THE AMERICAN FREEMASON

DECEMBER 1913

CONTRIBUTORY STREAMS OF MASONIC HISTORY.

UNDER this sub-title attempt was made last month to put the young and
inquiring Mason upon his guard as against the various theories offered to
explain the beginnings of the Craft.  The general proposition was laid down
that modern Freemasonry represents the mingling of many elements, and
that is impossible to designate ant one source as giving rise to the later
stream.  Masonic history must be patiently followed, with much retracing of
steps, and with a wide field of exploration, before we can reach to any
conclusion worth while as to what may or may not be properly considered
within its province.  The same statement would apply to the philosophy of
Freemasonry.  Any intelligent view of such philosophy will reveal that it is
receptive rather than definitive or dogmatic.  As every individual is a
product of a long line of ancestors, with his personal characteristics
representing a blending of all who have gone before in the generations, so
is this institution of ours the result of many associations of men, held
together in their times by a community of sentiments or interests, whether
social, economic or religious.  To choose out any one of these, and affirm
that the contemporary organization owes being to that alone, or in
predominant degree, is to miss the chief value and meaning of Masonry.

Yet one can not altogether escape from methods that have become familiar
to himself and others, and especially in such work as this, where no original
research is projected.  At the best there can be but a novel or more simple
presentation of what has been sought out by others, better equipped for
the task.  So it will be necessary in the present case to take up the various
cults of the past, as also such societies as may have by some been
accounted among the ancestry of Freemasonry.  At the conclusion of such
studies it will be time enough to sum up what has been proven, or at least
appears to be probable.

THE OPERATIVE SOCIETY OF MASONS


THERE is no doubt, of course, that the later and present existing society
was based upon the remains of the old building associations of England. 
The continuity of the association, in a way, is abundantly proven.  The over
lapping of Speculative Masonry upon the Operative body goes far back of
the so called "revival" of 1717; so far back, in fact, that no one of the real
scholars of the Craft will presume to fix a hard and fast line, and declare
that beyond it there were in the organization of the artisans none except
members of the building trade.  Those best fitted to speak with authority
are the very men who approach the subject with an open mind, and are
content after close examination of all that may be known, to leave the
matter very largely to conjecture.  Thus Brother Robert Freke Gould, in his
address on "English Freemasonry Before the Era of Grand Lodges," made
from the chair of the Lodge Quatuor Coronate in 1887, had this to say: "The
precise manner in which the older system was at first over-shadowed and
finally supplanted by the new, it is impossible to explain; nor do we know
whether, so to speak, Masonry always had its speculative side, even in the
fourteenth century, or earlier.  There is probability, though no certainty, that
it had, but on this point the ancient documents to which I have previously
referred are our sole guides, and I cannot undertake to say that some
expressions which will be found in them will convey the same conclusions
to other minds as to my own." Another and later author, in a book just
published under the exact title chosen by Brother Gould for his address
(Brother Lionel Vibert), finds much more support for belief that there were
speculative Masons, and freely admitted, in the Operative bodies.  On page
84 of his interesting little book he says: "It is clear that the practice of
admitting to the fraternity non-operatives of such position and attainments
as would justify it, was in existence when the original of the Cooke MS. was
compiled, i.e., in 1400 or earlier; this whether or not we accept Edwin's
membership of the Craft in the tenth century as a historical fact.  And the
existence of a similar institution in Scotch Masonry presumably takes the
practice still further back to the days before the close intercourse between
the two countries was broken off. . . Such speculative Masons as there
were in earlier times we may suppose to have been ecclesiastics, either as
being themselves architects or designers, or as being students of
geometry; and very possibly the patron or employer would be brought in,
but in practice we know of no such instances."

A few very radical historians of lesser repute will have it that Speculative
Freemasonry dates from 1717, and these spurn what seems to be
conclusive evidence of non-operative elements in the Craft long before the
reorganization and the establishment of Grand Lodges.  In attempts to
indicate most clearly their own point of departure these zealous brothers
have sought to brush out the showing of dim outlines lying far back in the
picture of the past.  But we are safe in believing that there has been no
time within which the building associations of Great Britain can be traced,
but that there was admitted to the Lodges or their equivalents men of rank
or ability.

This being admitted as within reasonable proof, we can readily assume,
and justly, that such men, being the best and, likely, the most scholarly of
their times, would have a great influence upon Masonry.  If complete
records existed from the middle ages for the work and organization of the
building guilds, it is altogether likely that we would be able to trace these
various influences upon the ideas and the symbolism of the ruder
Craftsmen.  As I have here mentioned, out of place as designed for these
papers, the symbolism of Masonry, I can not do better than to again quote
from Brother Gould.  In his paper on "The Antiquity of Masonic Symbolism,"
(A.Q.C.., Vol. iii.) he says: "I conceive that there is ground for reasonable
conjecture, whether the symbolism of Masonry, to a considerable portion
of which, even at this day, no meaning can be assigned that is entirely
satisfactory to an intelligent mind - must not have culminated before the
very earliest dawn of its recorded history. Also, that it underwent a gradual
process of decay, which was arrested, but only at the point we now have
it, by passing into the control of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717." I
promise myself a future pleasant excursion into the symbolism of Masonry,
and may be able to provide for my readers some matter of interest and
value when the proper place for its inclusion is reached in this department.

I am just now concerned only in pressing upon the minds of the younger
brother the extension of that period within which Speculative Masonry is
usually believed to have existence.  And further I would have him form
some estimate of the very great influence that such non-operatives would
have upon the institution.  This would of course be incidental: the main
purpose of Masonry, and one not likely to be lost sight of for a moment by
any member in the time of its greatest activity and prestige, was to jealously
preserve the secrets of the building art and the application of the science
of geometry to the problems of construction.  To these men geometry was
not a matter of the schools; it is very doubtful if even the designers and
master builders could have worked out as mere matter of theory the
propositions that are now put before very young learners.  But the
generations of experience had taught the practical application of most
valuable theorems, and these constituted the secrets of the Craft.  This,
however, would not comprise all that might be contained in the Lodges. 
The non-operative members could have, at the best, no more than a mere
academic interest in the building formulas and the experiences of their
artisan fellows.  It is doubtful if they would be admitted to a knowledge of
such, if indeed any of them were competent to understand matters that
required actual apprenticeship and craftsman's labour to grasp.  But in
other things - form of organization, the attempts to claim and gain
superiority or high place among the various guilds, the putting of vague
traditions into coherent and clerkly form, and elaborating the legends of the
Craft so as to make more impressive the alleged antiquity of the fraternity
- these were matters that might well have been assigned to the scholarly
men taken into the Lodges from time to time.  The very existence of a
legend of the Craft, and its reaching to written form at a very early date,
would necessitate, to my mind the presence of others than operatives, and
these closely allied with the actual builders.  Thus, again, and by no
straining of conclusions from the few known facts, we are enabled to
reason out the existence of a speculative element from the very earliest
time of Masonry in England.  That such men as were received would
delight to embellish the history of the Craft was but natural.  The age was
not critical, and those for whom the legends were constructed could not
pick out the anachronisms which later students have made to stand so
glaringly in the ancient compilations or fabrications.  Also it may be
assumed that these old Speculatives were versed in the learning of their
times, and if there were ceremonies of any sort connected with reception
of members, and especially of the non-operative sort, the ritual would be
flavoured by the knowledge possessed by these.  We can well believe that
if any part of our present ritual, at all to be distinguished, has come to us
from a period antedating the beginning of the eighteenth century, it owes
its language and turn of thought to men who had more of learning than
could have been compassed by the real Masons.  To be brief, anything of
esotericism in these old-time Lodges, always excepting the professional
secrets, must have come from those who had no immediate connection
with the trade.

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