History of Freemasonry

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CHAPTER XXIII

THE OLIVERIAN THEORY

In commendation of the Rev. Dr. Oliver as a learned and prolific writer on Freemasonry, too much can not be said. His name must ever be clarum et venerabile among the Craft. To the study of the history and the philosophy of the Institution he brought a store of scholarly acquirements, and a familiarity with ancient and modern literature which had been possessed by no Masonic author who had preceded him. Even Hutchinson, who certainly occupied the central and most elevated point in the circle of Masonic students and investigators who flourished in the 18th century must yield the palm for erudition to him whose knowledge of books was encyclopedical.

In his numerous works on Freemasonry, of which it is difficult to specify the most important, the most learned, or the most interesting, Dr. Oliver has raised the Institution of Masonry to a point of elevation which it had never before reached, and to which its most ardent admirers had never aspired to promote it.

He loved it for its social tendencies, for he was genial in his inclination and in his habits, and he cherished its principles of brotherly love, for his heart was as expanded as his mind. But he taught that within its chain of union there was a fund of ethics and philosophy, and a beautiful science of symbolism by which its ethics was developed to the initiated, which awakened scholars to the contemplation of the fact never before so completely demonstrated, that Speculative Masonry claimed and was entitled to a prominent place among the systems of human philosophy.
No longer could men say that Freemasonry was merely a club of good fellows. Oliver had proved that it was a school of inquirers after truth. No longer could they charge that its only design was the cultivation of kindly feelings and the enjoyment of good cheer. He had shown that it was engaged in the communication to its disciples of abstruse doctrines of religion and philosophy in a method by which it surpassed every other human scheme for imparting such knowledge.

But, notwithstanding this eulogium, every word of which is merited by its subject, and not one word of which would I erase, it must be confessed that there were two defects in his character that materially affect the value of his authority as an historian.

One was, that as a clergyman of the Church of England he was controlled by that clerical espirit du corps which sought to make every opinion subservient to his peculiar sectarian views. Thus, he gave to every symbol, every myth, and every allegory the interpretation of a theologian rather than of a philosopher.

The other defect, a far more important one, was the indulgence in an excessive credulity, which led him to accept the errors of tradition as the truths of history. In reading one of his narratives, it is often difficult to separate the two elements. He so glosses the sober facts of history with the fanciful coloring of legendary lore, that the reader finds himself involved in an inextricable web of authentic history intermixed with unsupported tradition, where he finds it impossible to discern the true from the fabulous.

The canon of criticism laid by Voltaire, that all historic certainty that does not amount to a mathematical demonstration is merely extreme probability, is far too rigorous. There are many facts that depend only on contemporaneous testimony to which no more precise demonstration is applied, and which yet leave the strong impression of certainty on the mind. But here, as in all other things, there is a medium - a measure of moderation - and it would have been well if Dr. Oliver had observed it. But not having done so, his theory is founded not simply on the Legend of the Craft, of which he takes but little account, but on obscure legends and traditions derived by him, in the course of his multifarious reading, sometimes from rabbinical and sometimes from unknown sources. 1

1 He divides the legends of Masonry into two classes, neither of which embraces the incredible. He says that "many of them are founded in fact, and capable of unquestionable proof, whilst others are based on Jewish traditions, and consequently invested with probability, while they equally inculcate and enforce the most solemn and important truths" - "Historical Landmarks," vol. i., p. 399.

The theoretical views of Oliver as to the origin and progress of Masonry from a legendary point of view are so scattered in his various works that it is difficult to follow them in a chronological order. This is especially the case with the legends that relate to the periods subsequent to the building of the Temple at Jerusalem. Up to that era, the theory is enunciated in his Antiquities of Freemasonry, upon which I shall principally depend in this condensation. It was, it is true, written in the earlier part of his life, and was his first contribution to the literature of Masonry, but he has not in any of his subsequent writings modified the views he there entertained. This work may therefore be considered, as far as it goes, as an authoritative exposition of his theory. His Historical Landmarks, the most learned and most interesting of his works, if we except, perhaps, his History of Initiation, will furnish many commentaries on what he has advanced in his Antiquities, but as it is principally devoted to an inquiry into the origin and interpretation of the symbols and allegories of Masonry, we can not obtain from its pages a connected view of his theory.
Preston had introduced his history of Masonry by the assertion that its foundations might be traced "from the commencement of the world." Dr. Oliver is not content with so remote an origin, but claims, on the authority of Masonic traditions, that the science "existed before the creation of this globe, and was diffused amidst the numerous systems with which the grand empyreum of universal space is furnished." 1

But as he supposes that the globes constituting the universe were inhabited long before the earth was peopled, and that these inhabitants must have repossessed a system of ethics founded on the belief in God, which he says is nothing else but Speculative Masonry, we may regard this opinion as merely tantamount to the expression that truth is eternal.
Passing by this empyreal notion as a mere metaphysical idea, let us begin with Oliver's theory of the mundane origin of the science of Masonry.
While in the Garden of Eden, Adam was taught that science which is now termed Masonry. 2After his fall, he forfeited the gift of inspiration, but certainly retained a recollection of those degrees

1 "Antiquities," Period I., ch. ii., P. 26. 2Oliver, " Antiquities," I., ii., 37.

of knowledge which are within the compass of human capacity, and among them that speculative science now known as Freemasonry. 1
These, in the course of time, he communicated to his children. Of these children, Seth and his descendants preserved and cultivated the principles of Masonry which had been received from Adam, but Cain and his progeny perverted and finally abandoned it. However, before his complete secession, the latter, with some of his descendants, reduced the knowledge he had received from Adam to practice, and built a city which he called Hanoch. The children of Lamech, the sixth in descent from Cain, also retained some faint remains of Masonry, which they exerted for the benefit of mankind.

It is in this way that Dr. Oliver attempts to reconcile the story of the children of Lamech, as detailed in the Legend of the Craft, with his theory, which really ousts Cain and all his descendants from the pale of Masonry. The sons of Lamech were Masons, but their Masonry had been greatly corrupted.

Dr. Oliver makes the usual division of Masonry into Operative and Speculative. The former continued to be used by the Cainites after they had lost all pretensions to the latter, and the first practical application of the art was by them in the building of the city of Hanoch, or, as it is called in Genesis, Enoch.

Thus Masonry was divided, as to its history, into two distinct streams, that of the Operative and that of the Speculative; the former cultivated by the descendants of Cain, the latter by those of Seth. It does not, however, appear that the Operative branch was altogether neglected by the Sethites, but was only made subordinate to their Speculative science, while the latter was entirely neglected by the Cainites, who devoted themselves exclusively to the Operative art. Finally they abandoned it and were lost in the corruptions of their race, which led to their destruction in the flood.

The Speculative stream, however, flowed on uninterruptedly to the time of Noah. Oliver does not hesitate to say that Seth, "associating himself with the most virtuous men of his age, they formed lodges and discussed the great principles of Masonry," and were called by their contemporaries the "Sons of Light."

Seth continued to preside over the Craft until the time of

1 Oliver, " Antiquities," I., ii., 40.

Enoch, when he appointed that patriarch as his successor and Grand Superintendent. 1

Enoch, as Grand Master, practiced Masonry with such effect that God vouchsafed to reveal to him some peculiar mysteries, among which was the sacred WORD, which continues to this day to form an important portion of Masonic speculation, and for the preservation of which from the impending destruction of the world he constructed a subterranean edifice in which he concealed the sacred treasure. He also erected two pillars, one of brass and one of stone, on which he engraved the elements of the liberal sciences, including Masonry. 2Enoch then resigned the government of the Craft to Lamech, who afterward surrendered it to Noah, in whose hands it remained until the occurrence of the flood.

Such is Oliver's legendary narrative of the progress of Masonry from the creation to the flood. The Craft were organized into lodges and were governed during that long period by only five Grand Masters - Adam, Seth, Enoch, Lamech, and Noah.

To the Institution existing at that time he gives the appropriate title of "Antediluvian Masonry," and also that of "Primitive Masonry."

Of its character he says that it had but few symbols or ceremonies, and was indeed nothing else but a system of morals or pure religion. Its great object was to preserve and cherish the promise of a Messiah.

On the renewal of the world by the subsidence of the waters of the deluge, it was found that though Enoch's pillar of brass had given way before the torrent of destruction, the pillar of stone had been preserved, and by this means the knowledge of the state of Masonry before the flood was transmitted to posterity.

Of the sons of Noah, all of whom had been taught the pure system of Masonry by their father, Shem and his descendants alone preserved it. Harn and Japhet leaving; dispersed into Airica and Europe, their descendants became idolaters and lost the true principles

1 Anderson gives the direction of the Craft, after Seth, successively to Enoch, Kainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared, whom Enoch succeeded. Const. 2d edit., p. 3. 2This legend of the vault of Enoch was not known to the mediaeval Masons. It forms, therefore, no part of the ritual of Ancient Craft Masonry. It is an invention of a later period, and is recognized only by the more modern "high degrees." The form of the legend as known to Anderson in 1722 was that he erected pillars on which the science of Masonry was inscribed.

of Masonry, which consisted in the worship of the one true God. The descendants of Japhet not only fell from the worship of God and embraced the adoration of idols, but they corrupted the form of Masonry by the establishment on its basis of a system of secret rites which are known in history as the "Mysteries."

This secession of the children of Japhet from the true system which their ancestor had received from Noah, has been called by Dr. Oliver "Spurious Freemasonry," while that practiced by the descendants of Shem he styles "Pure Freemasonry."

Of these two divisions the Spurious Freemasons were more distinguished for their cultivation of the Operative art, while the Pure Freemasons, although not entirely neglectful of Operative Masonry, particularly devoted themselves to the preservation of the truths of the Speculative science.
Shem communicated the secrets of Pure Freemasonry to Abraham, through whose descendants they were transmitted to Moses, who had, however, been previously initiated into the Spurious Masonry of the Egyptians.

Masonry, which had suffered a decay during the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt, was revived in the wilderness by Moses, who held a General Assembly, and, as the first act of the reorganized Institution, erected the Tabernacle.

From this time Masonry was almost exclusively confined to the Jewish nation, and was propagated through its judges, priests, and kings to the time of Solomon.

When Solomon was about to erect the Temple at Jerusalem, he called to his assistance the artists of Tyre, who were disciples of the Spurious Masonry and were skillful architects, as members of the Dionysiac fraternity of artificers.

By this association of the Tyrian Masons of the spurious order with the Jewish workmen who practiced the pure system, the two classes were united, and King Solomon reorganized the system of Freemasonry as it now exists.

For the subsequent extension of Masonry throughout the world and its establishment in England, Dr. Oliver adopts the legendary histories of both Anderson and Preston, accepting as genuine every mythical narrative and every manuscript. From the Leland manuscript he quotes as if he were citing an authority universally admitted to be authentic. Receiving the narrative of the General Assembly which was called at York by Prince Edwin as an event of whose occurrence there can be no possible doubt, he claims that the Halliwell poem is a veritable copy of the Constitutions enacted by that Assembly.

On the subject of the religious character of Freemasonry, Dr. Oliver in the main agrees with Hutchinson, that it is a Christian Institution, and that all its myths and symbols have a Christian interpretation. He differs from Hutchinson in this, that instead of limiting the introduction of the Christian element to the time of Christ, he supposes it to have existed in it, from the earliest times. Even the Masonry of the patriarchs he believes to have been based upon the doctrine of a promised Messiah.

But his views will be best expressed in his own language, in a passage contained in the concluding pages of his Historical Landmarks: "The conclusion is therefore obvious. If the lectures of Freemasonry refer only to events which preceded the advent of Christ, and if those events consist exclusively of admitted types of the Great Deliverer, who was preordained to become a voluntary sacitce for the salvation of mankind, it will clearly follow that the Order was originally instituted in accordance with the true principles of the Christian religion; and in all its consecutive steps bears an unerring testimony to the truth of the facts and of their typical reference to the founder of our faith."

He has said, still more emphatically, in a preceding part of the same work, that "Freemasonry contains scarcely a single ceremony, symbol, or historical narration which does not apply to this glorious consummation of the divine economy of the Creator towards his erring creatures"; by which economy he, of course, means the Christian dispensation and the Christian scheme of redemption.

If in the multifarious essays in which he has treated the subject Dr. Oliver meant to announce the proposition that in the very earliest ages of the world there prevailed certain religious truths of vast importance to the welfare and happiness of mankind, which had been communicated either by direct inspiration or in some other mode, and which have been traditionally transmitted to the present day, which truths principally consisted in an assertion of a belief in God and in a future life, such a proposition will hardly meet with a denial.

But if he also meant to contend that the transmission of these truths to posterity and to the present age was committed to and preserved by an order of men, an association, or a society whose form and features have been retained in the Freemasonry of the present day, it will, I imagine, be admitted that such a proposition is wholly untenable. And yet this appears to be the theory that was entertained by this learned but too credulous scholar.

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[Marulus]

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TEMPLE LEGEND

THE Temple Legend is a name that I give to that legend or tradition which traces the origin of Freemasonry as an organized institution to the Temple of Solomon and to the builders, Jewish and Tyrian, who were employed in the construction of that edifice.

This is the legend that is now almost universally accepted by the great niass of the Masonic fraternity. Perhaps nine out of ten of the Freemasons of the present day - that is to say, all those who receive tradition with the undoubting faith that should be given to history only - conscientiously believe that Freemasonry, as we now see it, organized into lodges and degrees, with Grand Masters, Masters, and Wardens, with the same ritual observances, was first devised by Solomon, King of Israel, and assumed its position as a secret society during the period when that monarch was engaged in the construction of the Temple on Mount Moriah. 1

This theory is not a new one. It was probably at first suggested by the passage in the Legend of the Craft which briefly describes the building of the Temple and the confirmation by Solomon of the charges which his father David had given to the Masons.

There can be no doubt from this passage in the Legend that the Temple of Solomon occupied a prominent place in the ideas of the mediaeval Masons. How much use they made of it in their esoteric ceremonies we, of course, are unable to learn. It is, however,

1 In a sermon by the Rev. A.N. Keigwin, at the dedication of the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia (1873), we find the following passage: "Historically, Masonry dates from the building of the Temple of Solomon. No one at the present day disputes this claim." I cite this out of hundreds of similar passages in other writers, to show how universal among such educated Masons is the belief in the Temple theory. It is, in fact, very true that only those scholars who have made the history of the Order an especial study have any doubts upon the subject.

significant coincidence, if nothing more, that there was a somewhat similar legend among the "Compagnons de la Tour," those mystical associations of workmen who sprang up in France about the 12th century, and who are supposed to have been an offshoot of dissatisfied journeymen from the body of oppressive Masters, who at that period constituted the ruling power of the corporate guilds of operative Masons and other crafts.
As the traditions of this society in reference to the Temple of Solomon are calculated to throw much light on the ideas which prevailed among the Masons in respect to the same subject, and as the Temple legends of the "Compagnons" are better known to us than those of the mediaeval operative Masons, and finally, as it is not at all unlikely that the ideas of the former were derived from those of the latter, it will not be inexpedient to take a brief view of the Temple legend of the Compagnonage.
The Compagnons de la Tour have three different legends, each of which traces the association back to the Temple of Solomon, through three different founders, which causes the Compagnonage to be divided into three distinct and, unfortunately, hostile associations. These are the Children of Solomon, the Children of Maitre Jacques, and the Children of Pere Soubise.

The Children of Solomon assert that they were associated into a brotherhood by King Solomon himself at the building of the Temple.
The Children of Maitre Jacques and those of Pere Soubise declare that both of these workmen were employed at the Temple, and after its completion went together to Gaul, where they taught the arts which they had learned at Jerusalem. 1

The tradition of Maitre Jacques is particularly interesting. He is said to have been the son of a celebrated architect named Jacquain, who was one of the chief Masters of Solomon and a colleague of Hiram Abif. From the age of fifteen he was employed as a stone-cutter. He traveled through Greece, where he acquired a knowledge of architecture and sculpture. He then went to Egypt and thence to Jerusalem, where, being engaged in the construction of the Temple, he fabricated two pillars with such consummate skill that he was at once received as a Master of the Craft.

1 The reader will remember the story in the "Legend of the Craft" of one Namus Grecus, who came from Jerusalem and from the Temple in the time of Charles Martel and propagated Masonry in France.

It is not necessary to pursue the legend of the French Compagnonage any further. Sufficient has been told to show that they traced their origin to the Temple of Solomon and that the legend referred, to events connected with that edifice.

Now, as these traveling journeymen (for thus may we translate their French title) are known to have separated themselves in the 12th century from the corporations of Master Workmen in consequence of the narrow and oppressive policy of these bodies, making what in modern times would be called a " strike," it is reasonable to suppose that they carted Nvkh them into their new and independent organization many of the customs, ceremonies, and traditions which they had learned from the main body or Master's guilds of which they were an offshoot. Therefore, although we have not been able to find any legend or tradition of the medioeval operative Masons which traced their origin to the Temple of Solomon, yet as we find such a tradition prevailing among an association of workmen who, as we know, were at one time identified with the Operative Masons and seceded from them on a question of policy, we have a reasonable right to believe that the legend of the Compagnons de la Tour, or Traveling journeymen, which traced their origin to the Temple of Solomon, was derived by them from the Corporations of Masters or Guilds of Operative Masons, among whom it was an accepted tradition.

And therefore we have in this way the foundation for a reasonable belief that the Legend of the Temple origin of Masonry is older than the era of the Revival in the beginning of the 18th century, and that it had been a recognized doctrine among the operative Masons of the Middle Ages.
The absence of the Legend in any formal detail from all the old manuscripts does not prove that there was no such Legend, for being of an esoteric character, it may, from conscientious motives, or in obedience to some regulation, never have been committed to writing. This is, however, a mere supposition and can not in any way interfere with deductions drawn from positive data in reference to the Legend of the Third Degree. There may have been a Temple Legend, and yet the details narrated in it may have been very incomplete and not have included the events related in the former Legend.

The first reference in the old records to the Temple of Solomon as connected with the origin of Freemasonry is to be found in the Cooke MS. and is in the following words:

"What tyme that the children of isrl dwellid in Egypte they lernyd the craft of masonry. And afterward they were driven, out of Egypte they come into the lond of bihest (promise) and is now callyd Jerl'm (Jerusalem) and it was ocupied and chsrgys yholde. And the makyng of Salomonis tempull that kyng David began. Kyng David lovyd well masons and he gaf hem rygt nye as thay be nowe. And at the makyng of the temple in Salomonis tyme as hit is seyd in the bibull in the iij boke of Regum in teicio Regum capito quinto (i Kings, Cap. 5) That Salomon had iiii score thowsand masons at his werko. And the kyngis sone of Tyry was his master mason, And (in) other cronyclos hit is seyd and in olde bokys of masonry that Salomon confirmed the chargys that David his fadir had geve to masons. And Salomon hymself taught hem here (their) maners (customs) but lityll differans fro the maners that now ben usyd. And fro thens this worthy sciens was brought into Fraunce and into many other regions." 1

The Dowland MS., whose supposed date is some fifty or sixty years later than the Cooke, gives substantially the same Legend, but with the additional circumstances, that David learned the charges that he gave, from Egypt, where they had been made by Euclid; that he added other charges to these; that Solomon sent into various countries for Masons, whom he gathered together; that the name of the King of Tyre was Iram, and that of his son, who was Solomon's chief Master, was Aynon; and finally that he was a Master of Geometry and of carving and graving.
In this brief narrative, the first edition of which dates back as far as the close of the 15th century, we see the germs of the fuller Legend which prevails among the Craft at the present day. That there was an organization of Masons with "Charges and Manners," that is, laws and customs at the building of the Temple of Jerusalem, and that King Solomon was assisted in the work by the King of Tyre and by a skillful artist who had been sent to him by Hiram, are the two most important points in the theory of the Temple origin of Masonry, and both are explicitly stated in these early legends. We next find the Legend repeated, but with more

1 Cooke MS., lines 539-575.

elaborate details, most of which, however, are taken from the Book of Kings as referred to in the Legend of the Craft by Anderson, in the first edition of the Constitutions, and with a few additional particulars in the second edition of the same work.

Preston, the next important Masonic writer after Anderson, does not indeed relate or refer to the Legend in any part of his Illustrations of Masonry, but the theory that Masonry found its origin at the Temple is to be deduced from the historical traditions contained in the third lecture of the Prestonian system, from which Webb derived it, and has perpetuated it among American Masons to the present day.

Hutchinson, who followed Preston, although, as has been seen, he inclined to a remoter origin of the Order, repeatedly refers in his spirit of Masonry, and especially in his Sixth Lecture, to the Temple of Solomon as the place where "the true craftsmen were proved in their work," and where Solomon distinguished them into different ranks, giving to each appropriate signs and secret tokens, and organized them for the first time into an association of builders, the predecessors of the Masons being previous to that time sages who, though acquainted with the principles of geometry and architecture, were engaged solely in philosophical speculations. In this way Hutchinson gave the weight of his influence in favor of the Legend which ascribed the origin of operative and speculative Masonry to Solomon and to his Temple, although his views on this subject differ from those of other writers.

Dr. Oliver, one of the latest and the most prolific of the legendary writers, although in his own theory he seeks to trace the origin of Freemasonry to a much more remote antiquity, yet speaks so much in detail in most of his works, but principally in his Antiquities and in his Historical Landmarks, of the system which was for the first time organized at the building of the Solomonic Temple, that most readers who do not closely peruse his writings and carefully scan his views are under the impression that he had fully adopted the Legend of the Temple origin, and hence his authority has been lent to the popular belief.

Existing, as may be supposed from the analogy of a similar legend of the Compagnons de la Tour, among the craftsmen of the Middle Ages; transmitted to the Revival era of the beginning of the 18th century, and since then taught in all the rituals and sustained by the best Masonic writers up to a recent period, this Legend of the Temple origin of Freemasonry, or, in plainer words, the theory that Freemasonry received at the time of the building of the Temple of Jerusalem that form and organization which it holds at the present day, has been and continues to be a dogma of faith implicitly believed by the masses of the fraternity.
It is well, therefore, that we should now see what precisely is the form and substance of this popular Legend. As received at the present day by the body of the Craft, it may be stated as follows:

When Solomon was about to commence the building of his Temple, his own people not being expert or experienced architects, he applied to his friend Hiram, the monarch of the neighboring kingdom of Tyre, for assistance. Hiram, in complying with his request, sent to him a numerous body of workmen, and at their head a distinguished artist called, as a mark of distinction, Hiram Abif, 1 equivalent to the title, "Hiram his father," who is described as "a cunning man endued with understanding."

King Solomon then proceeded to organize the institution into a form, which has been adopted as the model of that which exists at the present day in every country where Freemasonry exists. The Legend that contains the classification of the workmen at the Temple, which has been adopted in the rituals of modern Masonry, is delved partly from Scipture and partly from tradition. An examination of it will not be inappropriate.

There are two accounts, slightly conflicting, in the Scriptural narrative. In the Second Book of Chronicles, chapter ii., verses 17 and 18, are the following words:

"And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of Israel, after the number wherewith David his father had numbered them, and there were found an hundred and fifty thousand and three thousand and six hundred.

"And he set three score and ten thousand of them to be bearers of burdens and four score thousand to be hewers in the mountains and three thousand six hundred overseers to set the people at work."

The same numerical details are given in the second verse of the

1 Of Hiram Abif a more detailed account will be given when we come to consider the legend connected with him.

same chapter. Again in the First Book of Kings, chapter v., verses 13 and 14, it is said:

"And King Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men.

"And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses; a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy."

In the Legend of the Craft this enumeration was not strictly adhered to. The Cooke MS. says that there were "four score thousand masons at work," out of whom three thousand were chosen as Masters of the work. The Landsdowne MS. says that the number of Masons was twenty-four thousand. But this number must have been a clerical error of the copyist in which he is followed only by the Antiquity MS. All the other manuscripts agree with the Dowland and make the number of Masons eighty thousand, including the three thousand overseers or Masters of the Work.

This statement does not accord with that which is in the Book of Kings nor with that in Chronicles, and yet it is all that the Legend of the Craft furnishes.

Dr. Anderson, who was the first author after the Revival who made an enumeration and classification of the workmen at the Temple, abandoned the Legend altogether and made up his account from the Bible. This he published in the first edition of the Constitutions and tempered it with some traditional information, whence derived I do not know. But it is on this classification by Anderson that all the rituals that have been in use since his time are framed. Hence he may justly be considered as the author of the Legend of the Workmen at the Temple; for notwithstanding the historical element which it contains, derived from Scripture, there are so many traditional interpolations that it properly assumes a legendary character.

Anderson's account is that there were employed on the building three thousand six hundred Master Masons, to conduct the work according to Solomon's directions; eighty thousand hewers of stone in the mountains who he says were Fellow Craftsmen, and seventy thousand laborers who were not Masons, besides the levy of thirty thousand who worked under the superintendence of Adoniram, making in all one hundred and eighty-three thousand six hundred. For this great number, Anderson says Solomon was "much obliged" to Hiram, King of Tyre, who sent his Masons and carpenters to Jerusalem.

Over this immense number of builders and laborers, Anderson says that King Solomon presided as Grand Master at Jerusalem, King Hiram in the same capacity at Tyre, and Hiram Abif was the Master of Work.
Fifteen years afterward, Anderson, in the second edition of his Constitutions somewhat modified these views and added certain other particulars. He promotes Hiram Abif from the position of Magister Operis or Master of the Work, to that of Deputy Grand Master in Solomon's absence and to that of Senior Grand Warden in his presence. He also says:
"Solomon partitioned the Fellow Crafts into certain Lodges with a Master and Wardens in each; that they might receive commands in a regular manner, might take care of their tools and jewels, might be paid every week, and be duly fed and clothed, etc., and the Fellow Crafts took care of their succession by educating Entered Apprentices." 1

Anderson adds in a marginal note that his authority for this statement is "the traditions of old Masons, who talk much of these things."

If such a tradition ever existed, it is now lost, for it can not be found in any of the old manuscripts which are the record of the Masonic traditions. It is admitted that similar usages were practiced by the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, but we have no historical authority, nor even legendary, outside of Anderson's work, for tracing them to the Temple of Jerusalem.

Out of these materials the ritualists have manufactured a Legend; which exists in all the Masonic rituals and which must have been constructed in London, at a very early period after the Revival, to have secured such an universal acceptance among all the nations who derived their Masonry from the Grand Lodge of England. The Legend of the Temple origin of Masonry, as generally accepted by the Craft at the present day, is that there were one hundred and fifty-three thousand, three hundred workmen employed in the construction of the Temple. Three thousand three hundred of these were overseers, who were among as well as over the Craft, but who at

1 Constitutions," 2d edit., p. 13.

the completion of the Temple were promoted to the rank of Master Masons. The remaining workmen were divided into eighty thousand Fellow Crafts and seventy thousand Entered Apprentices.

Three Grand Masters presided over the large number of workmen, namely, Solomon, King of Israel; Hiram, King of Tyre, and Hiram Abif. These were the only persons who at the building of the Temple were Master Masons and in possession of the secrets of the Third Degree.

The statement in the ritual is that the workmen were divided into Lodges. The Lodge of Master Masons, for there could be only one of that degree, consisted of three members; the Lodges of Fellow Crafts, of which there must have been sixteen thousand, was composed of five members each; and the Lodges of Entered Apprentices, of which there must have been ten thousand, was composed of seven each.

But as this statement has neither historical authority nor logical possibility to support it, it must be considered, as it undoubtedly was originally intended to be considered, merely as a reference to the symbolic character of those sacred numbers in Masonry - three, five, and seven. In the same spirit of symbolic reference the steps of the winding stairs leading to the middle chamber were divided into a series of three, five, and seven, with the addition in the English ritual of nine and eleven. All of this is, therefore, to be rejected from the class of legends and referred to that of symbols.

Viewing then this Legend or theory of the origin of Masonry at the Temple, tracing it from the almost nude state in which it is presented in the Legend of the Craft through the extraneous clothing which was added by Anderson and I suppose by Desaguliers, to the state of tinsel ornamentation in which it appears in the modern ritual, we will come to the following conclusion:

In the Legend of ihe Craft we find only the following statement: That King Solomon was assisted in the building of the Temple by the King of Tyre, who sent him materials for the edifice and a skillful artist, on whose name scarcely any two of them agree, and whom Solomon appointed as his Master of the Work; that Solomon invited Masons from all lands and having collected them together at Jerusalem, organized them into a body by giving them a system of laws and customs for their government. Now, most of these facts are sustained by the historical authority of the Books of Kings and Chronicles, and those that are not have the support of extreme probability.

That Solomon, King of Israel, built a Temple in Jerusalem is an historical fact that can not be doubted or denied. Richard Carlile, it is true, says, "My historical researches have taught me that that which has been called Solomon's Temple never existed upon earth; that a nation of people called Israelites never existed upon earth, and that the supposed history of the Israelites and their Temple is nothing more than an allegory." 1

But the measure of the moral and mental stature of Carlile has long been taken, and even among the most skeptical critics he remains alone in his irrational incredulity.

Doubtless there are Oriental exaggerations in respect to the amount of money expended and the number of workmen employed on the building, which have been overestimated. But the simple, naked fact that King Solomon built a temple remains uncontradicted, and is as historically true and undoubted as that of the construction of any other public edifice in antiquity.

It is equally historical that the King of Tyre gave assistance to Solomon in carrying out his design. However fiercely the skeptics may have attacked certain portions of the Bible, the Books of Kings and Chronicles have been placed upon the footing of other ancient historical records and subjeated to the same canons of criticism.

Now we are distinctly told that Hiram, King of Tyre, "sent masons and carpenters to David to build him a house; " 2we learn subsequently that the same Hiram (some say his son) was equally friendly with Solomon, and although there is no distinct mention either in Kings or Chronicles that he sent workmen to Jerusalem, 3 except his namesake, the artificer, yet we may infer that he did so, from the friendship of the two kings, from the need of Solomon for expert workmen, and from the fact which we learn from the First Book of Kings, that the stones for the edifice were hewn by " Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders and the Giblim." The authorized version, on what authority I know not, translates this word "Giblim" as "stone-squarers." They were, however, the inhabitants

1 Manual of Freemasons," Part I, p. 4. 2Chronicles, xiv., i. 3 We are told in i Kings, v., and it is repeated in 2 Chron., ii., that Hiram sent his workmen to Lebanon to cut down trees. The timber they were to carry to Joppa, where Solomon was to receive it, and, presumably, the workmen were to return to the forest.

of the city of Gebal, called by the Greeks, Byblos, which was the principal seat of the worship and the mysteries of Adonis. The inhabitants were celebrated for their skill in stone-carving and in shipbuilding.

Thus we see that there were, according to the Scriptural account, three classes of Masons engaged at the building of the Temple. First there were the workmen of Solomon: these were of the "four score thousand hewers in the mountains " 1 who were taken by Solomon from "the strangers that were in the land of Israel" 2- men whom Dr. Adam Clarke supposes to have been not pure Israelites, but proselytes to the Jewish religion so far as to renounce idolatry and to keep the precepts of Noah. But we must believe that among these four score thounnd snangers mtre to be enumerated the workmen who came from Tyre, or there will be no place allotted to them in the distribution in the First Book of Kings. The three thousand three hundred who were "over the work," are said to have been chief officers of Solomon and therefore Israelites, and the remaining seventy thousand were mere laborers or bearers of burden - a class for whom Solomon need not have been indebted to the King of Tyre.

Secondly, there were the workmen of Hiram, King of Tyre. These I have already said were probably, and indeed necessarily, included in the number of four score thousand strangers or foreigners. The words in the original are amoshim gherim, men who are foreigners, for Gesenius defines the word gherim, to be "sojourners, strangers, foreigners, men living out of their country." 3

Thirdly, we have the Giblim, the inhabitants of the city of Gebal in Phoenicia, who came to Jerusalem, invited there by Solomon, to assist in the construction of the Temple, and who must also be reckoned among the four score thousand strangers.

Thus the Legend of the Craft is justified in saying; that Solomon "sent after Masons into divers countries and of divers landes," and that he had "four score workers of stone and were all named Masons." For these were the foreigners or sojourners, whom he found in Jerusalem, many of whom had probably come there on his invitation, and the Tyrians who had been sent to him by King Hiram, and the Phoenicians, whom he had called out of Gebal on account of their well-known skill in stone-cutting. And all of these

1 I Kings, v., 15. 2Chron. ii., 17. 3 Lexicon, in voce.

amounted to eighty thousand, the number stated in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, and just the number mentioned in the Legend of the Craft.
It will be seen that the Legend of the Craft takes no notice of the levy of thirty thousand who worked under Adoniram on Mount Lebanon, nor of the seventy thousand who were employed as bearers of burdens. As the former were merely wood-cutters and the latter common laborers, the Legend does not class them among the Masons, any more than it does the three thousand three hundred who were, according to the Biblical account, officers of the court of Solomon, who were appointed merely to overlook the Masons and to see that they worked faithfully; perhaps also to pay them their wages, or to distribute their food, and to supervise generally their conduct.

In all this, the Legend of the Craft differs entirely from the modern rituals, which have included all these classes, and therefore reckon that at the building of the Temple there were one hundred and fifty-three thousand three hundred Masons, instead of eighty-thousand. The Legend is certainly more in accord with the authority of the Bible than are the rituals.

The Legend of the Craft is also justified in saying that Solomon organized these Masons into what might be called a guild, that is, a society or corporation, 1 by giving them "charges and manners" - in other words, a code of laws and regulations. On this question the Bible account is silent, but it amounts to an extreme probability, the nearest approximation to historical evidence, that there must bave been some regulations enacted for the government of so large a number of workmen. It is also equally probable that to avoid confusion these workmen must have been divided into sections, or what, in modern parlance, would be called "gangs," engaged in various parts of the building and in different employments. There must have been a higher and more skillful class occupied in directing the works of these several sections; there must have been others less skillful and yet competent to discharge the duties of stone-cutters and layers, and there must have been another and still inferior class who were only acquiring the rudiments of the profession.

Founded on these enident propositions, Anderson made his

1 The Latin original of the Krause MS. calls it "Societas architedonica" - an architectural society.

division of the workmen at the Temple into the three classes of Master Masons, Fellow Crafts, and Entered Apprentices. But he abandoned the Legend in calling the three thousand six hundred officers of King Solomon Master Masons, and making the whole number, exclusive of the seventy thousand laborers and the thirty thousand wood-cutters on Mount Lebanon, eighty-three thousand, and afterward stating that there were one hundred and eighty-three thousand Masons in all - a contradiction of his own previous statement as well as of the Legend of the Craft which states the whole number of Masons to have been eighty thousand.
The modern ritual may, however, be considered as having adopted the Temple of Jerusalem as a type of that abstruse symbol of a spiritual temple, which forms, as will be hereafter seen, one of the most important and most interesting symbolic lessons on which the philosophy of Speculative Masonry depends. But viewing it as an historical statement, it is devoid of all claims to credence. The facts stated in the ritual are an outgrowth of those contained in the Legend of the Craft which it has greatly altered by unauthorized additions, and it is in entire contradiction to those given in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

The claim that Freemasonry took its origin at the building of the Temple is without any historical authority. The Legend of the Craft, upon which, to be consistent, all Masonic rituals should be founded, assigns its origin equally to two other periods - to that of the building of the Tower of Babel, when Nimrod was Grand Master, and to Egypt under the geometrician Euclid. Why the Temple of Solomon was exclusively selected by the modern Masons as the incunabulum of their Order can be only conjecturally accounted for.

I am not unwilling to believe, for reasons that have been already assigned, that the Operative or Stone Masons of the Middle Ages had some tradition or Legend of the origin of the Institution at the Temple of Solomon. If so, I am inclined to attribute their selection of this in preference to any other stately edifice of antiquity to these reasons.

The mediaeval Masons were, as an association of builders, most intimately connected with the ecclesiastics of that age. Their principal home at one time was in the monasteries, they worked under the immediate patronage and supervision of bishops and abbots, and were chiefly engaged in the construction of cathedrals and other religious edifices. Private houses at that early period were mostly built of wood, and the building of them was the business of carpenters. The treow-wyr-hta, literally the tree-workman, in modern phrase the carpenter, was one of the most important handicrafts of the early Anglo-Saxons. He was the builder of their ships as well as of their houses, and the trade is frequently spoken of in ancient Saxon documents. He was constantly employed in the construction of vessels for the carrying on of trade, or the erection of dwellings for the residences of the people.

To the stone-masons was exclusively entrusted the nobler vocation of building religious edifices.

Imbued, from their connection with the priests as well as from their peculiar employment, with religious sentiments, they naturally looked for the type of the great cathedrals which they were erecting, not to Pagan temples, however splendid might be their architecture, but rather to that Jewish cathedral which had been consecrated on Mount Moriah to the worship of the true God. Hence the brief notice of that building in the Legend of the Craft was either the suggestion of that esoteric Legend of the Temple which has not, from its necessarily oral character, been handed down to us, or if the written Legend was posterior in time to the oral one, then it was a brief record of it.

But I do not believe that this lost Legend of the stone-masons was ever intended to be historical. It was simply a symbol to illustrate the idea that the Temple at Jerusalem was the type of all Christian cathedrals.
This symbolic Legend, which I suppose to have existed among the stone-masons of the Middle Ages, was probably lost before the revival of Masonry in the year 1717. Anderson therefore framed a new Legend out of the Legend of the Craft, the Scriptural account, and his own invention.
Upon this Andersonian Legend, simple in the first edition of the Constitutions, but considerably expanded in the second, the modern ritualists have framed another Legend, which in many important details differs from Anderson's, from the Legend of the Craft, and from the account in the Bible.

This is the Legend now accepted and believed by the great body of the Craft to be historically true. That it has no claim to historical credence is evident from the fact that it is, in its most important details, unauthorized, and in fact contradicted by the Scriptural account, which is the only authentic memorial that we have of the transactions that took place at the building of the Solomonic Temple.

And moreover, the long period that elapsed between the building of the Temple, a thousand years before the Christian era, and the time, not earlier than the 3d century after Christ, during which we have no traces of the existence of such an architectural association connected with Jewish Masons and transmitted from them to the Christian architects, presents an extensive lacuna which must be filled by authentic records, before we can be enabled, as scholars investigating truth, to consent to the theory that the Freemasons of the present day are, by uninterrupted successions, the representatives of the Masons who wrought at King Solomon's Temple.

The Legend of the ritual is, in fact, a symbol - but a very important and a very interesting one, and as such will be fully discussed when the subject of Masonic symbols comes to be treated in a subsequent part of this work.

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CHAPTER XXV

LEGEND OF THE DIONYSIAC ARTIFICERS

WE now approach a very interesting topic in the legendary history of Masonry. The reader has already seen in the last chapter that the Masons of the kingdom of Tyre were invited to join with the Jewish builders in the construction of the Temple. Who these Tyrian Masons were, what was their character, whence they came, and what was the influence exerted by them on the Jewish workmen with whom they were united in a common labor, are questions which can only be solved by a reference to what may be called the Legend of the Dionysiac Artificers.

This Legend was entirely unknown to the old Masons of the Middle Ages. There is no reference to it in any of the manuscripts, The brief allusion to the Dionysiacs of Asia Minor in Robison's anti-Masonic work does not necessarily connect them with the Masons of King Solomon. 1

The first writer who appears to have started the theory that the Masons sent by King Hiram to the King of Israel were members of the Dionysiac fraternity, is Sir David Brewster, who presented the Legend under the guise of an historic statement in the History of Freemasonry, published in the beginning of this century, and the authorship of which, although it was actually written by him, has been falsely attributed to Alexander Lawrie, the bookseller of Edinburgh and at the time the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Scotland. Brewster may therefore, I think, be fairly considered as the original framer of the Legend.
The origin of the mystical and architectural society which Brew-

1 "Proofs of a Conspiracy," P. 20.

ster closely connects with the Masons of the Temple may be given in almost his own words: 1

Between 1055 and 1044 years before Christ, or something more than half a century anterior to the building of the Temple, the inhabitants of Attica, complaining of the narrowness of their territory and the unfruitfulness of the soil, went in quest of more extensive and fertile settlements. Being joined by a number of the inhabitants of the surrounding provinces of Greece, they sailed to Asia Minor and drove out the inhabitants of that portion of the western coast from Phoccea in the north to Miletus in the south. To this narrow strip of land they gave the name of Ionia, because the greatest number of the adventurers were natives of that Grecian state. After partly subduing and partly expelling the original inhabitants, they built several towns, of which one of the principal was Teos.
Prior to this emigration the Greeks had made considerable progress in the arts and sciences, which the adventurers carried with them into their new territory, and they introduced into Ionia the Mysteries of Pallas and Dionysus, before they had become corrupted by the licentiousness of the Athenians.

Especially popular, not only in Ioca but throughout Asia Minor, were the Mysteries of Dionysus, the Roman Bacchus. In these, as in all the religious Mysteries of antiquity, there was a funereal legend.

In the Dionysiac Mysteries the legend of initiation recounted or represented the death of the demigod Dionysus, the search for and discovery of his body, and his subsequent restoration to life.
In the initiations the candidate was made to represent in his own person, the events connected with the slaying of the hero-god. After a variety of preparatory ceremonies, intended to call forth all his fortitude and courage, the aphanism or mystical death of Dionysus - torn to pieces by the Titans - was presented in a dramatic form and followed by the confinement or burial of the candidate, as the representative of Dionysus in the pastos, couch, or coffin, all of which constituted the first part of the ceremony of initiation. Then began the search for the remains of Dionysus, which was continued amid scenes of the greatest confusion and tumult, until at last, the search having been successful, the morning was turned to joy, light suc-

1 Lawrie's "History of Freemasonry," 1st edit., P. 27.

ceeded to darkness, and the candidate was invested with the knowledge of the secret doctrine of the Mysteries - the belief in the existence of one God and a future and immortal state. 1

Now these Mysteries of Dionysus were very intimately connected with a society of architects. As this association, according to the Legend which we are now considering, had much to do with the organization of Masonry at the Solomonic Temple, it is necessary to take a brief notice of its origin and character.

It is an historical fact that at the time of the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, there existed at Tyre as well as in other peas of Asia Minor an association known as the Dionysian Architects, because they joined to the practice of operative architecture the observance of the religious rites of the Dionysiac Mysteries.

It has been already stated that the priests of Dionysus had devoted themselves to the study and the practice of architecture, and about one thousand years before the Christian era, or at the time that King Solomon began the construction of the Temple at Jerusalem, had emigrated from Greece and established themselves as a society or fraternity of builders in Asia Minor, and devoted themselves to the construction of temples and other public edifices. 2

Hiram, who then reigned over the kingdom of Tyre, and who from his cultivation of the sciences has been styled the Augustus of his age, is said to have patronized these religious builders, and to have employed them in the magnificent works by which he adorned and strengthened his capital.

The internal government and the usages of this association were very similar to those exhibited by the Masonic society in the present day, and which the legendary theory supposes to have prevailed among the builders of the Solomonic Temple.

The fraternity was divided into communities called synoeciae, 3 having houses or dwellings in common, which might well be com-

1 Le meurtre de Bacchus mis a mort et dechire en pieces par les Titans, et son retour a la vie, ont ete le sujet d'explications allegoriques tout-a-fait analogues a celles que l'on a donnees de l'enlevement de Proserpine et du meurtre d'Osiris. - Sylvestre de Tracy in Sainte-Croix's "Recherches sur les Mysteres du Paganisme" T. ii., p. 86. 2Chandler says "the Dionysiasts were artificers or contractors for the Asiatic theaters, and were incorporated and settled at Teos, under the Kings of Pergamum." - "Travels in Asia Minor," vol. i., ch. xxviii., p. 123. [This was at a later period than the era of the Temple] 3 "Antiquitates Asiaticae Christianam Acram Antecedentes," p. 139.

pared to the Masonic Lodges of the present day. Their plans of meeting were also called in Greek koina, which signifies communities, and each received a distinctive name, just as our Lodges do. Thus Chishull speaks in his account of the prechristian antiquities of Asia of a koinon ton Attaliston, or a "community of the Attalistae," so called, most probably in honor of King Attalus, who was their patron.1

There was an annual festival, like the General Assembly or Grand Lodge of the Masons, which was held with great pomp and ceremony. Chandler says (but he speaks of a later period, when they were settled at Teos) that it was the custom of their synod to bold yearly a General Assembly, at which they sacrificed to the gods and poured out libations to their deceased benefactors. They likewise celebrated games in honor of Bacchus, when the crowns which had been bestowed by any of the communities as rewards of merit were announced by heralds, and the wearers of them were applauded by the other members. These meetings, he adds, were solemnized with great pomp and festivity. 2

The same traveler mentions a long decree made by one of the communities in honor of its magistrates, which he found inscribed on a slab in a Turkish burying-ground. The thanks of the community with a crown of olives are given as a recompense to these officers for their great liberality and trouble while in office; and to perpetuate their memory and to excite an emulation of their merit, it is besides enacted that the decrees be engraved, but at their expense, "so desirable," says Chandler, "was the testimony to the individuals and so frugal the usage in bestowing it." 3

Of course as an architectural association the Dionysiacs used many of the implements employed by Operative Masons, and as a secret brotherhood they had a system of signs and tokens by which any one of the members could make himself known to the others. Professor Robison, who may be accepted on this point as authority, admits that they were "distinguished from the uninitiated or profane inhabitants by the science which they possessed and by many private signs and tokens by which they recognized each other. 4

1 Rollin's "Universal History" places Attalus in the rank of those princes who loved and patronized letters and the arts. 2Chandler, "Travels in Asia Minor," vol. i., ch. xxx., P. 126. 3 Ibid., vol. i., ch. xxviii., p. 124. 4 "Proofs of a Conspiracy," p. 20.

Each of the koina or separate communities into which they were divided was under the direction of officers corresponding to a Master and Wardens. 1

The Masonic principle of charity was practiced among them and the opulent members were bound to provide for the wants and necessities of their poorer brethren.

The Legend which connects these architects with the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, assumes that Hiram Abif was a member of this secret association. Although the Scriptural narrative is adverse to this theory, since it states that he was simply a worker in metals and precious stones, yet we may reconcile it with possibility by supposing that such craftsmen were admitted into the association of the Dionysiacs because their decorative art was necessary for the completion and perfection of the temples and public buildings which they constructed. This is, however, merely conjectural.

The Legend, now connecting itself in part with history, proceeds to state that when Solomon was about to build a temple to Jehovah, he made his intention known to his friend and ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, and because he was well aware of the architectural skill of the Tyrian Dionysiacs, he besought that monarch's assistance to enable him to carry his pious design into execution. Hiram complied with his request and sent him the necessary workmen, who by their skill and expeience might supply the mechanical deficiencies and ignorance of the Israelites.

With the body of builders he sent this Hiram Abif, who as "a curious and cunning workman," highly recommended by his patron, was entrusted by King Solomon with the superintendence of the construction and placed at the head of both the Tyrian and Jewish craftsmen as the chief builder and principal conductor of the work.

To this distinguished artist, on account of the large influence which his position gave him and the exalted personal virtues which are traditionally supposed to have characterized him, is to be attributed, according to the Legend, the intimate union of two peoples so dissimilar in manners and so antagonized in religion as the Jews and the Tyrians, which resulted in the organization of the Institution of Freemasonry.

Supposing Hiram Abif, as the Legend does, to have been con-

1 Brewster in Lawrie's "History," P. 29.

nected with the Dionysiac fraternity, we may also suppose that he could not have been a very humble or inconspicuous member, if we may judge of his rank in the society, from the amount of talent which he is said to have possessed, and from the elevated position that he held in the alleabns and at the court of the King of Tyre.

He must therefore have been very familiar with all the ceremonial usages of the Dionysiac artificers and must have enjoyed a long expeience of the advantages derived from the government and discipline which they practiced in the erection of the many sacred edifices which they had constructed. A portion of these ceremonial usages and of this discipline he would naturally be inclined to introduce among the workmen at Jerusalem. He therefore united them in a society, similar in many respects to that of the Dionysiac artificers. He inculcated lessons of charity and brotherly love; he established a ceremony of initiation to test experimentally the worth and fortitude of the candidate; adopted secret methods of recognition; and impressed the obligations of duty and the principles of morality by means of symbols and allegories. Just at this point a difficulty must have arisen in reconciling the pagan symbolic instruction of the Tyrians with the religious notions of the Jews, which, however, the Legend ingeniously overcomes.

The most prominent symbol of Speculative Masonry, that, indeed, on which the whole of the ethical instructions is founded, is contained in the lesson of resurrection to a future life as developed in the allegorical Legend of the Master's Degree.

In the Pagan Mysteries, of which the Dionysia were a part, this doctrine was also illustrated by an allegorical legend. In the Mysteries of Dionysus which were practiced by the Tyrian architects the legend related to the death and subsequent resuscitation of Bacchus or Dionysus.

But it would have been utterly impossible to have introduced such a legend as the basis of any instructions to be communicated to Jewish initiates. Any allusion to the mythological fables of their Gentile neighbors would have been equally offensive to the taste and repugnant to the religious prejudices of a nation educated from generation to generation in the worship of a Divine Being, who, they had been taught, was jealous of his prerogatives, and who had made himself known to their ancestors as the JEHOVAH, the only God of time present, past, and future.

The difficulty of obtaining a legend on which the dogma of the Third Degree might be founded was obviated by substituting Hiram Abif, after his death (at which time only the system could have been perfected), in the place of Dionysus. The lesson taught in the Mysteries practiced by the Dionysiac artificers was thus translated into the Masonic initiation, the form of the symbolism remaining the same, but the circumstances of the legend necessarily varying.

By this union of the Dionysiacs with the Jewish workmen and the introduction of their mystical organization, the Masonic Order assumed at the building of the Temple that purely speculative form connected with the operative which it has ever since retained.

From its Jewish element it derived its religious character as a pure theism. From its Tyrian element it borrowed its peculiar mystical character and its system of symbolism, which so much assimilated it to the ancient Pagan Mysteries, that a Legend has been framed (to be hereafter considered) which traces its origin directly to those secret associations of antiquity.
Upon the completion of the Temple, the workmen, invested with all the secrets which had been promised in their initiation, and thus becoming Master Masons, dispersed, that they might be enabled to extend their knowledge and to renew their labors in other lands.

Such is the Legend which seeks to attribute the present form of Freemasonry to the connection of the Dionysiac artisans of Tyre with the Jewish workmen at the building of the Temple. So much of the Legend as relates to the existence of a building sodality at Tyre (leaving out the question whether they were or were not Dionysiacs), some of whose members went to Jerusalem to assist in the construction of the Solomonic Temple, may, I think, be accepted as indisputably historic. What were the real influences exerted by them on the Jewish people, is a question whose answer finds no place in the realm of history, but must be relegated to the doubtful domain of conjecture. Brewster has descibed the Dionyiacs as they existed in about the 3d century before Christ, and after their incorporation by King Attalus, as if they maintained the same condition in the reign of Hiram of Tyre seven hundred years before. For this statement there is no warrant in any historical record. The supposition that the Dionysiacs of Tyre and those of Teos were identical in organization, is simply a theory based on a mere assumption. It is, however, certain that they who adopt the legendary theory that Freemasonry was fast organized at the Temple of Solomon, will find much to sustain their theory in the Legend of the Dionysiac Artificers.

It is equally certain that those who deny the Temple theory will have to reject the Dionysic, for the two are too closely connected to be arbitrarily dissevered.

But laying the subject of Freemasonry altogether aside, and considering the connection of the Tyrians and the Jews at the Temple as a mere historical question, it would present a very interesting study of history to determine what were the results of that connection, if there were any way of solving it except by mere conjecture.

The subsequent history of the association of Dionysiac Architects forms no part of the Legend which has just been recited; but it may be interesting to trace their progress. About seven hundred years after the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, they are said to have been incorporated by the King of Pergamum, an ancient province of Mysia, as a society exclusively engaged in the erection of public buildings such as theaters and temples. They settled at Teos, an Ionian city, on the coast of Asia Minor, where, notwithstanding its intestine troubles, they remained for several centuries. Among the works accomplished by them were a magnificent theater and a splendid temple of Dionysus, some ruins of which still remain.

But proving turbulent and seditious they were at length expelled from Teos and removed to the city of Ephesus. Thence they were transferred by King Attalus to the town of Myonessus. The Teians having sent an embassy to Rome to request that the Myonessians should not be permitted to fortify their city, the Dionysiacs removed to Lebedos, about fifteen miles from Teos, where they were joyfully welcomed.

In the 5th century of the Christian era the Emperor Theodosius abolished all mystical associations, but the Dionysiacs are said to have continued their existence until the time of the Crusades, when they passed over into Europe and were merged in the association of builders known as the Travelling Freemasons of the Middle Ages. This latter part of the narrative is, I think, merely legendary or traditional, and will find no support in authentic history. It is however, an historical study to be examined hereafter.

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CHAPTER XXVI

FREEMASONRY AND THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES

THE theory which ascribes the origin of Freemasonry as a secret society to the Pagan Mysteries of the ancient world, and which derives the most important part of its ritual and the legend of its Third Degree from the initiation practiced in these religious organizations, necessarily connects itself with the Legend of the Temple origin of the Institution, because we can only link the initiation in the Mysteries with that of Freemasonry by supposing that the one was in some way engrafted on the other, at the time of the building of the Temple and the union of the Jewish and Tyrian workmen.

But before we can properly appreciate the theory which associates Freemasonry with the Pagan Mysteries, we must make ourselves acquainted with the nature and the design as well as with something of the history of those mystical societies.

Among all the nations of antiquity in which refinement and culture had given an elevated tone to the religious sentiment, there existed two systerns of worship, a public and a private one. "Each of the pagan Gods," says Warburton, "had (besides the public and open) a secret worship paid unto him, to which none were admitted but those who had been selected by preparatory ceremonies, called INITIATION. This secret worship was called the MYSTERIES." 1

The public worship was founded on the superstitious polytheism whose numerous gods and goddesses were debased in character and vicious in conduct. Incentive to virtue could not be derived from their example, which furnished rather excuses for vice. In the Eunuchus of Terenie, when Choerea is meditating the seduction of the virgin Pamphila, he refers to the similar act of Jupiter,

1 "Divine Legation of Moses," B.I., sect. iv., p. 193.

who in a shower of gold had corrupted Danae, and he exclaims, "If a god, who by his thunders shakes the whole universe, could commit this crime, shall not I, a mere mortal, do so also?" 1 Plautus, Euripides and other Greek and Roman dramatists and poets repeatedly used the same argument in defense of the views of their heroes, so that it became a settled principle of the ancient religion. The vicious example of the gods thus became an insuperable obstacle to a life of purity and holiness. 2