PARIS CONSTITUTIONS.
A copy of these Constitutions, said to have been adopted in the thirteenth century, will be found in G. P. Depping's Collection de Documents inédits sur l'Histoire de France (Paris, 1837). A part of this work contains the Réglements sur les arts et métiers de Paris, rédiges au 13me siéclge et connus sous le nom de livre des métiers d'Etienne Boileau. This is a book of the trades and their regulations, and treats of the masons, stonecutters, plasterers, and mortar-makers, and, as Steinbrenner (Origin and History of Masonry, page 104) says, "is interesting, not only as exhibiting the peculiar usages and customs of the Craft at that early period, but as showing the connection which existed between the laws and regulations of the French Masons and those of the Steinmetzen of Germany and the Masons of England."
A translation of the Paris Constitutions was published in the Freemasons Magazine (Boston, 1863, page 201). In the year 1743, the "English Grand Lodge of France" published, in Paris, a series of Statutes, taken principally from Anderson's work of the editions of 1723 and 1738. It consisted of twenty articles, and bore the title of General Regulations taken from the Minutes of the Lodges, for the use of the French Lodges, together with the alterations adopted at the General Assembly of the Grand Lodge, December 1I, 1745, to serve as a rule of action for the said kingdom. A copy Of this document, says Findel, was translated into German, with annotations, and published in 1856 in the Zeitschrift Jur Freimaurer of Altenberg.
PARLIAMENTARY LAW.
PARLIAMENTARY LAW. SUPL.
Parliamentary Law, or the Lex Parliamentaria, is that code originally framed for the government of the Parliament of Great Britain in the transaction of its business, and subsequently adopted, with necessary modifications, by the Congress of the United States.
But what was found requisite for the regulation of public bodies, that order might be secured and the rights of all be respected,-tas been found equally necessary in private societies. Indeed, no association of men could meet together for the discussion of any subject, with the slightest probability of ever coming to a conclusion, unless its debates were regulated by certain and acknowledged rules.
The rules thus adopted for its government are called its parliamentary law, and they are selected from the parliamentary law of the national assembly, because that code has been instituted by the wisdom of past ages, and modified and perfected by the experience of subsequent ones, so that it is now universally acknowledged that there is no better system of government for deliberative societies than the code which has so long been in operation under the name of parliamentary law.
Not only, then, is a thorough knowledge of parliamentary law necessary for the presiding officer of a Masonic Body, if he would discharge the duties of the chair with credit to himself and comfort to the members, but he must be possessed of the additional information as to what parts of that law are applicable to Freemasonry, and what parts are not; as to where and when he must refer to it for the decision of a question, and where and when he must lay it aside, and rely for his government upon the organie law and the ancient usages of the Institution (see Doctor Mackey's revised Jurisprudence of Freemasonry).
PARLIAMENTARY LAW. Supl
Masonic Parliamentary Law is the body of usages, rules, and regulations according to which a Lodge is governed in its Opening and Closing, in establishing a Quorum, in conducting the Order of Business, in trials, etc. Very few Grand Bodies have codified their Parliamentary Law or published it separately; the usages and rules are embedded here and there in the Landmarks, in Grand Lodge Constitutions, in the Statutes and General Laws, in decisions and edicts, in printed rules, and in Lodge By-Laws; the key to finding any given Parliamentary Law is in the subject about which a question has been raised. Each Grand Jurisdiction has its own custom and its own written rules; these usually differ in detail from those of other Grand Jurisdictions but in its principles and its fundamental rules Masonic Parliamentary Law everywhere is the same, and the foundations of it were laid at the beginning of the Fraternity so that much of it is time immemorial.
The Congress of the United States has its own parliamentary code; with some modifications the same code is used by state Legislatures, and it is the model for parliamentary rules in use by voluntary associations, societies, clubs, churches, and by schools. These rules are printed in Robert's Rules of Order and in Cushing's Manual, both of which are by common consent accepted as authoritative not only by associations every vhere in America, but by the civil courts; an association need not follow either, but if it does its procedure is sure to be approved by the courts.
It so happens, however, that neither of these manuals can be used by a Masonic body. The Masonic Parliamentary Code is what codifiers describe as a tertium organon, a "third method"—that is to say, one apart from the codes used in other societies or in legislatures and parliaments, one which is acceptable to civil courts and vet differs in both fundamental principles and details of practices from the codes edited by either Roberts or Cushing. Freemasonry writes its own code.
This is because a Lodge differs in the fundamentals of organization from other associations and societies, and especially from those loose and informal groups which are called clubs. In the structure of its organization a Lodge (or Chapter, Council, or Commandery, or Consistory) is unique, therefore its parliamentary code is unique. Two of those fundamentals (there are others) exhibit both the nature and the extent of that difference:
1. In the great majority of societies and associations the head or chief officer is caned president or chairman. Little or no sovereignty inheres in his office; his principal duty is to preside. Usually he has no function except to see that the group's affairs are conducted according to an approved routine and he himself is not answerable for what the group may do. By contrast the principal officer of a Masonic Lodge is not a presiding officer only but within fixed limits is a sovereign; he is given the title of Worshipful Master because he ts a master. If an action taken by his Lodge is brought into question by the Grand Master or by the Grand Lodge he, at least in the first instance is answerable and responsible. Manifestly the parliamentary rules which apply to a mere presiding officer could not apply to a Worshipful Master.
2. Again, in the majority of societies and associations the members retain the right to say for themselves what their society is, what it is in existence to do, what its purposes are—it may begin, as did Tammany Hall, as a patriotic fraternity and end up as a political machine; or it may begin as a eard club and end up as a country elub. These transmogrifieations among voluntary groups are the rule rather than the exception. But in a Masonic Lodge no member or group of members can either discuss or vote for an innovation in the Landmarks: they cannot add to or subtract from Masonic purposes; they cannot alter the time immemorial usages; uJ1uzt Freernasonry is is not subject to debate, not even in the Grand Communicqtion of a Grand Lodge. A member who might wish Freemasonry to be other than it is, can have no alternatives save to accept it or to leave it. It is obvious that parliamentary practices suitable for a voluntary society eannot apply to Freemasonry.
The most comprehensive treatise on the subject is Parliamentary Law, by Albert G. Mackey. Portions of Masonic practice are given in Worshipful Master's Assistant, by Robert Macoy. For an epitome of the Masonic code see chapter in Lodge Methods, by L. B. Blakemore. J. T. Lawrence's work on the subject is excellent, but is written for prsetiees in England. Grand Lodges often include parliamentary rules in their printed Monitors. Since each Grand Body an ites its own rules for its own uses books, articles, and essays are confined to discussions of general principles; the most practicable handbook for a Lodge officer is his Grand Lodge Code. For Masonic students the richest store of materials is in Grand Lodge Proceedings, especially in the Fraternal (or Foreign) Correspondence Reports; among these latter the most notable are the Reports written for the Grand Lodge of Maine by Judge Josiah a Drummond between 1865 and 1900. For parlia mentary subjects in detail consult the Index of this Encyclopedy.
PARLIRER.
In the Lodges of Stone-Masons of the Middle Ages, there was a rank or class of workmen called Parlirers, literally, spokesmen. They were an intermediate class of officers between the Masters of the Lodges and the Fellows, and were probably about the same as our modern Wardens. Thus, in the Strasbourg Constitutions of 1459, it is said: "No Craftsman or Mason shall promote one of his apprentices as a parlirer whom he has taken as an apprentice from his rough state, or who is still in the years of apprenticeship," which may be compared with the old English Charge that "no Brother can be a Warden until he has passed the part of a Fellow Craft" (Constitutions, 1723, page 52). They were called Parlirers, properly, says Heldmann, Parlierers, or Spokesmen, because, in the absence of the Masters, they spoke for the Lodge, to traveling Fellows seeking employment, and made the examination.
There are various forms of the word. Kloss, citing the Strasbourg Constitutions, has Parlirer, Krause has, from the same document, Parlierer, but says it is usually Polier; Heldmann uses Parlierer, which has been generally adopted.
PAROLE.
The French for Word and here applied to the Mot de Sexsestre, which see, and in that language this means a six-months password, communicated by the Grand Orient of France, and in addition to an Annual Word in November, which tends to show at once whether a member is in good standing.
PARROT MASONS.
One who commits to memory the questions and answers of the catechetical lectures, and the formulas of the ritual, but pays no attention to the history and philosophy of the Institution, is commonly called a Parrot Mason, because he is supposed to repeat what he has learned without any conception of its true meaning. In former times, such superficial Freemasons were held by many in high repute, because of the facility with which they passed through the ceremonies of a reception, and they were generally designated as Bright Masons. But the progress of Freemasonry as a science now requires something more than a mere knowledge of the lectures to constitute a Masonic scholar.
PARSEES.
The descendants of the original fireworshipers of Persia, or the disciples of Zoroasterl who emigrated to India about the end of the eighth century. There they now constitute a very large and influential body of industrious and moral citizens adhering with great tenacity to the principles and practices of their ancient religion. Many of the higher classes have become worthy members of the Masonie fraternity, and it was for their sake principally that Doctor Burnes attempted some years ago to institute his new Order, entitled the Brotherhood of the Oliue Branch, as a substitute for the Christian Degrees of Knighthood, from which, by reason of their religious they were excluded (see Olive-Branch in the East, Brotherhood of the, and Zendauesta).
PARTICULAR LODGES.
In the Regulations of 1721, it is said that the Grand Lodge consists of the representatives of all the particular Lodges on reeord (Constitutions, 1723, page 61). In the modern Constitutions of England, the term used is Private Lodges. In Arnerica, they are called Subordinate Lodges.
PARTS.
In the old obligations, which may be still used in some portions of the United States, there was ( provision which forbade the revelation of any of the arts, parts, or points of Freemasonry. Doctor Oliver explains the meaning of the word parts by telling us that it was "an old word for degrees or lectures" (see Points).
PARVIN, NEWTON RAY.
Brother Parvin was born at Muscatine, Iowa, July 5, 1851. In 1872 he entered the office of the Grand Secretary, where he remained as a clerk and Deputy until the death of his father, Theodore Sutton Parvin, in 1901. He was then elected Grand Secretary, in which office he served until his death. He was made a Master Mason in Iowa City Lodge No. 4, May 5, 1874. He was exalted in Iowa City Chapter No. 2, June 18, 1877, and received the Orders of the Temple in Palestine Commandery No. 2, Iowa City, June 28, 1878, and served all Bodies as Secretary or Reeorder for several terms.
After his removal to Cedar Rapids in 1885, he transferred his Chapter and Commandery membership to Trowel Chapter No. 49, and Apo'llo Commandery No. 26, serving as Eminent Com mander in 1896. His father was Grand Recorder of the Grand Encampment, Knights Templar of the United States, for some twelve years, during which time he assisted him. He received the Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite just before the removal of the Library to Cedar Rapids, by order of Albert Pixe, Sovereign Grand Commander, that he might become custodian of important papers relating to this Rite, and was appointed a Knight Commander, Court of Honor, October 20th, 1886. He was nominated by the Grand Commander and elected to receive the Thirty-Third Degree, and he was crowned by his father, for the Supreme Council, May 17, 1895. Brother Parvin was a founder of the National Masonic Research Society, of which he was a Steward and First Vice-President. Brother Parvin died January 16, 1925. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and funeral services were held January 20, in charge of the Grand Lodge.
PARVIN, THEODORE S.
Born January 15, 1817, in Cumberland County, New Jersey. His journey in life gradually tending westward, he located in Ohio, and graduated in 1837 at the Cincinnati Law School- He was appointed private secretary by Robert Lucas, first Governor of Iowa, in which State he became Judge of the Probate Court and afterward Curator and Librarian of the State University at Iowa City. Brother Parvin was initiated in Nova Cesarea Lodge, No- 2, Cineinnati, Ohio, March 14, 1838, and raised the 9th of the May following, and he same year dimitted and removed to Iowa. He participated tn the organization of the first Lodge, Des Moines, No. 1, and also of the second, Iowa Lodge, No. 9, at Muscatine. He was elected Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge at its organization in 1844, and held the office continuously to the time of his death, with the exception of the year 1852-3, when he served as Grand Master. He founded and organized the Grand Lodge Library and held the office of Grand Librarian until his death. His official signature is on every Charter of the Grand Lodge of towa from 1844 1900.
Brother Parvin was exalted in Iowa City Chapter, No. 2, January 7, 1845, and held the offices of Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter, 1854, and Grand Secretary of the Grand Chapter, 1855-6, and represented the Grand Chapter in the General Grand Chapter for many years. He was created a Royal elect Master in Dubuque Council, No. 3, September 7, 1847, and presided over the Convention organizing the Grand Council of Iowa, 1857. Knighted January 18, 1855, in Apollo Encampment, No. 1, Chicago, Illinois, he was a member of the Convention organizing the Grand Commandery of Iowa, 186A, being the first Grand Commander. He was Grand Recorder of the Grand encampment of Knights Templar of the United States for fifteen years, 1871-86. In 1859 he received the Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and was crowned in that year an Inspector-General, Thirtythird Degree.
In addition to this record, our Brother also organized the Grand Bodies of Dakota, and the Grand nommandery of Nebraska, and his contributions to Masonic literature placed him among the leading writers and thinkers of the Craft. He died at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 28, 1901.
PARVIS.
In the French system, the room immediately adjoining a Masonic Lodge is so called. It is equivalent to the Preparation Room of the American and English systems.
PASCHAL FEAST.
Celebrated by the Jews in commemoration of the Passover, by the Christians in commemoration of the resurrection of our Lord. The Paschal Feast, called also the Mystic Banquet, is kept by all Princes of the Rose Croix. Where two are together on Maundy Thursday, it is of obligation that they should partake of a portion of roasted lamb. This banquet is symbolic of the doctrine of the resurrection.
PASCHALIS, MARTINEZ.
The founder of a new Rite or modification of Freemasonry, called by hun the Rite of Elected Cohens or Priests. It was divided into two classes, in the first of which was represented the fall of tnau from virtue and happiness, and in the second, his final restoration. It consisted of nine degrees, namely:
1. Apprentice;
2. Fellow Craft;
3. Master;
4. Grand Elect;
5. Apprentice Cohen;
6. Fellow Craft Cohen;
7. Master Cohen;
8. Grand Architect;
9. Knight Commander.
Paschalis first introduced this Rite into some of the Lodges of Marseilles, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and afterward, in 1767, he extended it to Paris, where, for a short time, it was rather popular, ranking some of the Parisian literati among its disciples. It has ceased to exist.
Paschalis was a German, born about the year 1700, of poor but respectable parentage. At the age of sixteen he acquired a knowledge of Greek and Latin. He then traveled through Turkey, Arabia, and Palestine, where he made himself acquainted with the Cabalistic learning of the Jews. He subsequently repaired to Paris, where he established his Rite.
Paschalis was the Master of Saint Martin, who afterward reformed his Rite. After living for some years at Paris, he went to Santo Domingo, where he died in 1779. Thory, in his Histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de France has given very full details of this Rite and of its receptions (see Saint Martin).
PASCHAL LAMB.
See Larch, Paschal.
PAS PERDUS.
The French call the room appropriated to visitors the Salle des pas perdus, literally the HaU of the Lost Steps, a Masonic waiting room. It is the same as the Tiler's Room in the English and American Lodges.
PASSAGE.
The Fourth Degree of the Fessler Rite, of which Patria forms the Fifth.
PASSAGES OF THE JORDAN.
See Fords of the Jordan.
PASSED.
A candidate, on receiving the Second Degree, is said to be "passed as a Fellow Craft." It alludes to his having passed through the porch to the Middle Chamber of the Temple, the place in which Fellow-Crafts received their wages. In America, Crafted is often improperly used in its stead (see also Past, and Past Masters).
PASSING OF CONYNG.
That is, surpassing in skill. The expression occurs in the Cooke Manuscript (line 676), "The forsayde Maister Euglet ordeynet thei were passing of conyng schold be passing honoured"; that, The aforesaid Master, Euclid, ordained that they that were surpassing in skill should be exceedingly honored. It is a fundamental principle of Freemasonry to pay all honor to knowledge.
PASSING THE RIVER.
A mystical alphabet said to have been used by the Cabalists. These characters, with certain explanations, become the subject of consideration with Brethren of the Fifteenth Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The accompanying are the characters.
PASSWORD.
A word intended, like the military countersign, to prove the friendly nature of him who gives it, and is a test of his right to pass or be admitted into a certain place. Between a Word and a Password there seems fo be this difference: the former is given for instruction, as it always contains a symbolic meaning; the latter, for recognition only. Thus, the author of the life of the celebrated Elias Ashmole says, "Freemasons are known to one another all over the world by certain passwords known to them alone; they have Lodges in different countries, where they are relieved by the brotherhood if they are in distress" (see Sign).
PAST.
An epithet applied in Freemasonry to an officer who has held an office for the prescribed period for which he was elected, and has then retired. Thus, a Past Master is one who has been elected and installed to preside for twelve months over a Lodge, and the Past High Priest one who, for the same period, has been installed to preside over a Chapter. The French use the word Passe in the same sense, but they have also the word Anaen, with a similar meaning. Thus, while they would employ Al altre passe to designate the Degree of Past Master, they would call the official Past Master, who had retired from the chair at the expiration of his term of service, an Ancien Vénérable, or Ancien Maître (note also Passed and Past Master).
PAST MASTER.
An honorary Degree usually conferred on the Master of a Lodge at his installation into office. In this Degree the necessary instructions are conferred respecting the various ceremonies of the Order, such as installations, processions, the laying of corner-stones, etc. When a Brother, who has never before presided, has been elected the Master of a Lodge, an emergent Lodge of Past Masters, consisting of not less than three, is convened, and all but Past Masters retiring, the Degree is conferred upon the newly elected officer..
Some form of ceremony at the installation of a new Master seems to have been adopted at an early period after the revival. In the "manner of constituting a new Lodge," as practised by the Duke of Wharton, who was Grand Master in 1723, the language used by the Grand Master when placing the candidate in the chair is given, and he is said to use "some other expressions that are proper and usual on that occasion, but not proper to be written" (Constitutions, 1738, page 150). Whence we conclude that there was an esoteric ceremony. Often the rituals tell us that this ceremony consisted only in the outgoing Master communicating certain modes of recognition to his successor. And this actually, even at this day, constitutes the essential ingredient of the Past Master's Degree.
The Degree is in the IJnited States also conferred in Royal Arch Chapters, where it succeeds the Marl; Master's Degree. The conferring of this Degree, which has no historical connection with the rest of the Degrees, in a Chapter, arises from the following circurnstance:
Onginally, when Chapters of Royal Arch Masonry were under the government of Lodges in which the Degree was then always conferred, it was a part of the regulations that no one could receive the Royal Arch Degree unless he had previously presided in the Lodge as Master.
When the Chapters became independent, the regu. lotion could not be abolished, for that would have been an innovation; the difficulty has, therefore been obviated, by malting ever) candidate for the Degree of Royal Arch a Virtual Past Master before his exaltation. Under the English Constitution this practise was forbidden in 1826, but seems to have lingered on in some parts until 1850. "The dis-use of the Virtual Past Master's Degree or Chair Degree in the British Isles has in no way interfered with its continued use in the United States, especially in the older Jurisdictions whose Freerna sonry attests its Antient origin (see the footnote on page 145, volume BViii, 1915, Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley).
Some extraneous ceremonies, b) no means creditable to their inventor, were at an early period introduced into America. In 1856, the General Grand Chapter, by a unanimous vote, ordered these ceremonies to be discontinued, and the simpler mode of investiture to be used; but the order has only been partially obeyed, and many Chapters continue what one can scarcely help calling the indecorous form of initiation into the Degree.
For several years past the question has been agitated in some of the Grand Lodges of the United States, whether this Degree is within the Jurisdiction of Symbolic or of Royal Arch Masonry. The explanation of its introduction into Chapters, just given, manifestly demonstrates that the jurisdiction over it by Chapters is altogether an assumed one. The Past Master of a Chapter is only a quasi or seeming Past Master; the true and legitimate Past Master is the one who has presided over a Symbolic Lodge.
Brother R. F. Gould (Masonic Monthly, July, 1882) says in regard to the Degrees of Past Master and the Royal Arch, "The supposition has much to recommend it, that the connection of the secrets of the Royal Arch, is the earliest form in which any esoteric teaching was specially linked with the incidents of Lodge Mastership, or in other words, that the Degree of Royal Arch was the complement of the Masters Grade. Out of this was ultimately evolved the Degree of Installed Master, a ceremony unknown in the Modern System until the first decade of the nineteenth century, and of which I can trace no sign amongst the Antients until the growing practise of conferring the Arch upon Brethren not legally qualified to receive it, brought about the constructive passing through the Chair, which by qualifying candidates not otherwise eligible, naturally entailed the introduction of a ceremony, additional to the simple forms known to Payne, Anderson, and Desaguliers "
Past Masters are admitted to membership in many Grand Lodges, and by some the inherent right has been claimed to sit in those Bodies. But the most eminent Masonic authorities have made a contrary decision, and the general, and, indeed, almost universal opinion now is that Past Masters obtain their seats in Grand Lodges by courtesy, and in consequence of local regulations, and not by inherent right.
A subtle distinction may be noted between the expressions Past and Pass'd Master. "The distincion in sense that had originally lain between Past Master and virtual Pass'd Master could make no headway against the similarity in sound. The Past Master was the Brother who 'had served his just and lawful time' as W. M. of a Lodge, and had thereby qualified for the completion of Master Degree. The Passed Master was a Brother who had been passed through a so-called Chair Degree, and had thereby been entrusted with certain equivalent secrets. The epithet Past is an adjective, conveying the idea of time expired: the epithet Pass'd is a participle conveying the idea of motion completed. Such verbal niceties did not trouble the Brethren of the eighteenth, or any other century" (footnote, page 144, volume xxviu, 1915, Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, by Brother W. J. Chetwode Crawley).
The usual jewel of a Past Master in the United States is a pair of compasses extended to sixty degrees on the fourth part of a circle, with a sun in the center. In England it was formerly the square on a quadrant, but is at present the square with the forty-seventh problem of Euclid engraved on a silver plate susnended within it. This latter design is also adopted m Pennsylvania.
The French have two titles to express this Degree. They apply Maztre Passe to the Past Master of the English and American system, and they call in their own system one who has formerly presided over a Lodge an Ancien Maitre. The indiscriminate use of these titles sometimes leads to confusion in the translation of their lectures and treatises.
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