THE BUILDER
MARCH 1920

QUESTIONS ON "INTRODUCTION TO THIRD STEPS"

In a study of Third Steps shall we expect to find architectural
symbolism as in our preceding studies? In what terms were the
teachings in First and Second Steps given to us? Of what will our
new studies treat?

Who originated our Third degree? and when? Have these questions
ever been satisfactorily answered?

How many degrees were there at the beginning of the Grand Lodge
period? What were they? Why was the old Apprentice degree divided
into two parts? When was this division made?

Did this change meet with unanimous approval? Was the new degree
universally worked immediately after the division?

Why was the new degree so slow to meet with universal approval? Was
it welcomed by Masons outside of London?

Who is believed to have been responsible for the introduction of
this new material?

What was the new material introduced between 1723 and 1738? Why
does Brother Haywood not believe that it was the Hiram Abiff
legend? What is Brother Haywood's theory concerning the substance
of this legend? His answer to the question, Who imported the new
material? Was the Third degree as elaborate from the first as it is
now? Is it worked uniformly in all countries? In all Grand
Jurisdictions in the United States?

If you received the degree in another State than the one in which
you now reside, state for the benefit of the other members of your
Study Club some of the details in which the work as you received it
differs from that of the Jurisdiction where you now live.

What is the possibility of our learning the full details concerning
the origin and early working of the degree in the very near future?
Do we have record of similar legends in existence before our
present Masonic system was established? Can you cite some of them?

What is the purpose of this degree?  What is its secret?

SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES

THE BUILDER:

Vol. II. - Differences of Ritual, p. 381; Some Deeper Aspects of
Masonic Symbolism - The Third Degree, p. 109; Uniform Work, pp.
348, 382; York Rite, p. 327.

Vol. III. - Causes of Divergence in Ritual, Nov. C.C.B., p. 4; The
Lodge and The Candidate - The Degrees, Nov. C.C.B., p. 1.

Vol. IV - The Degrees Problem, April C.C.B., p. 6.

Mackey's Encyclopedia:
Degrees, p. 203

THIRD STEPS
PART I - INTRODUCTION TO THIRD STEPS
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, 

THE MOMENT one enters into a study of the Third Steps he finds
himself in an atmosphere very different from that of the First and
Second: the opening and closing ceremonies are similar to theirs
but the architectural symbolism which was in them the predominant
feature is here crowded into the background by a symbolism of a
very different order; for whereas the first two degrees deliver
their message in the terms of building, the Third speaks of a
living and a dying and a using again.  Its language is that of life
and death.  And so compact is it of profound meanings that it
furnishes the suggestions, as many scholars have noted, from which
the highest grades have developed their magnificent teachings.

By what men the degree was made, or when, are questions on which
our authorities differ so widely that one student - Brother Robert
I. Clegg - has collected no fewer than twenty different theories,
while another - Brother Hextall - has found fourteen different
interpretations.  Where so many scholars have failed to discover a
satisfactory hypothesis it would ill become me to offer a theory of
my own, and I must content myself to state, as nearly as I can,
such positions is the majority have agreed on.

It seems that in the beginning of the Grand Lodge period there were
at most but two degrees, these being known as the Apprentice and
Fellow Craft or Master Mason parts, the latter being convertible
terms.  But during this same period as much new material - new at
least, to the ritual of initiation - was introduced that it became
necessary to break up the old Apprentice degree into two parts
leaving the old Second to become the new Third.  This was done for
the sake of convenience, as the ceremonies had grown too long for
only two evenings.  This division was made some time between 1723
and 1738.

The new arrangement was a long time in gaining a foothold among the
brethren.  At first only a few were made Masters and then only in
Grand Lodge; in fact so few knew how to "put on" the degree that
for some time special "Masters' Lodges" were organized for the
purpose.  The progress of the tri-gradal system was even slower in
countries other than England; Gould notes that the Third did not
become common in Scottish Lodges until after 1770.

Why was the Third so slow in "taking on" if it was the old Second
degree? The explanation of the problem seems to be that so much new
material had been added to it that it had become practically a new
ceremony. There is even some reason to believe that it was this new
material which gave offense to many old Masons living at a distance
from London, who were thereby led to form the rival Grand Lodge of
"the Ancients."

By whom was this new material introduced? Some attribute the
innovations to Preston, others to Dr. Desaguliers; others, of whom
Pike was one, held to the theory that at the time of the Revival
certain groups of Speculatives seized the opportunity to embody
some of their own ideas in the ritual.  Another theory, more
reasonable than these, it seems to me, will be brought out when we
seek to answer the next question.

What was the new material introduced between 1723 - 1738? Many of
our scholars, perhaps a majority, would answer, "The Hiram Abiff
legend." As we are to devote a section to this we can not go into
that matter here except to say that it seems unreasonable, on the
face of it that so elaborate a drama, occupying the greater part of
one whole degree, could not have been bodily imported into the
ritual as a wholly new thing; the conservative "old Mason," of whom
many were surviving during the Revival period, would not have
tolerated so huge an innovation.  The more reasonable theory is
that the substance of the legend, and materials appertaining
thereto, had long been a part of the floating tradition of the
Craft if indeed, as there is some evidence to show, it was not a
part of the old operative ritual.  This would answer the question,
Who imported the new material? No one man or group of men imported
it; "the Third Degree was no made, it grew - like the great
cathedrals, no one of which can be ascribed to a single artist, but
to an order of men working in unity of enterprise and aspiration."
To this it may be added that the degree has not ceased to grow, in
America at least, for it is more elaborate here than in England,
even as it is more elaborate there than in other countries - more
elaborate, and different.

By whom the degree was made, and when, will furnish material for
many debates in years to come and in the lap of that future must
the problem be laid but of one thing we can be very sure, the idea
shined in the ceremony is so old that we find it serving as the
motif of initiatory dramas long before the dawn of history.  In
every one of the Ancient Mysteries, so far as we have any memorials
of them, the action centred in the violent death of some just
person and his being raised again.  In various guises was this idea
presented but always did it convey the same truth - that in men
there is something that can not die, that this "something" is akin
to the divine, that it can be given the rule of a man during his
earth pilgrimage, and that it is the purpose of initiation to
discover and to crown this divine element in human life.  This is
nothing other than Regeneration; it is nothing other than Eternal
Life, the life of God in the soul of man lived in the bounds of
time and space and under human conditions.  Such, I take it, is the
secret of our Third degree.  To elicit that secret, and to expound
it, will be the task of the remaining sections of our study.
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