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beyond the northeast corner
Our Masonic Ritual What Are We
To Believe?
CHAPTER VI
Richard h. sands
The Problem
THE SOLEMNITY of Masonic ceremonies, we are told,
requires a serious deportment, and evidently a Freemason is
expected to take his ritual seriously. If he does, he
may get the impression that the Grand Lodge of Michigan
descends in unbroken line from Biblical times, and
that if he were really interested he could find portraits of all the
Grand Masters from Solomon, King of Israel, down to
the present day. This, alas, is not true. Between then and now
there is, as we have seen, an unbridged gap of over
2000 years (see Chapter II). In these circumstances we may
perhaps feel that to call the Worshipful Master's
situation by the name of "the chair of King Solomon" is at best
misleading.
But this is by no means the only place in which the
Masonic ritual does not seem reliable by objective standards. It
clings to an interpretation of the ancient Egyptian
writing which has been abandoned in competent circles for a century
and a half (see below, page X-15). When it recounts
Biblical stories, it regularly adds details which are not
attested in the Volume of the Sacred Law, such as
various gestures and signs, and certain architectural features
associated with the Temple (see below, page XI-9).
Some of the details which are thus added are not very plausible.
Thus, the Temple of King Solomon no doubt had a flat
roof, as buildings in that part of the world regularly have even
to this day. But the ritual tells us that it had a
dormer window, which implies the existence of a pitched roof.
The Masonic Work also takes minor Biblical characters
and magnifies their significance out of all proportion. It turns
an unimportant religious functionary into the
Assistant High Priest (see below, page XI-8), and an accomplished
metal founder into King Solomon’s principal architect
(see below, page XII-14). It willfully distorts and mistranslates
Hebrew words (see for example, page XI-4). It even
misquotes the Bible. Thus, while the children of Israel were
escaping from their Egyptian bondage, the Lord went
before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and by night in a pillar
of fire (Exodus 13:21). This was a single pillar,
which at different times to different people had a different
appearance
(see Exodus 14:19-20). Masonic ritual makes it into
two miraculous pillars, the prototypes of the two great pillars
which stood at the porch West or East of King
Solomon’s Temple.
As a matter of fact the largest collection of such
aberrations is associated with the Temple. First let us look at its
general
description, as contained in the Volume of the Sacred
Law (I Kings 6-7; II Chronicles 3-4; Ezekiel 40-42). The
religious part of the Temple was about thirty feet
wide, and consisted of three main subdivisions. At the front or east
was a shallow porch, vestibule, or entrance hall
about fifteen feet deep. This is where the two great pillars of
hollow
bronze stood. Behind the porch and its pillars was
the House of the Lord, a long narrow chamber divided into two
unequal parts by doors of olive wood, or in later
times by a veil or curtain. Towards the front was the larger room,
called the "nave" or the "Holy Place". In it stood an
altar where the Chief Priest burned sweet incense every morning
and evening (Exodus 30:7-8). Here also was a table
where twelve fresh loaves of bread were set every Sabbath as
an offering to the Lord (Exodus 25:30; Leviticus
24:5-6).
The smaller room, at the back, was called the
"oracle", the "Most Holy Place", or the "Holy of Holies" (Latin,
sanctum
sanctorum). Here was the dwelling place of God; it
was completely empty except for the Ark of the Covenant and the
Cherubim. No one entered it except the High Priest,
nor even he but once a year on the Day of Atonement, Yom
Kippur (Leviticus 16:2). This much of the building
was the Lord's House, the religious part of the Temple.
All the way around the building except in front ran a
series of sheds called the "galleries" or the "side-chambers".
They were divided into three stories or floors, which
are called respectively the lowest chamber, the middle chamber, and the third chamber.We read further in the Volume
of the Sacred Law, "The door for the middle chamber was in
the right side of the house; and they went up with
winding stairs into the middle chamber and out of the middle into
the third" (I Kings 6:8). Scripture does not tell us
what these side-chambers were used for, but they are evidently not
part of the Temple proper. There seems to have been
no means of access between the galleries and the Temple proper; and the presence
of the galleries would obstruct the entrance to the Temple from any direction
but the front.
Most of this is familiar from Masonic ritual. But
there are two particular points to ponder. In the first place,
according
to the Volume of the Sacred Law, the Temple had but a
single entrance, at the East. In Masonic tradition we are told
that at one juncture three individuals severally
placed themselves at the West, North, and South Entrances of the
Temple. Later in the same account we hear of fifteen
trusty Fellowcrafts, who formed themselves into three
Fellowcraft lodges, and departed from the entrances
of the Temple.
Secondly, according to the Bible, the Winding Stairs
began at a side door, not at the main entrance, and led up to
the side-chambers, which were not religious in
function. The Masonic work on the other hand states that after our
ancient brethren had passed the two great pillars at
the entrance they ascended a Winding Stair, which led up to the
Middle Chamber, where their attention was
particularly directed to certain Hebrew characters, of a deeply
religious
denotation.
Clearly the Volume of the Sacred Law and the Work are
at variance. The former is more likely to reflect the historical
truth; and indeed it can be shown that the ritual is
not independent of the Volume of the Sacred Law, but that it is
founded upon it. What are we to make of all these
oddities and contradictions? If we pick up a book about The
United States, and it tells us that the capital of
California is San Francisco, or that that of Michigan is Detroit, we
shall judge it harshly and discard it quickly. What
shall we say about a society which tells us things about history
that
disagree with the best evidence? Were those who
framed the ritual ignorant? Or incompetent? Or charlatans?
One Solution
The answer is that our ritual makes no presence of
reciting history, or of communicating facts. It does claim to
provide
moral instruction. The ritual is largely founded upon
the Holy Scriptures, but occasionally it deviates from what
might be expected. Usually this is done because the
symbolism is being manipulated to teach a lesson. We permit
Shakespeare to tamper with history for his own
artistic purposes. Shall we permit any less to Freemasonry?
Let us take an example. We are told that our lodges
are situated due east and west. In some Masonic Temples however
the lodge rooms are situated nearly due north and
south; the direction which we call east is really north. The
explanation is that the Masonic east is symbolic, not
geographical (see below, pages X-10,11,&16). When we see
that the W.M. is placed in the east, this is a
constant reminder that he is the source of light and wisdom for his
lodge.
There are many symbols in Masonry, but the two
fundamental sets cluster around the Temple of Solomon and the
three Degrees. It can be shown that Solomon's Temple
represents not only the lodge room, and the temple not made
with hands eternal in the heavens, but above all the
spiritual edifice of the individual Mason. The three Degrees on
the other hand represent the three stages of human
existence, infancy, maturity and death; they are also closely
connected with the three principal officers. From
time to time these two sets of symbols come into contact. Some of
the contradictions we noted above are caused by their
reaction.
Firstly, in order to understand why there are three
entrances consider what happens at them. The Grand Master
approaches each in turn just as every Mason comes to
his three Degrees, and as all men arrive at the three stages
of life. Those who station themselves at the three
Entrances are represented by the three Rulers of the lodge. The
system of recurrent threes has intersected the Temple
symbolism, and affected its details. In fact, as the allegory of
this degree is now presented, it is impossible for us
to visualize the Temple without three entrances.
Secondly, let us look at the Winding Stairs and the
Middle Chamber. As we have seen, the religious part of the
Temple is divided into three parts: the porch, the
nave and the sanctum sanctorum; and the holiness increases as
you proceed. So too Craft Masonry is divided into
three degrees; and the insight increases as you proceed. From
this point of view the nave is the equivalent of the
Fellowcraft degree, the midway of Masonry, superior to an Entered
Apprentice, but inferior as regards that knowledge
which is later communicated. Once the nave is identified with the
midway of Masonry, it is natural for it to be called
the Middle Chamber, even though that name belongs properly to
the side galleries. When the Middle Chamber is
transferred by this means into the sacred part of the Temple, it
brings its Winding Stairs with it around to the
front. Since we are not teaching history, no harm is done. From a
symbolic
viewpoint, the change is a distinct asset. The
explanation of the Winding Stairs emphasizes the notion of
progress and ascent from the Entered Apprentice
Degree to the Fellowcraft Degree, underlines the more intellectual
bias of the Second, and prepares the way for the more
esoteric nature of the Master Mason Degree. This then is one way in which to
approach those parts of the Work which seem illogical or incorrect. Much of
the
symbolical part of our ritual is two hundred years
old. The men who composed it were not infallible, but they were
good men, wise men, and learned men, and above all
they understood the method of teaching by symbol. They
bequeathed to us the high tenets and principles of
Masonry. As a vehicle for expressing these ideals they left us a
rich treasure of symbol and allegory in the Masonic
Work. If they diverged from their sources, they did so with a
purpose.
If we can see what they were trying to do in any
given passage, we can usually discover the reason for their
divergence.
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