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ORIGINS AND INTIMATIONS
CHAPTER I
FROM time immemorial Freemasonry has exercised the right to
ask of each of its votaries whence he came and whither he was
traveling. That right is reciprocal and the individual Mason is
equally entitled to demand of the Fraternity in turn that it tell in
what springs of human aspiration it had its origin and to what
deeps of human need it bends its course.
The answer to neither part of the question can be conclusive. If
memory could go back to Masonry's beginning, it would be a
misuse of words to describe its past as immemorial. The best
account of its remote history is that it had not one origin but many
origins. The best augury to be spoken of its future is that since
heretofore it has never failed to respond to the contemporaneous
requirements of humanity there is no reason to suppose it ever will
fail.
Many attempts have been made to answer the questions more
explicitly. These have failed because of difficulty in perceiving the
simple fact that Freemasonry is not a thing which was created at a
given moment but is a growth. Of an ancient palace it is often
possible to say that the foundations were laid in the reign of this
monarch or of that one. But who shall say when the seed of the
oldest Sequoia tree of California was planted, or. who, if he could
say, might tell, also when the parent stem which fathered that seed
flourished in its turn of grandeur?
It is apparent from the most casual study of the records of primitive
peoples that their religions, philosophies, social systems, folk
thoughts and folk ways had much in common, however widely
they may have been separated from one another by time or clime.
Comparisons between these and certain superficial phenomena of
Freemasonry disclose resemblances which cannot but arrest the
attention of reflective minds. Even if there had been no pretentious
claims of antiquity for the Craft, intuition would at once be able to
bridge the chasms of centuries and connect it with more than one
of the ancient societies that have flourished in the past, and which,
in all essentials save that of chronological continuity, form with it a
part of the common human inheritance.
Numerous ponderous tomes gathering dust on library shelves
prove only too well, however, that there has been no scarcity of
optimistic brethren, eager to support with all the vigor scholarship
or invention could command the most earnest arguments tending to
show that precisely this missing element of chronological
continuity can be supplied. Modern scientific criticism must reject
most, if not all, of these extravagant assertions. It is content with
unimpeachable evidence pointing to a respectable antiquity which
the institution may fairly claim. But while it denies that continuity
has been demonstrated for a period longer than has elapsed since
the middle centuries of European history, it is prepared to show
Freemasonry's spiritual unity with antecedent societies of remote
ages and even with cognate societies existing in the obscurest
corners of the earth of today. It finds unmistakable evidences of a
spiritual kinship binding all such groups together and in this truth it
discovers cause for wonder and satisfaction far greater than the
most extravagant romances of Masonic mythology are able to
evoke. It admits that the foundation stones of the Fraternity are
almost unbelievably old, but it does so on different grounds from
those in which the legend makers of other days reposed a native
and childlike faith.
There have been many such legends, but they have been so varied
in character and conflicting in conclusions that an investigator
approaching them for the first time might well be dismayed by
even a casual examination of their vast array. That each of them
should find ready acceptance is not surprising when it is
remembered that man is incurably romantic. Make a tale brave
enough, uniform it with noble trappings, embroider it with glamour
and utter it in the cadences of minstrelsy, and it is characteristic of
human nature that willing believers will accept it without troubling
to inquire too closely into the substance of their faith. Still, the
faith which is to endure must not be founded on quicksand. There
may come a time when insinuations of doubt are whispered into an
overcredulous one's ear. Once he becomes persuaded he has been
imposed upon, he is likely to find the transition from
unquestioning belief to outright disbelief easily and speedily made.
Skepticism of that kind has become rather a commonplace within
the brotherhood and has done incalculable harm. Freemasonry
cannot expect to perpetuate itself without an appeal to the
intelligence, nor can it expect to retain the allegiance of intelligent
members by insisting they accept as factual narratives legends
which on their surface bear indisputable relationship to the folk
tales of many races and religions. This sort of thing has worked
damage, to the Fraternity on the outside, but has probably caused
even greater damage among its own initiates. Among the profane it
has led to acceptance of Hallam's bitter jibe, "The curious history
of Freemasonry has unfortunately been treated only by its
panegyrists or calumniators, both equally mendacious." The charge
of mendacity is unfair since the defects complained of were due
not to a desire to I deceive but to an easy inclination to believe
what one wished to believe. Those old, glib tales of Masonic
beginnings back in the mists of primordial time have wrought
additional mischief in giving rise to a suspicion that, since the
Fraternity's antecedents were not all that has been claimed for
them, they therefore must have been more recent than its
eighteenth-century apologists were willing to admit.
Such reasoning is fallacious. Happily for the good fame of
Freemasonry recent critical methods have thrown light upon the
whole, replacing much that was mythical and improbable by much
that is credible, and giving new and sound reasons for believing
that an antiquity which the eighteenth century could not establish
by fable the twentieth century has established by reason and
philosophy and research. But while the twentieth century denies
credence to the elaborate legends of Anderson, Desaguliers,
Preston and others of their school, it is likewise constrained to
reject - or at least to modify - the harsh dictum of the learned Dr.
Mackey, that the scholar "must accept nothing as history that
cannot be demonstrated with almost mathematical accuracy."
Masonic historical writing may be divided roughly into two major
schools, one sanguine and credulous, the other skeptical and
iconoclastic. To the one no suggestion is too remote or
preposterous for consideration provided only it tends to
substantiate some theory preconceived; to the other nothing is
acceptable which cannot be authenticated beyond the semblance of
a doubt. The one walks dreamily in a golden haze; the other gropes
in stolid patience among rugged foothills of fact, never raising its
eyes to the glorious summits just beyond.
The world has come to realize, however, that historical truth
implies something vastly more important than mere chronology or
a bleak compilation of irrefutable evidence. "The historian ought
not to conclude," wrote Ernest Renan, "that a fact is false because
he possesses several versions of it, or because credulity has mixed
them with much that is fabulous." Because it was said that, at one
period of the voyage, the sun was on their right-hand, or
northward, side, Herodotus doubted the tale of certain Phoenician
mariners that they had circumnavigated Africa. To the scientific
knowledge which the learned Greek possessed that was an
impossibility, yet it is the one circumstance which persuades
modern science that the tale of the Phoenicians was true, since it is
inconceivable that the Phoenicians could have imagined such a
thing. They had simply passed south of the equator; Herodotus did
not know about the equator. And so it often is: what seems today to
be the truth may be proved error by tomorrow, a possibility to
which the historian must remain perpetually alert. Legend may not
be proof of a thing yet May strongly indicate the truth thereof. The
story of George Washington and the cherry tree is legendary, but
who shall deny that it reveals a more perfect insight into the
character of the man than does the bald fact that he spoke
profanely to one of his generals on the battlefield?
The modern student of Freemasonry, fortunately, is not compelled
to rely upon legendary lore on the one hand, or, on the other, the
documentary researches of skeptics. The Fraternity's claim to
ancient beginnings rests upon a surer foundation than either can
supply. Its ascertainable age is great, but its probable age is greater.
In substantially its present form, as a speculative society, it has
existed for more than two centuries. In its earlier operative form it
existed through many other centuries - at least through a great part
of that long period when Gothic builders were dotting Europe with
God's cathedrals. it is significant that at the earliest moment to
which that form can be traced, it already had venerable legends
boasting of beginnings far more remote.
The oldest known Masonic document is a manuscript poem found
in the 1830's, in the King's Library of the British museum and
published in 1840 by James O. Halliwell, who was not a member
of the Fraternity. Different scholars have assigned various dates to
it, but it is probably not much older than the year 1390 and not
much younger than the year 1445. It is known as the Halliwell
Manuscript and as the Regius Poem, the two names being
interchangeable.
The poem consists of 794 lines of rhymed English verse. It bears
the Latin title, Hic incipiunt constitutiones artis gemetrioe
secundum Euclydum, which may be translated as "Here begin the
constitutions of geometry according to Euclid." This title probably
explains how a paper of such Masonic importance came to be so
long overlooked since it was no doubt cast aside as a treatise in
doggerel on the science of mathematics.
The first eighty-six lines tell a legend of the foundation of Masonry
In Egypt by the mathematician, Euclid, and its introduction into
England in the reign of King Athelstan, an Anglo-Saxon monarch
who ascended the throne in A.D. 924. This is followed by an
account of a great assembly of the Craft - other legends say this
convention took place at York in the year 926 - under the
patronage of Prince Edwin. Certain regulations for the governance
of the society, divided into fifteen articles and fifteen points, are
included in this division. Then follows an ordinance regarding
further assemblies; after this come forty-eight lines recording a
legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs. This is followed by another
version of the origin of the Craft, which purports to trace its history
from the Deluge and the Tower of Babel. The whole is finished off
with rules for behavior at church and certain recommendations on
etiquette.
The manuscript reveals internal evidence of various periods and
authorships. Notwithstanding its extravagances and improbabilities
it is of importance as showing that at a date approximately 300
years before the founding of the first Grand Lodge English.
Freemasonry made vast and bold pretensions to antiquity; that it
had legends analogous to those with which modern Masonry is
famillar; that already it had a definite literature and traditions of its
own, and that, regardless of the evidence adduced it boasted that it
had been in existence in England for more than 450 years.
The word "maszun" of French origin, as applied to an operative
craftsman in stone, was established in popular usage in England
before the thirteenth century and appeared in a glossary compiled
about the year 1217. In the seventh century English working
masons are said to have dedicated a church to the Four Crowned
Martyrs. Certainly the remains of a church dedicated to these saints
are yet in existence and are known to have stood since the ninth
century' or before the Norman conquest. As recently as 481 the
Masons Company of London attended Mass on the f east day of
the Four Crowned Martyrs, in accordance with what appears to
have been a custom Well established.
By 1292 English masons were accustomed to speak of their
working place as a "lodge." The fabric roll of Exeter Cathedral,
compiled in 1396, applied to the members of this operative guild
the name "freemasons." They were designated as "freemasons"
in a
statute of 1495. An earlier statute of the year 1360 prohibited
secret agreements among masons and carpenters and pronounced
annulment for all oaths binding them to secrecy which may have
been in existence. In 1425 English masons were forbidden to hold
their usual assemblies, but in 145 a code of laws, said to have been
approved by Henry VI, was drawn up for the government of the
Fraternity, thus clearly establishing the fact that at that time some
sort of common bond united the separate units or working lodges.
In 1472 a coat of arms was formally granted to "the Hole Craft and
Felawship of Masons."
At precisely what period operative lodges began admitting non-
Masons to membership cannot now be ascertained, but the practice
was known in 1646 when the society at Chester and Warrington
was recorded as having admitted Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, and
Colonel Henry Mainwaring. There was nothing in the
circumstance to indicate that this was a new thing. On the contrary,
Dr. Plot, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, written in 1686,
speaks of Freemasonry as being of greater request there than
anywhere else, "though I find the custom spread more or less all
over the Nation."
The four old lodges out of which, in the years 1717 - 1721, the first
Grand Lodge was formed were typical of others scattered about
England, Scotland, and Ireland, although by that time, because of
the decline of Gothic architecture, the Craft had long been
languishing to decay. The formation of the Grand Lodge definitely
changed the character of English Masonry from an operative to
what is now called a speculative basis. This change was regarded
at the time as so much of an innovation that secretaries of some of
the operative lodges burned their records for fear they might fall
into the hands of the reformers and the secrets of the Fraternity
thereby revealed. Nevertheless the continuity from operative to
speculative is unbroken, and of the subsequent history of Masonry
there is adequate, uninterrupted record.
This is not the time or place to inquire into the authenticity of the
assertions in the Halliwell Manuscript or to analyze the
chronological data of the Craft in Great Britain. These subjects will
be discussed elsewhere in the present work. They are mentioned
here to attest the truth of often repeated statements that there are
Masonic records running from shortly after the Norman Conquest
to the present day; that there is at least one Masonic document
which is more than 500 years old and which asserts that English
Freemasonry has existed since the tenth century; that the
Freemasonry of today has a defensible right to consider itself the
lineal descendant and heir of the ancient operative societies. The
antiquity thus established might be called considerable, without
overtaxing the ordinary meaning of the word, if there were not
reasons for believing it even more ancient.
There are such reasons. They are to be found in the simple fact that
Freemasonry, in its present state, is the product of an evolutionary
development which is part and parcel of the growth of civilization
itself. Even if it could be determined that English Freemasonry
came into existence as a particular social entity at any given date -
whether in the year 926 or the year 1717, earlier or later - there
would still be sufficient reason for thinking that it was not then a
wholly fresh creation but was rather the product of forces resident
within itself which had been in motion at a time long anterior to
that specific time.
To assume that this development has followed a direct line which
can be retraced step by step is of course impossible. That cannot be
done with whole races, much less with small and often casual
groups of individuals. Englishmen and many Americans are fond,
for instance, of describing themselves as of Anglo-Saxon stock,
and, in a broad, general sense, the designation may be accepted as
descriptively correct. But in both Great Britain and the United
States infusions of other bloods have been so numerous and
frequent that it may be doubted that a single living person can trace
his ancestral blood stream as a pure and undiluted current running
straight from some follower of Horsa and Hengist. The English
language has a far greater number of words of Greek or Latin
origin than of Anglo-Saxon. Yet this does not alter the basic truth
that a town meeting in New England, a coroner's inquest in Texas,
a legislative session in Queensland or Vancouver, a Parliament in
London and a Congress in Washington are all lineal descendants of
those meetings of the wise men, when elders of a North German
village gathered in the shadows of their forest 1,500 and more
years ago.
With equal certainty it may be said that the great brotherhood we
call the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted
Masons is descendant of and heir to many primitive forms of
human association which may have held their assemblies on high
hills or in deep vales back in the days when the earth was young.
That direct and unbroken connection cannot be established
between them is of minor consequence. Whatever else it may be,
Freemasonry bears within itself certain peculiarities which belong
to the general cult history of the world. It is a manifestation in
modern times of a tendency as old as humanity and as universal as
mankind's instinct for religion. It is well that this is so, for were it
otherwise, the Fraternity would conform to the usual trend of
occultism and would insulate its members from their fellow men in
the common task of making the best of life and of the world which
actually is.
In the earliest communities of which there is record, a few men
almost invariably set themselves apart to study the mysterious and
the occult or to preserve some precious and secret bit of knowledge
or magic. Such societies, when they attained to a real or fancied
revelation of truth, sought to perpetuate the lore and to secure to
themselves exclusive enjoyment of the power or dignity it might
confer. Nor were they wholly selfish. Most of their secrets had to
do with magic, in the power of which they placed complete
confidence. That power would be extremely dangerous to a man
who did not know how to employ it - a high explosive like the
nitroglycerin or TNT of modern times which might blast the rash
intruder. It was to his advantage as well as to that of the society
that he be kept at a distance from this perilous truth.
That their jealously safeguarded truth might be transmitted to a
worthy posterity it was their practice to find some concrete object
which would represent it or express it and which could be
depended on to remain constant, regardless of mutations in tribal
speech. Chosen because of a real or fancied resemblance to the
conception for which it was intended to stand, it was described by
whatever happened to be the local equivalent of the Greek word
"symbol," meaning "to compare." By natural development, the
symbol soon came to be regarded as having taken on the attributes
of that which it represented and thus, in time, to become in itself an
object worthy of veneration.
In a slightly more advanced state of development, these societies
began clothing their discoveries in allegorical language and
legends. In still more sophisticated stages, they employed
symbolical dramas. Thus, in the ancient Egyptian mysteries into
which Moses is said to have been initiated, the sun god, Osiris, was
represented as being set upon and slain by the powers of darkness
and afterwards, his dismembered body having been sought out and
found by Isis, as being restored to life. A somewhat similar idea
appeared in the Persian Mysteries of Mithra, and the notion of a
restoration to life after death was dramatized in some forms of the
Dionysian and Bacchic Mysteries of ancient Greece, although the
Greeks undoubtedly borrowed the idea from older Oriental races.
To protect themselves from intrusion, these early cults veiled their
ritualistic activities in impenetrable mystery, binding their
members by oaths solemn and awe-inspiring. To insure the
propagation of their work by competent successors, they invented
terrifying and painful ordeals by submission to which candidates
for admission might prove their fortitude and zeal. That long and
faithful apprenticeships might be served and the qualities of the
members further tested, initiatory ceremonies were graduated into
successive phases and dragged out over periods which sometimes
ran into many years.
Finally, and in their highest moral and intellectual development,
the cults invested their symbols and ceremonials with dual
meanings, an exoteric or outer significance suitable to the
understanding of less alert brethren, and an esoteric, or inner
significance comprehended only by the most astute. This
arrangement effected the additional service of opening illimitable
scope to the speculative mind, so that in contemplation of the
profounder mysteries of his cult, the mystic might immerse himself
utterly in ecstasy and exaltation.
Amongst such highly civilized peoples as the Egyptians and
Greeks of twenty or thirty centuries ago, this natural process
reached its fruition in societies such as that of which Pythagoras
was founder and prophet. Amongst primitive races, as those of
modern New Guinea, it reaches its highest form in the men's tribal
house, ornamented with the skulls of enemies slain in battle.
Essential kinship between the ancient Pythagoreans and the
savages of New Guinea is obvious, even if it be but little more
tangible than the kinship which unites all sons of Adam. To deny it
exists because no continuity between the two can be established is
manifestly absurd.
Analogies which seem to establish this affinity would relate them
with equal intimacy to Freemasonry. But this kind of reasoning can
easily be carried too far. Indeed, it is often pressed to such
ridiculous lengths that uncritical and fanciful authors have
professed to find in every sign and symbol, every ritual and
ceremonial, some sort of proof that all are descendants of a
primitive form of Freemasonry which spread over the whole world
before the dawn of history.
The probable truth of the matter is less than that. It is conceivable
that if human life exists on other planets beside ours, and has
persisted through many ages, its social institutions in the main may
have developed in pretty much the same way as have ours. Their
peoples will have experimented with various forms of government,
conducted investigations into the nature and origin of life, sought
in planets, the animal world and in the growing trees, to read the
will and purpose of the Creator, will have aspired to profounder
knowledge, developed arts and sciences and industries.
If this is so, it is inevitable that these sensible beings will have
formed their own cults, in which they employ allegorical teachings
and symbolism. If it could be ascertained that such cults actually
exist, it would merely mean that under given social environments,
humankind might always be expected to react to stimulation in
certain well defined ways. Nor, for all practical purposes, is the
chasm which separates this planet from its nearest neighbor wider
than is that which separates the Pythagorean philosophers from the
head hunters of the River Fly.
It is manifest that Freemasonry has retained heirlooms which in
one way or another have come to it out of the abundance of the
past. Traces of the earliest form of sun worship are to be found in
some of the ceremonials of the Lodge room. Its point within a
circle and its five-rayed star were symbols of religious significance
in many ancient faiths. Its two symbolical pillars are reminiscent of
those held in esteem by the most ancient of peoples. Its mystic
numbers, 3, 5 and 7, were regarded as potent charms fully 500
years before the Christian Era and for how much longer nobody
knows. The orientation of the Lodge room may or may not go back
to the first tabernacle erected in the wilderness by the Children of
Israel, but certain it is that the crudest places of worship of our
rudest ancestors were built to face the rising sun. The Legend of
the Third Degree is curiously like other dramatic tales which
enlivened the initiatory rites of pagan societies. The similarities
could be enumerated extensively.
How the Fraternity came by any one of these, to say nothing of
them all, no man knows. Some of them undoubtedly were handed
down from generation to generation during the operative era, but
there is no way of learning how the operatives acquired them. For
their preservation it was by no means necessary that the medieval
workman should understand their philosophical meanings. The
mistletoe at Christmas continues to perform its part in the
decorative scheme of things in many a household which never
even heard of its ancient mystical significance as a memorial of
that fatal arrow which slew the beautiful Balder, sun god of our
Northern forefathers.
Such evidences of Masonry's share in the common stock of the
world's cult phenomena, if rightly understood, make plain many
things which have been obscure. It is true they do not prove the
continuous existence of the Fraternity from before the Flood to the
institution of the first Grand Lodge. They do not establish
connection between it and any particular band, society, group or
cult in existence before the Dark Ages. But they do reveal the
essential kinship of Freemasonry with the religious and
philosophical societies of previous ages; nor is there today any
other similar society in the world which can deny Masonry's
prescriptive right to claim these relics as its own or dispute with it
the palm for honorable age.
Modern Freemasonry is in the truest sense a reservoir into which
the cult lore and social experiences of countless eons of human
experience have poured their treasures. Into this mighty lake
streams have trickled from the remotest mountain tops; it is fed
from innumerable founts. It signifies little how the life-giving
waters have found their way into its bosom, by what channels they
have come, across what continents they have flowed.
Fortunately for the peace of mind of the modern initiate there are
no arbitrary tests of faith in these matters, so there can be no trials
for heresy or danger of sorcerer burning. There are certain ancient
doctrines known as the Landmarks which every duly obligated
Freemason is bound to respect; there are prescriptions of Masonic
conduct which he is bound to obey. But if he chooses to believe
that the Fraternity descended by some mysterious process from the
planet Neptune he is as free to do so as he would be to believe that
Neptune itself is the ghost of a previous planetary incarnation of
the world. Conversely, if he prefers to regard some of the ancient
legends as pure allegories, there is none with authority to deny him
that privilege. In either case, the great symbolical teachings of the
Craft will remain unaffected.
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