THE TEACHINGS OF MASONRY

BY BRO. H.L. HAYWOOD, IOWA

PART XIII-FREEMASONRY AND RELIGION

THE BUILDER SEPTEMBER 1922

THE EARLY operative builders of the Middle Ages were churchmen, if we may trust the many histories of architecture which deal with the subject.  This was especially true after the Gothic, or pointed arch, superseded the old Romanesque style with its round arch and its gloomy interiors, for the advent of the Gothic coincided with a revival of interest in church architecture.  This revival reached such proportions of zeal and devotion that bishops themselves studied to become architects (that word was not in use then, but the function was) and raised such great sums of money for the purpose that many little towns erected cathedral structures that would now be pointed to with pride by our great rich modern cities.  Needless to say, these builders, the bishop directors and overseers along with the men who did the toil, were true and loyal sons of the Roman Catholic Church as it then existed.

After a while, and through the inevitable operation of architectural evolution - there is no need to narrate the story of all the changes in this connection - the superintendency and direction of building operations (I am still referring to church and cathedral and similar structures) passed gradually into the hands of laymen.  Of these great lay architects, especially those who worked in France where Gothic reached its utmost pinnacle of glory, we have many memorials and remains; in a large number of cases we have rather complete biographical sketches and even portraits.  From all these records we know that the builders of this particular period were also loyal sons of the Mother Church.

It was so in England as well as in France, for we find in the Old Charges that the mason, when he came to unite with the Fraternity, was required to swear to be faithful and true to the Holy Church as well as to the King.  But after the Reformation had established itself in England - which was quite a while after the death of Henry VIII - these operative masons, along with the rank and file of men in all other walks of life, became Protestants, - that is, they became members of the Church of England.


When does the story of Operative Masons begin? Give the dates of the "Middle Ages." What was the outstanding feature, or characteristic, of Romanesque architecture? Of Gothic? Who were the first architects of Gothic? What, do you suppose, led the bishops to take such an interest in building? To what church did masons then belong? Did they all have to belong to that church? If so, why? Why did laymen come to take the place of bishops as architects, or masters of the work? Where, do you suppose, may one find the records of these oldtime master builders? Where did Gothic architecture reach its highest development? What religion was enjoined by the Old Charges? What is meant by "Old Charges"? What was the Reformation? When did it occur? What did Luther have to do with it? Henry VIII? What was the difference between a Protestant church, as we now know it, and the "Church of England"? What effect did Protestantism have on the religion of masons ?

In many histories of Freemasonry the account of the religious beginnings of the Craft stops off short at this place, but that is an error, a very misleading error, and one that should be carefully avoided by the Masonic student.  Freemasonry as it became organized in 1717, and as we now know it, owed much, very much, to the operative builders of the Middle Ages, but it also owed, much, perhaps quite as much, to other sources, which had nothing whatever to do with operative building.  I refer to occult societies and associations, and to scattered sources out of which many streams of influence gradually made their way into the main currents of Speculative Freemasonry.

In the time of Pope Innocent III (approximately in the year 1200) there began the great Albigensian Crusades.  The purpose of this immense military advance into southern France was to stamp out flourishing communities of men and women who had come to believe in a Christianity very different from that represented by the pope.  These men have been described as "Protestants before the Reformation." In a strict sense they were not Protestant, and their ideas were very far away from those made familiar to us by our own great Protestant denominations, but these men cherished independence of mind, purity of conduct, and demanded for themselves liberty of worship.  They were the "heretics." I am myself convinced - though there is not here room to furnish the data on which my conviction rests - that these "heretics" set loose in Europe a powerful stream of influence, some of which finally found its way into Freemasonry. (See "New Light on the Renaissance," by Harold Bayley, among scores of other books.)

All our historians, at least nearly all of them, agree that Freemasonry owes very much to certain occult societies or groups that flourished - often in secret - during the late Middle Ages, and even into the after-Reformation times.  Chief among these were the Rosicrucians and the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar had been in the East; they had come into contact with Jewish, Greek, and Arabic lore, and they had imbibed strange new ideas from far-away types of Christianity.  The authorities of the Roman Catholic Church attacked these knightly orders on the ground that they had become heretics - "Gnostics" was the exact word used.  Those who have most carefully examined the evidence (some Henry Charles Lea's great works on the period) are inclined to believe that the charges were more or less well grounded. The Knights Templar had become infected with heresy.

As for the Rosicrucians, not much is known about them and it is doubtful if much ever will be known about them, but it is certain that during the seventeenth century there were many powerful and original thinkers in Europe, especially in Germany, the Low Countries, and in England, who called themselves "Rosicrucians" and who made wide use of a (now) strange system of symbols and esoteric means of communication.  It is believed by some that Francis Bacon was a Rosicrucian.  I said that not much is known with certainty about them; of this one thing, however, we can be certain: they were Protestants, when they were not altogether outside the bounds of Christianity.

About the Kabbalists more is known. The literature called the Kabbala came into existence in Spain during the thirteenth century, or thereabouts, and won its way among the Jews who had grown weary of the sterile rationalism of Maimonides and his school.  The Kabbalistical literature was dramatically brought to the attention of the intellectual circles of Europe by Reuchlin when, in or about 1500, he caught it up as a means of preventing a terrible slaughter of Jews by the papists.  The Kabbala is a work of Jewish mysticism.  From it there came into Freemasonry, so there is good reason to believe, the Legend of the Lost Word, the Tradition of Solomon's Temple, the Tradition of the Substitute Word, the Great Pillars, etc.

Can you name three Masonic histories? Which one is supposed to be the best? What is meant by "occult"?  Can you tell anything about Pope Innocent III? What is meant by the word "heretic"? Can you tell anything about the Albigensian Crusades? Do you believe that Freemasonry connects in any way with the Knights Templar? Are the Masonic Knights Templar identical with the Order spoken of above? Why was the Order suppressed? Who was the last Grand Master of the Knights? Have you ever heard of Jacques de Molay? What can you tell about the Rosicrucians? Where were the Rosicrucians strongest? Describe the Kabbalists? Where did Kabbalism originate? When did Reuchlin live? What did he do? What does Freemasonry owe to Kabbalism? Was the Kabbala Jewish or Christian? If Freemasonry descended from the Kabbalists, and the other sources named above, as well as from Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, what, would you say, was the first religion of Freemasonry?


It should be further noted that during the century immediately preceding the famous Revival (1717) many men came into the Fraternity who where - to a certain extent - what would now be called Free Thinkers.  This is not to say that they were atheists or anti-religious; it means that they chose to think for themselves, and were not able to accept many things officially taught by the churches.  Quite a number of the founders and early champions of the Royal Society (this fact is overlooked so often) were active Freemasons, and so were many other learned men in different quarters who, in that period of rationalism, did not adhere to any religion at all, albeit, like Voltaire and the Deists, they believed in a Supreme Being.  It is certain that many of these men found their way into the Fraternity at a period before the Revival and I have no doubt that they had something to do at the time with the complete releasing of Freemasonry from adhesion to any one religion whatsoever.  The great paragraph "Concerning God and Religion" which Anderson (or whoever it was) incorporated in the first Grand Lodge Constitutions, is a frank statement to the effect that whereas in ancient times Freemasons had been obliged to be of the religion of the country in which they lived, that now no religious demands would be made of them save that they were not to be stupid atheists or irreligious libertines. The adoption of the paragraph marks an epoch in the evolution of religion in the English-speaking world. It was a great magna charta of spiritual liberty proclaimed at a time when religious bigotry was more bigoted than ever, and when men were suffering all manner of persecution for daring to disagree with the official dogmas of the churches. The Masonic student should make the most careful study of this period of Masonic history because it was at this time that the constitutions and landmarks were adopted (many of them, anyhow) that are still in force, and it is to that period that Grand Lodges almost always turn when seeking for precedents whereon to establish new laws or regulations or interpretations. Unless one clearly grasps the principles built into Speculative Freemasonry at that time, he will ever remain hopelessly in the dark about the underlying principles of Freemasonry as it now exists.

What is meant by a Free Thinker? Is he anti-religious? Who are some typical Free Thinkers now? What was the Royal Society? When and by whom was it founded? Who were the Deists? What did they believe? What was the substance of the famous paragraph "Concerning God and Religion"? Who wrote the Constitutions? Who was Anderson? In what sense was that aforementioned paragraph a great religious magna charta? Why do Grand Lodges seek precedents in the period of the Revival? When and what was this Revival?

As time went on it came to pass that Freemasonry began to grow at a great rate, and it was inevitable, owing to the serious and religious character of the ritual, that many of the men drawn to it should be churchmen, or otherwise devout. A trend toward Christianization of the Order set in. In 1760 the Holy Bible was made a Great Light. In 1813, at the time of the famous Union of the two Grand Lodges, the Antient and the Modern, Freemasonry was specifically declared to be consecrated to the glory of God. After this the tide toward Christianization set in with new power until it at last culminated in the work of Dr. George Oliver, whose name should be held in everlasting remembrance among Masons. To Oliver the whole Masonic system was essentially biblical and wholly Christian. He was so fruitful in influence, his books were so many, and his followers so numberless,  that for decades men entirely lost sight of the original principles of Speculative Masonry - that Masonry, I mean, that is usually referred back for its origin to 1717. Indeed, that impulse has not yet by any means spent itself; many brethren, misled by the predominantly Scriptural cast of the Work, and misunderstanding a few scattered references here and there, assume that in some sense Freemasonry is specifically a Christian institution, and forget, the while, the presence of a great number of Jews in the Order, not to mention many who adhere to no one religion whatsoever. So late as 1887 Brother H.J. Whymper published a book since become standard, "The Religion of Freemasonry," in which he boldly upheld the thesis that Freemasonry is a specifically Christian institution. The work was introduced by W.J. Hughan, and edited by G. W. Speth.


It is probable that Brother Whymper (I join with all in honouring a name so illustrious in our annals) forgot the great and epoch-making Proclamation issued by H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, M.W. Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, published from Kensington Palace, July 2, 1842, which Proclamation plainly declared that Freemasonry is not the property of any one religion, and that those subjects of the Crown in India who were otherwise eligible and who could make a sincere profession of faith in one living God, be they Hindus or Mohammedans, might petition for membership in Freemasonry. That Proclamation established a precedent of vast influence, so that today the Fraternity flourishes in the Far East to an undreamed of extent, and it is quite impossible, in view of the fact of Masonic universality, to claim for any one religion, as against all others, the adhesion of this Order.

When was the Holy Bible made a great Light? Why is it called The Volume of the Sacred Law? Are there other Volumes of the Sacred Law? What book is so used by Jews? By Mohammedans? By Hindus? When was the lodge formally declared consecrated to God? Why do Masons speak of Him as T.S.G.A.O.T.U.? What was the "Antient" Grand Lodge? The "Modern"? What is the Grand Lodge of England now called? What position did Dr. Oliver take? Do you agree with him? What book did Whymper publish? When? What was his position? When did H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex publish his Proclamation? And where? What was the significance of it? What does that proclamation mean for us? Does the Grand Lodge of England recognize lodges that accept men other than Christian?

The Bible is the sacred book of Christians; the ritual of Freemasonry is steeped in the Bible: therefore Freemasonry must be considered a Christian institution; this is the logic, expressed or implied, by which men have been led to hold that the Craft adheres to that one religion as against all others. These brethren should be made to understand the facts in the case. It is true that the Holy Bible was the ultimate source of much in the ritual but one needs only try to test the ritual by biblical references to find that after all the ritual is not built on the text of the Bible, for the great major incidents in the ritual - and this applies to all the grades - are not found in the Book at all. To cite but one example; the tragedy of Hiram Abiff which is so central to all the mysteries of Masonry, is not met with in any of the sacred books. The explanation of this lies ready to hand. Traditions and legends, suggested long ago by incidents in the Bible, were taken up here and there by different groups and worked over into new shapes and to new purposes. A luxuriant undergrowth of legend and myth sprang up about the feet of the old Bible stories, of which fact the rich old tales of Arthur and his Table and of the Search for the Grail, woven by Tennyson into the deeply -coloured and mystical poems of The Idylls of the King, may serve as a familiar example. Medieval religion, art, and architecture, as everybody knows, are all steeped in these old traditions, many of which had undergone an evolution that led them to become completely cut away from their original sources in the Sacred Writings.

The biblical traditions in Freemasonry did not come into it directly from the Bible, but from these other and secondary sources, and in long round-about paths, so that, by the time they had come to be incorporated into the ritual, they had undergone many profound transformations, so that it is no longer possible to call them biblical, save as such traditions as the above mentioned Holy Grail may also be called biblical. The Legend of the Lost Word, of the Substitute Word, of the great Temple of which Hiram Abiff was Grand Master, etc., etc., all had, no doubt, their first inspiration in the biblical narratives, but they have since travelled so far away from their sources that they may be thought of, like the old myths of the Greeks, as belonging to the whole world, and to men of all religions.

But while it is true that Freemasonry cannot be claimed by any one religion - no intelligent Freemason will make such a claim, however devout he may be in his own faith - it has a religious foundation that is all its own. Believing that there is under all the creeds one universal religion, which may be described as a belief in one God as the Father of all, in the immortality of the soul, and in the brotherhood of man, it demands of all its initiates adhesion to these root truths. What other things they may choose to believe, and how they may interpret or elaborate these fundamentals, is left wholly to their own private judgment. It is as if the Fraternity said to its children, "Here is the great substructure, the mother rock under your feet, on which you must each one build your own house of religion; what manner of temples you build, and in what style, and where, and how high, that I shall leave to you individually; but on the substructure of belief in God, in brotherhood, and in immortality, you must build, else you do not belong to me.


Give examples of biblical references in the Work. Recite portions of it that are drawn directly from the Bible. Have you ever sought for the origin of the Hiram Abiff tragedy in the Old Testament? What did you find? Does our account of Solomon's Temple agree with the account in the Book of Kings? How have you explained this to yourself ? What do you think of the explanations as given above? Have you ever read Tennyson's Idylls of the King? Who was Tennyson? When did he live? Can you give the story of the Holy Graal (sometimes spelled "Grail"? Retell in your own words the account of how traditions, originally from the Bible, reached us by circuitous paths, and after they had become worked over and changed. What is the religion of Freemasonry? There will be men of several different religions in a Study Club; it would be interesting to have them tell you how they have found their own beliefs not to conflict with Freemasonry and its teachings.

SUPPLEMENTAL REFERENCES


THE BUILDER:

Vol I. - The Two Paths, p. 37; The Spirit of Easter, p. 92; A Twentieth Century Masonic Philosophy, p. 106; Prayer in Masonry, p. 186; The Bible in Masonry, p. 254; The Spiritual Side of Masonry, p. 256; Masonic Meditation, p. 298.

Vol. II. - The Religion of Robert Burns, p. 3; Masonry and Religion, p. 50; Some Deeper Aspects of Masonic Symbolism, 107, 144, 175; Sectarianism and Freemasonry, p. 109; St. Johns Day, p. 185; The Church and the Craft, p. 191; Toleration, p. 265; Non-Christian Candidates, p. 302; The Church and Freemasonry, p. 318.

Vol. III. - The Fellowship of Masonry, p. 41; Religion and Philosophy, p. 234; Masonry's Great Book, p. 347. 

Vol. IV. - Prayer, Feb. C.C.B., p. 7; The Divine Geometry, p. 159; Symbolism of the Master Mason Degree, p. 291.

Vol. V. - The Catholic Treatise on Masonry, pp. 180, 210, 247, 272.

Vol. VI. - The Letter G, Feb. C.C.B., p. 3; The Lost Wod, May C.C.B., p. 3; Sacred Symbol, p. 288.


Vol. VII. - The Religious Teachings of Freemasonry, p. 82; Emblematic Freemasonry, Building Guilds and Hermetic Schools, p. 160; T.G.A.O.T.U., p. 169; Toleration and Free Thinking, p.196; Masonic Prayers, p. 206; Material for Masonic Sermons, p. 271.

Vol. VIII. - Religious Beliefs, p. 62; The Roman Catholic Articles, p. 94; Masonic Toleration, p. 137; Toleration and Freemasonry, p. 150; The Holy Sts. John, pp. 170, 202; Religion and the Grand Orient of France, P. 189; Hughan's Introduction to "The Religion of Freemasonry," p. 282. 

Mackey's Encyclopedia-(Revised Edition):

Antient, p. 55; Bacon, Francis, p. 89; Bible, p. 104; Builder, p. 123; Christianization of Freemasonry, p. 148; Church, Freemasons of the, p. 150; Consecration, p. 175; Craft, p. 184; Craftsman, p. 184; Creed, A Mason's, p. 184; Deism, p. 204; Gnostics, P. 300; God, p. 301; Gothic Architecture, p. 304; Hiram Abiff, p. 329; Hughan, William James, p. 338; Kabbala, p. 375; Knights Templar, p. 404; Knights Templar, Masonic, p. 410; Lost Word, p. 453; Modern, p. 488; Oath, p. 521; Oath, Corporal, p. 524; Oath of the Guild, p. 524; Oath, Tyler's, p. 524; Objections to Freemasonry, p. 525; Obligation, p. 525; Old Charges or Old Manuscripts, p. 527; Oliver, George, p. 527; Religion of Masonry, p. 617; Resurrection, p. 621; Revival, p. 622; Roman Colleges of Artificers, p 630; Rosicrucianism, p 639; Scriptures, Belief in the, p. 672; Scriptures, Reading of the, p. 672; Stone Masons of the Middle Ages, p. 718; Substitute Word, p. 734; Travelling Freemason, p. 792.

