THE BUILDER MAGAZINE
august 1918
volume 4 - number 8
THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
BY BRO. R. PERRY BUSH, PAST GRAND CHAPLAIN, MASSACHUSETTS
FOR quite a number of years I have been a student of
Freemasonry and it has been my aim to follow into the distant past the lines of
causation by means of which our noble institution has been developed into its
present form and influence. Steadily but surely the origin of the Craft has been
pushed back amid the dim mists of farthest antiquity. Not that in those far-off
times there was anything like the present organization or ritual, but that our
genealogy includes the builders of the great cathedrals of Europe, those who
gave glory to Rome and Athens, and even those who reared the wonderful temples
at Karnac or heaved the pyramids above the sands of Cairo, is now the accepted
belief.
With the advance of knowledge, the better and more complete
understanding of the factors that go to make up our present civilization, and
the constant bringing to light of facts that fol long ages were lost from human
sight, it becomes morally certain that the roots of our modern Masonry may be
traced not only to the reign of Solomon and the structure erected on Mt. Moriah,
but far beyond that day and generation.
Within the last half century the archaeologists have pushed
their investigations into almost every nook and corner of the world, and they
have brought forth from the storehouses of the long ago a more complete record
of the thoughts and deeds of those of ancient times than was ever before in the
possession of mankind. Throughout the Peloponnesus and by the waters of the Nile
and in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates they have been digging in the
earth and uncovering the story of man's development in ages long anterior to the
Christian era. The discovery of the Rosetta stone, the laying hold upon the
secret of the deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria; the finding
of the laws of Hammurabi, these, with other helps that have been afforded, have
led to a discarding of the conceptions previously entertained regarding the
peoples of antiquity, and made it plain that we must reconstruct our theories of
the far-off past. And it is abundantly evident that they of old time were
wrestling with much the same problems that confront us at the present moment.
And they were dealing--in their way--both with the practical protection of their
welfare as workmen, and with the philosophy of life--the distinction between the
body and the soul that tenants or is imprisoned in the flesh.
That the great multitudes of those of operative skill were
banded together and that they hedged themselves about with secret means of
identification, there is today no shadow of doubt, and that these were the
progenitors of our modern lodges, and that we are their lineal descendants, in
my judgment it is impossible reasonably to deny.
They who in this day write the history of Masonry are more
and more inclined to look upon the 24th of June, 1717, as but a date when the
transition from its operative to its speculative form was fully consummated.
They are not content to start at that point and simply tell us what it since has
been and done, but almost without exception they go back from that date to the
stone Masons of the Middle Ages and through these to the Roman Corporations of
Builders which had their origin under Numa Pompilius in the eighth century
before Christ and try to connect these in some more or less definite way with
the architects and builders of Egypt and Assyria and to show that we may justly
claim that this is the attested line of our descent.
To this kind of work I have applied myself with much
interest, but it is only the following of the history of what was in effect but
an old time Knights of Labor. It is worth our while, in my estimation, for it is
no small honor to be allied with an institution that spans so many centuries,
and there is a certain justifiable pride in the great age of the Craft, but
fundamentally I do not personally worship dust-begrimed antiquity, nor do I go
into any temple of the long ago to find the idols at whose feet I lay my truest
sacrifice. It does not necessarily recommend a thing to me to tell me that it is
old. If I love it heartily, it is because within it is embodied a nobler song, a
higher ideal, a more vital help and inspiration than I can find elsewhere.
So it is that in my study of Masonry I have not been
satisfied simply to trace the fortunes of the workmen of various lands and ages,
the signs and grips and words by which they communicated with each other, and
the testimony that there is a line of relationship running back from our lodges
to the days of the earliest Pharoahs, but I have found a keener interest in the
revelation that is made of what is really deeper and more vital in those
institutions of the past out of which our fraternity and its teachings have been
developed.
Now it requires but a little investigation to show that one
is amply repaid who applies himself to this more philosophical phase of study,
and at every step it will grow upon us that Masonry is but a form and expression
of that innate something in man which from the dawn of his evolution has led him
to reach out toward the Eternal-not-ourselves and to strive to understand the
meaning of what we may designate as death. And to him who contemplates it in
this fashion it appears as of the same character as that other line of man's
development which has been expressed in the building of temples and churches of
worship.
As one delves into the history of the operative Masons he
finds all through the ages, especially in the long ago, that when the novice was
taken in charge to be initiated and instructed there was a double course which
he was made to follow. On the one hand he was trained in the science of
architecture: he was taught the laws of building and acquired skill in
construction. There was another part of his training, however, which has not
been so much emphasized, but which after all may be found to be most vital in
the inheritance which has come down from those ancient brethren to us of the
Masonic fraternity of today. I discover beyond a peradventure that in Palestine
and in Greece and in Egypt, and I doubt not in other lands as well, to those of
the Craft were imparted teachings concerning the Infinite Architect of the
Universe and the destiny of the human soul. In the lecture of our third degree
today we refer to our ancient brother, the great Pythagoras, and we exhibit the
figure by which we afford the proof that the square described upon the
hypothenuse of a right angle triangle is equal to the sum of the squares
described upon the other two sides--which is purely mathematical. It is,
however, far more interesting to me, and far more significant as regards what is
most vital in Masonry, that Pythagoras saw resemblances to numbers of things,
and held it to be true that one quality of numbers was Justice, another Soul,
and Spirit, etc., and that he taught that it is by mathematical and scientific
study that man looks into nature and finds things obeying the laws he has
ascertained for himself in his own mind and that therefore the meaning of the
Universe is revealed in the soul and not by the senses, and that if, thus
rightly guided, we look within, we shall find the Eternal God. Moreover, he
maintained that the soul element is not limited to bodily substance. It is not
our personality, as he reasoned, but it belongs to infinity and cannot be
annihilated. All of which shows plainly that the Pythagorean education was to
lead to intercourse with God and that it held within it the teaching of
immortality. Even here we find the heart of the system to be the reaching out
after the answers to the deepest questioning of the mind of man and it is
pertinent to observe that what Pythagoras thus taught in regard to these deeper
or mystical revelations in their relation to the science of mathematics, is
typical of what we find to have been a characteristic of Masonry in many lands.
Whether we consider it to be to our glory or to our shame,
the men of all ages have been Mystics--they have either explicitly or implicitly
recognized the essential relation of our nature to God and striven to adjust
their lives accordingly.
Mysticism, so far as we have acquaintance with it, may be
said to have had its birth in the Orient among the Brahmins, and it attributes
to the human mind the ability to rise to an immediate intuition of God and
thereby to a knowledge of all truth. This consummation is not to be obtained on
the lower level of discursive reasoning, but an ecstatic state of the soul is a
necessary condition for the contemplation of the absolute.
The Brahmin laid aside all that pertains to the world of
sense and allowed God alone to work within him until in the transport of mind he
became identified with the hidden deity--"the God greater than all gods and
men." Transplanted to the West, this mysticism appears in the Neoplatonists and
later in a Tauler and other Christian mystics, or in such a one as Eckhart,
whose teachings called forth the anathema of the Vatican. To all these there is
a realm above that of sensible things, but there is a faculty in man capable of
attaining thereto and upon being introduced into that magical circle man becomes
cognizant of the absolute and of his own undying nature.
It is true that many of the schemes evolved by these
mystical dreamers are not altogether satisfactory to us today. The Brahmin, the
Buddhist, and even Eckhart held that as all men have arisen from God so all
desire to return to the divine being, and the final end of their activity is
attained when, by the resignation of all individuality, they get back to the
source from whence they came, the union with deity, the absorption into
Nirvana--lost so far as our distinct personality is concerned by becoming once
more a part of that from whence we came. But in all of this we see man wrestling
with the same old problems of the Infinite Artificer of the universe and the
destiny that waits us beyond the grave.
It is pertinent at this point of our study also to affirm
that Plato is understood only in the light of the mysteries. The Neoplatonists
credit him with a "secret doctrine," and they maintain that his teacher
Socrates, put his hearers through an "initiation" whereby they found something
within them they were not aware of possessing.
The place where these philosophers taught was filled with
the spirit of the mystics, and Plato's dialogues mean more or less according to
our spiritual condition. Truth or falsity is decided by something within which
opposes the physical body and is not subject to its laws. Socrates approaches
death as he would any other event. In the Phaedon, in which Plato records the
last words of his master, there is but little argument for immortality, but
there is the teaching that death is a release and it is folly to rebel against
it.
Now the particular fact to which we here call attention as
contributory to what we hope to make plain is that the popular religions of the
Ancients did not give satisfaction to the minds and hearts of hosts of thinkers
among them, and so there sprang up great groups of mystics everywhere who
guarded their secrets by a priestly caste and by most solemn vows. There was a
oneness of belief which runs like a golden thread through all the fabric of
these old time organizations and which is not lost even when the votaries turn
to shame and debauchery. To each of the mysteries there was a different god or
hero, but always the same aim and purpose, the elevation of the initiated to the
apprehension of God and immortality, and I shall endeavor to acquaint you with
what one is able to learn concerning the methods employed by those of old time
to enforce their lessons and to show that there is something more than a casual
connection between these companies of worshippers and our Masonic fraternity.
The task is the more difficult because those who presented
the mysteries hedged themselves about by such sacred vows of secrecy as most
effectually held the initiated from revealing what was imparted to them and if
there were in those days those who because of pique or with desire of personal
gain, exposed the secrets, their works were somehow suppressed and have
disappeared from history. There is enough, however, that has come down to us, to
give us a very definite idea of what the mysteries were in substance and to show
that almost without exception that most vital in each concerned the deity and
the life beyond the grave.
We will therefore consider first the mysteries of Osiris
and Isis, for the Egyptians are the most ancient people whose story is set
before us in the annals of the past. Herodotus, the father of history,
constantly alludes to these mysteries, but he always speaks with extreme
caution, since it is evident that he had himself been initiated into the rites.
In the "Book of the Dead," that ancient collection of
prayers and hymns supposed to aid the soul in its journey to Amenti, there is
some aid to us, but in that work the myths are mostly taken for granted as being
well known, and therefore are not enlarged upon. Most of our knowledge in this
domain comes to us from Greece, to which country, in an altered form, the
mysteries were transplanted, but it is sufficient to enable us to reconstruct
the Osiriac myth which was, in a sense, the model for all the other systems.
Osiris was the greatest of the Egyptian heroes and he was
by his devotees transformed from a mortal king to be an immortal god. It was he
who introduced civilization among the dwellers of the Nile, and he went
everywhere teaching the people agriculture and the arts. During his wanderings
his brother Typhon, who was a rival for his throne, formed a conspiracy against
him. He had a beautiful carved chest made, inlaid with gold, and he promised to
give it to him whom it should fit when he should lie down in it. When Osiris
tried it Typhon closed the lid and made it secure and had the chest thrown into
the river where it floated along until cast ashore at Byblos, in Phoenicia.
Isis, the sister and also the wife of Osiris, overcome with
grief, searched everywhere for the chest and at length found it, but Typhon
again obtained possession of the body which he cut into foul teen parts and
scattered about. Isis then searched for the fragments and wherever she found one
she buried it, and that was the reason Egypt was so rich in the graves of Osiris.
One part, that of propagation, Isis could not find, and so she consecrated a
model thereof and the Phallus henceforth becomes associated with the mystic
rites. Afterwards, Osiris was resurrected, returned from the region of shades,
and was reunited with his consort.
This is the myth as nearly as we are able to recover it. It
is certain beyond question that the priests of Osiris were monotheists and it
may yet appear that it is to them rather than to the Hebrews that we owe the
first definite teaching of the doctrine of the one and only God; while every
mummy that they embalmed speaks to us of their belief in immortality. Even if we
do not know much concerning the ceremonies of initiation as they took place in
the land of the Pharaohs, there is abundant light thrown upon our study from the
fact that these mysteries were transplanted to Greece somewhere about the
fourteenth century before Christ, and to other lands a little later on, and here
they assumed various forms, but all of them bearing resemblance to each other.
Here, however, as in Egypt, there could be no greater crime than the betrayal of
the secrets, as is attested by a host of the classic writers such as Pindar and
Sophocles and Isocrates and Aeschylus (the last, because of what he put into one
of his plays, being obliged to flee to the altar of Dionysus, where he escaped
death only by legally proving that he had never been initiated). Nevertheless,
from one source and another has come sufficient help to enable us to follow in
detail the forms and ceremonies and the mystic teaching of those ancient
peoples.
From earliest times there were secret cults and Mysteries
in Greece. Every clan had its sacred locality and ceremonies, from which those
of every other clan were excluded. Some of these rites were crude and some were
of a lewd character, but all together they exerted a marvellous influence upon
the people. Some of them were even dedicated to the worship of infernal Pluto
and others to Demeter and Cora, but gradually, almost without exception, they
took on the hope of a bright hereafter beyond the vale of death.
At the time when the Persian Empire arose on the ruins of
other ancient monarchies it subjugated Lydia and the flourishing Greek colonies
of Asia Minor. It was then that Greece issued out of its Middle Ages and Athens
was enlarged by the incoming of new tribes, became the capital of Attica, and
laid the foundation for its future greatness. One expression of its growing
importance was the spread of the influence of its mysteries until what had been
its special and particular cult, became dominant wherever the Greeks held sway.
The mysteries of Eleusis exhibited the greatest attempt of Hellenic genius to
construct a religion which would keep pace with the growth of thought and
civilization in Greece. That they were related to the mysteries of Osiris and
Isis we are well assured, but the method of their transmission from Egypt and
the full process of their transformation into the elaborate system which
prevailed at Eleusis we do not know.
It was my good fortune a few years ago to visit the scenes
where those elaborate ceremonials took place. I followed the route of the
pageants that went out from Athens and lingered at the many shrines at which the
devotees paused to pay their tribute and wandered among the ruins of the great
temple at Eleusis--which was the largest sacred edifice of those old Greeks--
begun, it is said, by Eurnolpus, the first priest of the cult, in 1356 B.C.
Naturally, I endeavored to learn as much as possible concerning the ancient
Greeks and to lay hold, if I could, upon what was really the heart of what they
thought and the motive which prompted them to those spectacular exhibitions. And
as it is from the rites of Eleusis that we derive the larger part of our
knowledge of the mysteries in general, it will be my aim to give you a fairly
adequate conception of what they were like.
In the first place, they were in honor of the goddess
Demeter, the patroness of agriculture, and they dealt much with the procreative
power of nature. Later they turned to the deeper problems of life and death and
the great beyond. From the Homeric hymn to Demeter we learn that she was the
daughter of Kronos and that she gave to Zeus a daughter, Persephone (or Cora.)
One day when Cora was gathering flowers she was abducted by Pluto, the God of
Hades, and with the consent of her father, Zeus, who was a brother of Pluto, she
was carried to the infernal regions.
Demeter arrived too late to assist her daughter, but after
searching for her for nine days and nights with torch in hand she learned from
Helios (the sun) the name of her seducer and also that of his accomplice (Zeus).
Incensed at her husband, she left Olympus and the gods, and disguised as an old
woman she determined to scour the earth to find her daughter.
Arriving at Eleusis she was discovered by Keleos (the ruler
of the realm) sitting upon a stone, in tears. He took pity upon her, and she
entered his family as a nurse to the queen's son. Wishing to make the boy
immortal, she annointed him by day with ambrosia and hid him by night in fire,
but his mother discovered what was being done and, not understanding the import
of it all, she was terrified and the boy was rescued by his sisters.
After that the bestowal of immortality was impossible and
Demeter left the house, but she revealed herself to King Keleos and by her
direction he built a temple that she might initiate the Eleusinians into her
mysteries. To that temple Demeter retired, but her grief for the loss of her
daughter was limitless and she vowed vengeance against gods and men. For a year
she spread sterility over the earth. Zeus sought in vain to appease the wrath of
Demeter and finally he sent Hermes to Pluto ordering him to restore Cora to her
mother. This Pluto was obliged to do but before her departure he gave her
secretly a sweet pip of a pomegranate which compelled her to return periodically
to the nether world forevermore and henceforth she spent a third of the year
there and two-thirds in the world above.
By the return of her daughter, the wrath of Demeter was
appeased, but as she was ordered to return to Olympus, before doing so she
called the princes of the realm together and initiated them into the rites which
assured them of honor after death; and at Eleusis, the place of her sufferings,
she founded the cult which should keep her faith in remembrance.
Now the meaning of this myth is quite apparent and it is
often set forth in the Greek classics. It is that the soul originated from the
immortal and it is led astray by what is transitory. It lives alternately above
and below. It cannot abide permanently upon the heights of the divine. It is
never-dying, but is doomed to recurring transformation by birth and death until
it is reunited with the source from whence it sprung, and the temple service
instituted by Demeter was to help establish its votaries as far as possible in
the divine life.
This was the beginning of the mystic system at Eleusis
which later developed to such proportions that it became a wonderful influence
in the Grecian life and transcended all other similar rites in brilliancy of
presentation. It was in great part a revival of the ancient established religion
of the realm and this conduced to its adoption as the state religion, but it was
reinforced by foreign elements, namely, the introduction of gods who did not
inhabit Olympus and who had suffered and had found consolation.
These mysteries were supposed to enshrine a primitive
revelation of divine truth, and it is maintained by Pindar and Sophocles and
Plutarch (and their contemporaries and successors) that they exercised a healthy
and saving effect upon their votaries, and although in the time of Diogenes they
lost their religious character and became simply a splendid ceremony and under
the Romans they degenerated to mere superstition, yet they endured with power
for nearly a thousand years, coming to an end during the reign of Theodosius II.
Let me as briefly as possible portray to you what took place and the
significance of the rites as I interpret them.
Every device of painting and sculpture, of architecture and
music and dancing, of gorgeous costumes and alternating darkness and dazzling
light was called into being to make an impression upon the initiate, and he was
taught that by what was to be imparted he was to have an advantage in the future
world. The novitiate was subjected to a special preparation, his mind was
wrought up to a breathless expectation, and he was disqualified if he had
committed murder and had not made reparation therefor.
There were what were called the Lesser Mysteries, which
were celebrated at Athens on the hill of Agra, near the Stadium, in the month of
February, but these were but a preparation for the rites which were to follow.
The novitiate was subjected to a most sacred vow of secrecy and was only
admitted to the vestibule of the sanctuary of Demeter. He had to wait a year
before he could advance to what was designated as the Greater Mysteries.
These Greater Mysteries occupied nine days in their
presentation, from the fifteenth to the twenty third of September. Two months
previous to that time heralds from the priestly families went forth to announce
the coming of the celebration and a holy armistice was declared for those who
were waging war, so that all might be free to travel in safety.
As the date set for the beginning of the ceremonies drew
near the novitiate was subjected to a fast which lasted for nine days and then
he was ready for initiation. We are told by many writers of the terror in the
minds of those who were about to pass through the ordeal and it is often
compared to the preparation for death.
On the fourteenth of the month, at full moon, the priests
of Eleusis, headed by the hierophant (who was dressed to represent the governor
of the universe), removed from their repository the Sacred Objects, and,
followed by the populace, carried them in procession to Athens. All the
Athenians went out to meet them, the youths from eighteen to twenty years of age
formed a guard of honor around the sacred objects, and they were deposited at
the foot of the Acropolis, the announcement of their arrival was solemnly made
to the priestess of Pallas Athena, the tutelary goddess of Athens, and the high
festival began.
The following morning the novitiates were taught that they
could not participate unless their lives were clean and they could speak with
intelligible voice. Next day, the sixteenth, was the feast of Purification when
they bathed in the sea that their minds might be pure and undefiled. On the
seventeenth was the sacrifice of Soteria, which was for the salvation of the
Senate, the citizens of Athens, and their wives and children.
On the eighteenth there was a sacrifice in honor of
Aesculapius, and the next morning the multitude started on the procession back
to Eleusis. There were altars and shrines all along the way and a pause was made
and offerings bestowed at each of these. It was night before the pilgrimage was
completed, so that torches were lit. Everyone from Eleusis came out to meet the
worshippers and they finished their journey with chanting and a wandering in the
dark along the shores and plains in search of the lost daughter of Demeter.
The next twenty-four hours were spent in rest and in
preparation for the great initiation which took place on the twenty-first and
twenty-second of the month, and was representative of the lives of the deities
by whom the mysteries were instituted and developed. All that could be
accomplished by dazzling lights and gorgeous costumes and strange apparitions
and wonderful voices and every possible spectacular device was called into
operation to produce an impression upon the novitiates.
After their credentials were examined, they were crowned
with myrtle and admitted to the mystical enclosure where a priest proposed
certain questions to which the answers were to be returned in a set and
particular form. Then they underwent further purification and were specially
prepared by partaking of a sacred draught, after which they were allowed to kiss
the holy treasures of the temple, and then they approached the supreme moment of
their exaltation. From the profound darkness of the night they were suddenly
ushered into the midst of transcendent and overpowering light. On every hand
issued loud cries for help and laments of agony. Frightful noises came as from
earth and heaven. Flames burst from the surrounding walls and were extinguished
by invisible hands. The lightning flashed with blinding brilliance and peal
after peal of thunder rent the air. The place shook and vibrated and whirled and
strange and amazing objects appeared everywhere around. As they advanced there
were flambeau bearers representing the Sun and near an altar was the Adorer
symbolizing the Moon, and there was Mercury, the messenger of the gods, and a
multitude of similar characters most gorgeously attired.
As the candidate approached, he saw a spacious habitation
replete with glittering gems. Above him, the roof was resplendent with stars,
and he was raised up into a place burning with fire. When they pleased those
around him assumed the likeness of men, and when they desired they gleamed as
gods and appeared or vanished at will. All around him the lightning hissed and
flashed, terrestrial demons with every device to excite the human passions
waited all along his path, and if he yielded he was plunged into an abyss of
darkness and suffering.
All this was continued until the eighth day of the
festival, when the ceremonies were completed and the candidates fully initiated,
when they either remained to participate in the sports which followed or
returned to Athens in somewhat the same spectacular way in which they had come,
excepting that they no longer preserved a serious and solemn mien, but engaged
in all sorts of chaffing and buffoonery.
Such were the famous Mysteries of Eleusis, in which, as is
clearly to be seen, the legend of Osiris is transformed into that of Demeter,
but with the same fundamental teaching of immortality and a reaching after a
being behind and transcending the gods whom the people ignorantly worshipped and
as Athens came in course of time to dominate Greece, her ceremonies served in a
large measure as a pattern for others wherever the Greeks extended their
influence.
Mackey tells us that the Dionysian mysteries were very old
and that previous to the building of Solomon's temple the inhabitants of Attica
had conquered Asia Minor and there they introduced these mysteries before they
were corrupted by the Athenians, and in them was presented the death of the
demigod Dionysus, the search for his body and his restoration to life. The same
historian informs us that Hiram Abiff was initiated into these rites and that
later his own death and resurrection were substituted in place of that of
Dionysus.
There were also Mysteries of Mithras embellished by the
wonderful teachings of Zoroaster and the contest between the hosts of Ahriman
and those of Ormuzd. There were again the Samothracian and Orphic Mysteries
which had their special characteristics, but all with the same underlying
principles and teaching. There was something also of the same manifestation in
our older scriptures where the Jews pictured Jehovah as dwelling in the thick
darkness, and in the fact that they never voiced the sacred name of deity, and
again in the New Testament in our book of Revelation.
In all ages, therefore, we find man instinctively
erecting-altars, reaching out after God if haply he might and him and looking on
beyond the grave to a life that is endless. And it were folly to think that
Masonry has had its place through the long centuries and among such varied
peoples without appropriating to itself something of what was so vital to
mankind. Indeed the more I study its history, the more I am persuaded that what
we have found to be the heart of the ancient mysteries was also the heart and
soul of Masonry in days gone by, as it is, in my thought, in this day and
generation.
Not that we in our fraternity are banded together as
religious sect. Thank God we have no creed, but we meet strictly upon the level,
and we ask of no man what church he attends or whether he remains outside them
all. But on the threshold of our lodge rooms we do demand that those who would
unite with us shall declare their faith in God, and except such is his
conviction, none may pass through our ceremonies and sit with us in our circle
of fraternity, and furthermore, he who does not learn from our third degree the
lesson of immortality has not yet apprehended its true significance.
We are not only one with those who carved the sphinx and
erected the statue of Memnon and with those who embellished the Acropolis with
that series of temples that even in their ruin are the wonder and delight of all
who look upon them, but we are also one with those who by what seem to us crude
and often barbarous rites and ceremonies sought to impart to man an apprehension
of deity and a surety that death is but an incident in an endless career.
We might, as Masons, cherish a just pride in an institution
which reaches back through so many centuries of the long ago, even if we
conceive of it as embodying only good fellowship and affording its members the
means for travelling in foreign countries with the assurance of receiving a
Master's pay. But this would place it in the same category with a thousand other
gilds or trade unions which men have devised for their personal emolument, and
to see no more than this in the work and teachings of the Craft would be to
overlook what to me is our transcendent glory. To minister to our bodily
comforts and our social enjoyment is assuredly a worthy mission, yet it needs
but little apprehension of that which constitutes the real man--the deeper
needs, the higher joys, the supreme longings of our race--to perceive that those
who contribute to this nobler part of our nature are our truest benefactors.
And of such have been those who through the ages have
gathered within the sacred circle of Freemasonry and radiated from its altar the
inspiration that comes from the recognition of a Supreme Being and the certainty
of immortality.
How far the Craft have been allied with those who in so
many lands and ages rose above the popular religions there and then in vogue and
laid hold upon the one God and the unending tomorrow we may not be arbitrary in
affirming, but that our operative forebears, while imparting the knowledge of
the science of architecture, held also among their secrets these same priceless
convictions it is not difficult to substantiate.
And in my judgment it was not because of the working of
blind chance that we find such to have been the case, but rather we may believe
that Masonry is one of the ordained instruments by which the Infinite Artificer
of the Universe is to transform the rough ashlar of barbarism into smooth and
polished and completed manhood, it is one of the means by which we are to
advance by regular and upright steps to the attainment of our individual
perfection and that of our human race.
Mark ye, brethren, the destiny of nations and the secret of
their downfall! It is written on every page of history ! They grew in wealth and
power but they forgot the demands of righteousness and they forsook the altars
of the Most High.
Today, as never before in the annals of time, the world is
being devastated by war and cursed by a philosophy which is materialistic. The
very foundations of society are threatened with overthrow. Our only hope is in
God and in the dissemination of the spirit of brotherhood--the recognition of
our obligations as members together of one great family.
Amid the turmoil and doubt and strife stands the fraternity
of which we are a part, and within our lodges we are taught to live together in
unity and to put our trust in one who is unconquerable, and by the light which
gleams upon us when we are raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason we
recognize the indestructibility of the human soul. Surely it is a privilege and
an honor which is ours, but I would call it to your minds that it also imposes
vital obligations. It may yet be proved that as Masons we are standing between
mankind and its reversion to barbarism and it is possible that a greater and
more glorious future than that of which we have ever dreamed awaits the Craft.
Everything depends upon the shaping of our organization and
our discharge of the duty that devolves upon us. If the word I have voiced in
this hour shall have waked in any of you who have listened so patiently a higher
conception of the significance and mission of Masonry and a firmer fidelity to
its demands I shall have been abundantly repaid for the effort that I have put
forth in your behalf.
----o----
SPECULATIVE MASONRY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
BY BRO. OSSIAN LANG, GRAND HISTORIAN, GRAND LODGE OF NEW
YORK
The birthyear of the present Grand Lodge period of
Freemasonry is securely fixed. Of the time of establishment, between 1717 and
1723, we have only a few more or less unimportant data and next to nothing as
regards reliable information explaining the momentous developments which must
have taken place before "The Constitutions," the Magna Charta of modern
Freemasonry, could be formulated and issued in printed form.
The reasons for the lack of reliable historical material
concerning the status and activity of the Fraternity, before 1723, are simple
enough. History recording is an after-thought. It arises when some degree of
greatness, or at least the promise of greatness, is achieved. That is why
Israelitic History began with David and Solomon. (1) That is why English history
began with Alfred the Great. That is why Masonic history began with the Grand
Mastership of John, Duke of Montagu, whose connection with the Fraternity
aroused widespread interest in Freemasonry.
The publication of the Constitutions, in 1723, became a
direct challenge to historians, and now began the questioning as to antecedents
which has been going on ever since. Before the Grand Mastership of Montagu,
there was nothing in the existence of the Fraternity in any way suggesting that
this was destined to attain importance, let alone greatness. Of the lodges who
united to form the premier Grand Lodge, only one evidenced real vitality. One
soon became extinct. Another had to be reconstituted in 1723. A third retained
only thirteen members between 1721 and 1723. There appeared to be no inducement
to record history.
A suggestive side-light is thrown on existing conditions by
a note in the autobiography of Dr. William Stukeley, F. R. S. (1687-1765),
reading as follows:
"His curiosity led him to be initiated into the mysterys of
Masonry, suspecting it to be the remains of the mysterys of the antients; when,
with difficulty, a number sufficient were to be found in all London. After this,
it became a public fashion, not only to spread over Brittain and Ireland, but
all Europe."
Those of us who have experienced what it means to initiate
candidates with barely enough brethren present to form a lodge, can sympathize
with Brother Stukeley. The point of historical significance in his recital is
that on January 6th, 1721, the date when he was "made a Freemason," it was only
"with difficulty" that "a number sufficient was to be found in all London" to
welcome him and two other distinguished Londoners into the Fraternity.
Another interesting item is the entry in Dr. Stukeley's
diary, under date of December 27th, 1721, as follows:
"We met at the Fountain Tavern, Strand, and by the consent
of the Grand Master present, Dr. Beal (D. G. M.) constituted a lodge there,
where I was chose Master."
That throws light on many things. Taken together with other
available stray bits of information, the entry suggests that "the verbal consent
of the Grand Master, or his Deputy, was sufficient to authorize the formation of
a lodge." We find, further, that the now required qualifications for elevation
to the chair, were not known in 1721. Brother Stukeley had been a Mason for less
than a year when he was "chose Master."
The presence of the Grand Master, John, Duke of Montagu, is
worth noting. Dr. Stukeley and the Duke had both been elected Fellows of the
Royal Society in 1717. Both belonged also to the "Gentlemen's Society" of
Spaulding, a literary club, which counted among its members a number of men who
won distinction in Freemasonry: Desaguliers, the Earl of Dalkeith, and Lord
Coleraine, Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of England, 1719, 1723, 1727; Joseph
Ames, David Casley, Francis Drake (the latter serving as Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge of All England, 1761-2); Martin Folkes, Sir Richard Manningham and
Dr. Thomas Manningham; Sir Andrew Michael Ramsey, Knight of St. Lazarus, reputed
founder of the Scottish Rite, became a member of this Society, in March, 1729.
The astonishing progress of Freemasonry, after the
accession to the Grand Mastership of John, Duke of Montagu, may be readily
understood when we take into account his zeal for the Fraternity and the eminent
men who were glad to co-operate with him. The rapid rise to importance among the
social organizations of the British metropolis may be regarded as the first real
impetus to the study of the antecedents of the Fraternity. Each new edition of
the Constitutions revealed evidences of serious efforts to arrive at a
satisfactory explanation of origins.
There was no doubt then, as there is no doubt now, that the
Fraternity had at one time been connected in some way with the craft gild of
Masons. It was equally clear that the lodges which formed the premier Grand
Lodge had been made up of "Accepted" Freemasons enjoying at one time membership
in the Masons' Company of London, but forming a distinct division within that
Company and having no direct interest in operative Masonry. The "Laws, Forms and
usages" which the Fraternity had in common with the "Craft and Fellowship of
Masons," were plausibly accounted for as having been derived from former gild
connections. The differences were not explained so easily. It is here where the
difficulty arose. The problem was how to account for the "curious secret
brotherhood" of Accepted Freemasons, which was regarded as the true parent of
the Fraternity. It has remained an open problem to this day. The task I have set
myself for the present discussion is to suggest a solution as far as arguments
in support of it may be presented in public print.
HINTS POINTING TO ROSICRUCIAN ORIGINS
Gould to whose faithful labors we shall ever be indebted
for the gathering together of a vast amount of valuable material relating to the
development of our Fraternity, found that there is practical unanimity among
serious historians to the effect that "Freemasonry, as it emerged from the
crucible in 1723, was the product of many evolutionary changes, consummated for
the most part in the six years during which the craft had been ruled by a
central authority." We shall agree to this, with one rather important
reservation: The changes that were wrought, between 1717 and 1723, did not
spring from a desire to create something altogether new, but rather to restore
what was believed to have been the true character of the Fraternity in the past;
hence an earlier order was assumed and served as a model for the "many
evolutionary changes." The attitude of the restorers may be gathered from the "Defence
of Masonry" appended to the printed Constitutions of 1734, from which I quote
for our present purpose this passage:
"The system as taught in the regular lodges, may have some
redundancies or defects, occasion'd by the ignorance or indolence of the old
members. And indeed, considering through what obscurity and darkness the Mystery
has been deliver'd down; the many centuries it has survived; the many countries
and languages, and sects and parties, it has run through, we are rather to
wonder it ever arriv'd to the present age without more imperfection. In short, I
am apt to think that Masonry (as it is now explain'd) has in some circumstances
declined from its original purity! It has run along in muddy streams, and, as it
were, underground. But notwithstanding the great rust it may have contracted * *
* there is (if I judge right) much of the old fabrick still remaining; the
essential Pillars of the Building may be discover'd through the rubbish, tho'
the superstructure be over-run with moss and ivy, and the stones by length of
time be disjointed."
The scholarly brother who wrote this, had in mind a very
definite idea of the derivation of Freemasonry. His very language, the
italicized words, and the reference to "the essential Pillars of the Building,"
suggest to those familiar with these things, a fairly clear explanation he had
elaborated for himself, as we shall see further on.
In connection with the cited extract from the "Defence of
Masonry," I desire to invite your attention to the consideration of a newspaper
item appearing in the London Daily Journal of September 5th, 1730: (2)
"It must be confessed that there is a Society abroad from
whom the English Free-Masons (asham'd of their true Origin) have copied a few
Ceremonies, and take great Pains to persuade the World that they are derived
from them and are the same with them. These are called Rosicrucians * * *.
"On this Society have our Moderns endeavor'd to ingraft
themselves, tho' they know nothing of their material Constitutions, and are
acquainted only with some of their Signs of Probation and Entrance, inasmuch
that 'tis but of late years (being better informed by some kind Rosicrucian)
that they knew John the Evangelist to be their right Patron, having before kept
for his Day that dedicated to John the Baptist."
Here we have in convenient form a summary of comments given
currency by a number of contemporaneous critics of the Fraternity, chiefly
dissatisfied old brethren wedded to the belief that Freemasonry was wholly
derived from operative Masonry. By intimating that "our Moderns" were trying to
"ingraft themselves" on the Society of Rosicrucians, they reveal a significant
fact which is verified, though in veiled terms, by our quotation from the "Defence
of Masonry." Bearing in mind that this "Defence" was published with the implied
official sanction of the Grand Lodge, we must assume that the learned brethren
who directed the inner affairs of the Fraternity, were convinced that the
substance of Freemasonry was in nowise derived from operative Masonry, but that
the "Mystery" had come down through the ages by way of quite a different
channel. Since the suggestion is offered that the "Rosicrucians" were regarded
as the true forebears, it will be worth our while to examine this question more
closely. (3)
PRESUMPTIONS
We shall have to take for granted certain matters discussed
in my paper on "Medieval Craft Gilds and Freemasonry," published in THE BUILDER
(November and December, 1917):
(1) The Constitutions, including "Laws, Forms and Usages,"
reveal former external connections of the forebears of the Fraternity with gilds
of operative Masons.
(2) The "drooping" lodges which united, in 1717, to form
the Grand Lodge of England were of an essentially convivial character,
possessing certain "antient" ceremonies and modes of recognition and guarding
"mysteries" of the origin and meaning of which the remnant of the earlier
"secret brotherhood" were ignorant.
(3) The earlier London lodge or lodges of "Accepted"
(Speculative) Masons had no continuous history, revealing its existence rather
by sporadic revivals of "an old order."
(4) Degrees, symbolism and ritualistic peculiarities known
as "Arts and Sciences," consisted of borrowings from several sources, the
selection and elaboration being governed, in the first two decades of the Grand
Lodge, by deliberate efforts of the organizers of the work to restore the
"Original purity of the old fabrick."
(5) The spirit of Freemasonry is a growth from beginnings
which may he traced with some degree of certainty to societies quite different
from those which contributed Constitutions and suggestions for initiatory
ceremonies.
ROSICRUCIANS OR ROSY CROSS ALCHEMISTS
Our present inquiry will deal largely with explanations of
presumptions three, four and five, and more particularly with the so-called
Rosicrucian origins of Freemasonry.
Extensive researches regarding Alchemists and their reputed
successors in Rosicrucianism, covering a vast and largely unprofitable
literature on the subject, have led me to formulate a few conclusions which I
shall present more or less categorically. A fuller discussion would be too cruel
a trial of the fraternal patience of the readers of THE BUILDER.
We shall probably never know for a certainty whether there
ever was an organized Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. We do know there were
reputed and professed Rosicrucians, particularly in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and there were also distinguished leaders of thought who
stoutly defended the doctrines ascribed to the Fraternity and many reputable men
who adopted the Rosicrucian symbolism, in an extensive array of books. There is
furthermore abundant testimony to warrant the inference that there were in
existence "invisible" or secret societies and lodges composed of men seeking
honestly to give realization to the practice of the art or arts described in
these books as characteristic of the mystic Brethren of the Rosy Cross. The
absence of a recognized authoritative central body was in the course of events
taken advantage of by impostors parading under the name of Rosicrucians who
played upon the credulity of the public till the name sank into general
disrepute.
The English and Scottish Rosicrucians who are the only ones
to be taken into account for our purpose, were Christian Theosophists. Like
their brethren on the European continent, they made much of Cabala, following
chiefly the Alexandrinian Philo. Neo-Platonism or Neo-Pythagorism, the Old
Testament and Christian theology also engaged their attention. They devoted
themselves with fervor to the study of chemistry, physics, music, astronomy and
mathematics (particularly geometry). Mystic, allegorical interpretation of the
Scriptures was a characteristic trait. Their supreme object, however, to which
all studies were subordinated, was the promotion of the welfare of humanity.
These Rosicrucians were the lineal descendants of the
theosophic portion of the Alchemists who are sometimes called Hermetic
Philosophers.
DERIVATION OF MASONIC SYMBOLS
Bearing in mind that Hermetics and the Rosy Cross
fraternity are fundamentally the same, though they differ in name and somewhat
in allegorical interpretation, let me now quote for you a letter by Albert Pike,
addressed to the historian Gould, which contains this interesting reference to
Hermetic symbols to be found in Freemasonry:
"I have been for some time collecting the old Hermetic and
Alchemical works in order to find out what Masonry came into possession of from
them. I have ascertained with certainty that the square and compasses, the
triangle, the oblong square, the three Grand Masters, the idea embodied in the
substitute word, the Sun, Moon and Master of the Lodge, and others were included
in the number.
"The symbols that I have spoken of as Hermetic may have
been borrowed by Hermeticism, but all the same it had them, and I do not know
where they were used, outside of Hermeticism, until they appeared in Masonry.
"I think that the Philosophers, becoming Free Masons,
introduced into Masonry its symbolism."
My own investigations have verified Albert Pike's
conclusions. In fact, I would greatly extend the list of symbols, adding to them
symbols which are to be found among the true Brethren of the Rosy Cross, with
this result:
Purely Rosy Cross Symbols: (4) Jacob's ladder; rough and
perfect Ashlar; Sun, Moon, and Master of the Lodge; flaming star; three Grand
Masters; three columns; two pillars; circle between parallel lines; point within
a circle; sacred delta (triangle); oblong; three, five and seven steps.
Symbols which the Operative Gild and Brethren of the Rosy
Cross had in common: Square; compasses; level; plumb; trowel; bee-hive; horn of
plenty; hour glass; cassia.
Purely Masonic: Three windows; twenty-four-inch gauge;
gavel; trestle board; tesselated border.
The first and second lists might have been extended. We
hope to have given enough, however, to suggest the indebtedness of Freemasonry
to the Rosy Cross.
The choice of two explanations is offered. One is that
implied in the quotation we have given from the London Daily Journal in 1730,
which would have us conclude that "the English Free-Masons (asham'd of their
true origin)" imported Rosy Cross symbols and ceremonials into the system of the
Fraternity. The other is founded on the quoted passage from the "Defence," which
tells in so many words that Freemasonry had come down the ages through the
Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, that much had been lost on the way which the Grand
Lodge of England sought to restore in its proper place. In other words,
following the former allegation, the Grand Lodge adopted the Brethren of the
Rosy Cross as forefathers; following the latter declaration, the Brethren of the
Rosy Cross were the true forebears.
There is no reason for assuming that the Alchemists were
the originators of the symbols referred to in the foregoing list. In fact, I am
sure these symbols were borrowed from an older source.
FLUDD AND FRISIUS
We agreed to confine our attention chiefly to the
theosophic Alchemists of England and Scotland. Let us limit the range still
further by disregarding the older Alchemists and taking note only of the
representative leaders of the later (if not the last) of the "True Brethren of
the Rosy Cross." (5) Here we have an abundance of first hand information in the
several treatises in defense of the mystic Fraternity by that renowned English
physician and philosopher, Robert Fludd, and in the "Summum Bonum" (The Supreme
Good), a Latin dissertation by a Scottish friend of Fludd's, who wrote under the
pseudonym of Joachimus Frisius (or Frizius).
The Century Dictionary gives this brief biographical notice
of Robert Fludd, or Flud: "Born at Bearsted, Kent, 1574, died at London, Sept.
8th, 1637. An English physician and mystical philosopher. He wrote several
treatises in defense of the fraternity of the 'Rosy Cross." Waite, who presents
a more extensive biography in "The Real History of the Rosicrucians," adds this
word of appreciation: "The central figure of Rosicrucian literature * * * is
Robertus de Fluctibus, the great English mystical philosopher of the seventeenth
century, a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his
writings, of extreme personal sanctity." Fludd was one of the last, if not the
last, of the giants of universal scholarship of whom there were many, before the
days of specialization set in. He was a devout Christian and a staunch
Protestant, basing his philosophy of the universe frankly on the Bible.
Of Joachimus Frisius, Frizius or Frize, whom we shall call
Frisius, we know nothing, except that Fludd tells us he was a Scotchman and
wrote his book partly in Scottish and partly in Latin. Fludd translated the
Scottish portions into Latin, made a few slight changes in the text, and had the
whole put into print, under the title of "Summum Bonum."
(To be continued)
(1) See "Early Hebrew History" by that distinguished
authority on Old Testament literature, our R.'. W.'. Brother, the Rev. John
Punnett Peters, Rector of St. Michael's Church, New York.
(2) As quoted by Gould who had access to the original.
(3) In Scotland, too, we find allusions to a connection
between the Brethren of the Rosy Cross and Masonry; as for instance in a poem
forming part of Adamson's "Muses Threnodie," published at Edinburgh, in 1638.
There in singing the praises of the beauties of Perthshire, the poet says:
"For we be brethren of the Rosie Cross:
"We have the Mason word and second sight."
(4) Or Rosy Cross and Hermetic combined,-or Alchemist
symbols.
(5) We exclude, of course, altogether the spurious
Rosicrucianism which brought the name of the, Fraternity into disrepute by its
grandiloquence and diletantism and the charlatanry and deliberate fraud carried
on under its banner.
----o----
----o----
THE DAY OF PEACE
When will peace come ?
When the lips of "patriots" are dumb
Throughout the world;
When the pure white flag of humankind
Shall be unfurled.
When will war die ?
When from every land beneath the sky
"Laws" shall have passed,
And the higher, truer Law of Love
Shall bind men fast.
- T.C. Clark.
----o----
THE MYSTIC ART
What is the mystic Art ?
Just a blending, that is all
And so moulded to a test
That it is the Truth at call
To the heart who craves the guest;
Just a passport to the realm
Of the blest discovery,
Just a system at the helm
O'er life's trackless mystery.
What is the mystic Art ?
Just a measure made to meet
Soulfulness upon the way,
Just a something thrumming sweet
Heartstrings tuned to Masonry;
Just a something that invites
To the social cheer the best,
Just a welcome that unites
In a higher moral quest.
What is the mystic Art ?
Just a home where there is naught
But a benediction heard,
Where no ear has ever caught
Aught that's not a restful word;
Just the needful for the heart,
Just ideals for the mind,
Just a blend of soul-made Art
That they both so love to find.
What is the mystic Art ?
Something that to mem'ry clings
More and more as years roll by,
Something that to manhood brings
Treasures gold can never buy,
Something that with cobwebs weave
Cables that for aye unite,
Something that in trials leave
Friendships glowing yet more bright.
What is the mystic Art?
There's no answer satisfies,
Not e'en what we all can say
That 'tis something that supplies
Something needed on the way.
Wonder tis, this alchemy
Of the Art that writes so plain
Does not interline the way
To the secret we would gain!
- Bro. L. B. Mitchell, Michigan.
----o----
DAWN
Fling open thy window as morning
Unfolds from the darkness of night,
And mark how the vine, in its climbing
Is seeking the kiss of the light.
Fling open thy heart to the glowing
Of love rising out of the gloom
The world by the warmth of its brooding
Will burst like a garden in bloom.
Fling open thy vision to childhood
That bursts like a sun from the sea,
And mark how, in growing to manhood,
Is life like a rose to the bee.
Unfetter thy spirit exulting
When darkness and storms disappear
Its pinions, at evening returning,
Some garland most surely will bear.
Though home be a roof that is humble,
Thy slumber on pallets of grass,
All nature will greet thee at dawning
And children will smile as ye pass.
- James T. Duncan.
----o----
FURTHER NOTES ON THE COMACINE MASTERS
BY BRO. W. RAVENSCROFT, ENGLAND
PART II
IN order to trace a few of the leading features in which
the architecture of the East as well as other allied arts affected the work of
the Comacines, it will be desirable to give a very short description of the
larger type of church these Masters would build. It would consist of a basilican
ground plan (Fig. 3b) * having nave and side aisles, the nave being divided from
the aisles by rows of columns or piers, the latter sometimes with, sometimes
without, capitals, and semi-circular arches generally without mouldings and
springing directly from the capitals where such occur. Some of these capitals
would be elaborately carved, others of the cushion shape we find in our own
Norman work. Clerestory windows would occur above these arches, and the covering
of the nave would consist of a flat pitched roof of timber construction. Beyond
the nave, generally eastward, would come the presbytery having aisles in
continuation of those on either side of the nave, and each, as well as the
presbytery, ending in a semi-circular apse. The presbytery would in many cases
have the space for the choir enclosed with a low screen and would frequently be
raised several steps, having beneath it, approached by steps, a crypt. With the
exception of the nave, the various parts of the edifice would be sometimes
vaulted with simple crossvaulting.
The High Altar would be a little away from the central apse
and placed under a baldachino.
One, sometimes two, campanili would rise either from a
presbytery aisle or from the west end of one of the nave aisles or in other
instances detached or nearly so.
The baptistery in most instances would be a separate
building near by and generally octagonal in plan, with or without a small apse
on one side. . * Shown on page 199, THE BUILDER, July.
Architectural details, other than those already mentioned,
would consist chiefly in the small roundarched windows deeply recessed from the
outside; small, and in some instances large circular windows; little openings in
gables in the form of a Greek Cross; doorways semi-circular headed, generally
having a lintol and tympanum, some very plain, others more or less enriched with
columns and mouldings on arches; corbel tables under eaves and running up
gables; pilaster strips at angles, some having semi-circular columns on their
faces. these being also found on external walls independently of pilaster
strips, a kind of dentil ornament, used sometimes as a string course with corbel
tabling beneath and sometimes under eaves and then, as ornament, the interlaced
endless knot, nearly always in Italy composed of three strands.
Decoration internally would consist of sculpture in
capitals and other details, and of fresco painting and decorated stucco,
sometimes in low relief. The Comacine lion is a later product, but this
description above outlined would fairly well apply to a church of the eleventh
or twelfth century.
Better illustration there cannot be than is to be found in
the Church of S. Abbondio at Como, and the Baptistery at Lenno (Figs. 6 and 7).
The Duomo at Modena also, originally designed as we have already seen, by Master
Lanfrancus, contains practically all the chief characteristics of Comacine work.
In the earlier work of the Comacines ornament is sparingly used and the striking
feature of such work is its dignified solemnity.
Sig. Monneret de Villard, in a booklet entitled "I.
Monumenti del Lago di Como," (Milan), claims for the Comacine Masters
peculiarities in their work other than those already indicated in these notes,
and, differing from Merzario, holds that it is not a matter of indifference as
to whether the term "Lombard" or "Comacine" be used in describing their work
seeing there are features of both schools so distinctive as to render any such
indifference misleading. Doubtless both were offshoots or descendants of the
Roman Collegia, but all the same he considers they were separate offshoots.
Of course there were many features common to both, and on
the other hand it must not be supposed that even essential differences were in
every case rigidly maintained. Indeed, indications are not wanting that the
Comacine was the parent of the Lombard school.
The two outstanding features of difference according to
Sig. Monneret between the Comacine school and that which he designates as the
Lombard or Milanese school, arose out of material and construction.
Not having stone or marble the latter used tera cotta, (in
which one supposes may be included brick,) while the other used stone and
marble.
This doubtless was a difference which would be broken down
in many instances; probably, however, rather in the more frequent use of stone
and marble than of terra cotta and the use of the vault appears to have been a
feature in the Milanese work of which the Comacine Masters were somewhat shy.
The vault in its larger development involved its
consideration even in the laying in of foundations and the planning of the
building seeing it necessitated buttresses, piers and their contrivances to meet
its thrust.
So the Comacines, except perhaps in apses, crypts and
sometimes isles, preferred the flat roof treatment with the beams and a direct
downward thrust, and having no projections in the form of buttresses beyond the
very flat pilasters already described in these pages.
They are also supposed to have preferred elaborately carved
capitals to the plain cushion capitals resembling our Norman ones, but that they
did also use these there is plenty of evidence. The interlaced patterns of the
Comacines Sig. Monneret considers to be the more elaborate type, and he
attributes to them the curious figures of animals, birds, etc.
Whether he is on sure ground here is certainly doubtful,
but the Eastern influence on Comacine work might, in part, account for this, if
his opinion is correct.
One other point of difference between the two schools
appears to be that while the Lombard or Milanese covered the ends of their nave
and the aisles with a facade, unbroken and as a single front, the Comacines,
when they planned naves and aisles, marked in some way in the facade, either by
pilaster strips or more generally by raising the central portion, the fact that
behind it such existed, which in general the Milanese did not.
Let us now see how in some respects the architecture of the
Comacines was affected by the East, and the first point must necessarily be the
influence of the Greek plan and of the dome, so characteristically Byzantine.
The Greek plan which in its simplest form would consist of nave, presbytery and
transepts, of approximately equal lengths, and having a dome over the crossing,
was sometimes used by the Comacines, but not very often, and it must not be
forgotten that the suggestion of the dome would come from Rome quite as well as
from Byzantium, seeing that when Constantine attracted skilled Craftsmen to his
new capital, the Pantheon at Rome had been for centuries in their view, and thus
the dome was not a new thing to them first seen in the East.
That this particular influence over the Comacines was but
partial is clear from the small number of their churches built on Greek plan
with domes and the great preponderance of those built on basilican lines with or
without campanili.
Professor Baldwin Brown says (From Schola to Cathedral, p.
135):
"In the West the tower originating in early Christian times
becomes, under the hand of the medieval builders, the feature wherein resides
especially that romantic aspiring character of Christian architecture which
finds its most perfect outcome in Gothic while the dome is the favourite form of
the builders of the Eastern Church."
Of the influence of the Byzantine dome, however, a
singularly interesting example is found in the Duomo at Ancona.
As described by one of the clergy on the spot, the original
church was Byzantine, but basilican in form, the altar being at the west end
(the present west transept) and the entrance being from the east end (the
present east transept.) That church dated from A.D. 500. In 1150 A.D. the church
was turned into a Greek Cross and the altar placed in the new choir, which was
in the north. Then it was that the dome was formed with the shafts supporting
the same and also the nave running south.
The extension of the choir which was "renovated" in 1733
unduly lengthens the head of the Cross, and while this is evidently eighteenth
century work as regards the interior, externally it appears to be that of the
twelfth century.
The priest who gave this information described the two
styles of work as Byzantine and Lombardic. Now, if the dome were pure Byzantine,
one would look for the pedentives (small angle arches springing from the
cardinal faces of a building square on plain and bringing thus the square to an
octagon, as better suited for a circular or octagonal dome) by means of which
circular domes were imposed on square spaces, characteristic of that work. But
instead of this we have angle shafts and arcading filling out the space left
between a square and a circle at each corner until the shape of the dome is
perfectly circular (see frontispiece), all in Comacine work. It would be
interesting to trace in other instances how far the Comacines got over this
difficulty thus rather than in the correct Byzantine manner.
The influence of Byzantine art on Comacine carving needs to
be seen and felt and varies so much as to elude description, but careful
examination will not fail to detect that influence when it exists.
And in this connection a good example of a real Byzantine
capital, side by side with Comacine work, is to be found in the Duomo at Ancona
where one or two of the capitals in the older part of the church still stand and
look as fresh and strong as they did many centuries since (Fig. 8), and which
are unmistakably Byzantine.
The omission of the entablature between columns and arches
may not be peculiar to Comacine work, but in Byzantine construction there
frequently appears a sort of second abacus imposed on the real one and acting as
a kind of remembrance of the entablature which, in pure Comacine work, is
absent. S. Vitale, S. Apollinare Nuovo and S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna,
afford good examples of this super abacus.
Of the interlaced knot-work used as sculptured decoration
it is unnecessary to add to what has already been written with regard to it, but
while in its full development it is claimed as a distinguishing feature of
Comacine work, it may be pointed out that in its simpler form it may have a
Greek as well as a Roman origin. Its development was widespread throughout
Italy, chiefly of three-stranded work, and in Rome in the Forum, the Castle of
S. Angelo and many a church, especially that of S. Sabina, the fragments
remaining are numerous.
But there is one form of this work which is so peculiar as
to call for remark. It consists in the unsatisfactory practice of carving a knot
in the shafts of columns. This treatment as carried out at Wurzburg has already
been noticed, but its appearance in various parts of Italy suggests that at
least the same motive operated in each case. What that motive was it is
impossible to say--it may have been a sort of Gild mark, or it may have had a
symbolic signification, which is more probable. At any rate it is to be found in
the Broletto at Como, at S. Michaele Lucca, where four columns are thus treated,
on the west front of Sta. Maria della Pieve at Arezzo,* at Valcamonica, and
doubtless many other places in Italy and elsewhere.
In Didrons Christian Iconography, vol. I, pp. 387 and 389,
will be found two illustrations of Greek crosses, each in a frame, having
supported columns twisted in this manner and dated respectively "first ages" and
"eleventh century"; this suggests certainly a Greek origin for this distinctly
Comacine detail.
It is very unconstructional in design, making the column to
appear as if it were composed of two parts with a kind of slip-knot in the
center. It can only be done in the case of clustered columns of two or more
shafts and does not appear where great weight has to be carried.
The use of the small Greek Cross in gables and other parts
has already been shown to be of Byzantine origin.
(To be continued)
* See Fig. 9, September Issue.
----o----
There are no points of the compass on the chart of true
patriotism. --Robert C. Winthrop.
----o----
SYMBOLISM OF THE THREE DEGREES
PART I--THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ENTERED APPRENTICE DEGREE
IT is first necessary that we should understand the scope
of my subject. First, be it understood, I attempt to exhaust no topic upon which
I touch, but only to stimulate the interest and curiosity of my readers to
pursue the subject further for themselves. Under the term "symbolism" I include
also the legends and allegories of Masonry, though properly speaking they are
not symbols. Yet they are all so closely interwoven and so employed for the same
or like purposes they can scarcely be treated separately.
General Albert Pike, that great Freemason and philosopher,
says that "to translate the symbols (of Freemasonry) into the trivial and
commonplace is the blundering of mediocrity."
That there has been some blundering of this kind on the
part of our Monitor makers must be apparent to any serious and intelligent
student of Masonry.
Difficult as it is to assign adequate meaning to some of
our Masonic symbols, it is equally difficult, when once started, to know where
to stop. Says a distinguished British Freemason, Brother W. H. Rylands:
"Symbolism is always a difficult affair as everyone knows
or at least ought to know. When once fairly launched on the subject, it often
becomes an avalanche or torrent which may carry one away into the open sea or
more than empty space. On few questions has more rubbish been written than that
of symbols and symbolism, it is a happy hunting ground for those, who guided by
no sort of system or rule, ruled only by their own sweet will, love to allow
their fancies and imaginations to run wild. Interpretations are given which have
no other foundation than the disordered brain of the writer, and, when proof or
anything approaching a definite statement is required, symbols are confused with
metaphors and we are involved in a further maze of follies and wilder fancies."
Thus I am to steer our bark between the Scylla of Brother
Pike and the Charybdis of Brother Rylands; without, therefore, descending to the
common-place on the one hand or soaring away from the plane of common sense on
the other, I hope to be able to say something of interest concerning the
symbolism of the First degree.
A symbol is a visible representation of some object or
thing, real or imagined, employed to convey a certain idea. Some times there is
an apparent connection between the symbol and the thought represented, but more
often the association seems to be entirely arbitrary. The earliest forms of
symbolism of which we know were the ancient hieroglyphical systems of writing.
We may indeed say that symbolism is but a form of writing; in fact, the earliest
and for hundreds, and perhaps even thousands of years, the only form of writing
known to the human race. It prevailed among every ancient people of whom we have
any definite knowledge.
The learned Dr. William Stukeley, of England, the author of
many antiquarian works, said truly that the "wisdom of all the ancients that is
come down to our hands is symbolic." | 
