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The History Of Freemasonry
By
Albert G. Mackey 33°
VOLUME ONE
PART I. - PREHISTORIC MASONRY
CHAPTER PAGE
[Original Volumes / This Copy]
Dr. Mackey's Preface ..................................... iv. to xi. / 12
Introduction ………………………………………….. ?? / 17
1. - Tradition and History in Masonry.......................... 1 / 21
2. - The Legendary History of Freemasonry. .................... 10 / 28
3. - The Old Manuscripts ..................................... 13 / 30
4. - The Legend of the Craft.................................. 18 / 37
5. - The Halliwell Poem and the Legend........................ 25 / 43
6. - The Origin of the Halliwell Poem.......................... 33 / 53
7. - The Legend, the Germ of History........................... 36 / 52
8. - The Origin of Geometry................................... 40 / 55
9. - The Legend of Lamech's Sons and the Pillars................ 44 / 58
10. - The Legend of Hermes.................................... 50 / 63
11. - The Tower of Babel....................................... 53 / 66
I2. - The Legend of Nimrod.................................... 63 / 74
13. - The Legend of Euclid..................................... 67 / 79
14. - The Legend of the Temple................................. 73 / 84
15. - The Extension of the Art into Other Countries............... 83 / 93
16. - The Legend of Charles Martel and Namus Grecus........... 85 / 95
17. - The Legend of St. Alban.................................. 90 / 99
18. - The York Legend......................................... 95 / 103
19. - Summary of the Legend of the Craft........................ 111 / 118
20. - The Andersonian Theory .................................. 117 / 123
21. - The Prestonian Theory.................................... 124 / 129
22. - The Hutchinsonian Theory................................ 128 / 133
23. - The Oliverian Theory..................................... 143 / 147
24. - The Temple Legend....................................... 151 / 151
25. - The Legend of the Dionysiac Artificers...................... 166 / 165
26. - Freemasonry and the Ancient Mysteries..................... 174 / 174
27. - Druidism and Freemasonry ................................ 99 / 201
28. - Freemasonry and the Crusades............................. 217 / 220
29. - The Story of the Scottish Templars......................... 255 / 257
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME ONE
PAGE
Dr. Albert Gallatin Mackey................................ Frontispiece
The Inner Chamber..................................... Vignette Title
Fellow Craft before King Solomon.............................. 28 / 35
Operative Masons of the Tenth Century......................... 60 / 79
Anthony Sayer ............................................... 108 / 105
The Passes of the Jordan....................................... 140 / 134
Monument of the Third Degree................................. 172 / 162
Daniel Coxe ................................................. 204 / 194
The Meeting on the Coast of Joppa............................. 236 / 228
Strasburg Cathedral .......................................... 252 / 259
THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY
ITS LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS
ITS CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY
BY ALBERT GALLATIN MACKEY, M.D., 33°
THE HISTORY OF THE
SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY
THE
ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE
AND THE
ROYAL ORDER OF SCOTLAND
BY WILLIAM R. SINGLETON, 33°
WITH AN
ADDENDA
BY WILLIAM JAMES HUGHAN
P\S\G\ D\ OF G\ L\OF ENGLAND - P\S\G\W\ OF EGYPT, ETC.
VOLUME ONE
PUBLISHED BY
THE MASONIC HISTORY COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
PREFACE
SO comprehensive a title as the one selected for the present work would be a vain assumption if the author's object was not really to embrace in a series of studies the whole cycle of Masonic history and science. Anything short of this would not entitle the work to be called THE HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY.
Freemasonry as a society of long standing, has of course its history, and the age of the institution has necessarily led to the mixing in this history of authentic facts and of mere traditions or legends.
We are thus led in the very beginning of our labors to divide our historical studies into two classes. The one embraces the Legendary History of Freemasonry, and the other its authentic annals.
The Legendary History of Freemasonry will constitute the subject of the first of the five parts into which this work is divided. It embraces all that narrative of the rise and progress of the institution, which beginning with the connection with it of the antediluvian patriarchs, ends in ascribing its modern condition to the patronage of Prince Edwin and the assembly at York.
This narrative, which in the I5th and up to the end of the I7th century, claimed and received the implicit faith of the Craft, which in the I8th century was repeated and emendated by the leading writers of the institution, and which even in the 19th century has had its advocates among the learned and its credence among the unlearned of the Craft, has only recently and by a new school been placed in its true position of an apocryphal story.
And yet though apocryphal, this traditionary story of Freemasonry which has been called the Legend of the Craft, or by some the Legend of the Guild, is not to be rejected as an idle fable. On the contrary, the object of the present work has been to show that these Masonic legends contain the germs of an historical, mingled often with a symbolic, idea, and that divested of certain evanescences in the shape of anachronisms, or of unauthenticated statements, these Masonic legends often, nay almost always, present in their simple form a true philosophic spirit.
To establish this principle in the literature of Freemasonry, to divest the legends of the Craft of the false value given to them as portions of authentic history by blind credulity, and to protect them from the equally false estimate that has been bestowed upon them by the excessive incredulity of unphilosophic sceptics, who view them only as idle fables without more meaning than what they attach to monkish legends-in one word, to place the Legendary History of Freemasonry in the just position which it should occupy but has never yet occupied, is the object of the labors expended in the composition of the first part of this work.
The second part of the work will pass out of the field of myth and legend and be devoted to the authentic or recorded history of Freemasonry.
Rejecting as wholly untenable and unsupported by historical evidence, the various hypotheses of the origin of the institution in the Pagan mysteries, in the Temple of Solomon, or in the Crusades, an attempt has been made to trace its birth to the Roman Colleges of Artificers, which present us with an almost identical organization of builders and architects. Following the progress of the Roman Masons of the Colleges, through their visits to the different provinces of the Empire, where they went, accompanying the legions in their victorious excursions, we will find that the art of building was communicated by them to the Italians, the Spaniards, the Gauls, and the Britons.
In this way the knowledge of Operative Masonry and its practice in guilds, sodalities, and confraternities was preserved by these peoples after the extinction of the Roman Empire.
We next find this sodality emerging in the 10th century from Lombardy, and under the name of "Traveling Freemasons,” perambulating all Europe and re-establishing confraternities of Stonemasons in Germany, France, England, Scotland, and other countries.
The narrative of the progress of this fraternity of builders from Como, which was evidently an outshoot from the ancient Roman Colleges, is treated with great particularity, because without the aid of any mythical or legendary instrumentality we are thus enabled to connect it continuously with the modern system of Operative Masonry.
The merging of Operative into Speculative Masonry in the beginning of the 18th century is an historical incident based on the most authentic records. Its details, derived from records of whose genuineness there never has been a doubt, will complete and perfect the history of Freemasonry from its rise to its present condition.
Thus we may imagine the growth of that magnificent tree, beneath whose wide-spreading branches the fraternity now recline. In the far remote reign of Numa, the philosophic and religious king of Rome (or if his personality be doubted by the disciples of Niebuhr), in the times represented by his name, we find the germ of the institution in those organized confraternities of craftsmen, whom history records as flourishing with varying success and popularity through the times of the Kingdom, the Republic, and the Empire of Rome.
The seeds of a co-operative association of builders, based on the principles of fraternity, were carried with the legions of Rome into the various provinces that had been conquered by the soldiers of the Empire, and as colonies of Romans were there established, the Latin language, the manners and customs of the Roman people and their skill in the arts were introduced among the natives.
Of these arts, the most important was that of architecture, and by means of monuments still remaining, as well as other historical evidences, we are enabled to follow the gradual growth of the operative societies out of the Roman guilds and then that of the speculative institution out of the operative societies.
The hypothesis sought to be sustained in investigating the history of Freemasonry, in the present work, may be succinctly stated as follows:
Operative Masonry is the basis on which Speculative Freemasonry is founded-that is to say, the lodges of Freemasons of the present day are the successors of the lodges of Operative Masons which existed all over Europe during the Middle Ages and up to the beginning of the 18th century.
But the Operative Masonry that gave birth to the modern speculative order was not the mere craft or trade or art of building. The men who practiced it were not mere cutters and layers of stone. There were large numbers of workmen who belonged to a lower class of the trade or profession, who were never looked upon with any respect, with whom companionship was denied, and who were employed only in subordinate positions. These men were called cowans, rough layers, foreigners or similar titles intimating degradation of class and inferiority of skill.
No relation can be traced between the Operative Masons of this class and the Speculative Masons, who have represented Freemasonry since the beginning of the 18th century. The Operative Masons, between whom and the modern Freemasons there is a relation of succession, were a higher class of artists. They were possessed of secrets connected with peculiar skill in their craft. But above all, they were distinguished for the adoption of what might, in our modern phrase, be called the co-operative principle in the practice of their Craft. Perhaps it may more properly be called, a principle of sodality. It was shown in the formation of a company, a society, a guild, a corporation, or a confraternity, call it by what name you please, in which there was an association of skill, of labor, and of interests. This principle has been called the guild spirit, and it is this spirit which constitutes the essential characteristic of the Masonic institution.
If we propose to establish a chain of historical continuity, which shall extend from the first appearance of any association in which the origin of modern Freemasonry is sought to be found, to the present day, when the institution has assumed its well-recognized form, there are two elements which must be well marked in every link of the chain.
In the first place, there must be an operative element. Freemasonry can be traced only to an association of builders or architects. Every ceremony in the ritual, every symbol in the philosophy of Speculative Freemasonry, indicates-nay, positively proves - that it has been derived from and is closely connected with the art of building. The first Freemasons were builders, they could have been nothing else. To seek for them in a mystical, religious association as the ancient pagan Mysteries, or in an institution of chivalry as in the Knights of the Crusades would be a vain and unprofitable task. As well might one look for the birthplace of the eagle in the egg of the crow as to attempt to trace the origin of Freemasonry to anything other than an association of builders.
In the second place there must be a guild spirit. The builders who have come together must not have associated temporarily for the mere purpose of accomplishing a certain task, each man wholly independent of the others, and arbitrarily exercising only his own skill. There must be a permanent organization, a community of interest, a division of labor, a spirit of fraternity, an organization looking beyond the present moment. A certain number of Masons, brought together to construct an edifice, who after its construction would be ready to disperse, each Mason on his own footing to seek fresh employment under new masters and with new companions, could never, under such circumstances, be concentrated into such organizations as would, in the lapse of time, give rise to the lodges of modern Speculative Freemasons.
The hypothesis, then, which is advanced in the present work and on which its authentic historical part is constructed, is that there was from the earliest days of Rome an organization of workmen under the name of the Collegium Arlificum, or Collegium Fabrorum, that is, the College of Artificers, or the College of Workmen. That this college consisted of builders and architects, that it was regularly organized into an association, which was marked with all the peculiarities that afterward distinguished the guilds or incorporations of the Middle Ages. That this college, flourishing greatly under the later empire, sent its members, imbued with the skill in architecture and the spirit of confraternity which they had acquired in the home organization, into the various provinces which the Roman legions penetrated and conquered. And, finally, that in all these provinces, but principally in Northern Italy, in Gaul, and in Britain, they established similar colleges or associations, in which they imparted to the natives their knowledge of the art of building and impressed them with their spirit of fraternal co-operation in labor.
From these colleges of workmen sprang in the course of time, and after the fall of the empire and the transition of the provinces into independent and sovereign states, organizations of builders, of masons and architects, who in Italy assumed the name and title of Traveling Freemasons, in Gaul that of the Mestrice des Masons, in Germany that of the Steinmetzen, in England that of the Guilds and Companies, and in Scotland that of the Lodges and Incorporations. All these were associations of builders and architects, who were bound together by regulations which were very similar to and evidently derived from those by which the Roman Colleges had been governed, with others suggested by change of conditions and circumstances.
The associations, though mainly made up of professional work men, sometimes admitted, as the Roman Colleges had done, nonprofessionals, men of wealth, distinction, or learning into their ranks as honorary members.
About the close of the 17th century the number of these nonprofessional members was greatly increased, which fact must have produced a gradual and growing influence on the organizations.
Finally, during the second decade of the 18th century, these non-professional members completely changed the character of the Masonic organizations known at that time under the name of Lodges. The operative element was entirely eliminated from them, and the Lodges became no longer companies of builders, but fraternities of speculative philosophers.
The new institution of Speculative Freemasonry retained no other connection with or relation to the operative organization, than the memory of its descent, and the preservation of the technical language and the tools of the art, all of which were, however, subjected to new and symbolic interpretations.
This transition of the operative into the speculative organizations occurred in London in the year 1717, at which time the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons was established.
From England the change passed over into other countries and Lodges were everywhere instituted under the authority of the Grand Lodge of London. The history of Freemasonry from that time is to be found in the recorded annals of the various Lodges and Grand Lodges which sprung up in the course of time from the parent stem, the common mother of all the speculative Lodges of the world.
Scotland might seem at first to be an exception to this cosmopolitan maternity, but though the growth of the speculative out of the operative element was there apparently an independent act of transition, yet it cannot be denied that the influence of the English society was deeply felt in the sister kingdom and exhibited especially in the adoption of the three degrees, in the organization of the Grand Lodge on a similar model, and in the establishment of the office of Grand Master, a title of entirely modern and English origin.
Such is the plan of the history that has been pursued in the present work, a plan which materially and essentially differs from that of any preceding writer. Iconoclasts have composed monographs in which they have attacked particular fallacies and denounced special forgeries, but the history of Masonry as a whole has not before been written with the same spirit of candor that has been or should always be exercised in the composition of history.
Doubtless the well-settled and carefully nourished prejudices of some will be shocked by any attempt to expose the fallacies and falsehoods which have too long tarnished the annals of Freemasonry. But such an attempt cannot, if it be successfully pursued, but command the approval of all who believe with Cicero that history is "the witness of time, the light of truth, and the life of memory."
ALBERT G. MACKEY, M.D.
INTRODUCTION
Of all the institutions which have been established for the purpose of improving the condition of mankind, Freemasonry stands preeminent in usefulness as it is in age. Its origin is lost in the abyss of unexplored antiquity. No historical records, no traditionary accounts, can with certainty point out the precise time, the place, or the particular manner of its commencement. While some have endeavored to discover its footsteps amongst the master builders and artists engaged in the construction of the first Jewish temple, others have attempted to trace it to the Eleusinian mysteries, which are said to have taught the immortality of the soul and the other sublime truths of natural religion. Some again have ascribed its rise to the sainted heroes of the Crusades; while others have endeavored to penetrate the mysteries of the Druids, and to discover its origin amongst the wise men of that institution.
-De Witt Clinton
THE fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons, or the Freemasons, is a secret society, yet its influence and effect on Western society have been great. Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States-George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere-were Masons. Simon Bolivar, the great freedom fighter of South America, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy's distinguished patriot, were also members, as were the great writers Voltaire and Goethe, and the composers Franz Joseph Haydn and Amadeus Mozart. However, the order's ultimate purpose has always been shrouded in the self-imposed mystery that surrounds the organization as well as the wild conjecture about it that arose from the fear of the ignorant. Accusations that the Freemasons have cultivated the occult sciences-particularly alchemy, astrology, and ceremonial magic-have pursued the order throughout its history. While, without a doubt, some branches of the organization have endeavored to explore the realms of esotericism, it was merely a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Order out of chaos is the famous motto of the Freemasons. It means the occasion of rising beyond one's aimless animal nature and attaining a higher plane of existence. To learn the way to that plane, to follow the proper paths, and to continue the journey and complete the wondrous voyage to a higher self and the unity of the whole, are the ultimate goals of a Freemason.
The mythology and symbolism of Freemasonry is very rich and complex. As the age of the society is unknown, its history blends facts with traditions and legends. Until the end of the seventeenth century, these apocryphal stories of Freemasonry-called the Legend of the Craft, or the Legend of the Guild-were believed with implicit faith by its members. The object of this book, Albert Gallatin Mackey's The History of Freemasonry: Its Legendary Origins, is to present a complete survey of the mythical and allegorical narratives of Freemasonry and to show that these Masonic legends contain the germs of historical truth often mingled with a symbolic idea, and almost always reflect in their unadorned form the true philosophic spirit of the Order.
Most scholars today believe the origins of modern Freemasonry can be traced to ancient Rome, where an organization of workmen formed under the name of the Collegium Artificum, or Collegium Fabrorum-the College of Artificers, or the College of Workmen. This brotherhood consisted of builders and architects and was the prototype of the guilds and incorporations of the Middle Ages. The college flourished under the Roman empire, which sent its members, endowed with skill in architecture and the spirit of confraternity, to the various provinces that the Romans had conquered. In all these provinces, but principally in Northern Italy, Gaul, and Britain, they established similar colleges or associations, in which they transmitted to the native inhabitants their knowledge of the art of building and impressed them with their spirit of fraternal cooperation in labor.
After the fall of the empire and the transition of the provinces into independent and sovereign states, these colleges of workmen evolved into organizations of builders-masons and architects-who in Italy assumed the name of Traveling Freemasons, in Gaul that of the Mestrice des Marons, in Germany that of the Steinmetzen, in England that of the Guilds and Companies, and in Scotland that of the Lodges and Incorporations. These associations of builders and architects were bound together by regulations very similar to and evidently derived from those that governed the Roman Colleges, with other rules suggested by change of conditions and circumstances.
The associations, though mainly made up of professional workmen, sometimes admitted nonprofessionals-men of wealth, distinction, or learning-into their ranks as honorary members. At the end of the seventeenth century the number of these nonprofessional members greatly increased, and by the early eighteenth century they had completely changed the character of the Masonic organizations, known at that time as Lodges. The operative element-the practical application of the rules of architecture to the construction of public and private edifices-was entirely eliminated, and the Lodges were no longer companies of builders, but fraternities of speculative philosophers. The new institution of Speculative Freemasonry retained no relation to the practical purposes of operative Freemasonry other than the memory of its descent and the retention of its technical language and the tools of the art. These, however, were subjected to new and symbolic interpretations, adapted to the worship of God as the Grand Architect of the universe.
This transition from the operative to the speculative form of Masonry was complete by the year 1717, when the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons was established in London. From England the change passed over to other Lodges as Freemasonry spread to the United States, South America, and throughout the rest of the world. In The History of Freemasonry: Its Legendary Origins you will find the lore and mythology that is the philosophical and ritual foundation upon which Freemasonry is built and from which its three great principles-brotherly love, charity, and truth-have evolved. Albert Gallatin Mackey is an excellent guide through this compelling exploration of the Masonic tradition. Included are excerpts from many rare and hard-to-find original manuscripts sacred to the Masons-including the Halliwell Poem, the oldest Masonic document in existence, dating from the late fourteenth to the middle fifteenth century-and a learned discussion of the origin, significance, and meaning of these works. Mackey recounts the various stories that explore Freemasonry's origins, ranging from its beginnings with Abraham, the Old Testament patriarch, to the builders of the Tower of Babel, to King Solomon and the builders of the Temple of Jerusalem. He also explores the possible associations of the Freemasons with the Knights Templars of the Crusades, the Druids, the Rosicrucians, and the Assassins-a secret Muslim sect. Throughout, this erudite and illuminating book investigates the subject with detail and completeness.
Albert Gallatin Mackey was born on March 12, 1807, in Charleston, South Carolina. He was the youngest son of Dr. John Mackey, a physician, editor, and teacher, who also published the periodical The Investigator from 1812 to 1817. After teaching for a time, Albert Mackey followed in his father's footsteps and attended the South Carolina Medical College, Charleston, from which he graduated in 1832. He practiced medicine in Charleston and became a teacher at the Medical College, but in 1854 his growing interest in Freemasonry impelled him to give up his practice and devote his energies to his Masonic activities.
Mackey eventually became the grand secretary of the Grand Lodge, grand high priest of the Grand Chapter, grand master of the Grand Council, and general grand high priest of the General Grand Chapter of the United States. The last decade of his life was spent in Washington, D.C., where he devoted himself to the continuance of his work as secretary general of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree. He died on June 20, 1881, at Old Point Comfort, Virginia.
While Mackey attained high official positions in the Masonic order, he is remembered today for his writings on Freemasonry. In 1849 he established The Southern and Western Masonic Miscellany, a weekly magazine, and in 1858-60 he published "Quarterly," which he dedicated to the same interests. He was also the author of many books on Freemasonry. His first book was A Lexicon of Freemasonry (1845), followed by The Mystic Tie (1849), The Ahiman Rezon, or Book of Constitutions of the Grand Lodge of South Carolina (1852), Principles of Masonic Law (1856), The Book of the Chapter (1858), A Text Book of Masonic Jurisprudence (1859), History of Freemasonry in South Carolina (1861), Manual of the Lodge (1862), Cryptic Masonry (1867), Mackey's Masonic Ritualist (1869), The Symbolism of Freemasonry (1869), Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (1874), and Masonic Parliamentary Law ( 1875). He was working on the present volume, The History of Freemasonry, when he died. Many of Mackey's books, particularly the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, are considered among the most authoritative and definitive works on the subject.
PART ONE
PREHISTORIC MASONRY
PREHISTORIC MASONRY
CHAPTER I
TRADITION AND HISTORY IN MASONRY
IN the study of Freemasonry there are two kinds of statements which are presented to the mind of the inquiring scholar, which are sometimes concurrent, but much oftener conflicting, in their character.
These are the historical and the traditional, each of which appertains to Freemasonry as we may consider it in a different aspect.
The historical statement relates to the Institution as we look at it from an exoteric or public point of view; the traditional refers only to its esoteric or secret character.
So long as its traditional legends are confined to the ritual of the Order, they are not appropriate subjects of historical inquiry. They have been invented by the makers of the rituals for symbolic purposes connected with the forms of initiation. Out of these myths of Speculative Masonry its philosophy has been developed; and, as they are really to be considered as merely the expansion of a philosophic or speculative idea, they can not properly be posited in the category of historical narratives.
But in the published works of those who have written on the origin and progress of Masonry, from its beginning to the present time, the legendary or traditional has too much been mingled with the historical element. The effect of this course has been, on adversely prejudiced minds, to weaken all claims of the Institution to an historical existence. The doctrine of "false in one thing, false in all," has been rigidly applied, and those statements of the Masonic historian which are really authentic have been doubted or rejected, because in other portions of his narrative he has been too credulous.
Borrowing the technical language of archoeology, I should say that the history of Masonry (1) may be divided into two periods ‑ prehistoric and the historic. The former is traditional, the latter documentary. Each of these divisions must, in any historical inquiry, be clearly defined. There is also another division, into esoteric and exoteric history. The first is exclusively within the arcana of the Order, and can not, as I have said, be the subject of historical investigation. The second properly comes within the sphere of historical study, and is subjected to all the laws of historical criticism.
When we are treating of Freemasonry as one of the social organizations of the world ‑ as one of those institutions which are the results of civilization, and which have sprung up in the progress of society; and, finally, when we are considering what are the influences that the varying conditions of that society have produced upon it, and what influences it has reciprocally produced upon these varying conditions ‑ we are then engaged in the solution of a historical problem, and we must pursue the inquiry in a historical method and not otherwise. We must discard all speculation, because history deals only with facts.
If we were treating the history of a nation, we should assert nothing of it as historical that could not be traced to and be verified by its written records. All that is conjectured of the events that may have occurred in the earlier period of such a nation, of which there is no record in contemporaneous or immediately subsequent times, is properly thrown into the dim era of the prehistoric ago It forms no part of the authentic history of the nation, and can be dignified, at its highest value, with the title of historical speculation only, which claims no other credence than that which its plausibility or its probability commands.
Now, the possibility or the probability that a certain event may have occurred in the early days of a nation's existence, but of which event there is no record, will be great or little, as dependent on certain other events which bear upon it, and which come within the era of its records. The event may have been possible, but not probable, and then but very little or no importance would be im‑
(1) in the progress of this work I shall use the terms Masonry and Freemasonry without discrimination, except on special, and at the time specified, occasions.
puted to it, and it would at once be relegated to the category of myths. Or it may have been both possible and highly probable, and we may be then permitted to speculate upon it as something that had exerted an influence upon the primitive character or the subsequent progress of the nation. But, even then, it would not altogether lose its mythical character. Whatever we might predicate of it would only be a plausible speculation. It would not be history, for that deals not in what may have been, but only in that which actually has been.
The progress in these latter days of what are called the exact sciences has led, by the force of example and analogy, to a more critical examination of the facts, or, rather, the so‑called facts, of history.
Voltaire said, in his Life of Charles XII of Sweden that "incredulity is the foundation of history." Years passed before the axiom in all its force was accepted by the learned. But at length it has been adopted as the rule of all historical criticism. To be credulous is now to be unphilosophical, and scholars accept nothing as history that can not be demonstrated with almost mathematical certainty.
Niebuhr began by shattering all faith in the story of Rhea Sylvia, of Romulus and Remus, and of the maternal wolf, which, with many other incidents of the early Roman annals, were consigned by him to the region of the mythical.
In later times, the patriotic heart of Switzerland has been made to mourn by the discovery that the story of William Tell, and of the apple which he shot from the head of his son, is nothing but a medioeval fable which was to be found in a great many other countries, and the circumstances of which, everywhere varying in details, still point to a common origin in some early symbolic myth.
It is thus that many narratives, once accepted as veracious, have been, by careful criticism, eliminated from the domain of history; and such works as Goldsmith's Histories of Greece ana Rome are no longer deemed fitting text‑books for schools, where nothing but truth should be taught.
The same rules of critical analysis which are pursued in the separation of what is true from what is false in the history of a nation should be applied to the determination of the character of all statements in Masonic history. This course, however, has, unhappily, not been generally pursued. Many of its legends are unquestionably founded, as I shall endeavor hereafter to show, on a historical basis; but quite as many, if not more, are made up out of a mixture of truth and fiction, the distinctive boundaries of which it is difficult to define; while a still greater number are altogether mythical, with no appreciable element of truth in their composition. And yet for nearly two centuries, all of these three classes of Masonic legendary lore have been accepted by the great body of the Fraternity, without any discrimination, as faithful narratives of undoubted truthfulness.
It is this liberal acceptation of the false for the true, and this ready recognition of fables as authentic nauatives whereby imaginative writers have been encouraged to plunge into the realms of absurdity instead of confining themselves to the domain of legitimate history, that have cast an air of romance over all that has hitherto been written about Freemasonry. Unjustly, but very naturally, scholars have been inclined to reject all our legends in every part as fabulous, because they found in some the elements of fiction.
But, on the other hand, the absurdities of legend‑makers, and the credulity of legend‑readers, have, by a healthy reaction, given rise to a school of iconoclasts (to whom there will soon be occasion to refer), which sprang up from a laudable desire to conform the principles of criticism which are to govern all investigations into Masonic history to the rules which control profane writers in the examination of the history of nations.
As examples of the legends of Masonry which have tempted the credulity of many and excited the skepticism of others, those almost universally accepted legends may be cited which attribute the organization of Freemasonry in its present form to the era of King Solomon's temple ‑ the story of Prince Edwin and the Grand Lodge congregated by him at the city of York in the 10th century ‑ and the theory that the three symbolic degrees were instituted as Masonic grades at a period very long anterior to the beginning of the 18th century.
These statements, still believed in by all Masons who have not made the history of the Order an especial study, were, until recently, received by prominent scholars as veracious narratives. Even Dr. Oliver, one of the most learned as well as the most prolific of Masonic authors, has, in his numerous works, recognized them as historic truths without a word of protest or a sign of doubt, except, perhaps, with reference to the third legend above mentioned, of which he says, with a cautious qualification, that he has "some doubts whether the Master's degree, as now given, can be traced three centuries backwards." (1)
But now comes a new school of Masonic students, to whom, borrowing a word formerly used in the history of religious strifes, has been given the name of "iconoclasts." The word is a good one. The old iconoclasts, or image‑breakers of the 8th century, demolished the images and defaced the pictures which they found in the churches, induced by erroneous but conscientious views, because they thought that the people were mistaking the shadow for the substance, and were worshipping the image or the picture instead of the Divine Being whom it represented.
And so these Masonic iconoclasts, with better views, are proceeding to destroy, by hard, incisive criticism, the intellectual images which the old, unlettered Masons had constructed for their veneration. They are pulling to pieces the myths and legends, whose fallacies and absurdities had so long cast a cloud upon what ought to be the clear sky of Masonic history. But they have tempered their zeal with a knowledge and a moderation that were unknown to the iconoclasts of religion. These shattered the images and scattered the fragments to the four winds of heaven, or they burnt the picture so that not even a remnant of the canvas was left. Whatever there was of beauty in the work of the sculptor or painter was forever destroyed. Every sentiment of zesthetic art was overcome by the virulence of religious fanaticism. Had the destructive labors of these iconoclasts been universal and long continued, no foundation would have been left for building that science of Christian symbolism, which in this day has been so interesting and so instructive to the archoeologist. (2)
Not so have the Masonic iconoclasts performed their task of critical reformation. They have shattered nothing; they have destroyed nothing. When in the course of their investigations into true Masonic history, they encounter a myth or a legend, replete, ap‑
(1) "Dissertation on the State of Masonry in the Eighteenth Century." (2) Thus the Emperor Leo, the Isaurian, caused all images and pictures to be removed from the churches and publicly burnt ‑ an act of vandalism not surpassed by that Saracen despot who (if the story be true) ruthlessly committed the books of the Alexandrian library to the flames as fuel for the public baths.
parently, with absurdities or contradictions, they do not consign it to oblivion as something unworthy of consideration, but they dissect it into its various parts; they analyze it with critical acumen; they separate the chaff from the wheat; they accept the portion that is confirmed by other and collateral testimony as a legitimate contribution to history; what is undoubtedly fictitious they receive as a myth, and either reject it altogether as an unmeaning addition to a legend, or give it an interpretation as the expression of some symbolic idea which is itself of value in a historical point of view.
That lamented archaeologist, Mr. George Smith, late of the British Museum, in speaking of the cuneiform inscriptions excavated in Mesopotamia, and the legends which they have preserved of the old Babylonian empire, said: (1) "With regard to the supernatural element introduced into the story, it is similar in nature to many such additions to historical narratives, especially in the East; but I would not reject those events which may have happened, because, in order to illustrate a current belief, or add to the romance of the story, the writer has introduced the supernatural."
It is on this very principle that the iconoclastic Masonic writers, such as Hughan and Woodford, are pursuing their researches into the early history of Freemasonry. They do not reject those events related in the old legends, which have certainly happened, because in them they find also mythical narratives. They do not yield to the tendency which George Smith says is now too general, "to repudiate the earlier part of history, because of its evident inaccuracies and the marvelous element generally combined with it." (2) It is in this way, and in this way only, that early Masonic history can be rightly written. Made up, as it has been for centuries past, of a commingled tissue of historical narrative and legendary invention, it has been heretofore read without judicious discrimination. Either the traditional account has been wholly accepted as historical, or it has been wholly rejected as fabulous, and thus, in either case, numerous errors have been the consequence.
As an example of the error which inevitably results from pursuing either of these methods of interpretation, one of which may be distinguished as the school of gross credulity, and the other as that of great skepticism, let us take the legend of the Temple origin of
(1) Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 302. (2) Ibidem.
Masonry ‑ that is to say, the legend which places the organization of the Institution at the time of the building of the temple at Jerusalem.
Now, the former of these schools implicitly receives the whole legend as true in all its details, and recognizes King Solomon as the first Grand Master, with Hiram of Tyre and Hiram as his Wardens, who, with him, presided over the Craft, divided into three degrees, the initiation into which was the same as that practiced in the lodges of the present day, or at least not very unlike it.
Thus Dr. Anderson, who was the first to publicly promulgate this legend and the theory founded on it, says, in the second edition of his "Constitutions," that Hiram Abif, "in Solomon's absence, filled the chair as Deputy Grand Master, and, in his presence, was the Senior Grand Warden"; (1) and, again, that "Solomon partitioned the Fellow Crafts into certain lodges, with a Master and Wardens in each"; (2) and, lastly, that "Solomon was Grand Master of all Masons at Jerusalem. King Hiram was Grand Master at Tyre, and Hiram Abif had been Master of Work." (3) The modern rituals have made some change in these details, but we evidently see here the original source of the legend as it is now generally believed by the Fraternity.
Indeed, so firmly convinced of its truth are the believers in this legend, that the brand of heterodoxy is placed by them on all who deny or doubt it.
On the contrary, the disciples of the latter school, whose skepticism is as excessive as is the credulity of the former, reject as fabulous everything that tends to connect Freemasonry with the Solomonic temple. To the King of Israel they refuse all honor, and they contemptuously repudiate the theory that he was a Masonic dignitary, or even a Freemason at all. One of these Pyrrhonists has gone so far as to defile the memory of the Jewish monarch with unnecessary and unmerited abuse.
Between these two parties, each of which is misdirected by an intemperate zeal, come the iconoclasts ‑ impartial inquirers, who calmly and dispassionately seek for truth only. These disavow, it is true, the authenticity of the Temple legend in its present form. They deny that there is any proof which a historian could, by applying the just canons of criticism, admit as competent evidence, that Freemasonry was organized at the building of the temple of Solomon,
(1) Anderson, "Constitutions," 2d ed., chap. iii., p. 12. (2) Ibid., p. 13 (3) Ibid., p. 15
and hence they look for its origin at some other period and under different circumstances.
But they do not reject the myth connected with the temple as being wholly unworthy of consideration. On the contrary, they respect this legend as having a symbolic significance, whose value can not be overestimated. They trace its rise in the Old Constitutions; they find it plainly alluded to in the Legend of the Craft; and they follow it in its full development in the modern rituals. They thus recognize the influence that the story of the temple and its builders has exerted on the internal construction of the Order, and hence they feel no disposition to treat it, notwithstanding its historical inaccuracy, with contumely.
Knowing what an important part the legends and symbols of Freemasonry have performed in the progress of the Institution, and how much its philosophic system is indebted to them for all that is peculiar to itself, they devote their literary energies, not to the expurgation of this or any other myth or legend, but to the investigation of the questions how and when it arose, and what is its real significance as a symbol, or what foundation as a narrative it may have in history. And thus they are enabled to add important items to the mass of true Masonic history which they have been accumulating.
In short, the theory of the iconoclastic school is that truth and authenticity must always, and in the first place, be sought; that nothing must be accepted as historical which has not the internal and external evidences of historical verity, and that in treating the legends of Masonry ‑ of almost every one of which it may be said, "Se non vero, e ben trovato" ‑ if it is not true, it is well invented ‑ we are not to reject them as altogether fabulous, but as having some hidden and occult meaning, which, as in the case of all other symbols, we must diligently seek to discover. But if it be found that the legend has no symbolic significance, but is simply the distortion of a historical fact, we must carefully eliminate the fabulous increment, and leave the body of truth to which it had been added, to have its just value.
Such was the method pursued by the philosophers of antiquity; and Plato, Anaxagoras, and Cicero explained the absurdities of the ancient mythologists by an allegorical mode of interpretation.
To this school I have for years been strongly attached, and in the composition of this work I shall adopt its principles. I do not fear that the claims of Freemasonry to a time‑honored existence will be injured by any historical criticism, although the era in which it had its birth may not be admitted to be as remote as that assigned to it by Anderson or Oliver.
Iconoclastic criticism can not depreciate, but will rather elevate, the character of the Institution. It will relieve it of absurdities, will often explain the cause of anachronisms, will purify the fabulous element, and confine it within the strict domain of history.
It was a common reproach against the great Niebuhr that he had overthrown the whole fabric of early Roman history, and yet Dr. Arnold, the most competent of critics, has said of him that he had built up much more than he had destroyed, and fixed much that modern skepticism had rejected as fabulous on firmer historic grounds.
Following such a method as that pursued by the most learned of modern historians, it will be necessary, for a faithful and comprehensible investigation of the history of Masonry, to discriminate between the two periods into which it is naturally divided,
The PREHISTORIC
and
The HISTORIC.
The HISTORIC embraces the period within which we have authentic documents in reference to the existence of the Order, and will be considered in the second part of this book.
The PREHISTORIC embraces the period within which we have no authentic memorials, and when we have to depend wholly on legends and traditions.
The legendary history of Masonry will, therefore, be commenced in the next chapter.
P. 9
CHAPTER II
THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY
IN the history of every ancient nation there is a prehistoric and a historic period.
The prehistoric period is that which has no records to prove the truth of the events that have been attributed to it. It is made up of myths and legends, founded ‑ some of them, in all probability ‑ on a distortion of historical facts, and some of them indebted entirely to imagination for their invention.
The historic period is that which begins with the narration of events which are supported by documents, either contemporary with the events or so recently posterior to them as to have nearly all the validity of contemporary evidence. Just such a division of periods as this we find in the history of Freemasonry.
The prehistoric period, more commonly styled the legendary history, embraces the supposed history of the rise and progress of the Institution in remote times, and details events said to have occurred, but which have no proof of their occurrence other than that of oral tradition, unsupported by that sort of documentary evidence which is essentially necessary to give a reliable character to an historical statement.
The historic period of Freemasonry commences with the time when written or printed records furnish the necessary testimony that the events narrated did actually occur.
In treating of the history of nations, scholars have found great difficulty in precisely defining the point of separation between the prehistoric and the historic periods. As in natural history, it is almost impossible to define the exact line of demarkation between any two consecutive classes of the kingdoms of nature so as to distinguish the highest species of a vegetable from the lowest of an animal organization, so in political history it is difficult to tell when the prehistoric period ends and the historic begins.
In Freemasonry we meet with the same embarrassment, and this embarrassment is increased according; to the different standpoints from which we view the institution.
If we adopt the theory (as has been done by a few writers too iconoclastic in their views) that Speculative Masonry never was anything but that which its present organization presents, with Grand Lodges, Grand Masters, and a ritual of distinct degrees, then we are compelled to place the commencement of the historic era at that period which has been called the Revival in the second decade of the 18th century.
If, with more liberal views, we entertain the opinion that Speculative Masonry was founded on, and is the offspring of, the Operative system of the Stonemasons, then we must extend our researches to at least the Middle Ages, where we shall find abundant documentary evidence of the existence and character of the Operative parent to which the Freemasonry of the present day, by a well‑marked transition, has succeeded.
Connecting the written history of the Operative Masons with that of its speculative offshoot, we have an authentic and continuous history that will carry us back to a period many centuries anterior to the time of the so‑called Revival in the year 1717.
If I were writing a history of Speculative Masonry merely, I should find myself restricted to an era, somewhere in the 17th century, when there is documentary evidence to show that the transition period began, and when the speculative obtruded into the Operative system.
But as I am really writing a history of Freemasonry, of which the Operative and the Speculative systems are divisions, intimately connected, I am constrained to go farther, and to investigate the rise and the progress of the Operative art as the precursor and the founder of the Speculative science.
The authentic details of the condition of Operative Masonry in the Middle Ages, of its connection, if it had any, with other organizations, and its transmutation at a later period into Speculative Masonry, will constitute the historic narrative of Freemasonry.
Its prehistoric narrative will be found in the myths and legends which were, unfortunately, for a long time accepted by the great body of the Craft as a true history, but which, though still credited by many, are yet placed by most modern Masonic scholars in their proper category.
These legends, some of which are preserved in the rituals, and some are becoming almost obsolete, have a common foundation in that traditional narrative which is known as the Legend of the Craft, (1) and which must first be understood before we can with satisfaction attempt to study the legendary history of the Institution.
But this legend is of such length and of so much importance that it demands for its consideration a separate and distinct chapter.
I, by no means, intend to advance the proposition that all the myths and legends now taught in the Lodges, or preserved in the works of Masonic writers, are to be found in the Legend of the Craft, but only the most important ‑ those that are still recognized by the more credulous portion of the Fraternity as genuine and authentic narratives ‑ receive their first notice in the Legend of the Craft, although they are indebted for their present, fuller form, to a development or enlargement, subsequently made in the course of the construction of the modern ritual.
(1) The Rev. Bro. Woodford calls it the "Legend of the Guild." But I prefer the title here used, because it does not lead to embarrassing questions as to the relation of the mediaeval Guilds to Freemasonry.
P. 12
CHAPTER III
THE OLD MANUSCRIPTS
ANDERSON tells us, in the second edition of the Book of Constitutions, that in the year 1719, "at some private Lodges several very valuable manuscripts concerning the Fraternity, their Lodges, Regulations, Charges, Secrets, and Usages, were too hastily burnt by some scrupulous Brothers, that these papers might not fall into strange hands." (1)
Fortunately, this destruction was not universal. The manuscripts to which Anderson alludes were undoubtedly those Old Constitutions of the Operative Masons, several copies of which, that had escaped the holocaust described by him, have since been discovered in the British Museum, in old libraries, or in the archives of Lodges, and have been published by those who have discovered them. (2)
These are the documents which have received the title of "Old Records," "Old Charges," or "Old Constitutions." Their general character is the same. Indeed, there is so much similarity, and almost identity, in their contents as to warrant the presumption that they are copies of some earlier document not yet recovered.
The earliest of these documents is a manuscript poem, entitled the Constitutiones artis geometriae, secundum Eucleydem, which is preserved in the British Museum, and which was published in 1840 by Mr. Halliwell, in his Early History of Freemasonry in England. The date of this manuscript is supposed to be about the year 1390. A second and enlarged edition was published in 1844.
The next of the English manuscripts is that which was published
(1) Anderson's " Constitutions," 1738, P. 111 (2) Among these writers we must not omit to mention Bro. William James Hughan, facile princeps of all Masonic antiquarians, who made, in 1872, a valuable contribution to this literature, under the title of "The Old Charges of the British Freemasons," the value of which is enhanced by the learned Preface of Bro. A.F.A. Woodford.
in 1861 by Bro. Matthew Cooke from the original in the British Museum, and which was once the property of Mrs. Caroline Baker, from whom it was purchased in 1859 by the Curators of the Museum. The date of this manuscript is supposed to be about 1490.
All the English Masonic antiquarians concur in the opinion that this manuscript is next in antiquity to the Halliwell poem, though there is a difference of about one hundred years in their respective dates. It is, however, mere guesswork to say that there were not other manuscripts in the intervening period. But as none have been discovered, they must be considered as non‑existent, and it is impossible even to conjecture, from any groundwork on which we can stand, whether, if such manuscripts did ever exist, they partook more of the features of the Halliwell or of the Cooke document, or whether they presented the form of a gradual transmission from the one to the other.
The Cooke MS. is far more elaborate in its arrangement and its details than the Halliwell, and contains the Legend of the Craft in a more extended form.
In the absence of any other earlier document of the same kind, it must be considered as the matrix, as it were, in which that Legend, in the form in which it appears in all the later manuscripts, was moulded.
In the year 1815, Mr. James Dowland published, in the Gentleman's Magazine, (1) the copy of an old manuscript which had lately come into his possession, and which he described as being "written on a long roll of parchment, in a very clear hand, apparently early in the 17th century, and very probably is copied from a manuscript of an earlier date." Although not as old as the Halliwell and Cooke MSS., it is deemed of very great value, because it comes next to them in date, and is apparently the first of that series of later manuscripts, so many of which have, within the past few years, been recovered. It is evidently based on the Cooke MS., though not an exact copy of it. But the later manuscripts comprising that series, at the head of which it stands, so much resemble it in details, and even in phraseology, that they must either have been copies made from it, or, what is far more probable, copies of some older and common original, of which it also is a copy.
(1) Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 85, P. 489, May, 1815.
The original manuscript which was used by Dowland for the publication in the Gentleman's Magazine is lost, or can not now be found. But Mr. Woodford and other competent authorities ascribe the year 1550 as being about its date.
Several other manuscript Constitutions, whose dates vary from the middle of the 16th to the beginning of the 18th century, have since been discovered and published, principally by the industrious labors of Brothers Hughan and Woodford in England, and Brother Lyon in Scotland.
The following list gives the titles and conjectural dates of the most important of these manuscripts: (1)
Halliwell MS............. supposed, 1390.
Cooke MS................. " 1490.
Dowland MS. ............. " 1500.
Landsdowne MS........ ” 1560.
York MS., No. 1..........
"
1600. Harleian MS., NO. 2054...
"
1625. Grand Lodge MS...........
"
1632. Sloane MS., NO. 3848.....
certain, 1646. Sloane MS., NO. 3323.....
"
1659. Harleian MS., No. 1942...
supposed, 1660. Aitcheson‑Haven MS. .....
certain, 1666. Edinburgh‑Kilwinning MS.. supposed, 1670. York MS., No. 5 .........
