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B
BAAL - BARN
BARR - BELC
BELE - BLUE
BIBLE
BOAR - BREA
BRET - BUIL
BUL - BY
Hebrew, He was the chief divinity among the Phoenicians, the Canaanites, and the Babylonians. The word signifies in Hebrew Lord or Master. It was among the Orientalists a comprehensive term, denoting divinity of any kind without reference to class or to sex. The Sabaists understood Baal as the sun, and Baalim, in the plural, were the sun, moon, and stars, "the host of heaven". Whenever the Israelites made one of their almost periodical deflections to idolatry, Baal seems to have been the favorite idol to whose worship they addicted themselves. Hence he became the especial object of denunciation with the prophets.
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Thus, in First Kings (xviii), we see Elijah showing, by practical demonstration, the difference between Baal and Jehovah. The idolaters, at his initiation, called on Baal, as their sun-god, to light the sacrificial fire, from morning until noon, because at noon he had acquired his greatest intensity. After noon, no fire having been kindled on the altar, they began to cry aloud, and to cut themselves in token of mortification, because as the sun descended there was no hope of his help. But Elijah, depending on Jehovah, made his sacrifice toward sunset, to show the greatest contrast between Baal and the true God. When the people saw the fire come down and consume the offering, they acknowledged the weakness of their idol, and falling on their faces cried out, Jehovah hu hahelohim, meaning Jehovah, He is the God. And Hosea afterward promises the people that they shall abandon their idolatry, and that he would take away from them the Shemoth hahbaalim, the names of the Baalim, so that they should be no more remembered by their names, and the people should in that day "know Jehovah". |
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Hence we see that there was an evident antagonism in the orthodox Hebrew mind between Jehmah and Baal. The latter was, however, worshiped by the Jews, whenever they became heterodox, and by all the Oriental or Shemitic nations as a supreme divinity, representing the sun in some of his modifications as the ruler of the day. In Tyre, Baal was the sun, and Ashtaroth, the moon. Baal-peor, the lord of priapism, was the sun represented as the generative principle of nature, and identical with the phallus of other religions. Baal-gad was the lord of the multitude (of stars) that is, the sun as the chief of the heavenly host. In brief, Baal seems to have been wherever his cultus was active, a development of the old sun worship. |
In Hebrew, which the writer of Genesis connects with, balal, meaning to confound, in reference to the confusion of tongues; but the true derivation is probably from Bab-El, meaning the gate of Et or the gate of God, because perhaps a Temple was the first building raised by the primitive nomads. It is the name of that celebrated tower attempted to be built on the plains of Shimar, 1775 A.M., about one hundred and forty years after the Deluge, which tower, Scripture informs us, was destroyed by a special interposition of the Almighty.
The Noachite Freemasons date the commencement of their Order from this destruction, and much traditionary information on this subject is preserved in the degree of Patriarch Noachite. At Babel, Oliver says that what has been called Spurious Freemasonry took its origin. That is to say, the people there abandoned the worship of the true God, and by their dispersion lost all knowledge of His existence, and of the principles of truth upon which Freemasonry is founded. Hence it is that the old instructions speak of the lofty tower of Babel as the, place where language was confounded and Freemasonry lost.
This is the theory first advanced by Anderson in his Constitution, and subsequently developed more extensively by Doctor Oliver in all his works, but especially in his Landmarks. As history, the doctrine is of no value, for it wants the element of authenticity.
But in a symbolic point of view it is highly suggestive.
If the tower of Babel represents the profane world of ignorance and darkness, and the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite is the symbol of Freemasonry, because the Solomonic Temple, of which it was the site, is the prototype of the spiritual temple which Freemasons are erecting, then we can readily understand how Freemasonry and the true use of language is lost in one and recovered in the other, and how the progress of the candidate in his initiation may properly be compared to the progress of truth from the confusion and ignorance of the Babel builders to the perfection and illumination of the temple builders, which Temple builders all Freemasons are. So, when, the neophyte, being asked "whence he comes and whither is he traveling", replies, "from the lofty tower of Babel, where language was confounded and Masonry lost, to the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, where language was restored and Freemasonry found", the questions and answers become intelligible from this symbolic point of view (see Ornan).
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"Tower of Babel" by an unknown Flemish Master, 1587, Kurpfalzisches Museum, Heidelberg. 
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The ancient capital of Chaldea, situated of both sides of the Euphrates, and once the most magnificent city of the ancient world. It was here that upon the destruction of Solomon's Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in the year of the world 3394 the Jews of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who were the inhabitants of Jerusalem, were conveyed and detained in captivity for seventy-two years, until Cyrus, King of Persia issued a decree for restoring them, and permitting them to rebuild their temple, under the superintendence of Zerubbabel, the Prince of the Captivity, and with the assistance of Joshua the High Priest and Haggai the Scribe. Babylon the Great, as the Prophet Daniel calls it was situated four hundred and seventy-five miles in a nearly due east direction from Jerusalem. It stood in the midst of a large and fertile plain on each side of the river Euphrates, which ran through it from north to south. It was surrounded with walls which were eighty-seven feet thick, three hundred and fifty in height, and sixty miles in compass. These were all built of large bricks cemented together with bitumen. Exterior to the walls was a wide and deep trench lined with the same material. Twenty-five gates on each side, made of solid brass, gave admission to the city. From each of these gates proceeded a wide street fifteen miles in length, and the whole was separated by means of other smaller divisions, and contained six hundred and seventy-six squares, each of which was two miles and a quarter in circumference. Two hundred and fifty towers placed upon the walls afforded the means of additional strength and protection. Within this immense circuit were to be found palaces and temples and other edifices of the utmost magnificence, which have caused the wealth, the luxury, and splendor of Babylon to become the favorite theme of the historians of antiquity, and which compelled the prophet Isaiah, even while denouncing its downfall, to speak of it as "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency". |
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Babylon, which, at the time of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, constituted a part of the Chaldean empire, was subsequently taken, 538 B.C., after a siege of two years, by Cyrus, King of Persia.
Another name for the degree of Babylonish Pass, which see.
See Initiation, Babylonian Rite of
See Captivity
A degree given in Scotland by the authority of the Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter. It is also called the Red Cross of Babylon, and is almost identical with the Knight of the Red Cross conferred in Commanderies of Knights Templar in America as a preparatory degree.
Freemasonry, borrowing its symbols from every source, has not neglected to make a selection of certain parts of the human body. From the back an important lesson is derived, which is fittingly developed in the Third Degree. Hence, in reference to this symbolism, Oliver says:
"It is a duty incumbent on every Mason to support a brother's character in his absence equally as though he were present; not to revile him behind his back, nor suffer it to be done by others, without using every necessary attempt to prevent it".
Hutchinson, Spirit of Masonry (page 205), referring to the same symbolic ceremony, says:
"The most material part of that brotherly love which should subsist among us Masons is that of speaking well of each other to the world; more especially it is expected of every member of this Fraternity that he should not traduce his brother. Calumny and slander are detestable crimes against society. Nothing can be viler than to traduce a man behind his back; it is like the villainy of an assassin who has not virtue enough to give his adversary the means of self-defense, but, lurking in darkness, stabs him whilst he is unarmed and unsuspicious of an enemy".
(see also Points of Fellowship)
Kenning's Cyclopaedia states that Backhouse reported to be an alchemist and astrologer and that Ashmole called him father. He published a Rosicrucian work, The Wise Man's Croton, or Rosicrucian Physic, by Eugenius Theodidactus, in 1651 at London. John Heydon published a book entitled William Backhouse's Way to Bliss, but Ashmole claims it in his diary to be his own.
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) and the Society of the Rose Baron of Verulam, commonly called Lord Bacon. Nicolai thinks that a great impulse was exercised upon the early history of Freemasonry by the New Atlantis of Lord Bacon. In this learned romance Bacon supposes that a vessel lands on an unknown island, called Bensalem, over which a certain King Solomon reigned in days of yore.
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This king had a large establishment, which was called the House of Solomon, or the college of the workmen of six days, namely, the days of the creation. He afterward describes the immense apparatus which was there employed in physical researches. There were, says he, deep grottoes and towers for the successful observation of certain phenomena of nature; artificial mineral waters; large buildings, in which meteors, the wind, thunder, and rain were imitated; extensive botanic gardens; entire fields, in which all kinds of animals were collected, for the study of their instincts and habits; houses filled with all the wonders of nature and art; a great number of learned men, each of whom, in his own country, had the direction of these things; they made journeys and observations; they wrote, they collected, they determined results and deliberated together as to what was proper to be published and what concealed. |
This romance became at once very popular, and everybody's attention was attracted by the allegory of the House of Solomon. But it also contributed to spread Bacon's views on experimental knowledge, and led afterward to the institution of the Royal Society, to which Nicolai attributes a common object with that of the Society of Freemasons, established, he says, about the same time, the difference being only that one was esoteric and the other esoteric in its instructions.
But the more immediate effect of the romance of Bacon was the institution of the Society of Astrologers, of which Elias Ashmole was a leading member.
Of this society Nicolai, in his work on the Origin and History of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, says:
"Its object was to build the House of Solomon, of the New Atlantis, in the literal sense, but the establishment was to remain as secret as the island of Bensalem - that is to say, they were to be engaged in the study of nature - but the instruction of its principles was to remain in the society in an esoteric form. These philosophers presented their idea in a strictly allegorical method. First, there were the ancient columns of Hermes, by which Iamblichus pretended that he had enlightened all the doubts of Porphyry. You then mounted, by several steps, to a checkered floor, divided into four regions, to denote the four superior sciences; after which came the types of the six days' work, which expressed the object of the society, and which were the same as those found on an engraved stone in my possession. The sense of all which was this: God created the world, and preserves it by fixed principles, full of wisdom; he who seeks to know these principles - that is to say, the interior of nature - approximates to God, and he who thus approximates to God obtains from his grace the power of commanding nature".
This society, he adds, met at Masons Hall in Basinghall Street, because many of its members were also members of the Masons Company, into which they all afterward entered and assumed the name of Free and Accepted Masons, and thus he traces the origin of the Order to the New Atlantis and the House of Solomon of Lord Bacon. That is only a theory, but it seems to throw some light on that long process of incubation which terminated at last, in 1717, in the production of the Grand Lodge of England. The connection of Ashmole with the Freemasons is a singular one, and has led to some controversy.
The views of Nicolai, if not altogether correct, may suggest the possibility of an explanation. Certain it is that the eminent astrologers of England, as we learn from Ashmole's Diary, were on terms of intimacy with the Freemasons in the seventeenth century, and that many Fellows of the Royal Society were also prominent members of the early Grand Lodge of England which was established in 1717.
An English monk who made wonderful discoveries in many sciences. He was born in Ilchester in 1214, educated at Oxford and Paris, and entered the Franciscan Order in his twenty-fifth year. He explored the secrets of nature, and made many discoveries, the application of which was looked upon as magic. He denounced the ignorance and immorality of the clergy, resulting in accusations through revenge, and finally in his imprisonment. He was noted as a Rosicrucian.
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(1220 - 1292)
He attempted to write a universal encyclopedia of knowledge. He is one of the first people (in the West) known to have mentioned gunpowder. Bacon appealed to Pope Clement to allow more experimentation in the educational system. He tried to construct a rainbow using glass beads in order to study it. This marked one of the earliest attempts to reproduce a natural phenomenon in the lab for closer scrutiny. |
The staff of office borne by the Grand Master of the Templars. In ecclesiology, baculus is the name given to the pastoral staff carried by a bishop or an abbot as the ensign of his dignity and authority. In pure Latinity, baculus means a long stick or staff, which was commonly carried by travelers, by shepherds, or by infirm and aged persons, and afterward, from affectation, by the Greek philosophers. In early times, this staff, made a little longer, was carried by kings and persons in authority, as a mark of distinction, and was thus the origin of the royal scepter.
The Christian church, borrowing many of its usages from antiquity, and alluding also, it is said, to the sacerdotal power which Christ conferred when he sent the apostles to preach, commanding them to take with them staves, adopted the pastoral staff, to be borne by a bishop, as symbolical of his power to inflict pastoral correction; and Durandus says, "By the pastoral staff is likewise understood the authority of doctrine. For by it the infirm are supported, the wavering are confirmed, those going astray are drawn to repentance". Catalin also says that "the baculus, or episcopal staff, is an ensign not only of honor, but also of dignity, power, and pastoral jurisdiction".
Honorius, a writer of the twelfth century, in his treatise De Gemma Animoe, gives to this pastoral staff the names both of bacutus and virga. Thus he says, "Bishops bear the staff (baculum), that by their teaching they may strengthen the weak in their faith; and they carry the rod (virgam), that by their power they may correct the unruly". And this is strikingly similar to the language used by St. Bernard in the Rule which he drew up for the government of the Templars.
In Article I xviii, he says, "The Master ought to hold the staff and the rod (bacutum et cirgam) in his hand, that is to say, the staff (baculum), that he may support the infirmities of the weak, and the rod (cirgam), that he may with the zeal of rectitude strike down the vices of delinquents".
The transmission of episcopal ensigns from bishops to the heads of ecclesiastical associations was not difficult in the Middle Ages; and hence it afterwards became one of the insignia of abbots, and the heads of confraternities connected with the Church, as a token of the possession of powers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Now, as the Papal bull, Omne datum Optimum, so named from its first three words, invested the Grand Master of the Templars with almost episcopal jurisdiction over the priests of his Order, he bore the baculus, or pastoral staff, as a mark of that jurisdiction, and thus it became a part of the Grand Master's insignia of office.
The baculus of the bishop, the abbot, and the confraternities was not precisely the same in form. The earliest episcopal staff terminated in a globular knob, or a tau cross, a cross of T shape. This was, however, soon replaced by the simple-curved termination, which resembles and is called a crook, in allusion to that used by shepherds to draw back and recall the sheep of their flock which have gone astray, thus symbolizing the expression of Christ, "I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine".
The baculus of the abbot does not differ in form from that of a bishop, but as the bishop carries the curved part of his staff pointing forward, to show the extent of his episcopal jurisdiction, so the abbot carries his pointing backward, to signify that his authority is limited to his monastery. The baculi, or staves of the confraternities, were surmounted by small tabernacles, with images or emblems, on a sort of carved cap, having reference to the particular gild or confraternity by which they were borne.
The baculus of the Knights Templar, which was borne by the Grand Master as the ensign of his office, in allusion to his quasi-episcopal jurisdiction, is described and delineated in Munter, Burnes, Addison, and all the other authorities, as a staff, on the top of which is an octagonal figure, surmounted with a cross patee, this French word being applied to the arms having enlarged ends. The cross, of course, refers to the Christian character of the Order, and the octagon alludes, it is said, to the eight beatitudes of our Savior in His Sermon on the Mount. The pastoral staff is variously designated, by ecclesiastical writers, as virga, ferula, cambutta, crocia, and pedum.
From crocia, whose root is the Latin crux, and the Italian croce, meaning a cross, we get the English word crozier. Pedum, another name of the baculus, signifies, in pure Latinity, a shepherd's crook, and thus strictly carries out the symbolic idea of a pastoral charge.
Hence, looking to the pastoral jurisdiction of the Grand Master of the Templars, his staff of office is described under the title of pedum magistrate seu patriarchale, that is, a magisterial or patriarchal staff, in the Statuta Commilitonum Ordinis Tempti, or the Statutes of the Fellow-soldiers of the Order of the Temple, as a part of the investiture of the Grand Master, in the following words:
Pedum magistrale seu patriarchale, aureum, in cacumine cujus crux Ordinis super orbem exaltur; that is, A Magisterial or patriarchal staff of gold, on the top of which is a cross of the Order, surmounting an orb or globe. This is from Statute xxviii, article 358. But of all these names, baculus is the one more commonly used by writers to designate the Templar pastoral staff.
In the year 1859 this staff of office was first adopted at Chicago by the Templars of the United States, during the Grand Mastership of Sir William B. Hubbard. But, unfortunately, at that time it received the name of abacus, a misnomer which was continued on the authority of a literary blunder of Sir Walter Scott, so that it has fallen to the lot of American Freemasons to perpetuate, in the use of this word, an error of the great novelist, resulting from his too careless writing, at which he would himself have been the first to smile, had his attention been called to it. Abacus, in mathematics, denotes an instrument or table used for calculation, and in architecture an ornamental part of a column; but it nowhere, in English or Latin, or any known language, signifies any kind of a staff.
Sir Walter Scott, who undoubtedly was thinking of baculus, in the hurry of the moment and a not improbable confusion of words and thoughts, wrote abacus, when, in his novel of Ivanhoe, he describes the Grand Master, Lucas Beaumanoir, as bearing in his hand "that singular abacus, or staff of office", committed a gross, but not uncommon, literary blunder, of a kind that is quite familiar to those who are conversant with the results of rapid composition, where the writer often thinks of one word and writes another.
In 1778 the Lodge Karl of Unity was established in Mannheim, which at that time belonged to Bavaria. In 1785 an electoral decree was issued prohibiting all secret meetings in the Bavarian Palatinate and the Lodge was closed. In 1803 Mannheim was transferred to the Grand Duchy of Baden, and in 1805 the Lodge was reopened, and in the following year accepted a warrant from the Grand Orient of France and took the name of Karl of Concord. Then it converted itself into the Grand Orient of Baden and was acknowledged as such by the Grand Orient of France in 1807.
Lodges were established at Bruchsal, Heidelberg, and Mannheim, and the Grand Orient of Baden ruled over them until 1813, when all secret societies were again prohibited, and it was not until 1846 that Masonic activity recommenced in Baden, when the Lodge Karl of Concord was awakened.
The Grand Orient of Baden went out of existence, but the Lodges in the Duchy, of which several have been established, came under the Grand National Mother-Lodge Zu den drei Weldkugeln, meaning Of the three Globes, in Berlin.
A mark, sign, token, or thing, says Webster, by which a person is distinguished in a particular place or employment, and
designating his relation to a person or to a particular occupation. It is in heraldry the same thing as a cognizance, a distinctive
mark or badge.
Thus, the followers and retainers of the house of Percy wore a silver crescent as a badge of their connection with that
family;
A representation of the white lion borne on the left arm was the badge of the house of Howard, Earl of Surrey;
The red rose
that of the House of Lancaster, and the white rose, of York.
So the apron, formed of white lambskin, is worn by the Freemason as a badge of his profession and a token of his connection with the Fraternity (see A apron).
BADGE OF A FREEMASONThe lambskin apron is so called (see Apron) |
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BADGE, ROYAL ARCHThe Royal Arch badge is the triple tau, which see. |
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See Baphomet
In the early days of the Grand Lodge of England the secretary used to carry a bag in processions, thus in the procession round the tables at the Grand Feast of 1724 we find "Secretary Cowper with the Bag" (see the Constitutions, edition of 1738, page 117).
In 1729 Lord Kingston, the Grand Master, provided at his own cost "a fine Velvet Bag for the Secretary", besides his badge of "Two golden Pens a-cross on his Breast" (see the above Constitutions, page 124). In the Procession of March from St. James' Square to Merchant Taylor's Hall on January 29, 1730, there came "The Secretary alone with his Badge and Bag, clothed, in a Chariot" (see the above Constitutions, page 125).
This practice continued throughout the Eighteenth century, for at the dedication of Freemasons' Hall in London in 1776 we find in the procession "Grand Secretary with the bag" (see the Constitutions of 1784, page 318). But at the union of the two rival Grand Lodges in 1813 the custom was changed, for in the order of procession at public ceremonies laid down in the Constitutions of 1815, we find "Grand Secretary with Book of Constitutions on a cushion" and "Grand Registrar with his bag", and the Grand Registrar of England still carries on ceremonial occasions a bag with the arms of the Grand Lodge embroidered on it.
American Union Lodge, operating during the War of the American Revolution in Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, and first erected at Roxbury, has in its records the accounts of processions of the Brethren. One of these is typical of the others and refers to the Festival of St. John the Baptist held on June 24, 1779, at Nelson's Point, New York.
Here they met at eight in the morning and elected their officers for the half year ensuing. Then they proceeded to West Point and, being joined by other Brethren, a procession was formed in the following order:
"Brother Whitney' to clear the way; the band of music with drums and fifes;
the Wardens;
the youngest brother with the bag;
brethren by juniority;
the Reverend Doctors Smith, Avery, and Hitchcock;
the Master of the Lodge, with the Treasurer on his right supporting the sword of justice, and the Secretary on his left, supporting the Bible, square and compasses;
Brother Binns to close, with Brothers Lorrain and Disborough on the flanks opposite the center".
From this description we note the care with which the old customs were preserved in all their details.
A significant word in the high degrees. Lenning says it is a corruption of the Hebrew Begoal-kol, meaning all is revealed, to which Mackenzie demurs. Pike says, Bagulkol, with a similar reference to a revelation. Rockwell gives in his manuscript, Bekalkel, without any meaning. The old rituals interpret it as signifying the faithful guardian of the sacred ark, a derivation clearly fanciful.
A group of islands forming a division of the British West Indies. Governor John Tinkler was appointed Provincial Grand Master in 1752 and Brother James Bradford in 1759. Brother Tinkler had been made a Freemason in 1730. These few facts are all that can be found with reference to the introduction by the "Moderns" of Freemasonry to the Bahamas. Possibly no further steps were taken.
A warrant was granted by the Ancient in 1785 for Lodge No. 228 but it was found to have ceased work when the registers were revised at the Union of 1814.
Another Lodge, No. 242, chartered at Nasau, New Providence existed longer but had disappeared when the lists were again revised in 1832.
The Masonic Province of the Bahamas originally comprised three Lodges chartered by the United Grand Lodge of England, Royal Victoria No. 649, Forth No. 930, and Britannia No. 1277. Brother J. F. Cooke was appointed the first Provincial Grand Master on November 7,1842, Of the Provincial Grand Lodge then formed.
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A German Doctor of Theology, who was born, in 1741, at Bischofswerda, and died in 1792. He is described by one of his biographers as being "notorious alike for his bold infidelity and for his evil life". We know no why Thory and Lenning have given his name a place in their vocabularies, as his literary labors bore no relation to Freemasonry, except inasmuch as that he was a Freemason, and that in 1787, with several other Freemasons, he founded at Halle a secret society called the German Union, or the Two and Twenty, in reference to the original number of its members. The object of this society was mid to be the enlightenment of mankind. It was dissolved in 1790, by the imprisonment of its founder for having written a libel against the Prussian Minister Woellner. It is incorrect to call this system of degrees a Masonic Rite (see German Union). |
Baird of Newbyth, the Substitute Grand Master of Scotland in 1841.
Deputy' Grand Master of England in 1744 under Lord Cranstoun and also under Lord Byron until 1752.
See Seales, Pair of
BALDACHINIn architecture, a canopy supported by pillars over an insulated altar. In Freemasonry, it has been applied by Some writers to the canopy over the Master's chair. The German Freemasons give this name to the covering of the Lodge, and reckon it therefore among the symbols. |
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The ancient Scandinavian or older German divinity. The hero of one of the most beautiful and interesting of the myths of the Edda; the second son of Odin and Frigga, and the husband of the maiden Nanna. In brief, the myth recites that Balder dreamed that his life was threatened, which being told to the gods, a council was held by them to secure his safety.
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The mother proceeded to demand and receive assurances from everything, iron and all metals, fire and water, stones, earth, plants, beasts, birds, reptiles, poisons, and diseases, that they would not injure Balder. Balder then became the subject of sport with the gods, who wrestled, cast darts, and in innumerable ways playfully tested his invulnerability. This finally displeased the mischievous, cunning Loki, the Spirit of Evil, who, in the form of an old woman, sought out the mother, Frigga, and ascertained from her that there had been excepted or omitted from the oath the little shrub Mistletoe, in haste Loki carried some of this shrub to the assembly of the gods, and gave to the blind Hoder, the god of war, selected slips, and directing his aim, Balder fell pierced to the heart. Sorrow among the gods was unutterable, and Frigga inquired who, to win her favor, would journey to Hades and obtain from the goddess Hel the release of Balder. The heroic Helmod or Hermoder, son of Odin, offered to undertake the journey. Hel consented to permit the return if all things animate and inanimate should weep for Balder. |
All living beings and all things wept, save the witch or giantess Thock, the stepdaughter of Loki, who refused to sympathize in the general mourning.
Balder was therefore obliged to linger in the kingdom of Hel until the end of the world.
A portion of military dress, being a scarf passing from the shoulder over the breast to the hip. In the dress regulations of the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the United States, adopted in 1862, it is called a scarf, and is thus described:
"Five inches wide in the whole, of white bordered with black, one inch on either side, a strip of navy lace one-fourth of an inch wide at the inner edge of the black. On the front center of the scarf, a metal star of nine points, in allusion to the nine founders of the Temple Order, inclosing the Passion Cross, surrounded by the Latin motto, In hoc signo vinces; the star to be three and three-quarter inches in diameter. The scarf to be worn from the right shoulder to the left hip, with the ends extending six inches below the point of intersection".
The successor of Godfrey of Bouillon as King of Jerusalem. In his reign the Order of Knights Templar was instituted, to whom he granted a place of habitation within the sacred enclosure of the Temple on Mount Moriah. He bestowed on the Order other marks of favor, and, as its patron, his name has been retained in grateful remembrance, and often adopted as a name of Commanderies of Masonic Templars.
There is at Bristol in England a famous Preceptory of Knights Templar, called the Baldwyn, which claims to have existed from time immemorial. This, together with the Chapter of Knights Rosae Crucis, is the continuation of the old Baldwyn Encampment, the name being derived from the Crusader, King of Jerusalem.
The earliest record preserved by this Preceptory is an authentic and important document dated December 20, 1780, and reads as follows:
"In the name of the Grand Architect of the Universe.
"The Supreme Grand and Royal Encampment of the Order of Knights Templars of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitalers and Knights of Malta, etc, etc.
"Whereas by Charter of Compact our Encampment is constituted the Supreme Grand and Royal Encampment of this Noble Order with full Power when Assembled to issue, publish and make known to all our loving Knights Companions whatever may contribute to their knowledge not inconsistent with its general Laws. Also to constitute and appoint any Officer or Officers to make and ordain such laws as from time to time may appear necessary to promote the Honor of our Noble Order in general and the more perfect government of our Supreme degree in particular.
"We therefore the MOST EMINENT GRAND MASTER The Grand Master of the Order, the Grand Master Assistant General, and two Grand Standard Bearers and Knights Companions for that purpose in full Encampment Assembled do make known".
Then follow twenty Statutes or Regulations for the government of the Order, and the document ends with "Done at our Castle in Bristol 20th day of December 1780".
It is not clear who were the parties to this "Compact", but it is thought probable that it was the result of an agreement between the Bristol Encampment and another ancient body at Bath, the Camp of Antiquity, to establish a supreme direction of the Order. However that may be, it is clear that the Bristol Encampment was erected into a Supreme Grand Encampment in 1780. An early reference to the Knights Templar occurs in a Bristol newspaper of January 25, 1772, so it may fairly be assumed that the Baldwyn Preceptory had been in existence before the date of the Charter of Compact.
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In 1791 the well-known Brother Thomas Dunckerley, who was Provincial Grand Master and Grand Superintendent of the Royal Arch Masons at Bristol, was requested by the Knights Templar of that city to be their Grand Master. He at once introduced great activity into the Order throughout England, and established the Grand Conclave in London-the forerunner of the Great Priory. The seven Degrees of the Camp of Baldwyn at that time probably consisted of the three of the Craft and that of the Royal Arch, which were necessary qualifications of all candidates as set forth in the Charter of Compact, then that of the Knights Templar of St. John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes and Malta, that of the Knights Rose Croix of Heredom, the seventh being the Grand Elected Knights Kadosh. |
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About the year 1813 the three Degrees of Nine Elect, Kilwinning, and East, Sword and Eagle were adopted by the Encampment. The
Kadosh having afterward discontinued, the five Royal Orders of Masonic Knighthood, of which the Encampment consisted, were:
Nine Elect; Kilwinning; East, Sword and Eagle, Knight Templar, and the Rose Croix.
For many years the Grand Conclave in London was in abeyance, but when H.R.H, the Duke of Sussex, who had been Grand Master since 1813, died in 1843, it was revived, and attempts were made to induce the Camp of Baldwyn to submit to its authority. These efforts were without avail, and in 1857 Baldwyn reasserted its position as a Supreme Grand and Royal Encampment, and shortly afterward issued Charters to six subordinate Encampments. The chief cause of difference with the London Grand Conclave was the question of giving up the old custom of working the Rose Croix Degree within the Camp.
At last, in 1862, the Baldwyn was enrolled by virtue of a Charter of Compact "under the Banner of the Grand Conclave of Masonic Knights Templar of England and Wales". lt was arranged that the Baldwyn Preceptory, as it was then called, should take precedence, with five others "of time immemorial", of the other Preceptories; that it should be constituted a Provincial Grand Commandery or Priory of itself; and should be entitled to confer the degree of Knights of Malta.
In 1881 a Treaty of Union was made with the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree, whereby the Baldwyn Rose Croix Chapter retained its time immemorial position and was placed at the head of the list of Chapters. It also became a District under the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree and is therefore placed under an Inspector General of its own.
The name given by the Orientalists to the Queen of Sheba, who visited King Solomon, and of whom they relate a number of fables (see Sheba, Queen of).
In the election of candidates, Lodges have recourse to a ballot of white and black balls. Some Grand Lodges permit the use of white balls with black cubes. However, the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania for 1890 (page 144) show that body decided for itself that "Black balls and not black cubes must be used in balloting in a Lodge", a decision emphasizing the old practice.
Unanimity of choice, in this case, was originally required; one black ball only being enough to reject a candidate, because as the Old Regulations say:
"The members of a particular Lodge are the best judges of it; and because, if a turbulent member should be imposed on them, it might spoil their harmony or hinder the, freedom of their communication, or even break up and disperse the Lodge, which ought to be avoided by all true and faithful" (see the Constitutions, 1738 edition, page 155).
"But it was found inconvenient to insist upon unanimity in several cases, and therefore the Grand Masters have allowed the Lodges to admit a member, if not above three Ballots are against him; though some Lodges desire no such allowance"(see above Constitutions).
This is still the rule under the English Constitution (see Rule 190).
In balloting for a candidate for initiation, every member is expected to vote. No one can be excused from sharing the responsibility of admission or rejection, except by the unanimous consent of the Lodge.
Where a member has himself no personal or acquired knowledge of the qualifications of the candidate, he is bound to give faith to the recommendation of his Brethren of the investigating committee, who, he is to presume, would not make a favorable report on the petition of an unworthy applicant.
Brother Mackey was of opinion that the most correct method in balloting for candidates is as follows:
The committee of investigation having reported, the Master of the Lodge directs the Senior Deacon to prepare the ballot-box. The mode in which this is accomplished is as follows:
The Senior Deacon takes the ballot-box, and, opening it, places all the white and black balls indiscriminately in one compartment, leaving the other entirely empty. He then proceeds with the box to the Junior and Senior Wardens, who satisfy themselves by an inspection that no ball has been left in the compartment in which the votes are to be deposited.
The box in this and in the other instance to be referred to hereafter, is presented to the inferior officer first, and then to his superior, that the examination and decision of the former may be substantiated and confirmed by the higher authority of the latter. Let it, indeed, be remembered, that in all such cases the usage of Masonic circumambulation is to be observed, and that, therefore, we must first pass the Junior's station before we can get to that of the Senior Warden. These officers having thus satisfied themselves that the box is in a proper condition for the reception of the ballots, it is then placed upon the altar by the Senior Deacon, who retires to his seat. The Master then directs the Secretary to call the roll, which is done by commencing with the Worshipful Master, and proceeding through all the officers down to the youngest member.
As a matter of convenience, the Secretary generally votes the last of those in the room, and then, if the Tiler is a member of the Lodge, he is called in, while the Junior Deacon tiles for him, and the name of the applicant having been told him, he is directed to deposit his ballot, which he does and then retires.
As the name of each officer and member is called, that brother approaches the altar, and having made the proper Masonic salutation to the Chair, he deposits his ballot and retires to his seat. The roll should be called slowly, so that at no time should there be more than one person present at the box, for the great object of the ballot being secrecy, no brother should be permitted so near the member voting as to distinguish the color of the ball he deposits.
The box is placed on the altar, and the ballot is deposited with the solemnity of a Masonic salutation that the voters may be duly impressed with the sacred and responsible nature of the duty they are called on to discharge.
The system of voting thus described is advocated by Brother Mackey as far better on this account than that sometimes adopted in Lodges, of handing round the box for the members to deposit their ballots from their seats.
There is also the practice of omitting the reading of the names of the officers and members, the Brethren in such cases forming a line and the one at the head advancing separately from the rest to deposit his ballot when the preceding brother leaves the box.
The Master having inquired of the Wardens if all have voted, then orders the Senior Deacon to "take charge of the ballot-box". That officer accordingly repairs to the altar, and takes possession of the box. Should the Senior Deacon be already in possession of the box, as in other methods of balloting we have mentioned, then the announcement by the Master may be "I therefore declare the ballot closed". In either case the Senior Deacon carries it, as before, to the Junior Warden, who examines the ballot, and reports, if all the balls are white, that "the box is clear in the South", or if there is one or more black balls, that "the box is foul in the South". The Deacon then carries it to the Senior Warden, and afterwards to the Master, who, of course, make the same report, according to the circumstance, with the necessary verbal variations of "West" and "East". If the box is clear, that is, if all the ballots are white, the Master then announces that the applicant has been duly elected, and the secretary makes a record of the fact. But if the box is foul, the Master inspects the number of black balls; if he finds only one, he so states the fact to the Lodge, and orders the Senior Deacon again to prepare the ballot-box. Here the same ceremonies are passed through that have already been described. The balls are removed into one compartment, the box is submitted to the inspection of the Wardens, it is placed upon the altar, the roll is called, the members advance and deposit their votes, the box is scrutinized, and the result declared by the Wardens and Master. If again one black ball be found, or if two or more appeared on the first ballot, the Master announces that the petition of the applicant has been rejected, and directs the usual record to be made by the Secretary and the notification to be given to the Grand Lodge.
The Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, 1877 (see also the Constitution of 1918, page 88), provides that the "Master may allow three ballotings, at his discretion, but when the balloting has been commenced it must be concluded, and the candidate declared accepted or rejected, without the intervention of any business whatever".
Balloting for membership or affiliation is subject to the same rules in both cases "previous notice, one month before", must be given to the Lodge, "due inquiry into the reputation and capacity of the candidate" must be made, and "the unanimous consent of all the members then present" must be obtained.
Nor can this unanimity be dispensed with in one case any more than it can in the other. It is the inherent privilege of every Lodge to judge of the qualifications of its own members, "nor is this inherent privilege subject to a dispensation".
The box in which the ballots or little balls or cubes used in voting for a candidate are deposited. It should be divided into two compartments, one of which is to contain both black and white balls, from which each member selects one, and the other, which is shielded by a partition provided with an aperture, to receive the ball that is to be deposited.
Various methods have been devised by which secrecy may be secured, so that a voter may select and deposit the ball he desires without the possibility of its being seen whether it is black or white. That which has been most in use in the United States is to have the aperture so covered by a part of the box as to prevent the hand from being seen when the ball is deposited.
See Reconsideration of the Ballot
The secrecy of the ballot is as essential to its perfection as its unanimity or its independence. If the vote were to be given viva voce, or by word of mouth, it is impossible that the improper influences of fear or interest should not sometimes be exerted, and timid members be thus induced to vote contrary to the dictates of their reason and conscience.
Hence, to secure this secrecy and protect the purity of choice, it has been wisely established as a usage, not only that the vote shall in these cases be taken by a ballot, but that there shall be no subsequent discussion of the subject. Not only has no member a right to inquire how his fellows have voted, but it is wholly out of order for him to explain his own vote.
The reason of this is evident. If one member has a right to rise in his place and announce that he deposited a white ball, then every other member has the same right in a Lodge of, say, twenty members, where an application has been rejected by one black ball, if nineteen members state that they did not deposit it, the inference is clear that the twentieth Brother has done so, and thus the secrecy of the ballot is at once destroyed.
The rejection having been announced from the Chair, the Lodge should at once proceed to other business, and it is the sacred duty of the presiding officer peremptorily and at once to check any rising discussion of the subject. Nothing must be done to impair the inviolable secrecy of the ballot.
Unanimity in the choice of candidates is considered so essential to the welfare of the Fraternity, that the Old Regulations have expressly provided for its preservation in the following words:
"But no man can be entered a Brother in any particular Lodge, or admitted to be a member thereof, without the unanimous consent of all the members of that Lodge then present when the candidate is proposed, and their consent is formally asked by the Master; and they are to signify their consent or dissent in their own prudent way, either virtually or in form, but with unanimity; nor is this inherent privilege subject to a dispensation; because the members of a particular Lodge are the best judges of it; and if a fractious member should be imposed on them, it might spoil their harmony, or hinder their freedom; or even break and disperse the Lodge, which ought to be avoided by all good and true brethren" (see the Constitutions, 1723 edition, page 59).
However, the rule of unanimity here referred to is applicable only to the United States of America, in all of whose Grand Lodges it has been strictly enforced.
Anderson tells us, in the second edition of the Constitutions, under the head of New Regulations (page 155), that:
"It was found inconvenient to insist upon unanimity in several cases; and, therefore, the Grand Masters have allowed the Lodges to admit a member if not above three ballots are against him; though some Lodges desire no such allowance".
Accordingly, the Constitution (Rule 190) of the Grand Lodge of England, says:
"No person can be made a Mason in or admitted a member of a Lodge, if, on the ballot, three black balls appear against him; but the by-laws of a Lodge may enact that one or two black balls shall exclude a candidate; and by-laws may also enact that a prescribed period shall elapse before any rejected candidate can be again proposed in that Lodge".
The Grand Lodge of Ireland (By-law 127) prescribes unanimity, unless there is a by-law of the subordinate Lodge to the contrary.
The Constitution of Scotland provides (by Rule 181) that "Three black balls shall exclude a candidate".
Lodges in the Colonies and in foreign parts may enact that two black balls shall exclude. In the continental Lodges, the modern English regulation prevails. It is only in the Lodges of the United States that the ancient rule of unanimity is strictly enforced.
Unanimity in the ballot is necessary to secure the harmony of the Lodge, which may be as seriously impaired by the admission of a candidate contrary to the wishes of one member as of three or more; for every man has his friends and his influence. Besides, it is unjust to any member, however humble he may be, to introduce among his associates one whose presence might be unpleasant to him, and whose admission would probably compel him to withdraw from the meetings, or even altogether from the Lodge.
Neither would any advantage really accrue to a Lodge by such a forced admission; for while receiving a new and untried member into its fold, it would be losing an old one. For these reasons, in the United States, in every one of its jurisdictions, the unanimity of the ballot is expressly insisted on; and it is evident, from what has been here said, that any less stringent regulation is a violation of the ancient law and usage.
Hosea Ballou was the founder of the Universalist Denomination which with the Unitarian Denomination introduced religious liberalism into New England.
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He was born in Richmond, New Hampshire, April 30, 1771, then in the wilderness. Until sixteen he could barely read or write, and had no schooling until twenty, when he entered a Quaker private school, after which he attended an academy. Before he died he had preached some 10,000 sermons and written enough to fill one hundred books. He was made a Mason (the particulars not known), and when he moved to Barnard in New Hampshire he joined the Woodstock Lodge, no 31. He was Worshipful Master in 1808. He delivered Masonic orations before a large number of Lodges. The minutes of Woodstock Lodge and of its predecessor, Warren, No. 23, should be published in facsimile because they are one of the few detailed records of a back country, New England Masonic community in the Revolutionary Period. The drinking of hard liquor, so prevalent in Colonial times even among churchmen, appears to have lingered longest in Lodges, and evidently was one of the small factors which led to the Anti-Masonic Crusade; it was one of the "Lodge problems" to which Bro. Ballou often addressed himself. |
See Cagliostro Organization
A Masonic Congress which met in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 8th of May, 1843, in consequence of a recommendation made by a preceding convention which had met in Washington, District of Columbia, in March, 1842.
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Its professed objects were to produce uniformity of Masonic work and to recommend such measures as should tend to the elevation of the Order.
The Congress continued in session for nine days, during which time it was principally occupied in an attempt to perfect the ritual, and in drawing up articles for the permanent organization of a Triennial Masonic Convention of the United States, to consist of delegates from all the Grand Lodges. In both of these efforts it failed, although several distinguished Freemasons took part in its proceedings.
The body was too small, consisting, as it did, of only twenty-three members, to exercise any decided popular influence on the Fraternity. Its plan of a Triennial Convention met with very general opposition, and its proposed ritual, familiarly known as the Baltimore work, has almost become a myth. Its only practical result was the preparation and publication of Moore's Trestle Board, a Monitor which has, however, been adopted only by a limited number of American Lodges. The Baltimore work did not materially differ from that originally established by Webb. Moore's Trestle Board professes to be an exposition of its monitorial part; a statement which, however, was denied by Doctor Dove, who was the President of the Convention, and the controversy on this point at the time between these two eminent Freemasons was conducted with too much bitterness.
The above Convention adopted a report endorsing "the establishment of a Grand National Convention possessing limited powers, to meet triennially to decide upon discrepancies in the work, provide for uniform Certificates or Diplomas, and to act as referee between Grand Lodges at variance. Whenever thirteen or more Grand Lodges should agree to the proposition, the Convention should be permanently formed".
Following the recommendation of the Convention, representatives from the Grand Lodges of...
...met at Winchester, Virginia, on May 11, 1846. Only eight delegates appearing, the Convention adjourned without doing any business.
Another Masonic Convention was held at Baltimore on September 23, 1847, to consider the propriety of forming a General Grand Lodge. The following Grand Lodges had accredited delegates:
Brother William P. Mellen, of Mississippi, presided, and Brother Joseph Robinson, of Maryland, was the Secretary. A Constitution was adopted and this was forwarded to the several Grand Lodges with the understanding that if sixteen of them approved the measure before January 1, 1849, it would go into effect and the first meeting thereunder would be held at Baltimore on the second Tuesday in July, 1849. But the Constitution failed to receive the approval of the required number of Grand Lodges and the project for a Supreme Grand Lodge came to a halt.
A small column or pilaster, corruptly called a banister; in French, balustre. Borrowing the architectural idea, the Freemasons of the Scottish Rite apply the word baluster to any official circular or other document issuing from a Supreme Council.
A French architect of some celebrity, and member of the Institute of Egypt. He founded the Lodge of the Great Sphinx at Paris. He was also a poet of no inconsiderable merit, and was the author of many Masonic canticles in the French language, among them the well-known hymn entitled Taisons nous, plus de bruit, the music of which was composed by M. Riguel. He died March 31, 1820, at which time he was inspector of the public works in the prefecture of the Seine.
The neck ribbon bearing the jewel of the office Lodge, Chapter, or Grand Lodge of various countries, and of the symbolic color pertaining to the body in which it is worn.
The name of an officer known in the higher Degrees of the French Rite. One who has in trust the banner; similar in station to the Standard-Bearer of a Grand Lodge, or of a Supreme Body of the Scottish Rite.
A small banner or pennant. An officer known in the Order of the Knights Templar, who, with the Marshal, had charge of warlike
under takings. A title of an order known as Knight Banneret, instituted by Edward I.
The banneret of the most ancient order of
knighthood called Knight Bachelor was shaped like Figure 1.
The Knights Banneret, next in age, had a pennant like Figure 2.
That of
the Barons was similar to the one shown in Figure 3.
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The pennon or pointed or forked flag was easily shorn off at the ends to make the other style of banneret and thus it came about that to show due appreciation of service the pointed end could be clipped on the field of battle when the owner was promoted in rank.
Much difficulty has been experienced by ritualists in reference to the true colors and proper arrangements of the banners used in an American Chapter of Royal Arch Masons.
It is admitted that they are four in number, and that their colors are blue, purple, scarlet, and white; and it is known, too, that the devices on these banners are a lion, an oz, a man, and an eagle. But the doubt is constantly arising as to the relation between these devices and these colors, and as to which of the former is to be appropriated to each of the latter.
The question, it is true, is one of mere ritualism, but it is important that the ritual should be always uniform, and hence the object of the present article is to attempt the solution of this question. The banners used in a Royal Arch Chapter are derived from those which are supposed to have been borne by the twelve Tribes of Israel during their encampment in the wilderness, to which reference is made in the second chapter of the Book of Numbers, and the second verse:
"Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard".
But as to what were the devices on the banners, or what were their respective colors, the Bible is absolutely silent.
To the inventive genius of the Talmudists are we indebted for all that we know or profess to know on this subject. These mystical philosophers have given to us with wonderful precision the various devices which they have borrowed from the death-bed prophecy of Jacob, and have sought, probably in their own fertile imaginations, for the appropriate colors.
The English Royal Arch Masons, whose system differs very much from that of their American Companions, display in their Chapters the twelve banners of the tribes in accordance with the Talmudic devices and colors. These have been very elaborately described by Doctor Oliver in his Historical Landmarks (11,583-97), and beautifully exemplified by Companion Harris in his Royal Arch Tracing Boards.
But our American Royal Arch Masons, as we have seen, use only four banners, being those attributed by the Talmudists to the four principal Tribes Judah, Ephraim, Reubenu, and Dan. The devices on these banners are respectively a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle. As to this there is no question, all authorities, such as they are, agreeing on this point.
But, as has been before said there is some diversity of opinion as to the colors of each, and necessarily as to the officers by whom they should be borne.
Some of the Targumists, or Jewish biblical commentators, say that the color of the banner of each Tribe was analogous to that of the stone which represented that Tribe in the breastplate of the High Priest. If this were correct, then the colors of the banners of the four leading Tribes would be red and green, namely, red for Judah, Ephraim, and Reuben, and green for Dan; these being the colors of the precious stones sardonyx, figure, carbuncle, and chrysolite, by which these Tribes were represented in the High Priest's Breastplate. Such an arrangement would not, of course, at all suit the symbolism of the American Royal Arch banners.
Equally unsatisfactory is the disposition of the colors derived from the arms of Speculative Freemasonry, as first displayed by Dermott in his Ahiman Rezon, which is familiar to all American Freemasons from the copy published by Cross in his Hieroglyphic Chart. In this piece of blazonry, the two fields occupied by Judah and Dan are azure, or blue, and those of Ephraim and Reuben are or, or golden yellow; an appropriation of colors altogether uncongenial with Royal Arch symbolism.
We must, then, depend on the Talmudic writers solely for the disposition and arrangement of the colors and devices of these
banners. From their works we learn that
the color of the banner of Judah was white;
that of Ephraim, scarlet;
that of Reuben, purple;
and that of Dan, blue;
and that the devices of the same Tribes were respectively the lion, the ox, the man, and the eagle. Hence, under this arrangement
and it is the only one upon which we can depend-the four banners in a Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, working in the American Rite,
should be distributed as follows among the banner-bearing officers:
See Table-Lodge
The imaginary idol, or rather the symbol, which the Knights Templar under Grand Master DeMolay were accused of employing in their mystic rites. The forty-second of the charges preferred against them by Pope Clement is in the' words:
Item quod ipsi per singulas provincias habeant idola:
videlicet capita qourum aliqua habebant tres facies, et alia unum:
et aliqua cranium humanum habebant;
meaning, also, that in all of the provinces they have idols, namely, heads, of which some had three faces, some one, and some had a human skull.
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Von Hammer-Purgstall, a bitter enemy of the Templars, in his book entitled The Mystery of Baphomet Revealed this old accusation, and attached to the Baphomet an impious signification. He derived the name from the Greek words, baptim, and supreme wisdom, the baptism of Metis, and thence supposed that it represented the admission of the initiated into the secret mysteries of the Order. From this gratuitous assumption he deduces his theory, set forth even in the very title of his work, that the Templars were convicted, by their own monuments, of being guilty as Gnostics and Ophites, of apostasy, idolatry, and impurity. Of this statement he offers no other historical testimony than the Articles of Accusation, themselves devoid of proof, but through which the Templars were made the victims of the jealousy of the Pope and the avarice of the King of France. |
Others again have thought that they could find in Baphomet a corruption of Mahomet, and hence they have asserted that the Templars had been perverted from their religious faith by the Saracens, with whom they had so much intercourse, sometimes as foes and sometimes as friends. Baphomet was indeed a common medieval form of the word Mahomet and that not only meant a false prophet but a demon. Hence any unholy or fantastic ceremonies were termed baffumerie, mahomerie, or mummery.
Nicolai, who wrote an Essay on the Accusations brought against the Templars, published at Berlin, in 1782, supposes, but doubtingly, that the figure of the Baphomet, figura Baffometi, which was depicted on a bust representing the Creator, was nothing else but the Pythagorean pentagon, the symbol of health and prosperity, borrowed by the Templars from the Gnostics, who in turn had obtained it from the School of Pythagoras.
King, in his learned work on the Gnostics, thinks that the Baphomet may have been a symbol of the Manicheans, with whose wide spreading heresy in the Middle Ages he does not doubt that a large portion of the inquiring spirits of the Temple had been intoxicated.
Another suggestion is by Brother Frank C. Higgins, Ancient Freemasonry ( page 108), that Baphomet is but the secret name of the Order of the Temple in an abbreviated form thus: Tem. Ohp. Ab. from the Latin Templi Omnium Hominum Pacis Abbas, intended to mean The Temple of the Father of Peace among Men.
Amid these conflicting views, all merely speculative, it will not be uncharitable or unreasonable to suggest that the Baphomet, or skull of the ancient Templars, was, like the relic of their modern Masonic representatives, simply an impressive symbol teaching the lesson of mortality, and that the latter has really been derived from the former.
The term Masonic Baptism has been applied in the United States by some authorities to that ceremony which is used in certain of the advanced Degrees, and which, more properly, should be called Lustration. It has been objected that the use of the term is calculated to give needless offence to scrupulous persons who might suppose it to be an imitation of a Christian sacrament. But, in fact, the Masonic baptism has no allusion whatsoever, either in form or design, to the sacrament of the Church. It is simply a lustration or purification by water, a ceremony which was common to all the ancient initiations (see Lustration).
BARBARY PIRATES, WARS ONThe regiments which fought across North Africa in World War II were not the first Americans to fight in Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, for in 1801 we sent our then infant navy there to make war on the pirates of the Barbary Coast who had been destroying shipping for many years, American included, and France and Britain together had not been able to stop them. If we succeeded where the latter had failed it was largely owing to the ingenuity of one man, William Eaton, Consul at Tunis, who from out of Egypt and with a small group of natives infiltrated from behind the coast. It was Eaton who sent home the famous message, "Send some cash and a few marines". The Marine Corps was born in that war. The majority of heroes and leaders in the war, which was neither short nor easy, were Masons, Stephen Decatur, William Bainbridge (probably), Commodore Edward Preble, Commodore Isaac Chauncey, Commodore Thomas MacDonough, etc. Decatur's utterance, quoted countless times, did not say that his country was never wrong or that he would support it in wrong doing; he said, "My country - may it ever be right, but, right or wrong, my country", the utterance plainly saying that his country might be in the wrong. Like his father before him, who had belonged to Veritas Lodge No. 16, Maryland, Decatur became a Mason early, in St. John's Lodge, Newport, R. I., in 1799. William Eaton was raised in North Star Lodge, Manchester, Vermont, in 1792. |
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Bearded Brothers - at an earlier date known as the Conversi craftsmen known among the Conventual Builders, admitted to the Abbey Corbey in the year 851, whose social grade was more elevated than the ordinary workmen, and were freeborn. The Conversi were Filicales or associates in the Abbeys, used a monastic kind of dress, could leave their profession whenever they chose and could return to civil life. Converts who abstained from secular pursuits as sinful and professed conversion to the higher life of the Abbeys, could stay without becoming monks. Scholae or gilds of such Operatives lodged within the convents.
We are told by Brother George F. Fort in his Criticat Inquiry Concerning the Mediaeval Conventual Builders, 1884, that the scholae of dextrous Barbati Fratres incurred the anger of their coreligionists, by their haughty deportment, sumptuous garb, liberty of movement, and refusal to have their long, flowing beards shaven-hence their name thus tending to the more fascinating attractions of civil life as time carried them forward through the centuries to the middle of the thirteenth, when William Abbott, of Premontré, attempted to enforce the rule of shaving the beard. "These worthy ancestors of our modern Craft deliberately refused", and they said, "if the execution of this order were pressed against them, they would fire every cloister and cathedral in the country". The decretal or edict was withdrawn.
A title of great dignity and importance among the ancient Britons, which was conferred only upon men of distinguished rank in society, and who filled a sacred office. It was the third or lowest of the three Degrees into which Druidism was divided (see Druidical Mysteries). There is an officer of the Grand Lodge of Scotland called the Grand Bard.
See Discalceation
BARNEY, COMMODORE JOSHUADistinguished American naval officer. Prominent for services rendered his country in the Wars of 1776 and 1812; wounded in land attack at Bladensberg. Said to have attended, about 1779, the Lodge of Nine Sisters at Paris, but his name does not appear in records of that Lodge published by Louis Amiable. His name appears on the roster of Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia, May 1, 1777 (see New Age, May, 1925). Born 1759, at Baltimore, Maryland, Brother Barney died 1818, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. |
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Masonic ritualist, born at Canaan, Connecticut, October, 1780. Made a Freemason in Friendship Lodge No. 20, at Charlotte, Vermont, in 1810. He was deeply interested in all that pertained to the work and purposes of the Institution, and in August, 1817, he went to Boston for the express purpose of receiving instruction directly from Thomas Smith Webb, which he succeeded in doing, with the assistance of Benjamin Gleason, then Grand Lecturer of Massachusetts.
He attended the Grand Lodge of Vermont on October 6, 1817, and was registered as a visiting Brother. At this meeting a request was presented on behalf of Brother Barney for the approbation of this Grand Lodge, as a Lecturing Master. A committee was appointed to investigate the certificates and documents respecting Barney's qualifications and the report was as follows:
That they had examined Brother Barney on the first Degrees of Masonry, and find him to be well acquainted with the Lectures, according to the most approved method of work in the United States, and believe that he may be advantageously employed by the Lodges and Brethren who may wish for his services; but as many of the Lodges in this State are already well acquainted with the several Masonic Lectures, we do not believe it would be consistent to appoint a Grand Lecturer to go through the State, as the several Lodges have to pay the District Deputy Grand Masters for their attendance. We therefore propose to the Grand Lodge that they give Brother Barney letters of recommendation to all Lodges and Brethren wherever he may wish to travel, as an unfortunate brother deprived of his health, and unable to procure a living by the common avocations of life, but who is well qualified to give useful Masonic information to any who wish for his services.
A. Robbins, For committee.
His first work after being authorized by his Grand Lodge was in Dorchester Lodge, at Vergennes, Vermont. He was employed by twelve members to, instruct them in the work and lectures. He continued lecturing in that State for several years. Brother Barney moved West in 1826, settling at Harpersfield, Ashtabula County, Ohio. In 1832 he assisted in establishing a Royal Arch Chapter in Cleveland, Ohio. He moved to Worthington, Ohio, in 1834, and became a member of New England Lodge No. 4 in that city.
Elected Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio in January, 1836. Which office he held until 1843. In 1841 the Grand Master said of him:
"The duties of Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, for the last two years especially, have been laborious and almost incessant. It were unnecessary for me to state to you a fact, which you are all so well apprised of, that his untiring and able exertions have essentially conduced to the prosperity which is now so apparent among our Lodges.
The labors of that officer are, however, now becoming burdensome, and the calls for his services will be more frequent as the wants of the fraternity increase".
Brother Barney was a delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1843. At the meeting of his Grand Lodge in that year the question of recognition of the Grand Lodge of Michigan was considered and he was appointed one of the committee to whom the matter was referred, but at his request was excused from such service, and this is the last record we have of him in connection with the Grand Lodge of Ohio. About this time he settled in Chicago, Illinois, becoming a member of Apollo Lodge No. 32 in that city.
He was appointed Grand Lecturer of the Grand Lodge of Illinois in October, 1845, holding the office for one year. Part of the years 1844 and 1845 were spent lecturing in Michigan, and his labors during these two years gave to that State the system which has been the authorized work for many years. Undoubtedly several states owe much to this worthy Brother for their close connection with the ceremonial work of Thomas Smith Webb. Brother Barney died on June 22, 1847, at Peoria, Illinois (see Freemasonry in Michigan, J. S. Conover, 1896, page 249; the Barney work is discussed in American Tyler, volume iii, No. 6, page 5, and No. 17, page 2, and volume v, No 18, page 4, and No. 28, page 10)
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