CHAPTER XXXII

THE EARLY RITUAL OF SPECULATIVE FREEMASONRY


THE ritual is an important part of the organization of Speculative
Freemasonry. It is not a mere garment intended to cover the institution
and conceal its body from unlawful inspection. It is the body itself and the
very life of the institution. Eliminate from Freemasonry all vestiges of a
ritual and you make it a mere lifeless mass. Its characteristic as a
benevolent or as a social association might continue, but all its
pretensions as a speculative system of science and philosophy would be
lost.

As a definition of this important and indispensable element in the Masonic
system, it may be said that the ritual is properly the prescribed method of
administering the forms of initiation into the society, comprising not only
the ceremonies but also the explanatory lectures, the catechismal tests,
and the methods of recognition.

Every secret society, that is to say, every society exclusive in its
character, confining itself to a particular class of persons, and isolating
itself by its occult organization from other associations and from mankind
in general, must necessarily have some formal mode of admission, some
meaning in that form which would need explanation, and some method by
which its members could maintain their exclusiveness.

Every secret society must, then, from the necessity of its organization, be
provided with some sort of a ritual, whether it be simple or complex.

The Operative Freemasonry of the Middle Ages is acknowledged to have
been a secret and exclusive society or guild of architects and builders,
who concealed the secret processes of their art from all who were not
workers with them.

As a secret association, the old Operative Freemasons must have
possessed a ritual. And we have, to support this hypothesis, not only
logical inference but unquestionable historical evidence.

German archaeologists have given us the examination or catechism
which formed a part of the ritual of the German Steinmetzen or
Stonecutters.

The Sloane MS. No. 3329 contains the catechism used by the Operative
Freemasons of England in the 17th century. A copy of this manuscript has
already been given in a preceding parts of the present work, and it is
therefore unnecessary to reproduce it here.

As the Sloane MS. has been assigned to a period between 1640 and
1700, we may safely conclude that it contains the ritual then in use among
the English Operative Freemasons. At a later period it may have suffered
considerable changes, but we infer that the ritual exposed in that
manuscript was the foundation of the one which was in use by the
Operative lodges which united in the formation of the Grand Lodge in the
year 1717.

If the new society did not hesitate to adopt, at first, the old laws of the
Operative institution, it is not at all probable that it would have rejected
the ritual then in use and frame a new one. Until the Grand Lodge was
securely seated in power, and the Operative element entirely eliminated,
it would have been easier to use the old Operative ritual. In time, as the
Operative laws were replaced by others more fitting to the character of
the new Order, so the simple, Operative ritual must have given way to the
more ornate one adapted to the designs of Speculative Freemasonry.

But during the earlier years of the Grand Lodge, this old Operative ritual
continued to be used by the lodges under its jurisdiction.

The precise ritual used at that time is perhaps irretrievably lost, so that we
have no direct, authentic account of the forms of initiation, yet by a careful
collation of the historical material now in possession of the Fraternity, we
may unravel the web, to all appearance hopelessly entangled, and arrive
at something like historic truth.

It was not until 1721 that by the approval of the "Charges" which had
been compiled the year before by Grand Master Payne, the Grand Lodge
took the first bold and decisive step toward the


(1) See Part II., chap. xii., p. 626.


total abolishment of the Operative element, and the building upon its ruins
a purely Speculative institution.

The ritual used by the four old Lodges must have been very simple. It
probably consisted of little more than a brief and unimpressive ceremony
of admission, the communication of certain words and signs, and
instruction in a catechism derived from that which is contained in the
Sloane MS. But I do not doubt that this catechism, brief as it is, was
greatly modified and abridged by the lapse of time, the defects of
memory, and the impossibility of trans mitting oral teachings for any
considerable length of time.

It is probable that Dr. Desaguliers, the great ritualist of the day, may have
begun to compose the new ritual about the same time that Payne, the
great lawmaker of the day, began to compile his new laws.

What this ritual was we can only judge by inference, by comparison, and
by careful analysis, just as Champollion deciphered the Egyptian
hieroglyphics by a collation of the three inscriptions of the Rosetta Stone.

For this purpose we have a very competent supply of documents which
we may employ in a similar comparison and analysis of the primitive ritual
of the Speculative Freemasons.

Thus we have had the book called The Grand Mystery, which was
published just a year after the appearance of the first edition of
Anderson's Book of Constitutions.

Dr. Oliver, it is true, calls this production a "catchpenny." (1) It would be
great folly to assert that it did not contain some shadowing forth of what
was the ritual at the time of its publication. When, a few years aftenvard,
Samuel Prichard published his book entitled Masonry Dissected, which is
evidently based on The Grand Mystery, and in fact an enlargement of it,
showing the improvements and developments which had taken place in
the ritual, Dr.


(1) "Revelations of a Square," chap. ii., note 6. But in a posthumous work
entitled "The Discrepancies of Freemasonry," published by Hogg & Co. in
1874 (page 79), he treats it with more respect, and says that it was the
examination or lecture used by the Craft in the 17th century, the original
of which, in the handwriting of Elias Ashmole, was given to Anderson
when he made his collections for the history contained in the "Book of
Constitutions." All this is very possibly correct, but as Oliver must have
derived his information from some traditional source in his own
possession solely, and as he has cited no authentic authority, we can
hardly make use of it as an historical fact.


Anderson replied to it in the pamphlet entitled A Defense of Masonry.

In this work it will be remarked that Anderson does not directly deny the
accuracy of Prichard's formulas, but only attempts to prove, which he
does very successfully, that the ceremonies as they are described by
Prichard were neither "absurd nor pernicious."

The truth is that Anderson's Defense is a very learned and interesting
interpretation of the symbols and ceremonies which were described by
Prichard, and might have been written, just in the same way, if Anderson
had selected the ritual as it was then framed on which to found his
commentaries.

Krause accepted both of these works, as he gave them a place in his
great work on The Three Oddest Documents of the Masonic Brotherhood.

For myself, I am disposed to take these and similar productions with some
grains of allowance, yet not altogether rejecting them as utterly worthless.
From such works we may obtain many valuable suggestions, when they
are properly and judiciously analyzed.

Krause thinks that The Grand Mystery was the production of one of the
old Masons, who was an Operative builder and a man not without some
learning.

This is probably a correct supposition. At all events, I am willing to take
the work as a correct exposition, substantially, of the condition of the ritual
at the time when it was published, which was seven years after what was
called the "Revival" in London.

It will give us a very correct idea of the earliest ritual accepted by the
Speculative Masons from their Operative brethren, and used until the
genius of Desaguliers had invented something more worthy of the
Speculative science.

Adopting it then as the very nearest approximation to the primitive ritual of
the Speculative Freemasons, it will not be an unacceptable gift, nor
useless in prosecuting the discussion of the subject to which this chapter
is devoted.

It has not often been reprinted, and the original edition of 1724 is very
scarce. I shall make use of the almost fac-simile imitation of that edition
printed in 1867 by the Masonic Archaeological Society of Cincinnati, and
under the supervision of Brother Enoch T. Carson, from whose valuable
library the original exemplar was obtained.

The title of the pamphlet is as follows:

"The Grand Mystery of Free-Masons Discover'd. Wherein are the several
Questions, put to them at their Meetings and Intstallations: As also the
Oath, Health, Signs and Points to know each other by. As they were
found in the Custody of a Free-Mason who Dyed suddenly. And now
Publish'd for the Information of the Publick. London .- Printed for T. Payne
near Stationer's-Hall 1724 (Price Six Pence) "

THE CATECHISM. (1)

1. Q. Peace be here.
A. I hope there is.

2. Q. What a-clock is it?
A. It is going to Six or going to Twelve. (2)

3. Q. Are you very busy ? (3)
A. No.

4. Q. Will you give or take?
A. Both; or which you please.

5. Q. How go Squares? (4)
A. Straight.

6. Q. Are you Rich or Poor ?
A. Neither.

7. Q. Change rrle that. (5)
A. I will.


(1) The object of this reprint being only to give the reader some idea of
what was the earliest form of the ritual that we possess, the Preface, the
Free-Mason's Oath, A FreeMason's Health and the signs to know a Free
Mason have been omitted as being unnecessary to that end. The
questions have been numbered here only for facility of reference in future
remarks.
(2) This may be supposed to refer to the hours of labor of Operative
Masons who commenced work at six in the morning and went to their
noon-meal at twelve. This is the first indication that this was a catechism
originally used by Operative Free Masons.
(3) Otherwise, "Have you any work? " Krause suggests that it was the
question addressed to a traveling Fellow who came to the lodge. "Every
Mason," say the Old Constitutions," shall receive or cherish strange
Fellows when they come over the Country and sett them on work." -
Landsdowne MS.
(4) Halliwell, in his Dictionary, cites "How gang squares?" as meaning
"How do you do?" He also says that "How go the squares?" means, how
goes on the game, as chess or draughts, the board being full of squares.
Krause adopts this latter interpretation of the phrase, but I prefer the
former.
(5) Here it is probable that the grip was given and interchanged. The
mutilation of this catechism which Krause suspects is here, I think,
evident. The answer " I will " and


8. Q. In the name of, &c., (1) are you a Mason ?
9. Q. What is a Mason ?
A. A Man begot of a Man, born of a woman, Brother to a king.

10. Q. What is a Fellow?
A. A Companion of a Prince.

11. Q. How shall I know that you are a Free-Mason ?
A. By Signs, Tokens, and Points of my Entry.

12. Q. Which is the Point of your Entry ?
A. I hear (2) and conceal, under the penalty of having my Throat cut, or
my Tongue pulled out of my Head.

13. Q. Where was you made a Free-Mason ?
A. In a just and perfect Lodge.

14 Q. How many make a Lodge ?
A. God and the Square with five or seven right and perfect Masons, on
the highest Mountains, or the lowest Valleys in the world. (3)

15. Q. Why do Odds make a Lodge ?
A. Because all Odds are Men's Advantage. (4)

16. Q. What Lodge are you of ?
A. The Lodge of St. John. (5)


the expression "In the name of, &c.," are connected with the interchange
of the grip. The answer to the question "Are you a Mason?" is omitted,
and then the catechism goes on with the question "What is a Mason?"

(1) The omission here can not be supplied. It was a part of the formula of
giving the grip. Krause suggests that the words thus omitted by the editor
of the catechism might be "In the name of the Pretender" or probably "In
the name of the King and the Holy Roman Catholic Church." But the
former explanation would give the catechism too modern an origin and the
latter would carry it too far back. However, that would suit the hypothesis
of Dr. Krause. I reject both, but can not supply a substitute unless it were "
In the name of God and the Holy Saint John."
(2) The Sloane MS., in which the same answer occurs, says, "I heal and
conceal," to heal being old English for to hide. It is very clear that the
word hear is a typographical error.
(3) Krause thinks that in this answer an old and a new ritual are mixed.
God and the Square he assigns to the former, the numbers five and
seven to the latter. But the Harleian MS. requires five to make a legal
lodge.
(4) We must not suppose that this was derived from the Kabbalists. The
doctrine that God delights in odd numbers, "numero Deus impare gaudet"
(Virgil, Ed. viii.), is as old as the oldest of the ancient mythologies. It is the
foundation of all the numerical symbolism of Speculative Freemasonry.
We here see that it was observed in the oldest ritual.
(5) This hieroglyphic appears to have been the early sign for a lodge, as
the oblong square is at the present day.


17. Q. How does it stand ?
A. Perfect East and West, as all Temples do.

18. Q. Where is the Mason's Point ? (1)
A. At the East-Window, waiting at the Rising of the Sun, to set his men at
work.

9. Q. Where is the Warden's Point ?
A. At the West-Window, waiting at the Setting of the Sun to dismiss the
Entered Apprentices.

20. Q. Who rules and governs the Lodge, and is Master of it ?
A. Irah,
Iachin
or the Right Pillar.'

21. Q. How is it govern'd?
A. Of Square and Rule.

22. Q. Have you the Key of the Lodge ?
A. Yes, I have.

23. Q. What is its virtue ?
A. To open and shut, and shut and open.

24. Q. Where do you keep it ?
A. In an Ivory Box, between my Tongue and my Teeth, or within my Heart,
where all my Secrets are kept.

25. Q. Have you the Chain to the Key ?
A. Yes, I have.

26. Q. How long is it ?
A. As long as from my Tongue to my Heart. (3)


(1) I find this question thus printed in all the copies to which I have had
access. But I have not the slightest doubt that there has been a
typographical error, which has been faithfully copied. I should read it
"Where is the Master's point?" The next question confirms my conviction.
The Master sets the Craft to work, the Warden dismisses them. This has
been followed by the modern rituals.
(2) Various have been the conjectures as to the meaning of the word Irah.
Schneider, looking to the theory that modern Freemasonry was instituted
to secure the restoration of the House of Stuart, supposes the letters of
the word to be the initials of the Latin sentence "lacobus Redibit Ad
Hereditatem" - James shall return to his inheritance. Krause thinks it the
anagram of Hiram, and he rejects another supposition that it is the
Hebrew Irah, reverence or holy fear, i.e., the fear of God. It may mean
Hiram, but there is no need of an anagram. The wonted corruption of
proper names in the old Masonic manuscripts makes Irah a sufficiently
near approximation to Hiram, who is called in the Old Constitutions,
Aynon, Aman, Amon, Anon, or Ajuon. The German Steinmetzen called
Tubal Cain Walcan.
(3) Speaking of tests like this, Dr. Oliver very wisely says: "These
questions may be considered trivial. but in reality they were of great
importance and included some of the


27. Q. How many precious Jewels ?
A. Three; a square Asher, a Diamond, and a Square.

28. Q. How many Lights ?
A. Three; a Right East, South and West. (1)

29. Q. What do they represent ?
A. The Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (2)

30. Q. How many Pillars?
A. Two; Iachin and Boaz.

31. Q. What do they represent ?
A. A Strength and Stability of the Church in all Ages. (3)

32. Q. How many Angles in St. John's Lodge ?
A. Four bordering on Squares.

33. Q. How is the Meridian found out ?
A. When the Sun leaves the South and breaks in at the West-End of the
Lodge.

34. Q. In what part of the Temple was the Lodge kept ?
A. In Solomon's Porch, (4) at the West-End of the Temple, where the two
Pillars were set up.

35. Q. How many Steps belong to a right Mason ?
A. Three.

36. Q. Give me the Solution.
A. I will . . . The Right Worshipful, Worshipful Master and Worshipful
Fellows of the Right Worshipful Lodge from whence I came, greet you
well.

That Great God to us greeting, be at this our meeting


profoundest mysteries of the Craft. . . . A single Masonic question, how
puerile soever it may appear, is frequently in the hands of an expert
Master of the Art, the depository of most important secrets." On "The
Masonic Tests of the Eighteenth Century " in his "Golden Remains," vol.
iv.,pp. 14, 15.
(1) The Bauhutten or Operative lodges of the Germans probably had,
says Krause, only three windows corresponding to the cardinal points,
and the three principal officers of the lodge had their seats near them so
as to obtain the best light for their labors.
(2) This is ample proof that the earliest Freemasonry of the new Grand
Lodge was distinctly Christian. The change of character did not occur until
the adoption of the "Old Charges" as printed in Anderson's first edition.
But more of this in the text.
(3) There is an allusion to strength in the German Steinmetzen's
catechism: "What is the Strength of our Craft?" Strength continued to be
symbolized as a Masonic attribute in all subsequent rituals and so
continues to the present day.
(4) An allusion to the Temple of Solomon is common in all the old
Constitutions. But no hypothesis can be deduced from this of the
Solomonic origin of Freemasonry. The subject is too important to be
discussed in a note.


and with the Right Worshipful Lodge from whence you came, and you are.
(1)

37. Q. Give me the Jerusalem Word. (2)
A. Giblin.

38. Q. Give me the Universal Word.
A. Boaz.

39. Q. Right Brother of ours, your Name ?
A. N. orM.
Welcome Brother M. or N. to our Society.

40. Q. How many particular Points pertain to a Free-Mason ?
A. Three; Fraternity, Fidelity, and Tacity.

41. Q. What do they represent?
A. Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth among all Right Masons; for all
Masons were ordain'd at the Building of the Tower of Babel and at the
Temple of Jerusalem. (3)

42. Q. How-many proper Points?
A. Five: Foot to Foot, Knee to Knee, Hand to Hand, Heart to Heart, and
Ear to Ear. (4)

43. Q. Whence is an Arch derived ?
A. From Architecture. (5)


(1) It is most probable that this answer was given on the three steps which
were made while the words were being said.
(2) The "Jerusalem Word" was probably the word traditionally confined to
the Craft while they were working at the Temple, and the "Universal
Word" was that used by them when they dispersed and traveled into
foreign countries. The old "Legend of the Craft" has a tradition to that
effect which was finally developed into the Temple Allegory of the modern
rituals.
(3) 0f this answer Krause gives the following interpretation - "Perhaps the
Tower of Babel signifies the revolution under and after Cromwell, and the
Temple of Jerusalem the restoration of the Stuart family in London" -
which may be taken for what it is worth and no more, especially as the
stories of the Tower and the Temple formed prominent points in the Craft
legend which was formulated some two centuries at least before the time
of Cromwell or of the restored Stuarts.
(4) At first glance this answer would seem to be adverse to the theory that
the Third was not known in the year 1717, unless it were to be supposed
that the passage was an interpolation made subsequent to the year 1720.
But the fact is that, as Krause remarks these expressions were not
originally a symbol of the Master's degree (Meisterzeichen), but simply a
symbol of Fellowship, where heart and heart and hand and hand showed
the loving-kindness of each brother. Afterward, under the title of "The Five
Points of Fellowship," it was appropriated to the Third Degree and
received the symbolic history which it still retains.
(5) Here, say Schneider and Krause, is a trace of Royal Arch Masonry.
Not so. Architecture was the profession of the Operative Freemasons and
became naturally a point in the examination of a craftsman. Such as this
catechism evidently was.


44. Q. How many Orders in Architecture ?
A. Five: The Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite.

45. Q. What do they answer ?
A. They answer to the Base, Perpendicular, Diameter, Circumference,
and Square.

46. Q. What is the right Word, or right Point of a Mason ?
A. Adieu.

End of the Catechism.

Such is this important document, but of whose real value different
opinions have been expressed. Oliver, as we have seen, calls it a
"catchpenny." This epithet would, however, refer to the motives of the
printer who gave the public the work at sixpence a copy and not to the
original writer against whom no such charge, nor no such mercenary
views should be imputed. The Rev. Mr. Sidebotham, who reprinted it in
the Freemasons' Monthly Magazine, for August, 1855, from a copy found
among the collection of Masonic curiosities deposited in the Bodleian
Library, calls it "only one of the many absurd attempts of ignorant
pretenders;" but his attempts to prove absurdities are themselves absurd.

The learned Mossdorf who, in 1808, found a copy of the second editions
in the Royal Library at Leipsic, which Dr. Krause reprinted in his Three
Oldest Documents of the Masonic Fraternity, designates it as a delicately
framed but very bitter satire against the old lodges in London, which had
just established the Grand Lodge. But a perusal of the document will
disclose nothing of a satirical character in the document itself, and only a
single paragraph of the preface in which the design of the institution is
underrated, and the depreciation illustrated by a rather coarse attempt at
a witticism.

But the preface was the production of the editor or printer, and must not
be confounded with the catechism, which is free from anything of the kind.
The very title, which might be deemed ironical, was undoubtedly an
assumed one given to the original document by the same editor or printer
for the purpose of attracting purchasers.


(1) It was the 2d edition, 1725, with which Mossdorf was acquainted, and
to this were annexed "Two Letters to a Friend," which are not contained in
the 1st edition. These gave him the opinion of the satirical character of
the work.


Bro. Steinbrenner, of New York, who has written one of our most valuable
and interesting histories of Freemasonry, (1) thus describes it, and has
given it what I think must have been its original title.

"The oldest fragment of a ritual or Masonic lecture in the English
Language (2) which we have met with is the 'Examination upon Entrance
into a Lodge,' as used at the time of the Revival."

Dr. Krause is the first writer who seems to have estimated this old
catechism at anything like its true value. He calls it a remarkable
document, and says that after a careful examination he has come to the
conclusion that it was written by one of the old Operative Masons, who
was not without some scholarship, but who esteemed Masonry as an art
peculiarly appropriate to builders only, and into which a few non-Masons
were sometimes admitted on account of their scientific attainments.

He thinks that this catechism presents the traces of a high antiquity, and
so far as its essential constituent parts are concerned, it might have
derived its origin from the oldest York ritual, probably as early as the 12th
or 13th century.

I am not inclined to accept all of the Krausean theory on the subject of the
origin or of the antiquity of this document. It is not necessary for the
purpose of employing it in the investigation of the primitive ritual adopted
by the Speculative Freemasons when they organized their Grand Lodge,
to trace its existence beyond the first decade of the 18th century, though it
might be reasonably extended much farther back.

The statement in the preface or introduction, that the original manuscript
was printed, and had "been found in the custodv of a Freemason who
died suddenly," may be accepted as a truth. There is nothing improbable
about it, and there is no reason to doubt the fact.

Connecting this with the date of the publication, which was just seven
years after the establishment of the Grand Lodge, and only four years
after what is supposed to be the date of the fabrication of


(1) "The Origin and Early History of Masonry," by G. W. Steinbrenner,
Past Master. New York, 1864.
(2) When Steinbrenner wrote the above the Sloane MS. No. 3339 had not
been discovered. And yet it is doubtful whether it and the original
manuscript of "The Grand Mystery" are not contemporaneous.


the three degrees; and comparing it with the Sloane MS. 3329, where we
shall find many instances of parallel or analogous passages; and seeing
that the Sloane MS. was undeniably an Operative ritual, since its
acknowledged date is somewhere between the middle and the close of
the 17th century; considering all these points, I think that we may safely
conclude that the original manuscript of the printed document called The
Grand Mystery was the "Examination upon Entrance into a Lodge" of
Operative Freemasons.

The following inferences may then be deduced in respect to the character
of this document with the utmost plausibility:

1. That it was a part, and the most essential part, of the ritual used by the
Operative Freemasons about the close of the 17th and the beginning of
the 18th century, and if anything was wanting toward a complete ritual it
was supplemented by the Sloane MS. No. 3329

2. That it was the ritual familiar to the four Lodges which in 1717 united in
the establishment of the Speculative Grand lodge of England.

3. That on the establishment of that Grand Lodge it was accepted as the
ritual of the Speculative Freemasons and so used by them until they
perfected the transition from wholly Operative to wholly Speculative
Freemasonry by the fabrication of degrees and the development of a
more philosophical ritual, composed, as it has always been conjectured,
by Desaguliers and Anderson, but principally always by the former.

Having premised these views, we may now proceed to investigate, with
some prospect of a satisfactory result, the character and condition of
Speculative Freemasonry so far as respects a ritual during the earliest
years of the Grand Lodge.

In the first place, it may be remarked that internal evidence goes to prove
that this catechism is appropriate solely for Operative Freemasons. It was
undoubtedly constructed at a time when Speculative Freemasonry, in the
modern sense, was not in existence, and when the lodges which were to
use it were composed of Operatives the Theoretic members not being at
all taken into consideration.

This is very clearly shown by various passages in the catechism. Thus,
Question 2 alludes to the hours of labor; Question 3 is an inquiry whether
the brother who is being examined is in want of work, because the old
Operative Constitutions directed the Craft "to receive or cherish strange
Fellows when they came over the country and set them to work." Hence,
in view of this hospitable duty, the visitor is asked if he is busy, that is to
say, if he has work to occupy and support him.

Questions 18 and 19 make reference to the time and duty of setting the
men to work, and of dismissing them from labor.

Questions 14 and 21 refer to the square and rule as implements of
Operative Masonry employed in the lodge. Question 27 speaks of the
ashlar, and 43 and 44 of the orders of architecture. All of these are
subjects appropriate and familiar to Operative Masons, and indicate the
character of the catechism.

The next point that calls for attention is that in this Operative ritual there is
not the slightest reference to degrees. They are not mentioned nor
alluded to as if any such system existed. The examination is that of a
Freemason, but there is no indication whatever to show that he was a
Master, Fellow, or an Apprentice. He could not probably have been the
last, because, as a general rule, Apprentices were not allowed to travel.
The German Steigmetzen, however, sometimes made an exception to this
regulation, and the Master who had no work for his Apprentice would
furnish him with a mark and send him forth in search of employment.

If a similar custom prevailed among the English Freemasons, of which
there is no proof for or against, the wandering Apprentice woulds on
visiting a strange lodge, doubtless make use of this catechism. There is
nothing in its text to prevent him from doing so, for, as has already been
said, there is no mention in it of degrees.

There does not seem to be any doubt in the minds of the most
distinguished Masonic scholars, with perhaps a very few exceptions, that
in the Operative ritual there were no degrees, the words Apprentice,
Fellow, and Master referring only to gradations of rank. It is also believed
that the ceremonies of admission were exceedingly simple, and that all
these ranks were permitted to be present at a reception.

According to this catechism a lodge consisted of five or seven Masons,
but it does not say that they must be all Master Masons.

The Sloane M S. says that there should be in a lodge two Apprentices,
two Fellow-Crafts, and two Master Masons.

The Statutes of the Scottish Masons explicitly require the presence of two
Apprentices at the reception of a Master.

The Old Constitutions, while they have charges specially for Masters and
Fellows, between whom they make no distinction, have other "charges in
general" which, of course, must include Apprentices, and in these they
are commanded to keep secret "the consells of the lodge," from which it is
to be inferred that Apprentices formed a constituent part of that body.

It has been usual to say that from 1717 to 1725 there were only
Apprentices' lodges. The phraseology is not correct. They were lodges of
Freemasons, and they so continued until the fabrication of a system of
degrees. After that period the lodges might properly be called Apprentice
lodges, because the first degree only could be conferred by them, though
Fellow-Craft and Master Masons were among their members, these
having until 1725 been made in the Grand Lodge exclusively.

The fact that this ritual, purposely designed for Operative Freemasons
only, and used in the Operative lodges of London at the beginning of the
18th century, was adopted in 1717 when the four Lodges united in the
organization of a Grand Lodge, is, I think, a convincing proof that there
was no expressed intention at that time to abandon the Operative
character of the institution, and to assume for it a purely Speculative
condition.

I use the word "expressed" advisedly, because I do not contend that there
was no such covert intention floating in the minds of some of the most
cultivated Theoretic Freemasons who united with their Operative brethren
in the organization.

But these Theoretic brethren were men of sense. They fully appreciated
the expediency of the motto, festina lente. They were, it is true, anxious to
hasten on the formation of an intellectual society, based historically on an
association of architects, but ethically on an exalted system of moral
philosophy; they perfectly appreciated, however, the impolicy of suddenly
and rudely disrupting the ties which connected them with the old
Operative Freemasons. Hence, they fairly shared with these the offices of
the Grand Lodge until 1723, after which, as has been shown, no
Operative held a prominent position in that body. The first laws which they
adopted, and which were announced in the "Charges of a Free Mason,"
compiled by Payne and Anderson about 1719, had all the features of an
Operative Code, and the ritual of the Operative Freemasons embodied in
the document satirically called The Grand Mystery was accepted and
used by the members of the Speculative Grand Lodge until the fabrication
of degrees made it necessary to formulate another and more
philosophical ritual.

But it is not necessary to conclude that when the system of degrees was
composed, most probably in 1720 and 1721, principally by Dr.
Desaguliers, the old Operative ritual was immediately cast aside. In all
probability it continued to be used in the lodges, where the Fellow-Crafts
and Masters' degrees were unknown, until 1725, the conferring of them
having been confined to the Grand Lodge until that year. There were
even Operative lodges in England long after that date, and the old ritual
would continue with them a favorite. This will account for the publication
in 1724, with so profitable a sale as to encourage the printing of a second
edition with appendices in 1725.

But the newer ritual became common in 1730 or a little before, and the
able defense of it by Anderson in the 1738 edition of the Book of
Constitutions shows that the old had at length been displaced, though
some of its tests remained for a long time in use among the Craft, and are
continued, in a modified form, even to the present day.

The early Operative ritual, like the Operative laws and usages, has made
an impression on the Speculative society which has never been and
never will be obliterated while Freemasonry lasts.

The next feature in this Operative ritual which attracts our attention is its
well-defined Christian character. This is shown in Question 29, where the
three Lights of the Lodge are said to represent "The Three Persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

Originating as it did, and for a long time working under ecclesiastical
control, being closely connected with the Church, and engaged
exclusively in the construction of religious edifices, it must naturally have
become sectarian.

In the earliest times, when the Roman Catholic religion was the prevailing
faith of Christendom, Operative Freemasonry was not only Christian but
Roman Catholic in its tendencies. Hence, the oldest of the manuscript
Constitutions contains an invocation to the Virgin Mary and to the Saints.
In Germany the patrons of the Freemasons were the Four Crowned
Martyrs.

But when in England the Protestant religion displaced the Roman
Catholic, then the Operative Freemasons, following the sectarian
tendencies of their countrymen, abandoned the reference to the Virgin
and to the Saints, whose worship had been repudiated by the reformed
religion, and invoked only the three Persons of the Trinity. The Harleian
MS. commences thus:

"The Almighty Father of Heaven with the Wisdom of the Glorious Sonne,
through the goodness of the Holy Ghost, three persons in one Godhead,
bee with our beginning & give us grace soe to governe our Lives that we
may come to his blisse that never shall have end."

All the other manuscript Constitutions conform to this formula, and hence
we find the same feature presented in this catechism, and that in the ritual
used when the Grand Lodge was established the three Lights
represented the three Persons of the Trinity.

Operative Freemasonry never was tolerant nor cosmopolitan. It was in the
beginning ecclesiastical, always Christian, and always sectarian.

Of all the differences that define the line of demarcation between
Operative and Speculative Freemasonry, this is the most prominent.

The Theoretic Freemasons, that is, those who were non-Masons, when
they united with their Operative fellow-members in the organization of a
Grand Lodge, did not reject this sectarian character any more than they
did the ritual and the laws of the old association.

But the non-Masonic or non-Operative element of the new Society was
composed of men of education and of liberal views. They were anxious
that in their meetings a spirit of toleration should prevail and that no angry
discussions should disturb the hours devoted to innocent recreation.
Moreover, they knew that the attempt to revive the decaying popularity of
Freemasonry and to extend its usefulness would not be successful unless
the doors were thrown widely open to the admission of moral and
intellectual men of all shades of political and religious thought. Hence,
they strove to exclude discussions which should involve the bitterness of
partisan politics or of sectarian religion.

Dr. Anderson describes the effect produced by this liberality of sentiment
when he says, speaking of this early period of Masonic history:

"Ingenious men of all faculties and stations, being convinced that the
cement of the lodge was love and friendship, earnestly requested to be
made Masons, affecting this amicable fraternity more than other societies
then often disturbed by warm disputes."  (1)

Thus it was that the first change affected in the character of the institution
by which the ultimate separation of Speculative from Operative
Freemasons was foreshadowed, was the modification of the sectarian
feature which had always existed in the latter.

Therefore, in 1721, the Grand Lodge, "finding fault" with the "Old Gothic
Constitutions" or the laws of the Operative Freemasons, principally, as
the result shows, on account of their sectarian character, instructed Dr.
Anderson "to digest them in a new and better method."

This task was duly accomplished, and the "Charges of a Freemason,"
which were published in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions,
announce for the first time that cosmopolitan feature in the religious
sentiments of the Order which it has ever since retained.

"Though in ancient times," so runs the first of these " Charges," "Masons
were charged in every country to be of the religion of that country or
nation, whatever it was; yet it is now thought more expedient only to
oblige them to that religion in which all men agree, leaving their particular
opinions to themselves."

In consequence of this declaration of tolerance, the ritual which was
framed after the old Operative one, exemplified in The Ground Mystery,
ceased to derive any of its symbolism from purely Christian dogmas,
though it can not be denied that Christian sentiments have naturally had
an influence upon Speculative Freemasonry.

But the institution, in all the countries into which it has since extended,
has always, with a very few anomalous exceptions, been true to the
declaration made in 1721 by its founders, and has erected its altars,
around which men of every faith, if they have only a trusting belief in God
as the Grand Architect of the universe, may kneel and worship.

But before this sentiment of perfect toleration could be fully developed, it
was necessary that the tenets, the usages, and the influence of the
Operative element should be wholly eliminated from the new society. The
progress toward this disruption of the two systems, the old and the new,
would have to be slow and gradual.


(1) "Book of Constitutions," 2d edition, p. 114.


Very justly has Bro. Gould remarked that "Speculative Masonry was, so to
speak, only on its trial during the generation which succeeded the authors
of the Revival. The institution of a society of Free and Accepted Masons
on a cosmopolitan and unsectarian basis was one thing; its consolidation,
however, opposed as its practical working showed it to be to the ancient
customs and privileges of the Operatives, was another and a very
different affair." (1)

Therefore, as a matter of sheer policy, and also because it is probable
that no intention of effecting such a change had, in the beginning, entered
into the minds of the future founders of Speculative Freemasonry, it was
deemed necessary to continue the use of the simple ritual which had so
long been familiar to the Operatives, and it was accordingly so continued
to be used until, in a few years, the opportune time had arrived for the
fabrication of a more complex one, and one better adapted to the objects
of a Speculative Society.

As it appears, then, to be clearly evident that the Operative ritualwas
practiced by the Grand Lodge from 1717 until 1721 or 1722, and for a
much longer period by many of the lodges under its jurisdiction, it is
proper that we should endeavor, so far as the materials in our possession
will permit, to describe the character of that ritual.

Masonic scholars who have carefully investigated this subject do not now
express any doubt that the rite practiced by the mediceval Freemasons of
every country, and which, under some modifications, was used by the
Operative Freemasons when the Grand Lodge of England was
established, was a very simple one, consisting of but one degree.

In fact, as the word degree literally denotes a step in progression, and
would import the possible existence of a higher step to which it is related,
it would seem to be more proper to say that the Operative rite was without
degrees, and consisted of a form of admission with accompanying
esoteric instructions, all of which were of the simplest nature.

Master, Fellow, and Apprentice were terms intended to designate the
different ranks of the Craftsmen, which ranks were wholly unconnected
with any gradations of ritualistic knowledge.


(1) "The Four Old Lodges," p. 33.


Masters were those who superintended the labors of the Craft, or were,
perhaps, in many instances the employers of the workmen engaged on an
edifice. Paley suggests that they were probably architects, and he says
that they must have been trained in one and the same school, just as our
clergy are trained in the universities, and were either sent about to
different stations or were attached to some church or cathedral, or took up
their permanent residence in certain localities. (1)

This description is very suitable to the most flourishing period of Gothic
architecture, when such Craftsmen as William of Sens or Erwin of
Steinbach were the Masters who directed the construction of those noble
works of architecture which were to win the admiration of succeeding
ages.

But in the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, when there was a
decadence in the old science of Gothic architecture, every Fellow who
was appointed by an employer or selected by his brethren to govern a
lodge and to direct the works of the Craftsmen, became by that
appointment or selection a Master Mason.

We know that this usage was for some time observed by the Speculative
Freemasons, for in the form of constituting a new lodge as prescribed in
1723 by the Duke of Wharton, who was then Grand Master, it is said that
the Master who is to be installed, "being yet among the Fellow-Craft,"
must be taken from among them, and be inducted into office by the Grand
Master; by which act he became a Master Mason, and not by the
reception of a degree; and the investiture of certain additional secrets. (2)

The Fellows were workmen who had served an apprenticeship of several
years, and had at length acquired a knowledge of the trade. They
constituted the great body of the Craft, as is evident from the constant
reference to them in the Old Constitutions.

The Apprentices, as the etymology of the word imports, were learners.
They were youths who were bound to serve their Masters for a term of
five or seven years, on the condition that the Master shall instruct them in
the trade, that at the expiration of their term of service they might be
admitted into the rank or class of Fellows.

As there was but one ceremony of admission common to all


(1) "Manual of Gothic Architecture," p. 209.
(2) See the form in the 1st edition of Anderson, p. 71.


classes of the Craft, it follows that there could be no secrets of a ritual
character which belonged exclusively to either of the three classes, and
that whatever was known to Masters and Fellows must also have been
communicated to Apprentices; and this is very evident from the well-
known fact that the presence of members of each class was necessary to
the legal communications of a lodge.

The Mason Word is the only secret spoken of in the minutes of the Scotch
lodges, but the German and English rituals show that there were other
words and methods of recognition besides an examination which
constituted the esoteric instructions of Operative Masonry.

The most important of these points is, however, the fact that at the time of
the organization of the Grand Lodge in 1717, and for a brief period
afterward, there was but one degree, as it is called, which was known to
the Operatives, and that for a brief period of three or four years this
simple system was accepted and practiced by the founders of Speculative
Freemasonry.

But the discussion of this fact involves a thorough investigation, and can
not be treated at the close of a chapter.

The inquiry, so far as it has advanced, has, I think, satisfied us that the
Operative ritual was that which was at first adopted by the founders of
Speculative Freemasonry.

When, afterward, they discarded this ritual as too simple and as
unsuitable to their designs, they were obliged, in the construction of their
new system, to develop new degrees.

The task, therefore, to which our attention must now be directed, is first to
demonstrate that the primitive ritual accepted in 1717 by the Speculatives
consisted of but one degree, if for convenience I may be allowed to use a
word not strictly and grammatically correct; and, secondly, to point out the
mode in which and the period when a larger ritual, and a system of
degrees, was invented.

And these must be the subjects of the two following chapters.





CHAPTER XXXIII

THE ONE DEGREE OF OPERATIVE FREEMASONS


In the articles of union agreed to in 1813 by the two Grand Lodges of
England, the "Moderns" and the "Ancients" as they were called, it was
declared that "pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degrees and no
more." If by Ancient Masonry it was intended to designate the system then
existing, and no other and earlier one - if the character of antiquity was to
be circumscribed within the one hundred preceding years, or thereabouts
- then the declaration might be accepted as an historical truth. But if it
was designed to refer by these words to the whole period of time, within
which included the era of Operative, and of combined Operative and
Speculative Freemasonry, as well as that later one when pure
Speculative Masonry alone prevailed, then the assertion must be
considered as apocryphal and as having no foundation in authentic
history.

If our judgment on this subject were to be formed merely on the complete
silence of the Old Records, we should be forced to the conclusion that
until the close of the second decade of the 18th century, or about the year
1720, when the Speculative element was slowly disintegrating itself from
the Operative, there was only one degree known as the word is
understood in the present day.

We have evidence that the Operative Freemasons of Scotland in the 15th
century adopted, to some extent, the secret ceremonies observed by the
medieval builders of the continent. (1) we may therefore refer to the
records of the Scotch lodges for a correct knowledge of what was the
degree system practiced, not only in Scotiand but on the continent, at that
period.


(1) See Lyon, "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 234. This is evident
from, the charter granted to the Masons and Wrights of Edinburgh in
1475, copied by Lyon (p. 230) from the Burgh Records of Edinburgh,
where reference is made for their government to the customs "in the
towne of Bruges."


Now we have abundant evidence by deduction from the records of the old
Scottish lodges that there was in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries only
one degree known to the brotherhood.

There were, it is true, three classes or ranks of Masons, namely, Masters,
men who made contracts and undertook the work of building for
employers; Fellow-Crafts or Journeymen employed by these Masters; and
Entered Apprentices, who were received that they might be taught the art
of building. But this difference of rank involved no difference of esoteric
instruction. There was but one ceremony and one set of secrets for all,
and common to and known by everyone, from the youngest Apprentice to
the oldest Master. This is plainly deducible from all the Old Records.

Thus, in the Schaw statutes, whose date is December 28, 1498, it is
enacted as follows:

"Item that na maister or fellow of craft be ressavit nor admittit without the
number of sex maisters and twa enterit prenteissis the wardene of that
lodge being one of the said sex."

The same regulation, generally, in very nearly the same words, is to be
found in subsequent records, constitutions, and minutes of the 16th and
17th centuries.

Now what deduction must be drawn from the oft-repeated language of this
statute? Certainly only this, that if two Apprentices were required to be
present at the reception of a Fellow-Craft or a Master, there could have
been no secrets to be communicated to the candidates as Fellow-Crafts
or Masters which were not als ready known to the Apprentices. In other
words, that these three ranks were not separated and distinguished from
each other by any ceremonies or instructions which would constitute
degrees in the modern acceptation of the term. In fact, there could have
been but one degree common to all.

Upon this subject Bro. Lyon says: "It is upon Schaw's regulation anent the
reception of Fellows or Masters, that we found our opinion that in primitive
times there were no secrets communicated by lodges to either Fellows of
Craft or Masters that were not known to Apprentices, seeing that
members of the latter grade were necessary to the legal constitution of
communications for the admission of Masters or Fellows." (1)


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.


We are confirmed in this conclusion by what is said in the same Old
Records of the "Mason Word."

The Mason Word and what was connected with it appeared to constitute
the only secret known to the Masons of the centuries preceding the 18th.
It was, however, not simply a word, but had other mysteries connected
with it, as is apparent from an expression in the minutes of the Lodge of
Dunblane, where it is said that two Apprentices of the Lodge of Kilwinning
being examined on their application for affiliation, were found to have " a
competent knowlsedge of the secrets of the Mason Word."  (1)

These secrets consisted also probably of a sign and grip. Indeed, the
records of Haughfort Lodge in 1707 state the fact that there was a grip,
and it is known that as early as the 12th century the German Masons
used all these modes of recognition. (2)

There was also a Legend or Allegory, nothing, however, like the modern
legend of the Third degree, which connected the Craft traditionally with
the Tower of Babel and the Temple of Solomon. This Legend was
contained in what we now call the Legend of the Craft or the Legend of
the Guild. This is contained, with only verbal variations, in all the old
manuscript Constitutions. That this Legend was always deemed a part of
the secrets of the brotherhood, is very evident from the destruction of
many of those manuscripts by scrupulous Masons in 1720, from the fear,
as Anderson expresses it, that they might fall into strange hands.

But whatever were the secrets connected with the "Mason Word," there is
abundant evidence that they were communicated in full to the Apprentice
on his initiation.

First, we have the evidence of the Schaw statutes that two Apprentices
were required to be present at the reception of a Mason or a Fellow-Craft.
Then the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh for 1601, 1606, and 1637,
referred to by Bro. Lyon, (3) show that Apprentices were present during
the making of Fellow-Crafts. Again, we find the following conclusive
testimony in the Laws and Statutes of the Lodge of Aberdeen, adopted
December 27, 1760:


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 417.
(2) The English Masons in the beginning of the 18th century, and I
suppose before that penod, had two words, the "Jerusalem Word" and the
"Universal Word." See the Examination in the last chapter. The German
Masons also had two words, at least.
(3) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 74.


"Wee Master Masons and Entered Prentises, all of us under. seryvers,
doe here protest and vowe as hitherto we ehave done at our entrie when
we received the benefit of the Mason Word," &c. (1)

From all of which we are authorized to entertain the opinion, in the
language of Bro. Lyon, who has thoroughly investigated the subject, so
far at least as relates to Scotland, "that 'the Word' and other secrets
peculiar to Masons were communicated to Apprentices on their admission
to the lodge, and that the ceremony of passing was simply a testing of the
candidate's fitness for employment as a journeyman." (2)

In the English lodges of the same period, that is, up to the beginning of
the 18th century, we find no indications of the existence of more than one
degree common to the whole Craft. The Apprentices, however, do not
occupy in the old English Constitutions so conspicuous a place as they do
in the Scotch. We can, for instance, find no regulation like that in the
Schaw statutes which requires Apprentices to be present at the making of
Fellow-Crafts.

But in the oldest of the English Constitutions which have been unearthed
by the labors of Masonic archaeologists - namely, the one known as the
Halliwell MS., the date of which is supposed to be not later than the
middle of the 15th century - we find indications of the fact that the
Apprentices were in possession of all the secret knowledge possessed by
the Masters and Fellows, and that they were allowed to be present at
meetings of the lodge. Thus, the thirteenth article of that early
Constitution says:

" - gef that the mayster a prentes have
Enterlyche thenne that he hym teche,
And meserable poyntes that he hym reche,
That he the crafte abelyche may conne,
Whersever he go undur the sonne."  (3)

That is, if a Master have an Apprentice, he shall give him thorough
instruction, and place him in the possession of such points as will enable
him to recognize the members of the Craft wheresoever he may go. He
was to be invested with the modes of recognition common to all, whereby
a mutual intercourse might be held. It


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 423.
(2) Ibid., p. 233
(3) Halliwell MS., lines 240 - 244.


was not that he was to know just enough to prove himself to be an
Apprentice, but he was to have such knowledge as would enable him to
recognize in a stranger a Fellow-Craft or a Master - in other words, he
was to have all that they had, in the way of recognition.

But a more important admission, namely, that the Apprentice was
permitted to be present at the meetings of a lodge of Masters and
Fellows, and to participate in, or at least be a witness of, their private
transactions, is found in the third point of this same Constitution, which is
in the following words:

"The thrydee poynt must be severele,
With the prentes knowe hyt wele,
Hys mayster cownsel he kepe and close,
And hys fellowes by hys goode purpose;
The prevystye of the chamber telle he no mon,
Ny yn the logge whatsever they done;
Whatsever thon heryst or eyste hem do
Telle hyt no mon, whersever thou go;
The cownsel of halle and yeke of boure,
Kepe hyt lvel to gret honoure,
Lest hyt wolde torne thyself to blame,
And brynge the craft ynto gret schame."  (1)

That is, the Apprentice was directed to keep the counsel of his Master
and Fellows, and to tell to no one the secrets of tlle chamber nor what he
should see or hear done in the lodge. (2)

He was to keep the counsel of "hall and bower," a medizeval phrase
denoting all sorts of secrets, and all this he was to observe lest he should
bring the Craft into shame.

Now I do not think we need anything more explicit to prove that
Apprentices were admitted to share the secrets of the Fellows and be
present at the meetings of the lodge, all of which is a conclusive evidence
against the existence of separate degrees.

The same reference to Apprentices as being in possession of the secrets
of the Craft, which they were not to communicate unlawfully, is found in
subsequent Constitutions, as late as 1693. In the York Constitutions, first
published by Bro. Hughan in his History of Freemasonry in York, under
the title of "The Apprentice


(1) Halliwell MS., lines 275-286.
(2) Similar to this is "The Apprentice Charge" contained in the Lodge of
Hope MS., the date of which is 1680. It says that the Apprentice "shall
keep counsell in all things spoken in lodge or chamber by fellowes or free
masons."


Charge," it is said that "he shall keepe councell in all things spoken in
Lodg or Chamber by any Masons, Fellowes or Fremasons."

The Masonic student, while carefully perusing the Old Records of the
English Masons and comparing them with those of the Scotch, will be
struck with one important difference between them. In the Scotch
Statutes, Constitutions, and Minutes, the Apprentices assume a
prominent position, and are always spoken of as a component and
necessary part of the brotherhood.

Thus, the Schaw statutes prescribe the fee for the admission of Fellow-
Crafts, followed immediately by another prescribing the fee for the
admission of Apprentices; twice in the minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh
(1706 and 1709) it is recorded that a notary who was appointed for the
purpose of acting as "clerk to the brethren masons" was initiated as Jane
entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft," (1) and lastly, Apprentices were
required to be present at the admission of Fellow-Crafts and Masters.

I think, therefore, that the most eminent Masonic historians of the present
day have been justified in the conclusion to which they have arrived after
a careful examination of old documents, that until a short time after the
organization of the Grand Lodge in the year 1717, there is no evidence of
the existence of more than one degree; that all the secrets were
communicated to the Apprentices, and that the ceremony of passing to a
Fellow-Craft was simply a testing of the candidate's fitness for
employment as a journeyman. (2)

Bro. Hughan says that "no record prior to the second decade of the last
century ever mentions Masonic degrees, and all the MSS. preserved
decidedly confirm us in the belief that in the mere Operative (although
partly Speculative) career of Freemasonry the ceremony of reception was
of a most unpretentious and simple character, mainly for the
communication of certain lyrics and secrets, and for the conservation of
ancient customs of the Craft."  (3)

In another place the same distinguished writer says: "I have carefully
perused all the known Masonic MSS. from the 14th century down to A.D
1717 (of which I have eitherseen the originals or


(1) Lyon, " History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 43.
(2) Such is the opinion of Bro. Lyon. See "History of the Lodge of
Edinburgh," p. 233,
(3) Voice of Masonry, vol. xii., June, 1874, p. 340.


have certified copies), and have not been able to find any reference to
three degrees." (1)

Bro. Findel says: "Originally it seems there was but one degree of
initiation in the year 1717; the degrees or grades of Apprentice, Fellow,
and Master were introduced about the year 1720." (2)

Bro. Lyon, also, who has thoroughly investigated the customs of the early
Scottish lodges, in referring to the Schaw statute, which required two
Apprentices to be present at the admission of Fellows, says that in 1693
"the lodge recognized 'passing,' i.e., a promotion to the fellowship, simply
as an 'honour and dignity.'" And he adds:

"If the communication by Mason Lodges of secret words or signs
constituted a degree - a term of modern application to the esoteric
observances of the Masonic body - then there was under the purely
Operative regime only one known to Scotch lodges, viz., that in which,
under an oath, Apprentices obtained a knowledge of the Mason Word and
all that was implied in the expression." (3)

Even Dr. Oliver, who, of all writers, is the least skeptical in respect to
Masonic traditions, acknowledges that there is no evidence of the
existence of degrees in Freemasonry anterior to the beginning of the 18th
century.

The only living Masonic scholar of any eminence who, so far as I am
aware, denies or doubts this fact is the Rev. Bro. W. A. Woodford, and he
asserts his opinion rather negatively, as if he were unwilling to doubt,
than positively as if he were ready to deny the fact, that the old Operative
system consisted of but one degree.

As Bro. Woodford is one whose learning and experience entitle his
opinion on any point of Masonic history to a deferential consideration, it
will be proper to examine the weight of his arguments on this subject.

In the year 1874 Bro. Hughan proposed, in the London Freemason, to
defend in future communications three historical statements against
anyone who should oppugn them.


(1) Cited by Lyon in "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 211.
(2) "History of Freemasonry," p. 150, Lyon's Translation.
(3) Lyon, " History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.


One of these statements was made in the following words:

"The references to Masonic degrees (as we understand the term now)
never occur in the ancient minutes; no rituals of degrees prior to 1720 are
in existence, and whatever esoteric customs may have been
communicated to Craftsmen before the last century, they do not appear to
have necessitated the temporary absence of either class of members from
the Lodge."  (1)

To this challenge Bro. Woodford responded in a subsequent number of
the same paper. (2)

The gist of our learned Brother's argument in reply appears to be that
though, as Vaughan asserts, there may be no ritual evidence of the
existence of the three degrees before 1720, yet "such a proposition need
not be understood as asserting that they did not exist, but only that, so
far, we have no ritual evidence of their distinct existence as now."

As a logical conclusion, it appears to me that such a disposition of the
question is wholly untenable. It was an excellent maxim of the schools,
which has been adopted in philosophy, in physical science, and in law,
thats "of things which do not appear and of things which do not exist, the
reasoning is the same."  (3)

We can only arrive at a correct judgment when we are guided by
evidence; without it no judgment can be reasonably formed.

Dr. Hedge, in his excellent manual of logic, says: "The proof that the
Romans once possessed Great Britain is made up of a rariety of
independent arguments: as immemorial tradition; the testimony of
historians; the ruins of Roman buildings, camps, and walls; Roman coins,
inscriptions, and the like. These are independent arguments; but they all
conspire to establish the fact." (4)

Now, if we apply this method of reasoning to the question of the existence
of Masonic degrees prior to the year 1720, we shall see clearly how
completely the affirmative proposition is without support. We have no
immemorial tradition, no historical testimony, no allusion in old
documents, such as the manuscript Constitutions, the minutes of the
Scottish or of the very few English lodges that are extant, nor in the
English or German Freemasons, which tend


(1) London freemason, June 27, 1874.
(2) Ibid., July 27, 1874.
(3) De non apparentibus et de non existentibus, eadem est ratio.
(4) "Elements of Logic," by Levi Hedge, LL.D., Boston, 1827, p. 74


to prove the existence of degrees in the old system of Operative
Freemasonry. On the contrary, we have abundant evidence in these
Constitutions and minutes that the secrets of the Craft were common to
the three classes, and that Apprentices were required to he present at the
admission of Masters.

The other argument of Bro. Woodford is, that, "notwithstanding the Scotch
lodges had an open court for their members, that does not preclude the
possibility of the existence of other secrets and separate degrees."

It is possible, but it does not thence follow that it is true. In this
investigation we seek not possibilities but facts, and, as Bro. Woodford,
usually so careful and so accurate in his historical and archaeological
inquiries, has supplied no proof of the hypothesis which he has advanced,
it must be accepted as a mere assumption, and may be fairly met with a
contrary one.

But the remarks of Bro. Hughan himself, in reply to the argument of Bro.
Woodford, are so conclusive and throw so much light upon this interesting
subject that I can not refrain from enriching the pages of this work with the
very words of this eminent authority in Masonic archaeology. (1)

"Now what do the old lodge minutes say on this subject ? we have had
authorized excerpts from these valuable books published (with few
exceptions). The whole of the volumes have been most diligently and
carefully searched, the result made known, and every Masonic student
furnished with the testimony of these important witnesses, all of which,
from the 16th century to the first half of the second decade of the 18th
century, unite in proving that there is no register of any assembly of
Masons working ceremonies or communicating 'secrets' from which any
portion of the Fraternity was excluded or denied participation; neither can
there be found a single reference in these lodge minutes to justify one in
assuming 'three degrees' to be even known to the brethren prior to A.D.
1716-1717. (2) Of course, there can be no doubt as to what may be
termed grades in Ancient Masonry, Apprentices had to serve their 'regular
time' before being accounted Fellow-Crafts, and then subsequently the
office


(1) Contained in article in the London Masonic Magazine for August,
1874.
(2) The learned Brother makes here a rather too liberal admission. I have
found no evidence of the existence of three degrees in the year 1717, and
it will be hereafter seen that their fabrication is assigned to a later date.


or position of Master Mason was conferred upon a select few; but no word
is ever said about 'degrees.' All the members were evidently eligible to
attend at the introduction of Fellow-Crafts and Master Masons, as well as
at the admission of Apprentices; and so far as the records throw light on
the customs of our early brethren, the Apprentices were as welcome at
the election and reception of Masters - as the latter were required to
participate in the initiation of the former.

"We are quite willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that a word may
have been whispered in the ear of the Master of the lodge (or of Master
Masons) on their introduction or constitution in the lodge; but supposing
that such were the case (and we think the position is at least probable),
the 'three degrees' are as far from being proved as before, especially as
we have never yet traced any intimation, ever so slight, of a special
ceremony at the 'passing' of Fellow-Crafts, peculiar to that grade, and
from which Apprentices were excluded.

"If we have overlooked such a minute, we shall be only too glad to
acknowledge the fact; but at present we must reiterate our conviction, that
whatever the ceremonies may have been at the introduction of Fellow-
Crafts and Master Masons anterior to the last century, they were not such
as to require the exclusion of Apprentices from the lodge meetings; and in
the absence of any positive information on the subject, we are not justified
in assuming the existence of 'three degrees of Masonry' at that period; or,
in other words, we can only fairly advocate that two have existed of which
we have evidence, and whatever else we may fancy was known, should
only be advocated on the grounds of probability. If the proof of 'three
degrees' before 1717 is to rest on the authority of the Sloane MS. 3329,
we shall be glad to give our opinion on the subject.

"With all respect, then, for our worthy Brother, the Rev. A. F. A.
Woodford, whose exertions and contributions to Masonic literature have
been continuous and most valuable for many years, we feel bound to
state we do not believe according to the evidences accumulated that the
'three degrees were distinct grades in the Operative Order; but that the
term Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master Mason simply denoted
Masonic, relative, or official positions.'"

If, then, there was originally but one degree, the one into which
Freemasons of every class or rank were initiated, according to a very
simple form, upon their admission to the Craft, it follows that the degree
Fellow-Craft and Master Mason must be of comparatively recent origin.
This is legitimately a logical conclusion that can not, I believe, be
avoided.

And if so, then the next question that we have to meet and discuss is as
to the time and the circumstances of the fabrication of these degrees





CHAPTER XXXIV

INVENTION OF THE FELLOW-CRAFT'S DEGREE


IT having been satisfactorily shown, first, that during the existence of pure
Operative Freemasonry there was but one degree, or ritual, of admission,
or system of secret working in a lodge, which was accessible in common
to all the members of the Craft, Apprentices as well as Fellows and
Masters; secondly, that in the year 1717, when the Speculative element
began to assume a hitherto unknown prominence, though it did not at
once attempt to dissever the connection with the Operative, the Grand
Lodge then formed, accepted, and practiced for some time this system of
a single degree; and thirdly, that in the year 1723 we have the authentic
documentary evidence of the "General Regulations " published in that
year, that two degrees had been superimposed on this original one, and
that at that time Speculative Freemasonry consisted of three degrees; it
follows as a natural inference, that in the interval of six years, between
1717 and 1723, the two supplemental degrees must have been invented
or fabricated.

It must be here remarked, parenthetically, that the word degree, in
reference to the system practiced by the Operative Freemasons, is used
only in a conventional sense, and for the sake of convenience. To say, as
is sometimes carelessly said, that the Operative Freemasons possessed
only the Apprentice's degree, is to speak incorrectly. The system
practiced by the Operatives may be called a degree, if you choose, but it
was not peculiar to Apprentices only, but belonged in common to all the
ranks or classes of the Fraternity.

When the Speculative branch wholly separated from the Operative, and
three divisions of the Order, then properly called degrees, were invented,
this ritual of the latter became the basis of them all. Portions of it were
greatly modified and much developed, and became what is now known as
the First degree, though it continued for many years to receive increments
by the invention of new sym. bols and new ceremonies, and by sometimes
undergoing important changes. Other portions of it, but to a less extent,
were incorporated into the two supplemental degrees, the Second and the
Third.

Thus it was that by development of the old ritual, and by the invention of a
new one, the ancient system, or, conventionally speaking, the original
degree of the Operatives, became the Entered Apprentice's degree of the
Speculatives, and two new degrees, one for the Fellow-Crafts and one for
the Master Masons, were invented.

Then the important and most interesting question recurs, When and by
whom were these two new degrees invented and introduced into the
modern system of Speculative Freemasonry?

The answer to this question which, at this day, would probably be given
by nearly all the Masonic scholars who have, without preconceived
prejudices, devoted themselves to the investigation of the history of
Freemasonry, as it is founded on and demonstrated by the evidence of
authentic documents, combined with natural and logical inferences and
not traditionary legends and naked assumptions, is that they were the
invention of that recognized ritualist, Dr. John Theophilus Desaguliers,
with the co-operation of Dr. James Anderson, and perhaps a few others,
among whom it would not be fair to omit the name of George Payne. The
time of this invention or fabrication would be placed after the formation of
the Grand Lodge in 1717, and before the publication of the first edition of
its Book of Constitutions in 1723.

To the time and manner of the fabrication of the Fellow-Craft's degree the
writers who have adopted the theory here announced have not paid so
much attention as they have to that of the Master Mason. Recognizing the
fact that the two supplementary degrees were fabricated between the
years 1717 and 1723, they have not sought to define the precise date,
and seem to have been willing to believe them to have been of
contemporaneous origin.

But after as careful an investigation as I was capable of making, I have
been led to the conclusion that the fabrication of the degree of Fellow-
Craft preceded that of Master Mason by three or four years, and that the
system of Speculative Freemasonry had been augmented by the addition
of a new degree to the original one in or about the year 1719.

There is documentary evidence of an authentic character which proves
the existence of a "Fellow-Craft's part" in the year 1720, while it is not
until the year 1723 that we find any record alluding to the fact that there
was a " Master's part."

Hence, in a chronological point of view, it may be said that the single
degree or ritual in which, and in the secrets of which, all classes of
workmen, from the Apprentice to the Master, equally participated,
constituted, under various modifications, a part of Operative Freemasonry
from the earliest times. The possession of those secrets, simple as they
were, distinguished the Freemasons from the Rough Layers in England,
from the Cowans in Scotland, and from the Surer, or Wall Builders, in
Germany.

This degree, in its English form, was the only one known or practiced in
London in the year 1717, at the era which has incorrectly been called the
"Revival." The degree of Fellow-Craft, in the modern signification of the
word degree, was incorporated into the system, probably a very few years
after the organization of the Grand Lodge, and was fully recognized as a
degree in the year 1719, or perhaps early in 1720.

Finally, the Third or Master's degree was added, so as to make the full
complement of degrees as they now exist, between the years 1720 and
1723 - certainly not before the former nor after the latter period.

Of this theory we have, I think, documentary evidence of so authentic a
character, that we must be irresistibly led to the conclusion that the theory
is correct.

Bro. Lyon, in his History of thve Lodge of Edinburgh, cites a record which
has a distinct relevancy to the question of the time when the Second
degree originated. It is contained in the minutes of the Lodge of
Dunblane, under the date of December 27, 1720, which is about sixteen
years prior to the establishment of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

The minute records that a lawyer, and therefore a Theoretic Mason, who
had formerly been entered, had, after a due examination, been " duely
passed from the Squair to the Compass and from ane Entered Prentiss to
a Fellow of Craft." In commenting on this minute, Bro. Lyon says:

"It would appear from this that what under the modern ritual of the
Fraternity is a symbol peculiar to the Second Degree, was, under the
system which obtained in Scotland prior to the introduction of the Third
Degree, the distinctive emblem of the Entered Apprentice step - and what
is now a leading symbol in the degree of Master Mason, was then
indicative of the Fellow-Craft, or highest grade of Lodge membership.'' (1)

This authentic record surely corroborates the theory just advanced that
the Fellow-Craft's degree was formulated in London after the year 1717
and before the close of the year 1720. Here, I think, we are warranted in
pursuing the following method of deduction.

If the first notice of the degree of Fellow-Craft being conferred in
Scotland, as a degree, occurs in the record of a lodge in the last days of
the year 1720; and if, as we know from other sources, that Scotland
derived the expanded system of degrees from the sister kingdom; then it
is reasonable to suppose that the degree must have been given in
Scotland at as early a period after its fabrication in England as was
compatible with a due allowance of time for its transmission from the
lodges of the latter kingdom to those of the former, and for the necessary
preparation for its legal adoption.

The degree must, of course, have been practiced in London for some time
before it would be transmitted to other places, and hence we may accept
the hypothesis, as something more than a mere presumption, that the
Second degree had been invented by Desaguliers and his collaborators
on the ritual of the new Grand Lodge in the course of the year 1719,
certainly not later than the beginning of the year 1720.

Between the 24th of June, 1717, when the Grand Lodge was established,
and the end of the year 1718, the period of less than eighteen months
which had elapsed was too brief to permit the overthrow of a long-existing
system, endeared to the Craft by its comparative antiquity. Time and
opportunity were required for the removal of opposition, the conciliation of
prejudices, and the preparation of rituals, all of which would bring us to
the year 1719 as the conjectural date of the fabrication of the Second
degree.

It is highly probable that the degree was not thoroughly formulated and
legally introduced into the ritual until after the 24th of June, 1719, when
Desaguliers, who was then Grand Master, and the Proto-Grand Master,
Sayer, who was then one of the Grand Wardens,


(1) No reference is here made to the subsequent disseverment of the
Third degree which resulted in the composition of the Royal arch degree,
as that subject will be here- after fully discussed.


had, from their official positions, sufficient influence to cause the
acceptance of the new degree by the Grand Lodge.

We can gather very little, except inferentially, from the meager records of
Anderson, and yet he shows us that there was certainly an impetus given
to the Order in 1719, which might very well have been derived from the
invention of a new and more attractive ritual.

Anderson says, referring to the year 1719, that "now several old brothers,
that had neglected the Craft, visited the lodges; some noblemen were
also made brothers, and more new lodges were constituted."

The record of the preceding year tells us that the Grand Master Payne
had desired the brethren to bring to the Grand Lodge any old writings
concerning Masonry "in order to shew the usages of ancient times."

Northouck, a later but not a discreditable authority, expanding the
language of his predecessor, says that "the wish expressed at the Grand
Lodge for collecting old manuscripts, appears to have been preparatory to
the compiling and publishing a body of Masonical Constitutions."

I can see in this act the suggestion of the idea then beginning to be
entertained by the Speculative leaders of the new society to give it a more
elevated character by the adoption of new laws and a new form of
ceremonies. To guide them in this novel attempt, they desired to obtain all
accessible information as to old usages.

And now, some of the older Operative Craftsmen, becoming alarmed at
what they believed was an effort to make public the secrets which had
been so scrupulously preserved from the eyes of the profane by their
predecessors, and who were unwilling to aid in the contemplated attempt
to change the old ritual, an attempt which had been successful in the
fabrication of a Second degree, and the modification of the First, resolved
to throw obstructions in the way of any further innovations.

This will account for the fact recorded by Anderson that, between June,
1719, and June, 1720, (1) several valuable manuscripts concerning the
ancient " regulations, charges, secrets, and usages "


(1) Dr. Anderson, in his chronological records, counts the years from the
installation of one Grand Master in June to that of the next in June of the
following year.


were "burnt by some scrupulous brothers, that those papers might not fall
into strange hands."

The records do not say so, in as many words, but we may safely infer
from their tenor that the conflict had begun between the old Operative
Freemasons who desired to see no change from the ancient ways, and
the more liberal-minded Theoretic members, who were anxious to develop
the system and to have a more intellectual ritual - a conflict which
terminated in 1723 with the triumph of the Theoretics and the defeat of
the Operatives, who retired from the field and left the institution of
Speculative Freemasonry to assume the form which it has ever since
retained, as "a science of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by
symbols," a definition which would be wholly inapplicable to the old
Operative system.

In the minute of the Dunblane Lodge which has been cited through Bro.
Lyon, it was said that the candidate in being advanced from an Entered
Apprentice to a Fellow-Craft had "passed from the Square to the
Compass."

It is curious and significant that this expression was adopted on the
Continent at a very early period of the 18th century, when the hautes
grades or high degrees began to be manufactured. With the inventors of
these new degrees the Square was the symbol of Craft Masonry, while
the Compass was the appropriate emblem of what they called their more
elevated system of instruction. Hence, instead of the Square which is
worn by the Master of an Ancient Craft Lodge, the Master of a Lodge of
Perfection substitutes the Compasses as the appropriate badge of his
office.

But in Ancient Craft Masonry, with whose history alone we are now
dealing, the Compass is at this day a symbol peculiar to the Third degree,
while it would seem from the above-cited minute that in the beginning of
the 18th century it was appropriate to the Fellow-Crafts.

In commenting on this phrase in the record of the Lodge of Dunblane,
Bro. Lyon makes the following remarks:

"To some it will appear to favor the theory which attributes the existence
of the Third degree to a disjunction and a rearrangement of the parts of
which the Second was originally composed."

I have no objection to accept this theory in part. I believe, and the
hypothesis is a very tenable one, that when the Second degree was
fabricated, the secrets, the ritual, and instructions which were formerly
comprised in the single degree which was then given to the whole Craft,
indiscriminately, to Apprentices, to Fellows, and to Masters alike, were
divided between the two degrees which were then formulated, with certain
new additions; and that subsequently, when the Third degree was
invented, there was a further disintegration, and a portion of that which
had constituted the "part of a Fellow-Craft " was, with many new points,
transferred to that of the Master.

I have thus, by what I believe to be a tenable hypothesis, sought to fix the
time of the first expansion of the old ritual of the Operatives, which was for
a short time made use of, in all its simplicity, by the Speculative Grand
Lodge.

The next step in this expansion was the fabrication of the Third or Master
Mason's degree. To the time when this important event took place and to
the circumstances attending it we are now to direct our attention. This
shall therefore be the subject to be treated in the following chapter.





CHAPTER XXXV

NON-EXISTENCE OF A MASTER MASON'S DEGREE AMONG THE
OPERATIVE FREEMASONS


The history of the origin of the Third or Master's degree - that is, so much
of it as refers to the precise time of its invention - has, at this day, been
involved in much doubt, and been the source of earnest controversy in
consequence of the searching investigations of recent scholars, whose
incisive criticism has shown many theories to be untenable which were
once held to be plausible.

Until within a few years the opinion was universally entertained that the
Third degree must have been in existence from the time of the invention
of the Masonic system, and at whatever period that event was placed, the
doctrine was held as indisputable that the First, the Second, and the Third
degrees must have had a contemporaneous origin, no one preceding the
other in point of time, but all springing at the same epoch into form and
practice.

The theory that Freemasonry originated at the Temple of Solomon was for
a very long time a universally accepted proposition, constituting, in fact,
the orthodox creed of a Freemason, and conscientiously adopted, not
merely by the common and unlearned masses of the Fraternity, but even
by Masonic scholars of distinguished reputation.

Consequent upon this theory was another, that at the same time the
Master's degree was invented and that the builders of the Temple were
divided into the same three classes distinguished as de. greed which
constitute the present system of Freemasonry.

This theory was derived from the esoteric narrative contained in the
modern ritual of the Third degree. If this narrative is accepted as an
authentic history of events which actually occurred at that time, then there
need be no more difficulty in tracing the in vention of the Third degree to
the time of King Solomon than there can be in placing the origin of
Freemasonry at the same remote period.

But unfortunately for the repose of those who would be willing to solve a
difficult problem by the Alexandrian method of cutting the Gordian knot,
rather than by the slower process of analytical investigation, the theory of
the Temple origin of the Master's degree has now been repudiated by
nearly all Masonic scholars. A few may be accepted who, like Bro.
Woodford, still express a doubtful recognition of the possibility that the
legend may be true. (1)

Thus Bro. Woodford, referring to the Temple legend, says: "As there is no
a priori reason why an old Masonic tradition should not be true in the
main, we see no reason to reject the world-wide story of King Solomon's
protection of a Masonic association. Indeed, modern discovery seems to
strengthen the reality of our Masonic legends, and we should always, as it
appears to us, distinguish between what is possible and probable and
what is actually provable or proved by indubitable evidence." In reply to
this it must be remembered that of all the arguments in favor of an event,
the possibility of its occurrence is the weakest that can be adduced. In
dialectics there is an almost illimitable gulf between possibility and
actuality. A hundred things may be possible or even probable, and yet not
one of them may be actual. With the highest respect for the scholarship of
our reverend Brother, I am compelled to dissent from the views he has
here expressed. Nor am I prepared to accept the statement that "modern
discovery seems to strengthen the reality of our Masonic legends." A
contrary opinion now generally prevails, though it must be admitted that
the modern interpretations of these legends have given them a value, as
the expression of symbolic ideas, which does not pertain to them when
accepted, as they formerly were, as truthful narratives.

The Temple legend, however, must be retained as a part of the ritual as
long as the present system of Speculative Freemasonry exists, and the
legendary and allegorical narrative must be repeated by the Master of the
lodge on the occasion of every initiation into the mysteries of the Third
degree, because, though it is no longer to be accepted as an historical
statement, yet the events which it records are still recognized as a myth
containing within itself, and


(1) Kenning's "Masonic Cyclopedia," art. Temple of Solomon, p. 612.


independent of all question of probability, a symbolical significance of the
highest importance.

This mythical legend of the Temple, and of the Temple Builder, must ever
remain an inseparable part of the Masonic ritual, and the narrative must
be repeated on all appropriate occasions, because, without this legend,
Speculative Masonry would lose its identity and would abandon the very
object of its original institution. On this legend, whether true or false,
whether a history or a myths is the most vital portion of the symbolism of
Freemasonry founded.

In the interpretation of a legendary symbol or an allegory it is a matter of
no consequence to the value of the interpretation whether the legend be
true or false; the interpretation alone is of importance. We need not, for
instance, inquire whether the story of Hiram Abif is a narrative which is
true in all its parts, or merely a historical myth in which truth and fiction
are variously blended, or, in fact, only the pious invention of some
legendmaker, to whose fertile imagination it has been indebted for all its
details.

It is sufficient when we are occupied in an investigation of subjects
connected with the science of symbolism, that the symbol which the
legend is intended to develop should be one that teaches some dogma
whose truth we can not doubt. The symbologist looks to the truth or
fitness of the symbol, not to that of the legend on which it is founded.
Thus it is that we should study the different myths and traditions which are
embodied in the ritual of Freemasonry.

But when we abandon the role of the symbologist or ritualist, and assume
that of the historian - when, for the time, we no longer interest ourselves
in the lessons of Masonic symbolism, but apply our attention to the origin
and the progress of the institution, then it really becomes of importance
that we should inquire whether the narrative of certain supposed events
which have hitherto been accepted as truthful, are really historical or
merely mythical or legendary.

And, therefore, when the question is asked in an historical sense, at what
time the Third degree was invented, and in the expectation that the reply
will be based on authentic historical authority, we at once repudiate the
whole story of its existence at the Temple of Solomon as a mere myth,
having, it is true, its value as a symbol but being entitled to no
consideration whatever as an historical narrative.

It is, however, most unfortunate for the study of Masonic history that so
many writers on this subject, forgetting that all history must have its basis
in truth, have sought rather to charm their readers by romantic episodes
than to instruct them by a sober detail of facts. One instance of this kind
may be cited as an example from the visionary speculations of Ragon, a
French writer of great learning, but of still greater imagination.

In his Orthvodoxie Mafonnifue he has attributed the invention of all the
degrees to Elias Ashmole, near the end of the 17th century. He says that
the degree of Master Mason was formulated soon after the year 1648, but
that the decapitation of King Charles I., and the part taken by Ashmole in
favor of the House of Stuart, led to great modifications in the ritual of the
degree, and that the same epoch saw the birth of the degrees of Secret
Master, Perfect Master, Elect, and Irish Master, of all of which Charles the
First was the hero, under the name of Hiram. (1)

Assertions like this are hardly worth the paper and ink that would be
consumed in refuting them. Unlike the so-called historical novel which has
its basis in a distortion of history, they resemble rather the Arabian Tales
or the Travels of Gulliver, which owe their existence solely to the
imaginative genius of their authors.

Still there are some writers of more temperate judgment who, while they
reject the Temple theory, still claim for the Third degree an antiquity of no
certain date, but much anterior to the time of the organization of the
Grand Lodge in the beginning of the I8th century.

Thus, Bro. Hyde Clark, in an article in the London Freemasons'
Magazine, says that "the ritual of the Third degree is peculiar and
suggestive of its containing matter from the old body of Masonry," whence
he concludes that it is older than the time of the so-called Revival in 1717,
and he advances a theory that the First degree was in that olden time
conferred on minors, while the Second and Third were restricted to adults.
(2)

This view of the origin of the degrees can only be received as a


(1) "Orthodoxie Maconnique," par J. M. Ragon, Paris, 1853, p. 29.
(2) "Old Freemasonry before Grand Lodges," by Hyde Clark, in the
London Freemasons' Magazine, No. 534.


bare assumption, for there is not a particle of authentic evidence to show
that it has an historical foundation. No old document has been yet
discovered which gives support to the hypothesis that there were
ceremonies or esoteric instructions before the year 1719 which were
conferred upon a peculiar class. All the testimony of the Old Records and
manuscript Constitutions is to the effect that there was but one reception
for the Craftsmen, to which all, from the youngest to the oldest Mason,
were admitted.

It is true that one of the Old Records, known as the Sloane MS. 3329,
mentions different modes of recognition, one of which was peculiar to
Masters, and is called in the manuscript "their Master's gripe," and
another is called "their gripe for fellowcrafts."

Of the many Masonic manuscripts which, within the last few years have
been discovered and published, this is perhaps one of the most important
and interesting. Findel first inserted a small portion of it in his History of
Freemasonry, but the whole of it in an unmutilated form was subsequently
published by Bro. Woodford in 1872, and also by Hughan in the same
year in the Voice of Masonry. It was discovered among the papers of Sir
Hans Sloane which were deposited in the British Museum, and there is
numbered 3329. Bro. Hughan supposes that the date of this manuscript is
between 1640 and 1700; Messrs. Bond and Sims, of the British Museum,
think that the date is "probably of the beginning of the 18th century."
Findel thinks that it was originally in the possession of Dr. Plot, and that it
was one of the sources whence he derived his views on Freemasonry. He
places its date at about the end of the 17th century. Bro. Woodford cites
the authority of Mr. Wallbran for fixing its date in the early part of that
century, in which opinion he coincides. The paper-mark of the manuscript
in the British Museum appears to have been a copy of an older one, for
Bro. Woodford states that though the paper-mark is of the early part of
the 18th century, experts will not deny that the language is that of the
17th. He believes, and very reasonably, that it represents the cerernonial
through which Ashmole passed in 1646.

As this is the only Old Record in which a single passage is to be found
which, by the most liberal exegesis, can be construed even into an
allusion to the existence of a Third degree with a separate ritual before
the end of the second decade of the 18th century, it may be well to quote
such passages of the manuscript as appear to have any bearing on the
question.

The methods of recognition for Fellow-Crafts and Masters is thus
described in the Sloane MS.:

"Their gripe for fellow craftes is grasping their right hands in each other,
thrusting their thumb naile upon the third joynt of each others first Fing'r;
their masters gripe is grasping their right hands in each other; placing
their four fingers nailes hard upon the carpus or end of others wrists, and
their thumb nailes thrust hard directly between the second joynt of the
thumb and the third joynt of the first Finger; but some say the mast'rs grip
is the same I last described, only each of their middle Fing'rs must reach
an inch or three barley corns length higher to touch upon a vein y't comes
from the heart."

No indication is to be found in this passage of the existence at the time of
three degrees and three separate rituals. All that it tells us is that the
Fellow-Crafts were provided with one form of salutation and the Masters
with another, and we are left in uncertainty whether these forms used by
one class were unknown to the other, or whether the forms were openly
used only to distinguish one class from the other, as the number of stripes
on the arm distinguish the grades of non-commissioned officers in the
army.

That the latter was the use would appear evident from the fact that the
close of the passage leaves it uncertain that the "gripes" were not
identical, or at least with a very minute difference. "Some say," adds the
writer, "the Master's grip is the same" as the FellowCraft's - "only" - and
then he gives the hardly appreciable variation.

Here is another passage which appears to show that no value was
attached to the use of the grip as marking a degree, though it might be
employed to distinguish a rank or class.

"Another salutation," says the manuscript, "is giving the Masters or fellows
grip, saying the right worshipful the mast'rs and fellows in that right
worshipful lodge from whence we last came, greet you, greet you, greet
you well, then he will reply, God's good greeting to you, dear brother."

Here I take it that all that is meant is that the Masters saluted with the grip
peculiar to their class, and the Fellows that peculiar to theirs. But what
has become of the Apprentices ? Did they salute with the grip of the
Fellows or that of the Masters? If so, they must have been acquainted
with one or both, and then the secret instruction incidental to the condition
of degrees and a distinct ritual must be abandoned, or the Apprentices
were not admitted to the privileges of the Craft, and were debarred from a
recognition as members of a lodge.

Let the following questions and answers decide that point. They are
contained in the manuscript, and there called "a private discourse by way
of question and answer."

"Q. Where were you made a mason ?

"A. In a just and perfect or just and lawful lodge.

"Q. What is a perfect or just and lawful lodge ?

"A. A just and perfect lodge is two Interprintices two fellow crafts, and two
Mast'rs, more or fewer, the more the merrier, the fewer the better chear,
but if need require five will serve, that is, two Interprintices, two fellow
crafted and one Mast'r on the highest hill or the lowest valley of the world
without the crow of a cock or the bark of a dog."

This was no lodge of Master Masons, nor of Fellow-Crafts, nor of Entered
Apprentices, as they have been distinguished since the establishment of
degrees. It was simply a lodge of Freemasons to legalize and perfect
whose character it was necessary that representatives of all the classes
should be present. The Apprentices forming a part of the lodge must have
been privy to all its secrets; and this idea is sustained by all the Old
Constitutions and "Charges" in which the Apprentices are enjoined to
keep the secrets of the lodge.

The manuscript speaks of two words, "the Mast'r Word" and " the Mason
word." The latter is said to have been given in a certain form, which is
described. It is possible that the former may have been communicated to
Masters as a privilege attached to their rank, while the latter was
communicated to the whole Craft. In a later ritual it has been seen that
there were two words, "the Jerusalem Word" and "the universal word," but
both were known to the whole Fraternity. The Sloane MS. does not
positively state that the two words used in its ritual were like these two, or
that the Master's was confined to one class. It is, however, likely that this
Word was a privileged mark of distinction to be used only by the Masters,
though possibly known to the rest of the Fraternity. How else could it be
given in the lodge where the three classes were present ? Bro. Lyon has
arrived at the same conclusion. He says: " It is our opinion that in primitive
times there were no secrots communicated by Lodges to either fellows or
craft or master's that were not known to apprentices, seeing that members
of the latter grade were necessary to the legal constitution of
communications for the admission of masters or fellows." (1) The
argument, indeed, appears to be unanswerable.

The Word might, however, as has been suggested, have been whispered
by the Master communicating it to the one to whom it was communicated.
If this were so, it supplies us with the origin of the modern Past Master's
degree. But even then it could only be considered as a privileged mark of
a rank or class of the Crafts men and not as the evidence of a degree.

I will merely suggest, but I will not press the argument, that it is not
impossible that by a clerical mistake, or through some confusion in the
mind of the writer, "Mast'r Word" may have been written for "Mason
Word," an expression which has been made familiar to us in the minutes
of the Scottish lodges, and which is the onlv word the secrecy of which is
required by the oath that is contained in the manuscript. On the other
hand, " Master Word " is a phrase not met with in any other manuscript,
Scotch or English.

The "Oath," which forms a part of the Sloane MS., supplies itself the
strongest proof that, during the period in which it formed a part of the
ritual, that ritual must have been one common to the three classes; in
other words, there could have been but one degree, because there was
but one obligation of secrecy imposed, and the secrets, whatever they
were, must have been known to all Freemasons, to the Apprentices as
well as on to the Master. The "Oath" is in the following words:

"The Mason Word and everything therein contained you shall keep
secret, you shall never put it in writing directly or indirectly; you shall keep
all that we or your attenders shall bid you keep secret from man, woman
or child, stock or stone, and never reveal it but to a brother or in a Lodge
of Freemasons, and truly observe the charges in the Constitution; all this
you promise and swear faithfully to keep and observe, without any
manner of equivocation or mental reservation, directly or indirectly; so
help you God and the contents of this Book."


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.


The "Mason Word," with the secrets connected with it, formed a very
prominent part of the ritual of the Scotch Freemasons, though there is no
reference to it in any of the English manuscripts except in the Sloane.

In fact, so important was this word considered as to be sometimes
figuratively employed to designate the whole body of the Fraternity. Thus,
in a record of the Musselburgh Lodge, in December, 1700, where
complaint is made of the great disorders into which the lodge had fallen, it
is said, among other evils, that the practice of Fellow Grafts encouraging
Apprentices to take work as journeymen, " at last, by degrees, will bring
all law and order and consequently the Mason Word to contempt " (1) -
where, evidently by a figure of speech, it is meant that the Fraternity or
Craft of Masonry will be brought to contempt.

In the Lodge of Edinburgh, which was the principal Lodge of Scotland,
and whose records have been best preserved, the Masons or employers
were, up to the beginning of the 18th century, the dominant power, and
seldom called the Fellows or Craftsmen of an inferior class, who were
only journeymen, into their counsel.

The controversy between the Masters and journeymen, which led, in
1712, to the establishment of a new lodge, are faithfully de scribed by
Bro. Lyon from the original records. (2) It is sufficient here to say that one
of the principal grievances complained of by the latter was in respect to
the giving of the Mason Word, with the secrets connected with it and the
fees arising from it. The Masters claimed the right to confer it and to
dispose of the fee, so to speak, of initiation.

Finally, the controversy was partially ended by arbitration. The "Decreet-
Arbitral," as is the Scottish legal phrase, or award of the arbitrators made
on January 17, 1715, has been recorded, and has been published by Bro.
Lyon. The only point of importance to the present subject is that the
arbitrators decreed that the journeymen Masons, that is, the Fellow-
Crafts, should be allowed "to meet together by themselves, as a Society
for giving the Mason Word and to receive dues therefor."

From this fact it is clearly evident that the knowledge of the


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 175.
(2) Ibid., p. 140


"Mason Word" and the secrets pertaining to it formed no part of a degree
exclusively confined to the Masters, but that all esoteric knowledge in
connection with this subject was also the property of the Fellow-Crafts,
and of the Apprentices, too, because it has been shown that they were
required to be present at all lodge meetings.

The expression, "Mason Word," which is common in the Scottish lodge
records, has been, so far, found only in one English manuscript, the
Sloane 3329. But as the theory is now generally accepted as having been
proved, that the Scottish Freemasons derived their secrets from their
English brethren, there can hardly be a doubt that the regulations relative
to this Word must have been nearly the same in both countries.

That this was the case after the organization of the Grand Lodge of
England, there can be no doubt. It is proved by the visit of Dr. Desaguliers
to Edinburgh in 1721, and long before. Bro. Lyon was aware of that visit.
He had, from other considerations, expressed the opinion " that the
system of Masonic degrees which for nearly a century and a half has
been known in Scotland as Freemasonry, was an importation from
England." (1)

What this "Mason Word" was, either in England or Scotland, we have, at
this day, no means of knowing. But we do know from the records of the
17th century, which have been preserved, that it was the most important,
and in Scotland perhaps the only, secret that was communicated to the
Craft.

"The Word," says Bro. Lyon, "is the only secret that is even alluded to in
the minutes of Mary's Chapel, or in those of Kilwinning, Acheson's Haven,
or Dunblane, or any other that we have examined of a date prior to the
erection of the Grand Lodge." (2)

We know also that in England, in Scotland, and in Germany, the giving of
the Word was accompanied by a grip and by the communication of other
secrets.

But we know also, positively, that this Word and these secrets were
bestowed upon Fellows as well as Masters, and also, as we have every
reason to infer, upon Apprentices.

Besides the proofs that we derive from old Masonic records, we have a
right to draw our inferences from the prevalence of similar customs among
other crafts.


(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 153
(2) Ibid., p. 22.


Thus, the carpenters, wrights, joiners, slaters, and other crafts who were
connected in the art of building with the Masons, were called in Scotland
"Squaremen," and they had a secret word which was called the
"Squaremen Word." This word, with a grip and sign, was communicated to
both journeymen and apprentices in a ceremony called the "brithering." A
portion of this ceremony which was performed in a closely guarded
apartment of a public-house was the investiture with a leather apron. (1)

I can not doubt that the communication of the "Mason Word and the
secrets pertaining to it" was accompanied by similar ceremonies in
Scotland, and by a parity of reasoning also in England.

The final conclusion to which we must arrive from the proofs which have
been adduced, is that as there was no such system as that of degrees
known to the mediaeval Operative Freemasons, that no such system was
practiced by the Speculative Freemasons who in 1717 instituted the
Grand Lodge of England, until at least two years after its organization;
that in 1719 the two degrees of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft were
invented; and that subsequently the present system of symbolic or ancient
Craft degrees was perfected by the fabrication of a new degree, now
recognized as the Third or Master Mason's degree.

At what precise time and under what circumstances this Third degree was
invented and introduced into the Grand Lodge system of modern
Freemasonry, is the next subject that must engage our attention.


(1) Lyon's "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.