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            THE SYMBOLISM OF STONE
               Leon Zeldis, MPS
          PREAMBLE
          A fundamental question, rarely asked, is the reason why our
          forerunners, the Brethren who wrote and developed the
          complicated symbolic structures of moral and philosophical
          teaching we now know as speculative Freemasonry, would
          choose to base their system on such modest materials as the
          builder's trade, his tools and legends. Such activities as
          seafaring, metal working, agriculture and husbandry, among
          others, could have been used just as well in developing a
          "peculiar system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by
          symbols." Indeed, they have been used for this purpose at one
          time or another, by various individual thinkers and organizations. 
          We hope to show that the stonemason's trade, and his material -
          stone - have such profound, far-reaching and universal sig-
          nificance and connotations that the choice was not only justified
          but inevitable. 
          It is our belief that a study of the rich symbolism of stone will
          illuminate many facets of Freemasonry and will lead to a better
          understanding of our rituals and traditions.
          INTRODUCTION
          Stone has been, from prehistoric times, the principal material
          used to build and adorn important structures, where solidity and
          permanence are the paramount considerations. Stone became
          paradigmatic of stability, hardness and endurance in all languag-
          es, bearing a wealth of symbolic meaning, with many deep
          rooted psychological and historical associations and
          suggestions, some of which will be examined later.
          The scientific or chemical definition of stone is of no concern to
          us. Suffice it to say that stone is the nonmetallic component of
          rock and that it appears in many forms, colors and degrees of
          hardness and brittleness. Stones are used for construction and
          jewelry, for sculpture and for industry. 
          Stone, having a chemical structure, reacts with the environment.
          It may change color, erode, combine with different airborne
          chemicals. It "ages" both chemically and physically, due to the
          release of the stresses to which it had been subjected in the
          geologic past. "Granite blocks can increase in compressive
          strength by a third in only six months aging through recovery
          from the natural prestressing." All these phenomena must have
appeared to men of an earlier age as proof that stone was not
totally inert, but held a certain form of life. 
STONE IN ANTIQUITY
Stone was in all probability the first material used by primitive
man. The first coarse tools were simply rough stones used to
hammer, cut and grind. The first giant step taken by mankind
towards civilization was the change from using natural stones to
chipped or flaked implements and weapons, with improved
cutting edges, or allowing the use of a handle. By this apparently
simple act, of modifying a stone before using it as a tool, Man
became homo faber and started to fashion his environment,
instead of being the passive user of what nature had to offer.
Stones were not only used as tools, but became the object of
veneration of primitive men, whose survival depended on them.
"Rubbing and polishing stones is a well-known, exceedingly
ancient activity of man. In Europe, holy stones, wrapped in bark
and hidden in caves, have been found in many places; as
containers of divine powers they were probably kept there by
men of the Stone Age. At the present time, some of the
Australian aborigines believe that their dead ancestors continue
to exist in stones as virtuous and divine powers, and that if they
rub these stones, the power increases (like charging them with
electricity) for the benefit of both the living and the dead." 
The belief in "living stones" or stones having a soul is not
restricted to barbarous tribes. An astonishing number of primi-
tive myths describe man as born of stone. In the myth of
Deucalion and Pyrrha, the Greek parallel to the story of the
deluge, the earth is peopled again by Deucalion throwing "his
mother's bones" (stones) over his shoulder. 
Many gods were born of rocks, such as Mithras, whose cult was
the main competitor of Christianism in the early centuries of our
era. Stone was conceived as petra genitrix, assimilated to the
Great Goddess, the matrix mundi. The parallels between cav-
erns, the inside of the earth, and the womb, are too obvious to
stress. The interior of the earth was conceived by the ancients
as a place of gestation, where life germinates and develops. The
same germinal sense of the earth appears in many rites and
myths of growth, like that of Demeter that figured in the Eleusian
Mysteries. Caverns, with their womb connotation, were regarded
as sacred places; oracles usually dwelt in them. 
Rock was considered not only a living organism, as mentioned
before, but as developing inside the earth. Precious stones, in
Hindu mythology, are differentiated by their age. Diamond is the
most "mature" stone, while emeralds and rubies are still insuffi-
ciently developed. 
Metals, too, were regarded as maturing within the womb of the
earth. Gold was the mature or "perfect" metal, into which all
others slowly evolved or ripened. The alchemist, according to
this view, had only to find a way of accelerating this maturation
process in his laboratory to achieve within a short time what in
nature takes eons. For this, he required a special ingredient,
what in modern chemistry is called a catalyst, which would serve
to accelerate the evolution from base metal into gold. This
ingredient was called by alchemists "the philosopher's stone." 
Stone, then, is the key to the growth or metamorphosis of the
other elements. In Continental Lodges, the Chamber of Reflec-
tions, where the candidate waits and meditates in solitude before
his initiation, is adorned, among other things, with a picture of a
cock (representing Mercury-Hermes, about whom more below),
and the legend V.I.T.R.I.O.L., which are the capital letters of a
Latin inscription meaning "Visit the depths of the earth and
rectifying (i.e., purifying) thou shall find the hidden stone."
Initiation is, in a sense, a ceremony of purification or refining,
and the divestiture of metals is connected to this concept. This
aspect of the Masonic initiation is also explained by the
conception that metal is somehow related to the demonic and
magical side of nature, while stone is connected with its positive
aspects. This idea is explored by Mircea Eliade in his book
already quoted. A further embodiment of this conception is the
injunction against placing metallic objects over the V.S.L. Some
Lodges go as far as to have a Square and Compasses
especially made of wood for this purpose.
The ancient Germans, too, believed that the spirit of the dead
continued living in their tombstones. The custom of placing
stones on graves may spring partially from the symbolic idea that
something eternal, part of the dead person, remains and can be
most fittingly represented by a stone. Stone symbolizes the
simplest and deepest experience - the experience of something
eternal.  For stone as a symbol of the self, Jung's works can be
consulted. 
The body of a dead person is returned to the bosom of the earth
in order to continue its evolution. Maximum contact with the
earth is achieved by not using a coffin, as in Orthodox Jewish
burial rites. It will be noted that H.A., likewise, was interred
directly within the earth, without a casket.
Stone gods, or stone monuments erected as god-images or
places of worship, have been known from the earliest antiquity. It
will be sufficient to mention the many menhirs and dolmens
dotting the landscape of Europe. The most famous site of this
kind is perhaps Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain (England), which
comprises several concentric circles of stones, apparently built
for astronomical and ritual purposes between 2350 and 1350
B.C.. 
E. Sidney Hartland believes that "many of the menhirs in Europe
and Asia Minor have probably been actually figures of deities.
Rocks, boulders and standing stones have been worshiped as
gods or as inhabited by gods all over the world. Wherever men
have been struck by the appearance or position of a rock or
stone, they have regarded it with awe as uncanny, and in
innumerable cases they have ultimately erected it into a divinity,
brought offerings and put up prayers before it. Instances need
not be cited; they are found in every quarter of the globe." 
In his book Ritual from which the previous quote was taken,
Theodor Reik adds numerous examples of stone regarded as a
god. Furthermore, Reik puts forward the theory that the Tables
of the Law, received by Moses on Mount Sinai, were actually
stone gods that were ritually murdered by Moses. This was later
recorded as the breaking of the stone tablets in an act of fury
caused by the people's infidelity to Jahve.
The Spanish philologist Ramcn Menndez Pidal has
commented that "a very ancient custom exists in many peoples,
of travelers signaling the place where a violent death has taken
place by throwing a stone and uttering a prayer or a curse,
according to the quality of the victim." 
Stones not only lie in the earth, they also fall from heaven. In
some primitive cultures, the heavens are thought to be made of
stone. Aeroliths have been worshiped in many places as divine
incarnations (or should we say impetrations?). The stone of
Pessinus, a meteorite adored as the Phrygian Great Mother,
was brought to Rome at the time of the second Punic War
(218-201 B.C.) as a result of a sybiline prophecy. It was set up
in a temple especially built on the Palatine hill. 
The association of stones with divinities explains perhaps their
connection with the crowning of kings (who ruled by divine right).
Two notable examples are the Irish Lia-Fail and the Stone of
Scone (or Stone of Destiny) on which Scottish Kings were
enthroned since the year 838 when Kenneth MacAlpine brought
it from Dunstaffnage.
The Romans, when taking an oath, held a stone in their hand to
represent the presence of Jupiter (Zeus). It was called the
"Jupiter lapis." The same god was also the god of rain and the
Romans held a festival called Aquaelicium, during which the
priests brought into Rome a cylindrical stone called lapis mana-
lis. It will be remembered that Zeus was saved from being de-
voured by his father, the titan Cronos (Saturn), by being ex-
changed for a stone (Abadir). The mythical equivalent of stone
and flesh is remarkably explicit. Such is also the case in the
myth of Medusa, the Gorgon, who turned men into stones.
The Latin word "lapis" means not only stone, but also tomb-
stone. Hence the adjective lapidary, meaning suitable to be
engraved on a tombstone. Dilapidated, on the other hand, means
literally "with missing stones." 
HERMES AND STONE
The Greek god Hermes holds special significance for Freema-
sons, being a deity closely connected with the underworld and
the occult ("Hermetic Sciences"). 
The name of the god itself suggests the word for "stone" or
"rock" and also the verb that means "to protect." In earliest
times, Hermes was venerated in Greece as a "mile-stone" in
which the spirit of the numen was thought to be hidden. The
stone pillars erected in honor of the god were sometimes
substituted by stone heaps, particularly at crossroads
(something similar was practiced by the Hebrews - see below).
Each passerby added a stone to the mound as sign of homage
and to invoke the protection of the god, who was not only the
guide of all travelers, both in this world and the next, but also the
patron of merchants and thieves, which might tell us something
about ancient Greek merchants!
Hermes was a multifaceted god: the sacrificial herald of the
gods, messenger of Zeus, inventor of music (he invented both
the lyre and the shepherd's flute), patron of gymnastic skills and
the god of clever and wise discourse (these are not necessarily
coexistent). "As he is the guide of the living on their way, so is
he also the conductor of the souls of the dead in the nether
world, and he is as much loved by the gods of those regions as
he is by those above. For this reason, sacrifices were offered to
him in the event of deaths. Hermea (square pillars terminated
generally with a head of Hermes and bearing a phallus) were
placed on the graves . . . in general, he was accounted the inter-
mediary between the upper and lower worlds, As he was born in
the fourth month, the number four was sacred to him." 
Being familiar with the nether world, Hermes was also the god of
mining and digging for buried treasure. He was the god of sleep
and dreams as well. Little wonder, then, that he is connected
with all forms of arcane knowledge, hence called hermetic.
Under one of his forms, Hermes Trismegistus (the
Thrice-Powerful), he was identified with the Egyptian god Thoth. 
Hermes appears in one of the degrees of the A.A.S.R. and in
some Lodges, the staffs of the Deacons are topped with the
Caduceus, the wand with entwined snakes carried by Hermes. 
STONE IN JEWISH TRADITION
We have already mentioned the possible divine nature of the
Tablets of the Law. Sacred stones or pillars, called in Hebrew
"Matzevot," are already mentioned by Herodotus (5th Cent. B.C.)
and appear in several places in the Old Testament.     Jacob,
after striking a pact with Laban, erected a stone monument that
he called Gal-Ed (Testimonial Pillar). Moses erected twelve
stone pillars near the altar of sacrifices.
After crossing the Jordan river, Joshua ordered taking twelve
stones from the river bed, one for each tribe, setting them up in
their camps and carrying them later on their shoulders as
memorial of the crossing on dry ground (Joshua 4). Joshua also
set up other twelve stones in the middle of the river, in the place
where the priests carrying the Ark of the Testimony had stood.
Finally, Joshua erects at Gilgal the twelve stones he had brought
from the Jordan, so that future generations would know that the
Lord had done to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red
Sea.
Later, Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal, made of uncut
stones, on which no iron tool had been used (Joshua 8:30-31).
Finally, before dying, he wrote down the Law on a large stone he
set up under an oak tree in Shechem, as a witness against the
people of Israel should they betray their covenant (Joshua
24:26-27).
Samuel put up a stone that he called "Eben-Ezer" (Stone of
Help) after the Philistines were routed at Mizpah (1 Samuel
7:12). Adoniah offered a sacrifice near the rock of Zohelet (Joy-
ful), near the fountain of Rogel (1 Kings 1:9).
We could continue multiplying the examples, but the point is
clear: the ancient Hebrews used unhewn stones for their ritual
monuments and altars.
Jacob's ladder, which figures on the E.A.'s Tracing Board, is
directly related to the stone pillar erected by Jacob after his
dream. He had used the stone as a pillow and poured a libation
of oil to consecrate the memorial (Genesis 28:18). Jacob names
"Beth-El" the place where he had his dream, that is, the house of
God. In accordance with Reik's commentary on this episode, the
stone itself is an image of God and only thus can its anointment
be understood. 
This identity of stone, human being and anthropomorphic deity
throws light on the saying: "Look to the rock from which you
were cut and to the quarry whence you were hewn; look to
Abraham your father and to Sarah who gave you birth" (Isaiah
51:1-2). There is a Jewish custom, already mentioned, of
placing a small stone over the grave one has visited. This may
be connected to the Greek traveler's adding a stone to the
Hermes monuments, in order to secure a safe journey. Hermes,
as stated, was also the guide of the dead.
Hewing the stone might be construed as injuring the deity. This
would explain the ancient injunction against using hewn stones
for building an altar (see above and Exodus 20:25). Another
instance of this taboo is the fact that while building King
Solomon's Temple, no sound of hammers or chisels or any other
iron tool was heard at the building site (1 Kings 6:7). All the
stone blocks were dressed at the quarry. An interesting possibil-
ity was raised in this connection by Bro. William C. Blaine, who
noted that the depth of Zedekiah's cavern - used as a quarry in
olden times, and which lies under the western section of Jerusa-
lem's Old City, would prevent any noise reaching the site of the
Temple on Mount Moriah. 
Another important legend connected with this subject is the one
relating that Solomon owned a wondrous tool (the "shamir" worm
or stone), created on the Sabbath eve, which could cut any
stone. 
There is, of course, the famous passage in Psalm 118: 
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone (or capstone)." 
This has become the basis for an entire degree in Freemasonry.
STONE IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION
The best example of the importance of stone in Christian
teachings is, of course, the case of Simon the fisherman, called
Peter (Petrus-the stone) by Jesus: "I tell you that you are Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18).
The Pope, as linear successor to Peter, is called Holy Father.
The connection between Pater (father) and Petrus (stone) is
obvious. In the Hebrew language as well, the same letters
forming the word "father" (av: alef-beth) appear in the word for
"stone" (even: alef-beth-noon).
In another instance, Christ himself is compared to a rock (1 Cor.
10:4).
A passage in the book of Revelation (2:17) mentions a white
pebble with a secret name written on it, which only the recipient
will understand. 
According to a story related by Marco Polo in his book of travels,
the three Magi received from the infant Jesus a gift in exchange
for the gold, myrrh and incense they brought him. This was a
small casket which, upon being opened, was revealed to contain
a stone. Without realizing the import of the gift, the three oriental
kings threw what they believed to be only a worthless stone into
a well, whereupon a fire came down from heaven into the well.
Observing the miracle, the kings realized too late that the stone
they had discarded was meant to symbolize the strength and
constancy in faith that was expected of them. They took with
themselves some of the fire from heaven and carried it to their
respective countries and this, the legend says, is the origin of
the fire-worshipers of Persia. 
The Holy Grail is described in the "Parzival" not as a cup, but as
a stone of the hardest kind, called lapis exillas, which brings to
mind the alchemist's stone. According to another version, the
cup was made of emerald (also a stone). 
STONE IN ISLAMIC TRADITION
The focal point of worship for a Muslim is the Ka'aba at Mecca.
Every pious Muslim must make a pilgrimage to Mecca (the Hadj)
at least once in his lifetime, making seven circumambulations
around the sanctuary of the Ka'aba, the Black Stone which,
according to witnesses' reports, appears to be a meteorite. The
pilgrims also throw stones at pillars representing the devil, in the
vicinity of Mina. 
In Jerusalem, there is a stone in the Dome of the Rock, built on
the spot where the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple is
supposed to have been located, from which Muhammad is said
to have jumped to heaven, mounted on his white mule "Al
Burak." 
STONE IN MASONIC LITERATURE
In Masonic rituals and legends, stone plays a leading role.
Beginning with the E.A., who is enjoined to polish the rough
stone with hammer and chisel, and culminating with the
variously-shaped stones appearing in diverse M.M. and R.A.
degrees, there is hardly a ceremony in symbolic Freemasonry
which is not connected in some way with stones.
After completion of the initiation ceremony, the new Brother is
placed in a particular position within the Lodge and is usually
told that he represents the cornerstone on which Freemasonry's
spiritual Temple must be built.
Bro. G.W. Speth has provided a wealth of evidence to support
the theory that cornerstones had originally a sacrificial character,
destined to provide a soul that would protect the new building. 
In the course of his advancement, the E.A. eventually becomes
a M.M. and then he plays the part of the victim in a crime that,
apparently, has little connection with cornerstones. However, a
possible explanation for the Hiramic legend is that it, too, refers
to a ritual sacrifice, designed to provide a human soul for K.S.'s
Temple. In the initiation ceremony, a person plays the role of
cornerstone, while in the builder's ceremony, the stone played
the role of a human victim. The exchangeability of stone and
flesh noted in an earlier section of this paper finds here another
application.
In the Edinburgh Register House MS (1696), one of the earliest
masonic documents that have survived, the Jewels of the Lodge
include the Perpend Esler and the Broad Ovall. The first,
perpendicular ashlar, is a stone placed crosswise through a wall,
while the second is believed to be a corruption of a "broached
dornal", that is, a chiseled stone. 
Similar information appears in the Chetwode Crawley MS (c.
1700): "perpendester" and "broked-mall". 
The Mason's work is thus described in the Dumfries No 4 MS
(c. 1710): "to work in all manner of worthy work in stone: Tem-
ple, Churches, Cloysters, Cities, Castles, Pirimides, Towers &
all other worthy buildings of stone". In the same manuscript we
find a reference to the "two pillars of stone", one that would not
sink and the other that would not burn, which held the noble art
or science. 
The Mason himself, as we have noted, is likened to a stone. in
Long Livers, a book published in London in 1722, we find this
pithy definition: "Ye are living stones, built up a spiritual House,
who believe and rely on the chief Lapis Angularis, which the
refractory and disobedient Builders disallowed..." The
reference, of course, is to the already quoted passage in Psalm
118, used in the Mark degree.
We could multiply the examples of stone symbolism in our
rituals, but enough has been said already to justify our thesis.
In conclusion, the deep and various meanings of stone as a
physical object and as allegory make it easy to understand why
the art of the builder should have been selected as the appro-
priate vehicle to convey the philosophical and mystical teachings
of speculative Freemasonry in its different manifestations. 
The Mason, the stone carver, is seen to share many an attribute
with the priest and the demiurge, which in Platonic philosophy
represents the Architect who fashions the sensible world. 

NOTES
