QUESTIONS ON "THE LION'S PAW"

THE BUILDER NOVEMBER 1920

What does the article in Mackey's Encyclopedia have to say concerning the
Lion's Paw? What is the substance of Mackey's article on "The Lion of the
Tribe of Judah"?

Why has the lion always been a favourite subject with symbolists? What
was the symbolism of the lion among early peoples in India? Of what was
it a symbol to the Nile dwellers? Give an example of the use of the lion
symbolism in Egyptian sculpture.  How does Harrison describe the raising
of Osiris?

What was the crux ansata, or "ansated cross" originally? In what manner
did it develop into the "Symbol of life" ? What did Albert Pike see in the crux
ansata?

How was the lion as a symbol used by the Jews? Where is it supposed that
the Comacine Masters derived their habitual use of the lion in their
cathedral building? What has Leader Scott to say concerning the lion in
architecture? What is Brother Haywood's theory as to how the symbolism
of the Lion's Paw came into Masonry?

What power did the people of the cathedral building period believe the
lioness to possess? Of what was this a symbol to them ?

Of what did the early Freemasons consider the lion a symbol?

Is there any difference between the real meaning of the symbolism of the
Lion's Paw as interpreted by Albert Pike and as interpreted by Leader
Scott?

Does the symbol refer to a raising in this life, or in a future life?

SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES

THE BUILDER:

Vol. II. - The Square and the Cross, p. 52.
Vol III. - Egyptian Cross, p. 355.
Vol. IV. - The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, p. 295.
Vol. VI. - Symbolism of the Lion's Paw, Nov. C.C.B., p. 4.

Mackey's Encyclopedia:
Crux Ansata, p. 191; Lion's Paw, p.448; Lion of the Tribe of Judah, p. 802.

THIRD STEPS
BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA

PART VII-THE LION'S PAW

The Mackey Encyclopedia article on this subject is very brief, as may be
seen from the following: "A mode of recognition so called because of the
rude resemblance made by the hand and fingers to a lion's paw.  It refers
to the 'Lion of the tribe of Judah.'" This is true as far as it goes, but it
doesn't go far enough, for it leaves unanswered the questions of origin and
interpretation.  Nor does the companion article on the "Lion of the Tribe of
Judah" give us much more information.  If Mackey refrained from saying
more because he knew no more we can sympathize with him, seeing that
at this late day there is still very little known about the matter.  But we have
learned something since Mackey wrote, enough maybe, to set us on the
track toward a satisfactory understanding of the matter.

Owing to its appeal to the imagination, and to the fear and reverence it has
ever aroused, the lion has always been a favourite with symbolists,
especially religious symbolists. Our modern anthropologists and folk-lore
experts have furnished us with numberless examples of this, even among
savages, who are sometimes found worshipping the animal at this day. 
Among the early peoples of India the lion was often used, and generally
with the same significance, as standing for "the divine spirit in man." Among
the early Egyptians it was still more venerated as may be learned from their
monuments, their temples, and especially their sphinxes; if we may trust
our authorities in the matter the Nile dwellers used it as a symbol of the
life-giving power of the sun and the sun's ability to bring about the
resurrection of vegetation in the spring time.  In some of the sculpture left
by the Egyptians to illustrate the rites of the Egyptian Mysteries the
candidate is shown lying on a couch shaped like a lion from which he is
being raised from the dead level to a living perpendicular.  The bas-reliefs
at Denderah make this very plain, though they represent the god Osiris
being raised instead of a human candidate. "Here," writes J. E. Harrison in
her very interesting little book on "Ancient Art and Ritual," "the God is
represented first as a mummy swathed and lying flat on his bier.  Bit by bit
he is seen raising himself up in a series of gymnastically impossible
positions, till he rises..... all but erect, between the outstretched wings of
Isis, while before him a male figure holds the crux ansata, the 'cross with
a handle,' the Egyptian symbol of life."

The crux ansata was, as Miss Harrison truly says, the symbol of life.
Originally a stick, with a cross-piece at the top for a handle, it was used to
measure the overflow of the Nile.  Inasmuch as it was this overflow that
carried fertility into Egypt, the idea of a life giving power gradually became
transferred to the instrument itself; in the same manner that we attribute to
a writer's "pen" his ability to use words.  A few of our Masonic expositors,
among whom Albert Pike may be numbered, have seen in the crux ansata
the first form of that Lion's Paw by which the Masonic Horus is raised.  If
this be the case, the Lion's Paw is a symbol of life-giving power, an
interpretation which fits in very well with our own position as outlined in the
two preceding sections.

But it is also possible to trace the Lion's Paw to another source.  Among
the Jews the lion was sometimes used as the emblem of the Tribe of
Judah; as the Messiah was expected to spring from that tribe the Lion was
also made to refer to him, as may be seen in the fifth verse of the fifth
chapter of the Book of Revelation, where Jesus Christ is called the "Lion of
the Tribe of Judah." It was from this source, doubtless, that the Comacines,
the great Cathedral Builders of the Middle Ages, who were always so loyal
to the Scriptures, derived their habitual use of the lion in their sculptures.
Of this, Leader Scott, the great authority on the Comacines, writes that "My
own observations have led me to the opinion that in Romanesque or
Transition architecture, i.e. between A. D. 1000 and 1200, the lion is to be
found between the columns and the arch - the arch resting upon it.  In
Italian Gothic, i.e. from A. D. 1200 to 1500, it is placed beneath the column. 
In either position its significance is evident.  In the first, it points to Christ
as the door of the church. In the second, to Christ, the pillar of faith,
springing from the tube of Judah." Since the cathedral builders were in all
probability the first Freemasons it seems clear that the lion symbolism was
inherited from the Comacines.

During the cathedral building period, when symbolism was flowering out on
all sides in medieval life, the lion was one of the most popular figures in the
common animal mythology, as may be learned from Physiologers, the old
book in which that mythology has been preserved.  According to this
record, the people believed that the whelps of the lioness were born dead
and that at the end of three days the lion would howl above them until they
were awakened into life.  In this the childlike people saw a symbol of
Christ's resurrection after He had lain dead three days in the tomb; from
this it naturally resulted that the lion came to be used as a symbol of the
Resurrection, and such is the significance of the picture of a lion howling
above the whelps, so often found in the old churches and cathedrals.

The early Freemasons, so the records show, read both these meanings,
Christ and Resurrection, into the symbol as they used it.  And when we
consider that all Freemasonry was Christian in belief down at least to the
Grand Lodge era, we may be certain that the lion symbol is one of the
vestiges of that early belief carried over into the modern system.  If this be
the case the Lion's Paw has the same meaning, whether we interpret it,
with Pike, as an Egyptian symbol, or with Leader Scott, as a Christian
emblem, as it stands for the life-giving power, a meaning that perfectly
accords with its use in the Third degree.  This also brings it into harmony
with our interpretation of Eternal Life, for in both its Egyptian and its
Christian usages it refers to a raising up to life in this world, and not to a
raising in the world to come.


