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A
AA - ACA
ABBREVIATIONS
ACC - ADONI
ADONIS - AHIAH
AHIM - ALLE
ALLI - AMER
AMERICAN (MILITARY) UNION LODGE
AMET - ANDRE
ANDREA - ANTOI
ANTON - ARCHIT
ARCHIV - ASHLAR
ASHM - AZ
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AMETH
Properly Emeth, which see.
AMETHYST Hebrew, achlemah. The ninth stone in the breastplate of the high priest. The amethyst is a stone in hardness next to the diamond, and of a deep red and blue color resembling the breast of a dove. |
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AMICISTS, ORDER OF
A secret association of students, once very extensively existing among the universities of Northern Germany, first about 1793, and again in 1810. According to Lenning this organization of students was widely spread, especially popular at Jena and Halle. Thory (Aeta Latomorum 1, 292), says that this association was first established in the College of Clermont, at Paris. An account of it was published at Halle in 1799, by F. C. Laukhard, under the title of Der Mosellaner-oder Amicisten- 0rden nach seiner Entstehung, innern Verfassung und Verbreitung auf den deutschen Universitaten. The Order was suppressed by the imperial government.
AMIS REUNIS, LOGE DES
The Lodge of United Friends, founded at Paris in 1771, was distinguished for the talents of many of its members, among whom was Savalette de Langes, and played for many years an important part in the affairs of French Masonry. In its bosom was originated, in 1775, the Rite of Philalethes. In 1784 it convoked the first Congress of Paris, which was held in 1785, for the laudable purpose of endeavoring to disentangle Freemasonry from the almost inextricable confusion into which it had fallen by the invention of so many rites and new degrees.
The Lodge was in possession of a valuable library for the use of its members, and had an excellent cabinet of the physical and natural sciences. Upon the death of Savalette, who was the soul of the Lodge, it fell into decay, and its books, manuscripts, and cabinet were scattered, according to Clavel's Histoire Pittoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie (page 171).
All of its library that was valuable was transferred to the archives of the Mother Ledge of the Philosophic Scottish Rite. Barruel gives a brilliant picture of the concerts, balls, and suppers given by this Lodge in its halcyon days, to which "les Crésus de la Maçonnerie", meaning the wealthy ones of Freemasonry (Crésus being the name of the proverbially rich king of Lydia), congregated, while a few superior members were engaged, as he says, in hatching political and revolutionary schemes, but really in plans for the elevation of Freemasonry as a philosophic institution (see Barruel, Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Jacobinisme iv, 343).
AMMON
see Amun
AMMONITISH WAR
A war oi interest in connection with the Fellow Craft Degree. The Ammonites were the descendants of the younger son of Lot, and dwelt east of the river Jordan, but originally formed no part of the land of Canaan, the Israelites having been directed not to molest them for the sake of their great progenitor, the nephew of Abraham.
But in the time of Jephthah, their king having charged the Israelites with taking away a part of his territory, the Ammonites crossed the river Jordan and made war upon the Israelites. Jephthah defeated them with great slaughter, and took an immense amount of spoil. It was on account of this spoil-in which they had no share that the Ephraimites rebelled against Jephthah, and gave him battle (see Ephraimites).
AMOR HONOR ET JUSTITIA
Love, Honor and Justice. A Latin motto of the Grand Lodge of England used prior to the union of 1813, which is to be found graven on the Masonic Token of 1794, commemorative of the election of the Prince of Wales as the Most Worshipful Grand Master, November 24, 1790.
AMPHIBALUS
See Saint Amphibalus
AMPLE FORM
When the Grand Master is present at the opening or closing of the Grand Lodge, it is said to be opened or closed "in ample form". Any ceremony performed by the Grand Master is said to be done "in ample form"; when performed by the Deputy, it is said to be "in due form"; and by any other temporarily presiding officer, it is "in form" (see Form).
AMRU
The name given to the Phoenician carpenter, who is represented in some legends as one of the assassins, Fanor and Metusael being the other two.
AMSHASPANDS
The name given in the Zoroastrian religion of the ancient Persians, the Parsees, in the Zend-Avesta, their bible an d prayer book, to the six good genii or powerful angels who continuously wait round the throne of Ormudz, or Ormazd. Also the name of the six summer months and the six productive working properties of nature.
AMULET
See Talisman
AMUN
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The Supreme God among the Egyptians. He was a concealed god, and is styled "the Celestial Lord who sheds light on hidden things". From him all things emanated, though he created nothing. He corresponded with the Jove of the Greeks, and, consequently, with the Jehovah of the Jews. His symbol was a ram, which animal was sacred to him. On the monuments he is represented with a human face and limbs free, having two tall straight feathers on his head, issuing from a red cap; in front of the plumes a disk is sometimes seen. His body is colored a deep blue. He is sometimes, however, represented with the head of a ram, and the Greek and Roman writers in general agree in describing him as being ram-headed. There is some confusion on this point. Kenrich says that Nouf was, in the majority of instances, the ram-headed god of the Egyptians; but he admits that Amun may have been sometimes so represented. |
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The student will be interested to learn that this word in the Hebrew language means builder or architect.
ANACHRONISM
Some Ritual makers, especially when they have been ignorant and uneducated, have often committed anachronisms or errors as to periods of time or dates by the introduction into Masonic ceremonies of matters entirely out of time. Thus, the use of a bell to indicate the hour of the night, practiced in the Third Degree; the placing of a celestial and a terrestrial globe on the summit of the pillars of the porch, in the Second Degree; and quotations from the New Testament and references to the teachings of Christ, in the Mark Degree, are all anachronisms. But, although it were to be wished that these disturbances of the order of time had been avoided, the fault is not really of much importance.
The object of the ritualist was simply to convey an idea, and this he has done in the way which he supposed would be most readily comprehended by those for whom the ritual was made.
The idea itself is old, although the mode of conveying it may be new. Thus, the bell is used to indicate a specific point of time, the globes to symbolize the universality of Freemasonry, and passages from the New Testament to teach the practice of duties whose obligations are older than Christianity.
ANAGRAM
The letters of a word or phrase so transposed as to make a different word or phrase. The manufacture of anagrams out of proper names or other words has always been a favorite exercise, sometimes to pay a compliment as when Doctor Burney made Honor est a Nilo out of Horatio Nelson, the Latin phrase meaning "Honor is from the Nile", and alluding to his victory at that river on August 1, 1798 - and sometimes for purposes of secrecy, as when Robert Bacon concealed under an anagram one of the ingredients in his recipe for gunpowder, that the world might not too easily become acquainted with the composition of so dangerous a material.
The same method was adopted by the adherents of the house of Stuart when they manufactured their system of high degrees as a political engine, and thus, under an anagrammatic form, they made many words to designate their friends or, principally, their enemies of the opposite party. Most of these words it has now become impossible to restore to their original form, but several are readily decipherable.
Thus, among the assassins of the Third Degree, who symbolized, with them, the foes of the monarchy, we recognize Romvel as Cromwell, and Hoben as Bohun, Earl of Essex. It is only thus that we can ever hope to trace the origin of such words in the high degrees as Tercy, Stolkin, Morphey, etc. To look for them in any Hebrew roots would be a fruitless task. The derivation of many of them, on account of the obscurity of the persons to whom they refer, is, perhaps, forever lost; but of others the research for their meaning may be more successful.
ANANIAH
The name of a learned Egyptian, who is said to have introduced the Order of Mizraim from Egypt into Italy. Doctor Oliver (in his Landmarks, ii, page 75), states the tradition, but doubts its authenticity. It is in a1l probability a matter of doubt (see Mizraim, Rite of).
ANCHOR AND ARK
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The anchor, as a symbol of hope, does not appear to have belonged to the ancient and classic system of symbolism. The Goddess Spes, the word meaning Hope, was among the ancients represented in the form of an erect woman, holding the skirts of her garments in her left hand, and in her right a flower-shaped cup. This goddess was honored with several temples at Rome and her festival day was observed on August 1. As an emblem of hope, the anchor is peculiarly a Christian, and thence a Masonic, symbol. It is first found inscribed on the tombs in the catacombs of Rome, and the idea of using it is probably derived from the language of Saint Paul (Hebrews vi, 19), "which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast". |
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The primitive Christians looked upon life as a stormy voyage, and glad were the voyagers when it was done, and they had arrived safe in port. Of this the anchor was a symbol, and when their brethren carved it over the tomb, it was to them an expression of confidence that he who slept beneath had reached the haven of eternal rest. This is the belief of Kip, Catacombs of Rome (page l12). The strict identity between this conclusion and the Masonic idea of the symbol will be at once observed. "The anchor," says Mrs. Jameson in her Sacred and Legendary Art (1, page 34), "is the Christian symbol of immovable firmness, hope, and patience; and we find it very frequently in the catacombs, and on the ancient Christian gems". This representation of the anchor is the peculiar attribute of Saint Clement, and is often inscribed on churches dedicated to him. |
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But there is a necessary connection between an anchor and a ship, and hence, the latter image has also been adopted as a symbol of the voyage of life; but, unlike the anchor, it was not confined to Christians, but was with the heathens also a favorite emblem of the close of life. Kip thinks the idea may have been derived from them by the Christian Fathers, who gave it a more elevated meaning. The ship is in Freemasonry substituted by the ark. Mrs. Jameson says in the above work that "the Ark of Noah floating safe amid the deluge, in which all things else were overwhelmed, was an obvious symbol of the Church of Christ. The ark of St. Peter tossed in the storm, and by the Redeemer guided safe to land, was also considered as symbolical". These symbolical views have been introduced into Freemasonry, with, however, the more extended application which the universal character of the Masonic religious faith required. Hence, in the Third Degree, whose teachings all relate to life and death, "The ark and anchor are emblems of a well-grounded hope and a well-spent life. They are emblematical of that Divine ark which safely wafts us over this tempestuous sea of troubles, and that anchor which shall safely moor us in a peaceful harbor where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary shall find rest". |
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Such is the language of the lecture of the Third Degree, and it gives all the information that is required on the esoteric meaning of these symbols. The history that is here added by Doctor Mackey of their probable origin will no doubt be interesting to the Masonic student.
ANCHOR, KNIGHT OF THE
See Knight of the Anchor
ANCHOR, ORDER OF KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF THE
A system of Freemasonry for both sexes which arose in France in the year 1745. It was a schism which sprang out of the order of Felicity from Which it differed only in being somewhat more refined. Its existence was not more durable than that of its predecessor. Clavel, in his Histoire Piltoresque de la Franc-Maçonnerie (page 111), gives this information (see Felicity, Order of).
ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED RITE
See Scottish Rite
ANCIENT ARABIC ORDER NOBLES OF THE MYSTIC SHRINE
See Shrine
ANCIENT GRAND LODGE, NOTES ON
The miscellany of data below is given to supplement the general survey of the Ancient Grand Lodge of England, of 1751, on page 75. These data have as much interest for American Masons as for English because the history of the Ancient Grand Lodge has a large place in general Masonic history; and because the more active half of Freemasonry in the United States at the end of the Revolution was of Ancient origin, directly or indirectly, or had been largely shaped by Ancient usages. (The data also are in support of the article on ANCIENT AND MODERNS which immediately follows. They are not arranged in chronological or logical order.) Laurence Dermott was born in Ireland in 1720; was Initiated in 1740; was Master of No. 26 in Dublin, 1746, and received the Royal Arch at same time. Shortly afterwards he moved to London, was registered technically as a "house painter" but would now be called an interior decorator. In a number of sources he is also described as a wine merchant. He joined a (Modern) Lodge in London, 1748; soon afterwards joined an Ancient Lodge. He became Secretary of the Ancient Grand Committee in 1752, later was Grand Secretary, served twice as Deputy Grand Master (in reality, was acting Grand Master). He was both architect and leader of the new Grand Lodge system.
He died in 1791, at the age of seventy-one a vigorous, aggressive, versatile, many-sided man of great native talent, who taught himself Latin and Hebrew, could both sing and compose songs, gave numberless speeches, and in its formative years was the driving force of the Grand Lodge to which he devoted forty of his years.
The Ancient (or Ancients) began as a Grand Committee, and became a Grand Lodge one step at a time.
It drew its membership from four sources:
The Ancient adopted that name to signify that they continued the ancient customs; the Moderns had "modernizing" the Work by altering Modes of Recognition, by dropping ceremonies, by becoming snobbish and exclusive a violation of an Ancient Landmark.
If these two names originated as epithets of abuse (there is no evidence that they did) they came into general usage and were employed everywhere without invidiousness. The Ancient made much of the name "York"; they had no connection with the Grand Lodge of All England at York, but adopted the term to suggest, according to the Old Charges, that Freemasonry as a Fraternity had begun at York - it was a device for claiming to adhere to ancient customs.
Ancient Lodges were popular in the American Colonies from the beginning because they were more democratic than Modern Lodges. Ancient Provincial Grand Lodges were set up (to work for a longer or a shorter time) in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York (it received in 1781 an Ancient Grand Lodge Charter), Virginia, and South Carolina.
There was from the first a close tie with the Grand Lodge of Ireland. For years Ireland did not recognize the Modern Grand Lodge. The Seals of Ireland and the Ancient were at one time almost identical; Warrants were similar. The Ancient adopted the Irish system of registering members (returns). Both issued certificates, sometimes in English, sometimes in Latin. Each of them had a peculiar interest in Hebrew; it is difficult to understand why unless it was in connection with the Royal Arch which both used, though the Modern did not.
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The Third Duke of Atholl (or Athole, or Athol) was Grand Master of the Ancient from 1771 to 1774 (in 1773 be was also Grand Master of Scotland). The Fourth Duke of Atholl was Grand Master from 1775 to 1781, and again from 1791 to 1812. Ireland had issued Army Warrants (or Regimental, or Ambulatory); the Ancient not only permitted but actively promoted the plan; by as early as 1789 they had issued 49 Army Warrants, a number of them for use in America. An attempt was made in 1797 to effect a Union with the Modern Grand Lodge, but it failed. Until the Union in 1813 many Masons never were able to understand the differences between the two Grand Bodies. For periods, or in some areas, the rivalry became bitter; at other times and places the relations were amicable. Usually, a Mason passing from a Modern to an Ancient Lodge or from an Ancient to a Modern had to be "remade". In a few instances a Lodge working under one Charter used the Work of the other; or it might surrender its Charter in one to seek a new Charter in the other (as Preston's mother Lodge did). The differences were real and not factitious as the result of quarreling; on both sides Brethren knew that before a Union could be effected a number of questions involving the fundamentals of Freemasonry would have to be answered. |
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One of these concerned the Royal Arch. Was it a part of the Master Degree? Could the Master Degree be complete without it? Should it be a separate Degree? If so, should a Lodge confer three Degrees?
The Union in 1813 gave two answers:In 1817 the Ancient and Modern Grand Chapters were amalgamated.
The earlier Masonic historians dated the first appearance of a rift as early as 1735. Modern Lodges complained to the Grand Lodges about "irregular makings" in 1739. It was discussed in that Grand Lodge again in 1740. In 1747 the Modern Grand Lodge made the mistake of electing "the wicked Lord Byron" to the Grand East, and kept him there for five years though he put in an appearance so seldom that a large number of Masons demanded a new Grand Master - this wide gap between the Grand Lodge and members was a fatal weakness in the Modern Grand Lodge system. A large number of "irregular" Lodges were formed, and between 1742 and 1752 forty-five Lodges were erased from the rolls.
The Modern Grand Lodge officially condemned the Ancient in 1755, though the Modern Grand Lodge did not have exclusive territorial jurisdiction in England, and had never claimed it, so that the Ancient were not invading jurisdiction and were not therefore "schismatics".
The Ancient elected Robert Turner their first Grand Master in 1753, with some 12 or so Lodges. In 1756 the Earl of Blesinton was Grand Master and remained so for four years, though Dermott was really in charge; 24 new Lodges were added to the roll. From 1760 to 1766, under the Earl of Kelly, 64 more were added. John, Third Duke of Atholl was installed Grand Master in 1771; by that year the roll increased to 197 Lodges. The Fourth Duke was installed in 1775. In 1799 he and the Earl of Moira, Grand Master of the Moderns, united to secure exemption of Masonry from Parliament's Secrecy Society Act of 1799. The Atholl family was active at the forefront of the Craft from 1771 to 1812.
In 1756 the Ancient published their Book of Constitutions, with Dermott himself taking the financial risk; taking that risk was another evidence of his great patriotism for the Fraternity because the publishing of a book was an expensive enterprise and Dermott's only "market" consisted of possibly thirty Lodges. Why he chose Ahiman Rezon for a title is a puzzle; it is also impossible to make sure of a translation because though the words are Hebrew he printed them in Roman letters. It probably meant "Worthy Brother Secretary", and implied that the book was a record, one to go by, etc. It was based primarily upon the Book of Constitutions of Ireland, and since the latter was originally a re-writing of the Modern's Book of 1723 the Ahiman Rezon did not differ materially from the latter, except that on pages here and there it had sentences filled with Dermott's own pungent flavor. But this was not an aping of the Moderns; Dermott was not, as one writer charges, "a plagiarist". Scotland and Ireland both had adopted the 1723 Book as their model.
The Moderns themselves had not presented their own Book as a new literary composition, but as a printed version of the Old Charges; therefore Masons thought of any one of the Constitutions as belonging to the Craft at large rather than to any one Grand Lodge. Acting steps toward a Union began in 1801, though an abortive one was attempted in the Ancient Grand Lodge in 1797. The Earl of Moira warranted the Lodge of Promulgation in 1809, expressly to prepare for union. At the Union in 1813 each Grand Lodge appointed a Committee of nine expert Master Masons; they formed themselves into the Lodge of Promulgation, which toiled to produce a Uniform Work from 1813 to 1816.
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At the ceremony of Union in 1813, 641 Modern Lodges and 359 Ancient Lodges were represented; both Grand Masters, the brother the Dukes of Kent and Sussex, sat together in the Grand East. The work of the Lodge of Reconciliation met with some opposition here and there from Masons who believed that England would be better off with two Grand Lodges. The Lodge of Promulgation met with little opposition but it encountered so many difficulties that it did not succeed in establishing a single uniform Ritual. The "sacred drawing of lots" about which Virgil wrote a purple passage in the Aeneid, and which belonged to the sacred liturgy of the Romans, was, romantically enough, made use of at the Union. Each Grand Lodge had a list of numbered Lodges beginning with 1 (though in the Ancient this was a Grand Masters Lodge); which set of numbers should have priority? It was decided by lot, the Ancient drawing Lodge No. 1, No. 3, No. 5, and so on to win it; in this manner the Modern Lodge of Antiquity No, 1 became No. 2 in the new United Grand Lodge. |
By an almost incredible chance the Lodges on the lists of the Grand Lodges added together to the sum of exactly 1000; 641 on the Modern list, 359 on the Ancient. In instances where a Modern and an Ancient Lodge were near neighbors, or where one was very weak, and the other strong, many Lodges were afterwards consolidated and others were removed from the roll. Altogether the new combined list numbered 647, which means a decrease by 353 Lodges.
The work of preparing a new Code of Regulations was entrusted to a Board of General Purposes (it is still functioning) organized at a special Grand Lodge in 1815. The next step was to ask approval of the new Esoteric Work by the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland. To this end an International Commission was formed June 27, 1814, and deliberated until July 2; "the Three Grand Lodges were perfectly in unison in all the great and essential points of the Mystery and Craft, according to the immemorial traditions and uninterrupted usage of Ancient Masons". The three Bodies adopted eight resolutions which constitute The International Compact. (The approval of other English-Speaking Grand Lodges was taken as read.)
This Union was for the Ancient a far cry from 1751.
The earliest existing record of their Grand Committee is dated July 17, 1751; on that day seven Lodges "were authorized to grant dispensations and Warrants and to act as Grand Master", an odd arrangement and now difficult to understand. In the same year the Committee issued its first Warrant, one for a Lodge to meet at the Temple and Sun Tavern. This procedure of having Lodges issue or approve Warrants was at the opposite extreme from the Moderns, where the Grand Master himself issued Warrants - a fact very suggestive, for it hints at one of the reasons for establishing a new Masonic system. In 1752 five more were issued, the first Lodge was given No. 2 ; perhaps the Committee itself counted as No. 1.
In 1751 John Morgan was elected Secretary but failed; Laurence Dermott succeeded him in the next year, and held membership in Lodges No. 9 and 10. "In the earliest years of the Grand Lodge of Ancient we look in vain for the name of any officer or member distinguished for social rank or literary reputation. We do not find such scholars as Anderson or Payne or Desaguliers". In the course of time Dermott discovered that a society without a Patron of high rank was in a vulnerable position in the then state of English society.
He secured recognition from Ireland and Scotland.
He further strengthened his position by proclaiming the Royal Arch as "the root, heart, and marrow of Masonry". To meet this last, the Moderns had a Royal Arch Chapter in 1765, and in 1767 converted this into a Grand Chapter. Hughan says this "was virtually, though not actually, countenanced by the Grand Lodge. It was purely a defensive organization to meet the wants of the regular brethren [by which Hughan means members of Modern Lodges!] and prevent their joining the Ancient for Exaltation".
This was not a statesman-like procedure, nor a frank one and weakened the Moderns' position in many eyes. Dermott always accused the Moderns of having mutilated the Third Degree and of making of it "a new composition"; this sounds like a rash utterance, but it has to be remembered that for some years the Grand Lodges of Ireland and Scotland both agreed with him. On the basis of the evidence as a whole it appears that it was the Moderns who had done the "seceding" from the Landmarks, and therefore more entitled to the epithet of "schismatic" which Gould and Hughan both so often applied to the Ancient; the course followed by American Lodges after the introduction of Ancient Masonry here bears out that supposition; and also substantiates the theory that the tap-root of the division was the introduction of class distinctions into Masonry by the Moderns; for in the American Colonies Modern Lodges tended to be aristocratic, royalists, Tory.
As noted some paragraphs above "irregular" or "disaffected" Lodges began to be referred to as early as 1735, and by 1739 the subject was brought to the attention of the Modern Grand Lodge. These, combined with the already-existent or independent (or St. John) Lodges, plus an increasing number of new self-constituted Lodges, plus some Lodges where old "Operative" traditions were strong, would make it appear that the Ancient Grand Lodge was an expression of discontent, that there were enough "rebels" and "malcontents" waiting about to produce a new Grand Lodge of themselves. But this, while it is a reading accepted by a number of historians, will not do the Lodges that were independent were not craving a new Grand Lodge because they were independent; and as for disgruntlement in general, there was no aim or purpose or direction in it. To explain the origin of the new Grand Lodge of 1751 as a precipitation of discontent, a crystallization of mugwumpery, is to do an injustice to the men who established it. They were in no confusion; were not resentful; were not mere seceders, and still less (infinitely less-as Hughan failed to note) were they heretics.
They believed it right and wise and needful to constitute a second Grand Lodge; they proved themselves men of a high order of intelligence and ability in the Process; and the outcome proved that they had all along been better Masonic statesmen than the leaders of the Moderns. They are in memory entitled to be removed once and for ever from the dusty and clamorous charges of secession, disaffection, and what not a thing for which they were in no sense responsible and lifted to the platform of esteem and good reputation where they belong, alongside Desaguliers, Payne, Anderson, and Preston.
The best and soundest data on the Ancient is in the Minutes and Histories of Lodges for the period 1750 to 1813, British, Canadian, and of the United States (or Colonies); the records in such books are piecemeal, to be picked out at random, are a mosaic that needs potting together, but the data in them comprise the substance of the history itself, and to read them is to be contemporaneous with the events; at the very least they correct and give a picture of the Ancient Grand Lodge different from that painted by Gould, and perpetuated by his disciples.
For general works see:
Note Dermott made two statements of revealing significance: "I have not the least antipathy against the gentlemen members of the Modern Society; but, on the contrary, love and respect them"; and expressed hope to "live to see a general conformity and universal unity between the worthy Masons of all denominations". The latter was by Gould and his disciples made to sound as if Dermott referred to the Modern rand Lodge ; and Gould treats the whole subject of the Ancient on the basis that they had seceded from the Moderns, kept up a quarrel with the Moderns, and divided the field with them. But what did Dermott mean by "all denominations"? He would not have meant it to be "two". There was a Grand Lodge of all Masons at York; a Grand Lodge of England South of the River Trent; Ireland and Scotland did not recognize the Modern Grand Lodge; there were many independent St. Johns' Lodges; there were a number of Lodges suspended from the Modern lists yet still active.
It is absurd to suppose that Dermott and the Ancient Grand Lodge were in no better business than to heckle and oppose the Moderns which in fact and on the record he did not do; he had the whole Masonic state of affairs in mind; and even when he expressed a desire for friendly relations with the Modern Grand Lodge it does not follow that he desired amalgamation with it; more likely he desired to be able to work in harmony with it, and to see the four British Grand Lodges in harmony with each other.
Gould used the whole force of his great History and the weight of his own reputation to support his charge more than a century after the event that the Ancient Grand Lodge was a "schismatic" body composed of "seceders".
In his ill-organized and harsh chapter he appears throughout to have forgotten that when the small Modern Grand Lodge of 1717 had been formed there were some hundreds of Lodges in Britain, and that a large proportion of them turned upon it with that same charge; it was a new schism in the ancient Fraternity; it was composed of seceders from the Ancient Landmarks! The new, small, experimental Grand Body at London in 1717 was not formed by divine right, and possessed beforehand no sovereignty over Lodges anywhere. It was set up by only four (possibly five or six) out of some hundreds of Lodges. The four old Lodges acted solely for themselves. They had nothing more in view than a center for Lodges in London.
Any other four Lodges, or ten, or twenty, for a half century afterwards, had as much right as they to set up a Grand Lodge. They possessed no power of excommunication. By an action taken when the Duke of Wharton was Grand Master they even admitted that the Grand Lodge itself was but a union of independent Lodges; and that the four old Lodges still possessed complete sovereignty in their own affairs. The Grand Lodge at York was not questioned; nor the ones in Ireland or Scotland; nor were the self-constituted Lodges which had not joined the voluntary union. There was no justice, therefore, in condemning the Ancient Grand Committee of 1751 when it became a Grand Lodge as schismatic or as seceders. We who are two hundred years wise after the event can see how easily both Ancient and Moderns could have found a home under one Constitution, but before the new and untried Grand Lodge system had become established as essential to Freemasonry (at approximately 1775) it was not easy to see the way ahead; and for all anybody now knows it might have been better if not only two but four Grand Lodges had been formed in England, united in a system of comity similar to ours where 49 Grand Lodges live and act and agree as one.
Hughan began, writing his concise historical studies in the 1870's Gould in the 1880's; after almost three-quarters of a century there could be little purpose in the ordinary course of events in continuing to criticize their theories of the Ancient Grand Lodge. But a book is not a man; it can be as new and as alive a hundred years afterwards as on the day it was written; it is so with both Hughan and Gould; they are both being widely read by studious Masons and by Masonic writers, and read with respect, as is fitting, and read as having authority. They both accused the Ancient of having been "schismatics", "secessionists", and called them other had names, thereby raising the question of the regularity, legitimacy, and standing of the whole Ancient movement and with it questioning by implication more than half of the Freemasonry in Canada and the United States. Had they only stopped to consider, they would have seen that their question had already been answered, once and for all, and by a court possessing final authority, at the Union of 1813.
The Modern Grand Lodge had been a near neighbor to the Ancient Grand Lodge; had watched it coming into being; had followed it from day to day and year by year; the Ancient Grand Lodge was never out of its sight and this continued for 62 years. Yet in the act of effecting the Union the Modern Grand Lodge fully and freely recognized the Ancient Grand Lodge as its co-equal as of that date; recognized its regularity and legality; before the Union was consummated the two Grand Masters sat side by side in the same Grand East. Had the Ancient Grand Lodge surrendered and submitted itself; had it confessed mea culpa; had it sued for forgiveness; had it permitted itself to be healed and merged into the Modern Grand Lodge, its doing so would have proved it to have been "schismatic" and "secessionist". One may submit, and without reflection upon Gould or Hughan or their followers in their theory, that the Modern Grand Lodge knew far more about the facts in 1813 than they did in 1888; and that the official verdict of the Modern Grand Lodge, just, carefully reasoned, fully documented, and given without minority dissent, ought to have disposed of any question about the Ancient Grand Lodge from that time on.
ANCIENTS AND MODERNS
The article which begins at page 75 was written before the publication of some 200 or so Histories and Minute Books of old British and American Lodges, and before the special researches inspired by Henry Sadler's Masonic Facts and Fictions bad uncovered the detailed history of the Ancient Grand Lodge.
In London, 1717, the first Grand Lodge of Speculative Freemasonry was formed by four old Lodges, and possibly with the support or consent of a number of unrepresented Lodges. It was tentative, experimental, had no precedent to guide it; at the beginning it consisted of little more than a Grand Master with two Wardens to assist him, and claimed jurisdiction only over such Lodges as might unite with it in an area covering a radius of ten miles from the center of London. As it prospered it warranted (officially approved) Lodges outside of that area and in other countries, and in about twenty years set up a system of Provincial Grand Lodges throughout England.
There was at the time no doctrine of Exclusive Territorial Jurisdiction. A small Grand Lodge at York was not challenged. A Grand Lodge was formed by Lodges in Ireland in 1725; and in Scotland in 1736. If self-constituted Lodges of regular Masons did not unite with the Grand Lodge at London, it did not outlaw them (they were called St. John's Lodges) but permitted visitation between them and its own Lodges.
Freemasonry had been very popular in Ireland, even before its Grand Lodge of 1725; after 1725 Lodges sprang up in almost every Irish village. Many Englishmen lived in Dublin ("Dublin was almost an English city") and many families of English origin lived here and there in the Island, especially in North Ireland. It was commonplace for Irish, and for Anglo-Irish, to move to England, to enter business and the professions there, to attend school, etc.; during the food famines this number was greatly increased.
Among these (and the Irish were not "foreigners" but British!) were a large number of Masons; among these latter a majority were in retail business, or were carpenters, plumbers, painters, brick-layers, machinists, and in other so-called "trades". But when these Irish residents or citizens of London who were members in regular Irish Lodges came to visit Lodges in London or to dimit to them, they were turned away, were snubbed, were looked down on because by that time (in the 1730's) the Grand Lodge had become a fief of the Nobility, and its Lodges had become exclusive and snobbish. A carpenter or a mason or a house painter might be a member in good standing in a regular Irish Lodge, but he was not deemed worthy to sit among English "gentlemen". The Irish Masons held meetings among themselves, consulted the Grand Lodge of Ireland, set up a Grand Committee in the 1740's, and in 1751 turned this Committee into a regular Grand Lodge. This action was strictly in accordance with the Ancient Landmarks.
In the meantime many exposés had been published in London, and clandestine "Masons" pestered regular Lodges; and a certain amount of Anti-Masonry became active. To circumvent these clandestines the Grand Lodge shifted the Modes of Recognition from one Degree to another, and made other changes about which little is known in detail. It also discontinued the Ceremony of Installation of the Master, thereby reducing him to the status of a mere presiding officer with no inherent powers. These alterations in things that ought not to be altered aroused resentment among a large number of Lodges. As time progressed, and as Lodge Histories make clear, an increasing number of Lodges ceased to be Lodges and became convivial clubs-some of them very expensive clubs. By 1750 the Grand Lodge had thus departed a long way from the original design. In the cant language of the time it had "modernized" itself; and it came to be for that reason dubbed "the Modern Grand Lodge". The members of the new Grand Lodge of 1751 on the other band insisted on retaining the work and customs of the beginning, and because they did so declared themselves a Grand Lodge according to "the Ancient Institutions", and hence were called "Ancient Masons".
Because of this, a number of Modern Lodges took out Ancient Charters, a number of St. John Lodges took out Charters for the first time, and many new Lodges were warranted by it. Also, the new Grand Lodge conferred the Royal Arch, issued Ambulatory warrants to Army Lodges, and it had the good fortune to have Laurence Dermott for Grand Secretary, of whom Gould was to say that "without erring on the side of panegyric he was the most remarkable Mason of that time". There was in reality no need for this new Grand Lodge; had the Modern Grand Lodge been a genuinely representative Body instead of a governing club of aristocrats, had its Grand Master been accessible to the Lodges, and had both "parties" sat down in friendly discussion as they were to do after 1800, the whole Craft could have been made as strong and as united in 1750 as it was to become in 1850; but since it was not thus done, any Masonic historian must admit that the Ancient Grand Lodge was the salvation of the Craft, and (comparatively speaking) a great blessing to Freemasonry everywhere.
Mackey in his seven-volume history, and writing before Sadler and Crawley, was inclined to believe that the Ancient grew out of discontent, and a mood of rebellion. Gould, Hughan, Lane, etc., went farther: they condemned it in toto. In his History and in his concise History Gould blasted the whole of Ancient Masonry, and throughout his life insisted on calling them "Schismatics"; as also did a line of Masonic writers who followed him.
This un-Masonic snobbishness, this denial of brotherliness, was the one great sin of the Moderns, and the one great justification of the Ancient; in comparison with that innovation, irregularities in ceremony were of secondary importance, for where there is no meeting on the level there is no Freemasonry. This social cleavage inside of the Fraternity came to the surface and stood out in bold relief on this side of the Atlantic during the American Revolutionary period, and explains why so many Modern Lodges failed or shifted allegiance, and why the Ancient (especially in New York and Pennsylvania) swept the field; Modern Lodges here were on the whole Tory, Royalist, Loyalist, aristocratic, pro-British; Ancient Lodges were democratic, pro-Patriotic, as open to blacksmiths as to Royal Governors.
NOTE:
Since "Ancient" was at the time, and by both Grand Lodges, adopted as technically correct that spelling is here used. Bro. Clegg used "Ancient" on page 75; but see paragraph at top of the left-hand column on page 83. The Earl who was Grand Master of the Ancient in 1760-5 is spelled Blessington on page 77; Blesinton on page 140. The family itself spelled the name in a dozen forms but in a document still extant, and signed by him in a bold hand, the Earl himself spelled it Blesinton. Gould's History of Freemasonry spells it Blesington.
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In addition to being called "Ancient" the Grand Lodge of I751 was often called "Atholl" Gould's book on the Ancient Lodges is entitled Atholl Lodges. This name came into use because a Duke of Atholl was Grand Master over so many years: John, third Duke of Atholl, from 1771 to 1775; John fourth Duke of Atholl from 1775 to 1782 and again from 179I to 1813. In Canada, and, later, often in the American Colonies, the Ancient Body was called York Masonry. |
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In the 1903 edition of his A Concise History of Freemasonry [Gale & Polden; London], Robert Freke Gould heads his Chapter VII "The Great Schism in English Masonry"; on page 343 he describes Ancient Masons as "the seceders"; the whole burden of the chapter is that the 1751 Grand Body was born of a rebellion against the lawful authority of the Grand Lodge of 1717, and was therefore irregular and schismatic. After Gould had written his long History of Freemasonry Satdler and Crawley made their discoveries of written records, etc., which showed for the first time what the facts had been, and which proved that the Ancient had been neither Seceders nor Schismatics; Gould had access to these facts but when be came to write his Concise History he ignored them, and did so against the urgent protestations of his friends and colleagues. In the 1920's Fred J. M. Crowe issued a new and revised Edition of the Concise History, and in it deleted Gould's chapter on the Ancient and replaced it by one written by himself.
In a private letter he wrote that he had performed this labor of love not so much because a new edition of the book was demanded, as that English Masonic scholars felt themselves misrepresented by the position taken by their "premier historian".
It was therefore naturally expected that when he came to revise Gould's History of Freemasonry (in six volumes; Scribners; 1936) Bro. Dudley Wright would, like Crowe, make sure to revise completely Gould's chapter on the Ancient; for some reason which has not been explained he did not do so. Chapter IV, Vol. II, page 145, begins: "The Minutes of that Schismatic body," etc. This failure in revision is regrettable to American readers because the Revised History elsewhere makes it clear that more than half of early American Masonry (before 1781) was derived from Ancient sources.
ANCIENT CRAFT MASONRY
This is the popular name given to the three symbolic degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason.
The degree of Royal Arch is not generally included under this appellation; although, when considered as it really is a complement of the Third Degree, it must of course constitute a part of Ancient Craft Freemasonry. In the Articles of Union between the two Grand Lodges of England, adopted in 1813, it is declared that "pure Ancient Masonry consists of three degrees and no more, namely: those of the Entered Apprentice, the Fellow Craft and the Master Mason, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.
But this article is not intended to prevent any Lodge or Chapter from holding a meeting in any of the degrees of the Orders of Chivalry, according to the constitutions of the said Orders".
ANCIENT FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS
The title most generally assumed by the English and American Grand Lodges (see Titles of Grand Lodges).
ANCIENT or ANCIENT or ATHOLL FREEMASONS
In 1751 some Irish Freemasons in London established a body which they called the "Grand Lodge of England according to the Old
Institutions", and they styled themselves Ancient and the members of the regular Grand Lodge, established in 1717, Moderns. Thus
Dermott, in his Ahiman Rezon, divides the Freemasons of England into two classes, as follows: "The Ancient, under the name of Free and
Accepted Masons, according to the old Institutions; the Moderns, under the name of Freemasons of England.
And though a similarity of names, yet they differ exceedingly in makings, ceremonies, knowledge, Masonic language, and
installations; so much, that they always have been, and still continue to be, two distinct societies, totally independent of each
other" (see the seventh edition, page xxx).
The Ancient maintained that they alone preserved the ancient tenets and practices of Freemasonry, and that the regular Lodges had altered the Landmarks and made innovations, as they undoubtedly had done about the year 1730, when Prichard's book entitled Masonry Dissected appeared.
For a long time it was supposed that the Ancient were a schismatic body of seceders from the Premier Grand Lodge of England, but Brother Heary Sadler, in his Masonic Facts and Fictions, has proved that this view is erroneous, and that they were really Irish Freemasons who settled in London.
In the year 1756, Laurence Dermott, then Grand Secretary, and subsequently the Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Ancient, published a Book of Constitutions for the use of the Ancient Freemasons, under the title of Ahiman Rezon, which work went through several editions. This became the code of Masonic law for all who adhered, either in England or America, to the Grand Lodge of the Ancient, while the Grand Lodge of the Moderns, or the regular Grand Lodge of England, and its adherents, were governed by the regulations contained in Anderson's Constitutions, the first edition of which had been published in 1723.
The dissensions between the two Grand Lodges of England lasted until the year 1813, when, as will be hereafter seen, the two Bodies became consolidated under the name and title of the United Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons of England. Four years afterward a similar and final reconciliation took place in America, by the union of the two Grand Lodges in South Carolina. At this day all distinction between the Ancient and Moderns has ceased, and it lives only in the memory of the Masonic student.
What were the precise differences in the rituals of the Ancient and the Moderns, it is now perhaps impossible to discover, as from their esoteric nature they were only orally communicated. But some shrewd and near approximations to their real nature may be drawn by inference from the casual expressions which have fallen from the advocates of each body in the course of their long and generally bitter controversies.
Already has it been said that the regular Grand Lodge is stated to have made certain changes in the modes of recognition, in consequence of the publication of Samuel Prichard's spurious revelation. These changes were, as we traditionally learn, a simple transposition of certain words, by which that which had originally been the first became the second, and that which had been the second became the first. Hence Doctor Dalcho, the compiler of the original Ahiman Rezon of South Carolina, who was himself made in an Ancient Lodge, but was acquainted with both systems, says, in the edition of 1822 (page 193), "The real difference in point of importance was no greater than it would be to dispute whether the glove should be placed first upon the right or on the left".
A similar testimony as to the character of these changes is furnished by an address to the Duke of Atholl, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ancient, in which it is said: "I would beg leave to ask, whether two persons standing in the Guildhall of London, the one facing the statues of Gog and Magog, and the other with his back turned on them, could, with any degree of propriety, quarrel about their stations; as Gog must be on the right of one, and Magog on the right of the other. Such then, and far more insignificant, is the disputatious temper of the seceding Brethren, that on no better grounds than the above they choose to usurp a power and to aid in open and direct violation of the regulations they had solemnly engaged to maintain, and by every artifice possible to be devised endeavored to increase their numbers".
It was undoubtedly to the relative situation of the pillars of the porch, and the appropriation of their names in the ritual, that these innuendoes referred. As we have them now, they were made by the change effected by the Grand Lodge of Moderns, which transposed the original order in which they existed before the change, and in which order they are still preserved by the continental Lodges of Europe. Admitted as it is that the Modems did make innovations in the ritual; and although Preston asserts that the changes were made by the regular Grand Lodge to distinguish its members from those made by the Ancient Lodges, it is evident, from the language of the address just quoted, that the innovations were the cause and not the effect of the schism.
The inferential evidence is that the changes were made in consequence of, and as a safeguard against, spurious publications, and were intended, as has already been stated, to distinguish impostors from true Freemasons, and not schismatic or irregular Brethren from those who were orthodox and regular.
But outside of and beyond this transposition of words, there was another difference existing between the Ancient and the Moderns. Dalcho, who was acquainted with both systems, says that the Ancient Freemasons were in possession of marks of recognition known only to themselves. His language on this subject is positive.
"The Ancient York Masons," he says, "were certainly in possession of the original, universal marks, as they were known and given in the Lodges they had left, and which had descended through the Lodge of York, and that of England, down to their day. Besides these, we find they had peculiar marks of their own, which were unknown to the Body from which they had separated, and were unknown to the rest of the Masonic world. We have then, the evidence that they had two sets of marks; namely: those which they had brought with them from the original Body, and those which they had, we must suppose, themselves devised" (see page 192 of Doctor Dalcho's Ahiman Rezon).
Dermott, in his Ahiman Rezon, confirms this statement of Dalcho, if, indeed, it needs confirmation. He says that "a modern Mason may with safety communicate all his secrets to an Ancient Mason, but that an Ancient Mason cannot, with like safety, communicate all his secrets to a Modem Mason without further ceremony". He assigns as a reason for this, that "as a science comprehends an art (though an art cannot comprehend a science), even so Ancient Masonry contains everything valuable among the Moderns, as well as many other things that cannot be revealed without additional ceremonies".
Now, what were these "other things" known by the Ancient, and not known by the Moderns? What were these distinctive marks, which precluded the latter from visiting the Lodges of the former? Written history is of course silent as to these esoteric matters. But tradition, confirmed by, and at the same time explaining, the hints and casual intimations of contemporary writers, leads us to the almost irresistible inference that they were to be found in the different constructions of the Third, or Master's Degree, and the introduction into it of the Royal Arch element. For, as Doctor Oliver, in his History of the English Royal Arch ( page 21), says, "The division of the Third Degree and the fabrication of the English Royal Arch appear, on their own showing, to have been the work of the Ancient". Hence the Grand Secretary of the regular Grand Lodge, or that of the Moderns, replying to the application of an Ancient Freemason from Ireland for relief, says: "Our society (that is, the Moderns) is neither ,Arch, Royal Arch, nor Ancient, so that you have no right to partake of our charity".
This, then, is the solution of the difficulty. The Ancient, besides preserving the regular order of the words in the First and Second Degrees, which the Moderns had transposed (a transposition which has been retained in the Lodges of Britain and America, but which has never been observed by the continental Lodges of Europe, who continue the usage of the Ancient), also finished the otherwise imperfect Third Degree with its natural complement, the Royal Arch, a complement with which the Moderns were unacquainted, or which they, if they knew it once, had lost.
| 1753 | Robert Turner | → | 1754 - 1755 | Edward Voughan |
| 1756 - 1759 | Earl of Blessington | → | 1760 - 1765 | Earl of Kelly |
| 1766 - 1770 | The Hon. Thomas Matthew | → | 1771 - 1774 | third Duke of Atholl |
| 1775 - 1781 | fourth Duke of Atholl | → | 1782 - 1790 | Earl of Antrim |
| 1791 - 1813 | fourth Duke of Atholl | → | 1813 | Duke of Kent, under whom the two Grand Lodges were united |
The Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons was, shortly after its organization, recognized by the Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland. Through the ability and energy of its officers, but especially Laurence Dermott, at one time its Grand Secretary, and afterward its Deputy Grand Master, and the author of its Ahiman Rezon, or Book of Constitutions, it extended its influence and authority into foreign countries and into the British Colonies of America, where it became exceedingly popular. Here it organized several Provincial Grand Lodges, as, for instance, in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina, where the Lodges working under this authority were generally known as Ancient York Lodges.
In consequence of this, dissensions existed, not only in the mother country, but also in America, for many years, between the Lodges which derived their warrants from the Grand Lodge of Ancient and those which derived theirs from the regular or so-called Grand Lodge of Moderns. But the Duke of Kent having been elected, in 1813, the Grand Master of the Ancient, while his brother, the Duke of Sussex, was Grand Master of the Moderns, a permanent reconciliation was effected between the rival Bodies, and by mutual compromises the present United Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons of England was established.
Similar unions were consummated in America, the last being that of the two Grand Lodges of South Carolina, in 1817, and the distinction between the Ancient and the Modems was forever abolished, or remains only as a melancholy page in the history of Masonic controversies. From their connection with the Dukes of Atholl, the Ancient Freemasons are sometimes known as Atholl Freemasons. The word is also spelled Athol and Athole.
ANCIENT OF DAYS
A title supplied, in the visions of Daniel, to Jehovah, to signify that His days are beyond reckoning. Used by Webb in the Most Excellent Master's song.
Fulfilled is the promise
By the ANCIENT OF DAYS,
To bring forth the capstone
With shouting and praise.
ANCIENT REFORMED RITE
A Rite differing very slightly from the French Rite, or Rite Moderns, of which, indeed, it is said to be only a modification.
It is practiced by the Grand Lodge of Holland and the Grand Orient of Belgium.
This Rite was established in 1783 as one of the results of the Congress of Wilhelmsbad.
ANCIENTS
see Antient Freemasons
ANCIENT, THE
The Third Degree of the German Union of Twenty-two.
ANCIENT YORK FREEMASONS
One of the names of Lodges of Ancient Freemasons, which see.
ANDERSON, JAMES
The Rev. James Anderson, D.D., a well known to all Freemasons as the compiler of the celebrated Book of Constitutions.
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The date and place of his birth have not yet been discovered with certainty, but the date was probably 1680, and the place, Aberdeen in Scotland, where he was educated and where he probably took the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Divinity. At some uncurtained period he migrated to London, and our first precise knowledge of him, derived from a document in the State Records, is that on February 15, 1709-10, he, as a Presbyterian minister, took over the lease of a chapel in Swallow Street, Piccadilly, from a congregation of French Protestants which desired to dispose of it because of their decreasing prosperity. During the following decade he published several sermons, and is said to have lost a considerable sum of money dabbling in the South Sea scheme. Where and when his connection with Freemasonry commenced has not yet been discovered, but he must have been a fairly prominent member of the Craft, because, on September 29, 1721, he was ordered by the Grand Lodge, which had been established in London in 1717, to "digest the old Gothic Constitutions in a new and better method". On the 27th of December following, his work was finished, and the Grand Lodge appointed a committee of fourteen learned Brethren to examine and report upon it. |
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Their report was made on the 25th of March, 1722; and, after a few amendments, Anderson's work was formally approved, and ordered to be printed for the benefit of the Lodges, which was done in 1723.
This is now the well-known Book of Constitutions, which contains the history of Freemasonry or, more correctly, architecture, the Ancient Charges, and the General Regulations, as the same were in use in many old Lodges. In 1738 a second edition was published.
Both editions have become exceedingly rare, and copies of them bring fancy prices among the collectors of old Masonic books. Its intrinsic value is derived only from the fact that it contains the first printed copy of the Old Charges and also the General Regulations. The history of Freemasonry which precedes these, and constitutes the body of the work, is fanciful, unreliable, and pretentious to a degree that often leads to absurdity.
The Craft is greatly indebted to Anderson for his labors in reorganizing the Institution, but doubtless it would have been better if he had contented himself with giving the records of the Grand Lodge from 1717 to 1738, which are contained in his second edition, and with preserving for us the Charges and Regulations, which, without his industry, might have been lost.
No Masonic writer would now venture to quote Anderson as authority for the history of the Order anterior to the eighteenth century. It must also be added that in the republication of the Old Charges in the edition of 1738, he made several important alterations and interpolations, which justly gave some offense to the Grand Lodge, and which render the second edition of no authority in this respect.
In the year 1723, when his first edition of the Constitutions appeared, he was Master of Lodge No. 17, and he was appointed Grand Warden, and also became Chaplain to the Earl of Buchan; in 1732 he published a voluminous work entitled Royal Genealogies, or the Genealogical Tables of Emperors, Kings and Princes, from Adam to these times; in 1733 he issued a theological pamphlet on Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; in 1734 he removed with a part of his congregation from his chapel in Swallow Street to one in Lisle Street, Leicester Fields, in consequence of some difference with his people, the nature of which is unknown; in 1735 he represented to Grand Lodge that a new edition of the Book of Constitutions had become necessary and he was ordered to lay his materials before the present and former Grand officers; in 1738 the new Book of Constitutions was approved of by Grand Lodge and ordered to be printed.
Anderson died on May 28, 1739, and was buried in Bunhill Fields with a Masonic funeral, which is thus reported in The Daily Post of June 2nd:
"Last night was inferred the corpse of Dr. Anderson, a Dissenting Teacher, in a very remarkable deep Grave. His Pall was supported by five Dissenting Teachers, and the Rev. Dr. Desaguliers: It was followed by about a Dozen of Freemasons, who encircled the Grave; and after Dr. Earle had harangued on the Uncertainty of Life, without one word of the Deceased, the Brethren, in a most solemn dismal Posture, lifted up their Hands, sighed, and struck their aprons three times in Honor of the Deceased".
Soon after his death another of his works, entitled News from Elysium or Dialogues of the Dead, was issued, and in 1742 there appeared the first volume of a Genealogical History of the House of Yvery, also from his pen.
The preceding article, written by Brother Edward L. Hawkins, may be supplemented by the following paragraph by Brother John T. Thorp which appeared in the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (xviii, page 9 ):
"Of this distinguished Brother we know very little. He is believed to have been born, educated and made a Freemason in Scotland, subsequently settling in London as a Presbyterian Minister.
He is mentioned for the first time in the Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of England on September 29, 1721, when he was appointed to revise the old Gothic Constitutions - this revision was approved by the Grand Lodge of England on September 29th in 1723, in which year Anderson was Junior Grand Warden under the Duke of Wharton - he published a second edition of the Book of Constitutions in 1738 and died in 1739. This is about all that is known of him".
Brother William J. Hughan, in his Origin of the English Rite of Freemasonry (Leicester, 1909 edition, page 31), devotes some attention to the Gild theory, as it has been called, which dates Masonic degrees in connection with Doctor Anderson farther back than what we term the Grand Lodge era. Brother Clement E. Stretton has discussed this question in his pamphlet, Tectonic Art, published at Melton Mowbray, England, 1909, and he says that:
"In 1710 the Rev. James Anderson was the Chaplain of the St. Paul's Gild Masons, who at that time had their head-quarters at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House in Saint Paul's Churchyard, and in September, 1717, the books of the Gild show that Anderson had made a very remarkable innovation in the rules which was to admit persons as members of the Masonic Gild without their serving the seven years apprenticeship. This caused a split in the ranks".
But the books in question were not produced and as Brother Hughan advises we must patiently wait for the production of documents in support of the claims thus made.
Miscellanea Latomorum, May, 1923, records that Sir Alfred Robbins announced at the March meeting of Quatuor Coronati Lodge that he had found the following item in the London Daily Courant of May 17, 1731:
"We hear from Aberdeen that the University has lately conferred a Doctor's Degree in Divinity on Mr. James Anderson, Swallow street, a gentleman well known for his extensive learning".
This fixes more definitely the date and place when and where he received the degree of which title he soon made use.
ANDERSON, JAMES (2)
On September 29, 1721, the Mother Grand Lodge, then only four years old, left it on record that:
"His Grace's Worship [Duke of Montague, Grand Master] and the [Grand] Lodge finding Fault with all the Copies of the old Gothic Constitutions, ordered Brother James Anderson, A.M., to digest the same in a new and better Method".
December 27, 1721:
"The Duke of Montague appointed 14 learned [in Masonic ritual and customs] Brothers to examine Brother Anderson's Manuscript, and to make report".
March 25, 1722:
"The Committee of 14 reported that they had perused Brother Anderson's Manuscript, viz., the History, Charges, Regulations, and Masters' Song, and after some Amendments had approved of it; upon which the Lodge desired the Grand Master to order it to be printed".
Dr. Desaguliers wrote the Preface, George Payne drafted the Regulations.
On May 17, 1731, the London Daily Courant reported:
"We bear from Aberdeen that the University has lately conferred a Doctor's Degree in Divinity on Mr. James Anderson, Swallow Street, a gentleman well-known for his extensive learning".
Ever since R. F. Gould published his History of Freemasonry his successors and colleagues have followed his lead in describing Anderson as fanciful, a romancer, and in every way an unreliable "historian".
The time has come to rescue the name of a man who ought never to have been described in such terms; and the publication of the histories and records of some sixty of the oldest Lodges in England has supplied the means to do it. The truth about Anderson (see page 77 of this Encyclopedia) can best be set forth in a number of separate statements of fact:
When Desaguliers asked Anderson to hunt out Grand Masters he did not mean to hunt them out from history, but from among the versions of the Old Charges in use among the earliest Lodges; and neither Desaguliers nor Anderson could have believed that in sober history and fact Noah, or Charles Martel, or Euclid had ever been Grand Masters, because they knew too much, were too intelligent. The first entry quoted above proves that Anderson was not the author of the "history" portion, but merely arranged the old MSS legend "in a new and better Method". The whole Hughan-Gould body of Masonic historical writing needs radical revision on the subjects of Anderson and his Constitutions !
On page 46 of his The Lodge Aberdeen, Bro. A. L. Miller states that Anderson was a member of that Lodge, which naturally was the place in which he would seek admittance to Masonry since he was a student in Marshal College in the University of Aberdeen, where he received the degree of M.A., and to which be made a personal present of his The Royal Genealogies, a book he had written, inscribed in his own hand, when the form of words in the Book of Constitutions is compared with the written records of the Lodge of Aberdeen dated 1670 it will be seen that Anderson must have had the records before him, or else had learned them by heart, because a number of terms, and arrangements of words, are the same in one as in the other. When in the Constitutions he wrote "James Anderson, A.M., the Author of this Book" be very probably used the word "Author" in the sense of "compiler, scribe, maker" as had been its meaning in the Aberdeen records, where another and previous James Anderson (his father?) had signed the Work Book as "the Writer of this Book".
In sum: Anderson received the best college education to be had in his period; earned two scholastic Degrees; was trained in Masonry in one of the oldest and most conservative of Lodges; was author of three books not including the Constitutions; was on his merits called to a church in London; while there made friends among the most eminent and substantial men, such as Desaguliers, Payne, Duke of Montague, William Preston, Straban the publisher, etc. It was impossible for a man with such a career and position and with such solid achievements, attained before be was forty, to have been the gullible, flighty, fable making man which Gould pictured him to have been.
Note:
On nothing in the legendary portion of the first Book of Constitution have latter-day historians piled more ridicule than on the list of Grand Masters prior to 1717, and since Anderson was blamed for the list the ridicule was extended to him by implication. In this list are many eminent personages, kings and so on, stretching back to Adam, and including Euclid and Solomon; it has no historicity; there were no Grand Masters before Anthony Sayer. However, there are some things to be said in its favor, and in addition to the fact, given above that they were ritualistic Grand Masters.
For one thing, the word "Grand Master" was employed loosely, and if this be accepted it was not unreasonable to incorporate in the list men known to have been Royal Supervisors of architecture. For another thing, the list, even if Anderson's own, was seen and approved by his Committee, "the fourteen old Brethren", and the officers and members of the Grand Lodge. Finally, it was not as absurd as it may now seem to include kings, emperors, princes, etc., in the list because as a matter of known fact the majority of the kings and queens of England belonged to one or more gilds or City Companies. Edward III was a member of the Merchant Tailors Company; so also was Richard II; Queen Elizabeth was a member of a Company. Queen Victoria proclaimed herself Royal Protectress of the Fraternity of Freemasons. When Richard II was in the Tailors Company it also had in its membership "four royal dukes, ten earls, ten barons, and five bishops".
ANDERSON MANUSCRIPT
In the first edition of the Constitutions of the Freemasons, published by Doctor Anderson in 1723, the author quotes on pages 32-3 from "a certain record of Freemasons, written in the reign of King Edward IV". Preston also cites it in his Illustrations (see page 182, 1788 edition), but states that it is said to have been in the possession of Elias Ashmole, but was unfortunately destroyed, with other papers on the subject of Freemasonry, at the Revolution. Anderson makes no reference to Ashmole as the owner of the manuscript, nor to the fact of its destruction.
If the statement of Preston were confirmed by other evidence, its title would properly be the Ashmole Manuscript, but as it was first mentioned by Anderson, Brother Hughan has very properly called it the Anderson Manuscript. It contains the Prince Edwin legend.
ANDRASSY, COUNT JULIUS
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Born March 8, 1823, in Hungary, and died, February. 18, 1890. Statesman and patriot, from youth active in politics and civic affairs. Contributed to Brother Louis Kossuth's paper, Pesti Hirlap, 1846, upon public questions Served valiantly in 1848 when the Croats invaded his country. Andrassy was sent by, the revolutionary government to Constantinople to secure the neutrality of Turkey. In 1851, after his departure to London and Paris, the Austrian government hanged him in effigy for his share in the Hungarian revolt. For ten years he was exiled from Hungary. At Paris, France, 1851, Count Andrassy was initiated into the Masonic Order when an "emigre" on May 2 in the Lodge Le Mont Sinai (see Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume iii, page iii). Brother Andrassy returned to Hungary in 1858; immediately became active in political life; in 1865 was chosen Vice-President of the Diet; in 1866 was president of the sub-committee appointed to draw up the Composition between Austria and Hungary; was appointed first constitutional Hungarian premier on February 17, 1867, and in 1871 he succeeded Count Beust as Chancellor. At the Berlin Congress in 1878, Andrassy was active for settlement a the Russian-Porte controversy, securing the support of both Great Britain and France. |
ANDRE, CHRISTOPHER KARL
An active Freemason, who resided at Brunn, in Moravia, where, in 1798, he was the Director of the Evangelical Academy. He was very zealously employed, about the end of the last century, in connection with other distinguished Freemasons, in the propagation of the Order in Germany. He was the editor and author of a valuable periodical work, which was published in five numbers, octavo, from 1793 to 1796, at Gotha and Halle under the title of Der Freimaurer, oder a compendiose Bibliothek alles Wissenswurdigen ueber geheime Gesellschaften, meaning The Freemason, or a Compendious Library of everything worthy of notice in relation to Secret Societies. Besides valuable extracts from contemporary Masonic writers, it contains several essays and treatises by the editor.
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© 2008 Lodge St. Andrew #518
