THE BUILDER, OCTOBER 1915

SYMBOLISM OF THE THREE DEGREES

BY BRO. OLIVER DAY STREET, ALABAMA

PART III
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MASTER MASON DEGREE

MANY of the lessons of the third degree are obvious to the most
superficial mind, but others (and these the most important) are
grasped only after long and patient study. I shall not attempt
anything original, but only lay before you in an imperfect way a
few of the reflections and conclusions of some of our most
trustworthy Masonic scholars.

I believe it susceptible of the clearest proof that Freemasonry,
viewed in the aggregate, is an elaborate allegory of human life,
that the three degrees considered collectively, symbolically
epitomize man's existence both here and in the hereafter. My excuse
for recurring to this idea is that in my judgment Speculative
Masonry can not be otherwise adequately explained. The lodge is
emblematical of the world; initiation, of birth; the Entered
Apprentice, of the preparatory stage of life, or youth; the Fellow
Craft, of the construction stage, or manhood; the Master Mason, of
the reflective stage, or old age, death, the resurrection, and the
everlasting life. This explanation of the three degrees is briefly
given in our lecture on the "Three Steps" delineated on the
Master's Carpet. Any symbol or any meaning attributed to a symbol
which does not legitimately contribute to this allegory may be
discarded as nonMasonic.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MASONIC SYMBOLISM

The age of our symbolism is an important question in this
connection, because upon it to a great extent depend the meanings
that must be assigned to our symbols. While some of them may be of
comparatively modern origin, many of them are older than the oldest
written language.

Says Brother Robert Freke Gould, one of the most cautious of our
historians:

"The symbolism of Masonry, or at all events a material part of it,
is of very great antiquity, and in substance the system of Masonry
we now possess, including the three degrees of the Craft, has come
down to us in all its essentials from times remote to our own." (1)

Another of our historians of the most exacting school, Brother
William J. Hughan, declares that "symbolism in connection with
Freemasonry antedates our oldest records."

Even this cautious statement would date our symbolism back more
than five hundred years, and Brother Gould is on record as
declaring that, if it can be put back that far, there is
practically no limit backward to which its beginning must be
assigned. (2)

Another distinguished Masonic scholar, Brother George William
Speth, records his belief that "the greater part of our symbolism
(including all essentials) is undoubtedly medieval at least, and
probably centuries older than that." (3)

Still another, Brother William Simpson, distinguished as an
orientalist, says:

"The more important Masonic symbols are ancient and their true
meanings can only be found by tracing them back into the past. This
will be found to be particularly the case with the third degree;
its true meaning can only be realized by the study of similar rites
which appear to go far back into the history of our race." (4)

These are the opinions of men who, noted for their scholarship,
have disregarded our Masonic traditions and studied the question
from the purely historical viewpoint.

Following them, (and if they cannot be followed there are none who
can be,) our symbolism has come down to us from ancient times.

Of some of these symbols we know a part at least of their meanings,
but of some we know nothing at all. We get a hint from Brother Pike
that much of our symbolism has been forgotten, and Brother Gould
asserts the same and declares that "to a considerable portion of
the symbolism of Freemasonry, even at this day, no meaning can be
assigned which is entirely satisfactory to the intelligent mind."
(5)

Heckethorn, a non-Mason, says that many of the mystical figures and
schemes of very ancient times are preserved in Masonry though their
meaning is no longer understood by the Fraternity. (6)

It should therefore be obvious that if we are ever to reacquire
this lost knowledge, we must have recourse to the records and
institutions of ancient times.

THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

Do we find any institutions in ancient times similar to our own and
employing our symbols for like purposes? I answer at once that we
do.

In all periods from the dawn of history till about the fifth
century, A. D., there is recorded the existence in nearly every
known country of secret societies which, so far as our knowledge of
them enables us to judge, were strikingly like Freemasonry in all
except name. Our foremost Masonic historian, Brother Gould, says
that they taught precisely the same doctrines in precisely the same
way. These ancient societies bearing different names in different
countries, yet appearing everywhere to have been the same thing,
are generally termed "The Ancient Mysteries."

In Egypt they were known as the Mysteries of Osiris and Isis, and
these appear to have been the model for all others. They prevailed
in Egypt, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain,
and many other countries. The most ancient of these were certainly
in existence as early as 3000 B. C., and some of them were still
flourishing in Western Europe, in a corrupted state, it is true, as
late as the fourth century of the Christian era.

Notwithstanding their differences in name, it does not admit of a
doubt that they were all substantially the same; "so much so," it
has been said by high Masonic authority, "that we may conclude
either that they were all independent copies from a great original
or that they were propagated one from another." Brother Gould, than
whom no more judicious historian has ever written on any subject,
thinks they were only differentiated types of one original form of
worship, the object of which was in every instance the God of Light
and of Truth and of Beneficence. The Osiris of Egypt, the Brahma of
India, the Mithras of Persia, the Bacchus (or Dionysius) of Greece,
the Bel (or Baal) of the Chaldeans, the Belenus of Gaul, the Baldur
of Scandanavia, the Adonis of Phoenicia, and the Adonai of the Jews
were all the same god; each, to his own people, was the Supreme
One, the Creator, the Enlightener, Lord and Master. All the
mysteries taught a more or less pure system of monotheism, though
coupled with the idea of a Trinity, or one God in three persons.
Their Trinity differed from ours, however, in that they conceived
it to be a male, female and off'spring, or Father, Mother and Son.
They taught also the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead and
the immortality of the soul. (7)

Cicero tells us that in the Elusinian Mysteries they were taught to
live virtuously and happily and to die in the hope of a blessed
futurity. (8)

"The great doctrine of immortality of the soul," says Brother
Gould, "and the teachings of the two lives, the present and the
future, are to be found in the Ancient Mysteries, where precisely
the same doctrines were taught in precisely the same way" that they
are now taught by the Freemasons.

It seems that among pagan people of ancient times a few superior
minds and spirits were found who did not accept the idolatrous
notions of the populace as an adequate conception of the Deity and
who searched constantly in the great book of nature in the effort
to find out and understand him aright. To have openly proclaimed
their beliefs and their rejection of the popular gods and popular
religion would have but called down upon themselves contempt and
ridicule and doubtless persecutions. They, therefore, chose to
drift along with the common herd to all outward appearances,
reserving the contemplation and discussion of their cherished
beliefs for secret communication with those of kindred mind in
societies where they were secure from observation and the
interference of the outside world. Such seems to have been the
occasion of the origin of these ancient fraternities.

These societies were characterized by fixed forms of initiation,
successive steps or degrees, oaths of secrecy, a symbolical system
of teaching, and the possession of emblems and perhaps of grips,
signs and words of recognition. (9) Their rites were usually
celebrated at night in chambers securely guarded against intrusion
and arranged similarly to our lodges, often with the three chief
officers seated in the South, West and East.

With all of them the East was an object of peculiar veneration as
the source of light and knowledge.

Initiation was an allegorical search for light and knowledge and
consisted of prescribed physical and moral preparations of the
candidate, lustrations, purifications and the administrations of
oaths of secrecy; the ushering from darkness to light symbolizing
a transformation from ignorance to knowledge, from corruption to
moral and spiritual purity; the investiture with an emblem of this
purity consisting sometimes of a white apron, sometimes of a white
sash or robe; the encountering of trials and dangers sometimes mock
and sometimes real. In the Mithraic Mysteries the candidate was
received into the place of initiation upon the point of a sword
piercing his naked left breast. Many of their symbols were
identical with those that can now be seen in any Masonic lodge.

To each of the Ancient Mysteries pertained a characteristic legend,
which w as made the instrumentality of teaching with great
impressiveness the doctrines of the resurrection and immortality.

The legend of Osiris, probably the oldest and the model for all the
others was as follows:

Osiris, meaning the soul of the Universe, the Governor of nature,
was at once king and god of the Egyptians. The name appears as far
back as 3000 B. C. Having taught civilization, the arts and
agriculture to his own people, he magnanimously resolved to spread
in person their benign influence throughout the world. Leaving his
kingdom in charge of his wife, Isis, he departed upon his
beneficent mission. After an absence of three years he returned,
but meanwhile his brother Typhon had organized a conspiracy to
murder him and seize the throne. At a grand banquet given in honor
of his return, Typhon provided a magnificent chest which exactly
fitted the body of Osiris. All the other guests being in the
conspiracy, they feigned great admiration of the chest and finally
Typhon announced that he would give it to the one whose body it
would most neatly contain. Osiris, trying the box, was no sooner in
it than the lid was clapped down and securely fastened and the
whole thrown into the river Nile. It was borne out to sea by the
current and in course of time was cast ashore at Byblos, in
Phoenicia, at the foot of an acacia tree. The tree grew up rapidly
and completely encased the chest containing the body of Osiris.

No sooner had Isis learned of the fate of her husband than,
weeping, she set out in search of his body and on her way
interrogated every one she met for information concerning its
whereabouts. Virgins accompanied her who dressed and combed her
hair.

She finally discovered the body in the acacia tree, but the king of
that country, struck with the tree's beauty caused it to be cut
down and a column made of it for his palace. Isis thereupon engaged
herself to the king as a nurse for his children and asked and
received for her pay this column. The column was broken and the
body released and at once borne back to Egypt, but before it could
be properly interred it was again seized by Typhon and cut into
fourteen pieces and these hidden in as many places. After long
search Isis succeeded in finding and bringing together all the
parts except the phallus, and the body was embalmed and buried in
due form. It will be borne in mind that according to ancient
Egyptian ideas there could be no resurrection in the absence of the
body; hence, the great care with which they embalmed their dead. As
soon as the body of Osiris had been recovered and buried, it was
announced that he had risen from the dead and had resumed his place
among the gods.

The ceremonies of initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries
dramatically represented the death of Osiris, the search for his
body, its discovery in the acacia tree, and its burial and
resurrection, the murdered god being personated by the candidate.

Pertaining to each of the Mysteries was a counterpart of this
legend. In Greece, Osiris becomes Bacchus, (not the drunken Bacchus
of later ages,) who is slain by the Titans and his limbs torn
asunder. Isis becomes Rhea, who after long and bitter search finds
and inters his body, and in due course he takes his place among the
gods. In the Dionysian Mysteries celebrated in his honor an effigy
was stretched upon a couch, as if dead, while his votaries bitterly
bewailed his decease. After a proper time the figure was quickly
removed and the announcement made that the god had risen from the
dead. Likewise in some of the Mysteries of India the candidate
underwent an allegorical death, burial and resurrection. Those
celebrated in Phoenicia during the time of Solomon, King of Israel,
Hiram, King of Tyre and Hiram Abif were obvious copies of those of
Egypt. Adonis and Venus became substitutes in the legend for Osiris
and Isis. During the course of these Mysteries, with which our
three ancient Grand Masters must have been familiar, an image was
laid upon a bier as if it were a dead body. During a momentary
darkness the figure was invisibly removed, after which it was
announced that the god had risen from the dead. The substantial
identity with each other of all these Mysteries and doctrines they
were intended to inculcate is obvious.

It is claimed by students of ancient mythology, that this legend of
the Mysteries and the ceremonies based on it were all prophetic of
the coming of a Messiah, who should triumph over death and the
grave, and thereby demonstrate to mankind for a certainty that
there is a life after death. That this was common belief, not
merely among the Jews, but the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians,
Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, Hindus, Greeks and Romans is now
generally conceded.

The teachings of the Mysteries have been thus summarized:

"They diffused a spirit of unity and humanity, purified the soul
from ignorance and pollution; secured the peculiar aid of the gods;
the means of arriving at the perfection of virtue; the serene
happiness of a holy life; the hope of a peaceful death and endless
felicity in the Elysian fields; whilst those not initiated therein
should dwell after death in places of darkness and horror."

Thus did these ancient societies seek by means of the dramatic
presentation of a legend to teach the great Masonic doctrines of
the resurrection and the life after death.

There were lectures explanatory of the Mysteries but the crowning
ceremony of initiation was the communication to the candidate of an
ineffable name which it was lawful to speak only on certain
occasions and in a certain manner. Among the Egyptians, Persians
and Hindus, notwithstanding their pride separation, this was the
mysterious AUM, pronounced OM. I have purposely mingled things
dissimilar with things similar to Freemasonry but the intelligent
Master Mason will be able to detect the points of resemblance.

Brother Robert F. Gould, whom I have already several times quoted,
without venturing to pronounce Freemasonry and the Ancient
Mysteries identical, says:

"It is a well known fact that these Mysteries offer striking
analogies with much that is found in Freemasonry; their celebration
in grottoes or covered halls, which symbolized the Universe, and
which in disposition and decoration presented a distinct
counterpart to our lodge; their division into degrees conferred by
the initiatory rites wonderfully like our own; their method of
teaching through the same astronomic symbolism the highest truths
then known in Philosophy and Morals; their mystic bond of secrecy,
toleration, equality and brotherly love."

He intimates strongly his belief that Freemasonry is a development
out of the Mysteries of Mithras, which, originating in Persia,
spread to Greece, Rome and Western Europe and lingered there until
the fourth or fifth century, A. D.

Enough has been said on this point to make it plain that anyone who
would understand our Masonic symbolism must at least make a study
of what these same symbols meant to these ancient societies.

THIRD DEGREE SYMBOLS

I shall not lengthen this paper and tax your patience by repeating
explanations laid down in our monitors and lectures. I shall for
the most part confine myself to things that are not explained at
all, or that are explained inadequately.

Many of the symbols of the Master's degree are common to the
preceding degrees and these I shall touch upon very briefly. There
is, however, discoverable in their use as the degrees progress, an
increasing seriousness and depth of meaning.

For instance, in the first two degrees, the lodge symbolizes the
world, the place where all workmen labor at useful avocations and
in the acquisition of human knowledge and virtue. But in the
Master's degree it represents the Sanctum Sanctorum, or Holy of
Holies of King Solomon's Temple, which was itself a symbol of
Heaven, or the abode of Deity. It was there that nothing earthly or
unclean was allowed to enter; it was there that the visible
presence of the Deity was said to dwell between the Cherubim. In
the Master's lodge, therefore, we are symbolically brought into the
awful presence of the Deity. The reference here to death and the
future life is obvious and is a further evidence that this degree
typifies old age and death.

But there is even a deeper symbolism in the Master's lodge. The
allusion is not only to the sacred chamber of Solomon's physical
temple, it alludes also to the sacred chamber of that spiritual
temple we all are, or should he, namely, a pure heart, and
admonishes us to make of it a place fit for Deity himself to dwell.

The likening of the human body to a temple of the Deity is an
ancient metaphor. Jesus said, in speaking of the temple of his
body, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
Again, Paul says, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and
that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the
temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is
holy, and such arc ye." I quote these passages, not as a Christian
doctrine, but as a beautiful expression of Jewish thought far older
than Christianity. We can with difficulty conceive the extreme
sacredness of the Temple in the eyes of the Jew. It far exceeded
the veneration with which we now regard our churches and
synagogues. This idea once comprehended shows how greatly this
figure of speech ennobles the human body. It declares it a fit
dwelling place for Deity himself.

In the Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft degrees, Light typifies
the acquisition of human knowledge and virtue; in the Masters
degree it typifies the revelation of divine truth in the life that
is to come.

In the first two degrees the square and compasses denote the earth
and inculcate and impress upon us the desirability of curbing our
passions; in the third degree the compasses symbolize what is
heavenly, because to our ancient brethren the visible heavens bore
the aspect of circles and arches, geometrical figures produced with
the compasses.

In some of the monitors we are told that "the compasses are
peculiarly consecrated to this degree," but the reasons there given
are not satisfying. In ancient symbolism the square signified the
earth, while the circle, a figure produced with the compasses,
signified the sun or the heavens. The square therefore symbolized
what is earthly and material while the compasses signified the
heavenly and the spiritual. It is not without significance,
therefore, that in the Entered Apprentice degree, both points of
the compasses are beneath the square; that in the Fellow Craft
degree one point is above the square, while in the Master's degree
both points are above, signifying that in the true Master, the
spiritual has obtained full mastery and control over the earthly
and the material. (10)

DISCALCEATION

Discalceation, or the plucking off of one's shoes, was in the
Entered Apprentice degree, as we there learned, a symbol of
fidelity to our fellow man. In this degree, however, it alludes to
an ancient act of homage paid by man to Deity, namely, the Eastern
custom that prevailed among both Jews and Gentiles of entering only
barefooted into any sacred place or upon any holy ground. In the
one case, this practice was a testimony of man to man; in the
other, it is a testimony of man to his Creator.

Pythagoras taught his disciples in these words, "offer sacrifice
and worship with thy shoes off." Adam Clarke includes the
universality of this custom among his thirteen proofs that all
mankind has descended from common ancesters. A Master Mason's lodge
represents, as we have seen, the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple
into which the High Priest alone entered only once yearly, and then
with bare feet. The lodge in some of the old rituals is said to
stand on holy ground. God said to Moses at the burning bush: "Put
off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground." (11)

Note also the deeper significance of the shock of reception as the
degrees progress. In the first, the appeal is to the sense of fear,
in other words, purely physical. In the second, appeal is made to
the moral sense and inculcates fair dealing with men, but in the
third it is not merely to our sense of justice towards our fellow
man, but to our brotherly love for him and to those higher
reflective elements of our nature whose proverbial seat is the
breasts.

It is a mistake to limit the "Brotherly Love" of this degree to
members of the Masonic fraternity. If the lodge symbolizes the
world, as it undoubtly does, so should its members symbolize all
the inhabitants thereof. The love that should prevail among the
members of the lodge, therefore, typifies the love that should
prevail among all mankind. In the highest sense all men are our
brothers precisely as we are so strikingly taught in the parable of
the Good Samaritan that all men are our neighbors.

CIRCUMAMBULATION

Circumambulation, from the Latin word "circumambulare," to walk
around, is a very ancient rite, one common to all the Ancient
Mysteries. The sun, the fructifier and giver of life, in his daily
course across the heavens, appears to those living in the Northern
Hemisphere, where the ancient world dwelt, to proceed from the East
by the way of the South to the West, and thence through the
darkness of the night via the North back to the East again.
Vegetation was seen to spring up, animal life to be aroused from
slumber and take on increased energy, as the King of Day moved with
dignity across the heavens. To the untutored mind of primeval man
it is not strange that the sun should appear to be the giver of
life, the very Creator himself. His apparent course, therefore,
from East through the South to the West and back to the East by way
of the North became the "course of life", as the ancients expressed
it.

The ancients in their ceremonies when representing life pursued
this course, and we Masons follow their example. To proceed in the
reverse direction typified death, and as every Master Mason knows
at one important point in our ceremonies we take this reverse
course. At the grave of a deceased brother, however, contrary to
what might be expected, we still follow the course of life as a
token of our belief in the life that follows death. (11)

THE WORKING TOOLS

With us in America the especial working tool of a Master Mason is
said to be the Trowel. In England, this symbol is almost obsolete,
and they employ the Skirrit, Pencil and Compasses.

Of the Trowel, Dr. Oliver, a noted but somewhat discredited Masonic
authority, says:

"The triangle, now called the Trowel, was an emblem of very
extensive application and was much revered by ancient nations as
containing the greatest and most abstruse mysteries that it
signified equally Deity, Creation and Fire." (12)

We will learn directly something more of the symbolical
signification of the triangle.

The Skirrit, the Pencil and the Compasses are not enumerated in
America among the working tools of a Master Mason. The Skirrit is
an instrument working on a center pin and used by the Operative
Mason to mark out on the ground the foundation of the intended
structure. The Pencil is employed in drafting the plans and the
Compasses in determining the limit and proportions of its several
parts. Symbolically they are explained in English (Emulation)
working in the following words:

"The Skirrit points out to us that straight and undeviating line of
conduct laid down for our guidance in the volume of the sacred law.
The Pencil teaches us that all our words and actions are not only
observed, but are recorded by the Most High, to whom we must render
an account of our conduct through life. The Compasses reminds us of
his unerring and impartial justice, which having defined for our
instruction the limits of good and evil will either reward or
punish us, as we have obeyed or disregarded his divine commands."
(13)

We must admit that the trowel would seem more properly to belong to
the Fellow Craft, who in Operative Masonry puts the stones in
place, rather than to the designer and overseer who corresponds to
our Master Mason.

Brother John Yarker in his Arcane Schools says that the Skirrit as
a hieroglyphic signifies the origin of things. (14)

DEITY AND IMMORTALITY

There are a few who feign that they believe nothing that cannot be
experienced through the five senses of the body. Wonderful as are
these faculties, I am persuaded that we are possessed of a sixth
sense which is higher and finer even than those of the body. By
this sense we perceive though we see not; we feel though we touch
not; we understand though we hear not; we know though we neither
taste nor smell. By it, also, we are aware of all the higher
aspirations of the mind and soul; by it alone are we conscious of
our own existence. Seeing is not thinking. Nor is hearing, or
feeling, or tasting, or smelling. These five senses are but
ministers to this sixth sense. The five senses of human nature we
were concerned with in a former degree, but we are here concerned
with something far superior to them, whatever we call it, whether
consciousness, faith, mind, soul or spirit. Are the testimonies of
this sixth sense any less real or any less reliable than those of
the five senses of the body? By it mankind has always, in every age
and in every condition, felt intuitively that there was a God and
that we shall live again. These beliefs are so strong and so ever
present with us that we never doubt them until we begin to argue
about them.

There is nothing in Masonry so constantly pressed upon our thoughts
as these two great doctrines. Signs, symbols, and legends are all
repeatedly employed to emphasize them.

In the Master's degree, the Pot of Incense, the All-Seeing Eye, the
Three Grand Masters, the Triangle, and the legends of the Temple
and of Hiram Abif are all employed for this purpose, as I shall
attempt to show.

We read with incredulity that men could ever bow down to, and
worship, idols. Doubtless the thoughtful and intelligent ones have
never done so even in pagan countries. They looked beyond and
viewed the idol as merely a symbol. As the idol among pagan people
usually assumed a human form, the Jews as well as other believers
in monotheism of ancient times, forbade the employment of the human
effigy as a symbol of Deity. To supply the need so keenly felt by
the ancients of a symbol to represent every idea, conventional
figures such as squares, circles, triangles, etc., were adopted by
the ancient monotheists to symbolize the Deity. Thus perhaps it is
that the being which alone is said to have been made in the image
of his Creator is nowhere employed in our symbolism to represent
the G. A. O. T. U.

THE HIRAMIC LEGEND

The most important series of symbols in Freemasonry is the legend
concerning Hiram Abif and the other symbolic allusions connected
therewith. For obvious reasons, I do not attempt to narrate the
story of this legend. Nor shall I undertake to make any systematic
or exhaustive study of it, but only to discuss in a disconnected
way those symbols associated with it that are most important or
whose meaning is least obvious.

As we have already seen, the Ancient Mysteries employed a legend
dramatically presented to teach the great doctrines of the
existence of Deity, the resurrection of the body, and the
immortality of the soul. Among Freemasons, the legend of Hiram, the
builder, is employed in a strikingly similar way to teach the same
truths. It is not permissible, even if it were necessary, to enter
further into details in order to demonstrate this parallel, but the
points of resemblance will be sufficiently obvious to the
intelligent Mason.

A few observations upon the name Hiram Abif will not be out of
place. Abif is certainly not a surname as our use of it would seem
to indicate. It is translated in the English Bibles "Hiram, my
father's" and "Hiram, his father." This scarcely makes sense; and
hence the general consensus of opinion among Masonic scholars is
that "Abif" is a Hebrew idiom indicating superiority in his Craft
and may therefore, in a general sense, be said to be synonymous
with "Master." (15)

The name "Hiram" itself has been supposed by many to bear a
symbolic meaning. In Kings it is written "Hiram" but in Chronicles
it is written "Huram." Brother Albert Pike contends that the proper
form is "Khirum" or "Khurum." The former Khirum is from the Hebrew
word "Khi" meaning "living", and "ram" meaning "was or shall be
raised or lifted up." Hence Khirum means "was raised or lifted up
to life." The other form, Khurum, means nearly the same, "raised up
noble or free." Brother Pike shows this name to be synonymous with
the Egyptian Her-ra, and the Phoenician Heracles, the
personification of Light and the sun, the Mediator, the Redeemer
and the Savior.

But do not be mislead into supposing that the reference is here
Christian. The idea of a Mediator, Redeemer or Savior is far older
than Christianity and by no means confined to the Jews. It is a
concept that seems to have been almost universal in the ancient
world.

Again, it is said that Hiram, in its pure and original form,
literally meant Light or the sun. His murder by the three ruffians
is by many scholars believed to have symbolic reference to the
declension of the sun towards the south during the three winter
months with its accompanying temporary death of many forms of
vegetable and animal life; the discovery and raising of his body,
to the return of spring with its manifestations of newness of life
in its thousands of forms. There is no doubt that this astronomical
phenomenon, so typical of both death and a new life, was
extensively employed by the ancients to teach the doctrines of
resurrection and immortality.

Those who attach an astronomical signification to this legend of
Hiram Abif believe the fifteen Fellow Craft to be a faulty symbol;
that the true number is twelve, corresponding to the twelve signs
of the Zodiac through which the sun apparently passes every year;
that the number of those who conspired and the number who recanted
have been confused; that name, typifying those who recanted, fill
the spring, summer and autumn with their seasons of planting,
growth and harvest, while the three who persisted typify winter,
when all nature, if not dead, appears to be dormant. It has been
pointed out as corroborating this interpretation of this legend
that our two festival seasons, June 24th and December 27th, the
birthdays respectively of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist,
very nearly coincide respectively with the summer and winter
solstices; that is to say that when the sun is at its greatest
intensity, and, when in the dead of winter, having reached his
furthermost limit to the South, he begins his fructifying and
vivifying journey towards the North again.

I can but touch upon this abstruse symbolism, and invite the
serious student of Freemasonry to its study. It cannot be covered
in an evening; volumes have been and may still be written upon the
subject without exhausting it. (16)

In nearly all the ancient systems of religion, Deity was regarded
as a triad or trinity, by whom, acting conjointly only, could
anything be done that was done. Our own doctrine of the Trinity is
but a mere spiritualized modification of this ancient trinitarian
conception. The secrets known only to our Three Grand Masters
typify divine truth known only to this trinitarian Deity, and which
is not to be communicated and made known to man, the Fellow Craft,
the workman, until he has completed his spiritual temple. Then,
according to divine promise, if found worthy, if this temple he
nobly and worthily built and made a fit dwelling place for divine
truth, these secrets will be communicated to him. He can then
travel into that foreign country whither we all are bound and there
obtain the wages of the master, that is to say, the reward of a
righteous and well spent life. But he who would force or steal this
knowledge or obtain it other than by faithful labor and effort to
prepare himself for its understanding and enjoyment is no better
than a murderer and robber. It is the same allegory as that of Adam
eating of the tree of knowledge. For a like offense, stealing the
sacred fire of the gods and bestowing it upon man, was Prometheus
bound to the rock, his body torn open and his liver fed upon by the
vultures of the air.

THE THREE RUFFIANS

One having the least familiarity with the religions of the East
cannot fail to recognize in the names of the three ruffians the
name of the gods of Palestine, Phoenicia and Egypt, Jah, Bel and
Om, spelled AUM. This will be even more striking to the Royal Arch
Mason. Whether this is a mere coincidence or the result of design,
or if designed, what is the significance, are unknown. (17)

LOW TWELVE
In ancient symbolism, the number twelve denoted completion. Whether
this meaning arose from the fact that twelve months completed the
year, or twelve signs of the Zodiac, or whether from the fact that
what was regarded as the most stable geometrical figure known, the
cube, is marked by twelve edges, opinions differ. At any rate, it
denoted a thing fulfilled. It was, therefore, an emblem of a human
life. Death followed immediately after life; the number thirteen
immediately after twelve; it is for this reason that thirteen has
long been regarded as an unlucky number. With us the solemn stroke
of twelve marks the completion of human existence in this life.

THE LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH

The Lion from most ancient times has been a symbol of might or
royalty. It was blazoned upon the standard of the tribe of Judah,
because it was the royal tribe. The kings of Judah were, therefore,
called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and such was one of the
titles of Solomon. Remembrance of this fact gives appropriateness
to an expression employed at one point in our ceremonies which is
otherwise obscure, not to say absurd. Such is the literal meaning
of this phrase, but it also has a symbolical one.

The Jewish idea of a Messiah was of a mighty temporal king. He was
also designated as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah; in fact this
title was regarded as peculiarly belonging to him. The expression
does not, as many Masons suppose necessarily have reference to
Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian Mason is privileged to so
interpret it, if he so likes, but the Jew has equal right to
understand it as meaning his Messiah. Indeed, every great religion
of the world has contained the conception in some form, of a
Mediator between God and man, a Redeemer who would raise mankind
from the death of this life and the grave, to an everlasting
existence with God hereafter. The Mason who is a devotee of one of
these religions, say Buddhism, Brahmanism or Mohammedanism, is
likewise entitled to construe this expression as referring to his
own Mediator.

In an ancient Egyptian inscription is depicted a lion seizing by
the wrist a man lying in front of an altar, prostrate upon his back
as if dead. The lion seems to be raising the man up and to
symbolize that power by which the dead are brought to newness of
life. Near the altar stands a man with his left arm elevated in the
form of a square.

(To be continued)

(1) Ars Quatuor Coronatorum vol. III, p. 10. 
(2) Idem, p. 24. 
(3) Idem, p. 27. 
(4) Idem, p. 26. 
(5) Idem, p. 23. 
(6) Idem, p. 24. 
(7) Gould's Concise History, pp. 24, 25
(8) Mackey's Symbolism, p. 36. 
(9) Yarker's Arcane Schools 113.
(10) Morals and Dogma. pp. 850, 854.
(11) Mackey's Symbolism, pp. 124, 129.
(12) Oliver's Signs and Symbols, p 10; Universal Masonic Library,
p. 14; Transactions Lodge of Research 1909-10, p. 42.
(13) Aiken, p. 80.
(14) Yarker's Arcane Schools, pp. 33, 220.
(15) Mackey's Encyclopedia, p. 3: Morals and Dogma, p. 81.
(16) Festival of Mal-Karth, Morals and Dogma, p. 78.
(17) Morals and Dogma, pp. 80, 82, 448, 488: Tyler Keystone, Aug.
20, 1908, pp. 77, 78.
(18) Portal, p. 30; Masonic Magazine, p. 328: Morals and Dogma, pp.
79, 254, 461.


READY TO BE TRIED AGAIN

'Tis no matter how much work we have done ere dawned today 
'Tis no matter how we've striven on an upward, onward way; 
There are duties ever new falling due each day to men, 
And the one who does them best waits but to be tried again.

Though we have been tried as came duties new upon the way,
Though the storm obscured the sun that was bright as dawned the
day;
Though the yesterdays are past 'tis no matter what they've been,
'Tis today that we must be ready to be tried again.

There's no wage can come to us only as our work is done, 
There's no premium to life save as are its triumphs won; 
Recompense comes with the toil e'en as we the task begin, 
E'en as we report to self, ready to be tried again.

And as Masons we are taught that while we've been often tried 
We are never by the Craft of the privilege denied 
Of the trying for the work that it makes so clear and plain, 
And for which we all should be ready to be tried again.

And the fact that we're in wait may unlock the mystic door 
To the findings in the Art that may prove a golden store; 
'Tis an inspiration e'en if there's not a moment when 
We're not in the firing line, ready to be tried again.

And by trial comes the glow of a brighter, keener joy-- 
That real something that we know in the mystic Arts employ; 
Tis the thought unfolding to the ideal it gives to men 
That the trial is in being ready to be tried again.

And the thought is larger still, 'tis a trial now and here 
For and in and as the task as each day's new claims appear, 
Trial measured by the TRUTH as it may respond amen 
As we ever DO and DARE, READY TO BE TRIED AGAIN. 
--Bro. L. B. Mitchell, Michigan.
