THE BUILDER MAGAZINE
September 1918
volume 4 - number 9
THE WAGES OF A MASON
BY BRO. J. GEORGE GIBSON, ENGLAND
THERE is no disgrace in working for wages. In these days
there are some who prefer the word "salary" or that of "stipend" as more
"genteel." In reality neither of these words is even a wee bit more "genteel"
than the old, old word "wages." Has the world fallen out of love with the idea
of receiving just that which represents some work done and no more? If so is
there anything more honorable in the taking of what is not only the due but
carries with it also a profit of a trade nature? These may be days of contracts
and of unequal profits; but that does not, and should not, make us forget that
there is nothing more honorable or ancient than the receipt of our just wages,
which are the cash equivalent of the work we have done. It may sometimes
inconveniently suggest the "work of one's hands," and therefore to some the
menial task. This is, however, no objection, for he who receives that which
represents what he has done receives that which will make him hold up his head
with the greatest. He who accepts a profit may be equally honest in intention
but yet may have to wonder at times just what his profit costs his fellow man.
It may be significant or not according to the point of view, but the fact
remains that in the new country where men are face to face with facts, deep
underlying facts of life, there is none of this squeamishness as to the use of
the word "wages." There is after all a great deal of the absurd in this attempt
to gloss over the fact that we labour for wages, as though it were a something
to be ashamed of that we are engaged in manual toil, instead of being matter for
joy and glory that we are able to contribute to the art and wealth of the world
about us.
All this talk of the "honorarium," the "fee," the
"remuneration," and the like is the coinage of the "shabby genteel" who are
ashamed of all that should give them the right to live and the right to a place
in society. The sooner we get back to the place from which so many of us have
fallen the better for the world and for our own manhood. There is no one so
little of account among the respectable classes as the idler, who is not even an
apprentice "working for his meat." And it is time that the world which can be
taught by Masonry learned more the value of a regular occupation from the
practice of which all received, not an allowance, but wages. Justice is not so
blind as she is made out to be, and it is a fact that the rule in life is that
we receive exactly the wage for the work we have done, and no more.
A Mason is not only the temple he builds but he is much
more--the Builder. His life is his masterpiece, and woe to him if he works not
of his best. Where are his wages but in the work itself ? All labour that is in
accordance with the teaching of the tracing board goes unpaid for. And in life
there is no deferred payment either. It is not kept from him until he can no
longer use it in this lodge below, but the Great Warden settles with each man
every day after each task is performed. "And each man's reward shall be
according as his work shall be." This is the Law of Life: it is also the Masonic
Law. But the condition is Labour. No playing at the forms of toil will be
sufficient. The recital of the ritual, and the statement that we are prepared to
be liberal beyond the dreams of the reformer will not avail us when we stand
before our Master each evening. If we give liberally of that which we shall
never miss, of that the loss of which costs us nothing, we are no richer at the
end of our Masonic career than we were at the beginning. But if the gift of our
goodwill is also the gift of our real toil, that is if it has cost us something,
then the reward comes to us in the increased muscularity of our soul, and in the
greater power by which we yield to the claims of need in the future. "He who
would be. greatest must be servant of all." That is to say "he must serve." It
is service that passes a man from the lower work of the bench to the higher, and
it is service that creates within us the spirit of the true artisan.
It is no reason for shame that we are filled with the
desire to covet earnestly the greater gifts. The Entered Apprentice need not
hang his head at the thought that he would like, even he, to reach the seat of
K. S. in his lodge. But if it be rank alone that draws him, then he is still in
the outer courts of the Masonic Temple. A Master of his lodge who has never
dreamed, and never executed the masterpiece is one who holds a high office
unworthily. He holds rank without dignity. Office should come in the ordinary
course of the development of a man's Masonic experience. To the best workman the
best work. The king's scepter is a degradation to the throne if the king be too
foolish to reign in equity. And a man's life capacity should be the surest
nomination for office and for labour in the highest grades. To give the Craft
its due it is only right to say that the weak Worshipful Master is the exception
and the officers who are chosen are usually those who are best fitted for the
duties of their office. But with the rapid augmentation of our numbers in these
days of a favorably received Freemasonry there is just a danger that with the
huge new membership there may creep in the profane standards, and then the
weakening of the Masonic testimony. This is seen too often in the way in which
brethren are hastened through the degrees to the exaltation in the Sublime
Degree.
We sometimes wonder how many of the workmen know how to
handle the chisel of life, and how many are capable of spending the wages they
receive out of all reason before their work is completed. We have also met with
Worshipful Masters who were not even word perfect in the ceremonies, and who did
not seem to consider it necessary that they should take much trouble to impress
upon the initiate lessons they had perhaps never understood themselves. More
than that we have often wondered upon what grounds of efficiency some of the
appointments to positions in the higher walks of Freemasonry have been
allocated. Men whose whole lives have been devoted to the explication of the
meaning of true Masonry are ignored excepting in the paragraph of the Masonic
Press, while others whose service to Masonry, and whose development in the
direction of the templar erection has been to say the least obscure have been
pushed to the front, much to their discomfort. We have seen the social position
outside the lodge qualify for high position within, and the potentiality of the
true workman lost sight of. We are glad to know that such incidents are rarer
than they were, but they should be impossible. Some kind of account should be
kept of the wages due to the Mason by the Craft he works for. The Great Warden
has his account and the reward will surely come; but it would tend to the
strengthening of the bond of Freemasonry did the brethren know that their
labours were all entered in the human book of remembrance.
And yet, when we come to think of the multitude who have in
our own recollection been labouring at the bench to which they have been sent
from the first, we cannot recall one of the real workmen who has become
dissatisfied with his modicum of human recognition and left his tools before the
great work of his life has been accomplished. Why is this? The answer is simple.
They have received wages, though men paid them none. They who give receive, they
who labour to give are enriched, they who sacrifice to give are yet more
enriched. The neophyte on whose mind the profane impression is still evident may
turn tired of the long period of toil to which he is called when he enters the
lodge; but the veteran soon gives the call of profane ambition the goby since
his Masonic ambition is to serve and enrich the world in which he is set apart
to the ministry of service. He may have been robbed by the obtuseness of those
who are in the front ranks of the army of those opportunities of usefulness
which at one time he longed to win; but he has made the best use of those he won
for himself, and looks back with satisfaction and forward with hope. His reward
is in himself, and none can deprive him of the fruit of a long service. When we
see the world about us moved by our spirit, when we know that as the result of
our sacrifices a higher standard of benevolence is set up all over the world,
and know that the angles that symmetry does not require are rubbed away, and
that the anger that once spoiled many a good cause is now discredited, the mere
pomp of place does not count with us, for these results are our wages, and we
give the receipt for them with new resolutions that are even more ambitious than
those that now are realized.
----o----
HARMONY
From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began;
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began;
From Harmony to Harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
--John Dryden, 1631-1700.
----o----
FURTHER NOTES ON THE COMACINE MASTERS
BY BRO. W. RAVENSCROFT, ENGLAND
PART III
PERHAPS the most distinguishing feature of Comacine work is
the campanile, and of all parts of their churches their towers retain more than
any their individual character. They abound in Italy, but not elsewhere, these
campanili of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and earlier, for in these
remarks are not included the large number of much diversified form built in
later times. At first plain, without corbel tables, pilaster strips or strings,
and having a single opening at the top, afterwards adorned with two, three,
sometimes four, round-arched openings, supported on shafts, much as some of our
Saxon belfry windows are treated, they soar in many cases to quite a
considerable height, and form the landmarks for miles around as well as being
real belfries and not merely places of refuge or defense, such as church towers
are often found to be further east.
They abound, as may be expected, around the Italian lakes,
but also are plentiful in Rome and in fact are everywhere in Italy as has been
already noticed.
As a type of all the rest and remarkable for its beauty and
situation, is the campanile of the ruined church of sta. Maria close to Bellagio
(see frontispiece.)
On the influence of Byzantine over Comacine art, one word
may be allowed in connection with the sculptured and pictorial work of the two
schools. While the former developed a spiritual side associated with mystery,
the latter, where unaffected by this, manifested a grosser conception of the
human body, and as in the eleventh century it came more under the influence of
the Byzantine, so its pictorial and sculptured art became refined. This is well
illustrated in the church of St. Pietro al Monte di civate, already referred to.
(1)
Thus far, as to the relation between the two schools we
have had under consideration, and it only remains to remark how strangely in
many instances Greek, Roman and Comacine details appear to be jumbled together.
At the church of S. Prassede Rome there is a doorway consisting of a Byzantine
cornice, Roman egg and dart enrichment, dentils, chevrons and interlaced
knot-work, while the capitals of the columns are after a debased Ionic
treatment. A similar conglomeration appears in the vestibule of S. Mark's at
Venice but without the interlaced work.
Merzario (I. Maestri Comacini) claims that the forerunners
of the Comacines on leaving Rome took with them Roman art, but worked out their
own style chiefly on basilican forms, and that it was only by degrees they came
under Byzantine influence as they worked eastward.
That the Comacines were everywhere in Italy we have already
seen, and now have to consider point number six: "They spread their influence
over all Western Europe and even to our own shores."
Edgecumbe Staley, writing on the Gilds of Florence, states
that the Comacines were consolidated by A. D. 590 and influenced the
architecture of the whole of Italy but had no governing lodge, saying in the
words of their motto that their Temple "was one made without hands."
Merzario writes (2) (I. Maestri Comacini, vol. I, p. 78):
"The Comacines remained still alive and went about
scattered through many cities and provinces to exercise their art even after the
fall of the Lombards, and that as the artists of Greece kept behind (followed)
the long steps of Alexander in the countries captured by him in Asia and Egypt,
and those of Rome behind the victorious Caesar upon the Rhone and the Rhine, so
they followed closely upon the traces of the Conqueror of Desiderius, of the
dominator of the Saxons and the Normans.
"Thus became cast the first seeds of that art which was
altogether unknown and there rose on the surface of the earth and elevated
itself in Germany and Gaul, with the physiognomy of the fathers, named in common
Comacines, or Lombards, who had given birth to it or taught it."
Further on he continues (p. 80):
"The Frenchman, Quatremere de Quincy, in his Historical
Dictionary of Architecture writes thus:
"'The Comacines, (as they called themselves in the Middle
Ages,) that company of builders who, from the borders of the lakes of Como, of
Lugano and Maggiore, with usage not yet interrupted scattered themselves through
Europe to build edifices, some sacred, some profane, and in the Lombard laws
with the name of Magistri Comacini, were honored by special privileges.
"'To these artificers--architects, sculptors, mosaicists or
workmen who idealized and executed, is attributed the resurrection of art and
its propagation in the Northern countries where it was introduced and propagated
with Christianity. Certainly we owe to them that the heredity of the ancient age
was not altogether derelict, and that at least by tradition and by imitation the
practice of the constructor remained alive and produced works which even at this
time are admired and recognized as more surprising in contrast with the
ignorance of science in those obscure centuries.'"
One makes no apology for translating Merzario's quotations
from other authorities, because they give a weight of added testimony not
otherwise available.
Thus he continues (vol. I, p. 81) after mentioning the
German Kugler and the Frenchman Ramee as most competent men in the history of
art, and as holding similar views:
"We will add the opinion of other of our authoritative
writers. The lamented Pietro Selvatico notes that the architecture which held
sway from the eighth to the thirteenth century in Europe consisted of Byzantine
and Roman elements conjoined, but in 800 became mixed with another which, in
part produced from those, had nevertheless in itself elements so original as to
construct an independent art. This, he says, is the Lombard or Comacine
architecture call it which you like, which is distinguished by the low pitched
roofs, by the always semi-circular arches rising from the columns in the facade
resembling the Greek and Roman; it was indeed not enlarged in Italy quickly
after being born, but taking root little by little, resulted in a sure,
systematic unity after the first half of the ninth century.
"This, it cannot be denied, was the product of the union of
the Masters of Como with the Romans and of their connection with Aquileja
towards the Levant.
"Caimi, in the first page of a valuable work of his,
writes:
"'Toward the beginning of the ninth century architecture,
which in Italy presented a mixture of Roman and Byzantine elements, commenced to
develop under a more original and characteristic form and, without repudiating
the origin of its being, took normal and special rule, from which came to be
constructed that manner or architectonic style which, from the country, was
called Lombard. That style spread rapidly, not in the country of Italy alone,
but in many regions of Northern Europe especially through the works of those
associations or companies of Freemasons who were better known under the name of
Comacine Masters.
"Professor Camille Boito makes to stand out more clearly
still the figure and merit of our Masters, 'The Comacine Masters.' He writes:
"'Some have wished to demonstrate a secret society having
the monopoly of the architectural arts for the space of several centuries while
others have wished to make them out ignorant masons or but little more called
here and there in Italy and in foreign countries to manual labour. It is certain
that in every case they had great importance and that Como would not cede to
other provinces the ancient merit of having been the cradle of a new art, wise
and beautiful in its own time, from which art was born after a series of
transformations the pointed arch styles which found so much favour in Germany,
France and England, and also the ways of our art of the thirteenth century, so
rich in artistic variety, so free, so refined, of the art in fact which at
length, renewed, beautified, civilized, was able to become perhaps the base of
the Italian art of the future."'
On page 91 Merzario writes:
"From the declaration of an almost contemporary author it
appears quite clearly that the Lombard artificers had, after the dispersion of
the Lombards, a school in Rome--a quarter to themselves near that of the Franks
and Saxons, who were protected by Charlemagne and his successors. From this
school must have derived that community and brotherhood which we see extended
between the Lombard and German artists with the faculty for the Lombards to go
into Germany, where they found fellow-disciples and friends, and the name 'Tedeschi'
given in successive periods to the Lombard artificers, who in great part were
Comacines."
Merzario traces the footsteps of the Comacines as following
the Lombards in their descent upon Sicily where they came in contact with the
Normans, also into Germany where their mark is seen in the Cathedral of Spires,
Worms, Magdeburg and other cities but enough has been quoted from this author
for our purpose here. Comacine influence on the Norrnans was in two directions,
northward and southward, and in evidence of the former a few references may here
be permitted.
Paul the Deacon (De gestis Longobardorum, book 3, ch. 6)
states that at the beginning of the seventh century Pope Gregory "the great"
sent certain "religious" to England, who, following in the footsteps of the
blessed Augustine, of Melitus, John and others, were directed to visit and bring
under obedience the divided Britons of the world ("divisos orbe Britannos") who
had only once seen the face of the Romans. These brought with them certain
artificers who were to raise up the temples of the faith and who, coming from
Italy, most probably belonged to those Craftsmen, which had the use and
privilege of such construction.
The Venerable Bede tells us how S. Benedict Abbott of
Wearmouth, in A. D. 674, wishing to build his church went into France to collect
masons who could erect it after the manner of the Romans, and when these had
completed their work in order to the furnishings of the church he had recourse
to the country of the Romans for things he could not procure in France or
England.
Richard, Prior of Hagustald, narrates how S. Wilfred, about
674, made pilgrimage to Rome and became enamored of the beautiful churches and
buildings there, and that having in mind to build a church in honour of S.
Andrew of Hagustald near to York, he brought together in Italy and France and in
other countries as many builders and industrious artificers as he could find and
conducted them into England.
It is said that in these writings of Bede and the Prior
words and phrases are to be found which were in the edict of King Rothrares
(A.D. 643) and in the "Memoratorio" of Liutprand (A. D. 713) thus connecting the
work of S. Benedict and S. Wilfred with the Comacines.
W.S. Calverley, writing of Stephens, says ("Notes on the
Early Scriptured crosses, etc., in the Diocese of Carlisle" 1899, p. 44):
"According to his view the latter part of the seventh
century was a period of great artistic energy under Wilfreth and other
Romanizing leaders, and at that date these scrolls and interlacings were learnt
from Lombardy and not from Ireland. For example, the tomb of the Irish Saint
Columbanus at Bobbio, which one would expect to find ornamented with the
so-called Irish art, is decorated merely with the patterns then in vogue in
Rome, while in Lombardy--not in Ireland--interlaced scrolls were used early in
the seventh century."
Dr. Colley, F. S. A., in a paper read before the Dorset
Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, published in 1913, says:
"The three decorative interlacements (on a font at stone,
near Aylesbury,) may indicate a Byzantine influence. Such designs had much vogue
in Italy during the eighth century and were brought to the north of Europe by
Italian monks. The intreccio that runs round the rim of the font is threefold
and represents the Trinity in Unity, that on the (heraldic) right having neither
beginning nor end means eternity, while the other, an endless band interlacing a
circle, teaches that Infinity is controlled by a Unity."
S. Ninian, it is known, was a great friend of S. Martin of
Tours and from him obtained masons skilled to work in stone.
A little book published by Talbot, London, entitled "Lives
of the Saints" says (p. 216):
"Both the churches of Ripon and Hexham were built after the
Roman manner--that is the basilican type with the altar in a chord of a western
apse by which the celebrant faced the east when saying mass."
Mr. George Coffey, in his guide to Celtic antiquities in
the Dublin National Museum, notes that while the intreeeia of Italy were almost
universally three stranded, those of Greece and Central Syria, as well as
Ireland, consisted mainly of two strands. Certainly those in England are rarely
of three strands, but generally of two or one only. Mr. Coffey seems to think
the Lombard pattern was derived from both Roman and Greek sources. Whatever the
origin of the Comacine intreccia may be, it would seem to be pretty clear that
the three-stranded form was their particular one, and may be taken generally as
indicative of their work.
Interlaced patterns in these islands are chiefly found on
crosses, fonts, and other such details and of these crosses especially there
remain a great number.
There is no doubt that intercourse between Italy and our
Western shores in the early Middle Ages was fairly intimate, and since the pagan
Saxon hold on England would prevent it being overland, especially in regard to
church matters, such intercourse was necessarily by sea. Hence the association
of the Irish Round Towers with those of Italy gets confirmation, and indeed
seems to be increasingly held (see Arch. Review fol October, 1908, and following
numbers).
A comparison of other details found in Italy and England
will give some interesting results.
Some of the oldest Comacine capitals, side by side with
richly carved ones, are massive cushion capitals, such as are to be found in the
Crypt of S. Vincenzio at Gravedona.
The illustration of the capital of a column in S. Giaeomo
di Como (Fig. 11) should be compared with the Norman capital from Winchester
(Fig. 12), and one from the Como Museum with that from Milford Hants, and
another from Selham Sussex (Figs. 13, 14 and 15).
Outside the apse of S. Sisto Viterbo (a roundarched church)
an arcade occurs in which the interlaced pattern is alternated with the
dog-tooth of almost Early English type (Fig. 16) . At S. Pietro Ancona a similar
arcade is notched with an early dogtooth ornament while at the same church
another arcade is surmounted with a chevron and running ornament of what we
should call Norman character (Figs. 17 and 18).
On the west front of S. Paolo Pisa (a generally
round-arched church) occur two pointed arches in the arcading having chevron
treatment as at Wimborne Minster Dorset.
The lion excavated at Corstopitum near Hexham, already
mentioned, (3) is obviously of the same family as those of the Comacines in
Italy and its proximity to Hexham gives added reason for regarding it in this
light.
The use of pilaster strips, common to the Italian campanile
and the Saxon or early Norman Tower, suggests a relationship between the two and
as regards plan there is not wanting good evidence of the Comacine influence on
English work.
Not long since discoveries were made in connection with
Abbot Wulfric's round church at S. Augustines Canterbury and, writing thereon in
the Times, Mr. G. McN. Rushforth, F. S. A., mentions several round churches as
having existed in England, saying it was about 68 A. D. that Wilfrid built the
round church of S. Mary at Hexham, while Riviora points out that all these
circular plans are derived directly or indirectly from Roman models, and that in
choosing this form for the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantine did but
follow the pattern of a typical Roman Mausoleum on the grand scale.
The plan of Canterbury Cathedral as it existed before 1076
carries out the Comacine idea, even to the two apses, one at each end and the
campanili flanking the aisles, north and south.
Comment on all this is surely superfluous. It speaks for
itself, and indeed it would appear that most authorities are agreed that from
North Italy English architecture received both its inspiration and realization
in its earlier days. That it was through the Comacines rather than through the
Milanese or Lombard school (if indeed there were two distinct schools) one would
submit is practically demonstrated in the foregoing comparison of the chief
peculiarities of the two schools. (4)
That the Comacines merged into the great Masonic Gilds of
the Middle Ages, and that as these declined, forms and ceremonies held and
practiced by them were to a great extent preserved in the speculative Masonry of
the present day, particularly that practiced under the English and American
Constitutions, is still doubted by some and denied by one or two.
Merzario would have us believe that the Comacines, from
whom he appears to derive a large number of other schools of medieval
architecture, could be traced down to 1800 A. D., but such opinion would want a
great deal of evidence to make it acceptable.
Sig. Monneret de Villard, who takes the view that they were
a school distinct from other contemporary ones, holds that as an organized body
they ceased to exist after the twelfth century.
A good illustration of the way in which symbols were
transmitted even from the Temple of Solomon to the medieval Craftsmen and thence
to our speculative Masonry, is to be found in the two pillars at Wurzburg
Cathedral already mentioned. It has been pointed out that they were originally
situated on either side of the porch but are now in the body of the Cathedral
(their relative positions reversed), and that these shafts are interlaced in a
manner already referred to in these pages.
One has thought it worth while to make some careful
inquiries with regard to these pillars and hence before the commencement of the
present war I was able to ascertain, on what I have reason to believe to be
competent authority, that these pillars originally supported three archways of a
porchway or entrance just within the nave, having over them a gallery approached
by a staircase. In this position they would correspond to the arrangement of the
porch at S. Pietro al Monte di civate, and they are said to be of the same date
(Fig. 3a).
To get the knot effect they had to be clustered shafts, and
like those at Arlezo (see Fig. 9) one appears to have more of these shafts in
number than the other. This is significant, but what is more so is the fact that
one capital bears on it the word B..... and the other the word J..... If these
words were added at some recent time there would be nothing much in the
argument, but as one is told as the result of expert examination the writing is
of the same date as the columns, viz., before the end of the twelfth century,
then it would seem to be a fair and reasonable conclusion that the Medieval
Gilds had traditions of King Solomon's Temple, and also that our speculative
system did take over signs and symbols, etc., from the operative lodges. The
position of the pillars and their inscriptions admit of no other conclusion.
One wonders whether this particular form of knot rather
than the intreccia of the Comacines is not that which is still named in Italy as
Solomon's knot. If so, this would be yet another association worthy of notice.
The carving of working tools in connection with the Gild
work of the Middle Ages is not without significance. The representation of a
square or a plumbrule in the Catacombs, such as may be seen in the Lateran
Museum, probably merely indicated the trade of the person commemorated, but when
as in the representation of the Quatuor Coronati at Or S. Michele at Florence,
are found the compasses, the level, the plumb-rule and the square, and in
addition to these one of the four masons describing on the reversed capital of a
column, a circle, at the same time that he applies a square, the conclusion is
obvious that they have a deeper signification.
Again, at Assisi, on the Comacine Lodge, as well as on the
Castle, the open compasses containing a rose are to be seen, and in the Castle
work also a mason's square. Other working tools are also depicted in the
well-known Isabella Missal in the British Museum.
And as regards the Four Crowned Martyrs themselves, while
not pressing too far from this connection any conclusion, it is well to call to
mind a few, outstanding facts.
Sarcophagi are claimed as theirs in their church in Rome,
founded in their honour, and in connection with which a Gild of Marble Cutters
to the present time celebrate mass on the last Sunday of the month. Over the
door of their chapel (S. Sylvestro, A. D. 1198- 1215) there is a fresco of the
four with the inscription "statuariorum et Lapicidarum Corpus Anno MDLXX."
Edward Condor, in his paper contributed to "Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum," (vol. 27, part 2), not only shows the strong obligation placed
upon the Craft generally in London to attend mass on the 8th November, the
festival of the Quatuor Coronati, as set forth in the ordinances and regulations
of the body, A. D. 1841, but adds:
"The legend of the Four Crowned Martyrs (5) is purely
Italian in its inception and spread with the Craft into Germany, Gaul and
Britain. There is evidence of the legend in MSS of the seventh century A. D.,
and a church was built in their honour at Winchester, in the eighth 'century.
(6)
"The festival was fixed for November 8th in the Sarum
Missal of the eleventh century and from that date to the Reformation in the
sixteenth century the day was regularly honoured in the English Church."
To this, be added, that the Masonic Lodge having perhaps
the widest association in the world, viz., the Quatuor Coronati Lodge, in
London, significantly associates its name with these martyrs.
The Masonic association with the two Saints, John the
Baptist and John the Evangelist, finds some counterpart in the same association
of these Saints with the Comacines illustrated in the frequent dedication of
many of their churches to one or the other of these, as well as the dedication
of the Island of Comacina to st. John the Baptist, whose annual festival, with
much religious ceremony and high pageant, is still attended on the Island on
Midsummer Day, by people from far and near.
Once more, and finally, from Merzario (page 93):
"It is at that time and to that movement of thought of
studies and of persons particularly set on foot by the Comacines that certain
writers make to rise the institution of Masonic unions or lodges, and of the
primitive Masonry. Troya says that the curious or secret societies of the
Comacines which under the Lombards had been circumscribed, although public, and
lived without mysteries and without arrogance, began after Charlemagne to
restrict themselves into more compact societies, to form their secret statutes,
to have private rights and occult language, and to look forward to a proselytism
international and almost European."
Hope has written:
"Lombardy was the cradle of the Association of Freemasons,
and it is from these Societies or Gilds initiated by the Comacine Masters that
he and various historians, Italian and not Italian, derive the Companies of
Freemasons which diffused themselves from Italy to England, in Scotland, in
Germany, in Switzerland, in Provence and Spain, and were the origin of the
Freemasons lodges composed at first of architects, constructors and their
colleagues only."
Taking together all these items of evidence, what
conclusion can be reached other than that link by link we have a chain extending
from the Roman Collegia through the Comacines to the Medieval Gilds of the
Middle Ages, and our speculative lodges of today, with traditions and
associations clearly handed on unbroken.
As a frontispiece to the July issue of THE BUILDER is
reproduced an old print, now in the Como Museum, showing the Island of Como as
it was supposed to be in the day of its strength.
(1) See page 198, THE BUILDER, July.
(2) Peculiarity of some of the expressions in the
transcripts made in these pages from Merzario is probably due to the translation
from Italian to English being somewhat literal.
(3) See page 196, THE BUILDER, July.
(4) Notwithstanding the two views of Merzario and Monneret
it is not unreasonable to point the probability of the derivation of the
Milanese from the Comacine school, seeing that in the early days of the Lombards
when they required artificers they sent for the Comacines, having none of their
own.
(5) For an interesting article on the Church of the Quatuor
Coronati, Rome, having special reference to its recently restored cloister, by
Professor Forbes, see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. 27, part I.
(6) There may be a little mistake here since a church was
built to the honour of the Quatuor Coronati, in Canterbury, early in the seventh
century. Possibly there was another at Winchester, but evidence is wanting.
----o----
THE LYRIC ARGUMENT
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers;
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
I write of Youth, of Love, and have access
By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness;
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece,
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris;
I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write
How roses first came red, and lilies white;
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King.
I write of Hell; I sing and ever shall
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.
--Robert Herrick, 1591-1674.
----o----
FLOWERS
Spread golden flowers on my life,
And do it very often;
I'll need them in my daily strife
But not upon my coffin.
--John A. Joyce.
----o----
SYMBOLISM OF THE THREE DEGREES
BY BRO. OLIVER DAY STREET, ALABAMA
PART II--THE SYMBOLISM OF THE FELLOW CRAFT DEGREE
THE ceremonies of initiation, passing, and raising, as well
as the lectures explanatory of them, are necessarily brief; want of time and the
danger of over-burdening the candidate require that they should be so. The
Mason, therefore, who relies solely upon what he sees and hears in the lodge
will obtain a very inadequate conception of Freemasonry. He may and doubtless
will be more or less affected by our ceremonies; it could scarcely be otherwise,
so solemn and impressive are they, but he will fail to discover and understand
some of the greater truths which lie hidden beneath the surface, and can never
become truly speaking a "bright Mason."
Nearly every Masonic symbol or ceremony (like all true
allegories) has two (sometimes more) significations, one literal, the other
symbolical. The literal meaning, usually the more apparent, is often of great
interest, frequently affording striking evidences as to the origin and antiquity
of Freemasonry. But it is the symbolical or allegorical meaning, usually the
more recondite, which appeals most to the thoughtful mind.
Nor is it unfortunate that the more important lessons are
somewhat veiled from observation. We do not prize what we obtain easily; it is
that for which we have striven or paid a big price which we value. If,
therefore, from beneath the surface of these familiar ceremonies any of us by
our own studies and reflections are enabled to discover and bring to light
truths which have lain somewhat hidden, the appreciation of them is keener and
the impression produced deeper and more lasting than if they had been open to
superficial observation. For this reason many of the greatest lessons of
Freemasonry are wisely hidden away as prizes for the studious and the diligent
only. The "mysteries" and the "secrets" of Freemasonry are not synonymous terms;
the mysteries continue such forever even to the Mason who will not study and
read. Do you feel that Masonry is an idle and frivolous thing, unworthy of the
attention of serious men? If so, did you ever reflect whether the fault was
yours or that of the institution? Unless you are sure that you know what
Freemasonry is and what it teaches and what are its designs and that you
thoroughly understand its methods of teaching withhold your condemnation till
you have made it the subject of a little serious study, because, as observed by
an eminent authority, the character of the institution is "elevated in
everyone's opinion just in proportion to the amount of knowledge that he has
acquired of its symbolism, philosophy and history."
Freemasonry is a many sided subject. There is something in
it which arrests and appeals to the shallowest mind or the most frivolous moral
character. At the same time, there is much in it which has chained the thought
and attention of the world's greatest intellects and wisest philosophers. It
presents many aspects for study and investigation, either of which will amply
repay the efforts of the intelligent mind and will lead to knowledge not merely
curious, as some suppose, but of the utmost practical value.
I am forced to refer again to one line of thought touched
on in the preceding lecture because I regard it as fundamental to the study and
understanding of any part of Freemasonry. This idea is that Freemasonry is an
elaborate allegory of human life, both individually and collectively, in all its
varied aspects, past, present, and future; that the lodge represents the world
into which mortal man is introduced, lives, moves, has his being and eventually
dies; that it also represents the place or state of the redeemed in the life
which we believe follows this; that the lodge-member typifies the individual
man; that its organized membership represents mankind united into human society;
that the ideal lodge-member, ruled by love, wisdom, strength and beauty,
typifies man raised from this state of imperfection to one of perfection.
Of all the ceremonies of the lodge, the Fellow Craft
degree, when viewed by itself is the most difficult and I believe the least
generally understood. Preston, who wrote the first Monitor tells us that "such
is the latitude of this degree that the most judicious may fail in an attempt to
explain it." In Akin's Georgia Manual we read that the "splendid beauty of the
Fellow Craft degree can be seen only by the studious eye and that the Master vho
would impress it upon the candidate must store his mind with the history,
traditions and ritualism of this degree."
A flood of light, however, is at once shed upon the subject
when we consider it a part of a human allegory, of which the Entered Apprentice
and Master's degrees are respectively the beginning and the completion.
Let us then briefly consider it in this manner and endeavor
to reach a clearer understanding of its meaning. That we may the better perceive
just where it falls into the complete scheme, it will be necessary first to
consider for a moment the Entered Apprentice and Master's degrees.
We are told in the Master's lecture that the Entered
Apprentice represents youth; the Fellow Craft, manhood; and the Master Mason,
old age. A little study will serve to show us how completely this simile is
justified.
The introduction or first admission of the Entered
Apprentice candidate into the lodge, therefore, typifies the entrance of man
upon the world's stage of action or in other words, the birth of the child into
this life. The distinguished Masonic scholar, Dr. Mackey, says that the Entered
Apprentice is a "child in Masonry" and we read in many Monitors that "the first
or Entered Apprentice degree is intended symbolically to represent the entrance
of man into the world in which he is afterwards to become a living and thinking
actor. In English working the candidate is reminded that his admission into the
Entered Apprentice lodge "in a state of helpless ignorance was an emblematical
representation of the entrance of all men on this their mortal existence." (1)
The preparation of the candidate and the plight in which he
is admitted an Entered Apprentice strikingly symbolizes the helpless, destitute,
blind and ignorant condition of the newly born babe. Yea, it is even certain
that there are features preserved in Masonic symbolism which allude to that part
of life preceding even birth and which hint at the phenomena of coition,
generation, conception and gestation of the child in its mother's womb. These
things rightly considered are as much a part and as pure and holy a part of a
human life as birth or death, and could no more be omitted from any complete
representation of it. Let no one, therefore, imagine that he has found anything
impure in Freemasonry because he has discovered in it symbols and ceremonies
which once undoubtedly bore phallic significations.
We may, therefore, say that the Masonic system epitomizes
allegorically the life of man from the moment he is begotten through every stage
of existence, conception, gestation, birth, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood,
old age, death, the resurrection and everlasting life. Did any greater theme
ever engage the attention of any society? Anything that pertains to any of these
great subjects and which tends to strengthen, to elevate or to ennoble the human
mind and character is properly a part of Freemasonry.
The first important lesson impressed upon the candidate
after his entrance into the lodge is intended to signify to us that the very
first idea that ought to be instilled into the mind of the child is a reverence
and adoration for the Deity, the great and incomprehensible author of its
existence. From beginning to the end, the Entered Apprentice degree is a series
of moral lessons. This is a hint so broad that one need not be wise in order to
understand that the moral training and education of the child should precede
even the development and cultivation of its intellect. How many parents and
teachers fail just at this point! They polish and adorn the minds of their
children and pupils with great diligence at the same time neglecting their moral
training, and when too late find that often they have made of them smart
criminals.
The placing of the young Entered Apprentice in the
northeast corner of the lodge in imitation of the ancient custom of laying the
corner stone of a building in the northeast corner, signifies that as an Entered
Apprentice he has but laid the foundation whereon to build his future moral
edifice, that of life and character. It aptly and fully symbolizes the end of
the preparatory period and the beginning of the constructive period of human
life.
The admonition there given him is to the effect that,
having laid the foundation true, he should take care that the superstructure is
reared ill like manner; in other words, that his life, his moral temple be kept
in harmony with the moral precepts which have been given him in the Entered
Apprentice degree.
This likening of the human body to a temple of God is an
ancient metaphor. Jesus' employment of it in speaking of his own body was but in
keeping with a common practice among Jewish writers and teachers of his time. It
immensely dignifies the physical body of man and teaches that, when kept clean
both in the literal and the moral sense, it is a fit place for even Diety
himself to dwell.
This body so powerfully and yet so delicately contrived
that often apparently slight causes produce death, we have no right to defile or
abuse with any kind of excess. No mechanism was ever so delicately adjusted and
no careful engineer would ever think of putting even too much oil upon a fine
piece of machinery. Yet excessive indulgence in food, drink, or other appetites
works far greater injury to our bodies.
The lesson is that we have no more right to defile or abuse
our bodies than had the Jew to defile the Temple of God upon Mount Moriah.
In the Third degree the matter pressed upon our attention
are the closing years of life, death and the vast hereafter. The xii chapter of
Ecclesiastes, the most beautiful and affecting description of old age in all
literature, is introduced. We are also told that the events it celebrates
occurred just before the completion of the Temple, which is but a figurative way
of saying that the period of life symbolized by the Master's degree is that just
preceding its close, just before the completion of the moral and spiritual
temple. (2) It is, therefore, with the greatest propriety that the Master's
degree is said to represent old age.
If then the Entered Apprentice represents childhood and
youth, and the Master Mason old age, the Fellow Craft degree should, in order to
complete the allegory, represent middle life and its labors, and this is
precisely what it does with the greatest beauty and consistency.
Although the candidate for the Fellow Craft degree is to be
regarded as a seeker after knowledge, yet the first section of this degree
consists chiefly of a reiteration of the moral teachings of the First degree.
This is to remind the young man as he is about to enter upon the serious labors
and struggles of life that virtue is to be always the first consideration, that
no knowledge, no success which is purchased at the sacrifice of morals, honor or
integrity is to be prized. This lesson is repeated more than once in the course
of this degree, admonishing us that, no matter how engrossed in the affairs of
life we may become, we should never suffer the allurements of coveted gains to
seduce us from the pathway of strict rectitude and justice.
Although thus reiterating and emphasizing the moral
precepts of the First degree, the Fellow Craft degree is as distinctly
intellectual in its purpose and spirit as the Entered Apprentice is moral. The
great theme of the Second degree is the attainment of knowledge, the cultivation
of the mind and the acquisition of habits of industry. (3) This feature becomes
prominent in the second section of this degree. Preston, who, as already
observed, wrote what might he termed the first Monitor, says that while the
First degree is intended "to enforce the duties of morality," the Second
"comprehends a more diffusive system of knowledge." We read in Simon's Monitor
that "the Entered Apprentice is to emerge from the darkness to light; the Fellow
Craft is to come out of ignorance into knowledge." Dr. Mackey expresses it thus:
"The lessons the Entered Apprentice receives are simply intended to cleanse the
heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be
given in the succeeding degree," and further he says, "The candidate in the
Second degree represents a man starting forth on the journey of life with the
great task before him of self-improvement," and that the result is to be the
development of all his intellectual faculties and the acquisition of truth and
knowledge. In England, the candidate is informed that while in the Entered
Apprentice degree "he made himself acquainted with the principles of moral truth
and virtue, he is in the Fellow Craft degree permitted to extend his researches
into the hidden mysteries of nature and science," and that he is "led in the
Second degree to contemplate the intellectual faculty and to trace it from its
development, through the paths of heavenly science, even to the throne of God
himself." Brother J. W. Horsely, Rector of St. Peter's Cathedral, London, thus
expresses the idea: "Generally, therefore, we may say that the Third degree
represents and enforces the blessedness of spiritual life and the duty of
progress therein, as the Second degree performs the same office for the
intellectual life, and the first for the moral life." (4)
THE JEWELS OF A FELLOW CRAFT
The very means of gaining admission into a Fellow Craft
lodge* * *, alluding to the three jewels of Fellow Craft, are made to typify the
processes of communicating, acquiring and preserving knowledge. "The attentive
ear receives the sound from the instructive tongue and the mysteries of
Freemasonry (as indeed all other knowledge) are safely lodged in the repository
of faithful breasts."
THE WORKING TOOLS
The plumb, square, and level were the appropriate tools of
the operative Fellow Craft Mason. To the Master or Overseer fell the duty of
superintendence, to the Entered Apprentice that of gathering and rough hewing of
the materials, but to the Fellow Craft fell the labor of actual construction.
This involved the laying of level foundations and courses, the erection of
perpendicular walls and the bringing of the stones to perfectly rectangular
shape. These labors necessitated the constant use by the operative Fellow Craft
Mason of the plumb, square and level. Their operative uses very appropriately
symbolize the analogous processes in the building of human character. This
symbolical application of these implements of the builder is by no means recent;
it dates back even among the Chinese more than 700 years before Christ. Five
hundred years before Christ what we call the Golden Rule was by the Chinese
called "the principle of acting on the square." Mencius, the great Chinese
philosopher, who lived in the third century before Christ, teaches that men
should apply the square and level to their lives, and speaking figuratively says
that he who would acquire wisdom must make use of the square and compasses.
BOAZ AND JACHIN
Solomon, in accordance with the common practice of his day,
placed two immense and highly ornate pillars or columns at the entrance of his
temple. It is well known that King Hiram did the like for the great temple to
Melcarth erected by him at Tyre. Many other instances might be cited. Whence
originated this custom has been a matter for much speculation. We have seen what
was the ancient conception of the form of the earth. To their world the Strait
of Gibraltar appeared to be a veritable door of entry. On either side of this
entrance rose two enormous rock promotories, Abyla and Calpe, (now called
Gibraltar and Ceuta) which completely commanded egress and ingress and are
familiarly known as the Pillars of Hercules. They were believed by the ancients
to mark the western boundary of the world, Many have seen in these two vast
columns of stone, set by nature to the entrance of the then known world, the
counterparts of the pillars so often set by the ancients at the entrance to
their temples, which were to them, as the lodge is to us, symbols of the world.
The first objects that engage the attention of the Fellow
Craft on his way to the Middle Chamber are the representatives of these pillars
at the entrance to Solomon's Temple. In addition to the explanation given in the
lodge, they undoubtedly have also an allusion to the two legendary pillars of
Enoch upon which tradition tells us all the wisdom of the ancient world was
inscribed in order to preserve it "against inundation and conflagrations."
Standing at the very threshold of Solomon's Temple, as well as of the Fellow
Craft lodge, they admonish us that after a proper moral training the acquisition
of wisdom is the next necessary preparation for a useful and successful life.
(5) Their names, Boaz and Jachin, possess also a moral signification, meaning
together that "in strength God will establish His house." Symbolically applied
to the candidate, they mean that God will firmly establish the moral and
spiritual edifice of the just and upright man.
THE GLOBES
The idea that the globes upon the two brazen pillars
represent the globes celestial and terrestrial is certainly modern. The globular
form of the earth was unknown to the ancients. Except to a few profound thinkers
like Plato, the conception of the earth as a sphere was utterly foreign. Not
until about the time of the discovery of America did this fact become generally
understood.
Moreover, the Bible, at least in English translations, says
nothing of any globes upon the pillars, but distinctly states that there were
"made two chapiters of molten brass to set upon the tops of the pillars," and
that "upon the tops of the pillars was lily-work." 1 Kings vii, 16, 22. The more
recent revisions of the Bible call the "chapiters" by their more familiar name
of "capitals." The learned Jewish Rabbi, Solomon Jehudi, speaks of them as
"pommels," a word signifying a globular ornament. It is well known that many of
the architectural features and ornamental designs of Solomon's Temple were
borrowed from the Egyptians. The so-called "lily-work" was unquestionably some
form of water-lily or lotus pattern of ornamention so common in ancient
architecture and which even now is employed in conventionalized forms nearly
everywhere. It sometimes assumes the form of the lotus leaf, at others of the
full blown blossom, and at others still of the bud. Our common "egg and dalt"
pattern is a development therefrom.
At the time of Solomon, one of the most frequent and at the
same time one of the most beautiful of the lotus or water-lily designs was the
lotus-bud capital, which often assumed an egglike or oval shape. It is
accurately indicated by the word "pommel," and indeed this term is employed in
some of our Masonic Monitors in lieu of the term "globes." There seems little
reason to doubt that the two Brazen Pillars were columns of the Egyptian style
with the lotus-bud capitals. Their great diameter as compared to their height
(about six diameters) is another strong evidence of their Egyptian derivation.
Furthermore, we know that winged globular ornaments, sometimes of immense size,
were extensively employed by the Egyptians in adorning the entrances to their
temples.
The lotus or water-lily was the sacred plant of the
Egyptians and among other things signified "Universality." The conclusion,
therefore, seems reasonable that, if there was anything like globes on the two
Brazen Pillars, they were not true globes of the earth and of the heavens, but
representations of the lotus-bud. If so, though the symbol has not been
accurately perpetuated, the symbolism has.
There is another ancient conception to which the idea of
globes upon the pillars may be related. From remotest times men must have
observed that numerous forms of life proceeded from an egg. This observation
gave rise to the belief which we know to have been widely disseminated in
ancient times, and which modern science has almost completely confirmed, that
life in every form proceeds from an egg. This supposed universal source of life
became to the ancients the symbol of the source of things universal. In other
words, the egg was the symbol of the Universal Mother. It is easily perceivable
that to a people entertaining these ideas, globes or eggs mounted upon columns
would convey the idea of universality.
LILY-WORK
In addition to the lotus capitals, no doubt the two pillars
were, in keeping with the universal custom of the time, further ornamented with
various forms of the lotus or water-lily design. The familiar token of peace
with us is the palm branch, but to the Egyptian and the Jew this office was
fulfilled by the lotus or water-lily. It is, therefore, with precise accuracy
that we say that the lotus, or Egyptian water-lily, (an entirely different plant
from our lily,) denotes peace.
THE NET-WORK
The net work which adorned the capitals or chapiters of the
pillars might be more familiarly described as "lattice-work." Curious specimens
of this ornamentation are found in ancient and medieval architecture,
particularly in that of the Magistri Comacini, or Comacine Masters of Northern
Italy. Many of these are of the most beautiful and intricate designs and without
either beginning or end. A more appropriate emblem of unity than these could not
be conceived.
It is interesting to note in this connection, that recently
a woman, and of course a non-Mason, Mrs. Baxter, writing under the nom de plume
of Leader Scott, has in her splendid book, "The Cathedral Builders, adduced much
evidence to prove that our modern Freemasonry is derived from these same
Magistri Comacini, and through them from the Collegia Fabrorum, or Colleges of
Builders, of the pre-Christian Roman era. To my mind, one of the strongest of
these evidences is the common possession and employment of this net-work
ornamentation.
This tracing of our society back to the Roman Building
Societies of the eighth century before Christ, (if it can be sustained,) carries
us back to the time when we know that building societies were common not only in
Rome, but in Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Palestine. Indeed, it is impossible
to explain the erection of such architectural wonders as the great pyramids and
temples of Egypt, Asia, Greece and Rome, without supposing the existence at that
time of building societies, or associations of architects, embracing within
themselves the most brilliant intellects and skillful workmen, not only then
living, but whose superior the world has never since seen; in other words,
precisely such a society as our traditions teach built King Solomon's Temple.
Evidences of ancient history point to the existence of such a brotherhood, known
as the Dionysian Architects, at Tyre, the home of the two Hirams at the time of
the building of the Temple and it was to this place, according to Scripture,
that Solomon sent when he wanted artisans competent to carry out his great
design.
THE POMEGRANATE
The pomegranate, which also adorned the capitals of the
pillars, is a symbol of great antiquity, but its meaning seems to have been
sacredly guarded. Pausanias, who wrote about 160 A. D., calls it aporreto teros
logos,--i. e. a forbidden mystery. Ancient deities were often depicted holding
this fruit in their hands and this, Achilles Statius, Bishop of Alexandria, says
"had a mystical meaning." The Syrians at Damascus anciently worshipped a god
whom they called "Rimmon," and this we know to be the Hebrew word for
pomegranate.
Cumberland, Bishop of Peterborough, a most learned
antiquarian, guessed that on account of the great number of its seeds a
pomegranate in the hand of a god denoted fruitfulness or fecundy. This
corresponds closely enough with the meaning that we, as Masons attach to
it,--that of plenty.
OPERATIVE AND SPECULATIVE MASONRY
The candidate is informed that there are two kinds of
Masonry, operative and speculative; the one, the erection of material edifice to
shelter us from the inclemencies of the seasons; the other, the building of that
moral, religious and spiritual edifice, human life and character, that house not
made with hands eternal in the heavens. He is reminded of the historical fact
that our ancient brethren wrought in both kinds of Masonry, but we work in
speculative only. With this distinction in mind, the candidate is expected to be
able to grasp the allegorical meanings of the succeeding ceremonies.
THE WINDING STAIRS
In the Winding stairs an architectural feature of Solomon's
Temple is seized upon to symbolize the journey of life. It is not a placid
stream down which one may lazily float, it is not even a straight or level
pathway along which one may travel with a minimum of exertion; it is a devious
and tortuous way, requiring labor and effort for its accomplishment. This is
appropriately symbolized by a winding stairway. It teaches us that our lives
should be neither downward nor on a dead level, but, although difficult,
progressive and upward.
SCIENCE OF NUMBERS
The Winding stairs consist of 3, 5 and 7 steps, numbers
which among the ancients were deemed of a mysterious nature. This introduces us
to what is to us one of the most curious bodies of learning of the ancient
world, what is known as their Science of Numbers, many fragments of which are
scattered throughout Masonry. It is exceedingly difficult for the modern mind to
get any grasp whatever upon what is meant by this so called science, so highly
speculative was it. It does not allude as its name might seem to indicate, to
any of the mathematical sciences, or anything akin to them. It was a system of
moral science or philosophy, wherein numbers were given symbolical meaning and
the letters of the alphabet were given numerical values; whence words were
supposed to have certain occult significations according to the sums or
multiples of the numerical equivalents of its letters. The elaboration of this
idea was productive of what is known as the Hebrew Kabala. Pythagoras is reputed
to have introduced this school among the Greeks and according to Aristotle he
taught that "Number is the principle of all things and that the organization of
the Universe is an harmonic system of numerical ratios." (6) To illustrate, the
soul was made to correspond to the number 6, and 7 was the counterpart of reason
and health.
The numbers 3, 5 and 7 had many meanings among the Jews
which are not elucidated in the lodge. The preservation in our ritual of hints
of this learning of a past age is now chiefly valuable to us as a proof of the
antiquity of Masonic symbolism. (7)
THE THREE STEPS
Adopting the method of these ancient worthies but varying
the meaning, we make the number 3 to allude to the organization of our Society
with its three degrees and its three principal officers. Among the earliest
realizations of every man is that no man lives to himself alone; that he is
dependent upon his fellow creatures and they upon him; that he owes them and
they owe him mutual aid, support and protection; that to secure these advantages
some must rule and some must at least temporarily obey; that there must be
classes and that progress from one class to another must depend upon proficiency
in the former. This state of mutual obligation and mutual dependance of men upon
one another we call Society. The Three steps, alluding to the three degrees and
the division of our society into those who govern and those who obey, leads to
the ideas of organization and subordination in the lodge. We have seen that the
lodge symbolizes the world; so its organization symbolizes that of the world
into society and governments. Dr. Mackey says "that the reference to the
organization of the Masonic institution is intended to remind the aspirant of
the union of men into society and the development of the social state out of the
state of nature. He is thus reminded in the very outset of his journey of the
blessings which arise from civilization and of the fruits of virtue and the
knowledge which are derived from that condition. In the allusion to the affairs
of the lodge and the degree of Masonry as explanatory of the organization of our
own society, we clothe in symbolic language," says Dr. Mackey, "the history of
the organization of society" in general. (8) This feature is brought out
prominently in many Monitors.
No representation of the pathway to knowledge would of
course be complete without some allusion to the means by which it is to he
acquired. Thus are the allusions to the five senses of human nature to be
understood. A moment's reflection will prove to us that through them we gain all
our knowledge and that without them we could learn nothing. What wonderful and
noble faculties and yet how seldom even thought of by us and how little
appreciated and understood! No nobler or more interesting subjects for study
exist in all the realms of nature than hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, and
tasting. What a truly marvelous organ is the eye, which can without contact make
us sensible of the presence, the form and the color of objects at a distance and
through which we obtain our knowledge and appreciation of all that is beautiful
in nature. The senses of hearing and feeling are scarcely less wonderful and are
equally important. A little reflection will also furnish us with additional
reasons to those given in the lodge why hearing, seeing and feeling are most
revered by Masons. They are in every way the most important. Consider for a
moment the relatively small part of our knowledge that comes through tasting and
smelling, and how utterly useless these two senses were to our ancient brethren
in their operative labors. Then consider again how helpless a human creature
would be who possessed neither hearing, seeing or feeling. Helen Keller is
rightly considered a marvel, yet she is bereft of only two of these, hearing and
seeing. Deprive her of her finely attenuated sense of feeling and it would have
been impossible for her to have made any progress whatever in knowledge.
Commenting on this part of the ritual, Thomas Smith Webb says, "To sum up the
whole of this transcendant measure of God's bounty to man, we shall add that
memory, imagination, taste, reasoning, moral perception and all the active
powers of the soul present a vast and boundless field for philosophical
disquisition which far exceeds human inquiry." We could have none of these
without the five senses, and they are, therefore, introduced as symbols of
intellectual cultivation. (9)
The disquisition upon the five senses of human nature which
appears in our American Monitors may be found in the English Monitors also which
preceded the revision of Dr. Hemming in 1813. He eliminated all reference to
them and they are still missing from authorized English "work." We feel that in
some way Dr. Hemming must surely have failed to catch the meaning of this part
of our symbolism. Dr. George Oliver, an eminent and learned English Mason,
deplores the omission and says that it ought by all means to be restored.
Having thus indicated to the candidate something of the
importance and the means of acquiring knowledge, the proper fields of study and
investigation are next pointed out.
THE FIVE ORDERS IN ARCHITECTURE
The five steps are said to allude further to the five
orders in architecture, the Tuscan, the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian and the
Composite. Their origins and their relative merits are pointed out, and we are
told something of architecture in general. We would naturally expect something
on this subject in a society derived from one of actual builders and architects,
and here we have an internal evidence of the great age of Freemasonry. This is a
flotsam which has been wafted to us down the stream of time from that remote
period when Freemasonry w as an organization of operative Masons. To our
speculative society it typifies all the other useful arts and serves to convey
to the intelligent mind the truth that architecture considered as one of the
fine arts is a subject well worthy of our study. It is through architecture that
every great people have left the enduring records of their fame. Books perish
and decay, but from their buildings, which still remain, we know for a certainty
of the great nations of antiquity. George Moller, in his charming essay on
Gothic Architecture, speaks of these architectural remains as "documents of
stone" and declares that they "afford to those who can read them the most lively
picture of centuries that have lapsed." (10)
THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES
Other fields of study are said to consist of the seven
liberal arts and sciences and are enumerated as grammar, rhetoric, logic,
arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. In our Fellows Craft's charge we are
recommended to study "the liberal arts and sciences which tend so effectually to
polish and adorn the mind." In England ("Emulation Working,") the candidate is
informed that he "is expected to make the liberal arts and sciences his future
study, that he may 'the better be enabled to discharge his duties as a Mason,
and estimate the wonderful works of the Almighty." (11)
It is, of course, obvious at a glance that these seven
subjects enumerated above by no means exhaust the fields of knowledge now open
to man, but the time once was when they did. And herein is another incontestible
evidence of the great age of Freemasonry and its ceremonies. I cannot do better
than quote Dr. Mackey again. He says that in the seventh century, that is to say
1300 years ago, "these seven heads were supposed to include universal knowledge.
He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a precepter to explain
any books or to solve any questions which lay within the compass of human
reason; knowledge of the trivium (as grammar, rhetoric and logic were then
denominated,) having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the
quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) having opened to him the
secret laws of nature." At a period, says Dr. Mackey "when few were instructed
in the trivium and very few studied the quadrivium, to be master of both was
sufficient to complete the character of a philosopher."
The term trivium means the three ways or paths, and
quadrivium the four ways or paths to knowledge. Hence it is with the greatest
propriety that it is said that we are taught in the Fellow Craft degree to
explore the paths of heavenly science. (12)
There is another interesting feature of the total number of
steps of the Winding Stairs, fifteen in all. This was an important symbol among
the Jews, because it was the sum of the numerical equivalents of the Hebrew
letters composing the word J A H--one of the names of Deity.
It will also be noted that the number of each series of
steps, three, five and seven, as well as the total number of steps, fifteen, is
odd. As we have seen, odd numbers were by the ancients regarded with greater
veneration than were even numbers. Vitrivius, the great Roman architect, who
flourished just before Christ, states that the ancient temples were always
approached by an odd number of steps. The reason, he says, was that commencing
with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot in
advance when he entered the temple, and that this was considered a favorable
omen. The thoughtful Mason cannot fail to be struck with the coincidence here
indicated.
GEOMETRY
Preeminence is given by our ritual to the science of
Geometry. This now appears strange, but if we regard its history we will cease
to be surprised. It and its allied branches, (trigonometry, architecture and
astronomy), was the only exact science known to the ancients, but the perfection
to which they had reduced it is even now constantly surprising us. By it all
mathematical calculations were made. Arithmetic and algebra were then unknown.
The astonishing results obtained by them from an application of geometrical
processes were well calculated to impress the mind. As the only exact science
known to them, it was the most appropriate emblem of moral perfection, in an age
when everything had its symbol. We accordingly read in our Masonic Monitors that
of the seven liberal arts and sciences, "Geometry is the most revered by
Masons"; that "it is the foundation of architecture and the root of
mathematics"; that it is "the first and noblest of sciences"; that it is "the
basis on which the superstructure of Masonry is erected"; that by it "we may
curiously trace nature through her various windings to her most concealed
recesses"; and "discover the power, the wisdom and the goodness of the Grand
Artificer of the Universe"; that "Geometry or Masonry, originally synonymous
terms, being of a divine and moral nature, is enriched with the most useful
knowledge"; that "while it proves the wonderful properties of nature, it
demonstrates the more important truths of morality."
It cannot be denied that to the present generation and in
our present state of learning, Geometry is nothing of the kind. To anyone except
a Freemason, and to the great majority of them, the idea that Geometry
inculcates moral truth is utterly foreign and incomprehensible. Those members of
the craft who have ever thought of the matter at all, as a rule look upon these
expressions as crude extravagances, as distorted attempts to attach a
speculative meaning to a science or an art which had never properly borne any
other than a practical signification. We are not surprised, it is true, to find
still incorporated in our system these inheritances of a past age and simply
tolerate them as such without any serious attempt to ascertain their meaning or
to measure their significance.
While, as stated, Geometry does not at present enjoy any
such an enviable distinction among the sciences as that claimed for it in our
Masonic ritual, yet the time once was when it was precisely so regarded by the
wisest of men on earth. (13)
What then is the significance of these ideas of a past age
in our Masonic system ? It seems to me to afford the strongest internal evidence
of the great age of our Masonic ritual and symbolism. (14)
The seven liberal arts and sciences, as thus enumerated in
the lodge, are not now to be understood literally, but rather as a symbol of
what they once were in fact, namely, the entire domain of human knowledge and
research. No one man is, of course, expected to cultivate the whole of this vast
field, but this part of the ceremony of passing urges upon us the importance and
the duty of constantly applying our minds to the attainment of wisdom in some of
its forms. We have no right to be idle. It is a sin against God, ourselves and
society.
Contemplate the despicable figure of the habitual loafer
who sits on the curbstone or whittles away his days, telling anecdotes which
could not be repeated in respectable society. Listen to the "loud laugh of his
vacant mind," see what a large share of his time, that most priceless gift of
God, he wastes in indolence or in the pursuits that are either unprofitable or
positively hurtful. Is it any wonder that so many men fail in life and that the
progress of the race as a who |
