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ASHMOLE, ELIAS
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A celebrated antiquary, celebrated author of, among other works, the well-known History of the Order of the Garter, and founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He was born at Litchfield, in England, on the 23d of May, 1617, and 23rd at London on the 18th of May, 1692. He was made a Freemason on the 16th of October. He gives the following account of his reception in his Diary page 303:
In his Diary, page 362, he again speaks of his attendance at a meeting, and thirty-six years afterward makes the following entry: |
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It is to be regretted that the intention expressed by Ashmole to write a history of Freemasonry was never carried into effect. His laborious research as evinced in his exhaustive work on the Order of the Garter, would lead us to have expected from his antiquarian pen a record of the origin and early progress of our Institution more valuable than any that we now possess. The following remarks on this subject, contained in a letter from Doctor Knipe, of Christ Church, Oxford, to the publisher of Asmole's Life, while it enables us to form some estimate of the loss that Masonic literature has suffered, supplies interesting particulars which are worthy of preservation.
"As to the ancient society of Freemasons, concerning whom you are desirous of knowing what may be known with certainty, I shall only tell you, that if our worthy Brother, E. Ashmole, Esq., had executed his intended design, our Fraternity had been as much obliged to him as the Brethren of the most noble Order of the Garter. I would not have you surprised at this expression, or think it all too assuming.
The sovereigns of that Order have not disdained our fellowship, and there have been times when emperors were also Freemasons. What from Mr. E. Ashmole's collection I could gather was, that the report of our society's taking rise from a bull granted by the Pope, in the reign of Henry III, to some Italian architects to travel over all Europe, to erect chapels, was ill-founded. Such a bull there was, and those architects were Masons; but this bull, in the opinion of the learned Mr. Ashmole, was confirmative only, and did not by any means create our Fraternity, or even establish them in this kingdom.
But as to the time and manner of that establishment, something I shall relate from the same collections. Saint Alban the Proto-Martyr of England, established Masonry here; and from his time it flourished more or less, according as the world went, down to the days of King Athelstan, who, for the sake of his brother Edwin, granted the Masons a charter.
Under our Norman princes, they frequently received extraordinary marks of royal favor. There is no doubt to be made, that the skill of Masons, which was always transcendent, even in the most barbarous times, their wonderful kindness and attachment to each other, how different soever in condition, and their inviolable fidelity in keeping religiously their secret, must expose them in ignorant, troublesome, and suspicious times to a vast variety of adventures, according to the different fate of parties and other alterations in government.
By the way, I shall note that the Masons were always loyal, which exposed them to great severities when power wore the trappings of justice, and those who committed treason punished true men as traitors.
Thus, in the third year of the reign of Henry VI, an act of Parliament was passed to abolish the society of Masons, and to hinder, under grievous penalties, the holding Chapters, Lodges, or other regular assemblies.
Yet this act was afterwards repealed, and even before that, King Henry VI, and several of the principal Lords of his court, became fellows of the Craft."
But the most difficult question for the student is to find an answer to the following: What induced men like Ashmole and others to be made Masons early in the seventeenth century? Was it for 'cake and ale'? Surely not. Was it for company sake? perhaps; but then why so much mystery ?
It is certain that men like Dr. Plot, John Aubrey, Randle Holme, and Elias Ashmole were attracted to the subject for something more than what we find given at length in the Manuscript Constitutions. Edward Conder, in Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge (volume xvi, page 15, 1903). Another question a the influence exerted by such Brethren at and after their initiation and possibly up to the time of the notable organization of the Grand Lodge of 1717. Our old friend Brother Trevaman W. Hugo wrote among his last contributions printed after his death-for the Daluth Masonic Calendar (March, 1923), a biographical article on Elias Ashmole and he concludes thus:
"The object of going into those details is to enable the writer, and you who may read it, to have in mind the personage for whom we want to find a place between the date of his death, 1687 and 1717. We do not know whether there is some place in between there where such a personage could have made an impression on the Operative Masons at that time, so that his influence, when the time came, would make them willing to fall in and join with the Speculative Brethren, or vice versa, or whether the Speculative Brethren were able to deliver to the Operative Masons in 1717, the Astrologic, Philosophic, Symbolic Lore, which they held in regard to the order of Free Masons. There is an unquestionable 'hole in the Ballad' somewhere between 1646 and 1717".
ASHMOLE'S LODGE
Elias Ashmole was made a Mason in the Lodge at Warrington, in Lancashire, England, October 16, 1646. This event was for some decades given prominent space in Masonic histories, partly because of the great eminence of Ashmole himself (see page 107), more largely because in records then known Ashmole was the first of non-Operatives to be admitted to a Masonic Lodge.
It is odd that those who attributed this seniority to Ashmole did not see that the very document which proved Ashmole's acceptance proved also, and in the act, that others had been accepted before Ashmole! For in his Diary he writes that Col. Henry Mainwaring was accepted at the same time (thereby making him coeval) and also that other non-operatives already were in the Lodge and had been so from the beginning of it, among them Sankey, Littler, Ellam, etc., each one "a gentleman".
Ashmole's Diary therefore did not prove him to be the first, but proved the latter men to have been before him. (Richard Ellam described himself in his will as "Freemason".)
Whence came this Lodge? A reasonable answer is given on page 10 of The Time Immemorial Lodge at Chester, by John Armstrong (Chester; 1900):
"From the magnitude of the buildings in Chester we may safely assume that the Old Chester Lodge was of such strength, that like the Old Scotch Lodges, it threw off branches, and in this way the Old Warrington Lodge of Elias Ashmole would originate about the time the old church was built in that town. A number of Masons proceeding from Chester to Warrington, and as was the custom in those days would meet as a Lodge, looking up to Chester as the mother Lodge; here also when building operations ceased, non-Operatives were admitted and ultimately in 1646 we find it purely speculative and presided over by the gentry of the district.
The Warrington Lodge with its 7 members in 1646 as against 26 in the Chester Lodge points to Chester as being then the great seat of Masonry, as it had been from Roman times, the chief town and only borough in the North Western Provinces of England".
The 26 members of the Lodge at Chester struck Bro. Armstrong as a show of "great strength"; at the present remove in time it strikes a Mason by its smallness; for either there were few Masons in the county, or else only a small number belonged to the Lodge. If the latter was the case, perhaps the Lodge at Chester was itself "Speculative", or at least partly so? Of one fact it is reasonable to feel certain: the old Lodge at Chester would have neither approved nor countenanced a Speculative daughter Lodge at Warrington had it been an innovation; which would mean that (a reasonable guess) at least as early as 1625 Speculative Freemasonry was nothing new in that area.
Why did Ashmole join the Lodge? It is known that he was interested in Rosicrucianism; Bro. Arthur Edward Waite argued from this that the Lodge itself must therefore have been a Rosicrucian center, and sought thereby to bolster his thesis that it had been an infiltration of Rosicrucianism and other forms of mysticism and occultism which had transformed the Craft from within from an Operative into a Speculative Fraternity. But why should he thus arbitrarily select Ashmole's interest in Rosicrucianism? Ashmole was also an encyclopedist, a natural museum maker, who had a long chain of interests; any one of them as dear to him as what was the then (miscalled) Rosicrucianism, such as heraldry, rare books, Medieval manuscripts, alchemy; astrology, Kabbalism, medals, ruins, folk-lore, old sciences, botany, old customs, architecture, and so on through half a hundred.
Perhaps, and remembering that he was both an intelligent and a sincere man, he joined the Lodge solely because he believed in Freemasonry itself as it already was; the fact would be consonant with his known plan to write a history of the Fraternity. Ashmole neither made nor changed the Lodge at Warrington; and there were other members there and at Chester who were not Rosicrucians. It can be argued that Ashmole's own interest in Rosicrucianism was academic, and not for practice, like his interest in other subjects, and pursued in the spirit of the antiquarian, the lover of erudition, the seeker for curio sa, moreover he was a Christian, and was not likely to take up with heresies.
Against the notion that he was credulous, occultistic, superstitious in practice is a description of him when a student in Oxford he:
"applied himself vigorously to the sciences, but more particularly to natural philosophy [physics and chemistry], mathematics and astronomy".
The entry in the Diary begins:
"1646. Oct. 16, 4 :30 P.M."
(In his brochure, Elias Ashmole, Bro. Dudley Wright twice makes the error of giving the year as 1645.) The practices found in Lodges a half century later suggest that the ceremonies were followed by a dinner, or feast; that the Brethren remained at table until late at night; and that portions of the ceremonies were given while seated. In their books and treatises Bros. Knoop and Jones have advanced the theory that in the Seventeenth Century the Ritual was a brief and bare ceremony, consisting of an oath and the giving of the Mason Word; if that had been true it is difficult to understand why, as at Warrington, the "making" took so much time (that is but one of many difficulties in their theory). It is not likely that a group of seven men would meet together for six or seven hours as a Lodge merely to eat, drink, and talk together, because "gentlemen" of the times had large houses staffed with servants and were much given to entertainment where a mere social gathering would have been more convenient. It is more reasonable to believe that there were more ceremonies in 1646 than in 1746, not fewer; the old Lodges kept no minutes or other records or else made them so brief that they are almost cryptic, but it does not follow that because the records were brief and bare, therefore the ceremonies had been brief and bare.
The entry also shows that Ashmole "was made a Free Mason" during this one meeting, and there is nothing to indicate that the ceremonies were shortened especially for him; in the language of a later period he was Entered, Passed, and Raised at one time.
From this record, and from others like it, Hughan argued that the pre-1717 Lodges had only one Degree; Gould argued that there had been two Degrees but that they had been conferred one after the other at the same Communication, and that the names Fellowcraft and Master Mason were used interchangeably for the second step; and they both repeated at different places in their books the since-familiar phrases about how the pre-1717 ceremonies must have been pure, simple, brief, etc. It is a curious quirk of the historical fancy to assume that what came first always must have been rudimentary. In history it is often the other way about the first Gothic building was extraordinarily large and rich and complex; the first printed books were better works of printing than any since, etc. and it is certain that in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries men were much more given to elaborateness of ceremony than they ever have been since. (Read a detailed description of the ceremonies of receiving the Spanish Ambassador in which Shakespeare had a part; it lasted four days.) It is more reasonable to believe that the Warrington Lodge met for five or six hours because the Masonic ceremonies were so full and rich than to believe that they consisted of nothing more than a password and an oath. When the post-1717 Lodges divided their ceremonies into three Degrees, the last was of itself so long that it contained what later was separated off into the Royal Arch Degree; any student who is familiar with the workings of the Masonic mind in the earliest Lodges knows that Masons did not manufacture hours of new ceremonies within eight or ten years of time, for one of their most powerful instincts was to preserve and to perpetuate the old.
The Hughan-Gould debate as between the "one Degree" theory and the "two Degree" theory continues to be argued. As against both of those theories may be presented a third which shifts the argument to another ground, and for which (in these pages) the writer is solely responsible; it is more reasonable to think that until the approach of the 1717 period the Lodges did not have any Degrees that is, separately organized and complete units of ceremonies, each with its own name; but that they had a large and indeterminate number of ceremonies, rites, symbols, among them being an oath for Apprentices, an oath for Fellowcrafts, etc. that these ceremonies were used very flexibly so that a Lodge might use twice as many in one meeting as at another; and that they differed from one Lodge to another in many details, so that one Lodge might employ a ceremony (such as Installation of the Master) which another would not. This last named supposition would explain why there were side degrees and intimations of "higher" degrees (vide Dr. Stukeley; early records in Ireland, etc. ) before or at 1717. This theory would explain why it was that, soon after 1717, so many Lodges made Prentices and Fellows in one sitting, conducted Lodge business with Prentices present, had separate Masters Lodges, and in the very early years of Speculative Lodges gave an immediate welcome to the formation of a separate Royal Arch Degree, to the Scotch Mason rites, etc. The probabilities are that on the day after his making Ashmole lid not think of himself as having passed through one Degree, or two Degrees, or even three, but as having been "made a Free Mason" by the total (whatever it was) of the ceremonies used; it is also reasonable to believe that by "acceptance into Masonry" he would have thought not of architectural ceremonies but of his acceptance into a new circle of friends and associates.
(It is not to be supposed that even in the earliest Operative periods, and when a Lodge was still a mere adjunct to a building enterprise, such ceremonies, etc., as were used therefore were solely utilitarian; every skilled Craft was organized as a gild, fraternity, company, and each had a rich array of ceremonies, symbols, rites, etc., even the blacksmiths; and it was a common practice for them to admit Honorary Members from outside their own "operative" ranks. Symbolical ceremonies and "accepted" members in Seventeenth Century Lodges were not innovations.)
ASIA
In the French Rite of Adoption, the East end of the Lodge is called Asia. The Lodge-room is divided into quarters called Realms, the French word being Climat, the East is Asia; the West, Europe; the North, America, and the South, Africa.
ASIA, INITIATED KNIGHTS AND BROTHERS OF
This Order was introduced in Berlin, or, as some say, in Vienna, in the year 1780, by a schism of several members of the German Rose Croix. They adopted a mixture of Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan ceremonies, to indicate, as Ragon supposes, their entire religious tolerance. Their object was the study of the natural sciences and the search for the universal panacea to prolong life. Thory charges them with this; but may it not have been, as with the Alchemists, merely a symbol of immortality?
They forbade all inquiries into the art of transmutation of metals. The Grand Synédrion, properly the Grand Sanhedrim, which consisted of seventy-two members and was the head of the Order, had its seat at Vienna.
The Order was founded on the three symbolic degrees, and attached to them nine others, as follows:
| 4 | Seekers; |
| 5 | Sufferers; |
| 6 | Initiated Knights and Brothers of Asia in Europe; |
| 7 | Masters and Sages; |
| 8 | Royal Priests, or True Brothers of Rose Croix; |
| 9 | Melchizedek. |
The Order no longer exists. Many details of it will be found in Luchet's Essai sur les Illumines.
ASIA, PERFECT INITIATES OF
A rite of very little importance, consisting of seven Degrees, and said to have been invented at Lyons. A very voluminous manuscript, translated from the German, was sold at Paris, in 1821, to M. Bailleul, and came into the possession of Ragon, who reduced its size, and, with the assistance of Des Etangs, modified it. We have no knowledge that it was ever worked.
ASIATIC TURKEY
The dominions of Turkey in Asia. Smyrna has one Lodge under the Grand Lodge of England and two under the Grand Orient of France. There are two Italian Lodges in the town and several others throughout the country.
ASK, SEEK, KNOCK
In referring to the passage of Matthew (vii, 7), "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" Doctor Clarke says: "These three words ask, seek, knock include the ideas of want loss, and earnestness". The application made to the passage theologically is equally appropriate to it in a Masonic Lodge. You ask for acceptance, you seek for light, you knock for initiation, which includes the other two.
ASPIRANT
One who eagerly seeks to know or to attain something. Thus, Warburton speaks of "the aspirant to the Mysteries". The word is applied also to one about to be initiated into Freemasonry. There seems, however, to be a shade of difference in meaning between the words candidate and aspirant. The candidate is one who asks for admission; so called from the Latin word candidatus, meaning one who is clothed in white, because candidates for office at Rome wore a white dress. The aspirant is one already elected and in process of initiation, and coming from aspiro, to seek eagerly, refers to the earnestness with which he prosecutes his search for light and truth.
ASSASSINS
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The Ishmaelites, or Assassins, constituted a sect or confraternity, which was founded by Hassan Sabah, about the year 1090, in Persia. The name is derived, it is supposed, from their immoderate use of the plant haschish, or henbane, which produced a delirious frenzy. The title given to the chief of the Order was Scheikh-el-Jebel, which has been translated the Old Man of the Mountain, but which Higgins has shown in his Anacalypsis (i, 700) to mean literally The Sage of the Cabala or Traditions. Von Hammer has written a History of the Assassins, but his opposition to secret societies has led him to speak with so much prejudice that, although his historical statements are interesting, his philosophical deductions have to be taken with many grains of allowance. Godfrey Higgins has probably erred on the other side, and by a too ready adherence to a preconceived theory has, in his Annacalypsis, confounded them with the Templars, whom he considers as the precursors of the Freemasons. In this, as in most things, the middle course appears to be the most truthful. |
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The Assassins were a secret society, that is to say, they had a secret esoteric doctrine, which was imparted only to the initiated. Hammer says that they had a graduated series of initiations, the names of which he gives as Apprentices, Fellows, and Masters; they had, too, an oath of passive obedience, and resembled, he asserts, in many respects, the secret societies that subsequently existed in Europe. They were governed by a Grand Master and Priors, and had regulations and a special religious code, in all of which Von Hammer finds a close resemblance to the Templars, the Hospitalers, and the Teutonic Knights. Between the Assassins and the Templars history records that there were several amicable transactions not at all consistent with the religious vows of the latter and the supposed religious faith of the former, and striking coincidences of feeling, of which Higgins has not been slow to avail himself in his attempt to prove the close connection, if not absolute identity, of the two Orders.
It is most probable, as Sir John Malcolm contends, that they were a race of Sofis, the teachers of the secret doctrine of Mohammed.
Von Hammer admits that they produced a great number of treatises on mathematics and jurisprudence; and, forgetting for a time his bigotry and his prejudice, he attributes to Hassan, their founder, a profound knowledge of philosophy and mathematical and metaphysical sciences, and an enlightened spirit, under whose influence the civilization of Persia attained a high degree; so that during his reign of forty-six years the Persian literature attained a point of excellence beyond that of Alexandria under the Ptolemies, and of France under Francis I.
The old belief that they were a confederacy of murderers - whence we have taken our English word assassins - must now be abandoned as a figment of the credulity of past centuries, and we must be content to look upon them as a secret society of philosophers, whose political relations, however merged them into a dynasty. If we interpret Freemasonry as a generic term, signifying a philosophic sect which teaches truth by a mystical initiation and secret symbols, then Higgins was not very far in error in calling them the Freemasons of the East.
ASSASSINS, CULT OF
At the time he wrote the article about the Assassins on page 108 Dr. Albert G. Mackey was endeavoring to enlarge the scope of Masonic studies, to open up new paths in many directions. The article has been taken by some critics of the Craft in too narrow a sense; perhaps because Mackey used the word "Freemasonry" in a sense too broad. One of the legends about a so-called Cult of Assassins stems from a story about Omar Khayyam, author of The Rubaiyat, and tells how a boyhood friend of his, a certain Hassan, became a sort of Persian Robin Hood. Another legend is that Crusaders were harassed by an organized band of land pirates, who were a species of dacoits; in one version of this story the leader was named Hassan, hence his followers were Called Hassanites, or Assassins; also he was called the Old Man of the Mountains, fabled never to die.
Another version is that the Assassins were so called from their use of hashish, or Indian hemp (indicans cabanis), an opiate. But there is the fourth possibility that no such man as Hassan ever lived, but was created, like our Paul Bunyan, out of those tall tales which Near Eastern peoples have vastly preferred to history; countenance is given to this theory by the fact that a tale about The Old Man of the Mountains was one of the stock-in trade of minstrels before the Crusades went into the Holy land. In a Thirteenth Century Romance in verse by a pupil of Chrestien of Troyes entitled Flamenica one of the sections is little more than an inventory of that stock; one title is listed as "The Old Man of the Mountains and his Assassins", wedged in among such other fabulous tales as the Fisher King, the Fall of Lucifer, and how Icarus was drowned. Of only one thing can any Masonic student be certain:
Whether he was legend or was history the Fraternity never had any connection, not even a remote one, or any similarity, with the Old Man of the Mountains.
Note:
Anacalypsis, by Godfrey Higgins, quoted by Mackey on page 108, is a monster of a book, "With a million of quotations in it", somewhat on
the order of Burton's Anotomy of Melancholy; of it a cynical critic has said : "a Mason should read all of it and believe none of it"
which is perhaps too harsh, though Higgins' philology is one long verbal insanity.
ASSASSINS OF THE THIRD DEGREE
There is in Freemasonry a legend of certain unworthy Craftsmen who entered into a conspiracy to extort from a distinguished Brother a secret of which he was the possessor. The legend is altogether symbolic, and when its symbolism is truly comprehended, becomes a surpassingly beautiful. By those who look at it as having the pretension of an historical fact, it is sometimes treated with indifference, and sometimes considered an absurdity.
But it is not thus that the legends and symbols of Freemasonry must be read, if we would learn their true spirit. To behold the goddess in all her glorious beauty, the veil that conceals her statue must be withdrawn. Masonic writers who have sought to interpret the symbolism of the legend of the conspiracy of the three assassins, have not agreed always in the interpretation, although they have finally arrived at the same result, namely, that it has a spiritual signification. Those who trace Speculative Freemasonry to the ancient solar worship, of whom Ragon may be considered as the exponent, find in this legend a symbol of the conspiracy of the three winter months to destroy the life-giving heat of the sun.
Those who, like the disciples of the Rite of Strict Observance, trace Freemasonry to a Templar origin, a explain the legend as referring to the conspiracy of the three renegade knights who falsely accused the Order, and thus aided King Philip and Pope Clement to abolish Templarism, and to slay its Grand Master. Hutchinson and Oliver, who labored to give a Christian interpretation to all the symbols of Freemasonry, referred the legend to the crucifixion of the Messiah, the type of which is, of course, the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain.
Others, of whom the Chevalier Ramsay has been set forth as the leader, sought to give it a political significance; and, making Charles I the type of the Builder, symbolized Cromwell and his adherents as the conspirators.
The Masonic scholars whose aim has been to identify the modern system of Freemasonry with the Ancient Mysteries, and especially with the Egyptian, which they supposed to be the germ of all the others, interpret the conspirators as the symbol of the Evil Principle, or Typhon, slaying the Good Principle, or Osiris; or, when they refer to the Zoroastic Mysteries of Persia, as Ahriman contending against Ormuzd.
Lastly, in the Philosophic Degrees, the myth is interpreted as signifying the war of Falsehood, Ignorance, and Superstition against Truth. Of the supposed names of the three Assassins, there is hardly any end of variations, for they materially differ in all the principal rites. Thus, we have Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum in the York and American Rites. In the Adonhiramite system we have Romvel, Gravelot, and Abiram. Romvel has been claimed as a corruption of Cromwell. In the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite we find the names given in the old rituals as Jubelum Akirop, sometimes Abiram, Jubelo Romvel, and Jubela Gravelot. Schterke and Oterfut are in some of the German rituals, while other Scottish rituals have Abiram, Romvel, and Hobhen. In all these names there is manifest corruption, and the patience of many Masonic scholars has been well-nigh exhausted in seeking for some plausible and satisfactory derivation.
ASSEMBLY
The meetings of the Craft during the operative period in the Middle Ages, were called Assemblies, which appear to have been tantamount to the modern Lodges, and they are constantly spoken of in the Old Constitutions. The word Assembly was also often used in these documents to indicate a larger meeting of the whole Craft, which was equivalent to the modern Grand Lodge, and which was held annually. The York Manuscript No. l, about the year 1600, says "that Edwin procured of ye King his father a charter and commission to hold every year an assembly wherever they would within ye realm of England", and this statement, whether true or false, is repeated in all the old records. Preston says, speaking of that medieval period, that "a sufficient number of Masons met together within a certain district, with the consent of the sheriff or chief magistrate of the place, were empowered at this time to make Masons, etc." To this assembly, every Freemason was bound, when summoned, to appear.
Thus, in the Harleian Manuscript, about 1660, it is ordained that "every Master and Fellow come to the Assembly, if it be within five miles about him, if he have any warning". The term General Assembly, to indicate the annual meeting, is said to have been first used at the meeting, held on December 27, 1663, as quoted by Preston. In the Old Constitutions printed in 1722 by Roberts, and which claims to be taken from a manuscript of the eighteenth century, the term used is Yearly Assembly. Anderson speaks of an Old Constitution which used the word General; but his quotations are not always verbally accurate.
ASSISTANCE
See Aid and Assistance
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ASSOCIATES OF THE TEMPLE During the Middle Ages, many persons of rank, who were desirous of participating in the spiritual advantages supposed to be enjoyed by the Templars in consequence of the good works done by the Fraternity, but who were unwilling to submit to the discipline of the Brethren made valuable donations to the Order, and were, in consequence, admitted into a sort of spiritual connection with it. These persons were termed Associates of the Temple. The custom was most probably confined to England, and many of these Associates had monuments and effigies erected to them in the Temple Church at London |
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ASSOCIATION
Although an association a properly the union of men into society for a common purpose, the word is scarcely ever applied to the Order of Freemasonry. Yet its employment, although unusual, would not be incorrect, for Freemasonry is an association of men for a common purpose. Washington uses the term when he calls Freemasonry "an association whose principles lead to purity of morals, and are beneficial of action", from his letter to the Grand Lodge of South Carolina.
ASSYRIAN ARCHITECTURE
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The discovery in 1882 of the remains of a town, close to and north of Nineveh, built by Sargon, about 721 B.C., in size about a mile square, with its angles facing the cardinal points, and the enclosure containing the finest specimens of their architecture, revived much interest in archeologists. The chief place of regard is the royal palace, which was like unto a city of itself, everything being on a colossal scale. The walls of the town were 45 feet thick. The inclined approach to the palace was flanked by strangely formed bulls from 15 to 19 feet high. There were terraces, courts, and page-ways to an innermost square of 150 feet, surrounded by state apartments and temples. The Hall of Judgment was prominent, as also the astronomical observatory. All entrances to great buildings were ornamented by colossal animals and porcelain decorations and inscriptions. |
ASTOR, JOHN JACOB
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Born as Johann Jacob Astorlvaldorf in Germany, July 17, 1763, left an orphan as a boy, Astor came to New York City to join a brother, working his way, and arrived in 1784. He was founder of the American fur trade, a founder of the Territory of Oregon where Astoria is named after him, was in the "fur wars" with Indians and with Canadian trappers, was pioneer and founder of the American trade with China, as a real estate dealer was a founder of Greater New York, was founder of the Astor Library, was the largest financial backer of the War of 1812, and in his will left $400,000 for building the Astor Library, equivalent to one million at present money values. He was one of the first founders of Holland Lodge, No. 8; and was Worshipful Master in 1798. From June 6, 1798, to June 25, 1801, he was Grand Treasurer of the Grand Lodge; the books which he wrote out in his own copper-plate hand are still in the vaults of Masonic Hall, New York City. |
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ASTRAEA
The Grand Lodge established in Russia, on the 30th of August, 1815, assumed the title of the Grand Lodge of Astraea. It held its Grand East at St. Petersburg, and continued in existence until 1822, when the Czar issued a Ukase, or proclamation dated August 1, 1822, closing all Lodges in Russia and forbidding them to reopen at any future time.
ASTROLOGY
A whence demanding the respect of the scholar, notwithstanding its designation as a black art, and, in a reflective sense, an occult science; a system of divination foretelling results by the relative positions of the planets and other heavenly bodies toward the earth. Men of eminence have adhered to the doctrines of astrology as a science. It is a study well considered in, and forming an important part of, the ceremonies of the Philosophus, or fourth grade of the First Order of the Society of Rosicrucians. Astrology has been deemed the twin science of astronomy, grasping knowledge from the heavenly bodies, and granting a proper understanding of many of the startling forces in nature. It is claimed that the constellations of the zodiac govern the earthly animals, and that every star has its peculiar nature, property, and function, the seal and character of which it impresses through its rays upon plants, minerals, and animal life. This science was known to the ancients as the divine art (see Magic).
The word astrology is not a true term because it always has been ambiguous, meaning one thing in one country or period of time, another thing in some other country or time, and one contradicting the other. The nearest to any acceptable definition is to say that there has never been astrology, there have been astrologies, these astrologies among themselves vary from a form of astromical book-keeping practiced in China for calendar purposes, to the pseudo-religion which, to judge from the newsstands, has become a flourishing and also a financially profitable cult in America. As a further complication, at one or two periods in the late Middle Ages the word astrology was a synonym for astronomy. As a generalization it may be said that any particular astrology will teach the notion that a star is not what an astronomer says it is but is something more or something other; such as, that it is a god (or goddess!), or a saint, or an angel, or a fate, or possesses magical powers, etc. and that what it is, or some attribute it possesses, has some direct influence on men.
There is nowhere any trace of evidence to show that at any time astrology has been accepted by Freemasonry, or taught by it, or is one of the elements in the Ritual. If the mere mention of the skies, or the sun, or moon, etc., were to be considered to be astrology, then each and every man is an astrologist; so is each and every astronomer, every maker of calendars, almost every poet, the majority of composers of music, and many historians. The sun and moon are conspicuous in the Ritual, but not with any astrology meanings. For five or six centuries it was a "custom" of the Craft to work from sunrise to sunset, and usually contracts would set two lengths of work days for the year, the midpoint of one set falling on St. John the Baptist's Day when the daylight was longest, one on the Evangelist's Day when it was shortest; and the moon represented the night; this old "custom" very probably was the origin of the two Masonic symbols of the Sun and the Moon.
Amateur Masonic occultists have attempted to connect Masonry with the zodiac, one of the conspicuous features of astrologies; but here again there is no one zodiac, but many zodiacs throughout the world. The idea of a zodiac itself is one of the largest hoaxes with which men have ever befuddled themselves, and could never have been true to facts. The discovery of dark stars of great magnitude; that what in ancient times was taken for one star was two or more or even a whole galaxy; and the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, has made the zodiac meaningless. It is a toy of the mind. There is nothing of the zodiac in the present Masonic Ritual; there was never a mention of it in the oldest Speculative Lodges; in Medieval times it was a heresy, and Operative Freemasons would have abhorred the thought of it.
It can safely be laid down as a law of the Fraternity that anything and everything in the Ritual is understandable and knowable by any normal man, and nothing in it calls for erudition; it could not be otherwise where so many millions are admitted to membership. When the Candidate is told that if he finds anything puzzling he can consult well-informed Brethren it is presupposed that in any Lodge there will be such Brethren. This principle, which also is a practice, disposes at a stroke the notion that there has ever been in the Craft any form of occultism which calls for erudition, or for adepts specially trained, or for a kind of knowledge not available to the rank and file of ordinary Masons. Astrology, in its present-day American form, is self-confessedly not open to common knowledge but is understandable only by experts, who for that reason charge a fee for the use of their supposedly erudite knowledge; and it shares that practice with the majority of other forms of occultism.
ASTRONOMY
The science which instructs us in the laws that govern the heavenly bodies. Its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity; for the earliest inhabitants of the earth must have been attracted by the splendor of the glorious firmament above them, and would have sought in the motions of its luminaries for the readiest and most certain method of measuring time. With astronomy the system of Freemasonry is intimately connected. From that science many of our most significant emblems are borrowed.
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The Lodge itself is a representation of the world; it is adorned with the images of the sun and moon, whose regularity and precision furnish a lesson of wisdom and prudence; its pillars of strength and establishment have been compared to have two columns which the ancients placed at the equinoctial points as supporters of the arch of heaven; the blazing star which was among the Egyptians a symbol of Anubis, or the dog-star, which sitting foretold the overflowing of the Nile, shines in the East; while the clouded canopy is decorated with the beautiful Pleiades, a group of stars in the constellation Taurus, or the Bull, about seven of which are visible to the naked eye. The connection between our Order and astronomy is still more manifest in the spurious Freemasonry of antiquity, where, the pure principles of our system being lost, the symbolic instruction of the heavenly bodies gave place to the corrupt Sabean worship of the sun, and moon, and stars-a worship whose influences are seen in all the mysteries of Paganism. |
ASYLUM
During the session of a Commandery of Knights Templar, a part of the premises is called the asylum; the word has hence been adopted, by the figure in rhetoric synecdoche, in which the whole may be represented by a part, to signify the place of meeting of a Commandery.
ASYLUM FOR AGED FREEMASONS
The Asylum for Aged and Decayed Freemasons is a magnificent edifice at Croydon in Surrey, England. The charity was established by Doctor Crucefix, after sixteen years of herculean toil, such as few men but himself could have sustained. He did not live to see it in full operation, but breathed his last at the very time when the capstone was placed on the building (see Annuities).
ATELIER
The French thus call the place where the Lodge meets, or the Lodge-room. The word signifies a workshop or place where several workmen are assembled under the same master. The word is applied in French Freemasonry not only to the place of meeting of a Lodge, but also to that of a Chapter, Council, or any other Masonic body. Bazot says in the Manual du Franc-Maçon (page 65) that atelier is more particularly applied to the Table Lodge, or Lodge when at banquet, but that the word is also used to designate any reunion of the Lodge.
ATHEIST
One who does not believe in the existence of God. Such a state of mind can only arise from the ignorance of stupidity or a corruption of principle, since the whole universe is filled with the moral and physical proofs of a Creator. He who does not look to a superior and superintending power as his maker and his judge, is without that coercive principle of salutary fear which should prompt him to do good and to eschew evil, and his oath can, of necessity, be no stronger than his word. Freemasons, looking to the dangerous tendency of such a tenet, have wisely discouraged it, by declaring that no atheist can be admitted to participate in their Fraternity; and the better to carry this law into effect, every candidate, before passing through any of the ceremonies of initiation, is required, publicly and solemnly, to declare his trust in God.
ATHELSTAN
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The grandson of the great Alfred ascended the throne of England in 924, and died in 940. The Old Constitutions describe him as a great patron of Freemasonry. Thus, one of them, the Roberts Manuscript, printed in 1722, and claiming to be five hundred years old, says:
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ATHELSTAN AND THE OLD CHARGES
On Page 110 is given a quotation from the Roberts MS. to the effect that Athelstan (King in England, 924-940) was a great lover of Masonry and gave Masons their Charter. In other versions of the Old Charges it is said that Athelstan made his son Prince Edwin Patron, or head, of the Masons. Scholars have not accepted the historicity of this tradition because of difficulties and self-contradictions in the text itself, because there is no supporting evidence in chronicles of the Tenth Century, and also because they have not believed that Masonry was as widely developed at the time as the Old Charges presuppose, or that Athelstan himself took any interest in the Craft. As regards the first two difficulties they continue in force, and make it hard to take seriously the confused or garbled accounts in the versions of the Old Charges; but as regards the last-named difficulty, that Athelstan himself had no interest in the Craft, there are data to show that the Old Charges have the support of historical evidence.
In his History of the Norman Conquest Prof. Henry A. Freeman (Vol. I ; page 190) writes:
"Among the Laws of Athelstan none are more remarkable than those which deal with the internal affairs of London and with the regulation of her earliest commercial corporations".
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These laws are given in Thorpe's Laws and Institutes; Vol. I; page 228. They show that London was being built up, with walls, bridges, churches and many new buildings, and that King Athelstan took a large personal interest in the building, and that among his laws were regulations for the builders. Athelstan must also have had an equally active interest in the builders at York, always a great architectural center and a free city from time immemorial; in Vol. V, page 316, Prof. Freeman says, "The men of York had their Hanse-house". A hansa was a gild (hence "Hanseatic League") and if the crafts in York had a building of their own, it means that they were strong and well organized, the Masons among them. Even more striking is Prof. Freeman's account of Exeter. This had been a Welsh city, or town, at least partly so. Athelstan removed the Welsh and rebuilt it as an English town, "surrounded by a wall of dressed stone". He helped to lay out the city, and supervised its building, which would include the supervision of its builders. |
These data prove that Athelstan was both practically and intellectually interested in the arts of building and took an active part in its practice, not only once but in three cities; and to that extent they give some foundation to the tradition embedded in the Old Charges.
See The History of the Norman Conquest in England, and its Resutts, by Henry A. Freeman; six volumes; Oxford; 1873; revised American Edition.
ATHELSTAN, MASONIC ORDER OF
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The Order is based on the historic records of the life and the legend of King Athelstan. The focus of the Order is to show how this early reference to the importance of Masonry in English history was significant for the developement of speculative Freemasonry. The Masonic Order of Athelstan portrays the story of a Master Mason being called to York in 926 AD to receive the Ancient Charges from the king. Throughout its ceremony the ritual contains a great deal of symbolism that is still seen in some Lodges today and a great deal that is not currrently worked. It culminates with an historical oration which takes the candidate through the development of the various Grand Lodges, from the appointment of Sir Thomas Gresham in 1567 as the first Speculative Grand Master ending at 1813 with the formation of the United Grand Lodge of England. |
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The Masonic Order of Athelstan does not feaure in the original text but has been added by the Webmaster as relevant content. The above text is an extract from the Masonic Order of Athelstan in England Wales and its Provinces Overseas website. |
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ATHOLL MASONS
The Ancient Freemasons are sometimes called Atholl Freemasons, because they were presided over by the Third Duke of Atholl as their Grand Master from 1771 to 1774, and by the Fourth Duke from 1775 to 1781, and also from 1791 to 1813 (see Ancient Freemasons).
ATOSSA
The daughter of King Cyrus of Persia, queen of Cambyses, and afterward of Darius Hystaspes, to whom she bore Xerxes. Referred to in the degree of Prince of Jerusalem, the Sixteenth of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. |
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ATTENDANCE
See Absence.
ATTOUCHEMENT
The name given by the French Freemasons to what the English brethren call the grip.
ATTRIBUTES
The collar and jewel appropriate to an officer are called his attributes. The working tools and implements of Freemasonry are also called its attributes. The word in these senses is much more used by French than by English Freemasons.
ATWOOD, HENRY C.
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At one time of considerable prominence in the Masonic history of New York. He was born in Connecticut about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and removed to the city of New York about 1825, in which year he organized a Lodge for the purpose of introducing the system taught by Jeremy L. Cross, of whom Atwood was a pupil. This system met with great opposition from some of the most distinguished Freemasons of the State, who favored the ancient ritual, with had existed before the system of Webb had been invented, from whom Cross received his lectures. Atwood, by great diplomacy and untiring energy, succeeded in a making the system which he taught eventually popular. He took great interest in Freemasonry, and being intellectually clever, although not learned, he collected a great number of admirers, while the tenacity with which he maintained his opinions, however unpopular they might be, secured for him as many enemies. He was greatly instrumental in establishing, in 1837, the independent body known as the St. John's Grand Lodge, and was its Grand Master at the time of its union, in 1850, with the legitimate Grand Lodge of New York. Atwood edited a small periodical called The Sentinel, which was remarkable for the Virulent and un-Masonic tone of its articles. He was also the author of a Masonic Monitor of some pretensions. He died in 1860. |
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ATYS
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(Sometimes spelled Attis or Attys). The Mysteries of Atys in Phrygia, and those of Cybele his mistress, like their worship, much resembled those of Adonis and Bacchus, Osiris and Isis. Their Asiatic origin is universally admitted, and was with great plausibility claimed by Phrygia, which contested the palm of antiquity with Egypt. They, more than any other people, mingled allegory with their religious worship, and were great inventors of fables; and their sacred traditions as to Cybele and Atys, whom all admit to be Phrygian gods, were very various. In all, as we learn from Julius Firmicus, they represented by allegory the phenomena of nature and the succession of physical facts under the veil of a marvelous history. Their feasts occurred at the equinoxes, commencing with lamentation, mourning, groans, and pitiful cries for the death of Atys, and ending with rejoicings at his restoration to life. |
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AUDI, VIDE, TACE Latin, meaning Hear, see, and be silent. A motto frequently found on Masonic medals, and often appropriately used in the documents of the Craft. It was adopted as its motto by the United Grand Lodge of England at the union between the Antients and the Moderns in 1813. |
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AUDITOR
An officer in the Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States. His duty is, with the Committee on Finance, to examine and report on the accounts of the Inspector and other officers. This duty of auditing the accounts of the Secretary and Treasurer is generally entrusted, in Masonic bodies, to a special committee appointed for the purpose. In the Grand Lodge of England, the accounts are examined and reported upon annually by a professional auditor, who must be a Master Mason.
AUDITORS
The first class of the secret system adopted by the Christians in their early days. The second class were Catechumens, and the third were The Faithful.
AUDLEY, LORD JOHN TOUCHET
Anderson gives him as Grand Master of England, 1540-8, a patron of the building art in Magdalen College.
AUFSEHER
The German name for the Warden of a Lodge. The Senior Warden is called Erste Aufseher, and the Junior Warden, Zweite Aufseher. The word literally means an overseer. Its Masonic application is technical.
AUGER
An implement used as a symbol in the Ark Mariners Degree.
AUGUSTINE, ST.
See Saint Augustine.
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AUGUSTUS WILLIAM, PRINCE OF PRUSSIA Born in 1722, died in 1758. Brother of Frederick the Great, and father of King Frederick William II. A member of Lodge Drei WeltkugeIn, or Three Globes, Berlin. |
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AUM
A mystic syllable among the Hindus, signifying the Supreme God of Gods, which the Brahmans, from its awful and sacred meaning,
hesitate to pronounce aloud, and in doing so place one of their hands before the mouth so as to deaden the sound. This triliteral name
of God which is as sacred among the Hindus as the Tetragrammaton is among the Jews, is composed of three Sanskrit letters, sounding
Aum.
The first letter, A, stands for the Creator;
the second, U, for the Preserver;
and the third, M, for the Destroyer, or Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
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Benfey, in his Sanskrit English Dictionary, defines the word as "a particle of reminiscence"; and this may explain the Brahmanical saying, that a Brahman beginning or ending the reading of a part of the Veda or Sacred Books, must always pronounce, to himself, the syllable Aum; for unless that syllable precede, his learning will slip away from him, and unless it follow, nothing will be long retained. An old passage in the Parana says, "All the rites ordained in the Vedas, the sacrifices to fire, and all sacred purifications, shall pass away, but the word Aum shall never pass away, for it is the symbol of the Lord of all things". The word has been indifferently spelled, O'm, Aom, and Aum; but the last is evidently the most proper, as the second letter is in the Sanskrit alphabet (see On). |
AUMONT
Said to have been the successor of Molay as Grand Master, and hence called the Restorer of the Order of the Templars. There is a tradition, altogether fabulous, however, which states that he, with seven other Templars, fled, after the dissolution of the Order, into Scotland, disguised as Operative Freemasons, and there secretly and under another name founded a new Order; and to preserve as much as possible the ancient name of Templars, as well as to retain the remembrance of the clothing of Freemasons, in which disguise they had fled, they chose the name of Freemasons, and thus founded Freemasonry. The society thus formed, instead of conquering or rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem, was to erect symbolical temples.
This is one of the forms of the Templar theory of the origin of Freemasonry.
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AURORA In Hebrew the light is called Aur, and in its dual capacity Aurim. Hence Urim, lights-as, Thme, Thummim, perfections. Ra is the sun, the symbolic god of the Egyptians, and Ouro, royalty. Hence we have Aur, Ouro, Ra, which is the double symbolic capacity of Light. Referring to the Urim and Thummim, Re is physical and intellectual light, while Thme is the divinity of truth and justice. Aurora is the color of the baldric worn by the Brethren in the Sixteenth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, which in the legend is said to have been presented by King Darius to the captive Zerubbabel on presentation of his liberty, and that of all his people, who had been slaves in Babylon for seventy years. |
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AUSERWAHLTEN
German for Elu or Elect. AUSTIN. See Saint Augustine.
AUSTRALASIA
The first Masonic Lodge in this region was held in 1803 at Sydney, but was suppressed by the Governor, and it was not until the year 1820 that the parent Lodge of Australasia was warranted to meet at Sydney by the Grand Lodge of Ireland; it is now No. l on the New South Wales register and named the Australian Social Mother Lodge. After that many Lodges were warranted under the three Constitutions of England, Scotland and Ireland, out of which in course of time no less than six independent Grand Lodges have been formed, viz., South Australia founded in 1884, New South Wales 1888; Victoria, 1889; Tasmania, 1890; New Zealand, 1890, and Western Australia, 1900.
AUSTRIA
Freemasonry was introduced into Austria in 1742 by the establishment at Vienna of the Lodge of the Three Cannons. But it was broken up by the government in the following year, and thirty of its members were imprisoned for having met in contempt of the authorities. Maria Theresa was an enemy of the Institution, and prohibited it in 1764. Lodges, however, continued to meet secretly in Vienna and Prague. In 1780, Joseph II ascended the throne, and under his liberal administration Freemasonry, if not actually encouraged, was at least tolerated, and many new Lodges were established in Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Transylvania, under the authority of the Grand Lodge of Germany, in Berlin. Delegates from these Lodges met at Vienna in 1784, and organized the Grand Lodge of Austria, electing the Count of Dietrichstein, Grand Master. The attempt of the Grand Lodge at Berlin to make this a Provincial Grand Lodge was successful for only a short time, and in 1785 the Grand Lodge of Austria again proclaimed its independence.
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During the reign of Joseph II, Austrian Freemasonry was prosperous. Notwithstanding the efforts of its enemies, the monarch could never be persuaded to prohibit it. But in 1785 he was induced to issue instructions by which the number of the Lodges was reduced, so that not more than three were permitted to exist in each city; and he ordered that a list of the members and a note of the times of meeting of each Lodge should be annually delivered to the magistrates. Joseph died in 1790, and Leopold II expressed himself as not unfriendly to the Fraternity, but his successor in 1792, Francis II, yielded to the machinations of the anti-Freemasons, and dissolved the Lodges. In 1801 he issued a decree which forbade the employment of anyone in the public service who was attached to any secret society. Freemasonry has continued in operation in Austria, as it is in most non-Masonic countries. The World War developed the activities of the Grand Lodge of Vienna which received recognition abroad, the Grand Lodge of Kentucky so voting on October 20, 1926. |
AUSTRIA HUNGARY AND CZECHO-SLOVAKIA
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Freemasonry in these countries began when Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, husband of the Empress Maria Theresia was made Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft in 1731 in a Lodge of which Doctor Desaguliers was Worshipful Master. On September 17, 1742, a Lodge was instituted at Vienna but it was closed during the following year by order of the Empires. Various Lodges were established by German authority but in 1764 a Royal Decree was issued against Freemasonry, although the Emperor Francis was at the time Worshipful Master of the first Lodge at Vienna. By 1784, 45 Lodges under six Provincial Grand Lodges had been instituted in Austria. The Provincial Grand Lodges of Vienna, Bohemia, Hungary and Sieberburgen formed a National Grand Lodge of the Austrian States. Count Dietrichstein was elected Grand Master but when the new body was opposed by the National Grand Lodge at Berlin he accepted the rank of Provincial Grand Master. In 1785 the Emperor ordered the new Grand Lodge to be independent and he was obeyed. During the next few years edicts directed against secret societies were issued by the Emperor and all activity of the Craft ceased. Some Lodges were formed or revived but they soon disappeared again. |
Francis I
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In 1867 Austria and Hungary were separated into two Kingdoms and the Brethren took advantage of there being no law in Hungary against Freemasonry to open several Lodges. A Convention of Unity Lodge and others at Temesvar, Oedenburg, Baja, Pressburg, Budapest and Arad met on January 30, 1870 and established the National Grand Lodge of Hungary. For the Austrian Freemasons the only thing left to do was to form social clubs which, when they met as Lodges, were convened in the neighboring country of Hungary. The great World War changed these conditions. A Grand Lodge of Vienna was formed on December 8, 1918. The formation in 1919 of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia resulted in the establishment of the National Grand Lodge of Jugoslavia for the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
AUTHENTIC
Formerly, in the science of diplomatica, ancient manuscripts were termed authentic when they were originals, and in opposition to copies.
But in modern times the acceptation of the word has been enlarged, and it is now applied to instruments which, although they may be copies, bear the evidence of having been executed by proper authority.
So of the old records of Freemasonry, the originals of many have been lost, or at least have not yet been found. Yet the copies, if they can be traced to unsuspected sources within the body of the Craft and show the internal marks of historical accuracy, are to be reckoned as authentic. But if their origin is altogether unknown, and their statements or style conflict with the known character of the Order at their assumed date, their authenticity is to be doubted or denied.
AUTHENTICITY OF THE SCRIPTURES
A belief in the authenticity of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as a religious qualification of initiation does not constitute one of the laws of Freemasonry, for such a regulation would destroy the universality of the Institution, and under its action none but Christians could become eligible for admission. But in 1856 the Grand Lodge of Ohio declared "that a distinct avowal of a belief in the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures should be required of every one who is admitted to the privileges of Masonry, and that a denial of the same is an offence against the Institution, calling for exemplary discipline". It is hardly necessary to say that the enunciation of this principle met with the almost universal condemnation of the Grand Lodges and Masonic jurists of this country. The Grand Lodge of Ohio subsequently repealed the regulation. In 1857 the Grand Lodge In 1857 was adopted a similar resolution; but the general sense of the Fraternity has rejected all religious tests except a belief in God.
AUTOPSY
Greek, meaning a seeing with one's own eyes. The complete communication of the secrets in the Ancient Mysteries, when the aspirant was admitted into the sacellum, or most sacred place, and was invested by the hierophant with all the aporrheta, or sacred things, which constituted the perfect knowledge of the initiate. A similar ceremony in Freemasonry is called the Rite of Intrusting (see Mysteries).
AUXILIARY DEGREES
According to Oliver, in his Historical Landmarks, ii, page 345, the Supreme Council of France, in addition to the thirty-three regular degrees of the Rite, confers six others, which he calls Auxiliary Degrees. They are:
AVENUE
Forming an avenue is a ceremony sometimes practiced in the lower degrees, but more generally in the higher ones, on certain occasions of paying honors to superior officers. The Brethren form in two ranks facing each other. If the degree is one in which swords are used, these are drawn and elevated, being crossed each with the opposite sword. The swords thus crossed constitute what is called the arch of steel. The person to whom honor is to be paid passes between the opposite ranks and under the arch of steel.
AVIGNON
Town on the River Rhone in the south of France about 75 miles north-west of the seaport of Marseilles which was the headquarters of the Hermetic Grades from 1740 to the French Revolution. A drastic persecution was set in motion in 1757 by the Archbishop J. de Guyon de Crochans and the Inquisitor P. Mabille, at which time the Mother Lodge was dissolved as the result of a direct attack by these two.
AVIGNON, ILLUMINATI OF
The French expression is Illuminés d'Avignon. A rite instituted by Pernetti at Avignon, in France, in 1770, and transferred in the year 1778 to Montpellier, under the name of the Academy of True Masons. The Academy of Avignon consisted of only four degrees, the three of symbolic or St. John's Freemasonry, and a fourth called the True Freemason, which was made up of instructions, Hermetical and Swedenborgian (see Pernetti).
AVOUCHMENT
See Vouching
AWARD
In law, the judgment pronounced by one or more arbitrators, at the request of two parties who are at variance. "If any complaint be brought", say the Charges published by Anderson, "the brother found guilty shall stand to the award and determination of the Lodge" (see the Constitutions, edition of 1723, page 54).
AYES AND NOES
It is not according to Masonic usage to call for the ayes and noes on any question pending before a Lodge. By a show of hands is the old and usual custom of determining the will of the Brethren.
AYNON
Aynon, Agnon, Ajuon, and Dyon are all used in the old manuscript Constitutions for one whom they call the son of the King of Tyre, but it is evidently meant for Hiram Abif. Each of these words is most probably a corruption of the Hebrew Adon or Lord, so that the reference would clearly be to Adon Hiram or Adoniram, with whom Hiram was often confounded; a confusion to be found in later times in the Adonhiramite Rite.
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AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE Poet and humorist. Studied law but said "though he followed the law, he could never overtake it". Professor of rhetoric and literature, University of Edinburgh. Active member of the Scottish Grand Lodge and representative there of the Grand Lodge Royal York of Germany. Born June 21, 1813, his poetry brought him world-wide fame, the most popular being Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. Brother Aytoun died on August 4, 1865. |
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AZARIAH
The old French rituals have Azarias. A name in the advanced degrees signifying Helped of God.
AZAZEL
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Scapegoat, the demon of dry places. Understood by others to be the fallen angel mentioned in the Book of Enoch, and identical with Sammael, the Angel of Death. Symmachus says, the goat that departs; Josephus, the averter of ills, caper emissarius. Two he-goats, in all respects alike and equal, were brought forward for the day of atonement. The urn was shaken and two lots cast; one was For the Name, and the other For Azazel. A scarlet tongue-shaped piece of wood was twisted on the head of the goat to be sent away, and he was placed before the gate and delivered to his conductor. The High Priest, placing his two bands on the goat, made confession for the people, and pronounced THE NAME clearly, which the people hearing, they knelt and worshiped, and fell on their faces and mid, Blessed be the Name. The Honor of His kingdom forever and ever. The goat was then led forth to the mountainside and rolled down to death. |
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AZRAEL
From the Hebrew, meaning Help of God. In the Jewish and the Mohammedan mythology, the name of the angel who watches over the dying and separates the soul from the body. Prior to the intercession of Mohammed, Azrael inflicted the death penalty visibly, by striking down before the eyes of the living those whose time for death was come (see Henry W. Longfellow's exquisite poem Azrael).
Azrael is also known as Raphael, and with Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel, identified as the four archangels. As the angel of death to the Moslems, he is regarded as similar to Fate, and Jewish tradition almost makes him an evil genius.
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AZTECS Native name of one of the tribes in Mexico at the arrival of the Spaniards in America, and frequently used as meaning Mexicans. Early records and other remains of the Aztecs studied by Nuttall, Peabody Museum Papers (volume ii, pages 522, 525, 532, 535, 538, and elsewhere), show a striking similarity of civilization to that from Phoenician sources and may be due to the migrations of the Men of Tyre. |
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AZURE
The clear blue color of the sky. Cerulean is also used to mean sky-blue but is really from a Latin word, Caeruleus, meaning dark blue. The appropriate color of the symbolic degrees; sometimes termed Blue Degrees. Azure means blue in heraldry and in the engraving to show coats of arms it is represented by horizontal lines of shading.
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