5. It has at least _one cleft in the rock_, or cave, which was the place
which subsequently became the sepulchre of our Lord. But this coincidence
need scarcely to be insisted on, since the whole neighborhood abounds in
rocky clefts, which meet at once the conditions of the masonic legend.
But to bring this analogical reasoning before the mind in a more
expressive mode, it may be observed that if a party of persons were to
start forth from the temple at Jerusalem, and travel in a westward
direction towards the port of Joppa, Mount Calvary would be the first hill
met with; and as it may possibly have been used as a place of sepulture,
which its name of Golgotha[175] seems to import, we may suppose it to have
been the very spot alluded to in the Third Degree, as the place where the
craftsmen, on their way to Joppa, discovered the evergreen acacia.
Having thus traced the analogy, let us look a little to the symbolism.
Mount Calvary has always retained an important place in the legendary
history of Freemasonry, and there are many traditions connected with it
that are highly interesting in their import.
One of these traditions is, that it was the burial-place of Adam, in
order, says the old legend, that where he lay, who effected the ruin of
mankind, there also might the Savior of the world suffer, die, and be
buried. Sir R. Torkington, who published a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in
1517, says that "under the Mount of Calvary is another chapel of our
Blessed Lady and St. John the Evangelist, that was called Golgotha; and
there, right under the mortise of the cross, was found the head of our
forefather, Adam." [176] Golgotha, it will be remembered, means, in
Hebrew, "the place of a skull;" and there may be some connection between
this tradition and the name of Golgotha, by which the Evangelists inform
us, that in the time of Christ Mount Calvary was known. Calvary, or
Calvaria, has the same signification in Latin.
Another tradition states, that it was in the bowels of Mount Calvary that
Enoch erected his nine-arched vault, and deposited on the foundation-stone
of Masonry that Ineffable Name, whose investigation, as a symbol of divine
truth, is the great object of Speculative Masonry.
A third tradition details the subsequent discovery of Enoch's deposit by
King Solomon, whilst making excavations in Mount Calvary, during the
building of the temple.
On this hallowed spot was Christ the Redeemer slain and buried. It was
there that, rising on the third day from his sepulchre, he gave, by that
act, the demonstrative evidence of the resurrection of the body and the
immortality of the soul.
And it was on this spot that the same great lesson was taught in
Masonry--the same sublime truth--the development of which evidently forms
the design of the Third or Master Mason's degree.
There is in these analogies a sublime beauty as well as a wonderful
coincidence between the two systems of Masonry and Christianity, that
must, at an early period, have attracted the attention of the Christian
Masons.
Mount Calvary is consecrated to the Christian as the place where his
crucified Lord gave the last great proof of the second life, and fully
established the doctrine of the resurrection which he had come to teach.
It was the sepulchre of him
"Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of victory,
And took the sting from death."
It is consecrated to the Mason, also, as the scene of the _euresis_, the
place of the discovery, where the same consoling doctrines of the
resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul are shadowed
forth in profoundly symbolic forms.
These great truths constitute the very essence of Christianity, in which
it differs from and excels all religious systems that preceded it; they
constitute, also, the end, aim, and object of all Freemasonry, but more
especially that of the Third Degree, whose peculiar legend, symbolically
considered, teaches nothing more nor less than that there is an immortal
and better part within us, which, as an emanation from that divine spirit
which pervades all nature, can never die.
The identification of the spot on which this divine truth was promulgated
in both systems--the Christian and the Masonic--affords an admirable
illustration of the readiness with which the religious spirit of the
former may be infused into the symbolism of the latter. And hence
Hutchinson, thoroughly imbued with these Christian views of Masonry, has
called the Master Mason's order a Christian degree, and thus Christianizes
the whole symbolism of its mythical history.
"The Great Father of all, commiserating the miseries of the world, sent
his only Son, who was _innocence_ itself, to teach the doctrine of
salvation--by whom man was raised from the death of sin unto the life of
righteousness--from the tomb of corruption unto the chamber of hope--from
the darkness of despair to the celestial beams of faith; and not only
working for us this redemption, but making with us the covenant of
regeneration; whence we are become the children of the Divinity, and
inheritors of the realms of heaven.
"We, _Masons_, describing the deplorable estate of religion under the
Jewish law, speak in figures: 'Her tomb was in the rubbish and filth cast
forth of the temple, and _acacia_ wove its branches over her monuments;'
_akakia_ being the Greek word for innocence, or being free from sin;
implying that the sins and corruptions of the old law, and devotees of the
Jewish altar, had hid Religion from those who sought her, and she was only
to be found where _innocence_ survived, and under the banner of the Divine
Lamb, and, as to ourselves, professing that we were to be distinguished by
our _Acacy_, or as true _Acacians_ in our religious faiths and tenets.
"The acquisition of the doctrine of redemption is expressed in the typical
character of _Huramen_ (I have found it.--_Greek_), and by the
applications of that name with Masons, it is implied that we have
discovered the knowledge of God and his salvation, and have been redeemed
from the death of sin and the sepulchre of pollution and unrighteousness.
"Thus the _Master Mason_ represents a man, under the Christian doctrine,
saved from the grave of iniquity and raised to the faith of salvation."
It is in this way that Masonry has, by a sort of inevitable process (when
we look to the religious sentiment of the interpreters), been
Christianized by some of the most illustrious and learned writers on
masonic science--by such able men as Hutchinson and Oliver in England, and
by Harris, by Scott, by Salem Towne, and by several others in this
country.
I do not object to the system when the interpretation is not strained, but
is plausible, consistent, and productive of the same results as in the
instance of Mount Calvary: all that I contend for is, that such
interpretations are modern, and that they do not belong to, although they
may often be deduced from, the ancient system.
But the true ancient interpretation of the legend,--the universal masonic
one,--for all countries and all ages, undoubtedly was, that the fate of
the temple builder is but figurative of the pilgrimage of man on earth,
through trials and temptations, through sin and sorrow, until his eventual
fall beneath the blow of death and his final and glorious resurrection to
another and an eternal life.