S.
The Hebrew letter is Samech. The nineteenth letter in the English alphabet. Its nulnerical value is 60. The sacred application to the Deity is in the name Somech,Upholder, the Latin Fulcteus or Firmas. The Hebrew letter Shin, a tooth, from its formation, is of the numerical value of 300.
SAADH.
One of a certain Indian sect, who have emigrated Christianity, and who in some remeets resemble the Quakers in their doctrine and mode of life. Sometimes written Saud.
SABAISM.
The worship of the sun, moon, and stars, the Tsaba Hashmaim, meaning the host of heaven. It was practised in Persia, Chaldea, India, and other Oriental Countries, at an early period a of the world's history (see Blazing Star and Sunworship) .
SABAOTH.
The Hebrew words pronounced Jehovah Tsabaoth, and meaning Jehovah of Costs, a very usual appellation for the Most High in the prophetical books, especially in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Malachi, but not found in the Pentateuch.
SABBAL.
Hebrew word, meaning the Burden, the Latin Onus. The name of the sixth step of the mystic ladder of Kadosh of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Sometimes spelled Sabael.
SABBATH.
In the lecture of the Second or Fellow Craft's Degree, it is said, In six days God created the heavens and the earth, and rested upon the seventh day; the seventh, therefore, our ancient Brethren consecrated as a day of rest from their labors, thereby enjoving frequent opportunities to contelnplate the glorious works of creation, and to adore their great Creator.
SABIANISM .
See Sabaism.
SACELLUM.
A availed enclosure without roof. An ornamental chapel Within a church.
SACKCLOTH.
In the Rose Croix instructions, sackcloth is a symbol of grief and humiliation for the loss of that Which it is the object of the Degree to recover.
SACRED ASYLUM OF HIGH MASONRY.
In the Institutes, Statutes, and Regulations, signed by Adillgton, Chancellor, Which are given in the Rectueil des Actes du Supréme Consetél du France, or Collection of the Acts of the Supreme Council of France, as a Sequence to the Constitutions of 1762, this title is given to any subordinate Body of the Scottish Rite. Thus in Article XVI: "At the time of the installation of a Sacred Asylum of High Masonry, the members composing it shall all make and sign their pledge of obedience to the Institutes, Statutes, and General Regulations of High Masonry." In this document the Rite is always called High Masonry, and any Body, whether a Lodge of Perfection, a Chapter of Rose Croix, or a Council of Kàdosh, is styled a Sacred Asylum.
SACRED LAW.
The first Tables of Stone, or Commandments, which were delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, are referred to in £, preface to the Mashna, bearing this tradition:
God not only delivered the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, but the explanation of it likewise. When Moses came down from the Mount and entered into his tent. Aaron went to visit him, and Moses acquainted Aaron with the Laws he had received from God,together with the explanation of them. After this Aaron placed himself on the right hand of Moses, and Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron, were admitted, to whom Moses repeated what he had just before told to Aaron.
These being seated, the one on the right hand, the other on the left hand of Moses, the seventy elders of Israel, who compose the Sanhedrim, came in, and Moses again declared the same laws to them, as he had done before to Aaron and his sons. Lastly, all who pleased of the comnlon people were invited to enter, and Moses instructed them likewise in the same manner as the rest. So that Aaron heard four times w hat Moses had been taught by God upon Mount Sinai, Eleazar and Ithamar three times, the seventv elders twice, and the people once. Moses afterward reduced the laws which he had received into writing, hut not the explanation of them. These he thought it sufficient to trust to the memories of the above-mentioned persons, who, being perfectly instructed in them, delivered them to their children, and these again to theirs, from age to age.
The Sacred Law is repeated in the instructions of the Fourteenth Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
SACRED LODGE.
In the lectures according to the English system, we find the following definition of the Sacred Lodge, the symbol has not been preserved in the American instructions: Over the Sacred Lodge presided Solomon, the greatest of kings, and the wisest of men; Hiram, the great and learned King of Tyre; and Hiram Abif, the widow's son, of the tribe of Naphtali. It was held in the bowels of the sacred Mount Moriah, under the part whereon was erected the Holy of Holies. On this mount it was where Abraham confirmed his faith by his readiness to offer up his only son, Isaae. Here it was where David offered that acceptable sacrifice on the threshing-floor of Araunah by which the anger of the Lord was appeased, and the plague stayed from his people. Here it was where the Lord delivered to David, in a dream, the plan of the glorious Temple, afterward erected by our noble Grand Master, King Solomon. And lastly, here it was where he declared he would establish his sacred name and word, which should never pass away- and for these reasons this was justly styled the Sacred Lodge.
SACRIFICANT.
Tile French is Sacrifant. A Degree in the Archives of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Réunis (Saint Louis of the Reunited Friends) at Calais .
SACRIFICE, ALTAR OF.
See Altar.
SACRIFICER.
In French, the word is Sacrificateur.
1. A Degree in the Archives of the Lodge of Saint Louis des Amis Réunis (Saint Louis of the Reunited Friends) at Calais.
2. A Degree in the collection of Pyron.
SADDA.
Persian Saddar, meaning the hundred gates. A work in the Persian tongue, being a summary of the Avesta, or sacred books.
SADDUCEES.
Sometimes Zedukim. A Sect called from its founder Sadoc, or Zadok (see Secund Samuel viii, 17, xv, 24; First Kings i, 34), who lived about 250 B.C. They denied the resurrection, a future state, and the existence of angels. The Sadducees are often mentioned in the New Testament, the Talmud, and the Midrash. The tenets of the Sadducees are noticed as contrasted with those of the Pharisees. While Jesus condemned the Sadducees and Pharisees, he is nowhere found criticizing the gets, words, or doctrines of the third sect of the Jews, the Essenes; wherefore, it has been strongly favored that Jesus was himself one of the last-named sect, who in many excellent qualities resembled Freemasons. The Sadducees were the most conservative of forces, the Pharisees more advanced in the later thoughts and tendencies. The Gospels throw an interesting and significant light upon these circumstances and their effects in that era.
SADLER, HENRY.
Born 1840, died 1911. One of the most painstaking, patient, and persevering of Masonic students. He was initiated in 1862 in the Lodge of Justice No. 147, being at the time an A. B. in the Mereantile Marine. He became W. M. of this Lodge in 1872. In 1882 he was a founder of the Southgate Lodge, No. 1950, and in 1886 he was a founder and first Master of the Walsingham Lodge, No. 2148; in 1869 he was exalted to the Royal Arch Degree in the Royal York Chapter, No. 7; in 1872 he joined the Temperance Chapter, No. 169, and became its First Principal in 1880. In 1879 he was appointed Grand Tiler of the Grand Lodge of England, and held the post until 1910, when he retired on a pension. In 1887 he was appointed Sub-Librarian to the Grand dodge of England and was promoted to be its Librarian in 1910. His position in the Grand Lodge Library gave him access to all the old records of the Grand Lodge of England, and enabled him to write most valuable books on various points in connection with the history of English Freemasonry.
In 1887 appeared his principal work, Masonic Facts and Fictions, in which he claimed, and his argument was generally accepted, that the Grand Lodge of the Antients was formed in London by some Irish Freemasons, who had not seceded, as had been supposed from the Regular Grand Lodge. In 1589 he published Notes on tile Ceremonny of Installation; in 1891, the Life of Thomas Dunckerley; on 1898, Masonic Reprints and Historical Revelations; in 1904, Some Memorials of the Globe Lodge, No. BS, also the Illustrated lIistory of Emulation Lodge of 11nprovement, No. 256; and in 1906, the Histor1y and Records of the Lodge of Emulation, No. 21.
SAGITTA.
The keystone of an arch. The abscissa of a curve.
SAILORS, AND FREEMASONRY.
Much of the United States and Canada as well as Britain has been for a long time at sea. It is not difficult for Englishmen to think of themselves as a people partly afloat, nor the Norwegians, and still less the Japanese; but America also is partly afloat, and ever has been, though it is hard for Americans to believe it. The Navy itself has more duties in peacetime than in war, and of equal importance, for it is our government abroad, without which consuls, ministers, ambassadors and diplomats in general would carry little weight. Wherever the Navy goes, America goes. The Navy, moreover, is one of America's proudest achievements, if Americans knew it, and has given to the land it serves a long succession of dedicated men whose intellectual, literary, and scholarly achievements stand second only after the colleges and universities. As for Britain, its fleet has been its alter ego. Freemasonry also, ever since as a world-wide Speculative Fraternity it escaped out of the cocoon of the Time Immemorial Lodges, has been afloat on the merchant ships and with the navies, and has with its Lodges followed them, or has waited for them in more than 3 thousand ports.
Moreover the sea is one of the oldest of callings, millennia older than Homer who celebrated it, for the first ships appeared at the same time as the first houses and the most ancient cities. Also, like the arts and crafts on land, they have from a long time ago had their own gilds and fraternities; the Greek mariners, who went everywhere, had their associations.
the Roman sailors had their collegia, and for many centuries both of them had mithraea to visit on shore. After the gild system arose early in Medieval times seamen had gilds of their own; they took apprentices; had a Patron Saint; had part in pageants with a float depicting Noah; and from the beginning of the theater were favorite stage characters.
If ever a truly complete history of Freemasonry is written, omitting nothing important enough to have a chapter of its own, it will tell the story of how seamen of Britain, America, and the maritime countries of Europe carried Masonry around the world; so that if they had no share in its antiquity they had a large share in that other Landmark, its universality. (For Mariners in the period of the gilds and pageants see The British Tar in Fact and Fiction, by Charles Napier Robinson; Harper & Bros.; London and New York; 1911. The first novel about the sea was written by an American, James Fenimore Cooper; also, it is believed by many; its greatest, Moby Dtck, by Herman Melville; Shakespeare's last play was "The Tempest," a poemcomedy-drama of the sea, with a setting off our own Atlantic coast; and the fact is a reminder of the "Odyssey," attributed to Homer, the greatest sea yarn ever written. See also NAVAL LODGES in this Supplement.)
SAINT ADHABELL.
Introcluced into the Cooke Manuscript (line 603), where the allusion evidently is to Saint Amphibalus, which see.
SAINT ALBAN.
Saint Alban, or Albanus, the proto-martyr of England, was born in the third century, at Verulam, now St. Albans, in Hertfordshire.
In his youth he visited Rome, and served seven years as a soldier under the Emperor Diocletian. On his return to Britain he embraced Christianity, and was the first who suffered martyrdom in the great persecution which raged during the reign of that emperor.
The Freemasons of England have claimed Saint Alban as being intimately connected with the early history of the Fraternity in that island. Anderson (Constitutions, 1738, page 57) says, "This is asserted by all the old copies of the Constitutions, and the old English Masons firmly believed it," and he quotes from the Old Constitutions:
Saint Alban loved Masons well and cherished them much, and he made their pay right good; viz., two shillings per week and three pence to their cheer; whereas before that time, through all the land, a Mason had but a penny a day and his meat, until Saint Alban amended it. Ho also obtained of the King a Charter for the Free Masons, for to hold a general council, and gave it the name of Assembly, and was thereat himself as Grand Master and helped to make Masons and gave them good charges.
We have another tradition on the same Subject; for in a little work published about 1764, at London, under the title of The Complete Free Mason or Multa Paucis for the Lovers of Secrets, we find the following statement (page 47) in reference to the Masonie charaeter and position of plaint Alban.
In the following (the third) century, Gordian sent many architects over—into England—who constituted themselves into Lodges, and instructed the Craftsmen in the true principles of Freemasonry; and a few years later, Carausius was made emperor of the British Isles and being a great lover of art and seienee, appointed Albanus Grand Master of Masons, who employed the Fraternity in building the palace of Verulam, or St. Albans.
Both of these statements are simply legends, or traditions of the not unusual character, in which historical facts are destroyed by legendary additions. The fact that Saint Alban lived at Verulam may be true—most probably is so.
It is another fact that a splendid Episcopal palace was built there, whether in the time of Saint Alban or not is not so certain; but the affirmative has been assumed; and hence it easily followed that, if built in his time, he must have superintended the building of the edifice.. He would, of course, employ the workmen, give them his patronage, and, to some extent, by his superior abilities, direct their labors. Nothing was easier, then, than to make him, after all this, a Grand Master. The assumption that Saint Alban built the palace at Verulam was very natural, because when the true builder's name grass lost—supposing it to have been so—Saint Alban was there ready to take his place, Verulam having been his birthplace.
The increase of pay for labor and the annual congregation of the Freemasons in a General AssemblY, having been subsequent events, the exact date of whose first occurrence has been lost, by a process common in the development of traditions, they were readily transferred to the same era as the building of the palace at Verulam. It is not even necessary to suppose, by way of explanation, as Preston does, that Saint Alban was a celebrated architect, and a real encourager of able workmen.
The whole of the tradition is worked out of these simple facts: that architecture began to be encouraged in England about the third century; that Saint Alban lived at that time at Verulam; that a palace was erected then, or at some subsequent period, in the same place; and in the lapse time, Verulam, Saint Alban, and the Freemasons became mingled together in one tradition. The inuiring student of history will neither assert nor deny net Saint Alban built the palace of Verulam. He will be content with taking him as the representative that builder, if he was not the builder himself; and will thus recognize the proto-martyr as the type of Chat is supposed to have been the Freemasonry of his age, or, perhaps, only of the age in which the tradition received its form.
ST. ALBANS, EARL OF.
Anderson (Constitutions, 1738, page 101) says, and, after him, Preston, that a General Assembly of the Craft was held on December 27, 1663, by Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, Grand Master, who appointed Sir John Denham his Deputy, and Sir Christopher Wren and Tohn Webb his Wardens. Several useful regulations were made at this assembly, known as the Regulations of 1663. These regulations are given by Anderson and by Preston, and also in the Roberts Manuscript, with the addition of the oath of secrecy. The Roberts Manuscript says that the assembly was held on the 8th of December.
SAINT ALBAN'S REGULATIONS.
The regulations said to have been made by Saint Alban tor the government of the Craft are referred to by Doctor Anderson, in his second edition (page 57), and afterward by Brother Preston (see Saint Asian).
SAINT AMPHIBALUS.
The ecclesiastical legend is that Saint Amphibalus came to England and converted Saint Alban, who was the great patron of Freemasonry. The Old Constitutions do not speak of him, except the Cooke Manuscript, which has the following passage (line 602): "And sone after that came Seynt Adhabell into Englond, and he convertyd Seynt Albon to Cristendome"; where, evidently, Saint Adhabell is meant for Saint Amphibalus. But amphibalus is the Latin name of a cloak worn by Priests over their other garments; and Godfrey Higgins (Celtic Druids, page 201) has argued that there was no such saint, but that the Sanctus Amphibalus was merely the holy cloak brought by Saint Augustine to England. His conncetion with the history of the origin of Freemasonry in England is, therefore, accepting the reasoning of Godfrey Higgins, altogether apocryphal.
SAINT ANDREW.
Brother of Saint Peter and one of the twelve Apostles. He is held in high reverence by the Scotch, Swedes, and Russians. Tradition says he was crucified on a cross shaped thus, X. Orders of knighthood have been established in his name (see Knight of Saint Andrew).
SAINT ANDREW, KNIGHT OF.
See Knight of Saint Andrew.
SAINT ANDREW'S DAY.
November 30, was adopted by the Grand Lodge of Scotland as the day of its Annual Communication.
SAINT ANTHONY.
An Order taking its rise from the life and habits of Saint Anthony, the hermit, who died about 357. His disciples, called Anchorites, near Ethiopia, lived in austerity and solitariness in the desert, until John, Emperor of Ethiopia, in 370, created them a religious order of knighthood, and bestowed privileges upon them under the title of Saint Anthony, who was made patron of the empire. They established monasteries, adopted a black habit, and wore a blue cross in the shape of a Tau. The vow of the Order embraced chastity, defense of the Christian faith, to guard the empire, obey their superiors, and go to war when and wheresoever commanded. Marriage required a license. There were two classes—combatants and non-combatants— the second class being eomposed of those too old for military duty. yet ere they retired they were required to serve three years against Arabian pirates, three against the Turks, and three against the Moors.
The ancient monastery is in the deserts of Thebais, surrounded by an oval wall five hundred paces in circumference and forty feet in height. It is entered by ropes let down from the watch-house, the crane being turned by monks. By age, the cells, which are four by five by seven feet, have been reduced from three hundred to forty. Advantage had been taken of one of nature's curiosities in obtaining abundant water from a riven rock, which is reached through a subterraneous passage of fifty paces, extending beyond the walls. In Franee, Italy, and Spain there are ecclesiastical and military organizations styled Knights of Saint Antllony, who wear a plain cross, the principals a double cross. The chief seat is at Vienna. In the Abbey rest the remains of Saint Anthony.
SAINT AUGUSTlNE.
Saint Augustlne, or Saint Austin, was sent with forty monks into England, about the end of the sixth century, to evangelize the country Lenning says that, aceording to a tradition, he placed himself at the head of the Corporations of Builders, and was recognized as their Grand Master.
No such tradition, nor, indeed, even the name of Saint Augustine, is to be found in any of the 01s1 Constitutions which contain the Legend of the Craft.
SAINT BERNARD.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was one of the most eminent names of the Church in the Middle Ages. In 1128 he was present at the Council of Troyes, where, through his influence, the Order of Knights Templar was confirmed; and he himself is said to have composed the Rule or Constitution by which they were afterward governed. Throughout his life he was distinguished for his warm attachment to the Templars, and "rarely," says Burnes (Sketch of the Knights Templar, page 12), "wrote a letter to the Holy Land, in which he did not praise them, and recommend them to the favor and protection of the great." To his influenee, untiringly exerted in their behalf, has always been attributed the rapid inerease of the Order in wealth and popularity.
ST. CLAIR OF ROSSLYN.
One of the most curious episodes in the history of Freemasonry occurred at the time of the founding of the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1736 when William St. Clair of Rosslyn (or Rossline, or Roslin) tendered his "resignation of the office of hereditary Grand Master" in order that in the future no confusions would arise as between his family and any Grand Master. The "resignation" begins by saying "that the Masons in Scotland did, by several deeds, constitute and appoint William and Sir William St. Clair of Rossline, my ancestors and their heirs, to be their patrons, protectors, judges, or masters," etc. (See page 899.)
Historians have doubted that any family ever held a suzerainty over the Craft in Scotland. Yet it is not impossible that it should have been true, for similar things occurred elsewhere.
During the later Middle Ages and early in the Modern Age, it was not uncommon for a family to organize itself (as Japanese families still do), with a head, ruless and penalties, somewhat like a modern business corporation. Until about the Sixteenth Century France, at least lid its government, army, and church, was little more than a network of such families —the "200 families" still claim ancient and hereditary privileges. The most extraordinary of such families in any country was the Hapsburgs (or Habsburgs) which as early as 1291 became a kind of hansa, or gild, and went into the business of supplying (by contract or agreement) kings, queens, princes, etc., to any country in the market for one, and are still at it. The Fuggers were another, except that they were financiers.
One of these families, the most notorious, has a link with the history of Freemasonry through a link it itself had with the gild system in Florence, Italy. This was the Medici Family (it began as Medici and Sons). The founder of the family was a worker in a gild of weavers and carders in the Fourteenth Century, and became a petty but successful gild politician. Gradually, decade after deeade, one Medici after another became "boss" of a gild, then of a number of gilds, got a monopoly of the silk gild, became wealthy and established a bank, and by a deft manipulation of gild funds and politics became ruler of Florence.
Once in power they produced a line of Popes, beginning with the famous Leo X; they produced the noted Cosimo, the famous Lorenzo, patron of the arts, and finally sent a weakling daughter of the house, Katherine, to be Queen of France, where she helped defeat the Protestant Reformation. The Medici history brought to light a fundamental weakness of the gild system; workers' gilds could by manipulation be brought under control by merchant gilds; a group of these latter could be brought under control by one of their own gilds; one man, with money enough, could control that gild. A gild had in its own organization no means to fight off that form of monopolization. Once the Medici had learned how it could be done, the capitalist system was invented, and the gild system was doomed; the emphasis passed from work and things to be made to money and wealth to be gained.
The St. Clair family made no such use of the Mason gilds in Scotland; but a case like that of the Medici, and the history of organized families in general, makes the St. Clair tradition more intelligible, and at the same time more credible; they may even have found it an economic advantage to be "judges and masters" of the Masons.
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