SODALITIES.
From the Latin word meaning Companion. Socicties or companies of friends or companions assembled together for a special purpose. Such confraternities, under the name of Sodalitia, were established in Rome, by Cato the Censor, for the mutual protection of the members. As their proceedings were secret, they gave offense to the government, and were suppressed, 80 B.C., by a Decree of the Senate, but were afterward restored by a law of Clodius. The name is applied in the Roman Catholic Church to associations of persons for charitable or devotional purposes.
SOFISM.
The Sofis were a mystical sect which greatly prevailed in Eastern countries, and especially in Persia, whose religious faith was supposed by most writers to embody the
secret doctrine of Mohammedanism. Sir John Malcolm ( History of Persia, chapter xx) says that they have among them great numbers of the wisest and ablest men of the East, and since his time the sect has largely increased.
The name is most probably derived from the Greek wisdom; and Malcolm states that they also bore the name of philosaufs, in which we may readily detect the word philosophers. He says also: "The Mohammedan Sofis have endeavored to conneet their mystic faith with the doctrine of their prophet, who, they assert, was himself an accomplished Sofi."
The principal Sofi writers are familiar with the opinions of Aristotle and Plato, and their most important works abound with quotations from the latter. Sir John Malcolm compares the school of Sofism with that of Pythagoras. It is evident that there is a great similarity between Sofism and Gnosticism, and all the features of the biofic initiation remind us very forcibly of those of the Masonic 'the object of the system is the attainment of Truth; and the novice is invited "to embark on the sea of doubt," that is, to commence his investigations, which are to end in its discovery.
There are four stages or degrees of initiation: the first is merely preliminary, and the initiate is required to observe the ordinary rites and ceremonies of religion for the sake of the vulgar, who do not understand their esoteric meaning. In the Second Degree he is said to enter the pale of Sofism, and exchanges these external rites for a spiritual worship.
The Third Degree is that of Wisdom, and he who reaches it is supposed to have attained supernatural knowledge, and to be equal to the angels. The Fourth and last degree is called Truth, for he has now reached it, and has become completely united with Deity. They have, says Malcolm, secrets and mysteries in every stage or degree which are never revealed to the profane, svnd to reveal whieh would be a erime of the deepest turpitude.
The tenets of the sect, so far as they are made known to the world, are, according to Sir William Jones (Asiatic Researches ii, page 62), "that nothing exists absolutely but God; that the human soul is an emanation of His essence, and, though divided for a time from its heavenly source, will be finally reunited with it; that the highest possible happiness will arise from its reunion; and that the chief good of mankind in this transitory world consists in as perfect a union with the Eternal Spirit as the incumbrances of a mortal frame will allow." It is evident that an investigation of the true system of these Eastern mysteries must be an interesting subject of inquiry to the student of Freemasonry; for Godfrey Higgins is hardly too enthusiastic in supposing them to be the ancient Freemasons of Mohammedanism.
His views are thus expressed in the second volume of his Anacalypsis (page 301): a wonderful work—wonderful for the vast and varied learning that it exhibits; but still more so for the bold and strange theories which, however untenable, are defended with all the powers of a more than ordinary intellect. "The circumstances," he says, "of the gradation of ranks, the initiation, and the head of the Order in Persia being called Grarld Master, raise a presumption that the Sofia were, in reality, the Order of Masons."
Without subscribing at once to the theory of Godfrey Higgins, we may well be surprised at the coincidences existing between the customs and the dogmas of the Sofis and those of the Freemasons, and we would naturally be curious to investigate the uses of the close communication which existed at variors times during the Crusades between this Mohammedan sect of philosophers and the Christian Order of Templars. C. W. King, in his learned treatise on the Gnostics, seems to entertain a similar idea of this connection between the Templars and the Sofis.
He says that,
Inasmuch as these Sofis were composed exelusively of the learned amongst the Persians and Syrians, and learnig at that time meant little more than a proficiency inedicine and astrology, the two points that brought the Eastern sages into amicable contact with their barbarous invaders from the West, it is easy to see how the latter may have imbibed the secret doctrines simultaneously with the science of those who were their instructors in all matters pertaining to science and art.
The Sofi doctrine involved the grand idea of one universal creed, which could be secretly held under any profession of an outward faith: and in fact took virtually the same view of religious systems as that in which the ancient philosophers had regarded such matters.
SOFTAS.
Students in the universities of Islam.
SO HELP ME GOD.
The usual obsecration or imprecation affixed in modern times to oaths, and meaning, May God so help me as I keep this vow.
SOJOURNER.
See Principal Sojourner.
SOJOURNERS' CLUB, THE NATIONAL.
According to data in its own publications the National Sojourners' Club, like the Masonic Fraternity itself, is unable to put its finger on the exact place and date of its origin. More or less tentative experiments, made at widely- separated places and in different years, both proved the need of and prepared the way for it. As Sojourners' Club was founded by army officers (from other services, also) in Manila, P. I., in 1900, it: finally became Manila Lodge, No 342, on October 10, 1901. Another club of Sojourners appeared in the same city, in 1907, Manila being then, as it is non fruitful in Masonic origins, and, it may well be destined to be a Mother City of Freemasonry in the Far East where it maw have nobody can tell hou large a future.
The present organization in America began when fifteen officers met at the Hamilton Club in Chicago (which is among clubs what Manila is among cities, for it is a mother of clubs), in 1917. A formal organization was completed February 28, 1918 Membership was made eligible to commissioned officers in the uniformed services who are Masons; patriotism was proclaimed its chief tenet. At the first meeting twenty-four were present; Captain F. C. Russell was elected President.
The roster of its local and national officers contains names made famous the World over by two World Wars; and also contained at least one President of the United States. Masons in the services on land and sea will always find each other out and form circles regardless of difficulties, for the Mystic Tie means much to them. For two centuries the Craft has tried out Army Lodges, Navy Lodges, Lodges on board ship, Mariners' Lodges, Ambulatory Lodges but they have not everywhere been satisfactory. The Sojourners is not a Lodge but a club, and it may in the future be proved to have found the most satisfactory formula for Masonic fellowship among Masons in the armed services.
SOJOURNERS, NATIONAL.
See National Sojourners.
SOLDIERS OF CHRIST.
Milites Christi is the title by which Saint Bernard addressed his exhortations to the Knights Templar. They are also called by a more complete Latin title in some of the old documents, Militia Templi Salomonis, meaning The Chivalry of the Temple of Solomon; but their ancient Statutes were entitled Regina pauperum commilitonum Templi Salomonis, meaning The Rule of the poor fellow-soldiers of the Temple of Solomon; and this is the title by which they are now most generally designated.
SOLI SANCTISSIMO SACRUM.
Latin, meaning Sacred to the most holy Sun. Mentioned in the Twenty-eighth Degree, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
SOLOMON.
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, BUILDERS OF.
SOLOMON, HOUSE OF.
SOLOMON, TEMPLE OF.
In writing the life of King Solomon from a Masonic point of view, it is impossible to omit a reference to the legends which have been preserved in the Masonic system.
But the writer, who, with this preliminary notice, embodies them in his sketch of the career of the wise King of Israel, is by no means to be held responsible for a belief in their authenticity. It is the business of the Masonic biographer to relate all that has been handed down by tradition in connection with the life of Solomon; it will be the duty of the severer critic to seek to separate out of all these materials that which is historical from that which is merely mythical, and to assign to the former all that is valuable as fact, and to the latter all that is equally valuable as symbolism.
But it must constantly be kept in mind that the chronology of early Jewish history is obscure. Periods given in the books of Moses are in round numbers and seem based only on tradition. Only when the biblical dates can be checked by external means, as for example by the records of Assyria, may definite dates be accepted with any certainty. Such is the conclusion of the Dictionary of Dates (Nelson's Encyclopedic Library).
Solomon, the King of Israel, the son of David and Bathsheba, ascended the throne of his kingdom 2989 years after the creation of the world, and 1015 years before the Christian era. He was then only twenty years of age, but the youthful monarch is said to have commenced his reign with the decision of a legal question of some difficulty, in which he exhibited the first promise of that wise judgment for which he was ever afterward distinguished.
One of the great objects of Solomon's life, and the one which most intimately connects him with the history of the Masonic institution, was the erection of a temple to Jehovah. This, too, had been a favorite design of his father David. For this purpose, that monarch, long before his death, had numbered the workmen whom he found in his kingdom; had appointed the overseers of the work, the hewers of stones, and the bearers of burdens; had prepared a great quantity of brass, iron, and cedar; and had amassed an immense treasure with which to support the enterprise.
But on consulting with the Prophet Nathan, he learned from that holy man, that although the pious intention was pleasing to God, yet that he would not be permitted to carry it into execution, and the divine prohibition was proclaimed in these emphatic words: "Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars; thou shalt not build a house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight." The task was, therefore, reserved for the more peaceful Solomon.
Hence, when David was about to die, he charged Solomon to build the Temple of God as soon as he should have received the kingdom. He also gave him directions in relation to the construction of the edifice, and put into his possession the money, amounting to ten thousand talents of gold and ten times that amount of silver, which he had collected and laid aside for defraying the expense. Solomon had scarcely ascended the throne of Israel, when he prepared to carry into execution the pious designs of his predecessor. For this purpose, however, he found it necessary to seek the assistance of Hiram, King of Tyre, the ancient friend and ally of his father.
The Tyrians and Sidonians, the subjects of Hiram, had long been distinguished for their great architectural skill; and, in fact, many of them, as the members of a mystic operative society, the Fraternity of Dionysian Artificers, had long monopolized the profession of building in Asia Minor. The Jews, on the contrary, were rather more eminent for their military valor than for their knowledge of the arts of peace, and hence King Solomon at once conceived the necessity of invoking the aid of these foreign architects, if he expected to complete the edifice he was about to erect, either in a reasonable time or with the splendor and magnificence appropriate to the sacred object for which it was intended. For this purpose he addressed the following letter to King Hiram:
Know thou that my father would have built a temple to God, but was hindered bv wars and continual expeditions, for he did not leave off to overthrow his enemies till he made them all subject to tribute. But I give thanks to God for the peace I, at present, enjoy, and on that account I am at leisure, and design to build a house to God. for God foretold to mv father, that such a house should be built by me wherefore I desire thee to send some of thy subjects with mine to Mount Lebanon, to cut down timber for the Sidonians are more skilful than our people in cutting of wood. as for wages to the hewers of wood, I will pay whatever price thou shalt determine.
Hiram, mindful of the former amity end alliance that had existed between himself and David, was disposed to extend the friendship he had felt for the father to the son, and replied, therefore, to the letter of Solomon in the following epistle:
It is fit to bless God that he hath committed thy father's government to thee, who art a wise man endowed with all virtues.
As for myself, I rejoice at the condition thou art in and will be subservient to thee in all that thou sendest to me about; for when, by my subjects I have cut down many and large trees of cedar and cypress wood, I will send them to sea and will order my subjects to make floats of them. and to sail to what plaees soever of thy country thou shalt desire and leave them there, after which thy subjects may carry them to Jerusalem. But do thou take care to procure us corn for this timber which we stand in need of, because we inhabit in an island.
Hiram lost no time in fulfilling the promise of assistance which he had thus given; and accordingly we are informed that Solomon received thirty-three thousand six hundred workmen from Tyre', besides a sufficient quantity of timber and stone to construct the edifice which he was about to erect.
Hiram sent him, also, a far more important gift than either men or materials, in the person of an able architect, "a curious and cunning workman," whose skill and experience were to be exercised in superintending the labors of the craft, and in adorning and beautifying the building. Of this personage, whose name was also Hiram, and who plays so important a part in the history of Freemasonry, an account will be found in the article Hiram Abif, to which the reader is referred.
King Solomon commenced the erection of the Temple on Monday, the second day of the Hebrew month Zif, which answers to the twenty-first of April, in the year of the world 2992, and 1012 years before the Christian era. Advised in all the details, as Masonic tradition informs us, by the wise and prudent counsels of Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abif, who, with himself, constituted at that time the three Grand Masters of the Craft, Solomon made every arrangement in the disposition and government of the workmen, in the payment of their wages, and in the maintenance of concord and harmony which should insure despateh in the execution and success in the result. To Hiram Abif was entrusted the general superintendence of the building, while subordinate stations were assigned to other eminent artists, whose names and offices have been handed down in the traditions of the Order.
In short, the utmost perfection of human wisdom was displayed by this enlightened monarch in the disposition of everything that related to the eonstruetion of the stupendous edifice..
Men of the most comprehensive minds, imbued with the greatest share of zeal and fervency, and inspired with the strongest fidelity to his interests, were employed as masters to instruct and superintend the workmen; while those who labored in inferior stations were exeited to enthusiasm by the promise of promotion and reward. The Temple was at length finished in the month Bul, answering to our November, in the year of the world 3000, being a little more than seven years from its commencement .
As soon as the magnificent edifice was completed, and fit for the sacred purposes for which it was intended, King Solomon determined to celebrate the consummation of his labors in the most solemn manner.
For this purpose he directed the Ark to be brought from the king's house, where it had been placed by King David, and to be deposited with impressive ceremonues m the holy of holier beneath the expanded wings of the cherubim This important event is commemorated in the beautiful ritual of the Most Excellent Master's Degree. Our traditions inform us, that when the Temple was completed, Solomon assembled all the heads of the Tribes, the Elders and Chiefs of Israel to bring the Ark up out of Zion, where King David had deposited it in a tabernaele until a more fitting place should have been built for its reception. This duty, therefore, the Levites now performed, and delivered the Ark of the Covenant into the hands of the Priests, who fixed it in its place in the center of the Holy of Holies.
Here the immediate and personal connection of King Solomon with the Craft begins to draw to a conclusion. It is true, that he subsequently employed those worthy Freemasons, whom the traditions say, at the completion and dedication of the Temple, he had received and acknowledged as Most Excellent Masters, in the erection of a magnificent palace and other edifices, but in process of time he fell into the most grievous errors; abandoned the path of truth; encouraged the idolatrous rites of Spurious Freemasonry; and, induced by the persuasions of those foreign wives and concubines whom he had espoused in his later days, he erected a fane for the celebration of these heathen mysteries, on one of the hills that overlooked the very spot where, in his youth, he had consecrated a temple to the one true God.
It is, however, believed that before his death he deeply repented of this temporary aberration from virtue, and in the emphatic expression, "Vanity of vanities! all is vanity" (Ecclesiastes i, 2), he is supposed to have acknowledged that in his own experience he had discovered that falsehood and sensuality, however they may give pleasure for a season, will, in the end, produee the bitter fruits of remorse and sorrow.
That King Solomon was the wisest monarch that swayed the scepter of Israel, has been the unanimous opinion of posterity.
So much was he beyond the age in which he flourished, in the attainments of seienee, that the Jewish and Arabie writers have attributed to him a thorough knowledge of the secrets of magic, by whose incantations they suppose him to have been capable of calling spirits and demons to his assistance; and the Talmudists and Mohammcdan doctors record many fanciful legends of his exploits in controlling these ministers of darkness. As a naturalist, he is said to have written a work on animals of no ordinary character, which has, however, perished; while his qualifications as a poet were demonstrated by more than a thousand poems which he composed, of which his epithalamium on his marriage with an Egyptian princess and the Book of Ecclesiastes alone remain.
He has given us in his Proverbs an Opportunity of forming a favorable opinion of his pretensions to the character of a deep and right-thinking philosopher; while the long peace and prosperous condition of his empire for the greater portion of his reign, the increase of his kingdom in wealth and refinement, and the encouragement which he gave to architectures the mechanic arts, and commerce,
testify his profound abilities as a sovereign and statesman- After a reign of forty years he died, and with him expired the glory and the power of the ancient Hebrew Empires
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, BUILDERS OF.
In the Cooke MS, written between 1410-1450, is imbedded the oldest Masonic tradition about Solomon's Temple,
w hereby is meant the oldest adopted by Masons, because the unknown author of the document drew much of his materials from non-Masonic books. Beginning at line 539 and extending to line 572 the MS. states that when the Israelites came from Egypt to Jerusalem they brought Masonry (architecture) with them.
David began the Temple; "he loved well Masons...." But the Temple was made in Solomon's time. He had 80,000 Masons employed. (At
the American equivalent of $3.00 per day, that would total $240,000 per day, a yearly payroll of 300 working days of $72,000,000!) The MS. states that "the King's son of Tyre" was Solomon's Master Mason; this would normally be taken to mean the son of the King of Tyre. David had given Masons their charges; Solomon confirmed them, though this is admittedly taken from "other chronicles" and is written "in old books of Masonry" (architecture). Solomon taught them manners, "but little different from the manners that now be used."
It is evident that the author is not here writing down Masons' traditions, or he would have said so, since he was careful to give his sources; and he did not have the Boosts of Kings or Chronicles before him but drew from old chronicles, polychrontcons (universal histories), etc. Nor was he offering a history, or connected narrative; the fact is evident from the table of contents which can be made for the MS. and which in this connection are: Abraham teaches Euclid the science of geometry; Euclid creates the craft of May sonry; the Israelites learn Masonry in Egypt; from Solomon's Temple the author then leaps to Charles II (not known to whom this refers); to St. Alban of England; to Athelstan; then back to Egypt and to Euclid.
The first, or 1723, Edition of the Book of Constitutions (see ante page 11) has another account. It says that there were 3600 princes [or harodim, or provostsl or Master-Masons . . . with 80,000 Fellow Craftsmen who were "hewers of stone in the mountains" (in reality the quarry was in the hill under the Temple), and 70,000 laborers; in addition there was a special levy of 30,000, making in all 183,600. They were at work for seven and one-half years. At the rate of only $1.00 per day the cost for 183,600 for 2250 days would come to the large total of $413,100,000! (In a pseudo-learned foot-note it is curious to note that a Hebrew word bonai, pronounced bow-nay, is given as meaning a builder in stone; it is a reminder of another and more famous word. In another paragraph of notes on the next page an attempt is made to explain the name Hiram Abif.)
The Book of Kings (I, 5: 15, 16) has a census of the Temple workers: 70,000 workmen; 80,000 "hewers"; and 3600 overseers, or foremen. In the corresponding chapter in II Chronicles, these same numbers are given in two places, Ch. II, 5, and 18; perhaps its editor had two manuscripts before him and deemed it wisest to quote from both. His figures add to 153,600, or 30,000 less than the number given in the Book of Constitutions.
In a widely-used version of the Monitorial (or Exoteric) Work: "There were employed in its construction three Grand Masters, three thousand and three hundred Masters or Overseers of the work, eighty thousand Fellow Crafts, and seventy thousand Entered Apprentiees or bearers of burdens."
It is clear that the author of this enumeration (Preston originally?) was following the Old Testament and not the Old Constitutions —and the fact proves that Masons have never had an orthodox, infallible, unchanging text rigidly binding on them by law. So little was this the case that when the young Mother Grand Lodge prepared a second edition of the Constitutions of 1738 it altered the first part of it radically and at many points. Versions of the Old Charges differ among themselves. It is a reasonable theory that after the Edition of the Book of Constitutions of 1723 was read, a number of Time Imrnemorial Lodges discovered its accounts of the "history" to differ from theirs and made a clamor to have their own included.
(It is a paradox of the history of Solomon's Temple that though Solomon and his people were Jews, it was built not by Jews but by Tyrians, and working under Tyrian overseers; and these latter must have built it ia the Tyrian style because in that period of history Masons were not taught architecture in terms of principles and pure geometry and engineering, but were yrained to do only a given style of work—a Tyrian Mason would have said, "I can do Tyrian work but not Egyptian or Assyrian."
It is also a curious fact that just after the author of the Constitutions had said that the Jews were trained in architecture he then goes on to say that Solomon had to send to Tyre for architects !)
The publishing of a cheap form of illustrated Bible about 1700 set everybody in England to reading it. one of the results was a wide spread amateur study of Hebrew; another was the discovery and popularity of Josephus' History of the Jews. The consequence to Masonry of the former was to introduce a few Hebrew words into its nomenclature, such as gibtim, harodim, bonay, etc.; the consequence of the latter was to introduce into the history of Solomon's period a set of traditions not in Kings and Chronicles, and a number of old Oriental tales about Solomon.
There was yet another source of Temple lore: the enthusiastic public interest in the two "great" models of the building exhibited for years in England, one by Schott, the other by Leon, each with a handbook, and of which at least one contained lore from the Talmud. Thus, the Solomon's Temple of the Ritual was constructed, as it were, and in a poetic sense, by at least seven different sets of architects, and not working together: the Old Charges, Book of Constitutions, Book of Kings, Book of Chronicles, Josephus, Schott's model, Leon's model.
But this commixing was not yet at an end; indeed, it was only at a beginning. For with Inigo Jones (during 1600-1652) the architectural style perfected by Palladio was brought from Italy into England, and almost at once began to replace the mixture of Tudor styles and the last vestiges of Gothic. Palladio was a modern style, but in essence was an adaptation of Greek; that is, more strictly, it made use of certain features of the classical Greek.
It was called Italian, Palladian, Classical, Neo-Classical, Grecian, etc. By the time of the 1723 Constitutions this had become the style, and had been for so long that everybody had forgotten Gothic; and the compilers of the Constitutions not only forgot (or did not know) that Freemasonry was a child of the Gothic, but they sneered at it as a piece of barbarism, and no doubt assumed that each and every fine building in the past, including Solomon's Temple, had been designed in the Italian style. There was thus introduced into the Craft traditions, and on top of Solomon's Temple, "another temple," a Neo-Classical one.
But even this was not the end. Once architects and amateurs became engrossed in Palladio, they were inevitably led back to Vitruvius, and through him discovered the genuine, classical Greek temple, which, unlike the Palladian adaptation, was composed of pillars and columns, with few or no walls, and 8 flattened down, simple roof without spires, or domes. or towers. The wonderful Greek columns were adopted into Masonic symbolism, where they became the Five Orders of Architecture.
What few data we have about the Esoteric Work indicate that until the middle of the Eighteenth Century, in both Britain and America, and by comparison with its rigidity afterwards, the Ritual was between 1700 and 1750 in a fluid condition. It is improbable that Preston, or any other one man, was responsible for the fixation; but it is probable that the general acceptance of Preston's system of Monitorial Lectures signallized the fact that the Ritual had become stable.
When it did so the Temple in it was not Solomon's Temple, or any other in particular. It was wholly a symbolical Temple, called Solomon's for symbolic purposes, and it was "built" out of whatever the Ritualists needed from many styles and traditions.
They were not engaged as contractors to erect a London church; they were not historians or architects; they were Ritualists, great Ritualists, and they obeyed the laws of ritualism; and according to those laws historical or technological facts are of small importance; indeed, the fewer of them the better!
Their symbolic temple had something of Solomon's in it; yet it also came to a focus in a drama not about his building or Solomon's people or even (this is remarkable!) about himself, but about a Tyrs architect—a workman; the fact that Greek columns of 500 B.C. had no place in a Tyrian Temple on Jewish soil of 1000 B.C. did not disturb them. They introduced priests bowing toward the Inner Sanctum alongside London college professors lecturing on ethics and the curriculum of Medieval Schools. They had Greek columns alongside ancient, legendary pillars.
They put Euclid and Pythagoras cheek by jowl with Moses on the one hand and the English St. Albans (Thomas a Becket?) on the other. Historically and architecturally they had a museum of ruins, of anachronisms, solecisms, fallacies; ritualistically they had a masterpiece—and if Phidias had been a Ritualist he could not have built a better ritualistic temple. The once-burning question as to whether Solomon was the founder of Masonry or not (the Tyrians had been Masons long before Solomon!) answers itself as soon as the Masonic student sees the recorded, indisputable facts before him, and studies the Second and Third Degrees for himself.
Note. In 1723 the Constitutions give HA.-. as the Master of Masons, in 1738, as Deputy Grand Master. In a very revealing aside Anderson, or whoever wrote the paragraph gives as his authority "the traditions of the old Masons who talk much of these things."
What he meant probably was that they talked much to the Grand Lodge leaders whose iconoclasm was disturbing them. The Old Charaes do not attribute the founding of Masonry to Solomon, but to Adam—itself another answer to the above referred-to "burning question"; if they give any one man the credit it was Euclid—a Greek, and a Greek whom the Medieval Church had both hated and feared. It also is significant that the oldest existing MS., the Regius, does not include Solomonts Temple—early Operative Lodges enjoyed a wide latitude in matters ritualistic and symbolic.
Medieval builders themselves either knew aothing about Solomon's Temple or else took no interest m it; among its few appearances among the cathedrals was Wursburg where the pillars J and B were set up in the porch.
The French Compagnonnage had a symbolic rite or symbolism about HA.-. but there is no known connection between that fraternity and early English Lodges- for some 200 years Englishmen and Frenchmen were almost completely out of touch with each other, what with wars and a conflict in religion; the majority of English tourists preferred to go to Italy, which became almost a tourist cololly. It remained for Voltaire to rediscover the English and to bring them and their Loeke's philosophy and Newton's science to Freneh attention. The fact helps to explain why Speculative Freemasonry is so purely English in origin.
SOLOMON, HOUSE OF.
Lord Bacon composed, in his New Atlantis, an apologue, in which he describes the Island of Bensalem—that is, Island of the Sons of Peace—and on it an edifice called the House of Solomon where there was to be a confraternity of philosophers devoted to the acquisition of knowledge. Nicolai thought that out of this subsequently arose the society of Freemasons, which was, he supposes, established by Elias Ashmole and his friends (see Micolai)
SOLOMON, TEMPLE OF.
See Temple of Solomon..
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