SOME  REFLEXIONS  REGARDING  THE  NUMBER  FIVE
by Jacques Huyghebaert
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During the second degree ceremony the candidate is informed that 
Freemasonry is a progressive moral science divided into different degrees, 
and as its mystic ceremonies are regularly developed and illustrated, it is 
intended and hoped that they will make a deep and lasting impression upon 
his mind.  1

Traditionally it has been required that the Brethren endeavour to commit to 
memory the working and various ceremonies of the Craft.  This demand has 
never been intended to trifle with anybody, but to teach us an important lesson 
: i.e. that all our efforts to acquire knowledge will remain useless, if we are to 
forget all we learn.

No one has, however, wished any Brother ever to become a " Parrot-Mason".
In order to understand that which, through the succession of ages, has been 
transmitted unimpaired, and which we regard as the "Most Excellent tenets" of 
our ancient and honourable Fraternity, we need to take a closer look at the 
Lodge work, the precise wording of the questions and answers, the true 
content of the lectures, and the deep sense of the various symbols made use 
of during our ceremonies.

Albert Pike, who was the Grand Commander of the Ancient and Accepted 
Scottish Rite from 1859 to 1891, has written the following about the essence of 
Masonry :

"The vagueness of symbolism, capable of many interpretations, reaches what 
the palpable and conventional cannot. Its indefiniteness acknow-ledges the 
abstruseness of the subject; it treats it mystically, it endeavours to illustrate 
what it cannot explain, to excite an appropriate feeling, or to develop an 
adequate idea, and to make the image a mere subordinate conveyance for 
the con-ception"

"Masonry, successor of the Egyptian Mysteries, still follows the ancient 
manner of teaching.  Her ceremonies are like the ancient mystic shows, not 
the reading of an essay, but the opening of a problem, requiring research.  
Her symbols are the instruction she gives.  The lectures are endea-vours to 
interpret these symbols.  He who would become an accomplished Mason 
must not be content merely to hear, or even to understand the lectures; he 
must, aided by them, and they having, as it were, marked out the way for him, 
study, inter-pret, and develop these symbols for himself."  2

Masonic tradition informs us that at the building of King Solomon's Temple, 
the Craft were arranged in three classes : Entered Apprentices or bearers of 
burdens, Fel-lowcrafts or hewers on the mountains and in the quarries, and 
Masters or Overseers of the Work. 

The Entered Apprentice Mason works with the gavel and the chisel to break 
off the superfluous parts of the rough ashlar.

The Fellowcraft has different working tools : the level and the square.  These 
instruments are not made to cut the stone, but to verify and position the 
building stones according to the plan. 

The compass is for the Master Mason, neither to cut the stone, nor to build the 
edifice, but to draw designs upon the trestle board. 

It becomes clear, even in operative Masonry, that improvement of 
craftsmanship, necessarily leads to a gradual development of the mental 
faculties of the Artist, and vice-versa.

In the first degree, the square is placed upon the extended points of the 
compass, in the second degree, one point of the compass is elevated above 
the square, and in the third degree the square is completely covered by the 
compass.

This progression indicates to Freemasons, that the way leading to Perfection, 
both operative and speculative, requires a slow but constant shift from the 
square to the compass, or, in other words, from matter towards spirit.

This is why, in the second degree, the symbols stress the importance of 
numbers.

The old catechisms referred to the number required to make "a full and perfect 
lodge" or a "true and perfect lodge", or some such similar expression.

The answers varied, but the use of three, five and seven was fairly constant.

  Q.	What makes a true and perfect Lodge ?

  A.	Seven Masters, five entered apprentices.

  Q.	Does no less make a true and perfect Lodge ?

  A.	Yes, five Masons and three entered apprentices.

  Q.	Does no less ? 
 	
  A.	The more the merrier, the fewer the better cheer."


When after the Union of the Grand Lodges in 1813 the Emulation ritual 
appeared, the lectures of the three degrees had seven, five and three sections 
respectively, the minimum numbers which the lectures claimed were required 
to form a Lodge in each of those degrees.

The third section of the  California third degree lecture states that :

" Entered Apprentice Masons assembled on the ground floor of King 
Solomon's Temple, and their lodges consisted of no less than seven; one 
Master, the other Entered Apprentice Masons.  Fellowcrafts held their 
meetings in the Middle Chamber of King Solomon's Temple, and their lodges 
consisted of no less than five; two Masters, the other Fellowcrafts; Master 
Masons met in the Sanctum Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies, and their lodge 
consisted of three ."

During the second section of the Fellow Craft degree ceremony, the attention 
of the candidate is directed to a representation of a flight of winding stairs 
consisting of three, five and seven steps.

Here is an extract from " Leaves from Georgia Masonry", on the number five in 
relation to the staircase :

"Having climbed up the first three steps, and laid the foundation of your 
Masonic building, you see now a flight of five steps, replete with profound 
meaning.  For five is a sacred number ever found in connection with two, and 
with seven.  Jesus is said to have fed the multitude with five loaves and two 
fishes, and of the fragments there remained twelve baskets, that is five and 
seven.  The five steps show on one side the five orders of architecture, and on 
the other the five human senses.  Now when you hear of a 'sacred' number, 
you think probably that means nothing to you personally, but stop and 
consider a moment.  This number five is engraved in your being more than 
once.  Examine yourself, and you find five fingers, five toes, and five avenues 
through which the outside world can communicate with that mysterious being 
who sits in the centre of your con-sciousness and receives and translates - no 
man knows how - the various messages carried to the brain by the nerves 
from the outside world." 3

The use of numbers has always had a special significance to Freemasons. 

" All things are in numbers ", said our ancient friend and brother, the Great 
Pythagoras; " the world is a living arithmetic in its development, and       a 
realized geometry in its repose."

Nature is a realm of numbers; crystals are solid geometry.  Music moves with 
measured step, using geometrical figures, and cannot free itself from numbers 
without dying away into discord.

Equally so it is with the art of building - a living allegory in which man imitates 
in miniature the world-temple, and seeks by every device to discover the 
secret of its stability.  4

This is why our ritual states :
"A survey of nature, and the observation of her beautiful proportions, first 
determined man to imitate the Divine plan, and to study symmetry and order. 

The number FIVE is traditionally expressed by the five-pointed or blazing star, 
the mysterious pentalpha of Pythagoras.

The pentalpha has been found on sarcophagi and ancient carvings, and has 
a long association with the religions and mysteries of Antiquity.  It is a magic 
sign in astrology, alchemy, and cabbalistic law.

Astronomically it represented Sirius or the Dog Star.  On wall paintings of 
Egyptian tombs, we can still see Isis, surmounted by the five pointed star.

Thousands of years before Christ astronomers had observed that Sirius was 
an important star, not only for the forecast of the return of seasons, but also for 
the determination of the heavenly cycles.

That is why the star Sirius was chosen by the Egyptians to mark the "sacred 
year", corresponding to the precessional cycle of the equinoxes, the duration 
of which is known to encompass more than 25 milleniums.

They also had noticed that the star Sirius, the star Spica and the terrestrial 
globe, display a right-angled triangle upon the skies.

Spica is the main star of the constellation Virgo.  That may seem irrelevant to 
the second degree - it is not - for Spica means "ear of corn" in Latin which 
translated into Hebrew gives " Shibboleth".  The star Spica is located on the 
milky way, which the Egyptians called the celestial Nile.  And that perhaps can 
provide us with another hint to the signification of the "ear of corn suspended 
near a waterford".

According to Diodorus, a Greek historian who lived in the 1st century B.C., the 
Ancients represented the universe by the NUMBER FIVE.

To the Alchemists it was the sign of the Quintessence.  To the Magi, the Grand 
Arcanum.  To the Cabbalists, the sacred Pentagram.

As Masons, studying numbers, we may say that five is four plus one,  5 = 4 + 1.

We already know that the number four alludes to the four elements of Nature :  
earth, water, air and fire.

We also know that the number one signifies the beginning, the source, the 
principle, the essence of all things.  

We therefore are entitled to deduct that FIVE, being an association of ONE 
and FOUR, alludes to nothing else than the mystery of LIFE.

Our ritual states that " by Geometry we may curiously trace Nature through her 
various windings to her most concealed recesses."

" A survey of Nature teaches us indeed that, five and its geometrical 
equivalent, the five pointed star, is a very frequent pattern, to be observed in 
all forms of life. 

"We can discover it in the arrangements of the pits in an apple, we can 
discover it in the design of orchids, we can discover it in the arms of the 
starfish."

"It leads the artist to the golden section and the number, which by many has 
been considered as the mathematical expression of life."

" In imitation of nature, architects, painters, sculptors and musicians of all ages 
have made use of the golden proportion to reach harmony and beauty."  5

The jewel of Past-Masters, in the English and continental European Lodges, 
inherited from the Grand Lodge of the Moderns, representing the 47th 
problem of Euclid, figures a right-angled triangle.  

Its base, measured by the NUMBER THREE, refers to the DEITY, the 
perpendicular, measured by the NUMBER FOUR, symbolizes MATTER, and 
the hypotenuse, measured by the NUMBER FIVE, alludes to that nature which 
is produced by the union of the Divine and the Material, MAN with his soul and 
body.

The squares, 9 and 16, of the base and perpendicu-lar, added together, 
produce 25, the square root whereof is 5, the measure of the hypotenuse.

Finally, may I direct your attention again to the flight of winding stairs, 
consisting of three, five and seven steps, making in all 15 steps.

Fifteen, which is also three times five, is, according to Cabbala, the number of 
YAH, or, as we would say  as Freemasons, the number of the " Great Architect 
of the Universe" and which we represent by the letter G in the centre of the 
five-pointed blazing star.



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1.	King Solomon and his Followers, no 38, CAL, Allen Publishing 
Company, Richmond, Virginia, 1910, 1972 revised edition.

2.	Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of 
Freemasonry, prepared by Albert Pike for the Supreme Council of the Thirty-
Third degree (Mother Council of the World) for the Southern Jurisdiction of the 
United States and published by its authority, House of the Temple, 
Washington, D.C., 1966.

3.	Symbolism in Craft Masonry, Colin Dyer, PAGDC, Master of Quatuor 
Coronati Lodge No.2076,(1975-76), Lewis Masonic, London, 1976, 1983 
reprint.

4.	Joseph Fort Newton, The Builders, a story and study of Freemasonry, 
Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Company Inc., Richmond, Virginia, 
1914, 1951 reprint.

5.	L'etoile flamboyante, Jacques Trescases, Editions Henri Veyrier, 1979.


