THE BUILDER SEPTEMBER 1916

THE USE AND SYMBOLISM OF COLOR IN MASONRY

BY BRO. FRANK C. HIGGINS, NEW YORK

The subject of color in connection with Masonry is one which has
received very little attention from students, in the past, but it
is nevertheless one which is susceptible to some extremely
fascinating speculations and, to the writer's notion, deserves
greater attention than has hitherto been accorded it.

In Symbolic Masonry we encounter reference to but three, the
alternating black and white of the Mosaic pavement denoting the
"dual principle"; the pure white of the Lily and the Blue color
attributed to the Lodge and the Heavens which it is said to imitate
in certain particulars. From the latter consideration we derive
various notes of blue in lodge regalia and decorations. The Green
of the Acacia, though not dwelt upon, supplies the final note on
Immortality.

In Capitular Masonry, the prevailing color is Red and much weight
is given to the colors of the four Veils, respectively Scarlet,
Blue, Purple and White, which are self-evidently representations of
those employed in the Tabernacle and subsequent Temples of Israel.
Red is the color of Vulcan, god of Fire, whom the Jews called
Tubal-Cain and whose number is 9, or 3 times 3.

If we are willing to accept the theory that in the original
intention of the sequence of Masonic degrees, "Symbolic" Masonry
was to represent the birth, education or development and final test
of the perfected soul, and "Capitular" Masonry to symbolize the
return of the liberated soul to the source of its being, we shall
have no difficulty, whatsoever, in assimilating the presence of
these colors in Lodge and Chapter, as indicated, with the ancient
Semitic philosophy, in which Old Testament Theology and,
consequently, Masonry, had its rise.

The old Chaldean cosmogony, which impressed the Egyptian,
Phoenician and Hebrew cults alike, regarded the Soul as a spark of
the Divinity, precipitated to Earth, through the spheres of the
Seven planets and the Zones of the Four Elements, gathering in the
course of its journey, its mental, moral and spiritual attributes
from the first group and its physical elements from the second.

The original King Solomon's Temples were the Zigurrats of Salmannu
Sar* (Shalmanesar) of which the seven stepped or staged Temple of
Bel at Borsippa, the trans-Euphratean suburb of Babylon, was,
perhaps, the leading example. They were square edifices, like a
nest of seven boxes, one above the other, on a diminishing scale
and joined by outer staircases. Beginning with Saturn the most
distant and slowest of the planets to make a complete circuit of
the ecliptic, they responded to the correct sequence of the
heavenly bodies in question, as known to the ancients, and had
attributed to them the colors of the spectrum, in the order of
their refrangibility.

The lowermost or Saturn stage was, however, colored black, the next
or Jupiter stage was Orange colored, the Mars stage Red, the Sun
stage gold, the Venus stage pale yellow, that of Mercury blue, and
that of the Moon silver. Blue is therefore the color universally
symbolic of Hermes and the Hermetic philosophy on which Freemasonry
is based.

Each of these stories was a temple to the presiding god of the
Planet it represented and a school of the science attributed to it.
Thus the final stage in the education of the neophyte was in the
"Blue" edifice, prior to his admission to the uppermost or, by
reason of the peculiar construction of the Temple, middle chamber,
which was the observatory of the Priest Astronomers and
Astrologers, who were the interpreters of the will of the gods to
mankind and the direct servitors of their divine messenger Nebo,
Mercury or Hermes.

The Hebrews in their re-fashioning of the Chaldean cult,
substituted the imagery of Jacob's seven stepped ladder, which
figure the Egyptians were also familiar with, as evidenced by the
numerous little seven stepped ladder amulets found in their
sarcophagi and, later, in Roman graves.

The Veils of the Temples were clearly symbolical of the elemental
Zones. Water, Fire, Air and Earth, in Hebrew respectively Iammim,
Nour, Rouach and Iebeschah, the initials of which words, "I. N. R.
I.," having the numerical value of 10, 50, 200, 10, or 270, gave
the cabalistic number of incarnation, founded upon the nine months,
of thirty days each, of human gestation and which was also the
number of the identified Osiris and Horus, among the Egyptians; the
hypothenuse of a right-angle of 162 by 216.

Red stood for the element Fire, Blue for Air, White for Earth, and
Purple for Water, the latter, presumably, because purple color was
derived from a shell fish, the murex Purpurea of the Tyrians. Their
signs were the Lion, Eagle, Bull and Man of Masonic heraldry. The
Egyptians, who manufactured colored glass and must have made
experiments with light, observing that red and green produced
black, made these three colors representative of the J, V. and H.
of their secret Supreme Being, HUHI, who was none other than our
mighty Jehovah. Alternating stripes of Red, Black, Green, Black,
standing for the Tetragrammaton, being the chief characteristic of
the Apron worn by the celebrating Hierophants of the Mysteries of
Isis. In their requisitions for Architects to construct their
sacred edifices the Hebrews always specified that they be workers
in the four symbolic colors and the symbolic metals which also
belong to the planetary septenary quoted.

Bezaleel and Aholiab, builders of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness,
were "filled with wisdom of heart to execute all manner of work of
the engraver, and of the designing weaver and of the embroiderer in
blue, and in purple and in scarlet yarn and in linen thread."

The gold, silver and copper employed were respectively sacred to
the Sun, Moon and Planet Venus, while the Onyx stone and Shittim or
Acacia wood, so lavishly employed, were symbols of the planet
Mercury, which, to them, became the "Angel of the Lord," Raphael.

The celebrated Tyrian Architect, builder of King Solomon's Temple,
is likewise described as skillful to work in gold, in silver, in
copper and in iron, in stone, in wood, in purple, in blue, in fine
linen and in crimson, and also to execute any manner of engraving--
again a list of symbolic materials embracing the metals of the Sun,
Moon, Venus and Mars, the last two indicative of the physical
qualities of Attraction and Repulsion, which engender Vibration and
which Science is even now identifying as the great cosmic energy.

In the book of Kings the Tyrian Architect is called "Hirm" and in
the book of Chronicles "Churam," but there is no doubt of them
being the same individual. It will be recollected that Uri, the
father of Bezaleel, is described as a "Son of Chur," which was
Chr-Mse, "Son of Horus," the origin of the name "Hermes." The name
Churam is the Egyptian Horus-Ammon, the name of the Month of the
Ram, in which the Hebrews celebrated their Passover but which the
Jews called Abib. (Now called Nisan.)

It is no stretch of imagination whatever to attach the surname Abib
to the Hirm of "Kings" as a substitute for the Churam Abi of
"Chronicles," when we are again confronted with 5, 10, 200, 40, 1,
2, 10, 2, or 270, the very number of Osiris-Horus we have already
referred to.

Many Egyptian sculptures show the figures of Priests holding before
the Monarch or the gods, purifying offerings of Fire and Water, the
elements of which it was said the Earth had been created and by
which it would be destroyed. If, finally, a most delightful theory
may be advanced, we would (in our recognition of the advancement of
the ancient Seers in many branches of Art and Science which we have
only tardily come to justly credit them with), like to presume that
part of the universal adoration of Light as the dwelling place of
the Deity and the primordial source of substance employed in
material creation, consisted in an appreciation of color, as a
property of light.

We are perfectly satisfied, that the seven prismatic colors were
recognized in the earliest ages of the civilized World. We know
that the ancients were acquainted with the manufacture of glass and
that in possession of this latter substance, they could scarcely
avoid something which is constantly occurring to the astonishment
of children, handling glass or crystal in the sunlight, the
production of the colors of the rainbow. Why, then, were four
colors only selected for the symbols of Matter and the Veils,
representing the Elements, by our ancient Brethren ? All scientists
have heard of Wollaston's celebrated experiment, performed in 1801
for the purpose of discovering the ultimate composition of light.
We quote the language of his paper in the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of Great Britain in 1802. He
says:

"I cannot conclude my observations on the dispersion of light
without remarking that the colours, into which a beam of white
light is separable by refraction, appear to me to be neither seven,
as they are usually seen in the Rainbow, nor reducible by any
means, that I can find to three, as some persons have conceived,
but that by employing a very narrow pencil of light four primary
divisions of the prismatic spectrum may be seen with a degree of
distinctness, that I believe has not been described or observed
before."

"If a beam of daylight be admitted into a dark room by a crevice,
1-20 of an inch broad, and received by the eye at a distance of ten
or twelve feet through a prism of flint glass, free from veins,
held near the eye, the beam is seen separated into the four
following colors only: Red, a yellowish Green (which might pass as
a muddy White), Blue and Violet." The very diagram employed by
Wollaston to illustrate this experiment, a human eye viewing the
four ultimate colors through a triangular prism, suggests above all
things the notion of the all-seeing eye, in the Triangle, viewing
His Creation as a compound of the four elements, as those only
known to and symbolized by ancient Science. The student desirous of
pursuing this subject farther will find extensive notes on the
Biblical and Classical employment of the seven prismatic colors, in
Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, which detail various ancient
conceptions in an interesting manner.

*Literally, "King Solomon," also paraphrased by the Hebrews, Sar
Salom, "Prince of Peace."


EVERY NATION

No theory of neutrality, be it never so just, and experience of
national isolation, be it never so remunerative, can secure for the
United States of America immunity from the pains and penalties of
Europe's agony, or can make the struggle of other nations only a
harvest time for American manufacturers of munitions of war. When
humanity goes up to its Golgotha, it means the blood-sweat of
Gethsemane for every nation. 
--J. A. Macdonald. Democracy and the Nation.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

"Religion is now seen to be the spirit of all thought, the inmost
soul of all our music, our art, and our great literature. What the
church calls salvation, the outer world calls the civilization of
man. What the church calls Heaven, science designates as the
triumph of the human spirit. What is best for man here is best for
man forever, for eternity is but the lengthening of our human night
or day. The greatest missionary movement on earth is the pity of
man for man."
--Dand Swing.
