EVERY ancient religion and every ancient society had its heroic age
and its mythology; Freemasonry offers no exception to the rule. Toward the
beginning of the present century and the end of the cocksure nineteenth, it was
a fashion to look back with disdain upon the childlike fancies of the storied
past. Nowadays we are less certain that all knowledge can be weighed and
measured, or that the laboratory alone can resolve truth into its component elements.
We are constantly confronted with the necessity of revising judgments in every
department of science, philosophy and religion. Occasionally it happens that
some tenet, once held and then rejected, must be revived in the light of more
recent information.
In no departments of learning has this necessity become more apparent
or been more frequently displayed than in those concerned with historical and
literary criticism. Thus it has been found that many a folk tale, trivial in
its content, has enwombed the germ of an important discovery. The skilled eye
must therefore scan closely the lore of numerous almost forgotten peoples for intimations
of their true greatness. When their mythologies are compared one with another,,
a scroll not infrequent consequence is the unrolling of a scroll whereon is
written an indispensable chapter in the annals of mankind.
Each taken alone, a Greek legend of Apollo, a Persian legend of Mithra,
an Egyptian legend of Osiris, or a Norse legend of Balder might be dismissed
lightly as a crude invention of barbaric minds, touched somehow with that
instinctive feeling for beauty which dignifies and ennobles the human
intellect. Taken together, with many another like them, they afford a clew to
man’s unceasing search for the truth about God, a search which at one time or another
invariably leads the seeker’s mind to “soar aloft and read the wisdom, strength
and beauty of the Creator in the heavens.” Apollo is the sun, Mithra is the
sun, Osiris is the sun, Balder is the sun, and although each of these pagan
deities had other attributes, they belong to a universal solar mythology the
existence of which constitutes a set of facts the historian must ponder well if
he is rightly to understand the unfolding of human faith.
Similarly it comes about that in considering the tales which have gone
into the making of Masonic mythology, the student ought not to underrate their
importance. As testimony to literal truth many of them are obviously to be
disregarded; but as testimony to what men have believed to be the truth their
value is incalculably great. When
Herodotus doubted the tale of the seafaring Phoenicians he gave a useful
measure of his own knowledge of astronomy. He doubted that tale because by the
science of his day the southern limit of the earth was placed at about where
the equator is now known to be. It would not be fair to ridicule his
understanding because he knew nothing of the southern hemisphere; it would be equally
unfair to ridicule the credulity of Masonic writers of the early eighteenth
century because they knew nothing of some commonplace principles of modern
criticism.
The philosophy of the 1700’s had not advanced greatly beyond the limitations
imposed by Aristotle; medicine had made little progress since the days of
Hippocrates; physics and chemistry were but emerging from the penumbra of
hermetic mysticism; men were still gravely debating the dogma of the divine
right of kings; deists were questioning the literal infallibility of the Bible
for reasons which would seem infantile even to agnostics of today; the science of
comparative religion had not yet been born. In claiming antediluvian origins
for the Fraternity the wish among eighteenth- century brethren was father to
the thought; but before censuring them for an easy faith in what they wanted to
believe, allowance should be made for their uncritical times and the nature and
character of the source material with which they had to work. When modern writers, with far better means
of information, fall into similar and infinitely less excusable errors, it is
scarcely astonishing that Anderson and Preston and Oliver made no valiant struggle
against the seductions of an attractive romanticism.
Mention has been made heretofore of the Regius Poem, but it is by no
means to be supposed that this was the only early Masonic scripture of the
kind. It remains the oldest of them, in respect of the time which has elapsed
since it was put upon paper, but it bears every evidence of having derived from
others still older. Another of considerable antiquity, known as the Dowland
Manuscript and dating from about the year 1500, may be regarded as typical of
the lore from which Anderson and the others drew their inspiration. Full as it is of anachronisms and historical
absurdities, this document is nevertheless of great interest and importance.
According to the Dowland legend, Freemasonry existed before the Flood.
It is related that the Israelitish patriarch, Lamech, had two wives, Adah and
Zillah. By Adah he had two sons, Jabal, the father of tent dwellers and
herdsmen, and Jubal, the ancestor of musicians. By Zillah he had Tubal-cain and
a fourth child, a daughter. The four are said to have founded all the arts and sciences,
but it is significant that the daughter speedily drops out of the narrative,
although it is recorded of her that she instituted the art of weaving. Of the
triumvirate of sons - Masonic observers will quickly catch the significance of
the number three in this association - Jabal is set forth as the founder of
geometry, Jubal as founder of the science of instrumental music, and Tubal -
cain as founder of the science of smithcraft in gold, silver, copper, iron and
steel.
Having a premonition of the impending deluge, the three brothers, it
is related, determined to write their discoveries on two pillars, one of marble
which could not be destroyed by fire and one of brick which would resist
moisture. The record is somewhat obscure as to the postdiluvian fate of these
records, with their data of Masonry, but there are auxiliary traditions that in
later centuries one was found by Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian priest and scholar,
and that the other was found by Pythagoras.
The legend next describes how Masonry flourished after the Flood. Nimrod is listed among its most influential
patrons. Masons are said to have been employed in building the Tower of Babel;
Abraham and Sarah to have taught its seven sciences to the Egyptians.
In Abraham’s time it became necessary to find an instructor for the youth of
the land and the person to whom this task was assigned was a “worthy Scollar
that height Ewclyde.” Euclid is represented as having composed for his pupils a
charge which in phraseology is strikingly like charges given in medieval operative
lodges. Also he is said to have taught them geometry, which now “is called
throughout all this land Masonrye.”
Coming down to the times of Solomon, the legend discusses the building
Of the Temple, the traditional three personages of that enterprise being King
Solomon, Hiram, King of Tyre and Aynon, described as the son of Hiram of Tyre.
This name is undoubtedly a variant of that of Hiram Abiff, although the builder
of the Scriptural account was not a son of Hiram, but the son of a widow of the
tribe of Dan; his father had been a certain goldsmith of Tyre. Engaged in the work was one Maymus Grecus, a
Greek, who afterwards, it is said, introduced Masonry into France in the time of
Charles Martel. The Craft was carried from France to England, where it received
the encouragement of St. Alban, but died out after his time, being restored in
the reign of Athelstan when Prince Edwin’s great assembly of Masons was
convoked at York.
The trifling details of implausibility involved in making contemporaries
of Abraham and Euclid, of Solomon, Charles Martel and St. Alban, naturally did
not trouble the simple workmen who repeated this and similar tales in their
medieval assemblies. Such a story
satisfied the curiosity of those who believed their fraternal society to be of
impressive and continuous antiquity. It carried Freemasonry back to the early
generations after Adam, squared it with the major incidents of the Old
Testament, identified it with architecture and geometry and accounted for its
translation from ancient Palestine to England by way of France. Passed along from
mouth to mouth, the legend underwent modifications. Sometimes variants would appear and those possessing two or more
versions would attempt to harmonize them; when that task seemed too great, they
got around the difficulty by cheerfully including them all, as in the case of
the Regius Poem. The hearer could take his choice as to what he would accept,
if he could not accept it all.
After the formation of the first Grand Lodge, and especially after
the Duke of Montagu became Grand Master in 1721, the Craft became immensely
popular. There were notable accessions of members and the newly made brethren,
being speculatives almost to a man, clamored for a historical literature
reasonably authoritative. Diligent search was made for old manuscripts and particularly
for constitutions and charges used in operative lodges. The Reverend James Anderson, a Scot,
minister of a Presbyterian chapel in Piccadilly, was appointed chairman of a
committee authorized by the Grand Master to prepare a book on the subject. He overshadowed his associates to such
extent that they left the task in his hands and he prepared the memorable
volume published in 1723 with the high-sounding title, The Constitutions of the
Freemasons, Containing the History, Charges, Regulations, etc.., of that most
Ancient and Right Worshipful Fraternity. It was described as being “for the use
of the lodges” and as being printed at London “In the Year of Masonry 5723;
Anno Domini 1723.’
The historical portion of Anderson’s book begins with a gay assumption
that Adam must have had the liberal sciences, particularly geometry, written on
his heart; that he no doubt taught them to his sons, and that they were handed
down until they reached Noah, whose ark, though of wood, “was certainly fabricated
by Geometry and according to the rules of Masonry.” Noah and his three sons, “all
Masons true,” brought the Art with them across the Flood and handed it on so
successfully that it was able to contribute to the building of the Tower of
Babel. After the dispersion from that work, brethren carried it into all parts
of the earth. Among other celebrities who embraced it was Nimrod. Priests and magi preserved and propagated it
throughout Assyria and the neighboring lands. It was transported to Egypt by
Mizraim, second son of Ham, and was employed there to control the annual overflow
of the Nile.
Other descendants of Ham, this lively narrative goes on to say, made
use of the art to build strongholds in Palestine, in South Arabia and in West
Africa. Indeed, fortifications built with its aid by the Canaanites were so
strong that Jehovah was compelled to intervene before the Israelites were able
to overthrow them. Meanwhile the
posterity of Japhet had been taking Masonry into the “isles of the Gentiles,”
and descendants of Shem were transporting it eastward from Assyria into Asia.
Abraham was an adept and took Masonry with him to Egypt. Moses, following divine
instructions in the erection of the first tabernacle, became “the General
Master Mason, “ and was “divinely inspired with more sublime knowledge in
Masonry.” Thanks to him, Israel became “a whole kingdom of Masons, well
instructed under the conduct of their Grand Master, Moses.”
Having brought his story down to the time of Solomon, Dr. Anderson goes into elaborate description of
the building of the Temple under the supervision of King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre
and Hiram Abiff. When the task was done, the master workmen scattered into all
parts of the world, in every known land teaching their art to the freeborn sons
of eminent persons. In this way it reached the Greeks, although chief credit
for its propagation among them is given to the researches of Pythagoras,
through whose influence “Geometry became the darling study of Greece.” Afterwards
Euclid gathered up the scattered fragments of geometric science and “digested
them into a method that was never yet mended.” Ptolemeus Philadelphus, King of
Egypt, became a proselyte and ultimately reached the exalted rank of “General Master
Mason.”
The Romans borrowed Masonry from their neighbors and in time, Dr.
Anderson hopefully observes, it is to be “rationally believed that the glorious
Augustus became Grand Master of the Lodge at Rome.” He supposes the ancient
Britons got the art from Rome but lost it in the days of the Anglo-Saxons. It
was restored to England by craftsmen sent over by Charles Martel. Encouraged by
the later Saxon kings, it maintained a precarious foothold. Athelstan imported
many more Masons from France, who took over “charges and regulations preserved
from the Roman times.” Athelstan’s son, Prince Edwin, summoned a council of the
Craft at York and a general lodge was constituted, with Edwin as Grand Master.
Then Dr. Anderson gives what purports to be an account of the manner in which
the institution was preserved down to the time of the Grand Lodge over which
Montagu was then presiding.
It is easily perceived that Dr. Anderson had merely taken the old legends,
furbished them up, eliminated their more glaring anachronisms, supplied
connecting links wherever these were wanting and rewritten the whole into an
imaginative, spirited and coherent tale. It probably did riot occur to him that
its basic hypotheses were in doubt; it would not have occurred to him to question
the literal and historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. He was too scholarly to
confuse the periods of Abraham and Euclid or those of Solomon and Charles
Martel.. He might attribute those inconsistencies to the garblings of
traditions repeated by generation after generation of unscholarly men. Assuming
the basic facts to be correct, he could look upon himself as one whose sole
function was to reconstruct the story in the light of ripe scholarship. Surely to
the just of mind it is possible to ascribe at least that much of sincerity to
the worthy dominie and to dissent in his behalf from Hallam’s bitter indictment
for mendacity.
More than half a century later William Preston opened the third section
of Book I of his Illustrations of Masonry - a work destined to long usefulness
- with the words, “From the commencement of the world, we may trace the
foundations of Masonry.” Dr. George Oliver, eager not to be outdone in
conferring antiquity upon a society to which he made truly magnificent
contributions, asserted in his Antiquities that the Craft “existed before the
creation of this globe, and was diffused midst the numerous systems with which the
grand empyreum of universal space is furnished.”
Unfortunately for the good fame of Masonic scholarship, the credulity
of the eighteenth century did not pass with the eighteenth century. Tradition
then sealed with the official imprimatur of the Fraternity was destined to
survive for many years, during which to question it was to incur an imputation
of Masonic heresy. It would be rash to say that it has passed away even yet,
although in recent times it has moved in a new direction through developments
in archeology, criticism and the science of symbolism.
In 1886 American Freemasonry was deeply stirred by the appearance
of a book which even now continues to cause mild astonishment among informed
brethren. The title itself was sufficient to make the judicious grieve, for in
all its panoplied fulsomeness it read: Sacred Mysteries Among the Mayas and the
Quiches 1500 Years Ago: Their Relation to the Sacred Mysteries of Egypt,
Greece, Chaldea, and India: Freemasonry at a Time Anterior to the Temple of
Solomon. This book was written by Augustus le Plongeon, who undertook to show
that Freemasonry was first brought to America from Egypt or Atlantis or some
other ancient place twelve millenniums ago, at which time it had already become
gray from unimaginable antiquity.
Not to be outdone by the enthusiastic le Plongeon, Dr. Albert Churchward
came next upon the scene with his Origin and Evolution of Freemasonry, his The
Arcana of Freemasonry and his Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man. It is
somewhat hard for a reader to be sure, from perusal of so many thousand pages
of closely packed theories, precisely how old Dr. Churchward believes
Freemasonry to be. On page 11 of Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man he speaks
of “20,000 years ago,” and goes on to remark that then, as now, it was
scattered over the face of the globe. Elsewhere in the same book he suggests
the antiquity as “probably 50,000 years.” But in piecing together numerous
other references scattered through his latest volumes there are reasons to think
that in his heart of hearts Dr. Churchward is inclined to suspect that it must
be 600,000 years old - or at any rate that it began to take form that long ago.
He thus imparts to the Craft an antiquity which ought to satisfy the most
covetous of fancies.
Of all the possible fields of research, symbolism has yielded most
readily to the labors of the cultivator. The reasons of this are obvious. Since
cults have existed in all lands and ages and since symbolism has invariably
been enlisted to perpetuate their teachings, no great exercise of ingenuity is
required to see that cults widely scattered in space and time must have hit
upon similar basic doctrines and must have employed similar, if not identical, signs
and symbols with which to record their teachings. All such cults may be
described as a kind of freemasonry, just as Freemasonry may be described as a
kind of cult. It is safe to predict that if a group of scholarly innovators
attempted tomorrow to elaborate a new Masonic degree and to fashion for it a
new system of signs and symbols, they could not create a comprehensive ritual
without unconsciously imitating others known somewhere in the world of long
ago.
The fallacy of all this sort of thing is that it reasons by
analogy alone whereas analogy at best supplies but contributory evidence. This is the kind of thinking which the late
Woodrow Wilson described by his picturesque phrase about a “one-track mind.” If
a more prosy word may be employed, one who thinks in that fashion may be said
to possess a “lineal” mind, a mind under compulsion to retrace every given
thing to some antecedent point in history.
Working in any historical field, such a mind finds chaos, which it
hates as Nature abhors a vacuum. jungles of fact lie all about and it is
unhappy if it cannot reduce the confusion to system. It must lay down charts
and diagrams, neatly building roads, boring tunnels, erecting bridges. It
agonizes over breaches and gaps, reasoning that although such things are they
ought not to be. When urged on by uncontrollable enthusiasm or unchastened by
proper self-criticism, it finds the temptation to re-interpret all facts in the
terms of its own obsession too great to be resisted. Rarely is it inclined to
scan closely the authenticity of a bit of evidence which appears to support its
theories.
>From Anderson to extremists of the modern anthropological school,
minds of that type have been particularly attracted by the speculative
possibilities of Freemasonry. However they may have differed in other respects
they have always had one delusion in common - they have confidently held that
there was such a thing as the origin of Masonry. All attempts which have been
made to trace Freemasonry in some unbroken line to Solomon’s Temple, to the Egyptian
mysteries, to the Essenes, to the Druses, to the Knights Templar, to the
Gypsies, to the Comacine Masters, to the Rosicrucians or to any of a thousand
other suggested sources, have been vitiated by the errors characteristic of the
lineally minded historian. He presupposes the untenable theory that a complex cultural
development like Freemasonry began with one man or a group of men at one time
and in one place and that it remained within the custody of an uninterrupted
succession of legitimate heirs.
The historical mind which works laterally as well as lineally is quick
to concede that it is beyond the capacity of human intelligence to reduce the
tangle of all humanity’s past to a single simple scheme of rational
progression. It knows well that at best the searcher for truth must rest
content with a handful of facts here and another handful there, with gaps,
guesses and probabilities in between; that there must be much groping through
the dark by aid of working hypotheses and tentative theories, which are to be retained
as long as they do work and do explain but must be discarded when new
discoveries make them no longer reasonable.
To such a mind the known facts and plausible guesses about Freemasonry
indicate that it has unfolded and taken form in pretty much the same general
fashion as that which marked other social developments, examples of which are
the church and the family. Or, to
return to a form of illustration already used in the present work, it finds
Freemasonry to be a social Gulf of Mexico into which many river systems, with
thousands of tributaries, have emptied themselves. Therefore this type of mind
is not disturbed overmuch if unable to trace so many streams back to a single fountainhead.
It is wise for the student to be on guard against the enthusiasms
of the single-track mind and against the ambitions of those who have their own
systems to set up or wish to demolish the systems set up by others. Freemasonry
is a world within itself, going on all the while, busy with countless internal
activities, and naturally tending to subdivide into self-determining groups.
Here is one which looks upon the institution as primarily a religious society
serving as a handmaid to the church. There is one which regards it as a club to
further social pleasures. Yonder is one which sees in it a form of theosophic
occultism, in custody of some Ancient Wisdom which is to be propagated through
the lodges. Another finds in it a form of mysticism, a secret path along which
the soul may travel the Way of Divine Union. Still another interprets it as a
school for moral and intellectual culture. The protagonist of each group observes
the whole institution from the viewpoint of his particular prepossession. He is
not to be charged with dishonesty if in writing of Masonic history he deludes
himself into the belief that all facts fit into the mosaic of his pet theory,
yet it should always be borne in mind that the function of the advocate, of the
special pleader, is necessarily different from that of the historian.
The first notably successful attempt to make Masonic history conform
to the canons of scientific criticism was made by Robert Freke Gould,
originally in his History of Freemasonry, next in his A Concise History of
Freemasonry and then in essays contributed to Ars Quatuor Coronatorum. This
distinguished soldier, lawyer and scholar, born in Devon, England, in 1836, was
made a Mason in Royal Naval Lodge No. 429, Ramsgate, in 1855. Between 1880 and
1882 he published the various parts of his History of Freemasonry. In 1903 he
published the Concise History, which, without being an abridgment of the
earlier work, reviews and revises some of its important conclusions. Five years
after Gould’s death in 1915 the Concise History was revised by Fred J. W. Crowe.
These two works together have had a wider reading, have been more
often quoted and have plowed more deeply into Masonic thought than any other
contribution to Masonic literature since Dr.
Oliver’s appeared. The significance of this lies in the fact that Gould’s
fame rests upon his rigid adherence to the canons of historical writing obeyed
by scientific historians in nonMasonic fields. His work cuts across the
Fraternity’s scriptures like a mountain range, dividing them into two distinct
categories of before Gould and after Gould, making it now impossible for a
self- respecting student to follow the old uncritical habit of accepting every
floating rumor as Masonic history.
This man’s influence was in a sense institutionalized by the founding
in London of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Research No. 2076, which, although
it was not Gould’s “lengthened shadow,” and is not in any sense his creation or
his creature, nevertheless has during two score years of uninterrupted industry
built solidly and permanently into Masonic thought the ideals of historical
scholarship to which Gould devoted the latter half of his career. The petition
for the warrant of this lodge was signed by nine brethren the list of their
names reads, to those who have sat at their feet, like a legend from some
storied scroll: Sir Charles Warren, William Harry Rylands, Robert Freke Gould,
Adolphus Frederick Alexander Woodford, Walter Besant, John Paul Rylands, Sisson
Cooper Pratt, William James Hughan and George William Speth.
A warrant was granted by the Grand Master, under date of November
28, 1884, naming Sir Charles Warren as first Worshipful Master. Owing to the
absence of Sir Charles from the country the lodge was not constituted until
January 12, 1886. Its by-laws contained a provision that the membership should
never exceed forty. Later, at the suggestion of George William Speth, its first
secretary, the lodge organized its Outer Circle, through which Masons in all
parts of the world have opportunity to procure the published transactions of
its deliberations.
In a brief speech at the time of consecration, Sir Charles set
forth the purpose of Quatuor Coronati Lodge in one succinct sentence. “This Lodge,” he said, “will be the platform
where literary Masons can meet together to assist each other in developing the
history of the Craft.” Seldom has a plan adopted at the inception of such an enterprise
been more faithfully or more successfully carried out. From 1886 until today Quatuor Coronati Lodge
has continued to publish its yearly volumes under the title Ars Quatuor Coronatorum,
now a household word among studious Masons. It is no exaggeration to say that
these volumes constitute the most important set of Masonic books in existence
and that they set up a standard in the field of Masonic history to which
scholarship must conform if it is to maintain its self-respect.
Honest craftsmanship of this kind is slow and laborious, but it is
the only kind truly worth doing. It has meant painstaking examination of
diffuse and incomplete records. Often it has encountered formidable resistance
of obstinate secrecy, resistance firmly rooted in the esoteric character of
much Masonic doctrine. Men are
naturally persuaded more by their emotions than by reason, and such historical
spade-work is in itself anything but emotional. It has been hard to convince
many skeptics that Freemasonry has everything to gain and nothing to lose by a scientific
appraisal of its records and traditions; that while a few illusions may be lost
in the process, it will establish realities infinitely more valuable than the
illusions.
Yet that is the truth. Gradually the old mists and fogs are
lifting even from the vales; everywhere the strong sunlight of reality discloses
the handiwork of patient and sturdy human endeavor. Freemasonry has always been what it is today, a society or societies
of men, unequipped with supernatural faculties, unendowed with mysterious gifts
of magic, men living out their lives in the human world as other men do, acting
always upon their environment and in turn being forever acted upon by it. The Fraternity
as it is came slowly and gradually into existence, drew freely from innumerable
other human cultures and experiences as all human societies have done. To
penetrate to its inward life, and to trace the development of that life from
century to century and from place to place, is a discipline in culture that
carries within itself its own reward. The history of Masonry is one chapter, written
at divers times and often in strange alphabets, of the great history of
mankind. It has its Tintagels and Camelots, shrouded in the golden haze of myth
and legend; it has its own strong and material edifice, built foursquare to all
the winds that blow, the foundations going down to the bedrock of human nature
and its soaring towers pointing upward to God.