The Legend of the Third Degree.
The most important and significant of the legendary symbols of Freemasonry
is, undoubtedly, that which relates to the fate of Hiram Abif, commonly
called, "by way of excellence," the Legend of the Third Degree.
The first written record that I have been able to find of this legend is
contained in the second edition of Anderson's Constitutions, published in
1738, and is in these words:--
"It (the temple) was finished in the short space of seven years and six
months, to the amazement of all the world; when the cape-stone was
celebrated by the fraternity with great joy. But their joy was soon
interrupted by the sudden death of their dear master, Hiram Abif, whom
they decently interred, in the lodge near the temple, according to ancient
dusage." [157]
In the next edition of the same work, published in 1756, a few additional
circumstances are related, such as the participation of King Solomon in
the general grief, and the fact that the king of Israel "ordered his
obsequies to be conducted with great solemnity and decency." [158] With
these exceptions, and the citations of the same passages, made by
subsequent authors, the narrative has always remained unwritten, and
descended, from age to age, through the means of oral tradition.
The legend has been considered of so much importance that it has been
preserved in the symbolism of every masonic rite. No matter what
modifications or alterations the general system may have undergone,--no
matter how much the ingenuity or the imagination of the founders of rites
may have perverted or corrupted other symbols, abolishing the old and
substituting new ones,--the legend of the Temple Builder has ever been
left untouched, to present itself in all the integrity of its ancient
mythical form.
What, then, is the signification of this symbol, so important and so
extensively diffused? What interpretation can we give to it that will
account for its universal adoption? How is it that it has thus become so
intimately interwoven with Freemasonry as to make, to all appearances, a
part of its very essence, and to have been always deemed inseparable from
it?
To answer these questions, satisfactorily, it is necessary to trace, in a
brief investigation, the remote origin of the institution of Freemasonry,
and its connection with the ancient systems of initiation.
It was, then, the great object of all the rites and mysteries which
constituted the "Spurious Freemasonry" of antiquity to teach the
consoling doctrine of the immortality of the soul.[159] This dogma,
shining as an almost solitary beacon-light in the surrounding gloom of
pagan darkness, had undoubtedly been received from that ancient people or
priesthood[160] what has been called the system of "Pure Freemasonry," and
among whom it probably existed only in the form of an abstract proposition
or a simple and unembellished tradition. But in the more sensual minds of
the pagan philosophers and mystics, the idea, when presented to the
initiates in their Mysteries, was always conveyed in the form of a scenic
representation.[161] The influence, too, of the early Sabian worship of
the sun and heavenly bodies, in which the solar orb was adored, on its
resurrection, each morning, from the apparent death of its evening
setting, caused this rising sun to be adopted in the more ancient
Mysteries as a symbol of the regeneration of the soul.
Thus in the Egyptian Mysteries we find a representation of the death and
subsequent regeneration of Osiris; in the Phnician, of Adonis; in the
Syrian, of Dionysus; in all of which the scenic apparatus of initiation
was intended to indoctrinate the candidate into the dogma of a future
life.
It will be sufficient here to refer simply to the fact, that through the
instrumentality of the Tyrian workmen at the temple of King Solomon, the
spurious and pure branches of the masonic system were united at Jerusalem,
and that the same method of scenic representation was adopted by the
latter from the former, and the narrative of the temple builder
substituted for that of Dionysus, which was the myth peculiar to the
mysteries practised by the Tyrian workmen.
The idea, therefore, proposed to be communicated in the myth of the
ancient Mysteries was the same as that which is now conveyed in the
masonic legend of the Third Degree.
Hence, then, Hiram Abif is, in the masonic system, the symbol of human
nature, as developed in the life here and the life to come; and so, while
the temple was, as I have heretofore shown, the visible symbol of the
world, its builder became the mythical symbol of man, the dweller and
worker in that world.
Now, is not this symbolism evident to every reflective mind?
Man, setting forth on the voyage of life, with faculties and powers
fitting him for the due exercise of the high duties to whose performance
he has been called, holds, if he be "a curious and cunning workman," [162]
skilled in all moral and intellectual purposes (and it is only of such men
that the temple builder can be the symbol), within the grasp of his
attainment the knowledge of all that divine truth imparted to him as the
heirloom of his race--that race to whom it has been granted to look, with
exalted countenance, on high;[163] which divine truth is symbolized by the
WORD.
Thus provided with the word of life, he occupies his time in the
construction of a spiritual temple, and travels onward in the faithful
discharge of all his duties, laying down his designs upon the
trestle-board of the future and invoking the assistance and direction of
God.
But is his path always over flowery meads and through pleasant groves? Is
there no hidden foe to obstruct his progress? Is all before him clear and
calm, with joyous sunshine and refreshing zephyrs? Alas! not so. "Man is
born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward." At every "gate of life"--as
the Orientalists have beautifully called the different ages--he is beset
by peril. Temptations allure his youth, misfortunes darken the pathway of
his manhood, and his old age is encumbered with infirmity and disease. But
clothed in the armor of virtue he may resist the temptation; he may cast
misfortunes aside, and rise triumphantly above them; but to the last, the
direst, the most inexorable foe of his race, he must eventually yield;
and stricken down by death, he sinks prostrate into the grave, _and is
buried in the rubbish_ of his sin and human frailty.
Here, then, in Masonry, is what was called the _aphanism_[164] in the
ancient Mysteries. The bitter but necessary lesson of death has been
imparted. The living soul, with the lifeless body which encased it, has
disappeared, and _can nowhere be found_. All is darkness--confusion--
despair. Divine truth--the WORD--for a time is lost, and the Master Mason
may now say, in the language of Hutchinson, "I prepare my sepulchre. I make
my grave in the pollution of the earth. I am under the shadow of death."
But if the mythic symbolism ended here, with this lesson of death, then
were the lesson incomplete. That teaching would be vain and idle--nay,
more, it would be corrupt and pernicious--which should stop short of the
conscious and innate instinct for another existence. And hence the
succeeding portions of the legend are intended to convey the sublime
symbolism of a resurrection from the grave and a new birth into a future
life. The discovery of the body, which, in the initiations of the ancient
Mysteries, was called the _euresis_,[165] and its removal, from the
polluted grave into which it had been cast, to an honored and sacred place
within the precincts of the temple, are all profoundly and beautifully
symbolic of that great truth, the discovery of which was the object of all
the ancient initiations, as it is almost the whole design of Freemasonry,
namely, that when man shall have passed the gates of life and have yielded
to the inexorable fiat of death, he shall then (not in the pictured ritual
of an earthly lodge, but in the realities of that eternal one, of which
the former is but an antitype) be raised, at the omnific word of the Grand
Master of the Universe, from time to eternity; from the tomb of corruption
to the chambers of hope; from the darkness of death to the celestial beams
of life; and that his disembodied spirit shall be conveyed as near to the
holy of holies of the divine presence as humanity can ever approach to
Deity.
Such I conceive to be the true interpretation of the symbolism of the
legend of the Third Degree.
I have said that this mythical history of the temple builder was universal
in all nations and all rites, and that in no place and at no time had it,
by alteration, diminution, or addition, acquired any essentially new or
different form: the myth has always remained the same.
But it is not so with its interpretation. That which I have just given,
and which I conceive to be the correct one, has been very generally
adopted by the Masons of this country. But elsewhere, and by various
writers, other interpretations have been made, very different in their
character, although always agreeing in retaining the general idea of a
resurrection or regeneration, or a restoration of something from an
inferior to a higher sphere or function.
Thus some of the earlier continental writers have supposed the myth to
have been a symbol of the destruction of the Order of the Templars,
looking upon its restoration to its original wealth and dignities as being
prophetically symbolized.
In some of the high philosophical degrees it is taught that the whole
legend refers to the sufferings and death, with the subsequent
resurrection, of Christ.[166]
Hutchinson, who has the honor of being the earliest philosophical writer
on Freemasonry in England, supposes it to have been intended to embody the
idea of the decadence of the Jewish religion, and the substitution of the
Christian in its place and on its ruins.[167]
Dr. Oliver--"clarum et venerabile nomen"--thinks that it is typical of the
murder of Abel by Cain, and that it symbolically refers to the universal
death of our race through Adam, and its restoration to life in the
Redeemer,[168] according to the expression of the apostle, "As in Adam we
all died, so in Christ we all live."
Ragon makes Hiram a symbol of the sun shorn of its vivifying rays and
fructifying power by the three winter months, and its restoration to
generative heat by the season of spring.[169]
And, finally, Des Etangs, adopting, in part, the interpretation of Ragon,
adds to it another, which he calls the moral symbolism of the legend, and
supposes that Hiram is no other than eternal reason, whose enemies are the
vices that deprave and destroy humanity.[170]
To each of these interpretations it seems to me that there are important
objections, though perhaps to some less so than to others.
As to those who seek for an astronomical interpretation of the legend, in
which the annual changes of the sun are symbolized, while the ingenuity
with which they press their argument cannot but be admired, it is evident
that, by such an interpretation, they yield all that Masonry has gained
of religious development in past ages, and fall back upon that corruption
and perversion of Sabaism from which it was the object, even of the
Spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, to rescue its disciples.
The Templar interpretation of the myth must at once be discarded if we
would avoid the difficulties of anachronism, unless we deny that the
legend existed before the abolition of the Order of Knights Templar, and
such denial would be fatal to the antiquity of Freemasonry.[171]
And as to the adoption of the Christian reference, Hutchinson, and after
him Oliver, profoundly philosophical as are the masonic speculations of
both, have, I am constrained to believe, fallen into a great error in
calling the Master Mason's degree a Christian institution. It is true that
it embraces within its scheme the great truths of Christianity upon the
subject of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body;
but this was to be presumed, because Freemasonry is truth, and
Christianity is truth, and all truth must be identical. But the origin of
each is different; their histories are dissimilar. The institution of
Freemasonry preceded the advent of Christianity. Its symbols and its
legends are derived from the Solomonic temple, and from the people even
anterior to that. Its religion comes from the ancient priesthood. Its
faith was that primitive one of Noah and his immediate descendants. If
Masonry were simply a Christian institution, the Jew and the Moslem, the
Brahmin and the Buddhist, could not conscientiously partake of its
illumination; but its universality is its boast. In its language citizens
of every nation may converse; at its altar men of all religions may kneel;
to its creed disciples of every faith may subscribe.
Yet it cannot be denied, that since the advent of Christianity a Christian
element has been almost imperceptibly infused into the masonic system, at
least among Christian Masons. This has been a necessity; for it is the
tendency of every predominant religion to pervade with its influences all
that surrounds it, or is about it, whether religious, political, or
social. This arises from a need of the human heart. To the man deeply
imbued with the spirit of his religion there is an almost unconscious
desire to accommodate and adapt all the business and the amusements of
life, the labors and the employments of his every-day existence, to the
indwelling faith of his soul.
The Christian Mason, therefore, while acknowledging and justly
appreciating the great doctrines taught in Masonry, and while grateful
that these doctrines were preserved in the bosom of his ancient order at a
time when they were unknown to the multitudes of the surrounding nations,
is still anxious to give to them a Christian character, to invest them, in
some measure, with the peculiarities of his own creed, and to bring the
interpretation of their symbolism more nearly home to his own religious
sentiments.
The feeling is an instinctive one, belonging to the noblest aspirations of
our human nature; and hence we find Christian masonic writers indulging in
it almost to an unwarrantable excess, and by the extent of their sectarian
interpretations materially affecting the cosmopolitan character of the
institution.
This tendency to Christianization has, in some instances, been so
universal, and has prevailed for so long a period, that certain symbols
and myths have been, in this way, so deeply and thoroughly imbued with the
Christian element as to leave those who have not penetrated into the cause
of this peculiarity, in doubt whether they should attribute to the symbol
an ancient or a modern and Christian origin.
As an illustration of the idea here advanced, and as a remarkable example
of the result of a gradually Christianized interpretation of a masonic
symbol, I will refer to the subordinate myth (subordinate, I mean, to the
great legend of the Builder), which relates the circumstances connected
with the grave upon "_the brow of a small hill near Mount Moriah._"
Now, the myth or legend of a grave is a legitimate deduction from the
symbolism of the ancient Spurious Masonry. It is the analogue of the
_Pastos_, _Couch_, or _Coffin_, which was to be found in the ritual of all
the pagan Mysteries. In all these initiations, the aspirant was placed in
a cell or upon a couch, in darkness, and for a period varying, in the
different rites, from the three days of the Grecian Mysteries to the fifty
of the Persian. This cell or couch, technically called the "pastos," was
adopted as a symbol of the being whose death and resurrection or
apotheosis, was represented in the legend.
The learned Faber says that this ceremony was doubtless the same as the
descent into Hades,[172] and that, when the aspirant entered into the
mystic cell, he was directed to lay himself down upon the bed which
shadowed out the tomb of the Great Father, or Noah, to whom, it will be
recollected, that Faber refers all the ancient rites. "While stretched
upon the holy couch," he continues to remark, "in imitation of his
figurative deceased prototype, he was said to be wrapped in the deep sleep
of death. His resurrection from the bed was his restoration to life or his
regeneration into a new world."
Now, it is easy to see how readily such a symbolism would be seized by the
Temple Masons, and appropriated at once to _the grave at the brow of the
hill_. At first, the interpretation, like that from which it had been
derived, would be cosmopolitan; it would fit exactly to the general dogmas
of the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul.
But on the advent of Christianity, the spirit of the new religion being
infused into the old masonic system, the whole symbolism of the grave was
affected by it. The same interpretation of a resurrection or restoration
to life, derived from the ancient "pastos," was, it is true, preserved;
but the facts that Christ himself had come to promulgate to the multitudes
the same consoling dogma, and that Mount Calvary, "the place of a skull,"
was the spot where the Redeemer, by his own death and resurrection, had
testified the truth of the doctrine, at once suggested to the old
Christian Masons the idea of Christianizing the ancient symbol.
Let us now examine briefly how that idea has been at length developed.
In the first place, it is necessary to identify the spot where the
"newly-made grave" was discovered with Mount Calvary, the place of the
sepulchre of Christ. This can easily be done by a very few but striking
analogies, which will, I conceive, carry conviction to any thinking mind.