

building he has constructed may, in the next 

hour, be overthrown by a tempest . He knows 

that he has done his labor . And so must the 

Freemason labor . His labor must be visible 

to himself and to his brethren, or, at least, it 

must conduce to his own internal satisfaction . 

As we build neither a visible Solomonic Temple 

nor an Egyptian pyramid, our industry 

must become visible in works that are imperishable, 

so that when we vanish from the eyes 

of mortals it may be said of us that our 

labor was well done ." As Masons, we labor 

in our Lodge to make ourselves a perfect 

building, without blemish, working hopefully 

for the consummation, when the house of our 

earthly tabernacle shall be finished, when the 

LOST worn of Divine truth shall at last be 

discovered, and when we shall be found by 

our own efforts at perfection to have done God 

service . 

Laborare est orare. To labor is to pray; 

or, in other words, labor is worship . This was a 

saying of the Medieval monks, which is well 

worth meditation . This doctrine, that labor 

is worship, has been advanced and maintained, 

from time immemorial, as a leading 

dogma of the Order of Freemasonry . There 

is no other human institution under the sun 

which has set forth this great principle in such 

bold relief . We hear constantly of Freemasonry 

as an institution that inculcates 

morality that fosters the social feeling, that 

teaches brotherly love ; and all this is well, 

because it is true ; but we must never forget 

that from its foundation-stone to its pinnacle, 

all over its vast temple, is inscribed, in symbols 

of living light, the great truth that labor is 

worship. 

Laboratory. The place where experiments 

in chemistry, pharmacy, etc ., are performed 

; the workroom of the chemist . An 

important apartment in the conferring of the 

degrees of the Society of Rosicrucians . 

Laborers, Statutes of. Toward the middle 

of the fourteenth century, a plague of excessive 

virulence, known in history as the 

Black Death invaded Europe, and swept off 

fully one-halt of the inhabitants . The death of 

so many workmen had the effect of advancing 

the price of all kinds of labor to double the 

former rate . In England, the Parliament, in 

1350, enacted a statute, which was soon followed 

by others, the object of which was to 

regulate the rate of wages and the price of the 

necessaries of life . Against these enactments, 

which were called the Statutes of Laborers, 

the artisans of all kinds rebelled ; but the most 

active opposition was found among the Masons, 

whose organization, being better regulated, 

was more effective.* In 1360, statutes 

were passed forbidding their "congregations, 

chapters, regulations, and oaths," which were 

* See Freemason .

420 LABRUM 

LADDER 

from time to time repeated, until the third 

year of the reign of Henry VI ., A. D . 1425, 

when the celebrated statute entitled "Masons 

shall not confederate themselves in chapters 

and congregations," was enacted in the 

following words : 

" Whereas, by yearly congregations and 

confederacies, made by the Masons in their 

General Assemblies, the good course and 

effect of the Statutes for Laborers be openly 

violated and broken, in subversion of the law, 

and to the great damage of all the Commons, 

our said sovereign lord the king, willing in this 

case to provide a remedy, by the advice and 

assent aforesaid, and at the special request of 

the Commons, hath ordained and established 

that such chapters and congregations shall not 

be hereafter holden ; and if any such be made, 

they that cause such chapters and congregations 

to be assembled and holden, if they 

thereof be convict, shall be judged for felons, 

and that the other Masons that come to such 

chapters and congregations be punished by 

imprisonment of their bodies and make fine 

and ransom at the king's will . ;' 

[Findel (Hist. of F. M., p . 94), following 

Preston says that this Statute was passed in 

the Parliament of Bats ; but this is erroneous, 

for the Act forbidding Masons to meet in 

Chapters or Congregations was passed in 1425 

by the Parliament at Westminster, while the 

Parliament of Bats met at Leicester in the 

following year . (See Bats, Parliament of.)- 

E. L. H.] 

All the Statutes of Laborers were repealed 

in the fifth year of Elizabeth ; and Lord Coke 

gave the opinion that this act of Henry VI . 

became, in consequence, "of no force or effect" 

; a decision which led Anderson, very 

absurdly, to suppose that "this most learned 

judge really belonged to the ancient Lodge, 

and was a faithful brother " (Constitutions, 

1723, p. 57) ; as if it required a judge to be a 

Mason to give a just judgment concerning the 

interests of Masonry . 

Labrum. From the Latin. A lip or edge, 

as of a dish or font ; having reference to the 

vase at the entrance of places of worship for 

preliminary lustration . 

Labyrinth. A place full of intricacies, 

with winding passages, as the Egyptian, 

Samian, and Cretan labyrinths . That of 

the Egyptians was near Lake Moeris, which 

contained twelve palaces under one roof and 

was of polished stone, with many vaulted passages, 

and a court of 3000 chambers, half 

under the earth and halt above them . Pliny 

states it was 3,600 years old in his day . The 

labyrinth is symbolical of the vicissitudes and 

anxieties of life, and is thus metaphorically 

used in a number of the degrees of various 

Rites . Sage of the Labyrinth is the eighteenth 

grade, Rite of Memphis, in the Order of 

1860. Sage Sublime of Labyrinth, the fiftyfifth 

grade of the same organization . (See 

Catacombs.) 

Lacepede, B . G . E. de la Ville . A French 

savant and naturalist, born in 1756, died 1825 . 

President of the Legislative .Assembly in 1791 . 

Master of the Lodge "De St. Napol6on" in 

1805 . An account of his installation is recorded 

by Kloss . 

Lacorne. The Count of Clermont, who 

was Grand Master of France, having abandoned 

all care of the French Lodges, left them 

to the direction of his Deputies . In 1761, he 

appointed one Lacorne, a dancing-master, his 

Deputy ; but the Grand Lodge, indignant at 

the appointment, refused to sanction it or to 

recognize Lacorne as a presiding officer . He 

accordingly constituted another Grand Lodge, 

and was supported by adherents of his own 

character, who were designated by the more 

respectable Masons as the "Lacorne faction ." 

In 1762, the Count of Clermont, influenced by 

the representations that were made to him, 

revoked the commission of Lacorne t and appointed 

M . Chaillou de Joinville his Substitute 

General . In consequence of this, the two 

rival Grand Lodges became reconciled, and a 

union was effected on the 24th of June, 1762 . 

But the reconciliation did not prove altogether 

satisfactory. In 1765, at the annual 

election, neither Lacorne nor any of his associates 

were chosen to office. They became disgusted, 

and, retiring from the Grand Lodge, 

issued a scandalous protest, for which they 

were expelled ; and subsequently they organized 

a spurious Grand Lodge and chartered 

several Lodges. But from this time Lacorne 

al- 

ceased to have a place in regular Masonry, 

though the dissensions first begun by him ultimately 

gave rise to the Grand Orient as the 

successor of the Grand Lodge . 

Ladder . A symbol of progressive advancement 

from a lower to a higher sphere, which is 

common to Masonry and to many, if not all, 

of the Ancient Mysteries . In each, generally, 

as in Masonry, the number of steps was seven . 

(See Jacob's Ladder .) 

Ladder, Brahmanical . The symbolic 

ladder used in the mysteries of Brahma . It 

had seven steps, symbolic of the seven worlds 

of the Indian universe . The lowest was the 

Earth ; the second, the World of Reexistence ; 

the third, Heaven ; the fourth, the Middle 

World, or intermediate region between the 

lower and the upper worlds ; the fifth, the 

World of Births in which souls are born again ; 

the sixth, the IViansion of the Blessed ; and the 

seventh, or topmost round, the Sphere of 

Truth the abode of Brahma, who was himself 

a symbol of the sun . 

Ladder, Jacob's. See Jacob's Ladder. 

Ladder, Kabbalistic . The ladder of the 

Kabbalists consisted of the ten Sephiroths or 

emanations of Deity . The steps were in an 

ascending series-the Kingdom, Foundation, 

Splendor, Firmness, Beauty, Justice, Mercy, 

Intelligence, Wisdom, and the Crown . This 

ladder formed the exception to the usual number 

of seven steps or rounds . 

Ladder, Mithrattle . The symbolic ladder 

used in the Persian mysteries of Mithras . 

It had seven steps, symbolic of the seven planets 

and the seven metals . Thus, beginning at 

the bottom, we have Saturn represented by 

lead, Venus by tin, Jupiter by brass, Mercury

LADDER 

LANDMARKS 421 

by iron, Mars by a mixed metal, the Moon by 

silver, and the Sun by gold ; the whole being a 

ymbol of the sidereal progress of the sun 

through the universe . 

Ladder of Kadosh . This ladder, belonging 

to the high degrees of Masonry, consists 

of the seven following steps, beginning at the 

bottom : Justice, Equity, Kindliness, Good 

Faith, Labor, Patience, and Intelligence or 

Wisdom . Its supports are love of God and love 

of our neighbor, and their totality constitute 

a symbolism of the devoir of Knighthood and 

Masonry, the fulfilment of which is necessary 

to make a Perfect Knight and Perfect Mason . 

Ladder, Itosicruclan . Among the symbols 

of the Rosicrucians is a ladder of seven 

steps standing on a globe of the earth, with an 

open Bible, square, and compasses resting on 

the top . Between each of the steps is one of 

the following letters, beginning from the bottom 

: I . N . R. I . F . S . C ., being the initials 

of Jesus, Nazarenus, Rex, Iudseorum, Fides, 

Spes, Caritas. But a more recondite meaning 

is sometimes given to the first four letters . 

Ladder, Scandinavian. The symbolic 

ladder used in the Gothic mysteries . Dr . Oliver 

refers it to the Yggrasil, or sacred ash-tree . 

But the symbolism is either very abstruse or 

very doubtful. It retains, however, the idea 

of an ascent from a lower to a higher sphere, 

which was common to all the mystical ladder 

systems. At its root lies the dragon of death ; 

at its top are the eagle and hawk, the symbols 

of life. 

Ladder, Theological . The symbolic ladder 

of the Masonic mysteries . It refers to the 

ladder seen by Jacob in his vision, and consists, 

like all symbolical ladders, of seven 

rounds, alluding to the four cardinal and the 

three theological virtues . (See Jacob's Ladder.) 

Lady . In the androgynous Lodges of 

Adoption, where the male members are called 

Knights, the female members are called Ladies 

; as, the Knights and Ladies of the Rose . 

The French use the word Dame . 

Lakak Deror Pessah. . ( Hebrew, 'IDD '111'1 

i175 .) The initials of these three words are 

found on the symbol of the Bridge in the Fifteenth 

Degree of the Scottish Rite, signifying 

liberty of passage and liberty of thought . 

(See Bridge, also Liber.) 

Lalande. See De la Lande . 

Lamaism . The name of the religion revalent 

in Tibet and Mongolia . (Tibet, Lama, 

pronounced lama, a chief or high priest .) 

Buddhism, corrupted by Sivaism, an adoration 

of saints . At the summit of its hierarchy 

are two Lama popes having equal rank 

and authority in spiritual and temporal affairs. 

Lamb . In ancient Craft Masonry the lamb 

is the symbol of innocence ; thus in the ritual 

of the First Degree : "In all ages the lamb 

has been deemed an emblem of innocence ." 

Hence it is required that a Mason's apron 

should be made of lambskin . In the high 

degrees, and in the degrees of chivalry, as in 

Christian iconography, the lamb is a symbol 

of Jesus Christ . The introduction of this 

Christian symbolism of the lamb comes from 

the expression of St . John the Baptist, who exclaimed, 

on seeing Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of 

God " ; which was undoubtedly derived from 

the prophetic writers, who compare the Messiah 

suffering on the cross to a lamb under the 

knife of a butcher . In the vision of St . John, 

in the Apocalypse, Christ is seen, under the 

form of a lamb, wounded in the throat, and 

opening the book with the seven seals . Hence, 

in one of the degrees of the Scottish Rite, the 

Seventeenth, or Knight of the East and West, 

the lamb lying on the book with the seven 

seals is a part of the jewel . 

Lamb of God . See Lamb, Paschal. 

Lamb, Paschal. The paschal lamb, sometimes 

called the Holy Lamb, was the lamb 

offered up by the Jews at the paschal feast . 

This has been transferred to Christian symbolism, 

and naturally to chivalric Masonry ; 

and hence we find it among the symbols of 

modern Templarism . The paschal lamb, as 

a Christian and Masonic symbol, called also 

the Agnus Dei, or the Lamb of God, first speared 

in Christian art after the sixth century . 

Vt is depicted as a lamb standing on the ground, 

holding by the left forefoot a banner, on which 

a cross is inscribed . This paschal lamb, or 

Lamb of God, has been adopted as a symbol 

by the Knights Templar, being borne in one 

of the banners of the Order, and constituting, 

with the square which it surmounts, the jewel 

of the Generalissimo of a Commandery . The 

lamb is a symbol of Christ ; the cross, of his 

passion ; and the banner, of his victory over 

death and hell . Mr . Barrington states (Archcsologia, 

ix ., 134) that in a deed of the English 

Knights Templar, granting lands in Cambridgeshire, 

the seal is a Holy Land, and the 

arms of the Master of the Temple at London 

were argent, a cross gules, and on the 

nombril point thereof a Holy Lamb, that is, a 

paschal or Holy Lamb on the center of a red 

cross in a white field . 

Lamballe, The Princess of . Niece of 

Marie Antoinette, murdered in 1792 at Paris . 

The Grand Mistress of the so-called Mother 

Lodge of "La Maponnerie d'Adoption ." 

Vmbskin Apron . See Apron . 

Lamma Sabactani . An expression used 

in the Masonic French Rite of Adoption . 

Lamp, Knight of the Inextinguishable . 

A degree quoted in the nomenclature of Fustier. 

(Thory, Acta Lat ., i ., 320.) 

Lance. A weapon for thrusting at an 

enemy, usually adorned with a small flag 

made of tough ash, weighted at one end anc 

pointed at the other . 

Landmarks . In ancient times, it was the 

custom to mark the boundaries of lands by 

means of stone pillars, the removal of which 

by malicious persons, would be the occasion of 

much confusion, men having no other guide 

than these pillars by which to distinguish the 

limits of their property. To remove them, 

therefore, was considered a heinous crime . 

"Thou shalt not," says the Jewish law, "remove 

thy neighbor's landmark, which they of

422 LANDMARKS 

LANDMARKS 

old time have set in thine inheritance ." Hence 

those peculiar marks of distinction by which 

we are separated from the profane world, and 

by which we are enabled to designate our inheritance 

as the "sons of light," are called the 

landmarks of the Order . The universal Language 

and the universal laws of Masonry are 

landmarks, but not so are the local ceremonies, 

laws, and uwnges, which vary in different 

countries . To attempt to alter or remove 

these sacred landmarks, by which we examine 

and prove a brother's claims to share in our 

privileges, is one of the most heinous offenses 

that a Mason can commit . 

In the decision of the question what are and 

what are not the landmarks of Masonry, there 

has been much diversity of opinion among 

writers. Dr . Oliver says (Diet . Symb Mas .) 

that "some restrict them to the O . B . signs, 

tokens, and words . Others include the ceremonies 

of initiation, passing, and raising ; 

and the form, dimensions, and support ; the 

ground, situation, and covering ; the ornaments, 

furniture, and jewels of a Lodge, or 

their characteristic symbols . Some think that 

the Order has no landmarks beyond its peculiar 

secrets." But all of these are loose and unsatisfactory 

definitions, excluding things that 

are essential, and admitting others that are 

unessential . 

Perhaps the safest method is to restrict 

them to those ancient, and therefore universal, 

customs of the Order, which either gradually 

grew into operation as rules of action, or, 

if at once enacted by any competent authority, 

were enacted at a period so remote, that no 

account of their origin is to be found in the 

records of history . Both the enactors and the 

time of the enactment have passed away from 

the record, and the landmarks are therefore 

"of higher antiquity than memory or history 

can reach ." 

The first requisite, therefore, of a custom or 

rule of action to constitute it a landmark, is, 

that it must have existed from "time whereof 

the memory of man runneth not to the contrary 

." Its antiquity is its essential element . 

Were it possible for all the Masonic authorities 

at the present day to unite in a universal 

congress, and with the most perfect unanimity 

to adopt any new regulation, although such 

regulation would, so long as it remained unrepealed, 

be obligatory on the whole Craft, yet 

it would not be a landmark . It would have 

the character of universality, it is true, but it 

would be wanting in that of antiquity . 

Another peculiarity of these landmarks 

of Masonry is, that they are unrepealable . As 

the congress to which I have just alluded 

would not have the power to enact a landmark, 

so neither would it have the prerogative 

of abolishing one . The landmarks of the 

Order, like the laws of the Medes and the Persians, 

can suffer no change . What they were 

centuries ago, they still remain, and must so 

continue in force until Masonry itself shall 

cease to exist . 

Until the year 1858, no attempt had been 

made by any Masonic writer to distinctly 

enumerate the landmarks of Freemasonry, 

and to give to them a comprehensible form . 

In October of that year, the author of this 

work published in the American Quarterly 

Review of Freemasonry (vol . ii ., p. 230) an 

article on "The Foundations of Masonic 

Law," which contained a distinct enumeration 

of the landmarks, which was the first time that 

such a list had been presented to the Fraternity 

. This enumeration was subsequently 

incorporated by the author in his Text Book 

of Masonic Jurisprudence . It has since been 

very generally adopted by the Fraternity and 

republished by many writers on Masonic law ; 

sometimes without any acknowledgment of 

the source whence they derived their information 

. According to this recapitulation, 

the result of much labor and research, the 

landmarks are twenty-five in number, and are 

as follows : 

1 . The modes of recognition are, of all the 

landmarks, the most legitimate and unquestioned 

. They admit of no variation ; and if 

ever they have suffered alteration or addition, 

the evil of such a violation of the ancient law 

has always made itself subsequently manifest . 

2 . The division of symbolic Masonry into 

three degrees is a landmark that has been better 

preserved than almost any other ; although 

even here the mischievous spirit of innovation 

has left its traces, and, by the disruption 

of its concluding portion from the Third Degree, 

a want of uniformity has been created in 

respect to the final teaching of the Master's 

Order ; and the Royal Arch of England, Scotland, 

Ireland, and America, and the "high 

degrees " of France and Germany, are all made 

to differ in the mode in which they lead the 

neophyte to the great consummation of all 

symbolic Masonry . In 1813, the Grand 

Lodge of England vindicated the ancient landmark, 

by solemnly enacting that ancient 

Craft Masonry consisted of the three degrees 

of Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and 

Master Mason, including the Holy Royal 

Arch . But the disruption has never been 

healed, and the landmark, although acknowledged 

in its integrity by all, still continues to 

be violated . 

3 . The legend of the Third Degree is an 

important landmark, the integrity of which 

has been well preserved . There is no Rite of 

Masonry, practised in any countryor language 

in which the essential elements of this legend 

are not taught . The lectures may vary, and 

indeed are constantly changing, but the legend 

has ever remained substantially the same . 

And it is necessary that it should be so, for the 

legend of the Temple Builder constitutes the 

very essence and identity of Masonry . Any 

Rite which should exclude it, or materially 

alter it, would at once, by that exclusion or 

alteration, cease to be a Masonic Rite . 

4 . The government of the Fraternity by a 

presiding officer called a Grand Master, who is 

elected from the body of the Craft, is a fourth 

landmark of the Order . Many persons suppose 

that the election of the Grand Master is 

held in consequence of a law or regulation of

LANDMARKS 

LANDMARKS 423 

the Grand Lodge . Such, however, is not the meet again at other times and other places, 

case . The office is indebted for its existence according to the necessity of circumstances . 

to a landmark of the Order . Grand Masters, But Warrants of Constitution, by-laws, permanent 

officers, and annual arrears are mod- 

or persons performing the functions under a 

different but equivalent title, are to be found ern innovations wholly outside the landmarks, 

in the records of the Institution long before and dependent entirely on the special enactments 

of a comparatively recent period . 

Grand Lodges were established ; and if the 

present system of legislative government by 10 . The government of the Craft, when so 

Grand Lodges were to be abolished, a Grand congregated in a Lodge, by a Master and two 

Master would still be necessary . 

Wardens, is also a landmark . A congregation 

of Masons meeting together under any 

5 . The prerogative of the Grand Master to 

preside over every assembly of the Craft, other government, as that, for instance, of a 

wheresoever and whensoever held, is a fifth president and vice-president, or a chairman 

landmark . It is in consequence of this law, and subchairman, would not be recognized as 

derived from ancient usage, and not from any a Lodge. The presence of a Master and two 

special enactment, that the Grand Master assumes 

the chair, or as it is called in England, tion of a Lodge as a Warrant of constitution 

Wardens is as essential to the valid organiza- 

"the throne," at every communication of the is at the present day . The names, of course, 

Grand Lodge ; and that he is also entitled to vary in different languages ; but the officers, 

preside at the communication of every subordinate 

Lodge, where he may happen to be everywhere identical . 

their number, prerogatives, and duties are 

present . 

11 . The necessity that every Lodge, when 

6 . The prerogative of the Grand Master to congregated should be duly tiled, is an important 

landmark of the Institution which is 

grant dispensations for conferring degrees at 

irregular times, is another and a very important 

landmark . The statutory law of Masonry arises from the esoteric character of Masonry . 

never neglected . The necessity of this law 

requires a month, or other determinate period, The duty of guarding the door, and keeping 

to elapse between the presentation of a petition 

and the election of a candidate . But the one, which therefore constitutes a landmark. 

off cowans and eavesdroppers, is an ancient 

Grand Master has the power to set aside or 12 . The right of every Mason to be represented 

in all general meetings of the Craft, and 

dispense with this probation, and to allow a 

candidate to be initiated at once . This prerogative 

he possessed before the enactment of landmark . Formerly, these general meetings, 

to instruct his representatives, is a twelfth 

the law requiring a probation, and as no statute 

can impair his prerogative, he still retains called "General Assemblies," and all the Fra- 

which were usually held once a year, were 

the power. 

ternity, even to the youngest Entered Apprentice, 

were permitted to be present . Now 

7 . The prerogative of the Grand Master to 

give dispensations for opening and holding they are called "Grand Lodges," and only the 

Lodges is another landmark . He may grant, Masters and Wardens of the subordinate 

in virtue of this, to a sufficient number of Lodges are summoned . But this is simply as 

Masons, the privilege of meeting together and the representatives of their members . Originally, 

each Mason represented himself ; now 

conferring degrees. The Lodges thus established 

are called "Lodges under dispensation ." he is represented by his officers . (See Representatives 

of Lodges .) 

(See Lodges.) 

8 . The prerogative of the Grand Master to 13 . The right of every Mason to appeal 

make Masons at sight is a landmark which from the decision of his brethren, in Lodge 

is closely connected with the preceding one . convened, to the Grand Lodge or General 

There has been much misapprehension in relation 

to this landmark, which misapprehensential 

to the preservation of justice, and the 

Assembly of Masons, is a landmark highly ession 

has sometimes led to a denial of its existence 

in jurisdictions where the Grand Master Grand Lodges, in adopting a regulation that 

prevention of oppression . A few modern 

was, perhaps, at the very time substantially the decision of subordinate Lodges, in cases of 

exercising the prerogative, without the slightest 

remark or opposition. (See Sight, Making appeal, have violated this unquestioned land- 

expulsion, cannot be wholly set aside upon an 

Masons at .) 

mark, as well as the principles of just government 

. 

9 . The necessity for Masons to congregate 

in Lodges is another landmark . It is not to be 14. The right of every Mason to visit and 

understood by this that any ancient landmark sit in every regular Lodge is an unquestionable 

landmark of the Order . This is called 

has directed that permanent organization of 

subordinate Lodges which constitutes one of "the right of visitation ." This light of visitation 

has always been recognize as an in- 

the features of the Masonic system as it now 

prevails . But the landmarks of the Order always 

prescribed that Masons should, from travels through the world . And this is beherent 

right which inures to every Mason as be 

time to time, congregate together for the purpose 

of either Operative or Speculative labor, divisions for convenience of the universal 

cause Lodges are justly considered as only 

and that these congregations should be called Masonic family. This right may, of course, 

Lodges. Formerly, these were extemporary be impaired or forfeited on special occasions 

meetings called together for special purposes, by various circumstances ; but when admission 

is refused to a Mason in good and then dissolved, the brethren departing to 

standing,

424 LANDMARKS 

LANDMARKS 

who knocks at the door of a Lodge as a visitor, 

it is to be expected that some good and sufficient 

reason shall be furnished for this violation 

of what is, in general, a Masonic right, 

founded on the landmarks of the Order . 

15 . It is a landmark of the Order, that no 

visitor unknown to the brethren present, or to 

some one of them as a Mason, can enter a 

Lodge without first passing an examination 

according to ancient usage . Of course, if the 

visitor is known to any brother present to be a 

Mason in good standing, and if that brother 

will vouch for his qualifications, the examination 

may be dispensed with, as the landmark 

refers only to the cases of strangers, who are 

not to be recognized unless after strict trial, 

due examination, or lawful information . 

16 . No Lodge can interfere in the business 

of another Lodge, nor give degrees to brethren 

who are members of other Lodges . This is undoubtedly 

an ancient landmark, founded on 

the great principles of courtesy and fraternal 

kindness, which are at the very foundation of 

our Institution . It has been repeatedly reco 

'zed by subsequent statutory enactments 

o all Grand Lodges . 

17 . It is a landmark that every Freemason 

is amenable to the laws and regulations of the 

Masonic jurisdiction in which he resides, and 

this although he may not be a member of any 

Lodge. Non-affiliation, which is, in fact, in 

itself a Masonic offense, does not exempt a 

Mason from Masonic jurisdiction . 

18. Certain qualifications of candidates for 

initiation are derived from a landmark of the 

Order . These qualifications are that he shall 

be a man-unmutilated, free born, and of 

mature age . That is to say, a woman, a cripple, 

or a slave, or one born in slavery, is disqualified 

for initiation into the Rites of Masonry 

. Statutes, it is true, have from time to 

time been enacted, enforcing or explaining 

these principles ; but the qualifications really 

arise from the very nature of the Masonic Institution, 

and from its symbolic teachings, and 

have always existed as landmarks . 

19 . A belief in the existence of God as the 

Grand Architect of the Universe, is one of the 

most important landmarks of the Order . It 

has been always admitted that a denial of the 

existence of a Supreme and Superintending 

Power is an absolute disqualification for initiation. 

The annals of the Order never yet 

have furnished or could furnish an instance in 

which an avowed Atheist was ever made a 

Mason. The very initiatory ceremonies of 

the First Degree forbid and prevent the possibility 

of such an occurrence . 

20. Subsidiary to this belief in God, as a 

landmark of the Order, is the belief in a resurrection 

to a future life . This landmark is 

not so positively impressed on the candidate by 

exact words as the preceding ; but the doctrine 

is taught by very plain implication, and runs 

through the whole symbolism of the Order . 

To believe in Masonry, and not to believe in a 

resurrection, would be an absurd anomaly, 

which could only be excused by the reflection, 

that be, who thus confounded his belief and his 

ekepticism was so ignorant of the meaning of 

both theories as to have no rational foundation 

for his knowledge of either. 

21 . It is a landmark that a "Book of the 

Law" shall constitute an indispensable part of 

the furniture of every Lodge . I say, advisedly, 

Book of the Law, because it is not absolutely 

required that everywhere the Old and New 

Testaments shall be used . The "Book of the 

Law " is that volume which, by the religion of 

the country, is believed to contain the revealed 

will of the Grand Architect of the Universe . 

Hence, in all Lodges in Christian countries, the 

"Book of the Law " is composed of the Old and 

New Testaments ; in a country where Judaism 

was the prevailing faith, the Old Testament 

alone would be sufficient ; and in 

Mohammedan countries, and among Mohammedan 

Masons, the Koran might be substituted. 

Masonry does not attempt to interfere 

with the peculiar religious faith of its disciples, 

except so far as relates to the belief in 

the existence of God, and what necessarily results 

from that belief . The "Book of the 

Law" is to the Speculative Mason his spiritual 

trestle-board; without this he cannot 

labor ; whatever he believes to be the revealed 

will of the Grand Architect constitutes for 

him this spiritual trestle-board, and must ever 

be before him in his hours of speculative labor, 

to be the rule and guide of his conduct . The 

landmark, therefore, requires that a "Book of 

the Law," a religious code of some kind, purporting 

to be an exemplar of the revealed will 

of God, shall form an essential part of the furniture 

of every Lodge . 

22 . The equality of all Masons is another 

landmark of the Order . This equality has no 

reference to any subversion of those gradations 

of rank which have been instituted by 

the usages of society . The monarch, the 

nobleman, or the gentleman is entitled to all 

the influence, and receives all the respect, 

which rightly belong to his position . But the 

doctrine of Masonic equality implies that, as 

children of one great Father, we meet in the 

Lodge upon the level-that on that level we 

are all traveling to one predestined goal-that 

in the Lodge genuine merit shall receive more 

respect than boundless wealth, and that virtue 

and knowledge alone should be the basis of all 

Masonic honors, and be rewarded with preferment 

. When the labors of the Lodge are 

over, and the brethren have retired from their 

peaceful retreat, to mingle once more with the 

world, each will then again resume that social 

position, and exercise the privileges of that 

rank, to which the customs of society entitle 

him . 

23 . The secrecy of the Institution is another 

and most important landmark . The form of 

secrecy is a form inherent in it, existing with it 

from its very foundation, and secured to it 

by its ancient landmarks . If divested of its 

secret character, it would lose its identity, and 

would cease to be Freemasonry . Whatever objections 

may, therefore, be made to the Institution 

on account of its secrecy, and however 

much some unskilful brethren have been

LANGES 

LANSDOWNE 4~5 

unwilling in times of trial, for the sake of expediency, 

to divest it of its secret character, it 

will be ever impossible to do so, even were the 

landmark not standing before us as an insurmountable 

obstacle ; because such change of 

its character would be social suicide, and the 

death of the Order would follow its legalized 

exposure. Freemasonry, as a secret association, 

has lived unchanged for centuries ; as an 

open society, it would not last for as many 

years . 

24 . The foundation of a speculative science 

upon an operative art, and the symbolic 

use and explanation of the terms of that 

art, for the purposes of religious or moral 

teaching, constitute another landmark of 

the Order . The Temple of Solomon was the 

symbolic cradle of the Institution, and, therefore, 

the reference to the Operative Masonry 

which constructed that magnificent edifice, 

to the materials and implements which 

were employed in its construction, and to 

the artists who were engaged in the building, 

are all component and essential parts of the 

body of Freemasonry, which could not be 

subtracted from it without an entire destruction 

of the whole identity of the Order . 

Hence, all the comparatively modern rites 

of Masonry, however they may differ in 

other respects, religiously preserve this Temple 

history and these operative elements, as 

the substratum of all their modifications of 

the Masonic system . 

25. The last and crowning landmark of all 

is, that these landmarks can never be changed . 

Nothing can be subtracted from them-nothing 

can be added to them-not the slightest 

modification can be made in them . As they 

were received from our predecessors, we are 

bound by the most solemn obligations of duty 

to transmit them to our successors . 

Langes, Savalette de . The Master of 

"Les Amis Reunis," who aided in founding 

the system of Philalethes in 1775 . 

Language, Universal . The invention of 

a universal language, which men of all nations 

could understand and through which they 

could communicate their thoughts, has always 

been one of the Utopian dreams of certain 

philologists . In the seventeenth century, 

Dalgarno had written his Ars Signorum to 

prove the possibility of a universal character 

and a philosophical language . About the same 

time Bishop Wilkins published his Essay 

towards a Real Character and a Philosophical 

Language; and even the mathematical Leibnitz 

entertained the project of a universal language 

for all the world . It is not, therefore 

surprising, that when the so-called Leland 

Manuscript stated that the Masons concealed 

a "universelle longage," Mr . Locke, or whoever 

was the commentator on that document, 

should have been attracted by the statement . 

"A universal language," he says, "has been 

much desired by the learned of many ages . It 

is a thing rather to be wished than hoped for . 

But it seems the Masons pretend to have such 

a thing among them. If it be true, I guess it 

must be something like the language of the 

Pantomimes among the ancient Romans, who 

are said to be able, by signs only, to express 

and deliver any oration intelligibly to men of 

all nations and languages ." 

The "guess" of the commentator was near 

the truth. A universal language founded on 

words is utterly impracticable. Even if once 

inaugurated by common consent, a thing itself 

impossible, the lapse of but a few years, and 

the continual innovation of new phrases, 

would soon destroy its universality . But there 

are signs and symbols which, by tacit consent, 

have always been recognized as the exponents 

of certain ideas, and these are everywhere 

understood . It is well known that such a system 

exists over the vast territory occupied by 

the North American savages, and that the 

Indians of two tribes, which totally differ in 

language, meeting on the prairie or in the forest, 

are enabled, by conventual signs of universal 

agreement, to hold long and intelligible 

intercourse . On such a basis the "universal 

language" of Freemasonry is founded . It is 

not universal to the world, but it is to the 

Craft ; and a Mason of one country and language 

meeting a Mason of another can make 

himself understood for all practical purposes 

of the Craft, simply because the system of 

signs and symbols has been so perfected that 

in every language they convey the same meaning 

and make the same impression . This, and 

this only, is the extent to which the universal 

language of Masonry reaches . It would be an 

error to suppose that it meets the expectations 

of Dalgarno or Wilkins, or any other 

dreamer, and .that it is so perfect as to supersede 

the necessity of any other method of intercommunication 

. 

Lansdowne MS. This version of the Old 

Charges is of very early date, about the middle 

or latter half of the sixteenth century, as these 

Free Masons Orders and Constitutions are believed 

to have been part of the collection made 

by Lord Burghley (Sec. of State, temp. Edward 

VI.), who died A .D. 1598. 

Bro. Gould, in his History (vol. i ., p . 61), 

says the "MS . is contained on the inner side 

of three sheets and a half of stout paper, 

eleven by fifteen inches, making in all seven 

folios, many of the principal words being in 

large letters of an ornamental character . Mr. 

Sims (MS. Department of the British Museum) 

does not consider these Òrders' ever 

formed a roll, though there are indications of 

the sheets having been stitched together at 

the top, and paper or vellum was used for 

additional protection . It has evidently `seen 

service.' It was published in Freemasons' 

Mag., February 24, 1858, and Hughan's Old 

Charges (p. 31), and since in facsimile by the 

Quatuor Coronati Lodge . The catalogue of the 

Lansdowne MSS.-which consisted of twelve 

hundred and forty-five volumes, bought by 

Parliament, in 1807, for £4925-has the folowing 

Rote on the contents of this document :

426 LANTURELUS 

LATRES 

`No . 48 . A very foolish legendary account of 

the original of the Order of Freemasonry '- 

in the handwriting, it is said, of Sir Henry 

Ellis " 

Lanturelus, Ordre des . Instituted, according 

to Clavel, in 1771, by the Marquis de 

Croismare. Its purposes or objects are not 

now understood . 

Lapicida. A word sometimes used in 

Masonic documents to denote a Freemason . 

It is derived from lapis, a stone, and credo, to 

cut, and is employed by Varro and Livy to 

signify "a stone-cutter ." But in the low Latin 

of the Medieval age it took another meaning ; 

and Du Cange defines it in his Glossarium as 

"tEdeficiorum structor ; Gall. Macon," i . e ., 

"A builder of edifices ; in French, a Mason" ; 

and he quotes two authorities of 1304 and 

1392, where lapicidx evidently means builders . 

In the Vocabularium of Ugutio, Anno 1592, 

Laoicedius is defined "a cutter of stones ." 

The Latin word now more commonly used by 

Masonic writers for Freemason isLatomus ; but 

Lapicida is purer Latin . (See Latomus .) 

Larmenius, Johannes Marcus . According 

to the tradition of the Order of the 

Temple-the credibility of which is, however, 

denied by most Masonic scholars-John Mark 

Larmenius was in 1314 appointed by James de 

Molay his successor as Grand Master of the 

Templars, which power was transmitted by 

La;•menius to his successors, in a document 

known as the "Charter of Transmission ." 

(Se-- Temple, Order of the .) 

La Rochefoucault, Bayers, Le Marquis 

de . G . Master of the "Rite Ecossais Philosophique" 

in 1776 . A Mason of considerable 

note. 

Larudan, Abbe. The author of a work 

entitled Les FrancMagons ecrases . Suite du 

here intitule l'Ordre des Franc-Masons trahi, 

traduit du Latin . The first edition was published 

at Amsterdam in 1746. In calling it 

the sequel of L'Ordre des FrancMagons trahi, 

by the Abbe Perau, Larudan has sought to 

attribute the authorship of his own libelous 

work to Perau, but without success, as the internal 

evidence of style and of tone sufficiently 

distinguishes the two works . Moss says 

(Bibliog., No. 1874) that this work is the 

armory from which all subsequent enemies of 

Masonry have derived their weapons . Larudan 

was the first to broach the theory that 

Oliver Cromwell was the inventor of Free- 

Masonry . 

Lasalle, Troubat de . One of the founders 

of the Mother Lodge of the "Rite Ecossais 

Philosophique ." 

Lateran Councils. They were five in 

number, regardpd as ecumenical, and were 

held in the Church of St . John Lateran in 

Rome, in 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215, and 1512 . 

Latin Lodge. In the year 1785, the Grand 

Lodge of Scotland granted a Warrant for 

the establishment of Roman Eagle Lodge at 

Edinburgh ; the whole of whose work was conducted 

in the Latin language . Of this Lodge, 

the celebrated and learned Dr . John Brown 

was the founder and Master. He had himself 

translated the ritual into the classical language 

of Rome, and the minutes were written in 

Latin. (Lyon's Hist . of the Lodge of Edinburgh, 

p . 257 .) The Lodge is No . 160 on the 

Scotch Roll, but ceased to work in Latin in 

1794 . 

Latomia. This word has sometimes been 

used in modern Masonic documents as the 

Latin translation of the word Lodge, with what 

correctness we will see . The Greek Xaroµeiov, 

latomeion (or xaroµta), from the roots laas, a 

stone, and temno, to cut, meant a place where 

stones were cut, a quarry . From this the 

Romans got their word latomia, more usually 

spelled lautumice, which also, in pure Latinity, 

meant a stone-quarry . But as slaves were 

confined and made to work in the quarries by 

way of punishment, the name was given to any 

prison excavated out of the living rock and 

below the surface of the earth, and was especially 

so applied to the prison excavated by 

Servius Tullius under the Capitoline hill at 

Rome, and to the state prison at Syracuse . 

Both xaro a and lautumice are seldom used 

by ancient writers in their primary sense of 

"a stone-quarry," but both are used in the 

secondary sense of "a prison," and therefore 

"Latomia" cannot be considered a good 

equivalent for "Lodge ." 

Latomus. By Masonic writers used as a 

translation of Freemason into Latin ; thus, 

Thory entitles his valuable work, Acta Latomorum, 

i. e., "Transactions of the Freemasons." 

This word was not used in classical 

Latinity. In the low Latin of the Middle 

Ages it was used as equivalent to lapicida . 

Du Cange defines it, in the form of lathomus, 

as a cutter of stones, "Caesor lapidum ." He 

gives an example from one of the ecclesiastical 

Constitutions, where we find the expression 

"carpentarii ac Latomi," which may 

mean Carpenters and Masons or Carpenters 

and Stone-Cutters . Du Cange also gives Latomus 

as one of the definitions of Magonetus, 

which he derives from the French Mason . 

But Maconetus and Latomus could not have 

had precisely the same meaning, for in one of 

the examples cited by Du Cange, we have 

"Joanne de Bareno, Magoneto, Latonio de 

Gratianopolis," i . e ., "John de Bareno, Mason 

and Stone-Cutter (?) of Grenoble ." Latomus 

is here evidently an addition to Maconetus, 

showing two different kinds of occupation . 

We have abundant evidence in Medieval documents 

that a Maconetus was a builder, and 

a Latomus was most probably an inferior 

order, what the Masonic Constitutions call a 

"rough Mason ." The propriety of applying 

it to a Freemason seems doubtful. The 

word is sometimes found as Lathomus and 

Latonius . 

Latour d'Auvergne, Le Prince de . President 

of the Mother Lodge of the "Rite Ecossais 

Philosophique" in 1805, and member of 

the Grand Orient of France in 1814 . 

Latres. This word has given much unnecessary 

trouble to the commentators on the 

old Records of Masonry . In the legend of the 

Craft contained in all the old Constitutions,

LAUREL 

LAWRIE 427 

we are informed that the children of Lamech 

" knew that God would take vengeance for 

sinne, either by fire or water, wherefore they 

did write these sciences that they had found in 

twoe pillars of stone, that they might be found 

after that God had taken vengeance ; the one 

was of marble and would not burne, the other 

was Latres and would not drowne in water." 

(Harleian MS . No . 1942 .) It is the Latin 

word later, a brick . The legend is derived 

from Josephus (Antiq ., I ., ii.), where the same 

story is told . Whiston properly translates the 

passage, "they made two pillars ; the one of 

brick, the other of stone ." The original Greek 

is irxlv8os, which has the same meaning . 

The word is variously corrupted in the manuscripts 

. Thus the Harleian MS . has latres, 

which comes nearest to the correct Latin 

plural lateres; the Cooke MS . has lacerus; the 

Dowland, laterns ; the Lansdowne, latherne; 

and the Sloane MS ., No . 3848, getting furthest 

from the truth, has letera . It is strange 

that Halliwell (Early Hist . off .M. in England, 

2d ed ., p. 8) should have been ignorant of the 

true meaning, and that Hy. Phillips (Freemasons' 

Quarterly Review, 1836, p . 289) in 

commenting on the Harleian MS ., should have 

supposed that it alluded "to some floating 

substance ." The Latin word later and the 

passage in Josephus ought readily to have led 

to an explication . 

Laurel Crown . A decoration used in 

some of the higher degrees of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite . The laurel is an emblem 

of victory ; and the corona triumphalis of 

the Romans, which was given to generals who 

had gained a triumph by their conquests, was 

made of laurel leaves . The laurel crown in 

Masonry is given to him who has made a conquest 

over his passions . 

Laurens, J . L. A French Masonic writer, 

and the author of anEssai historique et critique 

sur la Franche-Magonnerie, published at Paris 

in 1805 . In this work he gives a critical examination 

of the principal works that have 

treated of the Institution . It contains also a 

refutation of the imputations of anti-Masonic 

writers. In 1808 he edited an edition of the 

Vocabulaire desFranc-Masons, the first edition 

of which had been issued in 1805 . In 1825 

was published a Histoire des Initiations de 

l'ancienne Egypt with an essay by Laurens on 

the origin and aim of the Ancient Mysteries . 

(HIoss, Bibliographic, No . 3871 .) 

Laurie. See Lawrie, Alexander. 

Laver, Brazen . A large brazen vessel for 

washing placed in the court of the Jewish tabernacle, 

where the officiating priest cleansed 

his hands and feet, and as well the entrails of 

victims . Constructed by command of Moses 

(Exod. xxxviii . 8) . A similar vessel was 

symbolically used at the entrance, in the modern 

French and Scotch Rites, when conferring 

the Apprentice Degree . It is used in many of 

the degrees of the latter Rite . 

Law, Moral . See Moral Law . 

Law, Oral. See Oral Law . 

Law, Parliamentary . See Parliamentary 

Law . 

Law, Sacred. The Sacred Scriptures, the 

Bible, the Great Light in Masonry . 

Lawful Information . See Information, 

Lawful. 

Lawrie, Alexander. He was originally a 

stocking-weaver, and afterward became a 

bookseller and stationer in Parliament Square, 

Edinburgh, and printer of the Edinburgh Gazette. 

He was appointed bookseller and stationer 

to the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and 

afterward Grand Secretary . In 1804 he published 

a book entitled The History of Freemasonry, 

drawn from authentic sources q information 

; with an Account of the Grand 

Lodge of Scotland, from its Institution in 

1736 to the present time, compiled from the 

Records ; and an Appendix of Original 

Papers. Of this valuable and interesting 

work, Lawrie was at one time deemed the 

author notwithstanding that the learning exhibited 

in the first part and the numerous 

references to Greek and Latin authorities, 

furnished abundant internal evidence of his 

incapacity, from previous education to have 

written it . The doubt which naturally arises, 

whether he was really the author, derives 

great support from the testimony of the late 

Dr . David Irving, Librarian to the Faculty of 

Advocates, Edinburgh . A writer in the Notes 

and Queries (3d Ser., iii ., 366), on May 9, 1863, 

stated that at the sale of the library of Dr . 

Irving, on Saturday, March 28, 1862, a copy 

of Lawrie's History of Freemasonry was sold 

for £l . In that copy there was the following 

memorandum in the handwriting of Dr . 

Irving : 

"The history of this book is somewhat curious, 

and perhaps there are only two individuals 

now living by whom it could be divulged . 

The late Alexander Lawrie, `Grand Stationer,' 

wished to recommend himself to the Fraternity 

by the publication of such a work. 

Through Dr . Anderson, he requested me to 

undertake its compilation, and offered a suitable 

remuneration. As I did not relish the 

task, he made a similar offer to my old acquaintance 

David Brewster, by whom it was 

readily undertaken, and I can say was executed 

to the entire satisfaction of his employers 

. The title-page does not exhibit the 

name of the author, but the dedication bears 

the signature of Alexander Lawrie, and the 

volume is commonly described as Lawrie's 

History of Freemasonry ." 

There can be no doubt of the truth of this 

statement . It has never been unusual for 

publishers to avail themselves of the labors of . 

literary men and affix their own names to 

books which they have written by proxy . 

Besides, the familiarity with abstruse learning 

that this work exhibits, although totally irreconcilable 

with the attainments of the 

stocking-weaver, can readily be assigned to 

Sir David Brewster the philosopher . (See 

Lyon's Hist . of the Lodge of Edinburgh,, p . 55 .) 

Lawrie had a son, William Alexaner Laurie 

(he had thus, for some unknown reason, 

changed the spelling of his name), who was for 

very many years the Grand Secretary of the

428 LAW 

LEBANON 

Grand Lodge of Scotland, and died in office in 

1870, highly esteemed. In 1859 he published 

a new edition of the History, with many additions, 

under the title of The History of Freemasonry 

and the Grand Lodge of Scotland, with 

chapters on the Knights Templar, Knights of 

St. John, Mark Masonry, and the R . A . Degree. 

Law, Sacred. See Sacred Law. 

Laws, General . See Laws of Masonry . 

Laws, Local . See Laws of Masonry. 

Laws of Masonry . The laws of Masonry, 

or those rules of action by which the Institution 

is governed, are very properly divided 

into three classes : 1 . Landmarks. 2 . General 

Laws or Regulations . 3 . Local Laws or 

Regulations . 

1 . Landmarks. These are the unwritten 

laws of the Order, derived from those ancient 

and universal customs which date at so remote 

a period that we have no record of their origin . 

2. General Laws . These are all those Regulations 

that have been enacted by such bodies 

as had at the time universal jurisdiction . 

They operate therefore, over the Craft 

wheresoever dispersed ; and as the paramount 

bodies which enacted them have long 

ceased to exist, it would seem that they are 

unrepealable . It is generally agreed that 

these General or Universal Laws are to be 

found in the old Constitutions and Charges, 

so far as they were recognized and accepted 

by the Grand Lodge of England at the revival 

in 1717, and adopted previous to the year 

1721 . 

3. Local Laws . These are the Regulations 

which, since 1721, have been and continue to 

be enacted by Grand Lodges . They are of 

force only in those jurisdictions which have 

adopted them, and are repealable by the bodies 

which have enacted them . They must, to 

be valid, be not repugnant to the Landmarks 

or the General Laws, which are of paramount 

authority . 

Lawsuits . In the Old Charges which were 

approved in 1722, and published in 1723, by 

Anderson, in the Book of Constitutions, the 

regulations as to lawsuits are thus laid down : 

"And if any of them do you injury, you must 

apply to your own or his Lodge, and from 

thence you may appeal to the Grand Lodge, 

at the Quarterly Communication, and from 

thence to the Annual Grand Lodge, as has 

been the ancient laudable conduct of our forefathers 

in every nation ; never taking a legal 

course but when the case cannot be otherwise 

decided, and patiently listening to the honest 

and friendly advice of Master and Fellows, 

when they would prevent you going to law 

with strangers, or would excite you to put a 

speedy period to all lawsuits, that so you may 

mind the affair of Masonry with the more 

alacrity and success ; but with respect to 

Brothers or Fellows at law, the Master and 

Brethren should kindly offer their mediation, 

which ought to be thankfully submitted to by 

the contending brethren ; and if that submission 

is impracticable, they must, however, 

carry on their process or lawsuit without 

wrath and rancor, (not in the common way,) 

saying or doing nothing which may hinder 

brotherly love and good offices to be renewed 

and continued ; that all may see the benign 

influence of Masonry, as all true Masons have 

done from the beginning of the world, and will 

do to the end of time ." (Constitutions, 1723, 

p . 56.) 

Lax Observance . (Observantia Lata.) 

When the Rite of Strict Observance was instituted 

in Germany by Von Hund, its disciples 

gave to all the other German Lodges 

which refused to submit to its obedience and 

adopt its innovations, but preferred to remain 

faithful to the English Rite, the title of 

" Lodges of Lax Observance ." Ragon, in his 

OrthodoxieMaconnique (p . 236), has committed 

the unaccountable error of calling it a schism, 

established at Vienna in 1767 ; thus evidently 

confounding it with Starck's Rite of the 

Clerks of Strict Observance . 

Lay Brothers. A society founded in the 

eleventh century, consisting of two classes, 

who were skilled in architecture ; also recognized 

as a degree in the Rite of Strict Observance 

. 

Layer . A term used in the old Records to 

designate a workman inferior to an Operative 

Freemason . Thus : "Alsoe that no Mason 

make moulds, square or rule to any rough 

layers." (Harleian MS ., No . 2054 .) 

In Dr . Murray's new English Dictionary 

the word is said to mean "one who lays stones ; 

a mason," and is described as obsolete in this 

sense . A quotation is given from Wyclif's 

Bible of 1382, 1 Chron . xxii. 15, "Many craftise 

men, masouns and leyers ." [E . L. H .] 

Lazarus, Order of. An order instituted 

in Palestine, termed the "United Order of St . 

Lazarus and of our Beloved Lady of Mount 

Carmel ." It was a military order engaged 

against the Saracens, by whom it was nearly 

destroyed . In 1150 the knights assumed the 

vows of Obedience, Poverty, and Chastity, in 

the presence of William the Patriarch . In 

1572, Gregory XII . united the Italian knights 

of the order with that of St. Maurice. Vincent 

de Paul, in 1617, founded a religious order, 

which was approved in 1626, and erected into 

a congregation in 1632, and so called from the 

priory of St . Lazarus in Paris, which was occupied 

by the order during the French Revolution. 

The members are called Priests of 

the Mission and are employed in teaching and 

missionary labors . 

Lebanon . A mountain, or rather a range 

of mountains in Syria, extending'from beyond 

Sidon to Tyre, and forming the northern 

boundary of Palestine . Lebanon is celebrated 

for the cedars which it produces, many 

of which are from fifty to eighty feet in height, 

and cover with their branches a space of 

ground the diameter of which is still greater . 

Hiram, King of Tyre, in whose dominions 

Mount Lebanon was situated, furnished these 

trees for the building of the Temple of Solomon. 

In relation to Lebanon, Kitto, in his 

Biblical Cyclopedia, has these remarks : "The 

forests of the Lebanon mountains only could

LEBANON 

LECTURE 429 

supply the timber for the Temple . Such of 

these forests as lay nearest the sea were in the 

possession of the Phoenicians, among whom 

timber was in such constant demand that 

they had acquired great and acknowledged 

skill in the felling and transportation thereof ; 

and hence it was of such importance that 

Hiram consented to employ large bodies of 

men in Lebanon to hew timber as well as 

others to perform the service of bringing it 

down to the seaside, whence it was to be taken 

along the coasts in floats to the port of Joppa, 

from which place it could be easily taken 

across the country to Jerusalem ." 

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite 

has dedicated to this mountain its Twentysecond 

Degree, or Prince of Lebanon . The 

Druses now inhabit Mount Lebanon, and 

still preserve there a secret organization . 

(See Druses .) 

Lebanon, Prince of . See Knight of the 

Royal Ax. 

Le Bauld de Nans, Claude Etienne. A 

distinguished Masonic writer, born at Besancon 

in 1736. He was by profession a highly 

respected actor, and a man of much learning, 

which he devoted to the cultivation of Freemasonry 

. He was for seven years Master of 

the Lodge St . Charles de 1'Union, in Mannheim 

; and on his removal to Berlin, in 1771, 

became the Orator of the Lodge Royale York 

de 1'Amitie, and editor of a Masonic journal . 

He delivered, while Orator of the Lodge-a 

position which he resigned in 1778-a large 

number of discourses, a collection of which 

was published at Berlin in 1788. He also 

composed many Masonic odes and songs, 

and published, in 1781, a collection of his 

songs for the use of the Lodge Royale York, 

and in 1786, his Lyre Magonnique . He is described 

by his contemporaries as a man of 

great knowledge and talents, and Fessler has 

paid a warm tribute to his learning and to his 

labors in behalf of Masonry . He died at Berlin 

in 1789. 

Leehangeur. An officer of one of the 

Lodges of Milan, Italy, of whom Rebold 

(Hilt. des Trois G . Loges, p . 575) gives the following 

account . When, in 1805, a Supreme 

Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 

Rite was established at Milan, Lechangeur 

became a candidate for membership . He 

received some of the degrees ; but subsequently 

the founders of the Council, for satisfactory 

reasons, declined to confer upon him 

the superior grades . Incensed at this, Lechangeur 

announced to them that he would 

elevate himself above them by creating a rite 

of ninety degrees, into which they should not be 

admitted . He carried this project into effect, 

and the result was the Rite of Mizraim, of 

which he declared himself to be the Superior 

Grand Conservator . His energies seem to 

have been exhausted in the creation of his unwieldy 

rite, for no Chapters were established 

except in the city of Naples. But in 1810 a 

patent was granted by him to Michel Bedarride, 

by whom the Rite was propagated in 

France. Lechangeur's fame, as the founder 

of the Rite, was overshadowed by the greater 

zeal and impetuosity of Bedarride, by whom 

his self-assumed prerogatives were usurped . 

He died in 1812 . 

Lecture. Each degree of Masonry contains 

a course of instruction, in which the ceremonies, 

traditions, and moral instruction appertaining 

to the degree are set forth. This 

arrangement is called a lecture. Each lecture, 

for the sake of convenience, and for the 

purpose of conforming to certain divisions in 

the ceremonies, is divided into sections, the 

number of which have varied at different periods, 

although the substance remains the same . 

According to Preston, the lecture of the first 

degree contains six sections ; that of the 

second, four ; and that of the third twelve . 

But according to the arrangement adoptedin 

this country, commonly known as the 

lectures," there are three sections in the first 

degree, two in the second, and three in the 

third . 

In the Entered Apprentices', the first section 

is almost entirely devoted to a recapitulation 

of the ceremonies of initiation . The 

initiatory portion, however, supplies certain 

modes of recognition . The second section is 

occupied with an explanation of the ceremonies 

that had been detailed in the first-the two 

together furnishing the interpretation of ritualistic 

symbolism . The third is exclusively 

occupied in explaining the signification of the 

symbols peculiar to the degree . 

In the Fellow-Craft's Degree, the first section, 

like the first section of the Entered Apprentice, 

is merely a recapitulation of ceremonies, 

with a passing commentary on some 

of them . The second section introduces the 

neophyte for the first time to the differences 

between Operative and Speculative Masonry 

and to the Temple of King Solomon as a 

Masonic symbol, while the candidate is ingeniously 

deputed as a seeker after knowledge 

. 

the Master's Degree the first section 

is again only a detail of ceremonies . The 

second section is the most important and impressive 

portion of all the lectures, for it contains 

the legend on which the whole symbolic 

character of the Institution is founded . The 

third section is an interpretation of the symbols 

of the degree, and is, of all the sections, 

the one least creditable to the composer . 

In fact, it must be confessed that many of 

the interpretations g~ven in these lectures are 

unsatisfactory to the cultivated mind, and 

seem to have been adopted on the principle 

of the old Egyptians, who made use of symbols 

to conceal rather than to express their 

thoughts. Learned Masons have been, therefore, 

always disposed to go beyond the mere 

technicalities and stereotyped phrases of the 

lectures, and to look in the history and the 

philosophy of the ancient religions, and the 

organization of the ancient mysteries, for a 

true explanation of most of the symbols of 

Masonry, and there they have always been 

enabled to find this true interpretation . The 

lectures, however, serve as an introduction or

430 LECTURER 

LECTURES 

liminary essay, enabling the student, as 

advances in his initiation, to become acguainted 

with the symbolic character of the 

Institution . But if he ever expects to become 

a learned Mason, he must seek in other sources 

for the true development of Masonic symbolism 

. The lectures alone are but the primer of 

the science . 

Lecturer, Grand . An officer known only 

in the United States. He is appointed by the 

Grand Master or the Grand Lodge . His duty 

is to visit the subordinate Lodges, and instruct 

them in the ritual of the Order as practised in 

his jurisdiction, for which he receives compensation 

partly from the Grand Lodge and partly 

from the Lodges which he visits . 

Lectures, History of the . To each of the 

degrees of Symbolic Masonry a catechetical 

instruction is appended, in which the ceremonies, 

traditions, and other esoteric instructions 

of the degree are contained . A knowledge 

of these lectures which must, of course, be 

communicated by oral teaching-constitutes 

a very important part of a Masonic education ; 

and, un the great progress made within the 

resent century Masonic literature, many 

p`bright Masons," as they are technically 

styled, could claim no other foundation than 

such a knowledge for their high Masonic reputation. 

But some share of learning more 

difficult to attain, and more sublime in its 

character than anything to be found in these 

oral catechisms, is now considered necessary 

to form a Masonic scholar. Still, as the best 

commentary on the ritual observances is to be 

found in the lectures, and as they also furnish a 

large portion of that secret mode of recognition, 

or that universal language, which has 

always been the boast of the Institution, not 

only is a knowledge of them absolutely necessary 

to every practical Freemason, but a history 

of the changes which they have from time 

to time undergone constitutes an interesting 

part of the literature of the Order. 

Comparatively speaking (comparatively in 

respect to the age of the Masonic Institution), 

the system of Lodge lectures is undoubtedly a 

modern invention . That is to say, we can 

find no traces of any forms of lectures like the 

present before the middle, or perhaps the close, 

of the seventeenth century . Examinations, 

however, of a technical nature, intended to 

test the claims of the person examined to the 

privileges of the Order, appear to have existed 

at an early period . They were used until at 

least the middle of the eighteenth century, 

but were perpetually changing, so that the 

tests of one generation of Masons constituted 

no tests for the succeeding one . Oliver very 

properly describes them as being "something 

like the conundrums of the present day-difficult 

of comprehension-admitting only of 

one answer, which appeared to have no direct 

correspondence with the question, and applicable 

only in consonance with the mysteries 

and symbols of the Institution." (On the Masonic 

Tests of the Eighteenth Century . Golden 

Remains, vol . iv ., p . 16 .) These tests were 

sometimes, at first, distinct from the lectures, 

and sometimes, at a later period, incorporated 

with them . A specimen is the answer to the 

question, "How blows the wind? " which was, 

"Due east and west ." 

The "Examination of a German Stone- 

Mason," which is given by Findel in the appendix 

to his History, was most probably in 

use in the fourteenth century . Dr . Oliver 

was in possession of what purports to be a 

formula, which he supposes to have been used 

during the Grand Mastership of Archbishop 

Chichely, in the reign of Henry VI ., and from 

which (Rev, of a Sq ., p . 11) he makes the following 

extracts : 

"Q . Peace be here? A . I hope there is . 

Q . What o'clock is it? A . It is going to six, 

or going to twelve . Q . Are you very busy? 

A . No. Q . Will you give or take? A . Both ; 

or which you please . Q . How go squares? 

A . Straight . Q . Are you rich or poor? A . 

Neither. Q . Change me that? A . I will . 

Q. In the name of the King and the Holy 

Church, are you a Mason? A . I am so taken 

to be. Q . What is a Mason? A . A man 

begot b a man, born of a woman, brother to a 

king . Q. What is a fellow? A . A companion 

of a prince, etc ." 

There are other questions and answers of a 

similar nature, conveying no instruction, and 

intended apparently to be used only as tests . 

Dr . Oliver attributes, it will be seen, the date 

of these questions to the beginning of the fifteenth 

century ; but the correctness of this 

assumption is doubtful . They have no internal 

evidence in style of having been the invention 

of so early a period of the English tongue . 

The earliest form of catechism that we have 

on record is that contained in the Sloane 

MS ., No. 3329, now in the British Museum, 

which has been printed and published by the 

Rev. A . F . A . Woodford. One familiar with 

the catechisms of the eighteenth century will 

detect the origin of much that they contain 

in this early specimen. It is termed in the 

manuscript the Mason's "private discourse 

by way of question and answer," and is in 

these words : 

"Q . Are you a mason? A . Yes, I am a 

Freemason. Q. How shall I know that? A . 

By perfect signes and tokens and the first 

poynts of my Entrance . Q. Which is the first 

signe or token, shew me the first and I will 

shew you the second. A . The first is heal 

and conceal or conceal and keep secrett by no 

less paine than cutting my tongue from my 

throat. Q . Where were you made a mason? 

A . In a just and perfect or just and lawfull 

lodge . Q. What is a just and perfect or just 

and lawfull lodge? A . A just and perfect 

lodge is two Interprintices two fellow crafter 

and two Mast'rs, more or fewer the more the 

merrier the fewer the better chear but if need 

require five will serve that is, two Inter rintices, 

two fellow craftes and one Mast r on 

the highest hill or lowest valley of the world 

without the crow of a cock or the bark of a 

dogg. Q . From whome do you derive your 

rincipalls? A . From a great'r than you . 

. Who is that on earth that is great'r than a 

6

LECTURES 

LECTURES 431 

freemason? A . He y't was caryed to y'e 

highest pinnicall of the temple of Jerusalem . 

Q . Whith'r is your lodge shut or open ? A . 

It is shut. Q. Where lyes the keys of the 

lodge doore? A . They ley in a bound case or 

under a three cornered pavem't about a foote 

and halfe from the lodge door . Q. What is 

the key of your lodge doore made of? A . 

It is not made of wood stone iron or steel 

or any sort of mettle but the tongue of good 

report behind a Broth'rs back as well as before 

his face . Q . How many jewels belong to 

your lodge? A . There are three the square 

pavem't the blazing star and the Danty tassley 

. Q. How long is the cable rope of your 

lodge? A . As long as from the Lop of the 

liver to the root of the tongue . Q . How many 

lights are in your lodge? A . Three the sun 

the mast'r and the square . Q . How high is 

your lodge? A . Without foots yards or 

Inches, it reaches to heaven . Q . How stood 

your lodge? A . East and west as all holly 

Temples stand . Q . W'ch is the mast'rs place 

in the lodge? A . The east place is the mast'rs 

place in the lodge and the jewell resteth on him 

first and he setteth men to worke w't the m'rs 

have in the forenoon the wardens reap in the 

afternoon. Q. Where was the word first given? 

A . At the tower of Babylon. Q. Where did 

they first call their lodge? A . At the holy 

chapell of St . John. Q . How stood your 

lodge? A . As the said holy chapell and all 

other holy Temples stand (viz .) east and west . 

Q . How many lights are in your lodge? A . 

Two one to see to go in and another to see to 

work . Q . What were you sworne by? A . 

By God and the square . Q. Whither above 

the cloathes or und'r the cloathes? A . Und'r 

the cloathes. Q. Und'r what acme? A . Und'r 

the right arme. God is gratfull to all Worehipfull 

Mast'rs and fellows in that worshipfull 

lodge from whence we last came and to 

you good fellow w't is your name . A . J or B 

then giving the grip of the hand he will say 

Broth 'r John greet you well you. A . God's 

good greeting to you dear Broth'r ." 

But when we speak of the lectures, in the 

modern sense, as containing an exposition of 

the symbolism of the Order, we may consider 

it as an established historical fact, that the 

Fraternity were without any such system until 

after the revival in 1717 . Previous to that 

time brief extemporary addresses and charges 

in addition to these test catechisms were used 

by the Masters of Lodges, which, of course, 

varied in excellence with the varied attainments 

and talents of the presiding officer . 

We know, however, that a series of charges 

were in use about the middle and end of the 

seventeenth century, which were ordered "to 

be read at the making of a Freemason ." 

These "Charges and Covenants," as they 

were called, contained no instructions on the 

symbolism and ceremonies of the Order, but 

were confined to an explanation of the duties 

of Masons to each other . They were altogether 

exoteric in their character, and have 

accordingly been repeatedly printed in the authorized 

publications of the Fraternity . 

Dr . Oliver, who had ampler opportunities 

than any other Masonic writer of investigating 

this subject, says that the earliest authorized 

lectures with which he has met were 

those of 1720 . They were arranged by Drs . 

Anderson and Desaguliers, perhaps at the 

same time that they were compiling the 

Charges and Regulations from the ancient 

Constitutions . They were written in a catechetical 

form, which form has ever since been 

retained in all subsequent Masonic lectures . 

Oliver says that "the questions and answers 

are short and comprehensive, and contain a 

brief digest of the general principles of the 

Craft as it was understood at that period ." 

The "digest" must, indeed, have been brief, 

since the lecture of the Third Degree, or what 

was called "the Master's Part," contained 

only thirty-one questions many of which are 

simply tests of recognition . Dr . Oliver says 

the number of questions was only seven ; but 

he probably refers to the seven tests which 

conclude the lecture . There axe, however, 

twenty-four other questions that precede 

these. 

A comparison of these-the primitive lectures, 

as they may be called-with those in 

use in America at the present day, demonstrate 

that a great many changes have taken 

place. There are not only omissions of some 

things, and additions of others, but sometimes 

the explanations of the same points are 

entirely different in the two systems. Thus 

the Andersonian lectures describe the " furniture 

" of a Lodge as being the "Mosaic pavement, 

blazing star, and indented tassel, emblems 

which are now, perhaps more properly, 

designated as "ornaments ." But the present 

furniture of a Lodge is also added to the pavement, 

star, and tassel, under the name of 

"other furniture ." The "greater lights" of 

Masonry are entirely omitted, or, if we are to 

suppose them to be meant by the expression 

"fixed lights," then these are referred, differently 

from our system, to the three windows of 

the Lodge. 

In the First Degree may be noticed, among 

others, the following points in the Andersonian 

lectures which are omitted in the American 

system : the place and duty of the Senior 

and Junior Entered Apprentices, the punishment 

of cowans, the bone bone-box, and all 

that refers to it ; the clothing of the Master, 

the age of an Apprentice, the uses of the day 

and night, and the direction of the wind . 

These latter, however, are, strictly speaking 

what the Masons of that time denominated 

"tests ." In the same degree, the following, 

besides many other important points in the 

present system are altogether omitted in the 

old lectures of Anderson : the place where 

Masons anciently met, the theological ladder, 

and the lines parallel . Important charges 

have been made in several particulars ; as, for 

instance, in the "points of entrance," the ancient 

lecture giving an entirely different interpretation 

of the e ression, and designating 

what are now call " points of entrance" by 

the term "principal signs" ; the distinctions

432 LECTURES 

LECTURES 

between Operative and Speculative Masonry, 

which are now referred to the Second Degree, 

are there given in the First ; and the dedication 

of the Bible, compass, and square is differently 

explained . 

In the Second Degree, the variations of the 

old from the modern lectures are still greater . 

The old lecture is, in the first place, very brief, 

and much instruction deemed important at 

the present day was then altogether omitted . 

There is no reference to the distinctions between 

Operative and Speculative Masonry 

(but this topic is adverted to in the former 

lecture) ; the approaches to the middle chamber 

are very differently arranged ; and not a 

single wordy is said of the fords of the river 

Jordan. It must be confessed that the ancient 

lecture of the Fellow-Craft is immeasurably 

inferior to that contained in the modern 

system, and especially in that of Webb . 

The Andersonian lecture of the Third Degree 

is brief, and therefore imperfect . The 

legend is, of course, referred to, and its explanation 

occupies nearly the whole of the lecture ; 

but the details are meager, and many important 

facts are omitted, while there are in other 

points striking differences between the ancient 

and the present system . 

But, after all, there is a general feature of 

similarity-a substratum of identity-pervading 

the two systems of lectures-the ancient 

and the modern-which shows that the 

one derives its parentage from the other . In 

fact, some of the answers given in the year 

1730 are, word for word, the same as those 

used in America at the present time . 

[Martin Clare and Dunckerley (q . v .) are 

often credited with being revisers of the English 

ritual and lectures, but as there is no 

proof whatever that they had anything to 

do with such revision it does not seem 

worth while to repeat the well-worn tale here . 

-E . L . H .] 

[Nothing can be said with any certainty 

about the lectures in England until the last 

quarter of the eighteenth century, when William 

Preston took the matter in hand and 

revised or more probably rewrote them entirely 

.-E . L. H .] 

He divided the lecture on the First Degree 

pinto six sections, the Second into four, and the 

third into twelve . But of the twelve sections 

of the third lecture, seven only strictly appertain 

to the Master's Degree, the remaining five 

referring to the ceremonies of the Order 

which, in the Adierican system are contained 

in the Past Master's lectA*e. Neaten has recapitulated 

the subjects of these several lectures 

in his Illustrations of Masonry ; and if 

the book were not now so readily accessible, it 

would be worth while to copy his remarks . 

It is sufficient, however, to say that he has presented 

us with a philosophical system of Masonry, 

which, coming immediately after the 

unscientific and scanty details which up to his 

time had been the subjects of Lodge instructions, 

must have been like the bursting forth 

of a sun from the midst of midnight darkness . 

There was no twilight or dawn to warn the 

unexpectant Fraternity of the light that was 

about to shine upon them . But at once 

without preparation-without any gradual 

progress or growth from almost nothing to 

superfluity-the Prestonian lectures were 

given to the Order in all their fulness of illustration 

and richness of symbolism and science, 

as a substitute for the plain and almost unmeaning 

systems that had previously prevailed 

. Not that Freemasonry had not always 

been a science, but that for all that time, 

and longer, her science had been dormanthad 

been in abeyance . From 1717 the Craft 

had been engaged in something less profitable, 

but more congenial than the cultivation of 

Masonic science. The pleasant suppers, the 

modicums of punch, the harmony of song, the 

miserable puns, which would have provoked 

the ire of Johnson beyond anything that Boswell 

has recorded, left no time for inquiry into 

abstruser matters . The revelations of Dr . 

Oliver's square furnish us abundant positive 

evidence of the low state of Masonic literature 

in those days ; and if we need negative proof, 

we will find it in the entire absence of any 

readable book on Scientific Masonry, until the 

appearance of Hutchinson's and Preston's 

works. Preston's lectures were, therefore, 

undoubtedly the inauguration of a new era in 

the esoteric system of Freemasonry . 

These lectures continued for nearly half a 

century to be the authoritative text of the 

Order in England . But in 1813 the two 

Grand Lodges-the "Moderns" and the 

"Ancients," as they were called-after years 

of antagonism, were happily united, and then, 

as the first exercise of this newly combined authority, 

it was determined "to revise" the 

system of lectures . 

This duty was entrusted to the Rev. Dr . 

Hemming, the Senior Grand Warden, and the 

result was the Union or Hemming lectures, 

which are now the authoritative standard of 

English Masonry. In these lectures many 

alterations of the Prestonian system were 

made, and some of the most cherished symbols 

of the Fraternity were abandoned, as, for instance, 

the twelve grand points, the initiation of 

the free born, and the lines parallel . Preston's 

lectures were rejected in consequence, it is 

said, of their Christian references ; and Dr . 

Hemming, in attempting to avoid this error, 

fell into a greater one, of omitting in his new 

course some of the important ritualistic landmarks 

of the Order . 

[Nothing definite can be stated about the 

lectures used in America until near the end of 

the eighteenth century, when a system of lectures 

was put forth by Thomas Smith Webb . 

-E. L. H.] 

The lectures of Webb contained much that 

was almost a verbal copy of parts of Preston ; 

but the whole system was briefer, and the 

paragraphs were framed with an evident view 

to facility in committing them to memory . It 

is an herculean task to acquire the whole system 

of Prestonian lectures, while that of Webb 

may be mastered in a comparatively short 

time, and by much inferior intellects. There

LEFRANC 

LEGEND 433 

have, in consequence, in former years been 

many "bright Masons" and "skilful lecturers 

" whose brightness and skill consisted only 

in the easy repetition from memory of the set 

form of phrases established by Webb, and who 

were otherwise ignorant of all the science, the 

philosophy, and the history of Masonry . But 

m the later years, a perfect verbal knowledge 

of the lectures has not been esteemed so highly 

in America as in England, and the most erudite 

Masons have devoted themselves to the 

study of-those illustrations and that symbolism 

of the Order which lie outside of the lectures. 

Book Masonry-that is, the study of 

the principles of the Institution as any other 

science is studied, by means of the various 

treatises which have been written on these 

subjects-has been, from year to year, getting 

more popular with the American Masonic public 

which is becoming emphatically a reading 

people . 

The lecture on the Third Degree is eminently 

Hutchinsonian in its character, and 

contains the bud from which, by a little cultivation, 

we might bring forth a gorgeous blossom 

of symbolism. Hence, the Third Degree 

has always been the favorite of American Masons. 

But the lectures of the First and Second 

degrees, the latter particularly, are meaer 

and unsatisfactory . The explanations, 

f 

or instance, of the form and extent of the 

Lodge, of its covering of the theological ladder, 

and especially of the point within the 

circle, will disappoint any intellectual student 

who is seeking, in a symbolical science, for 

some rational explanation of its symbols that 

promises to be worthy of his investigations . 

Lefranc. The Abb6 Lefranc, Superior of 

the House of the Eudistes at Caen was a very 

bitter enemy of Freemasonry, an~ the author 

of two libelous works against Freemasonry, 

both published in Paris ; the first and best 

known, entitled Le Voile leve pour les curteux, 

ou le secret des revolutions, revels d 

l'aide de la Franc-Magonnerie, 1791 (republished 

at Liege in 1827), and the other, Conjuration 

contre la religion Catholique et les 

souverains, dont le projet, eongu eu France, 

doit s'exeeuter dens l'univers entier, 1792 . 

In these scandalous books, and especially in 

the former, Lefranc has, to use the language 

of Thory (Acta Let ., i ., 192), "vomited the 

most undeserved abuse of the Order." Of the 

Veil Lifted, the two great detractors of Masonry, 

Robison and Barruel, entertained different 

opinions. Robison made great use of it 

in his Proofs of a Conspiracy ; but Barruel, 

while speaking highly of the Abbt's virtues, 

doubts his accuracy and declines to trust to 

his authority . Lefranc was slain in the massacre 

of September 2d, at the Convent of the 

Carmelites, in Paris, with one hundred and 

ninety-one other priests . Thory (1 . c.) says 

that M . Ledhui, a Freemason, who was present 

at the sanguinary scene, attempted to 

save the life of Lefranc, and nearly lost his 

own in the effort . The Abbt; says that, on the 

death of a friend, who was a zealous Mason 

and Master of a Lodge, he found among his 

papers a collection of Masonic writings containing 

the rituals of a great many degrees, 

and from these he obtained the information 

on which he has based his attacks upon the 

Order . Some idea may be formed of his accuracy 

and credibility from the fact that he 

asserts that Faustus Socinus, the Father of 

Modern Unitarianism, was the contriver and 

inventor of the Masonic system-a theory so 

absurd that even Robison and Barruel both 

reject it . 

Left Hand. Among the ancients the left 

hand was a symbol of equity and justice . 

Thus, Apuleius (Met ., 1. xi .), when describing 

the procession in honor of Isis says one of the 

ministers of the sacred rites "bore the symbol 

of equity, a left hand, fashioned with the palm 

extended ; which seems to be more adapted to 

adm inistering equity than the right, from its 

natural inertness, and its being endowed 

with no craft and no subtlety ." 

Left Side. In the symbolism of Masonry, 

the First Degree is represented by the left 

side, which is to indicate that as the left is the 

weaker part of the body, so is the Entered Apprentice 

s Degree the weakest part of Masonry. 

This doctrine, that the left is the 

weaker side of the body, is very ancient . Plato 

says it arises from the fact that the right is 

more used ; but Aristotle contends that the 

organs of the right side are by nature more 

powerful than those of the left . 

Legally Constituted . See Constituted, 

Legally . 

Legate. In the Middle Ages, a legate, or 

legatus, was one who was, says Du Cange 

(Glossar.), "in provincias a Principe ad exercendas 

judicias mittebalur," sent by a prince 

into the provinces to exercise judicial functions 

. The word is now applied by the Supreme 


Scottish Rite to designate certain persons who 

are sent into unoccupied territory to propagate 

the Rite . The word is, however, of recent 

origin, not having been used before 1866 . 

A legate should be in possession of at least the 

Thirty-second Degree . 

Legend . Strictly speaking, a legend, from 

the Latin, legendus, "to be read," should be 

restricted to a story that has been committed 

to writing ; but by good usage the word has 

been applied more extensively, and now properly 

means a narrative, whether true or false, 

that has been traditionally preserved from 

the time of its first oral communication . Such 

is the definition of a Masonic legend . The 

authors of the Conversations Lexicon, referring 

to the monkish lives of the saints which 

originated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 

say that the title legend was given to all 

fictions which made pretensions to truth . 

Such a remark, however correct it may be in 

reference to these monkish narratives, which 

were often invented as ecclesiastical exercises, 

is by no means applicable to the legends of 

Freemasonry . These are not necessarily fictitious, 

but are either based on actual and historical 

facts which have been but slightly modified, 

or they are the offspring and expansion

434 LEGEND 

LEGEND 

of some symbolic idea ; in which latter respect 

they differ entirely from the monastic legends, 

which often have only the fertile imagination 

of some studious monk for the basis of their 

construction . 

The instructions of Freemasonry are given 

to us in two modes : by the symbol and by the 

legend . The symbol is a material, and the 

legend a mental, representation of a truth . 

The sources of neither can be in every case authentically 

traced. Many of them come to us, 

undoubtedly, from the old Operative Masons 

of the Medieval gilds. But whence they got 

them is a question that naturally arises, and 

which still remains unanswered . Others have 

sprung from a far earlier source- perhaps, as 

Creuzer has suggested in his Sym~bolik, from an 

effort to engraft higher and purer knowledge 

on an imperfect religious idea . If so, then the 

myths of the Ancient Mysteries, and the legends 

or traditions of Freemasonry, would have 

the same remote and the same final cause . 

They would differ in construction, but they 

would agree in design . For instance, the 

myth of Adonis in the Syrian mysteries, and 

the legend of Hiram Abif in the Third Degree, 

would differ very widely in their details ; but 

the object of each would be the same, namely, 

to teach the doctrine of the restoration from 

death to eternal life . 

The legends of Freemasonry constitute a 

considerable and a very important part of its 

ritual. Without them, its most valuable portions 

as a scientific system would cease to 

exist . It is, in fact, in the traditions and 

legends of Freemasonry, more, even, than in 

its material symbols, that we are to find the 

deep religious instructions which the Institution 

is intended to inculcate. It must be 

remembered that Freemasonry has been defined 

to be "a system of morality, veiled in allegory 

and illustrated by symbols ." Symbols, 

then, alone, do not constitute the whole of the 

system : allegory comes in for its share ; and 

this allegory, which veils the Divine truths of 

Masonry, is presented to the neophyte in the 

various legends which have been traditionally 

preserved in the Order . 

They may be divided into three classes : 

1 . The Mythical legend. 2. The Philosophical 

legend 3 . The Historical legend . And 

these three classes may be defined as follows : 

1 . The myth may be engaged in the transmission 

of a narrative of early deeds and 

events having a foundation in truth, which 

truth, however, has been greatly distorted and 

perverted by the omission or introduction of 

circumstances and personages, and then it 

constitutes the mythical legend. 

2 . Or it may have been invented and 

adopted as the medium of enunciating a particular 

thought, or of inculcating a certain doctrine, 

when it becomes a philosophical legend . 

3 . Or, lastly, the truthful elements of actual 

history may greatly predominate over the fictitious 

and invented materials of the myth ; 

and the narrative may be, in the main, made 

up of facts, with a slight coloring of imagination, 

when it forms an historical legend . 

Legend of Enoch. See Enoch . 

Legend of Euclid . See Euclid, Legend of. 

Legend of the Craft . The Old Records 

of the Fraternity of Operative Freemasons, 

under the general name of Old Constitutions or 

Constitutions of Masonry, or Old Charges, were 

written in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, 

and seventeenth centuries . The loss of many 

of these by the indiscretion of overzealous 

brethren was deplored by Anderson ; but a few 

of them have been long known to us, and 

many more have been recently recovered, by 

the labors of such men as Hughan, from the 

archives of old Lodges and from manuscript 

collections in the British Museum . In these 

is to be found a history of Freemasonry ; full, 

it is true, of absurdities and anachronisms, 

and yet exceedingly interesting, as giving us 

the belief of our ancient brethren on the subject 

of the origin of the Order . This history 

has been called by Masonic writers the "LEG- 

END OF THE CRAFT " because it is really a legendary 

narrative, laving little or no historic 

authenticity. In all these Old Constitutions, 

the legend is substantially the same ; showing, 

evidently, a common origin ; most probably 

an oral teaching which prevailed in the earliest 

ages of the confraternity. In giving it, the 

Dowland Manuscript, as reproduced in Hughan's 

Old Charges (1872), has been selected for 

the purpose, because it is believed to be a 

copy of an older one of the beginning of the 

sixteenth century, and because its rather 

modernized spelling makes it more intelligible 

to the general reader . 

THE LEGEND OF THE CRAFT . 

"Before Noyes floode there was a man 

called Lameche as it is written in the Byble, 

in the iiijth chapter of Genesis; and this Lameche 

had two wives, and the one height 

Ada and the other height Sella ; by his first 

wife Ada he gott two sons, and that one 

Jahell, and thother Tuball, And by that other 

wife Sella he gott a son and a daughter . And 

these four children founden the begining of all 

the sciences in the world . And this elder son 

Jahell found the science of Geometrie, and he 

departed flocks of sheepe and lambs in the 

field, and first wrought house of stone and 

tree, as is noted in the chapter above said . 

And his brother Tuball found the science of 

Musicke, songe of tonge, harpe and orgaine . 

And the third brother Tubal1 Cain found 

smithcraft of gold, silver, copper, iron, and 

steele ; and the daughter found the craft of 

Weavinge . And these children knew well that 

God would take vengeance for synn, either by 

fire or by water ; wherefore they writt their 

science that they had found in two pillars of 

stone, that they might be found after Noyes 

flood. And that one stone was marble, for 

that would not bren with fire ; and that other 

stone was clepped laterns, and would not 

drown in noe water . 

"Our intent is to tell you trulie how and in 

what manner these stones were found, that 

thise sciences were written in . The great Hermarynes 

that was Cubys son, the which Cub

LEGEND 

LEGEND 435 

was Sem's son that was Noys son. This 

Hermarynes, afterwards was called Harmes 

the father of wise men : he found one of the 

two pillars of stone, and found the science 

written there, and he taught it to other men . 

And at the making of the Tower of Babylon 

there was Masonrye first made much of . And 

the Kinge of Babylon that height Nemrothe, 

was a mason himself e, and loved well the science, 

as it is said with masters of histories . 

And when the City of Nyneve, and other citties 

of the East should be made, Nemrothe, 

the Kinge of Babilon, sent thither threescore 

Masons at the rogation of the Kinge of Nyneve 

his cosen . And when he sent them forth, he 

gave them a charge on this manner : That 

they should be true each of them to other, and 

that they should love truly together, and that 

they should serve their lord truly for their 

pay ; soe that the master may have worshipp, 

and all that long to him . And other moe 

charges he gave them . And this was the first 

tyme that ever Masons had any charge of his 

science. 

"Moreover, when Abraham and Sara his 

wife went into Egipt there he taught the 

Seaven Scyences to the Egiptians ; and he 

had a worthy Scoller that height Ewclyde, 

and he learned right well, and was a master of 

all the vii Sciences liberall . And in his dayes 

it befell that the lord and the estates of the 

realme had soe many sons that they had 

gotten some by their wifes and some by other 

ladyes of the realme ; for that land is a hott 

land and a plentious of generation . And they 

had not competent livelode to find with their 

children ; wherefore they made much care . 

And then the King of the land made a great 

Counsell and a parliament, to witt, how they 

might find their children honestly as gentlemen 

. And they could find noe manner of 

good way . And then they did crye through 

all the realme, if their were any man that could 

informe them, that he should come to them, 

and he should be soe rewarded for his travail, 

that he should hold him pleased . 

"After that this cry was made, then came 

this worthy clarke Ewclyde, and said to the 

king and to all his great lords : Ìf yee will, 

take me your children to governe and to 

teache them one of the Seaven §cyences, 

wherewith they may live honestly as gentlemen 

should, under a condition that yee will 

grant me and them a commission that I may 

have power to rule them after the manner that 

the science ought to be ruled .' And that the 

Kinge and all his Counsell granted to him 

anone, and sealed their commission . And then 

this worthy Doctor tooke to him these lords' 

sons, and taught them the scyence of Geometrie 

in practice, for to work in stones- all 

manner of worthy worke that belongeth to 

buildinge churches, temples, castells, towres, 

and manors, and all other manner of buildings 

; and he gave them a charge on this manner 

: 

"The first was, that they should be true to 

the Kinge, and to the lord that they owe . 

And that they should love well together, and 

be true each one to other . And that they 

should call each other his fellowe, or else 

brother and not by servant, nor his nave, nor 

none other foule name . And that the should 

deserve their paie of the lord, or of the master 

that they serve. And that they should ordaine 

the wisest of them to be master of the 

worke; and neither for love nor great lynneage, 

ne ritches ne for noe favour to lett another 

that hath little conning for to be master 

of the lord's worke wherethrough the lord 

should be evill served and they ashamed . And 

also that they should call their governors of 

the worke, Master, in the time that they 

worke with him. And other many moe 

charges that longe to tell . And to all these 

charges he made them to sweare a great oath 

that men used in that time ; and ordayned 

them for reasonable wages, that they might 

live honestly by And- also that they should 

come and semble together every yeare once 

how they might worke best to serve the lord 

for his profitt= and to their own worshipp ; and 

to correct within themselves him that had 

trespassed against the science . And thus was 

the scyence grounded there ; and that worthy 

Mr. Ewclide gave it the name of Geometric . 

And now it is called through all this land Maso 

e. 

" ythen longe after, when the Children of 

Israeli were coming into the Land of Beheast, 

that is now called amongst us the Country of 

Jhrlm, King David began the Temple that 

they called Templum D'ni and it is named 

with us the Temple of Jerusalem. And the 

same King David loved Masons well and 

cherished them much, and gave them good 

paie. And he gave the charges and the manners 

as he had learned of Egipt given by 

Ewclyde, and other charges moe that ye shall 

heare afterwards . And after the decease of 

Kinge David, Salamon, that was David's 

son, performed out the Temple that his 

father begone ; and sent after Masons into 

divers countries and of divers lands- and 

gathered them together, so that he had fourscore 

thousand workers of stone, and were all 

named Masons . And he chose out of them 

three thousand that were ordayned to be 

maisters and governors of his worke . And 

furthermore, there was a Kinge of another 

region that men called Iram, and he loved well 

Kinga Solomon, and he gave him tymber to his 

worke. And he had a son that height Aynon, 

and he was a Master of Geometric, and was 

chiefe Maister of all his Masons, and was 

Master of all his gravings and carvinge, and of 

all other manner of Masonrye that longed to 

the Temple ; and this is witnessed by the Bible 

in libro Regum the third chapter . And this 

Solomon confirmed both charges and the manners 

that his father had given to Masons . 

And thus was that worthy science of Masonrye 

confirmed in the country of Jerusalem, and 

in many other kingdomes . 

"Curious craftsmen walked about full wide 

into divers countryes, some because of learninge 

more craft and cunninge, and some to 

teach them that had but little conynge . And

436 LEGEND 

LEGEND 

soe it befell that there was one curious Mason 

that height Maymus Grecus, that had been at 

the making of Solomon's Temple, and he came 

into France, and there he taught the science 

of Masonrye to men of France . And there 

was one of the Regal lyne of France, that 

height Charles Martell ; and he was a man 

that loved well such a science, and drew to this 

Maymus Grecus that is above said, and 

learned of him the science, and tooke upon 

him the charges and manners ; and afterwards, 

by the grace of God, he was elect to be Kinge 

of France. And when he was in his estate he 

tooke Masons, and did helpe to make men 

Masons that were none ; and set them to 

worke, and gave them both the charge and the 

manners and good paie, as he had learned of 

other Masons ; and confirmed them a Chartor 

from yeare to yeare, to hold their semble wher 

they would ; and cherished them right much ; 

And thus came the science into France . 

"England in all this season stood voyd as 

for any charge of Masonrye unto St . Albones 

tyme . And in his days the King of England 

that was a Pagan, he did wall the towne about 

that is called Sainct Albones . And Sainct Albones 

was a worthy Knight, and steward with 

the Kinge of his Household, and had governance 

of the realme, and also of the makinge 

of the town walls ; and loved well Masons and 

cherished them much . And he made their 

paie right good, standinge as the realm did, 

for he gave them ijs . vjd . a weeke, and iijd . 

to their nonesynches . And before that time, 

through all this land, a Mason took but a 

penny a day and his meate, till Sainct Albone 

amended it, and gave them a chartour of the 

Kinge and his Counsell for to hold a general 

councell, and gave it the name of Assemble ; 

and thereat he was himselfe, and helped to 

make Masons, and gave them charges as yee 

shall heare afterward . 

"Right scone after the decease of Sainct 

Albone, there came divers warrs into the 

realme of England of divers Nations, soe that 

the good rule of Masonrye was destroyed unto 

the tyme of Kinge Athelstone days that was a 

worthy Kingeof England and broughtthis land 

into good rest and peace' and builded many 

great works of Abbyes and Towres, and other 

many divers buildings ; and loved well Masons . 

And he had a son that height Edwinne, and he 

loved Masons much more than his father did . 

And he was a great practiser in Geometry ; 

and he drew him much to talke and to commune 

with Masons, and to learne of them science 

; and afterward, for love that he had to 

Masons, and to the science, he was made a 

Mason, and he gatt of the Kinge his father a 

Chartour and Commission to hold every yeare 

once an Assemble, wher that ever they would 

within the realme of England • and to correct 

within themselves defaults and trespasses that 

were done within the science . And he held 

himself an Assemble at Yorke, and there he 

made Masons, and gave them charges, and 

taught them the manners, and commanded 

that rule to be kept ever after, and tooke then 

the Chartour and Commission to keepe, and 

made ordinance that it should be renewed 

from Kinge to Kinge . 

"And when the assemble was gathered he 

made a cry that all old Masons and young 

that had any writeinge or understanding of 

the charges and the manners that were made 

before in this land or in any other that they 

should show them forth . And when it was 

proved, there were founden some in Frenche 

and some in Greek, and some in English, and 

some in other languages ; and the intent of 

them all was founden all one . And he did 

make a booke thereof, and how the science was 

founded . And he himselfe bad and commanded 

that it should be readd or tould, when 

that any Mason should be made, for to give 

him his Charge . And fro that day unto this 

tyme manners of Masons have beene kept in 

that forme as well as men might governe it . 

And furthermore divers Assembles have beene 

put and ordayned certaine charges by the best 

advice of Masters and fellowes ." 

If anyone carefully examines this legend, 

he will find that it is really a history of the rise 

and progress of architecture, with which is 

mixed allusions to the ancient gilds of the Operative 

Masons . Geometry also, as a science 

essentially necessary to the proper cultivation 

of architecture, receives a due share of attention 

. In thus confounding architecture, geometry 

and Freemasonry, the workmen of 

the Middle Ages were but obeying a natural instinct 

which leads every man to seek to elevate 

the character of his profession, and to 

give to it an authentic claim to antiquity . 

It is this instinct which has given rise to so 

much of the mythical element in the modern 

history of Masonry. Anderson has thus written 

his records in the very spirit of the legend 

of the Craft, and Preston and Oliver have followed 

his example . Hence this legend derives 

its great importance from the fact that 

it has given a complexion to all subsequent 

Masonic history . In dissecting it with critical 

hands, we shall be enabled to dissever its 

historical from its mythical portions, and assign 

to it its true value as an exponent of the 

Masonic sentiment of the Middle Ages . 

Legend of the Gild . A title by which 

the Legend of the Craft is sometimes designated 

in reference to the Gild of. Operative 

Masons . 

Legend of the Royal Arch Degree . 

Much of this legend is a myth, having very 

little foundation, and some of it none, in historical 

accuracy . But underneath it all there 

lies a profound stratum of philosophical symbolism. 

The destruction and the rebuilding 

of the Temple by the efforts of Zerubbabel and 

his compatriots, the captivity and the return 

of the captives, are matters of sacred history ; 

but many of the details have been invented 

and introduced for the purpose of giving form 

to a symbolic idea . And this idea, expressed 

in the symbolism of the Royal Arch, is the 

very highest form of that which the ancient 

Mystagogues called the euresis, or the discovery 

. There are some portions of the 

legend which do not bear directly on the sym-

LEGEND 

bolism of the second Temple as a type of the 

second life, but which still have an indirect 

bearing on the general idea . Thus the'particular 

legend of the three weary sojourners is 

undoubtedly a mere myth, there being no 

known historical testimony for its support ; 

but it is evidently the enunciation symbolically 

of the religious and philosophical idea that 

Divine truth may be sought and won only by 

successful perseverance through all the dan- 

F.ers, trials, and tribulations of life, and that 

it is not in this, but in the next life, that it is 

fully attained . 

The legend of the English and the American 

systems is identical ; that of the Irish is very 

different as to the time and events ; and the 

legend of the Royal Arch of the Scottish Rite 

is more usually called the legend of Enoch. 

Legend of the Third Degree . The most 

important and significant of the legendary 

symbols of Freemasonry is, undoubtedly, that 

which relates to the fate of Hiram Abif, commonly 

called, "by way of excellence," the 

Legend of the Third Degree . 

The first written record that I have been 

able to find of this legend is contained in the 

second edition of Anderson's Constitutions, 

published in 1738 (p . 14), and is in these 

words : 

"It (the Temple) was finished in the short 

space of seven years and six months, to the 

amazement of all the world ; when the capestone 

was celebrated by the Fraternity with 

b eat joy. But their joy was soon interrupted 

y the sudden death of their dear master, 

Hiram Abif, whom they decently interred in 

the Lodge near the Temple, according to 

ancient usage." 

In the next edition of the same work, published 

in 1756 (p. 24), a few additional circumstances 

are related, such as the participation 

of King Solomon in the general grief and the 

fact that the King of Israel "ordered his 

obsequies to be performed with great solemnity 

and decency ." With these exceptions, 

and the citations of the same passages, made 

by subsequent authors, the narrative has always 

remained unwritten, and descended, 

from age to age, through the means of oral 

tradition. 

The legend has been considered of so much 

importance that it has been preserved in the 

symbolism of every Masonic rite . No matter 

what modifications or alterations the general 

system may have undergone-no matter how 

much the ingenuity or the imagination of the 

founders of rites may have perverted or corrupted 

other symbols, abolishing the old and 

substituting new ones-the legend of the 

Temple Builder has ever been left untouched, 

to present itself in all the integrity of its 

ancient mythical form . 

What, then, is the signification of this symbol 

so important and so extensively diffused? 

What interpretation can we give to it that 

will account for its universal adoption? How 

is it that it has thus become so intimately 

interwoven with Freemasonry as to make, to 

all appearances, a part of its very essence, and 

LEGEND 437 

u 

to have been always deemed inseparable 

from it? 

To answer these questions satisfactorily, it 

is necessary to trace, in a brief investigation, 

the remote origin of the institution of Freemasonry 

and its connection with the ancient 

systems of initiation . 

It was, then, the object of all the rites and 

mysteries of antiquity to teach the doctrine 

of the immortality of the soul . This dogma, 

shining as an almost solitary beacon-light in 

the surrounding gloom of Pagan darkness, had 

undoubtedly been received from that ancient 

people or priesthood, among whom it probably 

existed only in the form of an abstract proposition 

or a simple and unembellished tradition . 

But in the more sensual minds of the Pagan 

philosophers and mystics, the idea, when 

presented to the initiates in their mysteries, 

was always conveyed in the form of a scenic 

representation. The influence, too of the 

early Sabian worship of the sun and heavenly 

bodies, in which the solar orb was adored 

on its resurrection, each morning, from the 

apparent death of its evening setting, caused 

this rising sun to be adopted in the more ancient 

mysteries as a symbol of the regeneration 

of the soul . 

Thus, in the Egyptian mysteries we find a 

representation of the death and subsequent 

regeneration of Osiris ; in the Phoenician, of 

Adonis ; in the Syrian, of Dionysus ; in all of 

which the scenic apparatus of initiation was 

intended to indoctrinate the candidate into 

the dogma of a future life . 

It will be sufficient here to refer to the 

theory of Oliver, that through the instrumentality 

of the Tyrian workmen at the Temple 

of King Solomon, what he calls the spurious 

and pure branches of the Masonic system were 

united at Jerusalem, and that the same 

method of scenic representation was adopted 

by the latter from the former, and the narrative 

of the Temple Builder substituted for that 

of Dionysus, which was the myth peculiar to 

the mysteries practised by the Tyrian workmen 

. 

The idea, therefore, proposed to be communicated 

in the myth of the ancient mysteries 

was the same as that which is now conveyed 

in the Masonic Legend of the Third 

Degree . 

Hence, then, Hiram Abif is, in the Masonic 

system, the symbol of human nature, as developed 

in the life here and the life to come ; 

and so, while the Temple was the visible symbol 

of the world, its builder became the 

mythical symbol of man, the dweller and 

worker in that world . 

Man, setting forth on the voyage of life, 

with faculties and powers fitting him for the 

due exercise of the high duties to whose performance 

he has been called, holds, if he be 

"a curious and cunning workman," skilled in 

all moral and intellectual purposes (and it is 

only of such men that the Temple Builder can 

be the symbol), within the grasp of his attainment, 

the knowledge of all that Divine truth 

imparted to him as the heirloom of his race-

438 LEGEND 

LEGEND 

that race to whom it has been granted to look, 

with exalted countenance, on high ; which 

Divine truth is symbolized by the worn . 

Thus provided with the word of life, he 

occupies his time in the construction of a 

spiritual temple, and travels onward in the 

faithful discharge of all his duties, laying 

down his designs upon the trestle-board of 

the future, and invoking the assistance and 

direction of God . 

But is his path always over flowery meads 

and through pleasant groves? Is there no 

hidden foe to obstruct his progress? Is all 

before him clear and calm, with joyous sunshine 

and refreshing zephyrs? Alas! not so . 

"Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward 

." At every "gate of life "-as the 

Orientalists have beautifully called the different 

ages-he is beset by peril . Temptations 

allure his youth ; misfortunes darken the pathway 

of his manhood, and his old age is encumbered 

with infirmity and disease . But clothed 

in the armor of virtue he may resist the 

temptation ; he may cast misfortunes aside and 

rise triumphantly above them ; but to the last 

-the direst, the most inexorable foe of his 

race-he must eventually yield, and, stricken 

down by death, he sinks prostrate into the 

grave, and is buried in the rubbish of his sin and 

human frailty . 

Here then, in Masonry, is what was called 

the aphanism, concealment or disappearance 

in the Ancient Mysteries . The bitter, but 

necessary lesson of death has been imparted . 

The living soul, with the lifeless body which 

encased it, has disappeared, and can nowhere 

be found . All is darkness-confusion-despair. 

Divine truth-the worn-for a time is 

lost, and the Master Mason may now say, in 

the language of Hutchinson, "I prepare my 

sepulchre . I make my grave in the pollution 

of the earth. I am under the shadow of 

death." 

But if the mythic symbolism ended here, 

with this lesson of death, then were the 

lesson incomplete. That teaching would be 

vain and idle-nay more, it would be corrupt 

and pernicious-which should stop short of 

the conscious and innate instinct for another 

existence . And hence the succeeding portions 

of the legend are intended to convey the 

sublime symbolism of a resurrection from the 

grave and a new birth into a future life . The 

discovery of the body, which, in the initiations 

of the ancient mysteries, was called the 

euresis ; and its removal, from the polluted 

grave into which it had been cast, to an 

honored and sacred place within the precincts 

of the temple, are all profoundly and beautifully 

symbolic of that great truth, the discovery 

of which was the object of all the 

ancient initiations, as it is almost the whole 

design of Freemasonry, namely, that when 

man shall have passed the gates of life and 

have yielded to the inexorable fiat of death, 

he shall then (not in the pictured ritual of an 

earthly Lodge, but in the realities of that 

eternal one, of which the former is but an 

antitype) be raised, at the omnific word of 

the Grand Master of the Universe, from time 

to eternity-from the tomb of corruption to 

the chambers of hope-from the darkness of 

death to the celestial beams of life-and that 

his disembodied spirit shall be conveyed as 

near to the holy of holies of the Divine presence 

as humanity can ever approach to deity . 

Such I conceive to be the true interpretation 

of the symbolism of the Legend of the Third 

Degree. 

I have said that this mythical history of the 

Temple Builder was universal in all nations 

and all rites, and that in no place and at no 

time had it, by alteration, diminution, or 

addition, acquired any essentially new or 

different form : the myth has always remained 

the same . 

But it is not so with its interpretation . 

That which I have just given, and which I 

conceive to be the correct one, has been very 

generally adopted by the Masons of America. 

But elsewhere, and by various writers, 

other interpretations have been made, 

very different in their character, although 

always agreeing in retaining the general idea 

of a resurrection or regeneration, or a restoration 

of something from an inferior to a higher 

sphere or function. 

Thus, some of the earlier continental 

writers have supposed the myth to have been 

a symbol of the destruction of the Order of 

the Templars, looking upon its restoration to 

its original wealth and dignities as being 

prophetically symbolized . 

In some of the high philosophical degrees 

it is taught that the whole legend refers to 

the sufferings and death, with the subsequent 

resurrection of Christ . 

Hutchinson, who has the honor of being the 

earliest philosophical writer on Freemasonry 

in England, supposes it to have been intended 

to embody the idea of the decadence of the 

Jewish religion and the substitution of the 

Christian in its place and on its ruins . 

Dr . Oliver thinks that it is typical of the 

murder of Abel and Cain, and that it symbolically 

refers to the universal death of our 

race through Adam and its restoration to life 

in the Redeemer, according to the expression 

of the Apostle, "as in Adam we all died, so in 

Christ we all live ." 

Ragon makes Hiram a symbol of the sun 

shorn of its vivifying rays and fructifying 

power by the three winter months, and its 

restoration to prolific heat by the season of 

spring . 

And, finally, Des Etangs, adopting, in part, 

the interpretation of Ragon, adds to it another 

which he calls the moral symbolism of the 

legend, and supposes that Hiram is no other 

than eternal reason, whose enemies are the 

vices that deprave and destroy humanity . 

To each of these interpretations it seems 

to me that there are important objections, 

though perhaps to some less so than to others . 

As to those who seek for an astronomical 

interpretation of the legend, in which the 

annual changes of the sun are symbolized, 

while the ingenuity with which they press

LEGISLATION 

LELAND 439 

their argument cannot but be admired, it is 

evident that, by such an interpretation, they 

yield all that Masonry has gained of religious 

development in past ages, and fall back upon 

that corruption and perversion of Sabaism 

from which it was the object, even of the 

Spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, to rescue 

its disciples. 

The Templar interpretation of the myth 

must at once be discarded if we would avoid 

the difficulties of anachronism, unless we -deny 

that the legend existed before the abolition of 

the Order of Knights Templar, and such 

denial would be fatal to the Antiquity of 

Freemasonry. 

And as to the adoption of the 'Christian 

reference, Hutchinson and, after him, Oliver, 

profoundly philosophical as are the Masonic 

speculations of both, have, I am constrained 

to believe, fallen into a great error in calling 

the Master Mason's Degree a Christian institution. 

It is true that it embraces within 

its scheme the great truths of Christianity 

upon the subject of the immortality of the 

soul and the resurrection of the body ; but this 

was to be presumed, because Freemasonry is 

truth, and Christianity is truth, and all truth 

must be identical . But the origin of each is 

different ; their histories are dissimilar. The 

creed of Freemasonry is the primitive one of 

Noah and his immediate descendants . If 

Masonry were simply a Christian institution, 

the Jew and the Moslem, the Brahman and 

the Buddhist could not conscientiously partake 

of its illumination; but its universality 

is its boast . In its language, citizens of every 

nation may converse ; at its altar men of all 

religions may kneel ; to its creed, disciples of 

every faith may subscribe . 

But the true ancient interpretation of the 

legend-the universal, Masonic one-for all 

countries and all ages, undoubtedly, was that 

the fate of the Temple Builder is but figurative 

of the pilgrimage of man on earth, through 

trials and temptations through sin and sorrow, 

until his eventual tall beneath the blow of 

death and his final and glorious resurrection 

to another and an eternal life . 

And now, in conclusion, a word of historical 

criticism may not be misplaced . It is not at 

all essential to the value of the symbolism that 

the legend shall be proved to be historical . 

Whether considered as a truthful narrative of 

an event that actually transpired during the 

building of the Temple, or simply as a myth 

embodying the utterance of a religious sentiment, 

the symbolic lesson of life and death 

and immortality is still contained in its teachings, 

and commands our earnest attention . 

Legislation . On the subject of that crying 

sin of the Order-over-legislation by 

Grand Lodges-Gov. Thomas Brown, formerly 

Grand Master of Florida, has wisely 

said : "Too much legislation is the vice of the 

present day, as well in Masonic as in civil 

government . The same thirst for change and 

innovation which has prompted tyros and 

demagogues to legislate upon constitutional 

law, and write expositions of the common 

law, has prompted uninformed and unscrupulous 

Masons to legislate upon the landmarks 

of Masonry ." 

Lehrling . German for an Entered Apprentice 

. 

Leland, John. An eminent English antiquary, 

the chaplain of King Henry VIII ., 

who appointed him "King's Antiquary," a 

title which he was the first and last to bear . 

The king also directed him to search after the 

antiquities of England, "and peruse the 

libraries of all cathedrals, abbies, priories, 

colleges, etc ., as also all places wherein records, 

writings, and secrets of antiquity were deposited 

. ' Leland, accordingly, traveled over 

England for several years, and made many 

collections of manuscripts, which were afterward 

deposited in the Bodleian Library . He 

was a man of great learning and industry . 

He was born in London in the beginning of 

the sixteenth century (the exact year is uncertain), 

and died on the 18th of April 1552 . 

Anthony Wood says that he was by far the 

most eminent historian and antiquary ever 

born in England . His connection with Freemasonry 

arises from the manuscript containing 

the questions of King Henry VI ., which he 

is said to have copied from the original . (See 

Leland Manuscript .) 

Leland Manuscript. There is no one of 

the old Records of Freemasonry, except, perhaps, 

the Charter of Cologne, that has given 

rise to more controversy among the critics 

than the one generally known as the "Leland 

Manuscript ." It derives this name from the 

statement made in its title, which is : "Certayne 

questyons with awnsweres to the same, 

concernynge the mystery of maconrye ; 

wryttene by the hande of Kynge Henry the 

Sixthe of the name, and faythfullye copied by 

me, Johan Leylande Antiquanus, by the 

commaunde of His Highnesse ." It first appeared 

in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1753 

(p. 417), where it purports to be a reprint of 

a pamphlet published five years before at 

Frankfort . The title of the paper in the 

Gentleman's Magazine is : "Copy of a small 

pamphlet, consisting of twelve pages in 8vo, 

printed in Germany in 1748, entitled 'Ein 

Brief von dem beriihmten Heren Johann 

Locke betreffend die Frey-Maurerein . So 

auf einem Schreib-Tisch eines verstorbnen 

Bruders ist gefunden worden."' That is, "A 

Letter of the famous Mr . John Locke relating 

to Freemasonry . As found in the writingdesk 

of a deceased brother ." Hearne copied 

it in his Life of Leland (p . 67), prefacing it 

with the remark that "it also appears that an 

ancient manuscript of Leland's has long remained 

in the Bodleian Library, unnoticed in 

any account of our author yet published ." 

Hearne speaks of it thus : 

"The original is said to be inthe handwriting 

of King Henry VI ., and copied by Leland by 

order of His Highness (King Henry VIII .) . 

If the authenticity of this ancient monument 

of literature remains unquestioned, it demands 

particular notice in the present publication, 

on account of the singularity of the subject,

440 LELAND 

LELAND 

and no less from a due regard to the royal 

writer, and our author, his transcriber, indefatigable 

in every part of literature : it will 

also be admitted, acknowledgment is due to 

the learned Mr . Locke, who, amidst the 

closest studies and the most strict attention to 

human understanding, could unbend his mind 

in search of this ancient treatise, which he first 

brought from obscurity in the year 1696 ." 

The . Manuscript purports to be a series of 

questions proposed by Henry VI . and answers 

given by the Masons . It is accompanied by 

an introductory letter and a commentary 

by Mr . Locke, together with a glossary of 

the archaic words . The'best account of the 

Manuscript is contained in the letter of Locke 

to a nobleman, said to be the Earl of Pembroke, 

dated May 6, 1696, in which, after 

stating that he had procured a copy of it from 

the Bodleian Library, he adds : 

"The Manuscript of which this is a copy 

appears to be about one hundred and sixty 

years old ; yet (as your Lordship will observe 

by the title) it is itself a copy of one yet more 

ancient by about one hundred years . For the 

original is said to have been in the handwriting 

of King Henry the VI . Where that prince 

had it is an uncertainty ; but it seems to me 

to be an examination (taken, perhaps, before 

the King) of some one of the Brotherhood of 

Masons, among whom he entered himself, as 

'tis said, when he came out of his minority, 

and thenceforth put a stop to a persecution 

that had been raised against them." 

After its appearance in the Gentleman's 

Magazine, which first introduced the knowledge 

of it to the world, and in Huddesford's 

L. of Leland, who evidently copied it from the 

Magazine, it next appeared, in 1764, in the 

Pocket Companion, and in 1769 in Calcott's 

Candid Disquisition . In 1775, Hutchinson 

introduced it into his Spirit of Masonry. 

Dermott published it in his Ahiman Rezon, 

and Preston in his Illustrations . Noorthouck, 

in 1784, embodied it in his edition of the Constitutions 

; and it has since been repeatedly 

published in England and America, so that the 

Craft have had every opportunity of becoming 

familiar with its contents . Translations of it 

have also been given in French by Thory, in 

his Acta Latomorum ; in German by Lenning, 

in his Encyclopadie ; by Krause, in his Kunsturkunden, 

and also by Fessler and several other 

French and German writers . 

This document-so important, if true, as a 

record of the condition of Freemasonry in 

the beginning of the fifteenth century-has 

been from an early period attacked and defended 

with equal vehemence by those who 

have denied and those who have maintained 

its authenticity . As early as 1787, the Baron 

de Chefdebien, in a discourse entitled Recherches 

Magonniques d l'usage des Freres de 

Regime primif de Narbonne, read before the 

Congress of the Philalethans, attacked the 

authenticity of the document . Thory also, 

although acknowledging that he wished that 

the Manuscript was true, presented his objections 

to its authenticity in a memoir read in 

1806 before the Tribunal of the Philosophic 

Rite. His objections are eight in number, 

and are to this effect : 1 . That it was not 

published in any of the early editions of the 

works of Locke . 2 . That it was printed for 

the first time at Frankfort, in 1748 . 3 . That 

it was not known in England until 1753 . 4. 

That Anderson makes no mention of it . 

5. That it is not in any of the editions of 

Leland's works printed before 1772 . 6 . That 

Dr. Plot contends that Henry VI . was never 

made a Mason . 7 . That the Manuscript says 

that Masonry was brought from the East by 

the Venetians . 8 . That the troubles in the 

reign of Henry VI ., and his incapacity, render 

it improbable that he would have occupied his 

mind with the subject of Freemasonry . The 

sixth and eighth of these objections merely 

beg the question ; and the seventh is puerile, 

founded on ignorance of the meaning of the 

word "Venetian." But the other objections 

have much weight . Sloane, in his New Curiosities 

of Literature (1849, vol . ii., p . 80), 

attacks the document with the bitterness 

which he usually displays wherever Freemasonry 

is concerned . 

Halliwell, in his Early History of Freemasonry 

in England (p . 40), has advanced the 

following arguments against its authenticity : 

"It is singular that the circumstances attending 

its publication should have led no one 

to suspect its authenticity . I was at the pains 

of making a long search in the Bodleian Library 

last summer, in the hopes of finding the 

original, but without success . In fact there 

can be but little doubt that this celebrated 

and well-known document is a forgery! 

"In the first place, why should such a 

document have been printed abroad? Was 

it likely that it should have found its way to 

Frankfrt, nearly half a century afterwards, 

and been published without any explanation 

of the source whence it was obtained? Again, 

the orthography is most grotesque, and too 

gross ever to have been penned either by 

Henry VI. or Leland, or both combined . For 

instance, we have Peter Gower, a Grecian, 

explained in a note by the fabricator-for who 

else could have solved it?-to be Pythagoras! 

As a whole, it is but a clumsy attempt at deception, 

and is quite a parallel to the recently 

discovered one of the first Englishe Mercurie. ' 

Among the German opponents of the Manuscript 

are Leasing, Keller, and Findel ; and 

more recently, the iconoclasts of England, 

who have been attacking so many of the 

ancient records of the Craft, have not left this 

one unspared . 

On the other hand, it has ranked among its 

advocates some of the most learned Masons 

of England, Germany, and France, of whom 

may be named Krause, Fessler, Lenning, 

Reghellini, Preston, Hutchinson, Calcott 

(these three, perhaps, without critical examination), 

and Oliver . Of these the language 

of the last may be cited as a specimen of the 

arguments adduced in its favor . 

"This famous Manuscript," says Dr . Oliver 

(Freemasons' Quart . Rev ., 1840, p . 10), "poe-

LEMANCEAU 

LENOIR 441 

sesses the reputation of having converted the 

tearned Locke, who was initiated after carefully 

perusing and analyzing it . Before any 

faith can be placed on this invaluable document, 

it will be necessary to say a word respecting 

its authenticity . I admit that there 

is some degree of mystery about it, and doubts 

have been entertained whether it be not a 

forgery . We have the strongest presumptive 

proofs that it was in existence about the middle 

of the last century, because the utmost 

publicity was given to it ; and as at that time 

Freemasonry was beginning to excite a considerable 

share of public attention, the deception, 

had it been such, would have been publicly 

exposed by its opponents, who appear to 

have used the lash of ridicule very freely, as 

witness Hogarth's picture of Night, where the 

principal figures represent some brethren, 

decorated with aprons and jewels, returning 

from the Lodge in a state of intoxication ; the 

broad sheet of the Scald Miserables, and other 

prints and publications in which Freemasonry 

is burlesqued. But no attempt was ever made 

to invalidate its claim to be a genuine document 

." 

After enumerating the several books in 

which it had been published, he resumes his 

argument, as follows : 

"Being thus universally diffused, had it 

been a suspected document, its exposure 

would certainly have been attempted ; particularly 

about the close of the last century, 

when the progress of Masonry was sensibly 

checked by the publication of works which 

charged it with being the depository of principles 

fatal equally to the peace and religion 

of civil society ; and if a forgery, it would have 

been unable to have endured the test of a 

critical examination . But no such attempt 

was made ; and the presumption therefore is 

that the document is authentic . 

"I should be inclined to pronounce, from 

internal evidence only, that the `Letter and 

Annotations' were written by Locke ; but 

there are corroborating facts which appear 

conclusive ; for this great philosopher was 

actually residing at Oates, the country-seat of 

Sir Francis Masham at the time when the 

paper is dated ; and shortly afterwards he 

went up to town, where he was initiated into 

Masonry . These facts are fully proved by 

Locke's Letters to Mr . Molyneux, dated 

March 30 and July 2, 1696 . For these reasons 

I entertain no doubt of the genuineness and 

authenticity of this valuable Manuscript ." 

If my own opinion is worth giving on this 

subject, I should say with much reluctance, 

and against my own wishes, that there is 

neither internal nor external evidence of the 

authenticity of this document to make it a 

sufficient foundation for historical evidence . 

[R . F . Gould (Hilt . of F. M ., i ., 489) styles the 

document "an impudent forgery ."-E . L. H .] 

Lemlerre, A. M . Born in 1733, died in 

1793. A writer of merit who belonged to the 

"Neuf Sceurs," and was present at the reception 

of Voltaire . 

Length of the Lodge . See Extent of the 

Lodge. 

Lenning, C . The assumed name of a 

learned German Mason, who resided at Paris 

in 1817, where Krause speaks of him as an 

estimable man and well-informed Freemason . 

He was the first projector of the Encyclopddie 

der Freimaurerei, which Findel justly calls 

"one of the most learned and remarkable 

works in Masonic literature ." The manuscript 

coming into the possession of the Leipsic 

bookseller Brockhaus, he engaged Friedrich 

Mossdori to edit it . He added so much 

to the original, revising and amplifying all the 

most important articles and adding many new 

ones, that Kloss catalogues it in his Bibliographie 

as the work of Mossdorf . The 

Encyclopadie is in three volumes, of which 

the first was published in 1822, the second in 

1824, and the third in 1828 . A second edition, 

under the title of Handbuch der Freimaurerei, 

was published under the editorship 

of Schletter and Zille . A third edition in two 

volumes was published in 1900 (first vol .) 

and 1901 (second vol .) . 

Lenoir, Alexandre . A celebrated archeologist, 

who was born at Paris in 1761 . Having 

studied at the Mazarin College, he entered 

the studio of Doyeu, and successfully 

cultivated painting. In 1790, the National 

Assembly having decreed that the treasures 

of art in the suppressed churches and convents 

should be collected at the Petits- 

Augustins, he was appointed the Conservator 

of the depot, which was subsequently 

called the Museum, of which he was then made 

the Director. He there collected more than 

five hundred monuments rescued from destruction, 

and classified them with great care . 

On the conversion of the garden of Moasseaux 

into a Museum of Monuments, he was appointed 

one of the administrators, and subsequently 

the administrator of the monuments 

of the Church of St . Denis . In all these 

appointments, Lenoir exhibited his taste and 

judgment as an archeologist . He was a 

member of the Society of Antiquaries of 

France, to whose Transactions he contributed 

several memoirs . 

The Metropolitan Chapter of France had, 

from the year 1777, annually held philosophical 

conventions, at which lectures on 

Masonic subjects were delivered by such men 

as Court de Gebelin . In 1789 these conventions 

were discontinued in consequence of 

the political troubles of the times, but they 

were renewed in 1812 by M . Lenoir, who 

delivered before the Chapter a course of 

eight lectures on the relations which exist 

between the ancient mysteries of the Egyptians 

and the Greeks and those of Freemasonry. 

In 1814, he published the substance 

of these lectures in a work entitled 

Lemanceau . A zealous French Mason, 

and the possessor of a fine collection of degrees, 

the nomenclature of which is preserved by 

Thory in his Acta Latomorum. The most La Franche-Maconnerie rendue a sa veritable 

important are referred to in the present work . origin, ou l'Aniiquiti de la Franche-Magon-

442 LEONTICA 

LEVEL 

aerie prouvle~par l'Explicatwn des Myafkres 

Anciens et Modernes (Paris, 4to, p . 304) . 

The theory of the author being that the mysteries 

of Freemasonry are only a repetition of 

those of antiquity, he attempts to support it 

by investigations into the ancient initiations 

that are marked with profound learning, although 

the work was severely criticised in the 

Journal de Debats. He had previously published, 

in 1809, a work in three volumes, entitled 

Nouvelle Explication des Hieroglyphes 

ou Anciens Allegories sacrEes des Egiptiennes . 

He died at Paris, June 12, 1839 . 

Leontica . Ancient sacrificial festivals in 

honor of the sun ; the officiating priests being 

termed Leontes . 

Leo XH ., Pope . Born in 1760, died in 

1829 . On the 13th of March, 1825, he issued 

the well-remembered bull, beginning "Quo 

graviora mala " against the Freemasons . 

Lepage . One of those French Masons 

who in the latter part of the last century 

occupied themselves in the accumulation of 

cahiers or rituals of Masonic degrees . Most 

of the degrees in his collection, which is said 

to have been a valuable one, are referred to 

by Thory in the nomenclature contained in 

his Acta Latomorum. 

Lerouge, Andre Joseph Etienne . A 

man of letters and zealous Mason of Paris, 

born at Commercy, April 25, 1766 . He made 

a large and valuable collection of manuscript 

and printed degrees. He died in 1834, and on 

the 7th of . January, 1835, his collection was 

sold at public auction. Thory has made use 

of it in his Nomenclature des Grades . Lerouge 

was the author of several didactic writings on 

Masonic subjects, all of which, however, have 

had but an ephemeral existence . He was one 

of the editors of the French Masonic journal 

Hermes, published in 1819, and of the Melanges 

de Philosophic, d'Histoire et de Literature 

Maconnique . He was a man of much 

learning, and is said to have supplied several 

of his Masonic contemporaries with assistance 

in the preparation of their works . 

Lesser Lights. In the lecture of the First 

Degree we are told that a Lodge has three 

symbolic lesser lights ; one of these is in the 

East, one in the West, and one in the South . 

There is no light in the North, because King 

Solomon's Temple, of which every Lodge is a 

representation, was placed so far north of the 

ecliptic that the sun and moon, at their 

meridian height, could dart no ra ys into the 

northern part thereof . The North we therefore 

Masonically call a place of darkness . 

This symbolic use of the three lesser lights 

is very old, being found in the earliest lectures 

of the last century . 

The three lights, like the three princi pal 

officers and the three principal supports, refer, 

undoubtedly, to the three stations of the sun 

-its rising in the East, its meridian in the 

South, and its setting in the West ; and thus 

the symbolism of the Lodge, as typical of the 

world, continues to be preserved . 

The use of lights in all religious ceremonies 

is an ancient custom . There was a seven- 

branched candlestick in the tabernacle, and 

in the Temple "were the golden candlesticks, 

five on the right hand and five on the left ." 

They were always typical of moral, spiritual, 

or intellectual light . 

The custom prevalent in some localities, 

of placing the burning tapers, or three symbolic 

lesser lights, East, West, and South, near 

the altar, is sometimes changed so that these 

resp ective lights are burning on or beside the 

pedestals of the Master and his two Wardens 

at their several stations . In the old Teutonic 

mythology, and in accordance with Medieval 

court usage, flaming lights or fires burned 

before each column, similarly situated, on 

which rested the image of Odin, Thor, and 

Frey . These columns are further represented 

as Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty, 

sustaining the "Starry-decked Heaven," roof 

or ceiling colored blue, with stars . 

Lessing, Gottfried Ephraim . A learned 

litterateur of Germany, who was born at 

Kaumitz, in the Neiderlausetz, January 22, 

1729, and died on the 15th of February, 1781, 

at Woefenbutal, where he was librarian to the 

Duke of Brunswick . Leasing was initiated in 

a Lodge at Hamburg, and took great interest 

in the Institution . His theory, that it sprang 

out of a secret association of Templars which 

had long existed in London, and was modified 

in form by Sir Christopher Wren, has long 

been rejected, if it was ever admitted by any • 

but in his two works Ernst and Falk and 

Nathan der Weise, he has given profound and 

comprehensive views on the genius and spirit 

of Freemasonry. Leasing was the most 

eminent litterateur of his age, and has been 

styled "the man who was the forerunner of 

the philosophers, and whose criticisms supplied 

the place of poetry.". (See Ernest and 

Falk .) 

Lessons . The passages of Scripture recited 

by the Prelate in the ceremony of inducting 

a candidate into the Masonic Order 

of Knights Templar. It is an ecclesiastical 

term, and is used by the Templars because 

these passages are intended to instruct the 

candidate in reference to the incidents of our 

Savior's life which are referred to in the 

ritual . 

Letter of Application . More properly 

called a Petition, which see . 

Letters Patent . See Patents. 

Lettuce . A sacred plant used in the mysteries 

of Adonis, and therefore the analogue 

of the Acacia in the mysteries of Freemasonry . 

Leueht . A Masonic charlatan of the 

eighteenth century, better known by his 

assumed name of Johnson, which see. 

Level. In Freemasonry, the level is a symbol 

of equality ; not of that social equalit 

which would destroy all distinctions of ra 

and position, and beget confusion, insubordination, 

and anarchy ; but of that fraternal 

equality which, recognizing the fatherhood 

of God, admits as a necessary corollary the 

brotherhood of man . It, therefore, teaches 

us that in the sight of the Great Architect of 

the Universe, his creatures, who are at an im-

LEVI 

LEWIS 443 

Levi, Ellphas. The pseudonym of Louis 

Alphonse Constance, a prolific writer on 

Magical Masonry, or of works in which he 

seeks to connect the symbols of Masonry with 

the dogmas of the High Magic . His principal 

works, which abound in dreamy speculations, 

are Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, Paris, 

1860 ; Histoire de la Magie, same place and 

measurable distance from him, move upon the 

same plane ; as the far-moving stars, which 

though millions of miles apart, yet seem to 

shine upon the same canopy of the sky . In 

this view the level teaches us that all men are 

equal, subject to the same infirmities, hastening 

to the same goal, and preparing to be 

judged by the same immutable law . 

The level is deemed, like the square and the 

plumb, of so much importance as a symbol, 

that it is repeated in many different relations . 

First, it is one of the jewels of the Lodge ; in 

the English system a movable in the American 

an immovable, one . This leads to its 

being adopted as the proper official ensign 

of the Senior Warden, because the Craft when 

at labor, at which time he presides over them 

are on a common level of subordination . And 

then it is one of the working-tools of a Fellow- 

Craft, still retaining its symbolism of equality . 

year ; and Le Clef des Grand Mysteres, published 

a year afterward . 

Levit, Der. The Levite was the fourth 

grade of the Order of the Knights of the True 

Light. 

Levite, Knight . The Knight Levite was 

the fourth section of the Seventh Degree of 

the Rite of Clerks of Strict Observance. 

Levite of the External Guard. The 

lowest of the nine Orders of the Priesthood, 

or highest of the Masonic degrees in the Order 

of the Temple as modified by Fabre-Palaprat . 

It was equivalent to Kadosh . 

Levites . Those descendants of Levi who 

were employed in the lowest ministerial duties 

of the Temple, and were thus subordinate to 

the priests, who were the lineal descendants 

of Aaron. They are represented, in some of 

the high degrees . 

Levite, Sacrificer . A degree in the collection 

of the Mother Lodge of the Philosophic 


Levitikon. There is a spurious Gospel of 

St . John, supposed to have been forged in 

the fifteenth century, which contradicts the 

genuine Gospel in many particulars . It contains 

an introduction and a commentary, 

said to have been written by Nicephorus, a 

Greek monk of Athens . This commentary 

is called the "Levitikon ." Out of this Gospel 

and its commentary, Fabre-Palaprat, about 

the year 1814, composed a liturgy for the sect 

of Johannites, which he had established and 

attached to the Order of the Temple at Paris . 

Levy. A collection of men raised for a 

particular purpose. The lectures tell us that 

the timbers for building the Temple at Jerusalem 

were felled in the forests of Lebanon, 

where a levy of thirty thousand men of Jerusalem 

were employed by monthly courses 

of ten thousand . Adoniram was placed over 

this levy. The facts are derived from the 

statement in 1 Kings v . 13, 14 : "And King 

Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel ; and the 

levy was thirty thousand men . And he sent 

them to Lebanon ten thousand a month by 

courses ; a month they were in Lebanon and 

two months at home : and Adoniram was 

over the levy ." These wood-cutters were not 

Tyrians, but all Israelites . 

Lewis. 1 . An instrument in Operative 

Masonry . It is an iron cramp which is inserted 

in a cavity prepared for that purpose 

in any large stone, so as to give attachment 

to a pulley and hook whereby the stone may 

be conveniently raised to any height and 

deposited in its proper position . It is well 

described by Mr. Gibson, in the British 

Archxologia (vol . x ., p . 127) ; but he is in error 

in attributing its invention to a French architect 

in the time of Louis XIV ., and its name 

to that monarch. The contrivance was 

known to the Romans, and several taken from 

old ruins are now in the Vatican . In the 

ruins of Whitby Abbey, in England, which 

was founded by Oswy, King of Northumberland, 

in 658, large stones were discovered, 

with the necessary excavation for the insertion 

of a lewis . The word is most probably 

derived from the old French levis, any contrivance 

for lifting. The modern French call 

the instrument a louve . 

2. In the English system, the lewis is found 

on the tracing-board of the Entered Apprentice, 

where it is used as a symbol of strength, 

because, by its assistance, the Operative Mason 

is enabled to lift the heaviest stones with 

a comparatively trifling exertion of physical 

power. It has not been adopted as a symbol 

by the American Masons, except in Pennsylvania, 

where, of course, it receives the English 

interpretation . 

3 . The son of a Mason is, in England, 

called a lewis, because it is his duty to support 

the sinking powers and aid the failing 

strength of his father ; or, as Oliver has expressed 

it, "to bear the burden and heat of 

the day, that his parents may rest in their old 

age ; thus rendering the evening of their lives 

peaceful and happy ." In the rituals of the 

middle of the last century he was called a 

buffton . From this the French derived their 

word lufton, which they apply in the same way . 

They also employ the word louveteau, and call 

the daughter of a Mason louvetine . Louveteau 

is probably derived directly from the louve, 

the French name of the implement ; but it is a 

singular coincidence that louveteau also means 

a young wolf, and that in the Egyptian mysteries 

of Isis the candidate was made to wear 

the mask of a wolf's head . Hence, a wolf and 

a candidate in these mysteries were often used 

as synonymous terms . Macrobius, in his 

Saturnalia, says, in reference to this custom, 

that the ancients perceived a relationship between 

the sun, the great symbol in these 

mysteries, and a wolf, which the candidate 

represented at his initiation. For, he remarks, 

as the flocks of sheep and cattle fly and disperse 

at the sight of the wolf, so the flocks of

444 LEXINGTON 

LIBERAL 

stars disappear at the approach of the sun's 

light. The learned reader will also recollect 

that in the Greek language lukos signifies both 

the sun and a wolf. Hence some etymologists 

have sought to derive louveteau, the son of a 

Mason, from louveteau, a young wolf. But 

the more direct derivation from louve, the 

operative instrument is preferable . 

In Browne's Master Key, which is supposed 

to represent the Prestonian lecture, we 

find the following definition : 

"What do we call the son of a Freemason? 

"A lewis . 

"What does that denote? 

"Strength . 

"How is a lewis depicted in a Mason's 

Lodge? 

"As a cramp of metal, by which, when fixed 

into a stone, great and ponderous weights are 

raised to a certain height and fixed upon their 

proper basis, without which Operative Masons 

could not so conveniently do . 

"What is the duty of a lewis, the son of a 

Mason, to his aged parents? 

"To bear the heavy burden in the heat of 

the day and help them in time of need, which, 

by reason of their great age, they ought to be 

exempted from, so as to render the close of 

their days happy and comfortable . 

"His privilege for so doing? 

"To be made a Mason before any other 

person, however dignified by birth, rank, or 

riches, unless he, through complaisance, waives 

this privilege." 

[The term occurs in this sense in the Constitutions 

of 1738 at the end of the Deputy 

Grand Master's song-in allusion to the expected 

birth of George IIİ, son of Frederick, 

Prince of Wales : 

"May a Lewis be born, whom the World 

shall admire, Serene as his Mother, August 

as his Sire ." 

It is sometimes stated that a Lewis may be 

initiated before he has reached the age of 

twenty-one ; but this is not so under the English 

Constitution, by which a dispensation is 

required in all cases of initiation under age, 

as was distinctly stated at the meeting of the 

Grand Lodge of England held on December 

2, 1874 . The Scotch Constitution, however, 

does allow a Lewis to be entered at eighteen 

years of age. (Rule 180.) 

No such right is recognized in America, 

where the symbolism of the Lewis is unknown, 

though it has been suggested, not without 

some probability, that the initiation of 

Washington when he was only twenty years 

and eight months old, may be explained by 

a reference to this supposed privilege of 

Lewis .-E . L. H .] 

Lexington, Congress of. This Congress 

was convoked in 1853, at Lexington, Kentucky, 

for the purpose of attempting to form 

a General Grand Lodge .* A plan of constitution 

was proposed, but a sufficient number 

of Grand Lodges did not accede to the 

proposition to give it efficacy . 

* See General Grand Lodge . 

Libanus. The Latin name of Lebanon, 

which see . 

Libation. Among the Greeks and Romans 

the libation was a religious ceremony, consisting 

of the pouring of wine or other liquid upon 

the ground, or, in a sacrifice, upon the head 

of the victim after it had been first tasted by 

the priest and by those who stood next to him . 

The libations were usually of unmixed wine, 

but were sometimes of. mingled wine and 

water . Libations are used in some of the 

chivalric and the high degrees of Masonry . 

Libavius, Andreas . A learned German 

physician, who was born at Halle, in Saxony 

and died at Coburg, where he was rector ol 

the Gymnasium in 1616 . He was a vehement 

opponent of Paracelsus and of the Rosicrucians 

. In 1613 he published at Frankfort 

his Syntagma selectorum alchimia arcanorum, 

in two folio volumes, and two years after, an 

Appendix, in which he attacks the Society of 

the Rosicrucians and analyzes the Confessio 

of Valentine Andrea. De Quincey has used 

the works of Libavius in his article on Secret 

Societies. 

Liber . Liberty. Of which the eagle, in 

the Rose Croix Degree, is symbolical . Liberty 

of thought, speech, and action, within the 

bounds of civil, political, and conscientious 

law, without license . A book, and hence the 

word library, or collection of books . It was 

also one of the names of the god Bacchus . 

The freedom which knowledge confers . Liber, 

the bark, or inner rind of a tree, on which 

books were originally written ; hence, leaves 

of a book and leaves of a tree ; or, similarly in 

Latin, folio of a book, the foliage of a tree . 

Thus, the "tree of knowledge" becomes the 

"book of wisdom" ; the "tree of life" becomes 

the "book of life ." (See Lakak Deror 

Pessah and Libertas .) The Bridge mentioned 

in the Sixteenth Degree, Scottish Rite, has 

the initials of Liberty of Passage over its 

arches. 

Liberal Arts and Sciences. We are indebted 

to the Scholastic philosophers of the 

Middle Ages for the nomenclature by which 

they distinguished the seven sciences then 

best known to them . With the metaphorical 

spirit of the age in which they lived, they called 

the two classes into which they divided them 

the trivium, or meeting of three roads, and the 

quadrivium, or meeting of four roads ; calling 

grammar, logic, and rhetoric the trivium, and 

arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy 

the quadrivium . These they styled the seven 

liberal arts and sciences, to separate them from 

the mechanical arts which were practised by 

the handicraftsmen. The liberal man, liberalis 

homo, meant, in the Middle Ages, the man

LIBERTAS 

LIBRARY 445 

who was his own master-free, independent, 

and often a nobleman . 

Mosheim, speaking of the state of literature 

in the eleventh century, uses the following 

language : "The seven liberal arts ; as they 

were now styled, were taught in the greatest 

part of the schools that were erected in this 

century for the education of youth . The first 

stage of these sciences was grammar, which 

was followed successively by rhetoric and 

logic. When the disciple, having learned 

these branches, which were generally known 

by the name of trivium, extended his ambition 

further, and was desirous of new improvement 

in the sciences, he was conducted slowly 

through the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, 

geometry, and astronomy) to the very summit 

of literary fame." 

The Freemasons of the Middle Ages, always 

anxious to elevate their profession above 

the position of a mere operative art, readily 

assumed these liberal arts and sciences as a 

part of their course of knowledge, thus seeking 

to assimilate themselves rather to the scholars 

who were above them than to the workmen 

who were below them .* Hence in all the 

Old Constitutions we find these liberal arts 

and sciences introduced at the beginning as 

forming an essential part of the body of Masonry 

. Thus, in the Lansdowne MS ., whose 

date is about 1560 (and it may be taken as a 

fair specimen of all the others, these sciences 

are thus referred to : 

"Wee minde to shew you the charge that 

belongs to every trew Mason to keep, for in 

good and (faith if you take good heed it is 

well worthy to be kept for A worthy Craft and 

curious science,-Sirs, there be Seaven Liberall 

Sciencies of the which the Noble Craft 

of Masonry is one ." And then the writer 

proceeds to define them in the order which 

they still retain . It is noteworthy, however, 

that that order must have been changed ; for 

in what is probably the earliest of the manuscripts-the 

Regius MS .-geometry appears 

as the last, instead of the fifth of the sciences, 

and arithmetic as the sixth . (Lines 557-563 .) 

It is not therefore surprising that, on the 

revival of Masonry in 1717, these seven liberal 

arts and sciences were made a part of the 

system of instruction . At first, of course, 

they were placed in the Entered Apprentice's 

Degree, that being the most important degree 

of the period, and they were made to refer to 

the seven Masons who composed a Lodge. 

Afterward, on the more methodical division 

of the degrees, they were transferred to the 

Fellow-Craft, because that was the degree 

symbolic of science, and were made to refer 

to seven of the steps of the winding stairs, 

that being itself, when prop erly interpreted, a 

symbol of the progress of knowledge . And 

there they still remain . 

Libertas . (Latin) Liberty. A significant 

* The claim has been made that Charlemagne, 

in his castle at Aix-la-Chapelle, set 

apart a sep arate place where the Seven Liberal 

Arts and Sciences were taught. [E. E. C .] 

word in the Red Cross Degree . It refers to 

the "liberty of passage" gained by the returning 

Jews over their opponents at the river 

Euphrates, as described in the Scottish Rite 

degree of Knight of the East, where the old 

French rituals have "liberty du passer ." 

Liberte, Ordre de la . (Order of Liberty.) 

A French androgyn Order existing in Paris in 

1740, and the precursor of "La Magonnerie 

d'Adoption ." (Thory, Acta Let., i ., 320 .) 

Libertine . The Charges of 1722 commence 

by saying that "a Mason is obliged by 

his tenure to obey the moral law- and if he 

rightly understands the art, he will never be a 

stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious libertine ." 

(Constitutions, 1723, p. 50 .) The word "libertine" 

there used conveyed a meaning different 

from that which it now bears . In the 

present usage of language it signifies a profligate 

and licentious person, but originally it 

meant a freethinker, or Deist. Derived from 

the Latin "libertinus," a man that was once a 

bondsman but who has been made free, it was 

metaphorically used to designate one who had 

been released, or who had released himself 

from the bonds of religious belief, and become 

in matters of faith a doubter or denier. Hence 

"a stupid Atheist" denoted, to use the language 

of the Psalmist, "the fool who has said 

in his heart there is no God," while an "irreligious 

libertine" designated the man who, 

with a degree less of unbelief denies the distinctive 

doctrines of revealed religion . And 

this meaning of the expression connects itself 

very appropriately with the succeeding paragraph 

of the Charge . "But though in ancient 

times, Masons were charged in every country 


whatever it was, yet 'tis now thought more expedient 

only to oblige them to that religion in 

which all men agree, leaving their particular 

opinions to themselves ." 

The expression "irreligious libertine," alluding, 

as it does, to a scoffer at religious 

truths, is eminently suggestive of the religious 

character of our Institution, which, founded as 

it is on the great doctrines of religion, cannot 

be properly appreciated by anyone who 

doubts or denies their truth . 

" Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ." The 

motto of the French Freemasons . 

Liberty of Passage . A significant phrase 

in the high degrees . (See Libertas .) The 

French rituals designate it by the letters 

L . - . D .' . P.'% as the initials of liberte de passer, 

or liberty of passage . But Bro . Pike proposes 

to interpret these letters as liberte de penser, 

liberty of thought ; the prerogative of a 

freeman and a Freemason . 

Library. It is the duty as well as the interest 

of Lodges to facilitate the efforts of the 

members in the acquisition of Masonic knowledge, 

and no method is more appropriate than 

the formation of Masonic libraries . The establishment 

of a Grand Lodge libr ary is of 

course not objectionable, but it is of far less 

value and importance than a Lodge library . 

The original outlay of a few dollars in the beginning 

for its .establishment, and of a few

446 LIBYAN 

LIGHT 

more annually for its maintenance and increase, 

would secure to every Lodge in the 

land a rich treasury of Masonic reading for 

the information and improvement of its members. 

The very fact that Masonic books were 

within their reach, showing themselves on the 

well-filled shelves at every meeting, and ready 

at their hands for the mere asking or the 

trouble of taking them down, would induce 

many brethren to read who never yet have 

read a page or even a line upon the subject of 

Masonic history and science . 

Considering the immense number of books 

that have been published on the subject of 

Speculative Masonry, many of which would 

be rendered accessible to every one by the establishment 

of Lodge libraries, the Mason who 

would then be ignorant of the true genius of 

his art would be worthy of all shame and reproach 

. 

As thoughtful municipalities place public 

fountains in their parks and at the corners of 

streets, that the famished wayfarer may allay 

his thirst and receive physical refreshment so 

should Masonic Lodges place such intellectual 

fountains in reach of their members, that 

they might enjoy mental refreshment. Such 

fountains are libraries ; and the Lodge which 

spends fifty dollars, more or less, upon a banquet, 

and yet does without a library, commits 

a grave Masonic offense ; for it refuses, or at 

least neglects, to diffuse that light among its 

children which its obligation requires it to do . 

Of two Lodges-the one without and the 

other with a library-the difference is this, 

that the one will have more ignorance in it 

than the other . If a Lodge takes delight in an 

ignorant membership, let it forego a library . 

If it thinks there is honor and reputation and 

pleasure in having its members well informed, 

it will give them means of instruction . 

Libyan or Lybic Chain . The eightyfifth 

grade of the Rite of Memphis ; old style . 

Licht, Hitter von Wahren . Knight of 

the True Light, presumed to have been 

founded in Austria in 1780, by Hans Heinrich 

Freiherr von ticker and Eckhoffen . It 

consisted of five grades . 

Lichtseher, Oder Erleuchtete. (The 

Enlightened .) A mystical sect established at 

Schlettstadt by Kilper Martin Steinbach, in 

the sixteenth century . Mentioned in the 

Handbuch, in 1566, by Pastor Reinhard Lutz . 

It delved in Scriptural interpretation . 

Lieutenant Grand Commander. The 

title of the second and third officers of a Grand 

Consistory in the Ancient and Accepted Scot- 

* The three most important Masonic libraries 

inAmerica are : The Grand Lodge Libraryof Iowa, 

at Cedar Rapids, it having a separate building 

devoted entirely to its uses, and containing a large 

number of books and collections, many of which 

are rare. The Grand Lodges of both Pennsylvania 

and Massachusetts have been ardent collectors 

of Masonic literature. The Grand Lodge 

of Massachusetts has lately acquired by gift 

of the late Samuel R . Lawrence his own library 

and that of Enoch T. Carson, which he had 

purchased . [E . E. C .) 

tish Rite, and the second officer in a Supreme 

Council . 

Life. The three stages of human life are 

said in the lectures to be symbolized by the 

three degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry, and 

the doctrine is illustrated in the Third Degree 

by the emblem of the Steps on the Master's 

Carpet, which see. 

Life, Eternal. See Eternal Life . 

Life Member. It is the custom in some 

Lodges to permit a member to become a life 

member by paying dues for some number of 

years (21 to 25) determined by the By-Laws of 

the Lodge or the immediate payment of a sum 

of money, after which he is released from any 

subsequent payment of quarterly or yearly 

dues . Such a system is of advantage in a 

pecuniary sense to the Lodge, if the money 

paid for life membership is invested in profitable 

stock, because the interest continues to 

accrue to the Lodge even after the death of a 

member. A Lodge consisting entirely of life 

members would be a Lodge the number of 

whose members might increase, but could 

never decrease. Life members are subject to 

all the discipline of the Lodge, such as suspension 

or expulsion, just as the other members 

. [Such Life Membership is, however, not 

recognized by the Grand Lodge of England, 

which restricts the privileges of the Craft to 

those who continue to be subscribing members 

of some Lodge . (Report of G . L. of England 

for June, 1873 .)-E. L . H .) 

Light . Light is an important word in the 

Masonic system . It conveys a far more recondite 

meaning than it is believed to possess by 

the generality of readers . It is in fact the first 

of all the symbols presented to the neophyte, 

and continues to be presented to him in various 

modifications throughout all his future 

progress in his Masonic career . It does not 

simply mean, as might be supposed, truth or 

wisdom, but it contains within itself a far more 

abstruse allusion to the very essence of Speculative 

Masonry, and embraces within its capacious 

signification all the other symbols 

of the Order . Freemasons are emphatically 

called the "sons of light," because they are, 

or at least are entitled to be, in possession of 

the true meaning of the symbol ; while the 

profane or uninitiated who have not received 

this knowledge are, by a parity of expression, 

said to be in darkness . 

The connection of material light with this 

emblematic and mental illumination, was 

prominently exhibited in all the ancient systems 

of religion and esoteric mysteries . 

Among the Egyptians, the hare was the 

heiroglyphic of eyes that are open, because 

that animal was supposed to have his eyes 

always open. The priests afterward adopted 

the hare as the symbol of the moral illumination 

revealed to the neophytes in the contemplation 

of the Divine truth, and hence, 

according to Champollion, it was also the symbol 

of Osiris, their principal divinity, and the 

chief object of their mystic rites-thus showing 

the intimate connection that they maintained 

in their symbolic language between the

LIGHT 

LIGURE 447 

process of initiation and the contemplation of 

divinity . On this subject a remarkable coincidence 

has been pointed out by M . Portal 

(Symb. desEgypt, 69), in the Hebrew language . 

There the word for "hare" is arnebet, which 

seems to be compounded of our "light," and 

nabat, "to see " ; so that the word which among 

the Egyptians was used to designate an initiation, 

among the Hebrews meant to see the 

light . 

If we proceed to an examination of the other 

systems of religion which were practised by 

the nations of antiquity, we shall find that 

light always constituted a principal object of 

adoration, as the primordial source of knowledge 

and goodness, and that darkness was 

with them synonymous with ignorance and 

evil. Dr. Beard (Encyc. Bib . Lit .) attributes 

this view of the Divine origin of light among 

the Eastern nations, to the fact that "light 

in the East has a clearness and brilliancy, is 

accompanied by an intensity of heat, and 

is followed in its influence by a largeness of 

good, of which the inhabitants of less genial 

climates have no conception . Light easily 

and naturally became, in consequence, with 

Orientals, a representative of the highest 

human good . All the more joyous emotions 

of the mind, all the pleasing sensations of the 

frame, all the happy hours of domestic intercourse, 

were described under imagery derived 

from light . The transition was naturalfrom 

earthly to heavenly, from corporeal to 

spiritual things ; and so light came to typify 

true religion and the felicity which it imparts . 

But as light not only came from God, but also 

makes man's way clear before him, so it was 

employed to signify moral truth, and preeminently 

that divine system of truth which is 

set forth in the Bible, from its earliest gleamings 

onward to the perfect day of the Great 

Sun of Righteousness ." 

As light was thus adored as the source of 

goodness, darkness, which is the negation of 

light, was abhorred as the cause of evil, and 

hence arose that doctrine which prevailed 

among the ancients, that there were two antagonistic 

principles continually contending 

for the government of the world . 

"Light," says Duncan (Relig . of Prof. Ant ., 

187), "is a source of positive happiness : without 

it man could barely exist. And since all 

religious opinion is based on the ideas of 

pleasure and pain, and the corresponding 

sensations of hope and fear, it is not to be wondered 

if the heathen reverenced light . Darkness, 

on the contrary, by replunging nature, 

as it were, into a state of nothingness, and depriving 

man of the pleasurable emotions conveyed 

through the organ of sight, was ever 

held in abhorrence, as a source of misery and 

fear . The two opposite conditions in which 

man thus found himself placed, occasioned 

by the enjoyment or the banishment of light, 

induced him to imagine the existence of two 

antagonistic principles in nature, to whose 

dominion he was alternately subjected ." 

Such was the dogma of Zoroaster, the great 

Persian philosopher, who, under the names of 

Ormuzd and Ahriman, symbolized these two 

principles of light and darkness . 

Such was also the doctrine, though somewhat 

modified, of Manes, the founder of the 

sect of Manichees, who describes God the 

Father as ruling over the kingdom of light 

and contending with the powers of darkness . 

Pythagoras also maintained this doctrine 

of two antagonistic principles . He called the 

one, unity, light, the right hand, equality, stability, 

and a straight line ; the other he named 

binary, darkness, the left hand inequality, 

instability, and a curved line. bf the colors, 

he attributed white to the good principle, and 

black to the evil one . 

The Jewish Kabbalists believed that, before 

the creation of the world, all space was filled 

with the Infinite Intellectual Light, which 

afterward withdrew itself to an equal distance 

from a central point in space, and afterward 

by its emanation produced future worlds . 

The first emanation of this surrounding light 

into the abyss of darkness produced what 

they called the "Adam Kadmon," the first 

man, or the first production of the Divine 

energy. 

In the Bhagvat Geeta (one of the religious 

books of the Brahmans), it is said : "Light and 

darkness are esteemed the world's eternal 

ways ; he who walketh in the former path returneth 

not-that is, he goeth immediately to 

bliss ; whilst he who walketh in the latter cometh 

back again upon the earth ." 

In fact, m all the ancient systems, this reverence 

for light, as an emblematic representation 

of the Eternal Principle of Good, is predominant 

. In the mysteries, the candidate 

passed, during his initiation, through scenes 

of utter darkness, and at length terminated 

his trials by an admission to the splendidly 

illuminated sacellum, where he was said to 

have attained pure and perfect light, and 

where he received the necessary instructions 

which were to invest him with that knowledge 

of the Divine truth which had been the object 

of all his labors . 

Lights, Fixed. According to the old rituals 

of the last century every Lodge room was 

furnished, or supposed to be furnished, with 

three windows, situated in the East, West, and 

South . They were called the Fixed Lights, 

and their uses were said to be "to light the 

men to, at, and from their work ." 

Lights, Greater . The Bible, and the 

Square and Compasses, which see. In the 

Persian initiations, the Archimagus informed 

the candidate, at the moment of illumination, 

that the Divine Lights were displayed before 

him. 

Light, To Bring to. A technical expression 

in Masonry meaning to initiate ; as 

"He was brought to light in such a Lodge,' ; 

that is, he was initiated in it . 

Ligure. =75 . The first stone in the third 

row of the high priest's breastplate . Commentators 

have been divided in opinion as to 

the nature of this stone ; but it is now supposed 

by the best authorities to have been the 

rubellite, which is a red variety of the tourma-

448 LILTS 

LITERATURE 

line . The ligure in the breastplate was ref 

erred to the tribe of Dan . 

Lilts or Lilith. In the popular belief of 

the Hebrews, a female specter, in elegant 

attire who secretly destroys children . The 

fabled wife of Adam, before he married Eve, 

by whom he begat devils . 

Lily . The plant so frequently mentioned 

in the Old Testament under the name of lily, 

as an emblem of purity and peace, was the lotus 

lily of Egypt and India . It occupied a conspicuous 

place among the ornaments of the 

Temple furniture . The brim of the molten 

sea was wrought with flowers of the lotus ; the 

chapiters on the tops of the pillars at the 

porch, and the tops of the pillars themselves, 

were adorned with the same plant. Sir Robert 

Ker Porter, describing a piece of sculpture 

which he found at Persepolis, says, "Almost 

every one in this procession holds in his hand 

a figure like the lotus . This flower was full 

of meaning among the ancients, and occurs all 

over the East . Egypt, Persia, Palestine, and 

India present it everywhere over their architecture, 

in the hands and on the heads of their 

sculptured figures, whether in statue or in 

bas-relief . We also find it in the sacred vestments 

and architecture of the tabernacle and 

Temple of the Israelites . The lily which is 

mentioned by our Savior, as an image of 

peculiar beauty and glory, when comparing 

the works of nature with the decorations of 

art, was a different flower ; probably a species 

of lilium . This is also represented in all pictures 

of the salutation of Gabriel to the Virgin 

Mary ; and, in fact, has been held in mysterious 

veneration by people of all nations and 

times. Ìt is the symbol of divinity, of purity, 

and abundance, and of a love most complete 

in perfection, charity, and benediction ; as in 

Holy Scripture, that mirror of purity, Susanna 

is defined Susa, which signified the lily flower, 

the chief city of the Persians, bearing that 

name for excellency . Hence, the lily's three 

leaves in the arms of France meaneth Piety, 

Justice, and Charity .' So far, the general impression 

of a peculiar regard to this beautiful 

and fragrant flower ; but the early Persians 

attached to it a peculiar sanctity ." We must 

not, however, forget the difference between 

the lotus of the Old Testament and the lily 

of the New . The former is a Masonic plant ; 

the latter is scarcely referred to . Nevertheless, 

through the ignorance of the early 

translators as to sacred plants, the lotus is 

constantly used for the lily ; and hence the 

same error has crept into the Masonic rituals . 

(See Lotus .) 

Lily-of-the-Valley . A side degree in the 

Templar system of France . 

Lily Work . The lily work which is described 

as a part of the ornamentation of the 

two pillars in the porch of Solomon's Temple 

is said to be, from the whiteness of the plant, 

symbolic of purity and peace . Properly, it is 

lotus work . (See Lily, Lotus, and Pillars of 

the Porch .) 

Limbs . See Quali~ cations, Physical . 

Lindner, Friederich Wilhelm. A pro- 

fessor of philosophy in Leipsic, who published 

in 1818-19 an attack on Freemasonry under 

the title of Mac Benac ; Er lebet im Sohne; oder 

das Positive der Freimaurerei . This work contains 

some good ideas, although taken from an 

adverse point of view ; but, as Lenning has 

observed, these bear little fruit because of the 

fanatical spirit of knight errantry with which 

he attacks the Institution . 

Line . One of the working-tools of a Past 

Master, and presented to the Master of a 

Lodge at his installation . (See Plumb Line .) 

Linear Triad . Oliver says that the Linear 

Triad is a figure which appears in some old 

Royal Arch floor-cloths . It bore a reference 

to the sojourners, who represented the three 

stones on which prayers and thanksgivings 

were offered on the discovery of the lost Word ; 

thereby affording an example that it is our 

duty in every undertaking to offer up our 

prayers and thanksgivings to the God of our 

salvation . 

Lines, Parallel . See Parallel Lines . 

Lingam. The lingam and the youi of the 

Indian mysteries were the same as the phallus 

and cteis of the Grecian . (See Phallic Worship 

.) 

Link. A degree formerly conferred in 

England, in connection with the Mark Degree, 

under the title of the "Mark and Link or 

Wrestle ." It is now obsolete . 

Linnecar, Richard . The author of the 

celebrated Masonic anthem beginning 

"Let there be Light! th' Almighty spoke ; 

Refulgent beams from chaos broke, 

T' illume the rising earth ." 

Little is known of his personal history except 

that he was the Coroner of Wakefield, England, 

and for many years the Master of the 

Lodge of Unanimity, No . 238, in that town . 

He was a zealous and studious Mason. In 

1789 he published, at Leeds, a volume of plays, 

poems, and miscellaneous writings, among 

which was an essay entitled Strictures on Freemasonry, 

and the anthem already referred to. 

He appears to have been a man of respectable 

abilities. 

Lion, Chevalier du . (Knight of theLion .) 

The twentieth grade of the third series of the 


Lion of the Tribe of Judah . See Tribe 

of Judah, Lion of the . 

Lion's Paw. A mode of recognition so 

called because of the rude resemblance made 

by the hand and fingers to a lion's paw . It 

refers to the "Lion of the tribe of Judah ." 

Literature of Masonry . Freemasonry 

has its literature, which has been rapidly developed 

in the last few decades of the present 

century, far more than in any preceding ones . 

This literature is not to be found in the working 

of its degrees, in the institution of its 

Lodges, in the diffusion of its charities, or in 

the extension of its fraternal ties . Of all 

these, although necessary and important ingredients 

of the Order, its literature is wholly 

independent . This is connected with its 

ethics as a science of moral, social, and relig-

LITIGATION 

LODGE 449 

ious philosophy ; with its history and archeology, 

as springing up out of the past times ; 

with its biography as the field in which men of 

intellect have delighted to labor ; and with its 

bibliography as the record of the results of 

that labor . It is connected, too, incidentally, 

with many other arts and sciences. Mythology 

affords an ample field for discussion in 

the effort to collate the analogies of classic 

myths and symbols with its own . Philology 

submits its laws for application to the origin 

of its mystic words, all of which are connected 

with its history . It has, in fine, its 

science and its philosophy, its poetry and 

romance . No one who has not studied the 

literature of Masonry can even dream of its 

beauty and extent ; no one who has studied it 

can have failed to receive the reward that it 

bestows . 

Litigation . See Lawsuits . 

Livery . The word livery is supposed to be 

derived from the clothing delivered by masters 

to their servants . The trading companies or 

gilds of England began about the time of Edward 

I . to wear a suit of clothing of a form, 

color, and material peculiar to each company, 

which was called its livery, and also its clothing 

. To be admitted into the membership 

and privileges of the company was called "to 

have the clothing." The Grocers' Company, 

for instance, were ordered "to be clothed once 

a year in a suit of livery " ; and there is an 

order in the reign of Henry V . to purchase 

cloth "for the clothing of the brethren of the 

brewers' craft ." There can be no doubt that 

the usage of speaking of a Mason's clothing, or 

of his being clothed, is derived from the custom 

of the gilds. A Mason's clothing, "black 

dress and white gloves and apron," is, in fact, 

his livery . (See Clothed .) 

Livre d'Architecture . The French designation 

of the book of minutes . 

Livre d'Eloquence . A French expression 

for a collection of minutes of addresses 

made in a Lodge. 

Livre d'Or . French. The Book of Gold, 

which see . 

Local Laws . See Laws of Masonry. 

Locke's Letter . The letter of John Locke 

which is said to have accompanied the Leland 

MS ., and which contains his comments 

on it . (See Leland Manuscript .) 

Lodge . There are three definitions which, 

in the technical language of Masonry, apply 

to the word Lodge . 

1 . It is a place in which Freemasons meet . 

In this sense the words more generally used 

are Lodge Room, which see . 

2 . It is the assembly or organized body of 

Freemasons duly congregated for labor or 

for business . These two distinctions are 

precisely the same as those to be found in the 

word "church," which is expressive both of 

the building in which a congregation meets 

to worship and the congregation of worshipers 

themselves . This second definition is 

what distinguishes a meeting of Symbolic 

Masons, who constitute a Lodge, from one of 

Royal Arch Masons, whose meeting would 

be called a Chapter, or of Cryptic Masons, 

whose assembly would be a Council . 

The word appears in French as loge ; German, 

loge ; Spanish, logic ; Portuguese, loja; 

and Italian, loggia. This is irrefragible evidence 

that the word was, with the Institution, 

derived by the Continent of Europe from 

England. 

The derivation of the word is, I think, plain . 

Ragon says that it comes from the Sanskrit 

loga, signifying the world . There would, at 

first sight, seem to be a connection between 

this etymology and the symbolic meaning of a 

Lodge, which represents the world ; but yet it 

is evidently far-fetched, since we have a much 

simpler root immediately at hand . Mr . Hope 

says, speaking of the Freemasons of the 

Middle Ages (and Wren had previously said 

the same thing), that wherever they were engaged 

to work, they "set themselves to building 

temporary huts, for their habitation, 

around the spot where the work was to be carried 

on." These huts the German Masons 

called hutten ; the English, lodges, which is 

from the Anglo-Saxon, logian, to dwell. 

Lodge, therefore, meant the dwelling-place or 

lodging of the Masons ; and this is undoubtedly 

the origin of the modern use of the word . 

To corroborate this, we find Du Cange (Gloss .) 

defining the Medieval Latin, logic or logium, 

as "a house or habitation ." He refers to the 

Italian, loggia, and quotes Lambertus Ardensis 

as saying that "logic is a place next to 

the house, where persons were accustomed 

to hold pleasant conversation ." Hence 

Lambertus thinks that it comes from the 

Greek, logos, a discourse . Du Cange asserts 

that there is no doubt that in the Middle Ages 

logic or logium was commonly used for an 

apartment or dwelling connected with the 

main building. Thus, the smallest apartments 

occupied by the cardinals when meeting 

in conclave were called logice or Lodges . All 

of which sustains the idea that the Lodges of 

the old Operative Masons were small dwellings 

attached, or at least contiguous, to the main 

edifice on which they were at work . 

In the Old Charges, the word is not generally 

met with. The meeting of the Craft is 

there usually called the Assembly . But there 

are instances of its employment in those documents. 

Thus in the Lodge of Antiquity MS . 

whose date is 1686, the word occurs several 

times . There is also abundant documentary 

evidence to show that the word Lodge was 

long before the eighteenth century, applied 

to their meeting by the Freemasons of England 

and Scotland . 

Before the restoration of the Grand Lodge 

of England in 1717, Preston tells us that 

any number of brethren might assemble at 

any place for the performance of work, and, 

when so assembled, were authorized to receive 

into the Order brothers and fellows, and to 

practise the rites of Masonry . The ancient 

charges were the only standard for the regulation 

of their conduct . The Master of the 

Lodge was elected pro tempore, and his authority 

terminated with the dissolution of the

450 LODGE 

LODGE 

meeting over which he had presided, unless the 

Lodge was permanently established at any 

particular place . To the general assembly of 

the Craft, held once or twice a year, all the 

brethren indiscriminately were amenable, and 

to that power alone . But on the formation of 

Grand Lodges, this inherent right of assembling 

was voluntarily surrendered by the 

brethren and the Lodges, and vested in the 

Grand Lodge . And from this time Warrants 

of Constitution date their existence . 

The mode of bringing a Lodge into existence 

under the present system in America is as follows 

: Seven Master Masons, being desirous 

of establishing a Lodge, apply by petition to 

the Grand Master, who will, if he thinks 

proper, issue his dispensation authorizing 

them to congregate as Masons in a Lodge, and 

therein to confer the three degrees of Ancient 

Craft Masonry . This instrument is of force 

during the pleasure of the Grand Master. At 

the next meeting of the Grand Lodge it expires, 

and is surrendered to the Grand Lodge, 

which, if there be no objection, will issue a 

Charter, technically called a Warrant of Constitution, 

whereby the body is permanently 

established as a Lodge, and as one of the constituents 

of the Grand Lodge . 

The power of granting Warrants of Constitution 

is vested in the Grand Lodges of Scotland, 

Ireland, Germany, and France, as it is in 

America ; but in England the rule is different, 

and there the prerogative is vested in the 

Grand Master. 

A Lodge thus constituted consists, in the 

American system, of the following officers : 

Worshipful Master, Senior and Junior Wardens, 

Treasurer, Secretary, Senior and Junior 

Deacons, two Stewards, and a Tiler . 

Under the English Constitution the officers 

are, in addition to these, a Director of Ceremonies, 

a Chaplain, an Inner Guard, an Organist 

and an Almoner . 

In a Lodge of the French Rite, the officers 

are still more numerous . They are Le Venerable 

or Worshipful Master, Premier and 

Second Surveillants or Senior and Junior 

Wardens, Orator, Treasurer, Secretary, Hospitaler 

or Collector of Alms, the Expert, combining 

the duties of the Senior Deacon and an 

examining committee, Master of Ceremonies, 

Architecte, who attends to the decoration of 

the Lodge, and superintends the financial 

department, Archiviste or Librarian, Keeper 

of the Seal, Master of the Banquets or Steward, 

and Guardian of the Temple or Tiler . 

The officers in a Lodge of the Ancient and 

Accepted Scottish Rite are a Master, two 

Wardens, Orator, Treasurer, Secretary, Almoner, 

Expert, Assistant Expert, Master of 

Ceremonies, Almoner Steward, Tiler, and 

sometimes a few others as Pursuivant, and 

Keeper of the Seals . 

In other Rites and countries the officers 

vary to a slight extent, but everywhere there 

are four officers who always are found, and who 

may therefore be considered as indispensable, 

namely, the Master, two Wardens and Tiler . 

A Lodge thus constituted is a Lodge of 

Master Masons . Strictly and legally speaking, 

such a body as a Lodge of Entered Apprentices 

or of Fellow-Crafts is not known 

under the present Masonic system . No Warrant 

is ever granted for an Apprentices' or 

Fellow-Crafts' Lodge, and without a Warrant 

a Lodge cannot exist . The Warrant granted 

is always for a Masters' Lodge, and the members 

composing it are all Master Masons . The 

Lodges mentioned by Wren and Hope, to 

which allusion has been made, and which were 

congregated, in the Middle Ages, around the 

edifices which the Masons were constructing, 

were properly Fellow-Crafts' Lodge, because 

all the members were Fellow-Crafts ; even the 

Master being merely a gradation of rank, not 

a degree of knowledge . So at the revival of 

Masonry in 1717, the Lodges were Entered 

Apprentices' Lodges, because in them nothing 

but the First Degree was conferred, and nearly 

all the members were Entered Apprentices . 

But when the Grand Lodge, where only at 

first the Fellow-Craft and Master's Degree 

were conferred, permitted them to be conferred 

in the subordinate Lodges, then the degree of 

Master Mason was sought for by all the 

Craft, and became the object of every Mason's 

ambition. From that time the Craft became 

master Masons, and the First and Second 

degrees were considered only as preliminary 

steps. So it has remained to this day ; and 

all modern Lodges, wherever Masonry has extended, 

are Masters' Lodges, and nothing less . 

Sometimes secretaries, ignorant of these 

facts, will record in their minutes that "the 

Lodge of Master Masons was closed and a 

Lodge of Entered Apprentices was opened ." 

Neither written nor unwritten law sanctions 

any such phraseology . If the Lodge of Master 

Masons is closed, there is an end of the 

Masonic congregation . Where is the Warrant 

under which a Lodge of Entered Apprentices 

is opened, and how can a Lodge, in which 

there is not, probably, a single Apprentice, 

but where all the officers and all the members 

are Master Masons, be called a Lodge of Apprentices? 

The ritual has wisely provided for 

the avoidance of such an anomaly, and, seeing 

that the Warrant says that the Lodge of Master 

Masons is empowered to make Apprentices 

and Fellow-Crafts, it says "the Lodge 

was opened on the first degree ." That is to 

say, the Lodge of Masters still retaining its 

character as a Masters' Lodge, without which 

it would lose its legality, and not venturing to 

open a kind of Lodge for which its members 

had no Warrant nor authority, simply placed 

itself on the points of a degree in which it was 

about to give instruction . 

Some of the rituals speak, it is true, of 

Lodges composed in ancient times of Masters 

and Fellow-Crafts or Masters and Apprentices 

; and the Webb lectures tell us that at 

the Temple of Solomon the Lodges of Entered 

Apprentices consisted of one Master 

and six Apprentices, and the Lodges of Fellow-Crafts 

of two Masters and three Fellow- 

Crafts . But all this is purely symbolic, and 

has no real existence in the practical working

LODGE 

LODGE 451 

of the Order . No one in these days has seen a 

Lodge of one Master Mason and six Apprentices 

. The Masons working in the First Degree 

are as much Master Masons as the same 

Masons are when they are working in the 

Third. The Lodge legally is the same, 

though it may vary the subjects of its instruction 

so as to have them in the First, Second, 

or Third Degree . 

So important a feature in Masonry as a 

Lodge, the congregations of Masons for work 

or worship, cannot be without its appropriate 

symbolism. Hence a Lodge when duly opened 

becomes a symbol of the world . Its covering 

is like the world's, a sky or clouded canopy, 

to reach which, as the abode of those 

who do the will of the Great Architect, it is 

furnished with the theological ladder, which 

reaches from earth to heaven ; and it is illuminated 

as is the world, by the refulgent 

rays of the sun, symbolically represented in 

his rising in the East, his meridian height in 

the South, and his setting in the West ; and 

lastly, its very form, a long quadrangle or oblong 

square, is in reference to the early tradition 

that such was the shape of the inhabited 

world . 

3 . The Lodge, technically speaking, is a 

piece of furniture made in imitation of the 

Ark of the Covenant, which was constructed 

by Bezaleel (Exodus xxxvii . 1) according 

to the form prescribed by God himself, and 

which, after the erection of the Temple, was 

kept in the Holy of Holies . As that contained 

the table of the laws, the Lodge contains 

the Book of Constitutions and the Warrant 

of Constitution granted by the Grand 

Lodge . It is used only in certain ceremonies, 

such as the constitution and consecration of 

new Lodges, but its use is obsolete in England . 

Lodge, Chartered . See Chartered Lodge. 

Lodge, Clandestine . See Clandestine 

Lodge . 

Lodge, Constituted . See Constituted 

Legally . 

Lodge, Dormant. See Dormant Lodge. 

Lodge, Emergent . See Emergent Lodge . 

Lodge, Extinct . See Extinct Lodge. 

Lodge, Holy. See Holy Lodge . 

Lodge Hours . Dermott says (A him . Rez ., 

p . xxiii .) "that Lodge hours, that is, the time 

in which it is lawful for a Lodge to work or do 

business, are from March 25th to September 

25th, between the hours of seven and ten ; and 

from September 25th to March 25th, between 

the hours of six and nine ." Whence he derived 

the law is unknown ; but it is certain that it 

has never been rigidly observed even by the 

"ancient Lodges," for whom his Ahiman 

Rezon was written . 

Lodge, Just . See Just Lodge. 

Lodge Master, English . (Maitre de 

Lodge Anglais .) A degree in the nomenclature 

of Thory, inserted on the authority of Lemanceau. 

Lodge Master, French . (Maitre de Loge 

Frangais.) The Twenty-sixth Degree of the 

collection of the Metropolitan Chapter of 

France. 

Lodge, Occasional . See Occasional Lodge. 

Lodge of Instruction . These are assemblies 

of brethren congregated without a Warrant 

of Constitution, under the direction of a 

lecturer or skilful brother, for the purpose of 

improvement in Masonry, which is accomplished 

by the frequent rehearsal of the work 

and lectures of each degree . These bodies 

should consist exclusively of Master Masons ; 

and though they possess no Masonic power, it 

is evident to every Mason that they are extremely 

useful as schoors of preparation for 

the duties that are afterward to be performed 

in the regular Lodge . In England, 

these Lodges of Instruction are attached to 

regularly Warranted Lodges, or are specially 

licensed by the Grand Master. But they have 

an independent set of officers, who are elected 

at no stated periods-sometimes for a year, 

sometimes for six or three months, and sometimes 

changed at every night of meeting. 

They of course have no power of initiation, 

but simply meet for purposes of practise in 

the ritual. They are, however, bound to keep 

a record of their transactions, subject to the 

inspection of the superior powers . 

Lodge of St. John . The Masonic tradition 

is that the primitive or mother Lodge was 

held at Jerusalem, and dedicated to St . John 

first the Baptist, then the Evangelist, and 

finally to both . Hence this Lodge was called 

"TheLodgeof theHolySt . John of Jerusalem ." 

From this Lodge all other Lodges are supposed 

figuratively to descend, and they therefore 

receive the same general name, accompanied 

by another local and distinctive one . In all 

Masonic documents the words ran formerly as 

follows : "From the Lodge of the holy St . 

John of Jerusalem, under the distinctive appellation 

of Solomon's Lodge, No . 1," or whatever 

might be the local name. In this style 

foreign documents still run ; and it is but a 

few years since it has been at all disused in 

America. Hence we say that every Mason 

hails from such a Lodge, that is to say, from a 

just and legally constituted Lodge. In the 

earliest catechisms of the eighteenth century 

we find this formula : "Q. What Lodge are 

you of? A . The Lodge of St. John ." And 

another question is, "How many angles in St . 

John's Lodge? " In one of the high degrees it 

is stated that Lodges receive this title "because, 

in the time of the Crusades, the Perfect 

Masons communicated a knowledge of their 

Mysteries to the Knights of St . John of Jerusalem," 

and as both were thus under the same 

law, the Lodges were called St . John's Lodges . 

But this was only one of the attempts to connect 

Freemasonry with the Templar system . 

Lodge, Perfect . See Just Lodge . 

Lodge, Regular. See Regular Lodge. 

Lodge Room . The Masons on the Continent 

of Europe have a prescribed form or ritual 

of building, according to whose directions 

it is absolutely necessary that every hall for 

Masonic purposes shall be erected . No such 

regulation exists among the Fraternity of 

America or Great Britain . Still, the usages 

of the Craft, and the objects of convenience in

452 LODGE 

LONDON 

the administration of our rites, require that 

certain general rules should be followed in the 

construction of a Lodge room . These rules, 

as generally observed in America, are as follows 

: 

A Lodge room should always, if possible, be 

situated due East and West . This position is 

not absolutely necessary ; and yet it is so far 

so as to demand that some sacrifices should be 

H 

0 

EAST. 

Platform - or Dais 

for Past Masters . 

----------------------------------------- 

Senior Deacon . 

Treasurer. Secretary . 

Light . * 

Altar. 

b U 

Cd 

* Light. 

Light. " Steward . 

Junior Warden . 

Steward. + 

Preparation Door . Tiler's 

,oom . ~ Room. 

WEST. 

Doorm.--~ 

H 

0 

J1 

made, if possible, to obtain so desirable a position 

. It should also be isolated, where it is 

practicable, from all surrounding buildings, 

and should always be placed in an upper story . 

No Lodge should ever be held on the ground 

floor . 

The form of a Lodge room should be that of 

a parallelogram or oblong square, at least onethird 

larger from East to West than it is from 

North to South . The ceiling should be lofty, 

to give dignity to the appearance of the hall, 

as well as for the purposes of health, by compensating, 

in some degree, for the inconvenience 

of closed windows, which necessarily 

will deteriorate the quality of the air in a very 

short time in a low room . The approaches to 

the Lodge room from without should be angular, 

for, as Oliver says, "A straight entrance is 

unmasonic, and cannot be tolerated ." There 

should be two entrances to the room, which 

should be situated in the West, and on each 

side of the Senior Warden's station . The one 

on his right hand is for the introduction of visitors 

and members, and leading from the 

Tiler's room, is called the Tiler's, or the outer 

door ; the other, on his left, leading from the 

preparation room ; is known as the "inner 

door," and sometimes called the "northwest 

door." The situation of these two doors, as 

well as the rooms with which they are connected, 

and which are essentially necessary in 

a well-constructed Lodge room, may be seen 

from the diagram in opposite column, which 

also exhibits the seats of the officers and 

the arrangement of the altar and lights . For 

further observations, see Hall, Masonic . 

Lodge, Royal . See Royal Lodge . 

Lodge, Sacred . See Sacred Lodge . 

Lodge, Symbol of the . The modern 

symbol or hieroglyphic of the word Lodge is 

the figure=, which undoubtedly refers to the 

form of the Lodge as an "oblong square ." 

But in the old rituals of the early part of the 

last century we find this symbol : The 

cross here, as Krause (Kunsturk ., i ., 37)O 

suggests, refers to the "four angles" of 

the Lodge, as in the question : "How 

many angles in St . John's Lodge? 

A . Four, bordering on squares" ; and 

the delta is the Pythagorean symbol of 

Divine Providence watching over the Lodge . 

This symbol has long since become obsolete . 

Loge . The French word for Lodge . 

Logic . The art of reasoning, and one of 

the seven liberal arts and sciences, whose uses 

are inculcated in the Second Degree . The 

power of right reasoning, which distinguishes 

the man of sane mind from the madman and 

the idiot, is deemed essential to the Mason, 

that he may comprehend both his rights and 

his duties . And hence the unfortunate beings 

just named, who are without this necessary 

mental quality, are denied admission into the 

Order . The Old Charges define logic to be the 

art "that teacheth to discern truth from falsehood 

." 

Loki . See Balder . 

Lombardy. At the close of the dark ages, 

Lombardy and the adjacent Italian States 

were the first which awakened to industry . 

New cities arose, and the kings, lords, and 

municipalities began to encourage the artificers 

of different professions . Among the arts 

exercised and improved in Lombardy, the art 

of building held a preeminent rank, and from 

that kingdom, as from a center, the Comacine 

Masters were dispersed over all Europe . 

(See Traveling Freemasons : Comacine .) 

London . With the city of London, the 

modern history of Freemasonry is intimately 

connected . A congress of Masons, as it may 

properly be called, was convened there by the 

four old Lodges, at the Apple-Tree Tavern, 

in 1717 . Its results were the formation of

LOST 

LOYALTY 453 

the Grand Lodge of England, and a modification 

of the Masonic system, whence the Freemasonry 

of the present day has descended . 

Anderson, in his second edition of the Book of 

Constitutions (1738), gives the account of 

this, as it is now called, Revival of Masonry, 

which see . 

Lost Word . The mythical history of Freemasonry 

informs us that there once existed a 

WORD of surpassing value, and claiming a 

profound veneration ; that this Word was 

known to but few ; that it was at length 

lost ; and that a temporary substitute for it 

was adopted . But as the very philosophy of 

Masonry teaches us that there can be no 

death without a resurrection-no decay 

without a subsequent restoration-on the 

same principle it follows that the loss of the 

Word must suppose its eventual recovery . 

Now, this it is, precisely, that constitutes 

the myth of the Lost Word and the search for 

it . No matter what was the word, no matter 

how it was lost, nor why a substitute was provided, 

nor when nor where it was recovered . 

These are all points of subsidiary importance, 

necessary, it is true, for knowing the legendary 

history, but not necessary for understanding 

the symbolism . The only term of the myth 

that is to be regarded in the study of its interpretation, 

is the abstract idea of a word 

lost and afterward recovered . 

The WORD therefore, may be conceived to 

be the symbol of Divine Truth ; and all its 

modifications-the loss, the substitution, and 

the recovery-are but component parts of the 

mythical symbol which represents a search 

after truth . In a general sense, the Word 

itself being then the symbol of Divine Truth, 

the narrative of its loss and the search for its 

recovery becomes a mythical symbol of the 

decay and loss of the true religion among the 

ancient nations, at and after the dispersion on 

the plains of Shinar, and of the attempts of 

the wise men, the philosophers, and priests, to 

find and retain it in their secret mysteries and 

initiations, which have hence been designated 

as the Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity . 

But there is a special or individual, as well 

as a general interpretation, and in this special 

or individual interpretation the Word, with its 

accompanying myth of a loss, a substitute, 

and a recovery, becomes a symbol of the personal 

progress of a candidate from his first 

initiation to the completion of his course, 

when he receives a full development of the 

mysteries . 

Lotus . The lotus plant, so celebrated in 

the religions of Egypt and Asia, is a species 

of Nymphsea, or water-lily, which grows 

abundantly on the banks of streams in warm 

climates . Although more familiarly known as 

the lotus of the Nile, it was not indigenous to 

Egypt, but was probably introduced into that 

country from the East, among whose people it 

was everywhere consecrated as a sacred symbol 

. The Brahmanical deities were almost 

always represented as either decorated with 

its flowers, or holding it as a scepter, or seated 

on it as a throne . Coleman says (Mythol . 

Hindus, p . 388) that to the Hindu poets the 

lotus was what the rose was to the Persians . 

Floating on the water it is the emblem of the 

world, and the type also of the mountain 

Meru, the residence of the gods . Among the 

Egyptians, the lotus was the symbol of Osiris 

and Isis . It was esteemed a sacred ornament 

by the priests, and was placed as a coronet 

upon the heads of many of the gods . It was 

also much used in the sacred architecture of 

the Egyptians, being placed as an entablature 

upon the columns of their temples . Thence 

it was introduced by Solomon into Jewish 

architecture, being found, under the name of 

"lily work," as a part of the ornaments of the 

two pillars at the porch of the Temple . (See 

Lily and Pillars of the Porch.) 

Louis Napoleon . Second Adjoint of the 

Grand Master of the G . Orient of France . 

Nominated, in 1806, King of Holland . Louis 

Napoleon III . was widely known as an interested 

Mason . 

Louisiana. Masonry was introduced into 

Louisiana in 1793 by the organization of Perfect 

Union Lodge, under a Charter issued by 

the Grand Lodge of South Carolina . A second 

Lodge was established by the Mother 

Lodge of Marseilles, in France ; and three 

others were subsequently chartered by the 

Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania . These five 

Lodges instituted a Grand Lodge on July 11, 

1812, and Francis du Bourg was elected the 

first Grand Master . A difference of nationality 

and of Masonic rites have been a fertile 

source of controversy in Louisiana, the results 

of which it would be tedious to follow in detail . 

In 1848, there were two Grand Lodges, which 

were united in 1850 to constitute the present 


The Grand Chapter of Louisiana was instituted 

on March 5, 1813 ; a Grand Council of 

Royal and Select Masters on February 16, 

1856 ; and a Grand Commandery of Knights 

Templar on February 4, 1864 . The Ancient 

and Accepted Scottish Rite has always held 

a prominent position in the Masonry of Louisiana, 

and it has a Grand Consistory and many 

subordinate bodies of the Rite in active and 

successful operation. 

Louveteau . See Lewis. 

Lowen. In the Lansdowne Manuscript 

we meet with this charge : "that a Master or 

ffellow make not a moulde stone square, nor 

rule to no Lowen nor sett no Lowen worke 

within the Lodge . ; ' [This has been said to be 

an error for "Cowan," but it is more probably 

intended for "Layer" (q. v .), which is the word 

used in the parallel passage in other MSS .- 

E. L. H .] 

Low Twelve . In Masonic language midnight 

is so called . The reference is to the sun, 

which is then below the earth . Low twelve 

in Masonic symbolism is an unpropitious 

hour. 

Loyalty . Notwithstanding the calumnies 

of Barruel, Robison, and a host of other anti- 

Masonic writers who assert that Masonry is 

ever engaged in efforts to uproot the governments 

within which it may exist, there is

454 LUCHET 

LUX 

nothing more evident than that Freemasonry 

is a loyal institution, and that it inculcates, in 

all its public instructions, obedience to government 

. Thus, in the Prestonian charge given 

in the last century to the Entered Apprentice, 

and continued to this day in the same words 

in English Lodges, we find the following 

words : 

"In the State, you are to be a quiet and 

peaceable subject, true to your sovereign, and 

just to your country ; you are not to countenance 

disloyalty or rebellion, but patiently 

submit to legal authority, and conform with 

cheerfulness to the government under which 

you live, yielding obedience to the laws which 

afford you protection, but never forgetting 

the attachment you owe to the place of your 

nativity, or the allegiance due to the sovereign 

or protectors of that spot ." 

The charge given in American Lodges is of 

the same import, and varies but slightly in its 

language . 

"In the State, you are to be a quiet and 

peaceful subject, true to your government, 

and just to your country ; you are not to 

countenance disloyalty or rebellion, but patiently 

submit to legal authority, and conform 

with cheerfulness to the government of the 

country in which you live ." 

The charge given in French Lodges, though 

somewhat differing in form from both of these, 

is couched in the same spirit and teaches the 

same lesson . It is to this effect : 

"Obedience to the laws and submission to 

the authorities are among the most imperious 

duties of the Mason, and he is forbidden at all 

times from engaging in plots and conspiracies." 

Hence it is evident that the true Mason 

must be a true patriot . 

Luchet, Jean Pierre Louis, Marquis de. 

A French historical writer, who was born at 

Saintes in 1740, and died in 1791 . He was the 

writer of many works of but little reputation, 

but is principally distinguished in Masonic 

literature as the author of an attack upon Illuminism 

under the title of Essai sur la Secte 

des Illumines . It first appeared anonymously 

in 1789. Four editions of it were published . 

The third and fourth with augmentations and 

revisions, which were attributed to Mirabeau, 

were printed with the outer title of Histoire 

secret de la Cour de Berlin (par Mirabeau) . 

This work was published, it is known, without 

his consent, and was burned by the common 

executioner in consequence of its libelous 

character. Luchet's essay has become very 

scarce, and is now valued rather on account of 

its rarity than for its intrinsic excellence . 

Ludewig, H. E. An energetic Mason, 

born in 1810, in Germany ; died in 1856, in 

America. By "powers from home" this 

ardent brother attempted to set up an independent 

authority to the existing Grand Lodge 

system in the United States ; but, like many 

such attempts, it flashed brilliantly for a season, 

but proved of ephemeral nature. 

Lufton. One of the French terms for Louveteau, 

or Lewis, which see . 

Lully, Raymond . A celebrated chemist 

and philosopher, the seneschal of Majorca, 

surnamed le docteur illumine. His discoveries 

are most noted, such as the mode of rectifying 

s pirits, the refining of silver, etc . He was born 

about 1234 . In 1276 he founded a college of 

Franciscans at Palma, for instruction in Eastern 

lore, and especially the study of the Arabic 

language, for which purpose he instituted 

several colleges between the years 1293 and 

1311 . He died in 1314 . He is known as an 

eminent Rosicrucian, and many fables as to 

his longevity are related of him . 

Lumiere, La Grande . (The Grand Light .) 

A grade in the collection of Brother Viany . 

Lumiere, La Vrale. (The True Light, or 

Perfect Mason .) A degree in the Chapter of 

the Grand Lodge of Royal York of Berlin . 

(Thory, Acta Lat ., i ., 321 .) 

Luminaries . The first five officers in a 

French Lodge, namely, the Master, two 

Wardens, Orator, and Secretary, are called 

luminaires or luminaries, because it is by them 

that light is dispensed to the Lodge . 

Lunus. An Egyptian deity, known as 

Khons Lunus, and represented as hawkheaded, 

surmounted by the crescent and disk . 

When appearing with the head of an ibis, he 

is called Thoth-Lunus . His worship was 

very extensive through ancient Egypt, where 

he was known as Aah, who presides over rejuvenation 

and resurrection . Champollion 

mentions in his Pantheon a Lunus bifrons . 

Lustration . A religious rite practised by 

the ancients, and performed before any act 

of devotion . It consisted in washing the 

hands, and sometimes the whole body, in lustral 

or consecrated water . It was intended 

as a symbol of the internal purification of the 

heart . It was a ceremony preparatory to 

initiation in all the Ancient Mysteries . The 

ceremony is practised with the same symbolic 

import in some of the high degrees of 

Masonry . So strong was the idea of a connection 

between lustration and initiation, 

that in the low Latin of the Middle Ages 

lustrare meant to initiate . Thus Du Cange 

(Glossarium) cites the expression "lustrare 

religione Christianorum" as signifying "to 

initiate into the Christian religion ." 

Lux . Latin for light, which see . Freemasonry 

anciently received, among other 

names, that of "Lux," because it is that sublime 

doctrine of truth by which the pathway 

of him who has attained it is to be illumined 

in the pilgrimage of life . Among the Rosicrucians, 

light was the knowledge of the 

philosopher's stone ; and Mosheim says that 

in chemical language the cross was an emblem 

of light, because it contains within its figure 

the forms of the three figures of which LVX, 

or light, is composed . 

Lux e tenebris . Light out of darkness . A 

motto very commonly used in the caption of 

Masonic documents as expressive of the object 

of Masonry, and of what the true Mason supposes 

himself to have attained . It has a 

recondite meaning. In the primeval ages and 

in the early mythology, darkness preceded

LUX 

LYONS 455 

light . "In the thought," says Cox, "of these 

early ages, the sun was the child of night or 

darkness ." (Aryan Myth ., i ., 43 .) So lux being 

truth or Masonry, and tenebrce, or darkness, 

the symbol of initiation, lux e tenebris is Masonic 

truth proceeding from initiation . 

Lux Flat et Lux Fit . Latin . "Let 

there be light, and there was light ." A motto 

sometimes prefixed to Masonic documents . 

Luz . An ever-living power, according to 

the old Jewish Rabbis, residing in a small 

joint-bone existing at the base of the spinal 

column . To this undying principle, watered 

by the dew of heaven, is ascribed the immortality 

in man . 

"R . Joshua Ben Hananiah replied to 

Hadrian, as to how man revived in the world 

to come, `From Luz, in the back-bone .' When 

asked to demonstrate this, he took Luz, a 

little bone out of the back-bone, and put it in 

water, and it was not steeped ; he put it in the 

fire, and it was not burned ; he brought it to 

the mill, and that could not grind it ; he laid 

it on the anvil, and knocked it with a hammer, 

but the anvil was cleft, and the hammer 

broken ." 

L. V . C . Letters inscribed on the rings of 

profession, worn by the Knights of Baron von 

Hund's Templar system . They are the 

initials of the sentence Labor Viris Convenit . 

Labor is suitable for men . It was also engraved 

on their seals. 

Lyon, David Murray. This well-known 

writer and historian of Freemasonry in Scotland 

was initiated in 1856 in Lodge Ayr St . 

Paul, No . 204, on the roll of the Grand Lodge 

of Scotland . He was a printer by trade and 

was at one time employed by the Ayrshire 

Express Company . In 1877 he was appointed 

Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge 

of Scotland and held the post until 1900. He 

died on January 30, 1903 . 

He was, without doubt, the foremost Masonic 

student of Scotland, either of this or 

any other period ; and the results of his 

continuous and arduous researches are to be 

found in all the books and periodicals of the 

Craft for the last twenty years, both at home 

and abroad . It is simply impossible to furnish 

anything like an accurate and complete list of 

his many valuable contributions to Masonic 

magazines. . His chief works have been 

the History of the Mother Lodge Kilwinning, 

Scotland, the History of the Old Lodge at Thornhill, 

and, finally, the History of the Ancient 

Lodge at Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel), from 

the sixteenth century . This grand work, 

which was published in 1873, has placed its 

author in the front rank of Masonic authors . 

[E . L . H .] 

Lyons, Congress of. A Masonic congress 

was convoked in 1778, at the city of Lyons, 

France, by the Lodge of Chevaliers Bienfaisants 

. It was opened on the 26th of November, 

and continued in session until the 

27th of December, under the presidency of M . 

Villermoz . Its ostensible object was to procure 

a reformation in Masonry by the abjuration 

of the Templar theory ; but it wasted its 

time in the correction of rituals and in Masonic 

intrigues, and does not ap pear to have 

been either sagacious in its methods, or successful 

in its results . Even its abjuration of the 

Strict Observance doctrine that Templarism 

was the true origin of Freemasonry, is said to 

have been insincere, and forced upon it by the 

injunctions of the political authorities, who 

were opposed to the propagation of any system 

which might tend to restore the Order of 

Knights Templar.

Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

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