Y.
The twenty-fifth letter of the English alphabet derived from the Greek T.
One of the symbols of Pythagoras was the Greek letter Upsilon, T. for which, on account of the similarity of shape, the Romans adopted the letter Y of their own alphabet. Pythagoras said that the two horns of the letter symbolized the two different paths of virtue and vice, the right branch leading to the former and the left to the latter. It was therefore called Litera Pythagorae, the Letter of Pythagoras.
Thus the Roman poet Martial says, in one of his epigrams:
Litera Pythagorae, discrimine secta bicorni, Humanae vitae speciem pracferre videtur.
The letter of Pythagoras, parted by its two-branehed division, appears to exhibit the image of human life
YAKSHA.
The name of a class of demigods in Hindu mythology, whose care is to attend on Kuvera, the god of riches, and see to his garden and treasures.
YALLA.
A word said to have been used by the Templars in the adoration of the Baphomet, and derived from the Saracens.
YAMA.
The Sanskrit, Yama, meaning a twin. According to the Hindu mythology, the judge and ruler of the departed; the Hindu Pluto, or king of the infernal regions; originally conceived of as one of the first pair from whom the human race is descended, and the beneficent sovereign of his descendants in tne abodes of the blest; later, a terrible deity, the tormentor of the wicked. He is represented of a green color, with red garments, having a crown on his head, his eyes inflamed, and sitting on a buffalo, with a club in his hand.
YARKER, JOHN.
Born in Westmorland, England, April 17, 1833, died March 20, 1913, and was long identified actively with Freemasonry in Manchaster but connected with Masonic Bodies in all parts of the world. He was initiated on October 25, 1854, in Integrity Lodge No. 189, later No. 163, at twenty-one years of age. He contributed an article on Military Masons in 1858 to the Freemason's Magazine and Masonic Mirror. Thereafter he was a frequent writer on Masonic matters to the publications of the Craft. His book, The Arcane Schools, a Review of Their Origin and Antiquity, with a general history of Freemasonry and its relation to the theosophic, scientific and philosophic matters, was published in 1909 after some ten years' labor, as the preface tells us, and is a book of 566 pages dealing with the traces of a speculative system from the ancient days.
YATES, GILES FONDA.
"The task of writing a sketch of the life of Giles Fonda Yates is accompanied with a feeling of melancholy," says Doetor Mackey, " because it brings to my mind the recollections of years, now passed forever, in which I enjoyed the intimate friendship of that amiable man and zealous Freb mason and scholar. His gentle mien WOII the love, his virtuous life the esteem, and his profound but unobtrusive scholarship the respect of all who knew him."
Giles Fonda Yates was born in 1796, in what was then the village of Scheneetady, in the State of New York. After acquiring at the ordinary schools of the period a preliminary liberal education, he entered Union College, and graduated with distinction, receiving in due time the Degree of Master of Arts. He subsequently commenced the study of the law, and, having been admitted to the bar, was, while yet young, appointed Judge of Probate in Schenectady, the duties of which office he discharged with great ability and fidelity.
Being blessed with a sufficient competency of the World's goods (although in the latter years of his life he became poor), Brother Yates did not find it necessary to pursue the practise of the legal profession as a source of livelihood. At an early period he was attracted, by the bent of his mind, to the study not only of general literature, but especially to that of archeology, philosophy, and the occult sciences, of all of which he became an ardent investigator.
These studies led him naturally to the Masonic Institution, into which he was initiated in the year 1817, receiving the Degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry in Saint George's Lodge, No. 6, at Schenectady, New York.
In 1821 he affiliated with Morton Lodge, No. 87, of the same place, and was shortly afterward elected its Senior Warden. Returning subsequently to the Lodge of his adoption, he was chosen as its Master in 1844. He had in the meantime been admitted into a Chapter of the Royal Arch and an Encampment of Knights Templar; but his predilections being for Scottish Freemasonry, he paid little attention to these high Degrees of the American Rite.
He held several important positions in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, being elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Couneil in 1851, but soon resigned. He died December 13, 1859. A fine address by Brother Yates, an exposition of the laws, objects, and the history of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, is in Doctor Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry (volume vi, pages 1888-1905).
YAVERON HAMAIM.
A significant word in the advanced Degrees. The French rituals explain it as meanings the PnSSnne of the Ritwr, and refer it to the crossing of the River Euphrates by the liberated Jewish captives on their return from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. It is, in its present form, a corruption of the Hebrew sentence, yavaru hamaim, which signifies they drill cross, or pass over, the avers," alluding to the streams lying between Babylon and Jerusalem, of which the Euphrates was the most important.
YEAR,-.
YEAR, HEBREW.
YEAR OF FREEMASONRY.
YEAR OF LIGHT.
YEAR OF THE DEPOSITED
YEAR OF THE DISCOVERY.
YEAR OF THE ORDER.
YEAR OF THE WORLD.
YEAR OF LIGHT
YEAR, HEBREW.
The same as the Year of the World, which see.
YEAR OF FREEMASONRY.
Sometimes used as synonymous with Year of Light. In the eighteenth century, it was, in fact, the more frequent expression.
YEAR OF LIGHT.
Anno Lewis, in the Year of Light, is the epoch used in Masonic documents of the Symbolic Degrees. This era is calculated from the creation of the world, and is obtained by adding four thousand to the current year, on the supposition that Christ was born four thousand years after the creation of the world. But the chronology of Archbishop Ussher, which has been adopted as the Bible chronology in the authorized version, places the birth of Christ in the year 4004 after the creation.
According to this calculation, the Masonic date for the "year of light" is four years short of the true date, and the year of the Lord 1874, which in Masonic documents is 5874, should correctly be 5878. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasons in the beginning of the nineteenth century used this Ussherian era, and the Supreme Council at Charleston dated its first circular, issued in 1802, as 5806. Dalcho (Ahiman Rezom, second edition, page 37) says: "If Masons are determined to fix the origin of their Order at the Xirrie of the erection, they should agree among themselves at what time before Christ to place that epoch." At that agreement they have now arrived. Whatever differences may have once existed, there is now a general consent to adopt the theory that the world was created 4000 B.C. The error is too unimportant, and the practice too universal, to expect that it will ever be corrected.
H. P. Smith (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible), we may here point out in a paragraph to support Doctor Mackey, says that our appreciation of the Bible does not depend upon the accuracy of its dates. This authority considers that in general, the picture it provides of the sequence of events from the time of Judges down to the Fall of Jerusalem is correct. More recently there has been welcome light on the dates of certain biblical events from the inscriptions in Assyria and Babylonia.
These Empires had made great advances in astronomy and consequently in the regulation of the calendar. They had a reckoning of time which secured accuracy for their records of history. Lists have come down to us in fragments, but by them scholars have corrected some of the dates in Hebrew history. The reference already made to the work of Archbishop Ussher has been checked by these later studies and most of the figures, it is now accepted, are too high for the early period. Probably some of the early writers were influenced by a theory which they had formed or which had come to them through tradition and those tendencies show certain repetitions in the records which are, in these modern days, not so convincing as formerly.
Noowhouek (Constitutions 1784, page 5), speaking of the necessity of adding the four years to make a correct date, says: "But this being a Degree of accuracy that Masons in general do not attend to, we must, after this intimation, still follow the vulgar mode of computation to be intelligible."
As to the meaning of the expression, it is by no means to be supposed that Freemasons, now, intend by such a date to assume that their Order is as old as the creation. It is simply used as expressive of reverence for that physical light which was created by the fiat of the Grand Architect, and which is adopted as the type of the intellectual light of Freemasonry. The phrase is altogether symbolic.
YEAR OF THE DEPOSITED
An era adopted by Royal and Select Masters, and refers to the time when certain important secrets were deposited in the first Temple (see An1to Depositionis).
YEAR OF THE DISCOVERY.
An era adopted by Royal Arch Masons, and refers to the time when certain secrets were made known to the Craft at the building of the second Temple (see Anno Inventionis).
YEAR OF THE ORDER.
The date used in documents connected with Masonic Templarism. It refers to the establishment of the Order of Knights Templar in the year 1118 (see Anno Ordinis).
YEAR OF THE WORLD.
This is the era adopted by the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite and is borrowed from the Jewish computation. The Jews formerly used the era of contracts, dated from the first conquests of Seleucus Nicator in Syria. But since the fifteenth century they have counted from the creation, which they suppose to have taken place in September, 3760, before Christ (see Anno Mundi).
YEAS AND NAYS
The rule existing in all parliamentary Bodies that a vote may be called for by fleas and nays, so that the vote of each member may be known and recorded, does not apply to Masonic Lodges. Indeed, any such proceeding ought to be unnecessary.
The vote by yeas and nays is so taken in a representative Body that the members may be held responsible to their constituents. But in a Lodge, each member is wholly independent of any responsibility,
except to his own conscience. To call for the yeas and nays being then repugnant to the principles which govern Lodges, to call for them would be out of order, and such a call could not be entertained by the presiding officer.
But in a Grand Lodge the responsibility of the members to a constituency does exist, and there it is very usual to call for a vote by Lodges, when the vote of everv member is recorded. Although the mode of calling for the vote is different, the vote by Lodges is actually the same as a vote by yeas and nays, and may be demanded by any member.
YELDIS.
An old Hermetic Degree, which Thory says was given in some secret societies in Germany.
YELLOW.
YELLOW CAPS SOCIETY.
YELLOW JACKET.
Of all the colors, yellow seems to be the least important and the least general in Masonic symbolism. In other institutions it would have the same insignificance, were it not that it has been adopted as the representative of the sun, and of the noble metal gold. Thus, in colored blazonry, the small dots by which the gold in an engraved coat of arms is designated, are replaced by the yellow color. La Colombiere, a French heraldic writer, says (Science Heroique, page 30) in remarking on the connection between gold and yellow, that as yellow, which is derived from the sun, is the most exalted of colors, so gold is the most noble of metals.
Portal (Des Couleurs Symboliques, page 64) says that the sun, gold, and vellow are not synonymous, but mark different Degrees which it is difficult to define. The natural sun was the symbol of the spiritual sun, gold represented the natural sun,.and yellow was the emblem of gold. But it is evident that yellow derives all its significance as a symbolic color from its connection with the hue of the rays of the sun and the metal gold. Among the ancients, the Divine Light or Wisdom was represented by yellow, as the Divine Heat or Power was by red. And this appears to be about the whole of the ancient symbolism of this color.
In the old instructions of the Scottish and Hermetic Degree of Knight of the Sun, yellow was the symbol of Wisdom darting its rays, like the yellow beams of the morning, to enlighten a waking world.
In the Prince of Jerusalem, it was also formerly the characteristic color, perhaps with the same meaning, in reference to the elevated position that that Degree occupied in the Rite of Perfection, and afterward in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Years ago, yellow was the characteristic color of the Mark Master's Degree, derived, perhaps, from the color of the Princes of Jerusalem, who originally issued charters for Mark Lodges; for it does not seem to have possessed any symbolic meaning. In fact, as has been already intimated, all the symbolism of yellow must be referred to and explained by the symbolism of gold 2th of the sun, of which it is simply the representative.
YELLOW CAPS SOCIETY.
The name of a society said to have been founded by Ling-Ti, in China, in the eleventh century.
YELLOW JACKET.
Prichard says that in the early part of the eighteenth century the following formed a part of the Catechism:
Have you seen your Master to-day?
How was he cloathed?
In a yellow jacket and a blue pair of breeches.
And he explains it by saying that "the yellow jacket is the compasses, and the blue breeches the steel points."
Krause (Kunsturkunden ii, page 78) remarks on this subject that this sportive comparison given by Prichard is altogether in the puerile spirit of the peculiar interrogatories which are found among many other crafts, and is without doubt genuine as originating in the working Lodges. Prichard's explanation is natural, and Krause's remark correct. But it is vain to attempt to elevate the idea by attaching to it a symbolism of gold and azure—the blue sky and the meridian sun. No such thought, in Doctor Mackey's opinion, entered into the minds of the illiterate Operatives with whom the question and answer originated.
YEVELE, HENRY.
He was one of the Magistri Operis, or Masters of the Work, in the reign of Edward III, for whom he constructed several public edifices. Doetor Anderson says that he is called, "in the Old Records, the King's Freemason," (Constitution, 1735, page 70); but his name does not occur in any of the old manuscript Constitutiorts that are now extant.
YEZDEGERDIAN.
Pertaining to the era of Yezdegerd, the last Sassanian monarch of Persia, who was overthrown by the Mohammedans. The era is still used by the Parsees, and began 16th of June, 632 A. D.
YEZIDEE.
One of a sect bordering on the Euphrates, whose religious worship mixes up the Devil with some of the doctrines of the Magi, Mohammedans, and Christians.
YGDRASIL.
The name given in Seandinavian mythology to the greatest and most sacred of all trees, which was conceived as binding together heavens earth, and hell. It is an ash, whose branches spread over all the world, and reach above the heavens. It sends out three roots in as many different directions: one to the Asa-gods in heaven, another to the Frostgiants, the third to the under-world. Under each root springs a wonderful fountain, endowed with marvelous virtues. From the tree itself springs a honey-dew. The serpent, Nithhoggr, lies at the under-world fountain and gnaws the root of Ygdrasil; the squirrel, Ratatoskr, runs up and down, and tries to breed strife between the serpent and the eagle, which sits aloft. Doctor Oliver (Signs and Symbols, page 155) considers it to have been the Theological Ladder of the Gothic Mysteries.
Y-HA-HO.
Godfrey Higgins (Anacalypsis ii, page 17) cites the Abbé Bazin as saying that this was the name esteemed most sacred among the ancient Egyptians. Clement of Alexandria asserts, in his Stromata, that all those who entered into the Temple of Serapis were obliged to wear conspicuously on their persons the name I-ha-ho, which he says signifies the Eternal God. The resemblance to the Tetragrammaton is apparent.
YOD.
The Hebrew letter Is, equivalent in sound to I or Y. It is the initial letter of the word Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton, and hence was peculiarly sacred among the Talmudists. Basnage (book iii, chapter 13), while treating of the mysteries of the name Jehovah among the Jews, says of this letter:
The yod in Jehovah is one of those things which eye hath not seen, but which has been concealed from all mankind. Its essence and matter are incomprehensible ; it is not lawful so much as to meditate upon it.
Man may lawfully revolve his thoughts from one end of the heavens to the other, but he cannot approach that inaccessible light, that primitive existence, contained in the letter yod and indeed the masters call the letter thought or idea, and prescribe no bounds to its efficacy. It was this letter which, flowing from the primitive light, gave being to emanations. It wearied itself by the way, but assumed a new vigor by the sense of the letter t which makes the second letter of the Ineffable Name.
In Symbolic Freemasonry, the god has been replaced by the letter G. But in the advanced Degrees it is retained, and within a triangle, as in the illustration, constitutes the symbol of the Deity.
YONI.
Among the Orientalists, the yoni was the female symbol corresponding to the lingam, or male principle. The lingam and yoni of the East assumed the names of Phallus and Cteis among the Greeks.
YORK -.
YORK CONSTITUTIONS.
YORK, EDWARD AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF.
YORK, FREDERICK, DUKE OF.
YORK GRAND LODGE.
YORK LEGEND.
YORK MANUSCRIPTS.
YORK-MASONS.
YORK RITE.
YORK CONSTITUTIONS.
This document, which is also called the Krause Manuscript, purports to be the Constitutions adopted by the General Assembly of Freemasons that was held at York in 926 (see York Legend). No original manuscript copy of it can be found, but a German translation from a Latin version was published, for the first time, by Krause in the drei attested Kunsturkunden der Freimaurer bruderschaft, the Three Oldest Craft Records of the Masonic Brotherhood.
It will be found in the third edition of that work (volume ui, pages 58-101).
Krause's account of it is, that it was translated from the original, which is said, in a certificate dated January 4, 1806, and signed Stonehouse, to have been written on parchment in the ancient language of the country and preserved at the City of York, "apud Rev. summam societatem architectonicam," which Woodford translates "an Architectural Society," but which is evidently meant for the "Grand Lodge." From this Latin translation a German version was made in 1808 by Brother Schneider of Altenberg, the correctness of which, having been examined by three linguists, is certified by Carl Erdmann Weller, Secretary of the Government Tribunal of Saxony.
And it is this certified German translation that has been published by Krause in his Kunsturkunden. An English version was inserted by Brother Hughan in his Old Charges of British Freemasons.
The document consists, like all the old manuscripts, of an introductory invocation, a history of architecture or the Legend of the Craft, and the General Statutes or Charges; but several of the Charges differ from those in the other Constitutions. There is, however, a general resemblance sufficient to indicate a common origin. The appearance of this document gave rise in Gerrnany to discussions as to its authenticity. Krause, Schneider, Fessler, and many other distinguished Freemasons, believed it to be genuine; while Kloss denied it, and contended that the Latin translation which was certified by Stonehouse had been prepared before 1806, and that in preparing it, an ancient manuscript had been remodeled on the basis of the 1738 edition of Anderson's Constitutions, because the term Noachida is employed in both, but is found nowhere else.
At length, in 1864, Brother Findel was sent by the "Society of German Masons" to England to discover the original. His report of his journey was that it was negative in its results; no such document was to be found in the archives of the old Lodge at York, and no such person as Stonehouse was known in that city. These two facts, to which may be added the further arguments that no mention i9 made of it in the Fabric Rolls of York Minster, published by the Surtees Society, nor in the inventory of the Grand Lodge of York which was extant in 1777, nor by Drake in his speeeh delivered before the Grand Lodge in 1726, and a few other reasons, have led Findel to agree with Kloss that the document is not a genuine York Charter. Such, too, is the general opinion of English Masonie scholars (see Gould's History of Freemasonry, volume i, pages 499-6). There can be little doubt that the General Assembly at York, In 926, did frame a body of laws or Constitutions ut there is almost as little doubt that they are not represented by the Stonehouse or Krause document (see YorkMasons and York Legend).
YORK, EDWARD AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF.
Initiated Freemason in 1766.
YORK, FREDERICK, DUKE OF.
Initiated a Freemason in Britannia Lodge, London, November 21, 1787. A commemorative Masonie token was issued in 1795; the Duke of York having been installed Worshipful Master of the Prince of Wales Lodge, March 22, 1793.
YORK GRAND LODGE.
Brother Woodford says this is a short title for "The Grand Lodge of all England," held at York, which was formed from an old Lodge, in 1725, at work evidently during the seventeenth century and probably much earls. The annual assembly was held in the City of York by the Freemasons for centuries, and is so acknowledged virtually by all the manuscripts from the fourteenth century. A list of Master Masons of the York Minster, during its erection, is preserved, of the fourteenth century; and legend and actual history agree in the fact that York was the home of the Mason-Craft until modern times—the Charter of Prince Edwin Deing one of the earliest traditions
The Grand Lodge press served its position in the north of England until 1792, when it finally died out, it having constituted other Lodges, and a "Grand Lodge, south of the Trent" at London. All of the York Lodges Succumbed on the decease of their Mother Grand Lodge. There has not been a representative of the Aneient York strand Lodge anywhere whatever throughout the nineteenth century.
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