G
In the Hebrew, represented by
:. The seventh letter of the English, Latin, and Romanic alphabets. In the
Greek and many other alphabets it is the third in place; in the Russian,
Wallachian, and some others it is the fourth; in the Arabic the fifth, and in
the Ethiopian the twentieth. In Hebrew it is called Gheé-mel, is of the
numerical value of three, and its signification is camel. It is associated
with the third sacred name of God, in Hebrew, in: GlwWdot, or in Latin magnus,
the Mighty. In Freemasonry it is given as the initial of the word God. The
Masonic use of the letter tends to the belief of a modern form in the ceremony
of the Fellow Craft Degree (see G. O. D.). As in all Roman Catholic and in
many Protestant churches the cross, engraved or sculptured in some prominent
position, will be found as the expressive symbol of Christianity, so in every
Masonic Lodge a letter G may be seen in the East, either painted on the wall
or sculptured in wood or metal, and suspended over the Master's chair. This
is, in fact, if not the most prominent, certainly the most familiar, of all
the symbols of Freemasonry. It is the one to which the poet, Brother Robert
Burns, alluded in those well known and often-quoted lines, in which he speaks
of . . . that hieroglyphic bright
Which none but Craftsmen ever
saw;" that is to say, ever saw understandingly ever saw, knowing at the same
time what it meant. There if an uncertainty as to the exact time when this
symbol was first introduced into Speculative Masonry. It was not derived, in
its present form, from the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages, who bestowed
upon Freemasonry so much of its symbolism, for it if not found among the
architectural decorations of the old cathedrals. Doctor Oliver says it was in
the old lectures; but this is an uncertain expression. From Prichard's Masonry
Dissected, which was published in 1730, it would seem that the symbol was not
in use at that date. But it may have been omitted. If Tubal Kain, which was
published in 1767, is, as it purported to be, identical with Prichard's
purpose, the question is settled; for it contains the lecture on the letter G.
to which reference will directly be made.
However, it is certain that
the symbol was well known and recognized in 1766, and some few years before.
The book entitled Solomon in all has Glory, the first edition of which
appeared in that year, and which is a translation of Le Maçon demasque,
contains the reference to and the explanation of the symbol. The work contains
abundant internal evidence that it is a translation, and hence the symbol may,
like some others of the system subsequent to 1717, have been first introduced
on the Continent, and then returned in the translation, all of which would
indicate a date some years prior to 1776 for the time of its adoption.
In the ritual contained in
Tubal Kain (page 18), or, if that be only a reprint, in Masonry Dissected,
that is to say, in 1768 or in 1730, there is a test which is called The
Repeating the Letter G, and which Doctor Oliver gives in his Landmarks (I,
454) as a part of the old lectures. It is doggerel verse, and in the form of a
catechism between an examiner and a respondent, a form greatly affected in
these old lectures, and is as follows, the Resp. meaning Response, and the
Ex.,
Examiner:
RESP. In the Midst of
Solomon's Temple there stands a G
A letter for all to read and see;
But few there be that understand What means the letter G.
Ex. My friend, if you pretend to be
Of this Fraternity
You can forthwith and rightly tell
What means that letter G.
RESP. By sciences are brought about
Bodies of various kinds,
Which do appear to perfect sight
But none but males shall know my
Ex. the Right shall
RESP. If Worshipful.
Ex. Both Right and Worshipful I am;
To nail you I have command,
That you forthwith let me know,
As I you may understand.
RESP. BY letters four and science five
This G aright doth stand,
In a due art and proportion
You have your answer, Friend.
And now as to the
signification of the symbol. We may say, in the first place, that the
explanation is by no means, and never has been, esoteric. As the symbol itself
has always been exposed to public view, forming, as it does, a prominent part
of the furniture of a Lodge, to be seen by everyone, so our Masonic authors
from the earliest times, have not hesitated to write, openly and in the
plainest language, of its signification. The fact is, that the secret
instruction in reference to this symbol relates not to the knowledge of the
symbol itself, but to the mode in which, and the object for which that
knowledge has been obtained.
Hutchinson, who wrote as early
as 1776, says, in his Spirit of Masonry (Lecture viii):
It is new incumbent on me to
demonstrate to you the great signification of the letter G. wherewith Lodges
and the medals of Masons are ornamented. To apply its signification to the
name of God only is depriving it of part of its Masonic import; although I
have already shown that the symbols used in lodges are expressive of the
Divinity's being the great object of Masonry, as Architect of the world. This
significant letter denotes Geometry, which, to artificers, is the science by
which all their labors are calculated and formed; and to Masons, contains the
determinations definition, and proof of the order, beauty, and wonderful
wisdom of the power of God in His creation.
Again, Dr. Frederick Dalcho, a
distinguished Freemason of South Carolina, in one of his orations delivered
and published in 1801, uses the following language (page 27):
The letter G. which ornaments
the Master's Lodge, is not only expressive of the name of the Grand Architect
of the universe. but also denotes the science of Geometry, so necessary to
artists. But the adoption of it by Mesons implies no more than their respect
for those inventions which demonstrate to the world the power, the wisdom, and
beneficence of the Almighty Builder in the works of the creation.
Lastly, Doctor Oliver has
said, in his Golden Remains of she Early Masonic Writers, that "the term G. A.
O. T. U. is used among Masons for this great and glorious Being, designated by
the letter G. that it may be applied by every brother to the object of his
adoration." More quotations are unnecessary to show that from the earliest
times, since the adoption of the letter as a symbol, its explanation has not
been deemed an esoteric or secret part of the ritual. No Masonic writer has
hesitated openly to give an explanation of its meaning. The mode in which, and
the purpose for which, that explanation was obtained are the only hidden
things about the symbol.
It is to be regretted that the
letter G. as a symbol, was ever admitted into the Masonic system. The use of
it as an initial would necessarily confine it to the English language and to
modern times. It wants therefore, as a symbol, the necessary characteristics
of both universality and antiquity. The Greek letter gamma is said to have
been venerated by the Pythagoreans because it was the initial of af«,uerpzQ,
or Geometry. But this veneration could not have been shared by other nations
whose alphabet had no gamma, and where the word for geometry was entirely
different.
There can be no doubt that the
letter G is a very modern symbol, not belonging to any old system anterior to
the origin of the English language. It is, in fact, a corruption of the old
Hebrew Cabalistic symbol, the letters 1yod, by which the sacred name of God—in
fact, the most sacred name, the Tetragrammaton is expressed. This letter yod
is the initial letter of the word ;ll;r, or Jehovah, and is constantly to be
met with among Hebrew writers, as the abbreviation or symbol of that most holy
name, which, indeed, was never written at length. Now, as G is in like manner
the initial of God, the English equivalent of the Hebrew Jehovah, the letter
has been adopted as a symbol intended to supply to modern Lodges the place of
the Hebrew symbol. First adopted by the English ceremony makers, it has
without remark, been transferred to the Freemasonry of the Continent, and it
is to be found as a symbol in all the systems of Germany, France, Spain,
Italy, Portugal, and every other country where Freemasonry has been
introduced; although in Germany only can it serve, as it does in England, for
an intelligent symbol. The letter G. then has in Freemasonry the same force
and signification that the letter god had among the Cabalists. It is only a
symbol of the Hebrew letter, and, as that is a symbol of God, the letter G is
only a symbol of a symbol. As for its reference to geometry, Kloss, the German
Masonic historian, says that the old Operative Masons referred the entire
science of geometry to the art of building, which gave to the modern English
Freemasons occasion to embrace the whole system of Freemasonry under the head
of Geometry, and hence the symbol of that science, as well as of God, was
adopted for the purpose of giving elevation to the Fellow Craft's Degree.
Indeed, the symbol, made
sacred by its reference to the Grand Geometrician of the universe, was well
worthy to be applied to that science which has, from the remotest times, been
deemed synonymous with Freemasonry.
*
GABAON
A significant word in the
advanced Degrees. Oliver says (Landmarks i, 335), "in philosophical Masonry,
heaven, or, more correctly speaking, the third heaven, is denominated Mount
Gabaon, which is feigned to be accessible only by the seven degrees that
compose the winding staircase. These are the degrees terminating in the Royal
Arch." Gabaon is defined to signify a high place. It is the Septuagint and
Vulgate form of lip::, Gibeon, which was the city in which the tabernacle was
stationed during the reigns of David and Solomon. The word means a city built
on a hill, and is referred to in Second Chronicles (i, 3). "So Solomon, and
all the congregation with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for
there was the tabernacle of the congregation of God." In a ritual, middle of
the eighteenth century, it is said that Gabanon is the name of a Master Mason.
This word is a striking evidence of the changes which Hebrew words have
undergone in their transmission to Masonic ceremonies, and of the almost
impossibility of tracing them to their proper root. It would seem difficult to
find a connection between Gabanon and any known Hebrew word. But if we refer
to Guillemain's Ritual of Adonhiramite Masonry (page 95) we will find the
following passage:
How is a Master called?
Gabaon, which is the name of
the place where the Israelites deposited the ark in the time of trouble.
What does this signify?
That the heart of a Mason
ought to be pure enough to be a temple suitable for God.
There is abundant internal
evidence that these two rituals came from a common source, and that Gabaon is
a French distortion, as Gabanon is an English one, of some unknown word
connected, however, with the Ark of the Covenant as the place where that
article was deposited. Now, we learn from the Jewish records that the
Philistines, who had captured the ark, deposited it "in the house of Abinadab
that was in Gibeah;" and that David, subsequently recapturing it, carried it
to Jerusalem, but left the tabernacle at Gibeon. The ritualist did not
remember that the tabernacle at Gibeon was without the ark, but supposed that
it was still in that sacred shrine. Hence Gabaon or Gabanon must have been
corrupted from either Gibeah or Gibeon, because the ark was considered to be
at some time in both places. But Gibeon had already been corrupted by the
Septuagint and the Vulgate versions into Gabaon; and this undoubtedly is the
word from which Gabanon is derived, through either the Septuagint or the
Vulgate, or perhaps from Josephus, who calls it Gabao.
*
GABAONNE
In French Masonic language the
widow of a Master Mason. Derived from Gabaon.
*
GABOR
Hebrews n::, strong. A
significant word in the advanced Degrees.
*
GABRIEL
Hebrew, 9 , a man or hero of
God. The name of one of the archangels, referred to in some of the advanced
Degrees. He interpreted to Daniel the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and
made the prophecy of the "seventy weeks" (Daniel viui and ix); he announced
the future appearance of the Messiah (Daniel ix, 21-7). In the New Testament
he foretold to Zacharias the birth of John the Baptist (Luke i, 19), and to
Mary the birth of Christ (Luke i, 26). Among the Rabbis Gabriel is entrusted
with the care of the souls of the dead, and is represented as having taught
Joseph the seventy languages spoken at Babel. In addition, he was the only
angel who could speak Chaldee and Syriac. The Talmud speaks of him as the
Prince of Fire, the Spirit presiding over thunder. The Mohammedans term him
the Spirit of Truth, and believe that he dictated the Koran to Mohammed.
*
GAEDICKE, JOHANN CHRISTIAN
A bookseller of Berlin, born
on the 14th of December, 1763, and initiated into Freemasonry in 1804. He took
much interest in the Order, and was the author of several works. the most
valuable and best known of which is the Freimaurer-Lexicon, or Freemasons
Lexicon, published in 1818; which, although far inferior to that of Lenning,
which appeared four years afterward, is, as a pioneer work, very creditable to
its author. The Lexicon was translated into English and published in the
London Freemasons Magazine.
*
GAGE AND GAUGE
See Twenty-four-Inch Gage
*
GALAHAD
Also spelled Galaad. Most
probably in Doctor Mackey's opinion, the latter is a corruption of Gilead. The
name of a pure and noble Knight, Sir Galahad, of the Round Table who sought
the Holy Grail (see Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Quest of the Holy Grail,
by Map, and High History of the Holy Grail, by Evans). Sir Galahad was the
ideal knight of the legends of romance. The Holy Grail was reputed in several
legends to be the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, and in its
preservation to have been the medium of many miracles and thus was especially
sought by the Knights of King Arthur, Sir Galahad a leader in the quest. Said
by the old ritualists to have been the Keeper of the Seals in the Scottish
Degree of Knights of the Ninth Arch or Sacred Vault of James VI.
*
GAMBETTA, LEON
French statesman, born at
Cahors on April 2, 1838, the son of a Genoese grocer and a Frenchwoman.
Studied for the law at Paris and although hindered by the accidental loss of
an eye, his energy won for him prominence. Opposing the rupture with Germany
in 1870, he patriotically gave every aid to France during the war, escaped in
a balloon from the besieged Paris, raised another army, fighting to the
finish. He founded the influential journal, La République française, succeeded
in the adoption of a new constitution, massed an effective opposition to the
restoration of the Pope's temporal power, became memorable as president of the
Chamber of Deputies, formed a ministry, sought to establish friendly relations
between France and former foes, and was ever powerful, progressive, and
persevering in public service. His career was cut short at the age of
forty-four by the accidental discharge of a revolver in his home at Ville
d'Avray near Sevres on December 31, 1882. He was initiated in a Masonic Lodge
at Bordeaux and on July 8,1875, with Emile Littré and Jules Ferry affiliated
with the Lodge La Clemente Amitie at Paris.
*
GANGLER
The title given to the
candidate in the Scandinavian Mysteries, signifying wanderer. The application
is also made to the sun.
*
G..A..O..T..U.
An abbreviation of Grand
Architect of the Universe (see Great Archit of the Universe) .
*
GARIBALDI, GIUSEPPE (JOSEPH)
Renowned Italian patriot, born
at Nice, July 4, 1807, died June 2,1882, at Caprera, a small island off the
north coast of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea. Son of a sailor, he
commanded a vessel in 1830; was condemned to death in 1834 as a revolutionist
but escaped to South America; his limbs were dislocated by torture while the
prisoner in the revolt against Brazil, and regaining his liberty he enabled
Uruguay to secure independence and returned to Italy, refusing any recompense.
Forming a new army he was pursued by the forces of France, Spain, Austria, and
Naples, lost his wife and most of his followers by death and escaped to New
York, where he prospered, and returned to Italy in 1854.
Took command of Alpine
infantry in war of 1859 and was from that time successfully engaged in the
many struggles for a united Italy. His biography in the books by G. M.
Trevelyan is most exhilarating reading. As a Freemason he was Grand Master at
Palermo, 1860, and called a convention in 1867 to unite all the Italian
Bodies, a project not then fully successful. Through the courtesy of Brother
Melvin M. Johnson, Past Grand Master, Massachusetts, an incident relating to
General Garibaldi was verified for us. Brother Curtis Guild, Jr., died in
1915, had been governor of Massachusetts for three years and later was
Ambassador to Russia, his last year as Governor was also the first of his two
years as Thrice Potent Master of Boston Lafayette Lodge of Perfection.
He had a sister and brother,
Courtenay Guild, 32 . The account that follows is as both remember their
father telling it a number of times:
My father, Curtis Guild, who
died in 1911, was a Knight Templar, 32 Mason, and Past Thrice Potent Master of
Boston Lafayette Lodge of Perfection. My brother, Curtis build, who died in
l915, was a Knight Templar, 33 Mason and Past Thrice Potent Master of Boston
Lafayette Lodge of Perfection. The story of my father's meeting with Garibaldi
was told by my father and by my brother at various Masonic meetings and the
desire to preserve an accurate record of the incident is my reason for writing
out the story that I heard many times from the lips of my father. In 1867 my
father and mother made their first visit to Europe, and after travel in
England, France and Switzerland had arrived in Florence, with the intention of
continuing the journey to Rome. It was summer, and there was some talk of an
epidemic of cholera in Rome although little was said about the scourge in the
newspapers. If there were an actual epidemic of cholera in Rome it would be
most imprudent for American travelers to visit the city, but how could one
learn the truth? General Giuseppe Garibaldi, with his army of redshirted
soldiers, was preparing his campaign for a united Italy, that achieved success
in 1870, and his headquarters were established in Florence. General Garibaldi
was at one time Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Italy. Wry father knew him
to be a Mason, and had doubtless sat in a Lodge with him during one of his
visits to America, so he decided to call on the General and ask his advice.
The idea of an American
traveler making a social call on the chief of a revolutionary army was
ridiculed, but this traveler felt that he had the benefit of a pass that would
gain him admission. He went to the General's headquarters where there were
about twenty men before him awaiting an audience. On his card that he handed
to the Orderly were these words:
Curtis Guild,
Boston, America 32
It was a surprise to the
traveler as well as to the others when the Orderly returned from an inner room
and said that the General would receive the American gentleman at once. The
General spoke excellent English. "What can I do for you, Mr. Guild?" were his
first words after greetings had been exchanged, and in answer to the inquiry
about the cholera he said: "Don't go to Rome. The local government tries to
keep the facts out of the papers, but there are a hundred new cases of cholera
a day there, and there is a better reason why you should not go to Rome. Under
pledge of Masonic secrecy I tell you that you might find it easier to get into
Rome than to get out." My father thanked the General and could only say to his
wife and friends that he had decided not to go to Rome. The following week the
army of Garibaldi besieged Rome, and many American travelers in the city were
shut up there and delayed so that they missed the steamers on which they had
engaged rooms for the return journey to America. The pledge of secrecy was, of
course, removed after the siege of Rome was begun, and my father used to enjoy
telling the story when anybody asked, " What's the use of Masonry? "
In 1920 Miss Italia Anita
Garibaldi, granddaughter of the General, visited America and delivered a
number of lectures for the benefit of her family. Hearing her speak before a
club in Boston, I was permitted after the lecture to tell to her and to the
club my father's adventure. In connection with subsequent lectures it was a
pleasure to me to be able to render service of some value to this daughter,
granddaughter, and sister of Masons, in recognition of the favor to my parents
fifty-three years before.
*
GARINUS
Said in an old explanation of
the Degree of Knights of the East and West to have been the Patriarch of
Jerusalem, between whose hands the first Knights of that Order took, in 1182,
their vows. It is a corruption, by the French ritualists, of Garimond or
Gartmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem before whom the Hospitalers took their three
vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty.
*
GARTNERINNEN, ORDEN DER
Order of the Female Gardeners,
an Italian political order whose members were women, founded in Naples, 1820.
Its emblems were flowers. The Italian name was Ordine della Giardiniere.
*
GASSICOURT, CADET DE
An apothecary of Paris, who,
in the year 1796, published a work entitled Le Tounbeau de Jacques Molai, ou
histoire secrete et abrade des initiés anciens et modernes (meaning, Sepulcher
of Jacques Moray, or secret and abridged history of ancients and modern
initiates). In this book, which embraced all the errors of Barruel and
Robison, he made the same charges of atheism and conspiracy against the
Fraternity, and loaded the Chevalier Ramsay with the most vehement indignation
as a libertine and traitor. But De Gassicourt subsequently acknowledged his
folly in writing against a Society of which he really knew nothing. In fact,
in 1805, he solicited admission into the Order, and was initiated in the Lodge
l'Abeille, at Paris, where, in the various offices of Orator and Master, which
he filled, he taught and recommended that Institution which he had once
abused; and even on a public occasion pronounced the eulogy of that Ramsay
whom he had formerly anathematized.
*
GASTON, JOHN
Grand Duke of Tuscany; in 1737
he inaugurated a persecution against the Freemasons in his dominions.
*
GATES OF THE TEMPLE
In the system of Freemasonry,
the Temple of Solomon is represented as having a gate on the east, west, and
south sides, but none on the north. In reference to the historical Temple of
Jerusalem, such a representation is wholly incorrect. In the walls of the
building itself there were no places of entrance except the door of the porch,
which gave admission to the house. But in the surrounding courts there were
gates at every point of the compass. The Masonic idea of the Temple is,
however, entirely symbolic. The Temple is to the Speculative Freemason only a
symbol, not a historical building, and the gates are imaginary and symbolic
also. They are, in the first place, symbols of the progress of the sun in his
daily course, rising in the East, culminating to the meridian in the South,
and setting in the West. They are also, in the allegory of life, which it is
the object of the Third Degree to illustrate, symbols of the three stages of
youth, manhood, and old age, or, more properly, of birth, life, and death.
*
GAUDINI, THEOBALD DE
Known as the Monk Gaudini.
Elected Grand Master of Templars, 1291; died 1301
*
GAUGE
See Twenty-four-Inch Gave
*
GAUNTLETS
Gloves formerly made of steel
and worn by knights as a protection to their hands in battle. They have been
adopted in the United States, as a part of the costume of a Knights Templar,
under a regulation of the Grand Encampment, which directed them to be "of buff
leather, the flap to extend four inches upwards from the wrist, and to have
the appropriate cross embroidered in gold, on the proper colored velvet, two
inches in length." As to uniforms of the Order, see The Habit of a Templar
Knight, by Brother Ray V. Denslow for the Grand Commandery of Missouri, a
valuable and stimulating report.
*
GAVEL
The common gavel is one of the
working tools of an Entered Apprentice. It is made use of by the Operative
Mason to break off the corners of the rough ashlar, and thus fit it the better
for the builder's use, and is therefore adopted as a symbol in Speculative
Freemasonry, to admonish us of the duty of divesting our minds and consciences
of all the vices and impurities of life, thereby fitting our bodies as living
stones for that spiritual building not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. It borrows its name from its shape, being that of the gable or gavel
end of a house; and this word again comes from the German gipfel, a summit,
top, or peak the idea of a pointed extremity being common to all.
The true form of the gavel is
that of the stonemasons hammer. It is to be made with a cutting edge, as in
the engraving, that it may be used to break off the corners of rough stones,
an operation which could never be effected by the common hammer or mallet. The
gavel thus shaped will give, when looked at in front, the exact representation
of the gavel or gable end of a house, whence, as has been already said, the
name is derived.
The gavel of the Master is
also called a Hiram, because, like that architect, it governs the Craft and
keeps order in the Lodge, as he did in the Temple (see Hiram) .
*
GEBAL
A city of Phenicia, on the
Mediterranean, and under Mount Lebanon. It was the Byblos of the Greeks, where
the worship of Adonis, the Syrian Thammuz, was celebrated. The inhabitants,
who were Giblites or, in Masonic language, Giblemites, are said to have been
distinguished for the art of stone-carving and are called in the First Book of
Kings (v, 18) stone-squarers (see Giblim).
*
GEDALIAH
The second officer in a
Council of Super-Excellent Masters represents Gedaliah the son of Pashur. A
historical error has crept into the ritual of this degree in reference to the
Gedaliah who is represented in it. Brother Mackey sought to elucidate the
question in his work on Cryptic Masonry in the following manner:
There are five persons of the
name of Gedaliah who are mentioned in Scripture but only two of them were
contemporary with the destruction of the Temple.
Gedaliah the son of Pashur is
mentioned by the Prophet Jeremiah (xxxviii, 1) as a prince of the court of
Zedekiah. He was present at its destruction and is known to have been one of
the advisers of the King. It novas through his counsels, and those of his
colleagues, that Zedekiah was persuaded to deliver up the Prophet Jeremiah to
death, from which he was rescued only by the intercession of a eunuch of the
palace.
The other Gedaliah was the son
of Ahikam. He seems to have been greatly in favor with Nebuchadnezzar, for
after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the deportation of Zedekiah, he was
appointed by the Chaldean monarch as his Satap or Governor over Judea. He took
up his residence at Mizpah, where he was shortly afterward murdered by
Ishmael, one of the descendants of the house of David.
The question now arises, which
of these two is the one referred to in the ceremonies of a Council of Super
Excellent Masters? I think there can be no doubt that the founders of the
Degree intended the second officer of the Council to represent the former, and
not the latter Gedaliah the son of Pashur, and not Gedaliah the son of Ahikam;
the Prince of Judah, and not the Governor of Judea.
We are forced to this conclusion, continues Brother Mackey, by various
reasons. The Gedaliah represented in the Degree must have been a resident of
Jerusalem during the siege, and at the very time of the assault, which
immediately preceded the destruction of the Temple and the city. Now, we know
that Gedaliah the son of Pashur was with Hezekiah as one of his advisers. On
the other hand, it is most likely that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam could have
been a resident of Jerusalem, for it is not at all probable that
Nebuchadnezzar would have selected such a one for the important and
confidential office of a Satrap or Governor. We should rather suppose that
Gedaliah the son of Ahikam had been carried away to Babylon after one of the
former sieges; that he had there, like Daniel, gained by his good conduct the
esteem and respect of the Chaldean monarch; that he had come back to Judea
with the army; and that, on the taking of the city, he had been appointed
Governor by Nebuchadnezzar. Such being the facts, it is evident that he could
not have been in the Council of King Zedekiah, advising and directing his
attempted escape. The modern revivers of the Degree of Super-Excellent Master
have, therefore, been wrong in supposing that Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, and
afterward Governor of Judea, was the person represented by the second officer
of the Council. He was Gedaliah the son of Pashur, a wicked man, one of
Zedekiah's princes, and was most probably put to death by Nebuchadnezzar, with
the other princes and nobles whom he captured in the plains of Jericho.
*
GEMARA
See Talmud
*
GEMATRIA
Means in Hebrew to reckon by
letters as well as numbers, a cabalistic method of interpreting the Scriptures
by interchanging words whose letters have the same numerical value when added
(see Numbers).
*
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
See Assembly
*
GENERAL GRAND CHAPTER
Until the year 1797, the Royal
Arch Degree and the Degrees subsidiary to it were conferred in America, either
in irresponsible Bodies calling themselves Chapters, but obedient to no
superior authority, or in Lodges working under a Grand Lodge Warrant. On
October 24, 1797, a Convention of Committees from three Chapters, namely, the
Saint Andrew s Chapter of Boston, Temple Chapter of Albany, and Newburyport
Chapter, was held at Boston, which recommended to the several Chapters within
the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
Vermont, and New York to hold 8 Convention at Hartford on the fourth Wednesday
of January ensuing, to form a Grand Chapter for the said States.
Accordingly, on January 24,
1798, delegates from Saint Andrew's Chapter of Boston, Massachusetts; King
Cyrus Chapter of Newburyport, Massachusetts; Providence Chapter of Providence,
Rhode Island; Solomon Chapter of Derby, Connecticut; Franklin Chapter of
Norwich, Connecticut, and Hudson Chapter of Hudson, New York; to which were
the next day added Temple Chapter of Albany, New York, and Horeb Chapter of
Whitestown, New York, assembled at Hartford in Convention and, having adopted
a Constitution organized a governing Body which they styled The Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the. Northern States of America. This Body assumed in its
Constitution jurisdiction over only the States of New England and New York,
and provided that Deputy Grand Chapters, subject to its obedience, should be
organized in those States. Ephraim Kirby, of Litchfield, Connecticut, was
elected Grand High Priest; and it was ordered that the first meeting of the
Grand Chapter should be held at Middletown, Connecticut, on the third
Wednesday of September next ensuing.
On that day the Grand Chapter
met, but the Grand Secretary and Grand chaplain were the only Grand Officers
present. The Grand King was represented by a proxy. The Grand Chapter,
however, proceeded to an election of Grand Officers, and the old officers were
elected. The Body then adjourned to meet in January, 1799, at Providence,
Rhode Island.
On January 9, 1799, the Grand
Chapter met at Providence, the Deputy Grand Chapters of Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, and New York being represented. At this meeting, the Constitution was
very considerably modified, and the Grand Chapter assumed the title of The
General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for the six Northern States
enumerated in the preamble. The meetings were directed to be held septennial;
and the Deputy Grand Chapters were in future to be called State Grand
Chapters. No attempt was, however, made in words to extend the jurisdiction of
the General Grand Chapter beyond the States already named. On January 9, 1806,
a meeting of the General Grand Royal Arch Chapter was held at Middletown,
representatives being present from the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut,
Vermont, and New York. The Constitution was again revised. The title was for
the first time assumed of The General Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons for
the United States of America, and jurisdiction was extended over the whole
country. This year may, therefore, be considered as the true date of the
establishment of the General Grand Chapter.
In 1826 the sentential
meetings were abolished, and the General Grand Chapter has ever since met
triennially. The General Grand Chapter consists of the present and past Grand
High Priests, Deputy Grand High Priests, Grand Kings and Scribes of the State
Grand Chapters, and the Past General Grand Officers. The officers are a
General Grand High Priest, Deputy General Grand High Priest, General Grand
King, General Grand Scribe, General Grand Treasurer, General Grand Secretary,
General Grand Chaplain, General Grand Captain of the Host, and General Grand
Royal Arch Captain. It originally possessed large prerogatives, extending even
to the suspension of Grand Chapters; but by its present organization it has
"no power of discipline, admonition, censure, or instruction over the Grand
Chapters, nor any legislative powers whatever not specially granted" by its
Constitution. It may, indeed, be considered as scarcely more than a great
Masonic Congress meeting every three years for consultation. But even with
these restricted powers, it is capable of doing much good.
*
GENERAL GRAND HIGH PRIEST
The presiding officer of the
General Grand Chapter of the United States of America. He is elected every
third year by the General Grand Chapter. The title was first assumed in 1799,
although the General Grand Chapter did not at that time extend its
jurisdiction beyond six of the Northern States.
*
GENERALISSIMO
The second officer in a
Commandery of Knights Templar, and one of its representatives in the Grand
Commandery. His duty is to receive and communicate all orders, signs, and
petitions; to assist the Eminent Commander, and, in his absence, to preside
over the Commandery. His station is on the right of the Eminent Commander, and
his jewel is a square, surmounted by a paschal lamb. The use of the title in
Templarism is of very recent origin, and peculiar to America. No such officer
was known in the old Order. It is, besides, inappropriate to a subordinate
officer, being derived from the French géneralissime, and that from the
Italian generalissimo, both signifying a Supreme Commander. Strictly speaking,
it has the same meaning in English.
*
GENEROUS FREEMASON
The first Masonic opera, the
libretto written by Brother William Rufus Chetwood, prompter at Drury Lane
Theater, London, for eighteen years, beginning 1722. Sixty-one years before
Brother Mozart composed his Masonic opera known as The Manic Flude, Brother
Chetwood's work was first performed in public. The following advertisement
appeared in the Daily Post, August 20, 1730:
At Oates and Fielding's Great
Theatrical Booth at the George Inn Yard in Smithfield, during the time of
Bartholomew Fair, will be presented an entire new opera called The Generous
Freemason, or the Constant Lady, with the comical humors of Squire Noodle and
his man Doodle by Persons from both Theaters. The part of the King of Tunis by
Mr. Bareoek, Mirza Mr. Paget; Sebastian, Mr. Oates; Clermont, Mr. Fielding;
Sir Jasper, Mr. Burnett; Squire Noodle, Mr. Berry Doodle, Mr. Smith; Davy, Mr.
Excell; Captain, Mr. Brogden; the Queen, Nirs. Kilby; Maria, Miss Oates;
Celia, Mrs. Grace- Jacinta, Miss Williams- Jenny, the chambermaid, Mrs.
Stevens; Lettiee, Mrs. Roberts. All characters newly dressed. With several
entertainments of dancing by Monsieur de St. Luee, Mlle. de Lorme, and others,
particularly the Wooden Shoe Dance, the Pierrot and Pierrette, and the Dance
of the Black Joke. Beginning every day at 2 o'clock.
The two theaters mentioned
were Drury Lane and Covent Garden The opera was billed as "a tragicomi-farcical
ballad opera" and published by "J. Roberts in Warwick Lane, and sold by the
Booksellers of London and Westminster," the third page bearing the following
dedication: To the Right Worshipful the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master,
Grand Wardens, and the rest of the Brethren of the Ancient and Honorable
Society of Free and Accepted Masons, this opera is humbly inscribed by Your
most obedient and devoted Servant, The Author, a Free-Mason. The two leading
characters in the play are Maria, an English lady, and Sebastian, an English
gentleman, who are secretly engaged to each other. When it is proposed that
she marry someone else, Maria agrees to elope with Sebastian to Spain where he
has a wealthy uncle. Sebastian expresses his regret at leaving England in
these words:
But yet one pang I feel thro'
all my joy,
That from my noble Brethren I must part;
Those men whose lustre spreads from Pole to Pole
Possessing every virtue of the Soul.
But yet all climes the Brotherhood adorn,
As smiling Phoebus gilds the rosie morn!
Let I,ove and Friendship then our cares confound,
And halcyon days be one eternal round.
During the journey to Spain
their vessel is chased by a ship commanded by "the bravest Moor that ploughs
the sea," the High Admiral of King Amuranth of Tunis known as Mirza. The
captain of the lovers' ship thinks it advisable to surrender but is prevented
by Sebastian who declares: "We will for battle instantly prepare: a Briton and
a Mason cannot fear." Their brave action is however, all in vain and they are
captured, thrown into prison and condemned to die. King Amuranth in the
meantime has taken a fanny to Maria and his wife, Queen Zelmana, conceives a
like affection for Sebastian. The death sentence is therefore delayed, giving
Sebastian an opportunity to give the Masonic signal of distress to Mirza who
recognizes him as a Brother and releases the two prisoners, saying to
Sebastian: "Come to my arms, thou unexpected Joy, and find in me a Brother and
a friend." Mirza accompanies the lovers on a vessel bound for England and
Sebastian expresses his Brotherly affection to which Mirza, the generous
Freemason replies: v What I have done was in firm Virtue's cause, Thou art my
Brother by the strictest laws; A chain unseen fast binds thee to my heart A
tie that never can from Virtue part.
After this, "Neptune rises to
a symphony of soft musick, attended by Tritons," and the play closes with a
song from him praising Freemasonry. The opera was revived at the Haymarket
Theater in 1731 and Brother Chetwood, 1733, at the theater in Goodman's Fields
rearranged it and produced it in the form of a one-act operetta, entitled The
Mock Mason, retaining only the comic phases of the original play. In 1741 The
Generous Freemason, in original form, was again given with great popularity.
The music for the opera was supplied by three composers, the musical score
having been written by Henry Carey known as the author and composer of Sally
in our Alley. Richard Charke, a violinist and member of the Drury Lane Theater
company, and John Sheeles, a famous teacher of the harpsichord, were the other
two responsible for the Iyrics in the opera. Two copies of the opera are at
present in the possession of the British Museum and these give the airs of
some of the songs without accompaniment, which was the usual method at that
time. We are indebted to Brother Richard Northcott, Fellow of the Roval
Philharmonic Society, England, for the details given here.
*
GENTLEMAN MASON
In some of the old lectures of
the eighteenth century this title is used as equivalent to Speculative
Freemason. Thus they had the following catechism
What do you learn by being a Gentleman Mason?
Secrecy, Morality, and Good-Fellowship.
What do you learn by being an Operative Mason?
Hew, Square, Mould stone, lay a Level, and raise a Perpendicular.
Hence we see that Gentleman Mason was in contrast with Operative Mason.
*
GENUFLECTION
Bending the knees has, in all
ages of the world, been considered as an act of reverence and humility, and
hence Pliny, the Roman naturalist, observes, that "a certain degree of
religious reverence is attributed to the knees of a man." Solomon placed
himself in this position when he prayed at the consecration of the Temple; and
Freemasons use the same posture in some portions of their ceremonies. as a
token of solemn reverence. In Ancient Craft Masonry, during prayer, it is the
custom for the members to stand, but in the advanced Degrees, kneeling, and
generally on one knee, is the more usual form.
*
GEOMATIC
See Domatic
*
GEOMETRICAL MASTER MASON
A term in use in England
during the eighteenth and early in the following century. By the primitive
regulations of the Grand Chapter, an applicant for the Royal Arch Degree was
required to produce a certificate that he was "a Geometrical Master Maeon,"
and had Paseed the Chair. The word Geometrical was, in Doctor Mackey's
opinion, thus synonymous with Speculative. Later researches proved that there
was actually a Degree of this name. Brother George W. Speth in 1899
(Transactions, Quatour Coronati Lodge, volume xii, page 205) mentions the
ritual of the Most Excellent Order of Geometrical Master Masons as being about
1819 to 1820 but that the Degree is probably much older. He says there are
nine Lectures. Much of the ritual is in very rough verse, archaic, containing
allusions to matters which were in use early in the eighteenth century, such
as the broached thurnell, which had disappeared from Craft Masonry long before
the nineteenth century. On the other hand, much of it will be recognized by
members of so-called Higher Degrees as at present in use. The Degree was given
apparently after the Three Craft Degrees but is unconnected with the Royal
Arch. It was conferred in a Chapter, not in a Lodge, and is Christian
throughout. Both Doctor Mackey and Brother Woodford give the name Geometrical
Master Masons in the Encyclopedias for which they are responsible, but neither
seems to have realized that it represented an actual Degree.
*
GEOMETRIC POINTS
In the language of French
Freemasonry, this name is given to the four cardinal points of the compass,
because they must agree with the four sides of a regular Temple or Lodge. They
form a symbol of regularity and perfection.
*
GEOMETRY
In the modern instructions,
geometry is said to be the basis on which the super6trueture of Freemasonry is
erected; and in the Old Constitutions of the Medieval Freemasons of England
the most prominent place of all the sciences is given to geometry, which is
made synonymous with Freemasonry. Thus, in the Regius Manuscript, which dates
not later than the latter part of the fourteenth century. the Constitutions of
Freemasonry are called "the Constitutions of the art of geometry according to
Euclid," the words geometry and Masonry being used indifferently throughout
the document; and in.
In the Harlefan Manuscript,
No. 2054, it is said, "thus the craft Geometry was governed there, and that
worthy Master (Euclid) gave it the name of Geometry, and it is called Mosonne
in this land long after." In another part of the same manuscript, it is thus
defined: "The fifth science is called Geometry, and it teaches a man to mete
and measure of the earth and other things, which science is Masonry."
The Egyptians were undoubtedly
among the first who cultivated geometry as a science. "It was not less useful
and necessary to them," as Goguet observes (Origine des Lois, Origin of the
Laws, I, iv, 4), "in the affairs of life, than agreeable to their
speculatively philosophical genius." From Egypt, which was the parent both of
the sciences and the mysteries of the Pagan world, it passed over into other
countries; and geometry and Operative Masonry have ever been found together,
the latter carrying into execution those designs which were first traced
according to the principles of the former.
Speculative Freemasonry is, in
like manner, intimately connected with geometry. In deference to our operative
ancestors, and, in fact, as a necessary result of our close connection with
them, Speculative Freemasonry derives its most important symbols from this
parent science. Hence it is not strange that Euclid, the most famous of
geometricians, should be spoken of in all the Old Records as a founder of
Freemasonry in Egypt, and that a special legend should have been invented in
honor of his memory.
*
GEORGE IV
Born 1762; died 1830. King of
Great Britain. February 6, 1787, in a Special Lodge, the Duke of Cumberland,
Grand Master, made George IV, then Prince of Wales, a Freemason. The Duke of
Cumberland died in 1790 and the Prince of Wales was elected Grand Master on
November 24. Lord Moira became Pro Grand Master. In 1805 George was elected
Grand Master of Scotland. He became King in 1811 and the Duke of Sussex was
elected Grand Master of England, the King taking the title of Patron.
*
GEORGIA
Major-General James Edward
Oglethorp, founder of the Colony of Georgia on February 12, 1733, also founded
on February 10, 1734, the Masonic Lodge now known as Solomon's Lodge No. 1, at
Savannah, the name being so attached in 1776. To Past Master William B.
Clarke's Early and Historic Freemasonry of Georgia we are indebted for
definite light upon the old traditions of the Craft. The present Charter of
this old Lodge, granted by the Grand Lodge of Georgia in 1786, states that
Roger Lacey was granted a Warrant as the first Provincial Grand Master of
Georgia in 1735 by Viscount Weymouth, Grand Master of England. Unity Lodge was
constituted in 1774, and Grenadier's Lodge in 1775. During these years and up
to 1786 a Provincial Grand Lodge existed and in the revolutionary period acted
independently, formal reconstruction being made on December 21, 1786, when the
permanent appointments under England were abolished and annual elections
adopted. Major-General Samuel Elbert resigned the chair and William Stephens
was elected Grand Master with other officers for 1787.
Solomon's Lodge at Savannah
possesses an apron worn by Worshipful Master Benjamin Sheftall in 1758. The
flap bears the emblem of the Royal Arch Degree and this suggests that at that
time this ceremony was conferred in the Lodge where the Master himself was
initiated. Georgia Chapter of Savannah worked under a Dispensation from the
General Grand Chapter, December 1, 1802, and a Warrant was granted, January
9,1806. Union Chapter at Louisville received a Charter, from the General Grand
Chapter, June 6, 1816; Augusta Chapter, December 6, 1818; Mechanics Chapter at
Lexington, June 10, 1820; Webb Chapter at Sparta, November 16, 1921. A Grand
Chapter was organized on February 4, 1822.
The first document mentioning
the Degree of Select Masons in Georgia was a Diploma from Brother Cohen in
possession of Brother Jacobs. In May, 1792, the latter was in Savannah and was
invited to go to Augusta and confer the Degrees. The first Council, Adoniram
Council, No. 1, of Augusta, was probably organized by Companion Webb or
Companion Cross. On May 2, 1826, this Council took part in constituting the
Grand Council of Georgia. Savannah Council, No. 2; Eureka Council, No. 3;
Georgia Council, No. 4, and Hancock Council were also represented at the
meeting. Soon after May 7, 1827, however, the activities of this Grand Council
ceased for nearly fifteen years. On June 22, 1841, delegates from three
Councils met at Augusta and again organized the Grand Council of Georgia.
Georgia Encampment, No. 1, at
Augusta received a Dispensation dated 1823, and was chartered on May 5. Three
other Commanderies, namely Saint Omar, No. 2, Saint Aldemar, and Coeur de
Lion, were chartered before the Grand Commandery was organized on April 25,
1860. The year 1888 saw the establishment of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish
Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, at Savannah when Alpha, No. 1, a Lodge of
Perfection, was granted a Charter on October 17. On the following day Temple,
No. 1, a Chapter of Rose Croix, was chartered and on October 23, two years
later, a Council of Kadosh, Gethsemane, No. 1, and a Consistory, Richard
Joseph Nunn, No. 1, were also granted Charters.
*
GERBIER, DOCTOR
An energetic Freemason, and,
as mentioned in the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia, one of the removable Masters of
the ancient Grand Lodge of France. He is said to have fabricated the title of
the Metropolitan Chapter of France, which it was pretended had emanated from
Edinburgh, in 1721.
*
GERMAN FREEMASONS, UNION OF
See Herein deutscher
Freimaurer
*
GERMAN RITUAL
The principal systems of
ritual or wodung in Germany are:
1. The old English as remodeled by Schroeder and used by the Grand Lodge of
Hamburg, most of the Lodges under the Grand Lodge of Saxony and all of the
Hanoverian Lodges which belong to the Grand Lodge Royal York, and the Five
Independent Lodges.
2. Rectified Strict Observance, or Scottish, by the Three Globes, Berlin. The
Ritual of the Saint John's Lodge is, we understand, that of Fessler, as
revised by Zoellner
3. Swedish, by the Grand National Lodge, Berlin.
4. Fesslerts, differing slightly from that of Schroeder. The Grand Lodge of
the-*Sun, at Bayreuth, and the Grand Lodge Royal York use this ritual. Great
freedom is accorded the daughters of the Grand Lodge of the Sun, the only
requirement being that once each year they are to work according to a common
Ritual
5. Modern English Eclectic, in the Grand Lodge of Frankfort and Darmstadt. The
Ritual is reported to be Sightly mixed with other ceremonies under the latter
Grand Lodge.
The most complicated of all of
these forms of working is the Swedish system, see No. 3 above. No. 1 or the
Schroeder system is the simplest. The entire apparatus of the ceremonies just
as gone through in ancient times is displayed at the initiations in the
Swedish Ritual—that is, terrors, threats, and so forth. However, in Fessler's
system these likenesses gradually disappear just as they do in the Grand
Lodge, Kaiser Frederick, where they are only inferred indirectly in the
declared historical reminiscences. The work in England appertaining to
portions of the First and Second Degrees has been transposed in Germany so
that an Entered Apprentice from America or England if visiting in Germany
would not be able to work his way into the Lodge in the First Degree.
*
GERMAN SOUTHWEST AFRICA
Three German Lodges exist
here, at Lüderitzbucht, Swakopmund and Windhuk, the Kaiser Friedrich III Lodge
from 1910, Zur Hoffnung Lodge from 1908, and the Kranzchen zur Kreuz des
Sudens, 1909. Following the World War this German colonial possession became
subject to the British Empire as the Protectorate of Southwest Africa.
*
GERMAN UNION OF TWO AND TWENTY
A secret society founded in
Germany, in 1786, by Doctor Bahrdt, whose only connection with Freemasonry was
that Bahrdt and the twenty-one others who founded it were Freemasons, and that
they invited to their co-operation the most distinguished Freemasons of
Germany. The founder professed that the object of the association was to
diffuse intellectual light, to annihilate superstition, and to perfect the
human race. Its instruction was divided into six Degrees, as follows:
1. The Adolescent
2. The Man
3. The Old Man
4. The Mesopolite
5. The Diocesan
6. The Superior
The first three Degrees were
considered a preparatory school for the last three, out of which the rules of
the society were chosen. It lasted only four years, and was dissolved by the
imprisonment of its founder for a political libel, most of its members joining
the Illuminati. The publication of a work in 1789 entitled Mehr Noten als
Text, etc., meaning More Notes than Text, or The German Union of XXII, which
divulged its secret organization, tended to hasten its dissolution (see Bahrdt).
*
GERMANY
Of all countries Germany plays
the most important part in the history of ancient Freemasonry, eince it was
there that the gilds of Operative Stone-Masons first assumed that definite
organization which subsequently led to the establishment of Speculative
Freemasonry. But it was not until a later date that the latter institution
obtained a footing on German soil. Findel in his History (page 238) says that
as early as 1730 temporary Lodges, occupied only in the communication of
Masonic knowledge and in the study of the ritual, were formed at different
points. But the first regular Lodge was established at Hamburg, in 1733, under
a Warrant of Lord Strathmore, Grand Master of England; which did not, however,
come into active operation until four years later. Its progress was at first
slow; and nowhere is Freemasonry now more popular or more deserving of
popularity. Its scholars have brought to the study of its antiquities and its
philosophy all the laborious research that distinguishes the Teutonic mind,
and the most learned works on these subjects have emanated from the German
press. The detailed history of its progress would involve the necessity of no
ordinary volume (see Mackey's revised History of Freemasonry published by the
Masonic History Company, Chicago, pages 746-94, and 2242-53, also references
in this work to Masonic leaders and society of Germany).
William Preston's
Illustrations of Masonry state that in 1733 the Earl of Strathmore warranted a
Lodge at Hamburg. It has been said also that Doctor Jaenisch was appointed
Provincial Grand Master between 1718 and 1720, but there is no record, either
of his name or of the Lodge at Hamburg, in the Minutes of the Grand Lodge. In
1741 a Lodge was established at Leipzig by seven Brethren who had held
informal meetings during the five previous years.
Brother H. W. Marschall had
been appointed Provincial Grand Master of Upper Saxony in 1737, and thereafter
many other Provincial Grand Lodges were opened.
In August, 1738, although the
King was opposed to Freemasonry, the Crown Prince Frederick was secretly
initiated at Brunswick, August 15,1736, and always afterwards ardently
supported the Fraternity.
A curious feature of the
growth of the Craft in Germany is the number of independent Masonic Bodies
which, with or without special authority, exercise control over other Lodges.
There are also several independent Lodges in existence. The first of these
Grand Lodges was probably the Zu den drei Weltkugeln (Three Globes) Lodge,
opened at Berlin by the command of Frederick, who afterwards assumed the
position of Grand Master as often as his military duties permitted. Of these
bodies there has been a marked tendency in the more modern times to confine
the ritual to the exemplification of the first three Degrees. But the earlier
records show that other ceremonies were practiced. A Lodge, Three Doves,
instituted in 1760, by a Warrant from the "Three Globes," also of Berlin, is
recorded that in 1763 other Degrees were employed, including some if not all
of the following: Elect of Nine, Elect of Fifteen, Elect of Perpigan, Red
Scots Degree, Saint Andrew's Scot, Knight of the East, Knight of the Eagle or
Prince Sovereign Rose Croix, a Supreme Council being formed of members of this
last Degree to govern the others. This use of the supplementary grades at so
early a period is in marked contrast with the later conditions when they were
in Germany less favorably pursued.
Students will not overlook the
building of the old cathedrals in Germany, especially those of Cologne and
Strasburg, and the associations of the Craftsmen that grew with these stately
structures, fraternities whose exploits and government are described in Doctor
Mackey's History of Freemasonry. Their rules have a peculiar resemblance to
our modern regulations. Mention must also be made here of the Verein deutscher
Freimaurer, Association of Gerrrzan Freest massns founded on May 19, 1861, at
Potsdam with the object of laboring for the development of Masonic ideals and
for promoting their advancement, to respond to the requirements of Masonic
science, to cultivate Masonic endeavor, to encourage fraternal relief in
Lodges, and the exercise of discreet charity. The Association publishes a
periodical, Zwanglosen Mitteilungen, every other month, holds yearly
conventions of the membership, and also prints various pamphlets and books of
value to Freemasons everywhere. The headquarters are at Leipzig.
Among various interesting
enterprises is that of the Grand Lodge of the Sun, Zur Sonne, for facilitating
the exchange from one Masonic family to another of young people, say from
eleven to twenty years of age, principally during the holiday months of the
year or at other times as may be desired. These youngsters were preferably to
be placed in surroundings corresponding to those of their own homes.
*
GHEMOUL BINAH THEBOUNAH
Hebrew, meaning, as usually
explained, Prudence in the midst of vicissitude. The Hebrew characters are:
..The name of the seventh step of the mystical Kadosh Ladder of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite.
*
GHIBLlM
The form in which Doctor
Anderson spells Giblim. In the Book of Constitutions, 1738 (page 70) it is
stated that in 1350 "John de Spoulce, called Master of the Ghiblim," rebuilt
Saint George's chapel.
*
GIBALIM
A Masonic corruption of Giblim,
the Giblites, or men of Gebal (see Giblim).
*
GIBBON, EDWARD
English historian, author of
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Made a Freemason in Friendship Lodge No.
6, London, in March, 172'5, Born April 27, 1737; died 1794 (see New Age
Magazine, March 1925).
*
GIBEAH
A Hebrew word signifying a
hill, and giving name to several towns and places in ancient Palestine. The
only one requiring special mention is Gibeah of Benjamin, a small city about
four miles north of Jerusalem.
It was the residence, if not
the birthplace, of King Saul. In the French Rite the word symbolically refers
to the Master, who must be pure in heart, that the High and Holy One may dwell
therein.The word is also used in the Swedish Rite.
*
GIBLIM
Hebrew, oh. A significant word
in Freemasonry.
It is the plural of the noun
Gibli, the g pronounced hard, and means, according to the idiom of the Hebrew,
Giblites, or inhabitants of the city of Gebal.
The Giblim, or Giblites, are
mentioned in Scripture as assisting Solomon's and Hiram's builders to prepare
the trees and the stones for building the Temple, and from this passage it is
evident that they were clever artificers.
The passage is in First Kings
(v, 18) and, in our common version, is as follows: "And Solomon's builders and
Hiram' s builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers; so they prepared
timber and stones to build the house," where the word translated in the
authorized version by stone-squarers is, in the original, Gblim.
It is so also in that
translation known as the Bishop's Bible. The Geneva version has Masons.
The French version of Martin has tailleurs de pierres following the English
meaning; but Luther, in his German version retains the original word Giblim
(see Ghiblim).
It is probable that the
English translation followed the Jewish Targum, which has a word of similar
import in this passage. The error has, however, assumed importance in the
Masonic instructions, where Giblim is supposed to be synonymous with a
Freemason. And Sir Wm.
Drummond confirms this by saying in his origins (volume iii, book v, chapter
iv, page 129) that " the Gibalim were Master Masons who put the finishing hand
to King Solomon's Temple (see Gebal).
*
GILDS
The word gild, guild, or geld,
from the Saxon gildan, to pay, originally meant a tax or tribute, and hence
those fraternities which, in the early ages, contributed sums to a common
stock, were called Gilds. Cowell, the old English jurist, defines a Gild to be
"a fraternity or commonalty of men gathered together into one combination,
supporting their common charge by mutual contributions. " Societies of this
kind, but not under the same name, were known to the ancient Greeks and
Romans, and their artificers and traders were formed into distinct companies
which occupied particular streets named after them. But according to Dr. Lujo
Brentano, who published, in 1870, an essay on The History and Development of
Gilds, England is the birthplace of the Medieval Gilds from whom he says that
the modern Freemasons emerged. They existed, however, in every country of
Europe, and we identify them in the Compagnons de la Tour of France, and the
Baucorporationen of Germany.
The difference, however, was
that while they were patronized by the municipal authorities in England, they
were discouraged by both the Church and State on the Continent.
The Gilds in England were of
three kinds, Religious Gilds, Merchant Gilds, and Craft Gilds, specimens of
all of which still exist, although greatly modified in their laws and usages.
The Religious or Ecclesiastical Gilds are principally found in Roman Catholic
countries, where, under the patronage of the Church, they often accomplish
much good by the direction of their benevolence to particular purposes.
Merchant Gilds are exemplified in the twelve great Livery Companies of London.
And the modern Trades Unions are nothing else but Craft Gilds under another
name. But the most interesting point in the history of the Craft Gilds is the
fact that from them arose the Brotherhoods of the Freemasons.
Brentano gives the following
almost exhaustive account of the organization and customs of the Craft Gilds:
The Craft Gilds themselves first sprang up amongst the free craftsmen, when
they were excluded from the fraternities which had taken the place of the
family unions, and later among the bondmen, when they ceased to belong to the
Namibia of their lord. Like those Frith Gilds, the object of the early Craft
Gilds was to create relations as if among brothers; and above all things, to
grant to their members that assistance which the member of a family might
expect from that family. As men's wants had become different, this assistance
no longer concerned the protection of life, limbs, and property, for this was
provided for by the Frith Gilds now recognized as the legitimate authority;
but the principal object of the Craft Gilds was to secure their members in the
independent, unimpaired, and regular earning of their daily bread by means of
their craft.
The very soul of the Craft
Gild was its meetings, which brought all the Gild brothers together every week
or quarter. These meetings were always held with certain ceremonies, for the
sake of greater solemnity. The box having several locks like that of the Trade
Unions, and containing the charters of the Gild, the statutes, the money, and
other valuable articles, was opened on such occasions, and all present had to
uncover their heads. These meetings possessed all the rights which they
themselves had not chosen to delegate. They elected the presidents, originally
called Aldermen, afterwards Masters and Wardens, and other officials, except
in those eases already mentioned in which the Master was appointed by the
King, the Bishop, or the authorities of the town.
As a rule, the Gilds were free
to choose their Masters, either from their own members, or from men of higher
rank though they were sometimes limited in their choice to the former.
The Wardens summoned and
presided at the meetings, with their consent enacted ordinances for the
regulation of the trade, saw these ordinances properly executed, and watched
over the maintenance of the customs of the Craft. They had the right to
examine all manufactures and a right of search for all unlawful tools and
products. They formed, with the assistance of a quorum of Gild brothers, the
highest authority in all the concerns of the Gild. No Gild member could be
arraigned about trade matters before any other judge. We have still numerous
documentary proofs of the severity and justice with which the Wardens
exercised their judicial duties. Whenever they held a court, it was under
special forms and solemnities; thus, for instance, in 1275 the chief Warden of
the masons building Strasburg cathedral held a court sitting under a canopy.
Besides being brotherhoods for
the care of the temporal welfare of their members, the Craft Gilds were, like
the rest of the Gilds, at the same time religious fraternities. In the account
of the origin of the Company of Grocers, it is mentioned that at the very
first meeting they fixed a stipend for the priest, who had to conduct their
religious services and pray for their dead. In this respect the Craft Gilds of
all countries are alike; and in reading their statutes, one might fancy
sometimes that the old craftsmen eared only for the well-being of their souls.
All had particular saints for patrons, after whom the society was frequently
called- and, where it was possible, they chose one who had some relation to
their trade. They founded masses, altars, and painted windows in cathedrals;
and even at the present day their coats of arms and their gifts range proudly
by the side of those of kings and barons. Sometimes individual Craft Gilds
appear to have stood in special relation to a particular church, by virtue of
which they had to perform special services, and received in return a special
share in all the prayers of the clergy of that church. In later times, the
Craft Gilds frequently went in solemn procession to their churches.
Be find innumerable ordinances
also as to the support of the sick and poor- and to afford a settled asylum
for distress, the London Companies early built dwellings near their halls. The
chief care, however, of the Golden was always directed to the welfare of the
souls of the dead. Every year a requiem was sung for all departed Gild
brothers, when they were all mentioned by name; and on the death of any
member, special services were held for his soul, and distribution of alms was
made to the poor, who, in return, had to offer up prayers for the dead, as is
still the custom in Roman Catholic countries.
In a History of the English
Guilds, edited by Toulon Smith from old documents in the Record Office at
London, and published by the Early English Text Society, we find many facts
confirmatory of those given by Brentano, as to the organization of these
Gilds.
The testimony of these old
records shows that a religious element pervaded the Gilds, and exercised a
very powerful influence over them. Women were admitted to all of them, which
Herbert (Livery Companies v, 83), thinks was borrowed from the Ecclesiastical
Gilds of Southern Europe; and the Brethren and Sisters were on terms of
complete equality There were fees on entrance, yearly and special payments,
and fines for wax for lights to burn at the altar or in funeral rites. The
Gilds had set days of meeting, known as morning speeches, or days of
spekynggess totiedare for here commune profit, and a grand festival on the
patron saint's day, when the members assembled for worship, almsgiving,
feasting, and for nourishing of brotherly love. Mystery plays were often
performed.
They had a treasure-chest, the
opening of which was a sign that business had begun. While it remained open
all stood with uncovered heads, when cursing and swearing and all loose
conduct were severely punished. The Gild property consisted of land, cattle,
money, etc. The expenditure was on the sick, poor and aged, in making good
losses by robbery, etc. Loans were advanced, pilgrims assisted, and, in one
city, "any good girl of the Gild" was to have a dowry on marriage, if her
father could not provide it.
Poor travelers were lodged and
fed. Roads were kept in repair, and churches were Unstained and beautified.
They wore a particular costume, which was enforced by their statutes, whence
come the liveries of the London Companies of the present day and the clothing
of the Freemasons.
An investigation of the usage's of these Medieval Gilds, and a comparison of
their regulations with the old Masonic Constitutions, will furnish a fertile
source of interest to the Masonic archeologist, and will throw much light on
the early history of Freemasonry (see Gilds, Encyclopedia Britannic, also the
Hole Craft and Fellowship of Masonry, Edward Conder Jr.. and the Liber Albus,
the White Book of the City of London, compiled in 1419 A.D., and reprinted in
1861).
As showing the spirit of the
old Brethren we give here the pledge or oath of the Masters and Wardens of the
Crafts or Mysteries, as then they were called, from page 451 of the Liber
Albus, presumably the one ape proved by law in the reign of Henry IV of
England but probably in use even before that time, 1367-1413: You shall swear,
that well and lawfully you shall over look the Art or Mystery of which you are
Masters, or Wardens, for the year elected. And the good rules and ordinances
of the same Mystery, approved here by the Court, you shall keep and shall
cause to be kept.
And all the defaults that you
shall find therein, done contrary thereto, you shall present unto the
Chamberlain of the City, from time to time, sparing no one for favor, and
aggrieving no one for hate. Extortion or wrong unto no one, by color of your
office, you shall do- nor unto anything that shall be against the estate and
peace of the King, or of the City, you shall consent. But for the time that
you shall be in office, in all things pertaining unto the said Mystery,
according to the good laws and franchises of the said city, well and lawfully
you shall behave yourself. So God you help, and the Saints.
*
GILEAD
See Galahad
*
GILGUL, DOCTRINE OF
We learn from Brother Kenneth
R. H. Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopoedia that Certain of the learned Jews
have believed, for man centuries, in the doctrine of Gilgul, according to
which the bodies of Jews deposited in foreign tombs contain within them a
principle of soul which cannot rest until by a process called by them "the
whirling of the soul.' the immortal particle reaches once more the sacred soil
of the Promised Land. This whirling of souls was supposed to be accomplished
by a process somewhat similar to that of the metempsychoses of the Hindus, the
psychical spark being conveyed through bird, beast, or fish, and sometimes,
the most minute insect. The famous Rabbi Akiba, followed by the Rabbis Judah
and Meir, declared that none could come to the resurrection save those of the
Jews who were buried in the Holy Land, or whose remains were, in the process
of ages, gradually brought thither. In Picart's wonderful and laborious work
there are many references to this doctrine. The learned may consult further
authorities on this curious subject in the Cabana Denudata (or Uncovered), of
Heinrich Khunrath, 1677.
*
GILKES. PETER WILLIAM
Surname spelled in some old
Masonic records as Jilks and so pronounced. An English Freemason who devoted
practically his entire life to the dissemination of knowledge retarding the
ceremonies of the Craft and the teaching of the ritual of the Grand Lodge of
England, acknowledged by all as an authority on Masonic regulations. Born in
London, May 1, 1765, and died on December 11, 1833. Initiated at the age of
twenty-one in British Lodge, No. 4, now No. 8, in 1786 This record is not in
accord with the Grand Lodge Register which gives the year as 1794 but the
general choice is for 1786 (see Peter Gilkes, by Brother A. F. Calvert, 1916,
pare 4). Little is known of the early history of Brother Gilkes except that he
carried on, after the death of his father, a small retail establishment near
Carnaby Market and Great Marlborough Street, London. In Dixon's History of
Freemasonry in Lincolnshire we note that in August, 1820, in recognition of
the "very polite manner in which he has always shown himself towards this
Lodge in giving to the Brethren the instruction in Masonry as laid down by the
United Lodge of Promulgation," a vote of thanks was passed to "Brother P.
Jilks, Greengrozer, Carnaby Market, London." It is certain that Brother Gilkes
did not pursue this long after the death of his mother but, "Finding himself
independent and being of an unambitious nature, he determined to retire from
business and devote himself to pursuits more genial to his disposition.
His accounts were soon closed,
he engaged a single room which he furnished plainly, and arranged with Hannah,
an old faithful servant of his late mother to attend to his apartment and
prepare the frugal meals," he remaining a bachelor his entire life.
Brother Gilkes maintained and
taught daily a class of Freemasons without making any charge for his service.
The Freemasons Quarterly Renew, of 1834, said: "Although universally held in
esteem amongst Masons his conduct was always characterized by good sense; he
never aspired beyond his station in life, and declined the honor of an office
in the Grand Lodge because he considered that his circumstances in life were
not equal to the appointment." An entertaining old book by Dr. George Oliver
is entitled The Discrepancies of Freemasonry examined during a week's gossip
with the late celebrated Brother Gilkes and other eminent Masons. Page 32
tells of questions of Masonic importance discussed by Brothers Oliver and
Gilkes in 1825 and the book shows clearly the high esteem in which the latter
was held for his thorough knowledge of the Craft. Peter Gilkes attended and
was prominent from the first meeting when the Emulation Lodge of Improvement
for Master Masons was founded on October 2, 1823. This group believed in the
regulation of all ceremonial by Grand Lodge and also desired that United Grand
Lodge should extend its control to the three Lectures explaining the
ceremonies.
The form of government they
adopted was to enable Emulation Lodge "to hand down the Ceremonies and
Lectures unaltered and unchanged from generation to generation." After
frequent visits to this Lodge, Peter Gilkes became a joining member and leader
of its Committee in May, 1825. This Lodge "differed from all other Lodges of
Instruction in being designed for Master Masons only and therefore gave as
much attention to the Third and Second as it gave to the First Ceremony,
preference being given to the Third.
" An account of Brother Giles
activities in various Masonic Lodges would fill many paged Briefly, he was a
member of British Lodge, where he was initiated, Royal York Lodge of
Perseverance, Lodge of Hope, Globe Lodge, Lodge of Unity, Cadogan Lodge, Old
Concord Lodge, Saint James' Union Lodge, Lodge of Good Intent, Saint Michael's
Lodge, Hope and Unity Lodge, and Lodge of Unions. Of ten Lodges he is said to
have occupied the chairs. His visits to other Lodges were frequent.
Never a subscribing member of
the Percy Lodge "he often conducted the ceremonies," says the history of the
Lodge, and is recorded as present on eighty-five occasions from 1817 to 1833.
While attending Lodges in this way he frequently instructed the Brethren and
in one case Brother Calvert in his biography (page 13) records "Giles, while
only attending the meetings as a visitor, occupied the chair on every occasion
for three years running." Then he joined the Lodge and was elected Worshipful
Master for the ensuing year.
Brother Giles' London pupils
presented him in 1822 with a Past Master's jewel, profusely embellished with
diamonds, handsomely designed by Brother John Harris and costing one hundred
guineas, over $500. This was only one of a number of tokens of respect and
admiration received by Brother Giles during his life. This jewel is possessed
by the Percy Lodge.
A year after his death plans
were made for the erection of a monument to his memory. His friend and pupil,
Stephen Barton Wilson, one of the three instructors responsible for carrying
on the work of their preceptor, was commissioned to execute the tablet. This
beautiful memorial erected in 1834, is in Saint James Church, Piccalilli,
London.
The activities of Brother
Giles are intimately bound up with the story of Emulation Lodge of Improvement
which should be read in Some Account of the Ritual, by Brother G. J. V.
Rankin, 1925, and the Illustrated History of the Emulation Lodge of
Improvement, by Brother Henry Sadler.
*
GIRARD, STEPHEN
A wealthy Freemason, widely
known for his philanthropies. Born in France, May 20, 1750. Visited New York
in 1774, in the meantime a sea captain, and began a trade to and from New
Orleans and Port au Prince. Settled in Philadelphia in 1776, married, and
established himself as a merchant. Ahiman Rezon, Pennsylvania, shows Stephen
Girard was initiated September 7, 1778 in Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia; crafted
October 1, 1778; raised November 23, 1778. An old copy of the by-laws of Lodge
No. 3, 1844, gives these dates. In 1810 Brother Girard lent the Government of
the United States much assistance in establishing and maintaining their credit
with foreign countries, placing at the disposal of the Government, by the
purchase of stock in the Bank of the United States, one million dollars. In
1812 he opened the Bank of Stephen Girard and in 1814 he personally subscribed
for about 95 per cent of the Government's entire war loan. Brother Girard was
appointed in 1809 to the Board of Trustees of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania,
this Grand Lodge having just completed the building of a large and expensive
Masonic Hall. He subscribed the final five thousand dollars necessary to
relieve this Institution of debt for the Hall. Stephen Girard was active in
many public benefits, personally contributed his services and resources of the
public hospital in 1793 when Philadelphia was suffering from an epidemic of
yellow fever. Again in the yellow fever epidemic of 1797 to 1798 he gave
generously of his time and money.
At his death, February 26,
1831, due to an accident when he was injured in the street by a truck, he had
amassed a larger fortune than had ever been known in the United States up to
that time. His will included numerous and generous contributions to various
charitable and civic enterprises. Practically his entire fortune, amounting to
some thirty-five million in 1908, was devoted to charitable purposes, and he
founded one school in particular and provided funds for the continued
maintenance of it.
His will reads that this is to
be used "to provide for such a number of poor male white orphan children . . .
a better education as well as a more comfortable maintenance than they usually
receive from the application of public funds." Another indication of the
eccentricities of Brother Girard is the fact that he also states in the will
above quoted that "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary or
minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any duty
whatsoever in the said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for
any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes
of said college.... I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans .... free
from the excitements which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so
apt to produce." Girard's heirs-at-law hotly contested this will, and,
although Daniel Webster made a famous plea for the Christian religion in the
effort to set aside the will, it was sustained by the Court.
The Masonic fund, known as the
Stephen Girard Charity Fund, amounting to $90,000.00 in 191S, is handled by
the Fraternity and has done much to alleviate poverty and hardship among the
poor.
Two days after the death of
Brother Girard a general invitation to his funeral appeared in the public
newspapers and this invitation requested the attendance of the Grand Lodge of
Pennsylvania and of the subordinate Lodges and listed as well a number of
other benevolent associations in which he had been interested. Almost four
hundred members of the Fraternity assembled at the Masonic Hall and attended
the funeral, which was held in the German Roman Catholic Church of the Holy
Trinity and the body being interred in a vault adjoining the Church. There was
some difficulty when the Brethren entered the Church, which they did without
their aprons in order to avoid any criticism, and it is recorded that the
Roman Catholic clergy Left the Church in a body and therefore the funeral
services were not performed. The Brethren waited some time and then removed
the body from the Church and placed it in the vault as had been desired by
Brother Girard.
It has been said that when
Brother Girard was found to be near death he consented, at the request of his
sister, to see a Catholic priest and this has been construed to mean that this
intention had been to become reconciled to the Church in which he had been
baptized, although by the time the priest arrived Brother Girard was dead.
Under the circumstances, however, the Bishop of the Catholic Church consented
to the body being admitted into the Church. The following is taken from Bishop
Francis Patrick Henrick's diary written at the time:
The body of Stephen Girard was
brought with much funeral pomp, attended by many Free Masons marching in
procession in scarfs and ornaments, as a tribute of respect to their deceased
companion, to the church of the Holy Trinity. When, therefore, I saw these
enter the Church to have the funeral rites gone through, no priest assisting,
I ordered the body taken away for burial I allowed it to have Christian burial
for the potent reason that the deceased was baptized in the church and never
left it, and when death came his illness was such that he did not perceive its
approach. In January, 1851, when the buildings of the College for orphans had
reached sufficient completion to receive it, the body of Brother Girard was
removed by the City Councils and the Board of Commissioners of the Girard
Estate from the Church and the body was finally reentered in the marble tomb
which had been prepared for it within the grounds of the College in September,
1851, and this ceremony was participated in by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania
at the express request of the Commissioners of the Girard Estates, the coffin
being borne by eight Past Masters of the Order. A very impressive ceremony was
held, about three hundred of the small orphans being present and the Masonic
dirge having been expressly composed for the occasion. The heirs of Brother
Girard objected to the removal of the remains from the Church by the city
officials but the Courts ruled against them.
*
GIRDLE
In ancient symbology the
girdle was always considered as typical of chastity and purity. In the
Brahmanical initiations, the candidate was presented with the Zennar, or
sacred cord, as a part of the holy garments; and Gibbon says that "at the age
of puberty, or maturity, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious
girdle; fifteen genuflections, or kneelings, were required after he put on the
sacred girdle." The old Templars assumed the obligations of poverty,
obedience, and chastity; and a girdle was given them, at their initiation, as
a symbol of the last of the three vows. As a symbol of purity, the girdle is
still used in many chivalric initiations, and may be properly considered as
similar to the Masonic apron in its message.
*
GLAIRE, PETER MAURICE
A distinguished Freemason, who
was born in Switzerland in 1743, and died in 1819. In 1764, he went to Poland,
and became the intimate friend of King Stanislaus Poniatowski, who confided to
him many important diplomatic missions. During his residence in Poland, Glaire,
greatly patronized the Freemasons of that kingdom and established there a Rite
of seven Degrees. He returned to Switzerland in 178S, where he continued to
exercise an interest in Freemasonry, and in 1810 was elected Grand Master for
three years, and in 1813 for life, of the Grand Orient of Helvetia, which Body
adopted his Rite.
*
GLASTONBURY, HOLY THORN OF
There is an ancient market
town in Somersetshire, England, which owes its origin to a celebrated abbey,
founded, according to tradition, in 60 A.D. We are further told that Joseph of
Arimathea was the founder, and the "miraculous thorn" which flowered on
Christmas day as believed by the common people to be the veritable staff with
which Joseph aided his steps from the Holy Land. The tree was destroyed during
the civil wars, but grafts flourish in neighboring gardens. Glastonbury has
the honor of ranking Saint Patrick, 415 A.D., and Saint Dunstan, 940 A. D,
among its abbots. In 1539 Henry VIII summoned Abbot Whiting to surrender the
town and all its treasures, and on his refusal condemned him to be hanged and
quartered, and the monastery confiscated to the king's use, which sentence was
immediately carried into execution. King Arthur is said to be buried in this
place.
*
GLEASON, BENJAMIN
Masonic ritualist. Graduated
at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1802, and was a public
lecturer on geography and astronomy. About 1801 received the Preston Lectures
from Thomas Smith Webb and in 1805 was appointed Grand Lecturer of the Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts, which office he held until 1842. A member of Mount
Lebanon Lodge in Massachusetts in 1807. Visited England and exemplified the
Lectures before the Grand Lodge there. He died in Concord, Massachusetts,
1847, at seventy years of age (see Notes on the Ritual, Silas H. Shepherd,
Research Pamphlet No. 19, 1924).
*
GLOBE
In the Second Degree, the
celestial and terrestrial globes have been adopted as symbols of the universal
extension of the Order, and as suggestive of the universal claims of brotherly
love. The symbol is a very ancient one, and is to be found in the religious
systems of many countries. Among the Mexicans the globe was the symbol of
universal power. But the Masonic symbol appears to have been derived from, or
at least to have an allusion to, the Egyptian symbol of the winged globe.
There is nothing more common among the Egyptian monuments than the symbol of a
globe supported on each side by a serpent, and accompanied with wings extended
wide beyond them, occupying nearly the whole of the entablature above the
entrance of many of their temples. We are thus reminded of the globes on the
pillars at the entrance of the Temple of Solomon. The winged globe, as the
symbol of Kneph, the Creator Sun, an Egyptian myth of a god having the body of
a man and the head of a ram, was adopted by the Egyptians as their national
device, as the Lion is that of England, or the Eagle of the United States. In
Isaiah (xvi i, 1) where the authorized version of King James s Bible has "Woe
to the land shadowing with wings," Lowth, after Bochart, translates, "Ho! to
the land of the winged cymbal," supposing the Hebrew xxx to mean the sistrum,
which was a round instrument, consisting of a broad rim of metal, having rods
passing through it, and some of which, extending beyond the sides, would, says
Bishop Lowth, have the appearance of wings, and be expressed by the same
Hebrew word.
But Rosellini translates the
passage differently, and says, " Ho, land of the winged globe." Dudley, in his
Naology (page 18), says that the knowledge of the spherical figure of the
earth was familiar to the Egyptians in the early ages, in which some of their
temples were constructed. Of the round figure described above, he says that
although it be called a globe, an egg, the symbol of the world was perhaps
intended; and he thinks that if the globes of the Egyptian entablatures, were
closely examined, they would perhaps be found of an oval shape, figurative of
the creation, and not bearing any reference to the form of the world.
The interpretation of the
Masonic globes, as a symbol of the universality of Freemasonry, would very
well agree with the idea of the Egyptian symbol referring to the extent of
creation. That the globes on the pillars, placed like the Egyptian symbol
before the temple, were a representation of the celestial and terrestrial
globes, is a very modern idea. In the passage of the Book of Kings, whence
Freemasonry has derived its ritualistic description, it is said (First Icings
vii, 16), "And he made two chapters of molten brass, to set upon the tops of
the pillars.`' In some Masonic instructions it is said that "the pillars were
surmounted by two pomels or globes." Now pomel, xxxxx, is the very word
employed by Rabbi Solomon in his commentary on this passage, a word which
signifies a globe or spherical bodice The Masonic globes were really the
chapiters described in the Book of Kings.
Again it is said (First Kings
vii, 92), "Upon the top of the pillars was lily work." We now know that the
plant here called the lily was really the lotus, or the Egyptian water-lily.
But among the Egyptians the lotus was a symbol of the universe; and hence,
although the Freemasons in their lectures have changed the expanded flower of
the lotus, which crowned the chapiter and surmounted each pillar of the porch,
into a globe, they have retained the interpretation of universality. The
Egyptian globe or egg and lotus or lily and the Masonic globe are all symbols
of something universal, and the Masonic idea has only restricted by a natural
impulse the idea to the universality of the Order and its benign influences.
But in Brother Mackey's opinion it is a pity that Masonic ritualists did not
preserve the Egyptian and Scriptural symbol of the lotus surrounding a ball or
sphere, and omit the more modern figures of globes celestial and terrestrial.
*
GLOBES, THE
It happens that unlike the
majority of symbols and rites a certain number of written data are in
existence about the origin of the symbolism's of the two Globes.
The oldest Lodges did not have
them. Notices of them appear in the Minutes of one Lodge, some years later in
the Minutes of another; they are shown in some of the oldest tracing boards
and not shown in others; these facts show that the use of the Globes came
slowly into use in the first half of the Eighteenth Century. In one Lodge
record it is stated in so many words that "they illustrate the universality of
the Craft" anywhere under heaven, anywhere in the earth, there is the home of
Freemasonry! In the beginning of the Speculative system with the first Grand
Lodge in London in 1717 it was expected that Grand Lodge would warrant Lodges
only in London and inside a radius of ten miles from the City; it was not
until the period of 1725 to 1730 that Warrants began to be issued (and then
usually to men who had been made Masons in London) for "Lodges oversee." It is
reasonable to assume that this planting of Freemasonry on the Continent and in
faraway America must have inspired and stimulated Masons in and around London,
must have given them a new emotion, because their horizons were unexpectedly
pushed outwards over the rim of the world; if that assumption is valid it
follows that the use of Globes began to spread among the Lodges in the period
between 1730 to 1750. Globes were hand-made in 1725, and therefore were
costly, especially those of glass or silver; in one Lodge book a set is
inventoried at £100. Many Lodges received them as gifts from well-to-do
members.
In the "Legend of the Craft"
included in the Old Charges it is said that the secrets of the Liberal Arts
and Sciences were preserved through Noah's Flood in two pillars. It is
probable that early Speculative Masons pictured them as having been pedestals
rather than pillars, similar to the pedestals they had in Lodge and in which
regalia and the Secretary's records were stowed. These two ancient pedestals
of the Old Charges were replaced by the two Great Pillars of Solomon's Temple,
J and B. It appears that when the Globes first came into use they were placed
in whatever spot was most convenient. Certainly there were not two globes on
the Diluvian pillars. Solomon's Pillars were surmounted by Chapiters, and
archeologists believe that they were made of strips of metal and shaped like
baskets, and that resinous wood was piled in them for giving light after dark.
The replacing of the Chapiters
by Globes on top of the Great Pillars may have come about for any one or more
of at least three reasons: Globes were more convenient when thus off the floor
and out of the road; they made the Pillars more pleasing to the eyes; the
symbolism of the Globes and of the Pillars combined naturally and easily, etc.
Archeologists found near
Herculaneum a villa in which the dining room had an astronomical ceiling which
could be turned to make the painted stars inside correspond on any night with
the actual stars outside. There are hints that the Egyptians had globes they
had spherical geometry and astronomy. In the late Middle Ages globes were so
common that the phrase "Terrestrial and Celestial Globes" passed into current
speech. This has been used as an argument to prove that before Columbus set
sail men knew of the sphericity of the earth; a few men unquestionably did
know of it, but the Globes themselves prove nothing. Men who believed the
earth to be fiat could have had maps of the flat earth put on a globe because
it was more convenient; we print maps on flat paper but it does not prove that
we believe the earth to be flat. It is probable that the Speculative Masons
used their Globes for no other purpose than maps; nothing is hinted in their
Minutes of esoteric or occultistic meanings; but to them the mere map of the
whole earth and the whole sky was something to excite the mind because it kept
them alive to the fact that their Fraternity which had only a few years before
confined itself to so modest a territory, had unexpectedly and almost
miraculously burst its bonds, and was extending itself over the world. The
Globes belong to the subject-matter of the philosophy of Masonry, but thus far
have received meager attention from those who specialize in that branch of
Masonic studies, though why this is true it is difficult to know, because that
which the Globes symbolize is as massively overwhelming a fact as a range of
the Himalayas.
Suppose that speculative
Masonry had been confined, as it was first intended to a radius of ten miles
from the center of London; if it had, it could easily have limited its
membership to London citizens, of the white race, and members of some
Christian church; when it became universal, as the Globes symbolize, such
localism became impossible. It could not become universal without expanding to
other countries, it therefore could not be confined to England, and other
countries would stand on a par with England. It could not be confined to one
race if it became universal because the world is occupied by three races with
some sixty or so branches. It could not be confined to one religion, because
there are scores of great religions in the world. This transformation of a
local Craft into a world-wide Fraternity was an epochal event in the history
of Freemasonry, and none more so; and since it is represented by the Globes
they have a scope and power of meaning far outreaching the small attention
they have thus far received.
Note. See History of the Lodge
of Amity No. 137; by Harry P. Smith; published by the Lodge, Poole, England,
1937, and printed by J. Looker. This is a book excellently to be recommended
because in the Minutes quoted by it are so many descriptions of Ritual,
customs, etc. written at the time. On page 47 it is told that during a Degree
there were exhibited "a pair of 18-in. globes, the perfect ashlar suspended
from a Lewis [a species of clamp] and affixed to a winch, an armillary sphere,
and a small philosophical [scientific] apparatus, as well as the usual
ornaments furniture and jewels." The author makes it clear that in the
earliest days symbols had been drawn on the floor with chalk; that later the
same symbols were painted permanently on a cloth, or board, or were inlaid in
wood or stone. By about 1765 actual objects were used in place of drawn
figures. The same impulse which substituted actual objects for drawn figures,
led to substituting acted out ceremonies in lieu of what had been an oral
lecture. The reference to the two "18-inch globes" is one of many Minutes or
other records which substantiate what was said in a paragraph above about the
placing of the Globes.
The present Ritual with its
Ceremonies, Rites and Symbols can be explained only in the light of its
history and in this Supplement that history—as just above—has been drawn from
Lodge records, most of them of the Eighteenth Century, and of these the
majority are of English Lodges. Records and Minutes of early American Lodges
would naturally have been preferred for the present purpose but they
unfortunately are few in number.
*
"GOLDEN BOOK," ST. LAURENT'S
The "Golden Book" is a
manuscript of 198 sheets of letter paper, 8 x 10, in a number of tints, bound
in crimson morocco, preserved in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of
Pennsylvania. It is printed in full at page 192 ff. in Ancient Documents
Relating to the A. and A. Scottish Rite, edited by Juleps F. Sachse; Grand
Lodge of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia; 1915. It was written by Count De St.
Laurent, a native of Bogota; and was found in Northern France. In it is his
own record of his attempt to found a Supreme Council for the Western
Hemisphere, in 1832, in a period when Scottish Rite Masonry in America was,
like Ancient Craft Masonry, broken by the Anti-Masonic Crusade.
A number of other documents
were afterwards copied into the manuscript. These latter are now infinitely
more interesting than the Count's grandiose dream of becoming the head of the
Scottish Rite for half the world, because among them are three of the very few
written documents relating to the Masonic membership of Lafayette:
1. A translation of the
letters patent by which the Thirty-third Degree was conferred upon him.
2. The Certificate of Lodge Lafayette.
3. A note in his own handwriting under the letters patent expressing his
gratitude for the honor conferred. "This note is upon page 80 in the 'Golden
Book' and is the only known Masonic autograph letter of Brother General
Lafayette. It will be noted that this note was written by Brother Lafayette,
May 10, 1834, just ten days before his death." (The document in full is given
by Sachse on page 288.)
Because no record of General
Lafayette's Initiation has been found, a number of writers (among them a few
Masonic writers) have denied that he was ever regularly made a Mason. It is
difficult to understand this reasoning. On October 6, 1824, the Grand Lodge of
Delaware received him with a long procession and Grand Honors; on June 27,
1825, it made him an Honorary Member; in a return visit on July 25 to receive
the honor he mentioned in his address that he had visited twenty-four Grand
Lodges.
He had visited Illinois Masons
at Kaskaskia, on April 20, of that same year. six days before that he had
visited the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. In 1824 he had visited the Grand Lodge
of Maine (for the text of his speech see Maine Proceedings; Vol. I, page 121).
on October 8, 1824, he was made Honorary Member of the Grand Lodge of
Maryland, and was accompanied by his son, Bro. George Washington Lafayette it
was on that visit that the Legislature made him and his heirs citizens of
Maryland for ever. In the same year he made a Masonic tour of New Jersey He
visited the Grand Lodge of South Carolina in 1825. May 4, 1825, he visited the
Grand Lodge of Tennessee, was made Honorary Member, and was entertained by
Past Grand Master Andrew Jackson. His tour from beginning to end was a
prolonged Masonic visit, and in all the branches of the Craft: to question his
membership in the Order ceases to have any weight against the mass of so much
Grand Lodge testimony.
Note. In his comments quoted
on the Lafayette notation in the Golden Book Bro. Sachse describes it as "the
only known Masonic autograph letter of Brother General Lafayette." [It is not
a "letter."] It is difficult to believe that in almost a year spent in
visiting Masonic bodies over the nation Bro. Lafayette wrote no letter to any
Mason, or about his Masonic plans. Somewhere a few of them must be in
existence. The Laurent "Golden Book" is not to be confused with another
"Scottish Rite Golden Book" one described by Folger.
*
GOLDEN CIRCLE, KNIGHTS OF THE
About 1835 there were in the
South an undetermined number of "Southern Rights" Clubs set up to send out
slavers, to protect, and uphold, and to proclaim the slaveholding system.
After they had flourished in separate centers, taking different forms, there
crystallized out of them in 1855 a secret society entitled Knights of the
Golden Circle, and the name of George C. Bickley, a native of Indiana, and
later a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, was prominently connected with it. It
appears to have in part been designed as a foil to the Know Nothing Party, the
most ambitious of the impossible attempts to organize in America a political
party in the form of a secret society. The first of the professed aims of the
Knights was to protect slavery; its second, was to snake the South an
independent nation; its third was to conquer Cuba and Mexico.
Its historian says that it
furnished the means for "General" Walker to conduct his once-notorious
filibuster in Nicaragua an episode Americans have forgotten because it is too
painful to remember. The Knights did not stop with dreaming of an independent
Confederacy in the South; they envisaged it as the maker of an empire which
would expand to include Mexico, the West Indies, and countries to the Isthmus.
The society came to an end
(apparently) with the Civil War; historians, if they will search its local
minutes, will find there recorded month by month a procession of ideas and
ambitions and schemes which illuminate one or two corners in the Civil War
period; otherwise the Circle belongs to the archeology of dead and forgotten
secret movements. There was never any connection with Freemasonry; Grand
Lodges both North and South, as hundreds of Lodge minutes shows kept
themselves remarkably free from involvement in secret conspiracies; so free
that they maintained much Fraternal comity during the War, and resumed the
whole of it immediately after the War. (See the rare little book, a
collector's item: An authentic Exposition of the Knights of the Golden Circle,
by a member of the Order; Indianapolis; C. O. Perrins; 1861.)
*
GOTHIC STYLE, THE
An architectural style is a
set, or system, of principles which include within themselves a structural
form, and a mode of ornamentation; the last named never being added on, as by
an afterthought but belonging to the principles. To discover a new set or
system of architectural principles is so difficult, and is achieved so seldom,
that it is doubtful if more than a score or so of styles of architecture have
been discovered in the history of the whole world. Oftentimes what is called a
style is not a style, but a modification of one, or is the use of some detail
of one (Greek pillars, for example), or, like the gables on New England
houses, is nothing more than a local fancy—a carpenter's trick and not an
architectural principle.
Before the period of about
1140 A.D. in northern France churches and other public buildings (every
people's architecture has been a style or mode or customary design of public,
or communal, or monumental buildings) were constructed in Romanesque. The
origin of this type was the old Roman town hall, or basilica, and it had been
adapted for use in churches by employing flattened round arches, often set in
colonnades. These Romanesque churches w ere made of white stone, and there
were so many of them in France that a chronicler once described them as "the
white cloak of churches," a phrase repeated countless times.
Suddenly—in fact, very
suddenly—and beginning at a point in or near Paris, this Romanesque type was
replaced by the Gothic style, which until Petrarch's time was called the
French style. This Gothic became an enthusiasm, almost an obsession, and
between (roughly) 1140 A.D. and 1250 A.D. no fewer than eighty cathedrals and
some 500 large churches were built in it in France alone—one bishop even tore
down a great basilica church (St. Peter's at Rome was then a basilica) only
fifty years old, because his people demanded the wonderful new Gothic.
This was not a gradual
piecemeal development of one detail after another out of Romanesque, but the
discovery of a new formula, which itself was a single unity of principles, and
bad to be understood as a whole or not at all. A comparable discovery, one
making it easier to grasp the point of the Gothic discovery, was made here in
America by Wilbur and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, during the first decade
of the Twentieth Century. Their discovery was not aimed at by first modifying
one piece of machinery and then another, nor did it come as the end result of
a large number of experiments one after the other, but z as a feat of thought,
and was discovered at once and as a whole.
This discovery was the
aero-dynamic formula; and it seas in essence not a mechanical one but a
mathematical one, and neither of the men w as a mechanic. Whoever it was who
found out the Gothic style, one man or a group, at one stroke or over ten or
twenty years, similarly discovered a formula, the Gothic formula; and just as
airplane designers, once they had the aero-dynamic formula to work with could
make planes of any possible size, speed, power, and for any possible purpose,
so could the possessors of the Gothic formula design buildings large or small;
cathedrals or churches or monasteries or halls.
If histories of architecture
in four or five modern languages be placed side by side on a series of
shelves, and if their contents be compared one with another, it will be found
that they are concerned with public and monumental structures, capitols,
churches, libraries, museums, hospitals, palaces, etc. and that they describe
or discuss these public and monumental structures in the terms of the
architectural styles they embody. The building of such structures is one of
the fine arts.
That fine art is always what
historians mean by architecture. This distinction between a building which
only a trained artist can erect and the simple structures which any workman
can construct was as clear to men in the Middle Ages as it is now. Medieval
men had numberless simple homes, cottages, barns, storehouses, factories,
shops, sheds, bridges; in every village were carpenters, stone-masons,
wailers, and bricklayers able to build them. But these local workmen were not
then, any more than now, architects. To build a church, cathedral, gildhall,
castle, town hall it was necessary to call in from outside builders trained
and skilled in architecture, or building as a fine art. The evidences
everywhere indicate that these latter workmen were called Freemasons; they
indicate also that these Freemasons were in gilds or fraternities apart from
the small gilds of local workmen, just as at the present time local carpenters
and bricklayers are not members of the American Society of Architects.
In another respect, however,
the art of architecture of the present time differs fundamentally from
Medieval architecture. The present day architect begins with schooling instead
of with apprenticeship.
He goes to college to study
geometry, mechanics, draftsmanship, design, the history of his art, etc., and
remains there until he has mastered a set of abstract formulae and general
principles of construction; after he has set up his own office he is free to
make his choice among five or six architectural styles when designing a
building. In the Middle Ages the beginner was not sent to a school but was
indentured in an apprenticeship; he was not educated in abstract principles
and formulae but was manually trained to produce given pieces of work, and
wherever he might go, he knew he would have those same given pieces of work to
do. From the middle of the Twelfth Century until about the time of Henry VII
the only style, or type of building, known to either architects or the public,
was the Gothic. No two Gothic buildings were ever exactly the same, but their
component parts were always made the same way—the pointed arch, the buttress,
the column, the rose window, the fan vault, the tower, etc.; therefore the
training of an apprentice consisted of drilling him in the knowledge and skill
of making or designing those particular component parts of a Gothic building.
In the Middle Ages each trade
or craft was locally organized as a gild, fraternity, society, etc.; in each
instance the technologies, or making or mixing of materials, use of tools,
etc., were a trade secret. The local stone-masons, carpenters, wailers,
paviors, roofers likewise had their own local organizations, and in them
preserved their own trade secrets. The Freemasons had societies, fraternities,
lodges of their own, apart from local builders; the methods and principles of
architecture, which at that time was necessarily Gothic architecture, were
their great trade secret. To call them Gothic builders is therefore only
another way of saying that they were architects, though the latter term was
not then used.
The Gothic builder was trained
in one style only, and would therefore have been at a disadvantage in
competition with a modern architect, who had been educated to understand the
principles of design in each and every established style. But the scope for a
Gothic builder's ingenuity, talent, and skill was not therefore a narrow one;
because the Gothic itself, above any other style ever discovered, was
unbelievably fertile, flexible, comprehensive, and difficult; so much so that
it overflowed, and elements of it were adopted by local builders, and even by
designers of gold work, cloth designing, and even in writing. The mastering of
it called for such an amount of knowledge that Gothic builders stood in a
class apart, not in respect of their art alone but as men of great attainments
in things of the mind, of characters of independence, of culture. Such men as
Suger, Arnolfo, William of Sens, Henry Yevele were among the most eminent of
great men of their own or any other time.
The local masons, carpenters,
and other workmen in the building trades were illiterate, parochial,
thoroughly trained but trained only for simple types of work; it would be
impossible to believe that Speculative Freemasonry with its philosophy and its
arts and sciences ever could have arisen among them; and as a matter of fact
there is nothing to indicate that anything belonging to culture, science,
thought was ever produced by them. It was among the Freemasons, or Gothic
builders, that Speculative Freemasonry arose; it was they in particular, and
not masons or builders in general, who are denoted by our use of the phrase
"Operative Masons."
*
GOULD'S HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY
Gould's History of
Freemasonry, by Robert Freke Gould; Revised by Dudley Wright; under the
supervision of Melvin M. Johnson and J. Edward Allen; Charles Seribner's Sons;
New York, N. Y.; six volumes; blue cloth; full page illustrations, a number in
full color; volumes separately paginated; general index in Volume VI; 2587
pages.
The frontispiece of the work
is a reproduction in full color of George Washington in his regalia as
Worshipful Master, by John Ward Dunsmore, one-time President of the National
Academy, the original of which was painted on commission from the Board of
General Activities, Grand Lodge of New York: it is a document as well as a
painting because the artist posed his model in the actual regalia and on the
dais of the Alexandria-Washington Lodge room, Alexandria, Va., of which
Washington was Master at the time of his first Inauguration. In its binding,
format, paper, and press-work the History is another of the solid, dignified
masterpieces of the printer's art for which Scribner's have long been famous.
In the original Edition Gould
himself wrote a chapter on the Masonic history of each of the States in
America. These chapters were as sound as a writer working in London and with
only a bare outline knowledge of American Masonry could make them; but they
were never satisfactory, and as new data were discovered here they became
increasingly unsatisfactory as years passed. Brothers Wright, Johnson and
Allen deleted Gould's own chapters wholly, and in their places had new
histories prepared by living American writers, one for each State. As far as
American Masons are concerned this makes the History a new work. (Thomas
Jefferson is included in the portrait gallery of Masonic Presidents; there is
no known evidence of his having been a Mason, and there is much evidence in
his private correspondence of his dislike of secret societies and
fraternities.)
The History was completed and published by Gould (and his collaborators) in
1887; his reading for it must therefore have begun as early as 1875, or even
1870.
At that time what little was
known about the Ancient Mysteries, the Collegia, the Essenes, and the (Duldees
was confined to a few scattered references in ancient writings, most of them
Greek or Roman. Since that time archeologists have unearthed hundreds of
thousands of inscriptions and thousands of manuscripts, in consequence of
which the history of those subjects has been wholly re-written; and Gould's
first chapter is out of date. Thus, his three pages on the important subject
of the Roman Collegia are based on Massman and Coote: the former published his
Libellus in 1840, the latter his Romfans of Britain in 1878; neither is any
longer of worth. Chapter 4 of Volume I on "The Craft Guilds of France"
likewise has lost much of its weight by subsequent discoveries in historical
research; these have been so revolutionary that the picture of the French
gilds as painted by Gould has been altered out of recognition.
Gould did not have a true
sense of proportion. Of six volumes only one is devoted to the general history
of Freemasonry properly so called; Gould himself explained that this was for
lack of space; if so it is difficult to see why he devoted one whole chapter
to "The Quatuor Coronati" and spent more than sixty pages trying to prove that
Wren was not a Mason, when neither subject was worth more than a footnote. He
omitted almost the whole of the very important history of Freemasonry in the
West Indies, in the French and Indian War, and his few pages on the history of
Colonial Freemasonry in America are too slight a sketch to have any usefulness
for American students.
Worse still (in the sense of a
lack of proportion) he built his account of the origin and early development
of Speculative Freemasonry around the single Grand Lodge of 1717, as if the
Antient Grand Lodge, the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and early American Masonry
had been of secondary importance.
Gould himself was not an
expert on manuscripts or on the general archeology of documents, and his
judgment therefore is sometimes faulty, and at other times uncertain, many of
his paragraphs concealing a confusion of thought under sentences dogmatic in
form.
One instance is found in his
pages on early Freemasonry in Scotland; another is found in his discussion of
the Leland MS. In his History he dismisses the latter as a forgery, at least,
as apocryphal; but in an essay published later he admits that George Fleming
Moore had almost convinced him of its authenticity.
Since Gould completed his work
three events of massive importance have occurred: a sudden and unprecedented
increase of knowledge of the Middle ages, accomplished by historical research,
and more especially by documentary discoveries; the almost unbelievable
enlargement of knowledge of ancient tunes made by archeologists since 1885;
and the publication of histories and Minute Books of 200 or so of the oldest
Lodges, a new source of information, and one which was not available in
Gould's time, and one which compels a number of revisions of his theories of
the early periods of Speculative Freemasonry. Gould's Hurtory has not lost its
usefulness; for some purposes it is as useful as ever; but it is necessary for
students to check each of its pages against the new knowledge.
*
GOOD SHEPHERD, SIGN OF THE
When Jesus was relating (Luke
- xv) the parable in which one having lost a sheep goes into the wilderness to
search for it, He said: "And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his
shoulders, rejoicing." Hettner, a German writer on Greek customs, says: "When
the Greek carries home his lamb, he slings it round his neck, holding it by
the feet crossed over the breast. This is to be seen with us also, but the
sight is especially: attractive at Athens, for it was in this manner that the
ancients represented Hermes as the guardian and multiplier of flocks; so stood
the statue of Hermes at Olympia. Occhalia. and Tanagra Small marble statues of
this kind have even come down to us , one of which is to be seen in the
Pembroke collection at Wilton House; another , a smaller one, in the Stoa of
Hadrian, at Athens. This representation, however, appears most frequently in
the oldest works of Christian arts in which the laden Hermes is turned into a
laden Christ who often called himself the Good Shepherd, and expressly says in
the Gospel of Saint Luke, that when the shepherd finds the sheep, he lays it
joyfully on his shoulder." Now, although the idea of the Good Shepherd may
have been of pagan origin, yet derived from the parable of our Savior in Saint
Luke and his language in Saint John, it was early adopted by the Christians as
a religious emblem. The Good Shepherd bearing the sheep upon his shoulders,
the two hands of the Shepherd crossed upon his breast and holding the legs of
the sheep, is a very common subject in the paintings of the earliest Christian
era. It is an expressive symbol of the Savior's love of Him who taught us to
build the new temple of eternal life— and, consequently, as Didron says, "the
heart and imagination of Christians have dwelt fondly upon this theme; it has
been unceasingly repeated under every possible aspect, and may be almost said
to have been worn threadbare by Christian art. From the earliest ages,
Christianity completely made it her own." And hence the Christian Degree of
Rose Croix has very naturally appropriated the sign of the Good Shepherd, the
representation of Christ bearing his once lost but now recovered sheep upon
his shoulders, as one of its most impressive symbols.
*
GOOSE AND GRIDIRON
An alehouse with this sign, in
St. Paul's Church Yards London. In 1717 the Lodge of Antiquity met at the
Goose anal Gridiron, and it was there that the first Quarterly Communication
of the Grand Lodge of England, after the revival of 1717, was held on the 24th
of June, 1717. It was on the headquarters of a musical society, whose arms a
Iyre and a swan were converted into Goose and Gridiron.
*
GORDON, JAMES
Provincial Grand Master over
the Lodges warranted by the Grand Lodge of Scotland, east of Balbos in
Andalusia, Southern Spain, appointed August 3, 1807 (see History of
Freemasonry and Grand Lodge of Scotland, William A. Laurie, 1859, page 408):
*
GORMOGONS
A secret society established
in 1724, in England, in opposition to Freemasonry. One of its rules was that
no Freemason could be admitted until he was first degraded, and had then
renounced the Masonic Order. It was absurdly and intentionally pretentious in
its character; claiming in ridicule of Freemasonry, a great antiquity, and
pretending that it was descended from an ancient society in China. There was
much antipathy between the two associations, as will appear from the following
verses, published in 1729, by Henry Carey:
The Masons and the Gormogons
Are laughing at one another,
While all mankind are laughing at them;
Then why do they make such a pother?
They bait their hook for simple gulls
And truth with bam they smother,
But when thev've taken in their culls
Why then't is "Welcome, Brotherr"
The Gormogons made a great
splutter in their day, and published many squibs against Freemasonry; yet that
is still living, while the Gormogons were long ago extinguished. They seemed
to have flourished for but a very few years. Brother R. F. Gould has collected
about all that is known about the Gormogons in his article on the Duke of
Wharton, in volume viii of Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge. But the
reader must not overlook a pertinent quotation, from a letter written by
Brother Gould, mentioned in Melville's Philip, Duke of Wharton (page 114),
"About the Gormogons, indeed, all is inference and conjecture. We must suppose
that the Society or Association actually met, but there is no distinct proof
of their having done so."
*
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE
Of all the styles of
architecture, the Gothic is that which is most intimately connected with the
history of Freemasonry, having been the system peculiarly practiced by the
Freemasons of the Middle Ages.
To what country or people it
owes its origin has never been satisfactorily determined; although it has
generally been conjectured that it was of Arabic or Saracenic extraction, and
that it was introduced into Europe by persons returning from the Crusades. The
Christians who had been in the Holy Wars received there an idea of the
Saracenic works, which they imitated on their return to the West, and refined
on them as they proceeded in the building of churches.
The Italians, Germans, French,
and Flemings, with Greek refugees, united in a fraternity of architects and
ranged from country to country, and erected buildings according to the Gothic
style, which they had learned during their visits to the East, and whose
fundamental principles they improved by the addition of other details derived
from their own architectural taste and judgment. Hence Sir Christopher Wren
thinks that this style of the Medieval Freemasons should be rather called the
Saracenic than the Gothic. This style, which was distinguished by its pointed
arches, and especially by the perpendicularly of its lines, from the rounded
arch and horizontal lines of previous styles, was altogether in the hands of
those architects who were known, from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries, as
Freemasons, and who kept their system of building as a secret, and thus
obtained an entire monopoly of both domestic and ecclesiastical architecture.
At length, when the gilds or fraternities of Freemasons, "who alone," says
Hope, "held the secrets of Gothic art," were dissolved, the style itself was
lost, and was succeeded by what Paley says (Manual of Gothic Architecture,
page 15) was "a worse than brazen era of architecture" (see Traveling
Freemasons).
*
GOTHIC CONSTITUTIONS
A title sometimes given to the
Institutions which are supposed to have been adopted by the Freemasons at the
City of York, in the tenth century, and so called in allusion to the Gothic
architecture which was introduced into England by the Fraternity. A more
correct and more usual designation of these laws is the York Constitutions,
which see.
*
GOULD, ROBERT FREKE
This well-known historian of
Freemasonry had a varied career. Born in 1836, and died March 26, 1915. He
entered the English army at the age of eighteen, becoming a lieutenant in the
same year, and serving with distinction in North China in 186S9. On his return
to England he studied law and became a barrister in 1868. He was initiated at
Ramsgate in the Royal Navy Lodge, No. 429, and was Master of the Inhabitants
Lodge at Gibraltar, also of the Meridian Lodge, No. 743, a Military Lodge
attached to his regiment. Afterward he held the Chair of the Moira, Quatuor
Coronati and Jerusalem Lodges. In 1880 he was appointed Senior Grand Deacon of
England. He had been a constant writer in the Masonic press since 1858; in
1879 he published The Four Old Lodges and The Atholl Lodges, and in 1899 a
book on Military Lodges. But his greatest work is the History of Freemasonry
in three large volumes, which occupied him from 1882 to 1887, which was
followed in 1903 by A Concise History of Freemasonry abridged from the larger
work and brought up to date.
*
GOURGAS, JOHN JAMES JOSEPH
A merchant of New York, who
was born in France in 1777, and received a member of the Scottish Rite in
1806. His name is intimately connected with the rise and progress of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in the Northern Jurisdiction of the United
States. Through his representations and his indefatigable exertions, the
Mother Council at Charleston was induced to denounce the Consistory of Joseph
Cerneau in the City of New York, and to establish there a Supreme Council for
the Northern Jurisdiction, of which Brother Gourgas was elected the
secretary-general. He continued to hold this office until 1S32, when he was
elected Sovereign Grand Commander. In 1851, on the removal of the Grand East
of the Supreme Council to Boston, he resigned his office in favor of Brother
Giles Fonda Yates, but continued to take an active interest, so far as his age
would permit, in the Rite until his death, which occurred at New York on
February 19, 1865, at the ripe old age of eighty-eight, and being at the time
probably the oldest possessor of the Thirtieth Degree in the world. Brother
Gourgas was distinguished for the purity of his life and the powers of his
intellect. His Masonic library was very valuable, and especially rich in
manuscripts. His correspondence with Dr. Moses Holbrook, at one time Grand
Commander of the Southern Council, is in the archives of that Body, and bears
testimony to his large Masonic attainments.
*
GRAAL, HOLY
*
GRAIL, THE HOLY
*
GRADES
Degrees in Freemasonry are
sometimes so called. In this connection it is a French word (see Degrees).
*
GRAIN OF MUSTARD, ORDER OF THE
The German name is Der Orden
vom Senf Korn. An order instituted in Germany, based on Mark iv, 30 and 32,
the object being the propagation of morality.
*
GRAMMAR
One of the seven liberal arts
and sciences, which forms, with Logic and Rhetoric. a triad dedicated to the
cultivation of language. "God, ' says Sanctius, "created man the participant
of reason; and as he willed him to be a social being, he bestowed upon him the
gift of language, in the perfecting of which there are three aids. The first
is Grammar, which rejects from language all solecisms and barbarous
expressions; the second is Logic, which is occupied with the truthfulness of
language; and the third is Rhetoric, which seeks only the adornment of
language."
*
GRAND ARCHITECT
A Degree in several of the
Rites modeled upon the Twelfth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It
is the Sixth Degree of the Reform of Saint Martin; the Fourteenth of the Rite
of Elected Cohens; the Twenty-third of the Rite of Mizraim, and the
Twenty-fourth of the Metropolitan Chapter of France (see also Great Architect
of the Universe).
*
GRAND CHAPTER
A Grand Chapter consists of
the High Priests, Kings, and Scribes for the time being, of the several
Chapters under its Jurisdiction, of the Past Grand and Deputy High Priests.
Kings and Scribes of the said Grand Chapter. In some Grand Chapters Past High
Priests are admitted to membership, but in others they are not granted this
privilege, unless they have served as Grand and Deputy Grand High Priests,
Kings, or Scribes. Grand Chapters in the United States have the sole
government and superintendence of the several Royal Arch Chapters and Lodges
of the Most Excellent, Past, and Mark Masters within their several
Jurisdictions.
Until the year 1797, there was
no organization of Grand Chapters in the United States. Chapters were held
under the authority of a Master's Warrant, although the consent of a
neighboring Chapter was generally deemed expedient. But in 1797, delegates
from several of the Chapters in the Northern States assembled at Boston for
the purpose of deliberating on the expediency of organizing a Grand Chapter
for the government and regulation of the several Chapters within the said
States.
This Convention prepared an
address to the Chapters in New York and New England, disclaiming the power of
any Grand Lodge to exercise authority over Royal Arch Masons, and declaring it
expedient to establish a Grand Chapter. In consequence of this address,
delegates from most of the States above mentioned met at Hartford in January,
1798, and organized a Grand Chapter, formed and adopted a Constitution. and
elected and installed their officers. This example was quickly followed by
other parts of the Union and Grand Chapters came into existence in nearly all
the States (see General Grand Chapter).
The officers of a Grand
Chapter are usually the same 3S those of a Chapter, with the distinguished
prefix of Grand to the titles. The jewels are also the same, but enclosed
within 3 circle. In England and Scotland the Grand Chapter bears the title of
Supreme Grand Chapter.
*
GRAND CHAPTER OF PRINCE MASONS
See Prince Masons of Ireland
*
GRAND COMMANDER
The presiding officer of a
Grand Commandery of Knights Templar.
*
GRAND COMMANDER OF THE EASTERN
STAR
The French expression is Grand
Commandeur de l'Etoile d'Orient. A Degree in Pyron's collection.
*
GRAND CONCLAVE
The title of the presiding
Body of Templarism in England is the Grand Conclave of the religious and
Military Order of Masonic Knights Templar.
*
GRAND CONSERVATORS
On July 1, 1814, the Grand
Mastership of the Order in France, then held by Prince Cambacéres, was, in
consequence of the political troubles attendant upon the restoration of the
monarchy, declared vacant by the Grand Orient. On August 12 the Grand Orient
decreed that the functions of Grand Master should be provisionally discharged
by a Commission consisting of three Grand Officers, to be called Grand
Conservators, and Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, the Count de Beurnonville, and
Timbrune, Count de Valence, were appointed to that office.
*
GRAND CONSISTORY
The governing Body over a
State of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; subject, however, to the
superior Jurisdiction of the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third. The members
of the Grand Consistory are required to be in possession of the Thirty-second
Degree. Such wars. the practice in the Southern Masonic Jurisdiction which
prevails in the Northern Body but the name is there the Council of
Deliberation.
*
GRAND COUNCIL
The title given to the first
three officers of 3 Royal Arch Chapter. Also the name of the superintending
Body of Cryptic Freemasonry in any Jurisdiction. It is composed of the first
three officers of each Council in the Jurisdiction. Its officers are: Most
Puissant Grand Master, Thrice Illustrious Deputy Grand Master, Illustrious
Grand Conductor of the Works, Grand Treasurer, Grand Recorder, Grand Chaplain,
Grand Marshal, Grand Captain of the Guards, Grand Conductor of the Council,
and Grand Steward.
*
GRAND DIRECTOR OF THE
CEREMONIES
An important officer in the
United Grand Lodge of England; a similar office to that of Grand Master
General of Ceremonies of a Supreme Council, upon whom the order of the Grand
Body largely depends, and who has charge of the service or ceremonies of
whatever nature that may transpire.
*
GRAND EAST
The city in which the Grand
Lodge, or other governing Masonic Body is situated, and whence its official
documents emanate, is called the Grand East. Thus, a document issued by the
Grand Lodge off Massachusetts would be dated from the Grand East of Boston, or
if from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana, it would be the Grand East of New
Orleans. The place where a Grand Lodge meets is therefore called a Grand East.
The word is in frequent Masonic use on the Continent of Europe and in America,
but seldom employed in England, Scotland, or Ireland.
*
GRAND ELECT, PERFECT AND
SUBLIME MASON
The Fourteenth Degree of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite (see Perfection, Lodge of).
*
GRAND ENCAMPMENT
See Encampment, Grand
*
GRAND HIGH PRIEST
The presiding officer of a Grand Royal Arch Chapter in the American system.
The powers and prerogatives of a Grand High Priest are far more circumscribed
than those of a Grand Master. As the office has been constitutionally created
by the Grand Chapter, and did not precede it as that of Grand Masters did the
Grand Lodges, he possesses no inherent prerogatives, but those only which are
derived from and delegated to him by the Constitution of the Grand Chapter and
regulations formed under it for the government of Royal Arch Masonry.
*
GRAND INQUIRING COMMANDER
The Sixty-sixth Degree of the
Rite of Mizraim
*
GRAND INSPECTOR, INQUISITOR
COMMANDER
The Thirty-first Degree of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is not a historical Degree, but simply
a judicial power of the advanced Degrees. The place of meeting is called a
Supreme Tribunal. The decorations are white, and the presiding officer is
styled Most Perfect President. The jewel of the Degree is a Teutonic cross of
silver attached to white watered ribbon. The Teutonic Cross is the same in
shape as the Jerusalem Cross, four plain T's joined to make a cross, a cross
potent, or having crutched arms.
*
GRAND LODGE MANUSCRIPT, NO. 1
A roll of parchment, nine
inches in length and five in breadth, containing the Legend of the Craft and
the Old Charges. It is preserved in the Archives of the Grand Lodge of
England, having been bought in 1839 for £25. It was dated by its writer 1583.
It has been reproduced in Hughan's Old Charges, 1872; in Sadler's Masonic
Facts and Fictions, and in facsimile by Quatuor Coronati Lodge.
*
GRAND LODGE, REPRESENTATIVE OF
A
See Representative of a Grand
Lodge
*
GRAND LODGE, SUPREME OR
GENERAL
See General Grand Lodge
*
GRAND MASTER
The chief presiding officer of
the Symbolic Degrees in a Jurisdiction. He presides, of course, over the Grand
Lodge, and has the right not only to be present, but also to preside in every
Lodge, with the Master of the Lodge on his left hand, and to order his Grand
Wardens to attend him, and act as Wardens in that particular Lodge. He has the
right of visiting the Lodges and inspecting their books and mode of work as
often as he pleases, or, if unable to do so, he may depute his Grand Officers
to act for him. He has the power of granting Dispensations for the formation
of new Lodges; which Dispensations are of force until revoked by himself or
the Grand Lodge. He may also grant Dispensations for several other purposes
(see the article Dispensation). Formerly, the Grand Master appointed his Grand
Officers, but this regulation has been repealed, and the Grand Officers are
now all elected by the Grand Lodges, except in England, where the Grand Master
appoints all but the Grand Treasurer. When the Grand Master visits a Lodge, he
must he received with the greatest respect, and the Master of the Lodge should
always offer him the chair, which the Grand Master may or may not accept at
his pleasure. Should the Grand Master die, or be absent from the Jurisdiction
during his term of office, the Deputy Grand Master assumes his powers, or, if
there be no Deputy, then the Grand Wardens according to seniority.
The following is a list of the
Grand Masters of the Grand Lodge of England, established in 1717 and afterward
known as the Moderns:
1717. Antony Sayer.
1718. George Payne.
1719. J. T. Desaguliers, LL.D., F.R.S.
1720. George Payne.
1721. John, Duke of Montague.
1722. Philip, Duke of Wharton.
1723. Francis, Earl of Dalkeith.
1724. Charles, Duke of Richmond.
1725. Jarnes, Lord Paisley.
1726. William, Earl of Inchiquin.
1727. Henry, Lord Coleraine.
1728. James, Lord Kingston.
1729. Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
1731. Thomas, Lord Lovel.
1732. Anthony, Viscount Montague.
1733. James, Earl of Strathmore.
1734. John, Earl of Crawford.
1745. Thomas, Viscount Weymouth.
1736. John, Earl of Londoun.
1737. Edward, Earl of Darnley.
1738. sir Henry, Marquess r
1739. Robert, Lord Raymond
1740. John, Earl of Wintore
1741. James, Earl of Morton
1749. John, Viscount Dudlex and Ward.
1744. Thomas, Earl of Strathmore.
1745. James, Lord Cranstoun.
1747. Williams Lord Byron.
1759. John, Lord Carysfort.
1754. James, Marquess of Carnarvon.
1757 . Sholts, Lord Aberdour.
1762. Washington, Earl Ferrers.
1764. Cadwallader, Lord Blaney.
1767. lIenry, Duke of Beaufort.
1772. Robert, Lord Petre.
1777. George, Duke of Manehester.
1782. H. R. H. The Duke of Cumberland.
1790. H. R. H. The Prinee of hi ales.
1813. H. R. H. The Duke of Sussex.
The following is a list of the Grand Masters of the Atholl or Antients Grand
Lodge:
1753. Robert Turner.
1754. Hon. Edward Vaughan.
1756. Earl of Blesinton.
1760. Thomas, Earl of Relly.
1766. Hon. Thos. Mathew.
1771. John third Duke of Atholl.
1775. John fourth Duke of Atholl
1789. Vacant.
1783. Randal, Earl of Antrim.
1791. John, fourth Duke of Atholl.
1813. H. R. H. The Duke of Rent.
The following is a list of the Grand Masters of the United Grand Lodge of
England from the Union of Ancient and Moderns in 1813:
1813. H. R. H. The Duke of Sussex.
1844. Earl of Zetland.
1870. Marquis of Ripon.
1874. H. R. H. The Prince of Wales.
1901. H. R. H. The Duke of Connaught.
*
GRAND MASTER ARCHITECT
The French is Grand Maître
Architect. The Twelfth Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. This
is strictly a scientific degree, resembling in that respect the Degree of
Fellow Craft. In it the principles of architecture and the connection of the
liberal arts with Freemasonry are unfolded. Its officers are three—a Master,
and two Wardens. The Chapter is decorated with white and red hangings, and
furnished with the five orders of architecture, and a case of mathematical
instruments. The apron is white, lined with blue; and the jewel is a gold
medal, on which are engraved the orders of architecture. It is suspended by a
stone-colored ribbon.
*
GRAND MASTER, INHERENT RIGHTS
OF
See Inherent Rights of a Grand
Master
*
GRAND MASTER MASON
The title given to the Grand
Master in the Grand Lodge of Scotland.
*
GRAND MASTER OF ALL SYMBOLIC
LODGES
The French title of this
officer is Vénerable Maitre de toutes les Loges. The Twentieth Degree in the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. The presiding officer is styled Vénérable
Grand Master, and is assisted by two Wardens in the West. The decorations of
the Lodge are blue and yellows. The old ritual contains some interesting
instructions respecting the first and second Temple. Among the traditions
preserved by the possessors of this Degree is one which states that after the
third Temple was destroyed by Titus, the son of Vespasian, the Christian
Freemasons, who were then in the Holy Land being filled with sorrow, departed
from home with the determination of building a fourth, and that, dividing
themselves into several bodies, they dispersed over the various parts of
Europe. The greater number went to Scotland, and repaired to the town of
Kilwinning, where they established a Lodge and built an abbey, and where the
records of the Order were deposited. This tradition, preserved in the original
rituals, was to Brother Mackey a very strong presumptive evidence that the
Degree owed its existence to the Templar system of Ramsay.
*
GRADES OF WORKMEN
In the general craft of men in
the Middle Ages who worked with stone in the construction of buildings,
bridges, etc., there were classifications into kinds, which differed much
among themselves; and the men were "graded" in the amount of wages paid them
according to the degrees of skill which were called for in each class of
workmen. The principal source of information is the Fabric Rolls, which were
the books kept in administrative offices; municipal and other public archives;
and the records of City Companies. The data show that the classifications
never were crystallized, because they could not always be enforced, especially
in small undertakings; but on the whole, and allowing for this, there were
four grades: the Freemasons; layers or setters; rough masons; quarrymen.
Speculative Freemasonry
originated among the Freemasons. There is no evidence to show that "operative"
(the word is nearly always a misnomer as we now use it) masons in any of the
grades except the first ever had any part in developing it, or any influence
upon it. Speculative Freemasonry is manifestly more like a philosophy than
anything else, and such a set of teachings and ideas could have originated
nowhere in the building craft except among the Freemasons, who were
architects, sculptors, artists, well-educated, men of culture, who met in
Lodges of their own, and who had many things to think about in addition to
cutting stone. The Degrees of a Speculative Body have no relationship to the
grades of workmen in operative architecture; and no relation (except in a few
unimportant details) with the City Companies. Had Freemasonry in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries been nothing more than stone-masonry scholars,
gentlemen, antiquarians, etc., would have had no motive for seeking membership
in it, and would not have been accepted if they had sought it; yet they were
accepted into Freemasonry, and at least as early as 1600, and the fact proves
that the Freemasons had something no other class of masons possessed.
Among the Freemasons themselves there were three grades in the sense of
"status of membership"; the Apprentices formed a well-defined group with its
own oath and rules and regulations; the men out of apprenticeships full
members of a Lodge and therefore called yellows of the Craft, who had mastered
their trade; and the Master, or Master of Masons or Superintendent. The
Fellows were under their own rules and regulations to which they were pledged
by their own oath. The Master, along with Wardens (called by many different
titles) and other officers to assist him, had their own duties and
authorities, and while they did not form a separate grade of workmen as far as
skill was concerned, necessarily had a status of their own as long as they
were in office.
The present Craft Degrees
obviously are organized upon this structure of the Freemasons' Lodge; but it
does not follow that the symbols and ceremonies now used are the same as the
ones used in the Fourteenth Century and afterwards; nor does it matter. It
would not make any important difference if even now a number of emblems and
symbols were shifted about; the Beehive, to give one example, might be even
more suitable as an emblem for Apprentices than for Master Masons. Freemasons,
either under the Grand Lodge system or in the Middle Ages, have never
considered emblems and symbols to be more than means to an end; and just as
grade-school teachers and university professors change different text-books in
order the better to teach the same subjects so the Freemasons added or dropped
emblems, symbols, and ceremonies whenever they could better their own
teaching, or more effectual promulgate that philosophy of work and of men as
workers which is the substance of regular Speculative Freemasonry.
In pre-Grand Lodge days there
was yet another form of organization in architecture: public supervision. If a
town had a City Company of Masons in it, a civil supervisor of buildings was
appointed by the town council and he worked with the heads of the Mason
Company. The King appointed a Royal Administrator to supervise and inspect
buildings (palaces, churches, etc.); as stated elsewhere Geoffrey Chaucer,
Inigo Jones, and Christopher Wren were among royal administrators appointed by
English Kings. In general there were four types of public administration:a)
Royal buildings,
b) Ecclesiastical buildings,
c) Municipal buildings,
d) Private buildings.
*
GRAIL, THE HOLY
One of the legend cycles of
the Middle Ages centered in the Holy Grail (or Graal), the cup from which
Jesus drank at the Last Supper. According to the legend the cup was neither
lost nor destroyed but was taken away to some safe hiding place where it
became the source of many miracles. The legend cycle consists of tales of men,
Galahad among them, who dedicated themselves to a search for that which was
lost, who did not find it and yet who in a fashion did find it, because the
dedication and the search for something holy became for the searcher what the
grail itself might have been.
This search for that which was
lost was the motif for many tales, poems, ballads, pictures, and dedications
where it was not a cup that was lost but something else: the lost
pronunciation of the Hebrew name of God; the lost sanctuary; the lost secrets
of transmutation in alchemy; the search for a lost pearl; for the blue bird;
in an ancient Chinese classic it is a tale of the search for a lost empress;
the Spanish Conquistadores came up into the center of America searching for
the lost Man of Gold, or the Gran Quivera; the Mayas searched for the bird
which had given its plumage to their gods; American Indians have for
generations had a ritualistic search for Montezuma; and there is another
legend also of how certain Masons searched for a Word in which was contained
the secrets of their art. The search for the Grail is no isolated tale, but
one form of a theme as old and as wide as the world. Tennyson, and Van Dyke,
and Maeterlinek, and the authors of the Golden Legend, and Malory, and an
endless procession of poets have also written poems and tales of the search
for the grail, each in his own fashion.
Freemasons can be proud that
one of their own number and of their own scholarship has written what may be
the most complete and scholarly and inspired of the many histories of the
legend: The Holy Graal; Its Legends anus Symbolism, by Arthur Edward Waite;
Rider & Co.; London; 1933. It contains a chapter on Freemasonry, and
exhaustive bibliographies. It is Waite's greatest book.
*
GRAND LODGE OFFICES
The Book of Constitutions of
1723 states explicitly that when delegates from four or more Lodges met in
conference in 1716 their only purpose was to arrange for a general assembly
and feast for Lodges then working in London. This they accomplished when in
the following year they elected a Grand Master and two Grand Wardens, the
latter being thought of as assistants to the Grand Master. It was not the
purpose to "revive" Masonry, which did not need revival, or to set up a new
authority over Masons everywhere, or to constitute a "new system" of Masonry.
The step was taken by London Lodges, and for London Lodges; each joining Lodge
vas to retain its own charter (or Old Charges) and sovereignty as before; the
only purpose was to have a center where once every three months the member
Lodges could meet together.
The gradual development which
followed, and which resulted in a Grand Lodge for England, and the formation
of a whole national system of Speculative Masonry, was not complete until
about 1735. A Grand Secretary was appointed in 1723, with William Cowper,
clerk to the Parliament, the first incumbent; but it was some years before the
Grand Secretaryship became a Grand Lodge office.
A Committee on Charity was
formed in 1725 (now the Board of Benevolence); it looked after general affairs
as well as Relief.
A Treasurer for the Charity Fund was first appointed in 1724; he did not
become a Grand Treasurer until 1753.
An Acting Grand Master was appointed in 1782, when the Duke of Cumberland was
Grand Master; since 1834 the office has been called Pro Grand Master.
The office of Deputy Grand Master was first set up in 1721.
In 1724 Past Grand Masters were given a vote in Grand Lodge.
The Office of Grand Chaplain was set up in 1775.
Grand Deacons were first appointed after the Union in 1813.
Grand Stewards were first appointed in 1728; the Grand Stewards Lodge was
constituted in 1735. The Ancient Grand Lodge (1751) had a Committee on Charity
in 1754 which it called Stewards Lodge.
At the Union in 1813 seven
boards or committees were set up, chief among them being the Board of General
Purposes, which has a President, a staff, and is the continuing administrative
body, a "cabinet council." Subordinate Grand Bodies outside England were
called Provincial Grand Lodges until 1865, since which time they have been
called District Grand Lodges. New Grand Lodge Officers have been created as
late as 1914.
Neither histories nor
encyclopedias describe the office of Provincial Grand Master for Foreign
Lodges but such an office must have existed because in the Proceedings of the
Grand Lodge of England (Modern) for the Quarterly Grand Communication on
February 6, 1771 "John Devignoles, Esq., Prov. G. M. for Foreign Lodges" is
listed as present.
At no time did the first Grand
Lodge give evidence of administrative genius, for its machinery of
organization was never completed, and did not work very well, and it was
weakest in its provisions for looking after Provincial Grand Lodges in
England, and, still morels Provincial Grand Lodges abroad. From 1730 until the
Revolutionary War the American Provincial Grand Lodge System was not a system
but a continuing series of improvisations; some Lodges obtained their Charters
directly from London, others from one of the few Provincial Grand Lodges; the
latter could seldom obtain answers to their letters; a Charter voted on in
London might not reach a Lodge here for two or three years (seven years in one
instance); the foreign Grand Bodies levied taxes and maintained control but
they did not govern; at one time two Provincial Grand Masters were over the
seal of the Grand Lodge designated Grand Masters for the whole of America; and
though the four Grand Lodges in Great Britain between 1751 and the
Revolutionary War period had Lodges and Provincial Grand Lodges here, and were
near neighbors at home, they made no attempt to correlate or unify their many
rival and sometimes conflicting Lodges and Provincial Grand Lodges either here
or in Canada.
*
GRAND MASTERSHIP, THE
Ever since its beginning as a
Fraternity Freemasonry has made changes in its rules, customs, rites; it has
even made alterations, and as it had to make them in order to hold its place
in a changed world; but throughout these changes certain principles and tenets
(the Landmarks is a name for them) in its teachings and its form of
organization have persisted unchanged; this also had to be, or Freemasonry
would have been altered into something else and ceased, except in name (and
probably not even in name), to be itself. They are inherent in it. Among these
Landmarks is the fact that Freemasons (properly so called) have always worked
and assembled in bodies, and these bodies have been governed and administered
by a head (a Master, Worshipful Master, Superintendent, etc.), assisted by a
set of officers. This headship or governorship belongs to the substance of the
Fraternity, is needed if it is to retain its identity; and is therefore, as
just said, a Landmark. That Landmark does not require that the head shall
everywhere and always have the same title, or wear the same regalia, or have
in detail the same set of duties, but requires only that it belongs to any
body of regular Freemasons that the body shall be thus ruled and governed.
Since this is true of every
Lodge it is for the same reason true of every Grand Lodge, which also is a
body of Masons who assemble and work as a unit. The first official act taken
by a group of London Lodges to form the Mother Grand Lodge (1717) was to
select and to install a Grand Master. There had never been a Grand Lodge
before, and therefore not any Grand Master; nevertheless the powers and pre
negatives vested in the Grand Master were not new, d less were an innovation,
because they belonged to the age-old need for a Masonic Body to have a head to
age and govern it. The very operations of that ancient Landmark itself brought
the new office and the new title into Craft organization.
Grand Lodge laws were adopted
to name and define the office of Grand Master, but those laws only recognized
and declared what already, in principle, was there. The rulership and
governorship already were in force, and ever had been; the laws declared them,
and made new rules for Masons to follow them, for the powers and authority
were not created by the laws, but were inherent.
The assembly of Masons, either
as a local body or in a more general meeting, also was as old as the Craft,
and inhered in its organization; when this age-old principle (also a Landmark)
led to the formation of a Grand Lodge, the shape of it and the name of it were
new, but in principle it only perpetuated what always had been. Its powers and
authorities therefore also are inherent and indefeasible, and the laws which
define it do not create it but only declare what it is.
There are thus two
sovereignties, each one time immemorial each one a Landmark, which work
together and which at some points interlock but which are independent of each
other in original authority. The Grand Master is for that reason not merely an
agent or officer of Grand Lodge, not merely its president, and answerable to
it only for such of his duties as belong to its sphere; in his own sphere he
has sovereignty of his own, and acts independently.
Instead of "Office of Grand
Masters a more correct description would be "The Grand Mastership." The
jurisdiction within which one who stands in the Grand Mastership carries on
his work coincides at many points with the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge,
does not coincide at others. The jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge is primarily
and generally over the Lodges working under its Charters; the jurisdiction of
the Grand Master is primarily and generally over individual Masons. He is
therefore not the Grand Master of his State or Country, or of his Grand
Jurisdictions, or of his Grand Lodge, but is Grand Master of Masons in his
Grand Jurisdiction. He can exercise his authority within the Lodges only as
they are in his Grand Jurisdiction, but he is a Grand Master wherever he goes
or in whatever Body he visits, is recognized, received, entitled, and honored
as such; and, subject to the rules of comity, he can exercise his authority
over any Master Mason holding membership in any Lodge in his Grand
Jurisdiction even if that Master Mason is in another State as a visitor or as
a resident.
*
"GRAND MASTERS," OPERATIVE
The Medieval Operative Masons
did not work according to blue-prints drawn in an architect's office but under
the superintendency of one of their own number, who was himself present and at
work in the building, and who also was the Freemasons' link with the office of
administration belonging to the foundation, or the king, or some lord, or
abbey for whom the structure was being built; the title "Grand Master" was not
in use, but the office in Operative Masonry corresponded to the Grand
Mastership in Speculative Masonry. William de Sens rebuilt Canterbury in 1174.
At Windsor. Robert of St. Albans; Arnold, at Croyland Abbey; Ailnoth (called
"engineer") at Windsor in 1166; Elias de Derham was overseer of the cathedral
of Salisbury from 1220 to 1245; Walter de Colchester at Canterbury in 1239,
(one of the greatest of Medieval Masters); Henry Yevele, Master of Kings Work
at Westminster (associated with Geoffrey Chaucer); Abbott Segur of Abbey of
St. Denis in 1140; Villard de Honnecourt at Cambrai; Geoffrey de L'oiers at
Lincoln; Walter of Colchester at St. Albans (1213 circa); Master Baldwin at
St. Albans (1186 circa); Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren w ere architects in
the modern sense of the word. A number of titles were used, either from one
country to another, or from one period to another: devysor, magister operis,
mgister fabricae, ecclesia, capo, maestro, cap maestro, etc.
The literature is abundant:
English Industries of the Middle Ages, by L. F. Salzman; Oxford; 1923.
Medieval Architecture, by A. K. Porter.
The Guilds of Florence, by Edgoumbe Staley. Art and Reformation, by G. G.
Gordon (detailed account of the famous Master Arnolfo). Westminster Abbey, by
W. R. Lethaby.
The Cathedral Builders in England, by Edward S. Prior; E. P. Dutton & Co.; New
York; 1905.
The Builders of Florence, by J. Wood Brown; Methuen & Co.; London; 1907.
Notes on the Superintendents of English Buildings in the Middle Ages, by Wyatt
Papworth. An Historical Essay on Architecture, by Thomas Hope; John Murray;
London.
James Dallazay incorporated a long list of Masters (page 421) in his Series of
Discourses Upon Architecture in England.
Architecture, by Wm. R. Lethaby.
The Master Masons to the Crown of Scotland and their Works, by Robert Scott
Mylne; Scott, Ferguson; 1893;
chapters on famous "Grand Masters."
History of Freemasonry, by R. F. Gould.
History of Freemasonry, by A. G. Mackey.
Historical Studies of Church Buildings in the Middle Ages, by Charles Eliot
Norton;
Harper & Bros.; New York; 1880; contains chapter on Arnolfo, Brunellschi, etc.
see Ars Quatuor Coronatorum; in particular,
"Chaucer and Henry Yevele," by Lionel Vibert;
Vol. XLIV., page 239; and "Henry Yvele," by W. Wonnacott; XXI., page 244.
Until the period of modern
research it was assumed that the famous buildings of the Middle Ages had been
anonymous. Matthew Paris, the savant, when writing of the Thirteenth Century,
w as one of the first to explode this fallacy; he explained it by saying that
the chronicles of architecture were most of them written by monks who were
jealous and contemptuous of lay workmen, and nearly always gave as the name of
the builder some Abbott (or Lord, or Bishop, etc.); such a one was described
as fecit, the maker; the Benedictines explained this mis-ascription of honor
as being "for the glory of the office." Each building was designed and erected
under the superintendency of a chief Master Mason; this latter w as famous in
his time and place, and made no attempt to hide his identity; it was only
afterwards, and when chronicles were written, that his headship was ignored or
suppressed.
*
GRAND STEWARDS LODGE
In 1719 Grand Master
Desaguliers "forthwith revived the old regular and peculiar Toasts or Healths
of the Free Masons." "In 1728 he proposed that a certain number of Stewards
should be chosen, who should have the entire care and direction of the Annual
Festival." It was thus that the rank of Grand Stewards was instituted in the
Mother Grand Lodge, 1717, England. In American Grand Lodges Grand Stewards
have few set duties; in the Mother Grand Lodge they had almost the whole care
of preparing for a Quarterly Grand Communication, and divided with the
Committee on Charity much of the administrative work of the infant Grand
Lodge. In 1731 they were given Red Aprons to wear (Lodges which regularly sent
Grand Stewards were called Red Apron Lodges), and it is believed that just as
the thistle blue adopted by Grand Lodge as the color for Grand Lodge Aprons
was borrowed from the Order of the Garter, the red of the Grand Stewards was
adopted from the Order of Bath. A Grand Stewards Lodge was constituted in
1735. (See page 421.) From Minutes of early Lodges it appears that an
appointment to wear the Red Apron was costly, either to the wearer or to his
Lodge; it also appears from the same Minutes that the office of Lodge Stewards
did not come into vogue until later, perhaps by following the lead of the
Grand Lodge. In Bro. Oxford's history of Lodge No. 4 he states that it was in
1774 that the By-laws provided for two Stewards, one to act as Master of
Ceremonies, one to order supper and liquors.
In American Lodges and Grand
Lodges a "feast" is seldom more than a supper, dinner, or banquet, usually
accompanied by a program of music and speeches. The English Lodge or Grand
Lodge Feast was an occasion of a different kind. In Grand Lodge itself much
Grand Lodge business was conducted at the table. Many constituent Lodges were
"table Lodges"; their members assembled around the table, set up in the middle
of the room, and remained there to open Lodge, conduct business, initiate
Candidates, etc.; this custom continued in some Lodges into the first decade
of the Nineteenth Century.
The Grand Stewards not only
"provided" the feast, but also no doubt arranged for items of Grand Lodge
business, and for that reason came to have an official standing second only to
the Grand Master, his Deputy, and his Wardens. For at least two centuries in
England, from about 1600 (and in lesser degree to the present) the social life
of the Lodge, especially its eating and drinking, was not a mere adjunct to
Lodge activity but stood near the center of it; the history of the Fraternity
proves that Lodge Stewards exist to have charge of a Lodge's social life, that
they should do so as Lodge officers, and that it is a departure from the
original design of the Lodge to leave that function to Special or to Standing
Committees.
In Vol. II, of Records of the
Lodge of Antiquity, page 234, Bro. and Captain C. W. Firebrace says: "In the
early days of Grand Lodge the Feast was provided by the voluntary efforts of
one or more Stewards. It was not till 1728 [eleven years after erection of the
Grand Lodge] that they were constituted into a Board of 12 members, and in
March, 1731/2, a law was made 'giving a privilege to every Acting Steward of
nominating his successor in that office for the year ensuing. [During the
years when the Grand Stewards chose the appointive Grand Officers, and also
chose their own successors it is evident that Grand Lodge was ruled by an
oligarchy it is one of the many facts of a like kind which aroused resentment
among Lodges and led to the formation of a now and more democratic Grand Lodge
in 1751.1 In 1771 lt was proposed in Grand Lodge:
"(1) That the Law of 1731/2 be
abrogated.
"(2) That there be 15 Stewards instead of l2.
"(3) That the Stewards be nominated by the Lodges within the Bills of
Mortality in rotation beginning with the Senior Lodge, each of such Lodges
having power to nominate one person at the annual Grand Feast to serve that
Office for the year ensuing."
These Resolutions were
approved at the next Meeting on November 29, but were not confirmed on
February 24,1772, and the old practice continued until the Union (of the
Modern (1717) and Ancient (1751) Grand Lodges in 1813. From a distance it
looks as if Grand Lodge had become a closed circle ruled by a few London
Lodges. In Minute Books it is referred to, now and then, not as Grand Lodge,
but as 'the London Grand Lodge. Lodges which resented this Londonism, or local
oligarchy, were willing to unite with the new Grand Lodge of 1751. For the
Festivals of 1814 and 1815 the Grand Stewards were nominated by the Grand
Master and the number increased to 18. Two years later it was decided that the
18 Lodges from which the Stewards of 1814 had been chosen should elect their
Stewards annually, and it has so remained until now, the number being
increased to 19 by the addition of an old Lodge which had been one of those
from which they were originally drawn, but which had afterwards dropped out.
Note. It will be noted that
Anderson's Constitutions state that Dr. Desaguliers revived "the old regular
and peculiar Toasts or Healths," etc. It is not difficult to understand why a
Toast list had to be "regulated," for an unregulated member might propose a
Toast to some man or cause which would disturb peace and harmony— thus, when
the feelings between Jacobites and Hanoverians were most intense, a Toast to
the Pretender would have aroused a storm; as would a toast to a Republican or
to a Democratic candidate at an American Grand Lodge banquet. One of the most
satisfactory books is The Grand Stewards and Red Apron Lodges, by Albert F.
Calvert; Kenning & Son; London; 1917.
*
GREENLEAF, SIMON
More than one American Masonic
scholar or statesman has declared (and the writer concurs) that the Achilles
heel of American Freemasonry is its neglect of, or its ignoring, or its
refusal to recognize or honor, its own scholars and its own literature. As one
of the "horrible examples" in testimony to the truth of this charge is the
case of A Brief Inquiry into the Origin and Principles of Free Masonry, by
Simon Greenleaf, published in Portland, Ale., in 1820. Our British Brothers in
the Craft have used, revered, honored, and countlessly quoted Calcott's Candid
Disquisition, Hutchinson's Spirit of Freemasonry, Preston's Illustrations, and
Laurence Dermott's Ahiman Rezon, to say nothing of a score or more of lesser
books (of the Eighteenth Century), but no one of those books is on a literary
level with A Brief Inquiry; nor was one of those writers possessed of
Greenleaf's massive scholarship, power and greatness of mind, or literary
ability. If those books are masterpieces, his is one also; yet his book is
nowhere reprinted, is nowhere in use, is wholly forgotten; and in andex rerum
covering the bound volumes of American and foreign Masonic periodicals
Greenleaf's book is nowhere mentioned, and the only reference to his name is
in a short letter about George Washington published in an obscure Masonic
periodical, long forgotten.
Simon Greenleaf was born in
Newburyport, Mass., Dec. 5, 1783, almost on the spot where his English
ancestor Edmund Greenleaf had settled in 1635, only fifteen years after the
landing at Plymouth Rock. He received a thorough classical training in the
Latin School there, and then went to live at New Gloucester, gaine, where his
parents had moved, and where he entered the law office of Ezekiel Whitman, who
was later to become Chief Justice. Greenleaf settled in the town of Gray, but
since his practice was light he spent twelve years in an intensive study of
the source materials of the common law, so that when in 1818 he moved to
Portland his reputation as a learned man already had preceded him; and in
1820, as reporter for the new Supreme Court of Maine he published vols. 1-9 of
Report of Cases, of which a historian of the law writes that "their accuracy
has never been impugned, and they have always been highly valued by the
profession." In 1833 he moved to Cambridge, brass., to become Royal Professor
at the Harvard Thaw school, being invited to that distinguished position by
Justice Joseph Story, himself a professor.
It was he and Story between
them who lifted the Harvard Law School to that high position from which it has
never since declined. In 1842 he published the first volume of A Treatise on
the Law of Endence, the second in 1846, and the third in 1853, since which it
has been re-issued by a long succession of editors. After his retirement he
edited and published in seven volumes an American edition of Cruises' Digest
of the Law, Etc. He was a leader in framing a constitution for Maine when it
became independent of Massachusetts. Among a number of other publications was
his great eulogy of Story published in 1845. He died October 5, 1853. (The
Greenleaf family for generations produced a succession of men eminent in
mathematics, geography, law, literature, public life. see articles beginning
at page 580 of the Dictionary of American Biography; Vol. VII; 1931.
The American Freemason, of
which Rob Morris was then the editor, published on page 53 of its issue for
Jan. 1, 1855, a letter which had been written by Bro. Greenleaf June 24, 1852,
and which was read at the next ensuing meeting of the General Grand Chapter.
It reads in part: "You are already aware that during the war of the Revolution
there was a Lodge of Freemasons in the main army called Washington Lodge, of
which my father, the late Captain Moses Greenleaf, of the 11th Massachusetts
regiment, was Master. I have often heard him mention the visits of the
Commander-in-Chief to his Lodge, and the high gratification they afforded to
the officers and members, especially as he came without ceremony as a private
Brothers (The official record of the warranting of Washington Lodge is given
on page 277, Oct. 6, 1779, of Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of
Massachusetts.)
Until Maine became a State,
its Lodges worked under the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. The name of Bro.
Greenleaf first appears in the Proceedings of Massachusetts as a member of a
temporary committee, March 14, 1814; and on September 12 of the same year is
again mentioned in the same connection. On August 25, of 1814, he delivered
the oration when the Grand Lodge consecrated York Lodge, at Kennebunk, bie. On
Dec. 27, 1816, Grand Master Benjamin Russell appointed him District Deputy
Grand Master, for the Ninth District (Maine), with residence at Gray; he was
re-appointed in 1817.
At a Communication of the
Grand Lodge in 1818, Greenleaf "and others" requested "that a stated portion
of the Revenues of the Grand Lodge may be annually appropriated in aid of the
funds of the American Bible Society," and this was referred to a committee of
which Thaddeus Mason Harris was chairman. Grand Lodge in 1819 refused to
appropriate its own (ear-marked) funds but agreed to recommend the Bible
Society to the Lodges. Greenleaf next appears in the 1819 Proceedings to
propose that Maine should have a Grand Lodge of its own. At that time he was a
member of Portland Lodge, No. 1, which had been constituted in 1769.
By a happy turn of fortune
when the history of that famous Lodge was written its author was none other
than Judge Josiah H. Drummond, himself one of the great New England
jurisconsults of his period, and, in addition, was the greatest authority on
Masonic Jurisprudence the American Craft has had. On page 240 he gives a
biographical sketch of Greenleaf:
*
SIMON GREENLEAF
"The first Brother elected an
Honorary Member of the Lodge, was the distinguished jurist, SIMON GREENLEAF.
"He was born in Newburyport,
Mass., December 5, 1783, and was educated at the Academy in that town. He came
to New Gloucester and studied law with Judge Whitman, and was admitted to the
bar in this County in 1805. He commenced practice in Standish, then moved to
Gray, and afterwards to Portland (about 1811). He was the first Reporter of
Decisions of the Supreme Court in this State and the nine volumes published by
him attest his ability, accuracy and fidelity. He published a Treatise on
Evidence, in three volumes, which at once became, and has ever since remained,
the standard work upon that important subject. In 1833, he was appointed Law
Professor in Harvard University, and removed to Cambridge. He performed the
duties with signal ability for fifteen years, and then resigned. He died in
Cambridge in 1853, at the age of seventy years.
"He was made a Mason in Cumberland Lodge, in 1804 and became a member in 1805,
and was elected Secretary the same year. In 1807, he was elected Master,
served three years, and then declined a unanimous election, being about to
remove from town. He dimitted from his Lodge and became a member of PORTLAND
LODGE.
"In 1817 and 1818, he was
District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, for the
Portland District, and performed the duties with great ability and zeal.
"He was the leading spirit in
the formation of the Grand Lodge—in fact is justly entitled to be called the
father of the movement. Upon its organization, he was elected Senior Grand
Warden, was afterwards Deputy Grand Master, and in 1822 and 1823, M. . W. .
Grand Master.
"He delivered several Masonic
addresses, and also published a work entitled 'A Brief Inquiry into the Origin
and Principles of Freemasonry, ' printed by Arthur Shirley (also an Honorary
Member of the Lodge), which is now quite rare.
"In addition to his ability as
a lawyer, he acquired such reputation as an orator, that he was called 'the
silver-tongued GREENLEAF.' In character, and in all respects, he was one whom
the Craft may well be proud to mention in their ranks."
A Brief Inquiry into the
Origin and Principles of Free Masonry was published by Arthur Shirley, in
1820, at which time Maine was still "The District of Maine." The copy in hand
is 5 by 9 inches; the title page is an engraving, and made by a competent
artist; it is bound in boards (probably a re-binding), and once belonged to
"United Lodge." It has no index, and contains 117 pages. The Preface is of VII
pages, and is signed "Simon Greenleaf, Portland, Jan. 1, 1820," in the first
sentence the author states that, "The following pages comprise the substance
of official lectures, delivered in the years 1817 and 1818, to the several
Lodges of the Ninth Masonic District of Massachusetts."' Lecture I is on the
historical evidences for the antiquity of the Craft.
Lecture II discusses whether
Freemasonry did not arise in Operative Masonry rather than from it. Lecture
III is on the Eleusinia, Pythagoreans, and Druids. Lecture IV is on Jewish
Masonry (Solomon's Temple).
Lecture V is on the Ancient Mysteries.
Lecture VI is on the Three Degrees.
Lecture VII is on "The Ultimate Design of Masonry."
The Appendix, Section 1, is on
the Locke MS. (so called); section 2 is a list of Grand Masters; section 3 is
a quotation from Preston; section 4 is a collection of Charges; section 5 is a
review of a number of (then) recent Masonic developments. (At the time of
publication of the book there mere 854 Lodges in the United States, and they
were initiating about 4000 new members per year.)
*
GRUBER, PATER HERMANN
The Abbe Pater Hermann Gruber,
of the Society of Jesuits, made a life-long profession of Anti-Masonry. He is
known to American Masons by his article on the Craft in the Catholic
Encyclopedia; in Europe he is known for books, hundreds of articles in
periodicals, speeches, and a Europe-wide correspondence in which he everywhere
undertook to show that Freemasonry is the enemy of Christianity. When, after
General Eric Ludendorff's violent Anti-Masonic campaign in Germany and the
equally violent Anti-Masonic campaign which was conducted so Scrupulously in
France after the Leo Taxil affair, the Fascists in France and Italy, the
Phalangists in Spain, and the Nazis in Germany coupled their war on the Jews
with a war on Masonry, and began to burn, demolish and pillage Lodge rooms,
and mob, shoot, and imprison Masons, Abbe Gruber appealed to those who had
taken his own arguments too literally to be more moderate. It was to his
credit. His endeavors at moderation were made the more difficult because the
Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII (Humanum Genus) against Freemasonry was the
official platform upon which he based his Anti-Masonic campaign, and that
Encyclical as mendacious, violent in judgment, harsh in language, completely
un- Christian in spirit, and an open invitation, set down in so many words, to
Roman Catholics to use once again the machinery of the Holy Inquisition. What
the Abbe Gruber has always lacked is what Leo XIII always lacked: a complete
honorableness, a high sense of truthfulness. This is exhibited by them both in
their Anti-Masonic writings as a whole; it is most clearly shown by the fact
that in both their denunciations and descriptions of Freemasonry they
carefully ignored the fact—known to both of them that more than 90% of the
Freemasonry of the world is in English-speaking countries, and that this
Regular Masonry alone has consistently conformed to the Ancient Landmarks.
In a series of articles which
Gruber published in Das neue Reich, the Catholic weekly of Austria, he himself
stated the fundamentals of his "criticisms" of Freemasonry:
1. He accused it of being
grounded on "liberalism." There is no means to define "liberalism," because it
is a political catch-word which is made to mean whatever a partisan wishes it
to mean; but one may guess that the Abbe Gruber meant by it what Leo XIII
meant by it in his Eneyclical; if so, it means democracy, public schools free
speech, a free press, representative government, civil; liberties, free
worship, and the absence of serfdom, slavery, etc., under an ecclesiastical
hierarchy or ruling clique or class. These things are taken for granted by
Free masonry, and ever have been; but it has never existed for the sole
purpose of teaching them as a doctrine. Its teachings belong to a different
region, one into which Abbe Gruber never penetrated and of which he had no;
knowledge.
2. He accused Masonry of
"naturalism," by which he meant materialism, Darwinism, etc. It is difficult
to know why, because a belief in God and a use of prayer are required of every
Candidate. He also accused it of "human itarianism." That also is a word
impossible to define; but in the context of the whole body of his writings the
Abbess accusation may be taken to mean that Masons treat other men with
respect, consideration, and kindliness even if they are not white men, or are
not Roman Catholics, or even if they are not Christians. His accusation is
true. Masons do those things.
3. He accused Masonry of
"Deism." The writer has elsewhere stated that the Abbe did not begin, as a
scholar should, by a thorough and impartial study of the history of
Freemasonry but began without it; this accusation is one of many proofs. If
anything is certain, Freemasonry began centuries before the doctrines of Deism
were invented; there is not one Deistical statement in the Land marks,
Constitutions, or the Ritual; the Deists themselves were not Masons; in the
200 or 80 Minutes or Histories of the oldest Lodges there is nowhere a mention
of Deists, or any record of the presence of Deists, except in one or two
instances where Candidates were excluded because they were Deists.
See Freemasonry and Roman
Catholmsm, by H. L. Haywood; Masonic History Company; Chicago; 1944. The
Freemason, by Eugen Lennhof; Oxford University Press; 1934. In an essay on
Freemasonry and "natural religion" Bros. Knoop and Jones discuss the point of
Deism; unless they intended to say what they do not appear to have said they
have confused Deism with any one of a number of theologies, such as
Monotheism, or with Unitarianism; or with the attempt of a group of Eighteenth
Century philosophers and theologians to show that "Christianity" can be proved
by facts and arguments drawn from science. Deism was a new doctrine, unique,
almost a new religion, and cannot be explained away in terms of something
else. (See Bishop Butler's "Analogy." On the subject in general see the works
of George Park Fisher.) The whole subject of Masonic philosophy is so far
removed from the fields of naturalism, Deism, etc., that it is difficult to
find sufficient grounds to reason from one to the other. Gruber, trained man
that he was, could easily have discovered for himself (as could Pope Leo XIII,
who was not a trained man) that there never was a link between Freemasonry and
Deism if he had mastered Masonic history, to do which, as stated above, was
his first duty, because it belongs to the "Hippocratic oath" of the gild of
scholars. It is not the business of scholars to go about gathering materials
for arguments, accusations, propaganda; their business is solely to find the
truth.
In June, 1928, the Abbe Gruber
held a day's conversation with Bros. Eugen Lennhof, Dr. Kurt Reichel, and
Ossian Lang at Aachen, Germany. On that occasion he expressed the hope that
Anti-Masons in Europe and Anti-Roman Catholics in America would raise the
debate to a more dignified level—afterwards French Anti-Masonic periodicals
accused him of having accepted bribes from the Masons! Bro. Lang was Secretary
of the Foreign Department of the Grand Lodge of New York at the time; after
returning from Europe he stated to the present writer that the Abbe had
regretted that his career had been to make war on Freemasonry which he had
come to admire; that his superiors had started him off with a collection of
inferior and misleading books; and he was afraid his article on Freemasonry in
the Catholic Encyclopedia had lowered him in the eyes of impartial scholars as
it had. American Freemasonry did not need that any man read it a lesson in
moderation; it had forbidden Lodges to so much as discuss Roman Catholicism
under the Order of Business.
*
GREUZE, JEAN BAPTISTE
Born August 21, 1725; died at
Paris, March 4, 1805. A celebrated French painter and engraver, his work
highly praised by Dixmerie and Diderot of his own generation and still
maintains its early reputation. His name apse pears on the list for 1779 of
the Lodge of the Nine Sisters at Paris (see Une Loge Maçonnique, d'Avant 1789,
Louis Amiable, 1897, page 329).
*
GRIDLEY, JEREMY
Born March 10, 1701/2, Boston,
Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard, 1725. taught school, on June 28, 1728,
given Degree of Master of Arts by Harvard, in 1731 founded the Weekly
Rehearsal, early Boston newspaper. Past Grand Master Isaiah Thomas (History of
Printing, volume I, page 3 7, 1810 edition) says the Weekly Rehearsal "was
carried on at the expense of some gentlemen who formed themselves into a
political or literary club and wrote for it. At the head of this club was the
late celebrated Jeremy Gridley who was the real editor of the paper." This,
the first newspaper or magazine published in America having substantial claim
to literary merit, secured this reputation largely from Brother Gridley's
masterly contributions.
Practically a complete volume
of this paper is on file with the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester,
Massachusetts. Gridley severed his connection with the Meekly Rehearsal April,
1733, and until June 10, 1742, practiced law and on this date was chosen
Attorney General by both Houses of Assembly. April 13, 1748 Gridley was
proposed to the First Lodge by Past Grand Master Henry Price, elected April
27, and made May 11. December 7, 1750, he was Raised in the Masters Lodge. At
that time few progressed beyond the grade of Entered Apprentice. Gridley
became a member of the First Lodge January 24, 1753.
He was elected Junior Warden,
Masters Lodge, December 1, 1752, and Senior Warden July 6, 1753. here tired
from office in the Masters Lodge December 7, 1753, and received unanimous
election as Master of the First Lodge, December 6, 1753. On October 1, 1755,
Jeremy Gridley was appointed Grand Master of Masons in North America. The
Boston Marine Society, formerly the Fellowship Club, on February 26, 1754, in
acknowledgment of his services, voted him the "freedom of the society for
life." Prior to May 19, 1755, Brother Gridley moved to Brookline and on May
25, 1767, he was appointed Kinffl's Attorney General. From 1767 his health
failed and the last time he presided over Grand Lodge was January 23, 1767.
His death occulted September 10, 1767, when he was Grand Master of Masons,
Attorney General for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a member of the Great
and General Court of the Province and a Justice, Colonel of the First Regiment
of Militia, President of the Marine Society, Selectman and Assessor of
Brookline. The following was written in memory of Brother Gridley by James
Otis, an eminent lawyer, raised in the Masters Lodge OD January 4, 1754:
Of Parts and Learning, Wit and
Worth possess'd
Gridley shone forth conspicuous o'er the rest:
In native Powers robust, and smit with Fame.
The Genius brighten d and the Spark took Flame
Nature and Science wove the laurel Crown,
Ambitious, each alike, conferr'd Renown.
High in the Dignity and Strength of Thought,
The Maze of Knowledge sedulous he sought,
With Mind Superior Studied and retain'd.
And Life and Property by Law Sustain'd.
Generous and free. his lib'ral Hand he spread
Th' Oppress'd relieved, and for the Seedy Plead
Awake to Friendship, with the ties of Mood
His Heart expanded and his Soul o'erflow'd.
Social in Converse. in the Senate brave.
Gay e en in Dignity, with Wisdom grave;
Long to his country and to Courts endear'd
The Judges honor'd and the Bar rever'd.
Rest! Peaceful Shade! innoxious as they Walk
May slander babble and may censure talk,
Ne'er on thy Mem'ry east a Blot
But human Frailties in thy Worth forgot
(See Beginnings of Freemasonry
in America, 1924, pages 119, 326 47, also Grand Master's address, both by
Brother Melvin M. Johnson, Proceedings, Massachusetts, 1916, pages 309-530.)
*
GRIP
In early Masonic works this is
called the gripe. German Freemasons call it der Griff, and the French ones,
I'Attouchement.
*
GROTON
In the Leland Manuscripts a
corruption of Crotona, where Pythagoras established his school of philosophy.
*
GROTTO
The complete name of this
organization is Mystic Order Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm. Al
Mokanna, the Veiled Prophet, bears also the name of Hakem ben Haschem, and
according to Persian records lived sometime between the seventh and eighth
centuries. Some authorities give the name of the prophet, Al Mokanna, the
Veiled One, as Al Hakim ibn Otto, and the date of his activity as about the
year 760. His prophecies were uttered from behind a veil, hence the term
applied to him. Thomas Moore wrote a poem interesting on account of the
details regarding Al Mokanna, as well for the mention of places and persons
useful in the naming of the Grottoes. However, in the case of the Grotto, the
poem by Moore was not the source of inspiration which produced the Ritual.
Mystic Order of Veiled
Prophets of the Enchanted Realm was the name finally chosen because of the
enchanting goodfellowship the members had found within the mystical realm of
the Order. As expressed by Commodore W. C. Eaton, the Order was planned to be
the most secluded of Secret Orders; it was to be veiled, and the Mokanna of
the poem was adopted as the mask or veil of secrecy which the Order was
supposed to wear before the world. Thus the Al Mokanna of the poem is not
indicative of the ideals taught by the Order; he is only the veil, and the use
of Persian names by Grottoes simply fringes the veil with the peculiar charm
of mysticism and imagery associated with all that comes from the mysterious
East. The real Mokanna of the Prophets dwells in the hearts of the faithful
and is so opposite in character to the false Mokanna of the poem that he is
known only to those who have looked behind the veil and beheld the Enchanted
Realm.
Dr. Oren Root of Hamilton
College gave at an early meeting of the Supreme Council a response to a toast
discussing the Why of the organization. From this we take the following:
Freemasonry deals with manhood, square and upright; it is practical and
earnest. Speculative minds have built upon the practical tenets of Freemasonry
extended systems having abstruse and complicated meanings. Others, fully
realizing that "Life is real, life is earnests have felt that the real would
be no less real, the earnestness no less strong, if there came the warmth of
humor, the gleam of wit, and the glow of sympathy. We need sunshine in life as
well as in the air. Master Masons, good and true, of Hamilton Lodge, No. 120,
averse to trespassing upon the dignified earnestness of the Lodge, yet feeling
the need and value of closer, warmer communion, were wont, after the Lodge
closed, to tarry for social intercourse. In the flowing humor and the
sparkling wit, in the joke and song, the heart warmth oft and long remembered
of these tarryings, they entered a Realm Enchanted, and by and by they became
its Prophets. To perpetuate what gave them pleasure, and as true warm souls
are generous to widen the scope of it, they organized. As they were
Freemasons.
they limited its boundary to
the Masonic Fraternity though it makes no claim to be Freemasonry. So the
Order came: Mystic in its subtle lessons as in its form; Veiled because no
human heart stands all revealed: of an Enchanted Realm, because who does not
know how duties wear and sorrows burden in any un-enchanted realm? If Rites
are framed to teach higher speculative tenets and we honor them, so too may
Rites well be framed to gather and scatter the warm-heart sunshine of life.
The Grand Alchemist has tested it; it is elixir.
The origin and development of
the Order is explained at length in Doctor Mackey's revised History of
Freemasonry (pages 198S91). The Grotto was born of an effort for stronger
sociability among the Brethren of Hamilton Lodge No. 120, Free and Accepted
Masons, Hamilton, New York. The very informality did not tend to the keeping
of complete records but any uncertainty later about the facts was met by the
circumstance that several of the original members long continued their able
activities in the Grotto, Brother Sidney D. Smith becoming the Grand
Secretary. Brother LeRoy Fairchild and other Brethren of Hamilton Lodge had
often met for fun and frolic.
Their lively social relations,
some times mischievous but never mean, resulted during the summer of 1889 in
an initiation promising rich enjoyment. This project received a warm welcome
and a more permanent organization seemed necessary. September 10, 1889, there
was an organization meeting held in the Masonic Hall at Hamilton of the
following Brethren: LeRoy Fairchild, George Beal, Sidney D. Smith, Thos. H.
Beal, Wm. M. West, J. W. Clark, U. C. Van Vleck, B. J. Stimson, Adon N. Smith,
H. S. Gardiner, C. J. Griswold. Robert Patterson, A. M. Russell, John A.
Holmgren, John F. Howe, G. G. Waldron, and Edwin L. Peet. At this first
meeting the following officers were elected: LeRoy Fairchild, K. D.; B. J.
Stimson, C. J.; George Beal, C.; J. W. Clark, C.; Thos. H. Beal, W. D. R.; and
Sidney D. Smith, Secretary.
This organization developed
into the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, but there was
at the start nothing more intended than a local affair. Of this we are assured
by the name. The assembled Brethren chose as a title the Fairchild Deviltry
Committee, and the presiding officer was called the King Devil . Membership
was decided at this first meeting to be confined exclusively to Master Masons
in good standing. Brothers R. R. Riddell and H. P. Tompkins were proposed as
the first candidates and a date was set for their initiation. The ceremony
proved a great success. A Ritual had been written by Brothers George Beal and
Adon N. Smith. This work evoked warm praise and a Ritual Committee comprising
Brothers R. R. Riddell, George Beal, A. N. Smith, LeRoy Fairchild, T. H. Beal,
and W. M. West, was appointed to further perfect the ceremonial.
When contributing his
recollections freely for this account of the Grotto, Grand Secretary Smith
accorded to Prophets R. R. Riddell and George Beal the credit for successfully
working out the revision. Brother Riddell brought ideal qualifications to the
task, brilliantly embellishing the revised work with gems fanciful and
sparkling, and inspiring much of the showy dash, urge and glitter. His
suggestion was that the characters be given mythological names. This idea
worked out splendidly though there was scarcely anything of classical
mythology in the drama. Prophet George Beal was the author of the original
Ritual and received valuable assistance from Brother Riddell and others in
working out the first revision but all the later work was done by him alone.
The pioneer labor of Brother Beal survived. Brother Smith so s that none of
the changes since made in the Ritual disturbed the main lines laid down by
Brother Beal.
The services of Prophet Beal
were officially recognized by the Supreme Council at the Annual Session held
in June, 1917, at Washington, District of Columbia, when a suitable resolution
was unanimously adopted and a Committee comprising Past Grand Monarchs Charles
E. Lansing, Hiram D. Rogers and J. F. McGregory was appointed to have it
engrossed and presented. The following quotation is from this testimonial:
Resolved, that the Supreme
Council in conjunction with all Veiled Prophets of the Realm do assure our
worthy and esteemed Prophet George Beal of our appreciation of his work as
Committee on Ritual, embracing as it does all the essential and beautiful
Seets of the Order, the promulgation of which has been a potent factor and
conducive to the advancement and upbuilding of the Order.
Brother Smith contradicts the
statement that the Grotto was founded on Chapter Twenty-four of the ancient
Egyptian Book of the Dead, as the original Ritual will show. A copy of this as
well as every revised edition is preserved in the safe of the Grand Secretary
and nearly all are in the handwriting of Prophet George Beal who, Brother
Smith tells us, never saw the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Minor modifications
became advisable and another Committee was appointed. This comprised Brothers
LeRoy Fairchild, George Beal, W. C. Eaton, and J. F. McGregory. They
eliminated some features and some additions were made by this Committee, and
these proved most acceptable. These amendments left the Ritual in a form which
at once became practically permanent.
Temporary and local as the
organization may have appeared at the beginning the success attained such
proportions that the growing institution needed a suitable governing and
organizing body. May 28, 1890, the Brethren of the F. D. C. met and studied
the extension of the Order. They unanimously resolved to establish a Supreme
Council with power to control affairs. Measures to that end were adopted.
Thereby the Supreme Council of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the
Enchanted Realm was duly set in operation on Friday, June 13, 1890, to carry
systematically onward to Master Masons everywhere the fun and frolic of the
Grotto. When the Supreme Council was organized there were fourteen members
present, Brother LeRoy Fairchild presiding, with Brother Sidney D. Smith
acting as Secretary. The Constitution and Statutes of the Supreme Council of
the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm were read and
approved. Officers were elected as follows:
Thomas L. James, Grand Monareh,
New York City.
LeRoy Fairchild, Deputy Grand Monarch, Hamilton, New York.
George H. Raymond, Grand Chief Justice, New York City.
J. C. Terry, Grand Master Ceremonies, St. Paul, Minnesota.
William M. West, Grand Treasurer, Hamilton, New York.
Sidney D. Smith, Grand Seeretary, Hamilton New York
Oren Root, Grand Keeper of Archived Clinton, New York.
James Byron Murray, Grand Orator, Auburn New York
V. G. Prophet, Hnmilton, New York.
U. C. Van Vleek, Trustee, Hamilton, New York.
Adon N. Smith, Trustee, Hamilton, New York
D. B. West, Trustee, Hamilton, New York.
The remaining offices were filled by the appointment of the following
Brothers:
Thomas II. Beal, Grand Captain of Guard, Hamilton New York.
J. F. Gregory, Grand Alchemist, Hamilton, New York.
Samuel J. Todd, Standard Bearer, New Orleans, Louisiana.
John Cunningham, Grand Marshal, Utiea. New York.
J. W. Clark. Grand Steward, Hamilton, New York
B. J. Stimson, Deputy Grand Chief Justice, Hamilton, New York.
George Beal, Deputy Grand Master of Ceremonies, Hamilton, New York.
These Brethren were installed
by Grand Chief Justice George H. Raymond and the elected Grand Officers were
empowered to complete the organization. A Charter was granted to Druid Grotto
No. 1 at Hamilton, New York, but this name was afterwards changed to Mokanna
Grotto at a meeting of the Supreme Council held on July 5, 1890. An Obligation
presented by Brother W. C. Eaton was formally adopted, and on his motion also,
the Deputy Grand Monarch, the Deputy Grand Chief Justice and the Deputy Grand
Master of Ceremonies were appointed a Committee to act upon reports submitted
by various Committees of the Supreme Council. After a banquet in the evening,
the Supreme Council adjourned to the following afternoon of June 14, 1890, at
3 P.M., when Deputy Grand Monarch LeRoy Fairchild installed Brother Thomas L.
James as Grand Monarch of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted
Realm. At this session the seal and badge of the Order were adopted. The
turhans of the Veiled Prophets were by resolution at a later session of 1890
permitted to be of any color a Grotto might select but to be used with a
silver veil. All turbans of the same Grotto were to be alike as to color, but
no purple to be worn except by members of the Supreme Council.
The Supreme Council meeting at
the Masonic Hall, Hamilton, June 11 l891, was memorable because a Dispensation
for the second Grotto was granted. This Body received a Charter from the
Supreme Council June 9, l892, as Khorassan Grotto No. 2, of Ilion, New York,
and at the same session a Charter was issued to Zeba Grotto, No. 4, at Rome in
that State. Dispensations had previously been given on August 26, 1891, to
Lalla Rookh Grotto, No. 3, of Rochester, New York, and to Zeba Grotto Lalla
Rookh receiving a Charter on June 27, 1893 at the first New York City meeting
of the Supreme Council when a Charter was also issued to Mirzola Grotto, No.
5. at Amsterdam, New York. Hiawatha Grotto, No. 8, at Anoka, Minnesota; Azim
Grotto, No. 7, of Nest York City, and Shiras Grotto, No. 8. at Antwerp, New
York, were granted Dispensations at this session. Charters were given to these
three Bodies together with one to Zelica Grotto, No. 9, at Kinderhook, New
York, on June 14, 1894, at the annual meeting held in the Scottish Rite Hall,
New York City.
Brother Adon Smith Was elected
Grand Monarch at the session of 1894 succeeding Brother James who had served
in 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1893. Grand Monarch Smith was reselected at the
Supreme Council annual sessions from June 14, 1894, to October 31, 1899. He
was also Monarch of Azim Grotto, No. z. A revision of the Constitution and
Statutes, and a Password were adopted at the New York City session of the
Supreme Council on June 6, 1895. The genial founder and constant inspiration
of the Grotto was Brother LeRoy Fairchild who died at his home in Hamilton,
New York, January 23, 1897, aged but 51 years. He was Deputy Grand Monarch
from the institution of the Supreme Council up to his death. Brother George F.
Loder of Rochester, New York;, was Grand Monarch in 1901 and 1902. He presided
at the Buffalo session on October 19, 1900, of the Supreme Council, Grand
Monarch Adon Smith dying in his 65th year on June 13, 1900, the tenth
anniversary of the organization of the Supreme Council. Grand Secretary Sidney
D. Smith resigned his office at the annual meeting in June, 1924, and was
succeeded in that position by Brother George Edward Hatch of Rochester, New
York, a Past Grand Monarch of 1910. In the Proceedings, Thirteenth Annual
Convention, 1902, there is a tribute on pages 12S7 to Brother Smith by his old
associate, Prophet George Beal, from which the following extract is taken:
"Grand Monarch Balston in
writing on this matter said, 'Surely, no one is more entitled to recognition
than our Grand Secretary who by his zealous work in the cause has done so much
toward the success of the Order.' To be thus mentioned by the Grand Monarch is
indeed a distinguished honor, but it is no more than is justly due Sidney D.
Smith for the eminent ability zeal and fidelity with which he has ever
discharged his duties as Grand Secretary." Of this we also bear tribute for he
generously co-operated in making this account of the Grotto accurate and
complete. Brother Smith died on November 12. 1924.
*
GROUND FLOOR OF KING SOLOMON"S
TEMPLE
This is said to have been a
Mosaic pavement, consisting of black and white stones laid lozengewise, and
surrounded by a tesselated border. The tradition of the Order is that Entered
Apprentices Lodges were held on the ground floor of King, Solomon's Temple;
and hence a Mosaic pavement, or a carpet representing one, is a very common
decoration of Masonic Lodges (see Mosaic Pavement and Grand Offerings).
*
GROUND FLOOR OF THE LODGE
Mount Moriah, on which the
temple of Solomon was built, is symbolically called the ground floor of the
Lodge, and hence it is said that "the Lodge rests on holy ground." This ground
floor Of the Lodge is remarkable for three great events recorded in Scripture,
which are called the three grand of erings of Freemasonry It was here that
Abraham prepared, as a token of his faith, to offer up his beloved son Isaac
this was the first rand offering; it was here that David, when his people were
afflicted with pestilence, built an altar, and offered thereon peace-offerings
and burnt offerings to appease the wrath of God this was the second grand
offering; and lastly, it was here that when the Temple was completed, King
Solomon dedicated that magnificent structure to the service of Jehovah, with
the offering of pious prayers and many costly presents and this was the third
grand offering. This sacred spot was once the threshing floor of Ornan the
Jebusite, and from him David purchased it for fifty shekels of silver. The
Cabalists delight to invest it with still more solemn associations, and
declare that it was the spot on which Adam was created and Abel slain (see
Holy Ground).
*
GRUMBACH, SYLVESTER
Mentioned in the legend of the
Strict Observance, and was the reputed Grand Master of the Templars from 1330
to 1339, and the twenty-second Grand Master.
*
GUARD
See Due Guard
*
GUARD OF THE CONCLAVE
See Knight of the Christian
Maria
*
GUARDS
Officers used in working the
ceremonies of the Red Cross and Templar Degrees. They do not constitute
regular officers of a Council or Commandery, but are appointed for a
particular purpose.
*
GUATEMALA
A republic of Central America.
The Grand Orient of Colombia organized in 1881 Constance Lodge at Cartagena.
This divided into three others affiliated with the Grand Orient of Central
America. On October 20, 1903, the Grand Orient of Guatemala was opened at
Guatemala City.
*
GUERRIER DE DUMAST
A distinguished French
Freemason, born at Nancy on February 26, 1796. He was the author of a poem
entitled La Maçonnerie, in three cantos, enriched with historical,
etymological, and critical notes, published in 1820. For this work he received
from the Lodge Freres Artistes, Brother Artists, of which he was the Orator, a
gold medal. He was the author of several other works, both Masonic and
secular.
*
GUGLIELMUS TYRIUS
Wrote a history of the
crusades having many references to the Knights Templar. An edition of this
work was published at London in 1640.
*
GUGOMOS, GOTTLIEB FRANZ,
FREIHERR VON,
An impostor in Freemasonry,
who, in 177O, appeared in Germany, and, being a member. of the Order of Strict
Observance, claimed that he had been delegated by the Unknown Superiors of the
Holy See, or principal office, at Cyprus to establish a new Order of Knights
Templars. Calling himself Duz, or the Ruler, and High Priest, he convoked a
Masonic Congress at Wiesbaden, which, notwithstanding the warning of Doctor
Bode, was attended by many influential members of the Fraternity. His
pretensions were so absurd, that at length his imposture was detected, and he
escaped secretly out of Wiesbaden. In 1786, Gugumos confessed the imposition,
and, it is said asserted that he had been employed as a tool by the Jesuits to
perform this part, that Freemasonry might be injured.
*
GUIANA
See British Guiana, Cayenne,
and Surinam
*
GUIBBS
The names given to the
Assassins of the Third Degree by some of the inventors of the advanced
Degrees, are of so singular a form as to have almost irresistibly led to the
conclusion that these names were bestowed by the adherents of the house of
Stuart upon some of their enemies as marks of infamy. Such, for instance, is
Romsel, the name of one of the Assassins in certain Scottish Degrees, which is
probably a corruption of Cromwell. Jubelum Guibbs, another name of one of
these traitors, has much puzzled the Masonic etymologists. Brother Mackey
believed that he had found its origin in the name of the Rev. Adam Gib, who
was an antiburgher clergyman of Edinburgh.
When that city was taken
possession of by the young Pretender, Charles Edward in 1745, the clergy
generally fled. But Gib removed only three miles from the city, where,
collecting his loyal congregation, he hurled anathema's for five successive
Sundays against the Pretender, and boldly prayed for the downfall of the
rebellion. He subsequently joined the loyal army, and at Falkirk took a rebel
prisoner. So active was Gib in his opposition to the cause of the house of
Stuart, and so obnoxious had he become, that several attempts were made by the
rebels to take his life. On Charles Edward's return to France, he erected in
1747 his Primordial Chapter at Arras; and in the composition of the advanced
Degrees there practiced, it is very probable that he bestowed the name of his
old enemy Gib on the most atrocious of the Assassins who figure in the legend
of Third Degree. The letter u was doubtless inserted to prevent the French, in
pronouncing the name, from falling into the soft sound of the G and called the
word Jib. The additional b and s were the natural and customary results of a
French attempt to spell a foreign proper name (see Arras, Primoraial Chapter
of ).
An old handbook in French,
Thuileur des Trentetrois Degrees use l'Ecossisme, published in l815 at Paris,
mentions on page 79 that some had derived the word Jabulum from Zabulon, a
Hebrew word meaning habitation.
*
GUICHARD, JEAN FRANÇOIS
A famous literary Freemason;
born at Chartrettes, near Melun, France, May 5, 1731; died there on February
23, 1811. He wrote a number of books including some comic operas and sprightly
verse. His name is on both lists of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters for 1806, as
having taken part in the Lodge after its revival but he is also on the roster
for 1779 (see Une Loge Maconnique, Louis Amiable, 1897, pages 298 and 313).
*
GUILD, MASONIC GRAND
SECRETARIES
See Masonic Grand Secretaries
Guild
*
GUILLEMAIN DE ST. VICTOR,
LOUIS
A distinguished French writer,
who published several works on Freemasonry, the most valuable and best known
of which is his Recueil Précieus de la Maçonnerie Adonhiraanite, meaning
Choice Selections of Adonhiramite Masonry, first issued at Paris in 1782. This
work, of which several editions were published, contains the catechisms of the
first four Degrees of Adonhiramite Freemasonry, and an account of several
other Degrees, and is enriched with many learned notes. Ragon, who speaks
highly of the work, erroneously attributes its authorship to the celebrated
Baron de Tschaldy.
*
GUILLOTIN, DOCTOR JOSEPH
IGNACE
Famous French physician and
zealous Freemason. Born at Saintes, May 28, 1738; died at Paris, March 26,
1814. Often credited with inventing the guillotine, a machine for beheading
those condemned to death in France, but this is untrue; neither did he die by
this means, as has been asserted. As Deputy to the Assembly, he urged, on
December 1, 1789, that capital punishment should be inflicted as speedily and
painlessly as possible, and argued for a machine. Although such contrivances
were not new, and in fact the one adopted at the time was perfected by Antoine
Louis, secretary of the Academy of Surgeons, and a mechanic, Schmidt, the
machine unjustly bears the name of him who pleaded for its use on humane
grounds.
One of the founders of the
Grand Orient of France, Doctor Guillotin was first the Orator of the Chamber
of the Provinces, becoming President, October 27, 1775, and was Worshipful
Master of Concorde Fraternelle Lodge at Paris, his name being on the list of
Lodges for 1776 with the address "at Schools of Medicine," and among the
officers of the Grand Orient, that year, he is qualified as professor of the
medical faculty in the University of Paris. He was in 1778 the founder of the
society which became the Academy of Medicine, and in 1784 he was with Benjamin
Franklin, American statesman, and Jean Sylvain Bailly, French astronomer, all
three members of the Lodge of the Nine Sisters, appointed the Royal Commission
to report on the animal magnetism claims of Mesmer (see Une Loge Maçonnique
d'Avant 1789, Louis Amiable, 1897, page 282).
*
GUINEA, FRENCH
See French Guinea
*
GUSTAVUS IV,
King of Sweden. He was
initiated into Freemasonry, at Stockholm, on Starch 10, 1793. Ten years after,
on March 9, 1803, Gustavus issued an Ordinance by which he required all the
secret societies in his dominions to make known to the Stadtholders of the
cities where they resided, and in the provinces to his Governors, not only the
formula of the oath which they administered to their members but the duties
which they prescribed, and the object of their association; and also to submit
at any time to a personal inspection by the officers of government. But at the
end of the Ordinance the lsing says: "The Freemasons, who are under our
immediate protection, are alone excepted from this inspection, and from this
Ordinance in general."
GUTTURAL POINT OF ENTRANCE
From the Latin guttur, meaning
the throat. The throat is that avenue of the body which is most employed in
the sins of intemperance, and hence it suggests to the Freemason certain
symbolic instructions in relation to the virtue of temperance (see Points of
Entrance, Perfect).
*
GYMNOSOPHIST
The Eighth Degree of the
Cabalistic Rite.
*
GYMNOSOPHISTS
Signifying naked sages. A name
given by the Greeks to those ancient Hindu philosophers who lived solitarily
in the woods, wore little or no clothing, and addicted themselves to mystical
contemplation and. the practice of the most rigorous asceticism. Strabo
divides them into Brahmans ant Samans, the former of whom adhered to the
strictest principles of caste, while the latter admitted any one into their
number regarding whose character and kindred they were satisfied. They
believed in the immortality of the soul and its migration into other bodies.
They practiced celibacy, abstained from wine, and lived on fruits. They held
riches in contempt, and abstained from sensual indulgences.
*
GYPSIES
Cornelius Van Paun, more
generally known as De Paun, in his Philosophical Researches on the Egyptians
and Chinese, published at Paris, 1774, advances the theory that Freemasonry
originated with the Gypsies. He says: ' Every person who was not guilty of
some crime could obtain admission to the lesser mysteries. Those vagabonds
called Egyptian priests in Greece and Italy required considerable sums for
initiation; and their successors, the Gypsies, practice similar mummeries to
obtain money.
And thus was Freemasonry
introduced into Europe. "But De Paun is remarkable for the paradoxical
character of his opinions. James Simpson, who has written a rather exhaustive
History of the Gypsies, published in 1866, points out (page 387)," a
considerable resemblance between Gypsyism, in its harmless aspect, and
Freemasonry with this difference, that the former is a general, while the
latter is a special, society; that is to say, the Gypsies have the language,
or some of the words and the signs peculiar to the whole race, which each
individual or class will use for different purposes. The race does not
necessarily, and does not in fact, have intercourse with every other member of
it. In that respect they resemble any ordinary community of men."
And he adds: "There are many Gypsies Freemasonry; indeed, they are the very
people to push their way into a Freemasons Lodge; for they have secrets of
their own, and are naturally anxious to pry into those of others, by which
they may be benefited. I was told of a Gypsy who died, lately, the Master of a
Freemasons' Lodge. A friend, a Freemason, told me the other day of his having
entered a house in Yetholm where were five Gypsies, all of whom responded to
his Masonic signs." But it must be remembered that Simpson is writing of the
Gypsies of Scotland, a kingdom where the race is considerably advanced above
those of any other country in civilization and in social position.
