EMBLEMATIC FREEMASONRY, BUILDING GUILDS
                         AND HERMETIC SCHOOLS

                BY BRO. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE, ENGLAND

    AS EMBLEMATIC FREEMASONRY is the Craft of Building moralized, it
follows that intellectually, at least, our figurative and speculative
art has arisen out of the Operative. Here is a first link in any chain
of connection with the building world of the past. But it seems
certain also that the Free and Accepted, or Speculative, Masons had
Operative documents, such as the so-called Gothic Constitutions and
Old Charges, for part of their heritage. The proof is that soon after
the revival of 1717, these documents were put into the hands of Dr.
James Anderson "to digest . . . in a new and better methed." They were
things apparently in evidence, and he was not commissioned to search
them out. Beyond this <B>omnia exeunt in mysterium.</B> Almost from
Year to year our documentary knowledge of Constitutions, Charges, and
Landmarks extends slowly. There is also new light cast from time to
time on the general history of architecture in Christian times. But no
light is shed on the antiquities of art of building moralized. The
existence of such an art prior to 1717 remains almost as much a matter
of speculation as the art itself is speculative. We are led almost
irresistibly to infer that it anteceded this date and a few remain
among us who believe that it may have been old in the year 1646, when
Ashmole was made a Mason at Warrington, but there is no real evidence.
So also there are zealous and capable writers by whom our knowledge is
expanded from time to time, however slightly, on particular sides and
respecting the archaeology of architectural history, on Roman
Collegia, Dionysian artificers, and Comacines. They furnish at the
same time many plausible and taking speculations. But they do not help
us in respect of Freemasonry, as we now understand the term, because
no evidence of building association is of service to our own purpose
unless such association embodies our "peculiar system of morality,
veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols."
    The Hittites of Syria and Asia Minor may have been of "Hametic
descent" and may have built the Temple at Jerusalem; the Etruscans,
from whom architecture was learned by the Romans, may, have been
Hittites; at the downfall of Rome, the Roman Collegia may have settled
in that island on Lake Como, which is familiar at the present day as
Isola Comacina, and may have become Comacines; the Comacines may, in
turn, have merged into the great Masonic guilds of the Middle Ages.
But, if so, all this is part and parcel of the history of architecture
and not of Emblematical Building, unless and until we can show that,
practical Masons as they were, their system of secret association
included what is called in the Craft degrees a side of Speculative
Masonry and in the appendant degrees an art of building spiritualized.
But it is just this which is wanting, or we should have taken the
closing long since in the lodge of our debate on the origin of
Freemasonry. There are not unnatural sporadic vestiges, few and far
between. It is said, that the Comacines had a motto affirming that
their temple ,was "one made without hands," and this reminds us
assuredly of the Mark degree; but it is not to be called evidence for
a developed speculative element prevailing amongst tho old masters.
Nor can I think with Brother Ravencroft, in his memorable series of
papers contributed to THE BUILDER In 1918, that the two pillars of
Wurzburg Cathedral, once situated on either side of the porch and
bearing respectively on their capitals the letters J and B, can be
termed "a good illustration of the way in which symbols were
transmitted even from the temple of Solomon to the medieval craftsmen
and thence to our Speculative Masonry." It seems to me simply that the
Cathedral builders were acquaint with Holy Scripture.
    The conclusion which is forced upon me is that only by the use of
liberal supposition can the Comacines and those who preceded them be
made to connect with our subject. We may take H. J. Da Costa as early
authority in England for the Dionysian fraternity and his successor,
Krause, for the links between Masons of the Middle Ages and the Roman
Collegia. The views of both have been summarized ably by my friend,
Brother Joseph Fort Newton, but that which valid therein belongs to
the history of architecture. It was, I think, Krause who said that
each Roman collegium was presided over by a Master and two decuriones
or Wardens, each of whom bore the Master's commands to the brethren of
his respective column. The word "decurio" is here translated "warden,"
to institute an analogy by force. According to Suetonius, the Latin
office in question was that of a captain over ten men whether horse or
foot, and was therefore military I character. The first authority on
the Comacines is Leader Scott (who is Miss Lucy E. Baxter) in "The
Cathedral Builders," a most fascinating romance of architecture, which
contains also some great and valuable historical lights. Joseph Fort
Newton described it as an attempt to bridge the gap "between the
classical Roman style and the rise of Gothic art." Again. therefore,
it is a question of architectural evolution and I must say personally
that, taken as such, it is to be questioned whether the gulf is really
spanned. I can understand on the hypothesis the development of Italian
architecture, more or less degenerated fron classical types, but not
the genesis of the great schools of Gothic building. It is to be
understood, however, that this question exceeds the warrants of my
subject to connect any ritual mystery which obtained <B>ex
hypothesi</B> in the old Collegia, or among Comacine lodges, with the
living mystery of Speculative Masonry, of which she Speaks with
derision, but evidently knows it only through an Italian source. As a
student of the Secret Tradition in Christian times I could wish that
the facts were otherwise in the great story of all these ancient
guilds. I could have wished that their supposed pageants of secret
initiation were, as the speculations say, Dionysian representations of
mystical death and resurrection, and that they are reflected at a far
distance in our Sublime degree. But if these stories are dreams, or
still awaiting demonstration, we have to face the fact, and the
question remaining over is whether we can look elsewhere. Now, it
happens that there is one direction which has been regarded not
unfavorably as a possible source of light. It is that of the Hermetic
Schools in England, and these, speaking broadly, may be classified as
three- Alchemical, Rosicrucian, and Kabalistic. They had a common bond
of interest and tended here, as elsewhere, to merge one into another.
There are evidences to show that the experiment of Alchemy in England
is an exceedingly old pursuit, but in the early part of the
seventeenth century it had sprung into greater prominence. The rumor
of the Rosicrucian fraternity was also raising curiosity in Europe.
Hermetic literature- not only with a modern accent but also for the
time in vernacular language- extended greatly, and schools of
theoosophy sprang up in several countries. The root of the Rosicrucian
movement was in Germany, but the impulse reached England and some of
the most famous names connected with the subject are identified with
this country. Hence came Alexander Seton and hence Eirenaeus
Philalethes, who has been regarded as one of the great masters of
Hermetic Art. Here also was Robert Fludd, who must, I think, be
regarded as not only advocate and apologist in chief of the
Rosicrucian art and philosophy, but as a fountain-head. Here, too, was
Thomas Vaughan, mystic as well as alchemist. And here, in 1640, lived
Elias Ashmole, alchemist and antiquary, founder also of the Ashmolean
Museum at Oxford.
    A section of Masonic opinion has looked in the past and a section
looks still towards Elias Ashmole and his connections in some way, yet
undetermined, as the representatives of this transition from Operative
to Speculative Masonry. In France there has been practically no doubt
on the subject from the days of Ragon, though concerning the value of
his personal view I must speak with desirable plainness elsewhere in
this paper. In America the distinguished name of Albert Pike can be
cited in support of the thesis. After every allowance has been made
for the position of such a speculation, still almost inextricable, it
can be affirmed that it seems to offer a place of repose for all the
tolerable views, because it harmonizes all- on the understanding that
Ashmole and his consociates are not regarded personally but as
typifying a leavening spirit introduced there and here, and at work
during the period intervening between 1640 and the foundation of the
first Grand Lodge In 1717. Pike was like Ragon unfortunately, a man of
uncritical mind, and I summarize his findings under all needful
reserve.
    Among Masonic symbols which he identifies as used in common by
Freemasons and Hermetic and Alchemical literature are the Square and
Compasses, the Triangle, the Oblong Square, the Legend of the three
Grand Masters, the idea embodied in a substituted word, which might
well be the most important of all, together with the Sun, the Moon,
and Master of the lodge. It was, moreover, his opinion, based on this
and other considerations, that the philosophers- meaning the members
of the Hermetic confraternities- became Freemasons and introduced into
Masonry their own symbolism. He thinks finally that Ashmole was led to
be made a Mason because others who were followers of Hermes had taken
the step before him. However this may be, I have said elsewhere that
the influence of the Rosicrucian fraternity upon that of the Masons
has been questioned only by those who have been unfitted to appreciate
the symbolism which they possess in common. It does not belong to the
formative period of Emblematic Ereemasonry, but to that of development
and expansion. The nature of the influence is another matter and one,
moreover, in which it may be necessary to recognize the simple
principle of imitation up to a certain point. The influence has been
exercised more especially in connection with other Rites, as to which
it is impossible, for example, to question that those who instituted
the eighteenth degree of the Scottish Rite either must have received
something by transmission from the old German Brotherhood, or,
alternatively, must have borrowed from its literature.
    That Ashmole was connected with Rosicrucians, or otherwise with
the representatives of some association which had assumed their name
is an inference drawn from his life. His antiquarian studies led him
more especially in the direction of Alchemy, but as regards this art
he did not remain an antiquary or a mere collector of old documents on
the subject. He was, to some extent, a practical student and,
moreover, not simply an isolated inquirer. He had secured that
assistance which has been regarded always as next but one to
essential, namely, the instruction of a Master. The alternative is
Divine Aid, which is, of course, a higher kind of Mastery. He was
associated otherwlse with many of the occult philosophers, alchemists,
astrologers, and so forth, belonging to his period. The suggestion
that he acted as an instrument of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood, or as a
member thereof, in the transfiguration of Operative into Speculative
Freemasonry is a matter of faith for those who have held or hold it.
Of direct or indirect evidence there is not one particle. Supposing
that such a design existed at the period, he is not an unlikely person
to have been concerned in planning it on the part of himelf and others
or to have been delegated for such a purpose. But of the design there
is again no evidence. It has been aflirmed further in the interests of
the claim that a meeting of an Alchemical- presumably Rosicrucian-
society perceiving how working Masons were already outnumbered in
membership by persons of education not belonging to the trade,
believed that the time was ripe for a complete ceremonial revolution
and that one founded on mystical tradition was drawn up thereon in
writing, constituting the Entered Apprentice grade, approximately as
it exists now. The grade of Fellow Craft was elaborated in 1648, and
that of Master Mason in 1659.
    These are the reveries of Ragon, categorical in nature,
accompanied by specific details, all in the absence of one particle of
fact in any record of the past. It seems to me, therefore, that no
language would be too strong to characterize such mendacities and that
they can belong only to the class of conscious lying, but the charge
against Ragon is more especially that he elaborated the materials of a
hypothesis which had grown up among successive inventors belonging to
the type of Reghellini. If there were Rosicrucians in England at the
date in question, it may be presumed that those who, according to
Ashmole's own statement, communicated to him some portions, at least,
of the Hermetic secrets would not have withheld the corporate
mysteries of their Fraternity. But, on the other hand, there is at
present no historical certainty that the Hermetic Order possessed any
such corporate existence in England at that period. However this may
be, in the memoirs of the life of Elias Ashmole, as drawn up by
himself in the form of a diary, there is the following now well-known
entry under date of 16th October, 1646:
    <B>I was made a Freemason at Warrington in Lancashire with Colonel
Henry Mainwaring of Kartichan in Cheshire; the names of those that
were then at the Lodge: Mr. Richard Penket, Warden; Mr. James Collier,
Mr. Richard Sankey, Henry Littler, John Ellam, Richard Ellam, and Hugh
Brewer.</B>
    The two noteworthy points in this extract, over and above the main
fact which it designs to place on record, are that neither candidate
was an operative by business and that the work of initiation was
performed evidently by the brother who acted as Warden. At that period
Elias Ashmole was under thirty years of age. His father was a saddler
by trade, his mother was the daughter of a draper and he himself
solicited in Chancery. But while still in his youth he tells us that
he had entered into that condition to which he had aspired always,
"that I might be able to live to myself and studies, without being
forced to take pains for a livelihood in the world." The admissions of
16th October, 1646, are not required to prove the practice of
initiating men of other business than that of Masonry and its
connected crafts, or even of no business at all, but it should be
observed that here- as in cases of earlier date- the reception was in
the capacity of simple brothers and not of patrons.
    The nature of those studies which were engrossing Ashmole about
the time of his initiation may be learned by the publication, five
years later, of his <B>Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum,</B> being a
collection of metrical treatises written in English at various dates
on the subject of the Hermetic Mystery and the Philosopher's Stone.
They appear to be concerned only with what is called technically the
physical work on metals and the physical medicine or elixir, not with
those spiritual mysteries which have passed occasionally into
expression under the peculiar symbolism of Alchemy. At the same time
Ashmole is careful to explain his personal assurance that the
transmutation of metals is only one branch of Hermetic practice:
    <B>As this is but a part, so it is the least share of that
blessing which may he acquired by the Philosopher's materia, if the
full virtue thereof were known. Gold, I confess, is a delicious
object, a goodly light which we admire and gaze upon ut pueri in
Junonis avem, but as to make gold is the chief intent of the
Alchemists, so was it scarcely any intent of the ancient Philosophers
and the lowest use the Adeptio made of this materia. For they, being
lovers of wisdom more than worldly wealth, drove at higher and more
excellent operations; and certainly he to whom the whole course of
Nature lies open rejoiceth not so much that he can make gold and
silver or the devils be made subject to him as that he sees the
heavens open, the angels of God ascending and descending and that his
own name is fairly written in the Book of Life.</B>
    It should be added that this exposition is a faithful reflection
of Rosicrucian doctrine as it is put forward, directly or indirectly,
under the name of the Brotherhood in German books and pamphlets of the
early seventeenth century. Supposing that circa 1650 there was an
incorporated Rosicrucian School in England, no person is so likely to
have been a member as Ashmole, and it is not possible to imagine him
in separation therefrom. Indeed, I am by no means certain that his
testimony is not thinly presumptive of membership, being so to the
manner born of it in thought and figures of speech. But if we can
tolerate- however tentatively- the Rosicrucian initiation of Ashmole,
we may take it for granted that he did not stand alone. On the whole
it seems barely possible that on 16th October, 1646, a Brother of the
Rosy Oross was made a Mason, with or without an ulterior motive in
view. It follows expressly from his frank and honorable testimony
concerning himself that he was one who had only seen the end of
adeptship, even within the measures that he conceived it, while as
regards any other Rosicrucians to whom he may have been joined we know
very little concerning them.
    It will be seen that the Ashmole hypothesis is but a part of the
wider claim of direct Rosicrucian influence on the foundation of
Emblematic Freemasonry. I agree with the opinion that in so far as it
has been advanced in the past this claim has lapsed. It affirms that
the House of the Holy Spirit, being the Rosicrucian Br9therhood in
Germany, had a Secret House in England, which either transfigured
itself into the thing called Speculative Masonry or revolutionized the
old Operative Craft along speculative lines for its own purposes,
presumably that it might have recruiting centres available and more or
less openly manifest. There is no evidence whatever to support this
view. The Rosicrucian zeal of the occult philosopher and intellectual
mystic, Robert FIudd, left no trace behind it, until the time came for
it to influence in a rather indefinite manner the impassionabie
enthusiasm of Thomas Vaughan, and this also led to nothing. The first
incorporated Rosicrucian Society in England of which we hear belongs
to the early nineteenth century. In particular, Fludd's activities had
no bearing on any Masonry of the early seventeenth century, even if
Robertus de Fluctitus was the Mr. Flood who presented a <B>Book of
Contitutions</B> to the Masons' Company, as recorded in an inventory
taken before the Fire of London.
    When the question at issue has been relieved from these reveries
there remains the more reasonable suggestion that the Operative
Brotherhood came gradually and not unnaturally under the influence of
persons who belonged to both associations. It would attract also those
who were simply Hermetic students, though isolated and unattached as
such. Attached or otherwise, Ashmole is a case in point, though his
place in Freemasonry of the mid-seventeenth century is a subject for
very careful adjudication. The influence which in this manner would
begin to be exercised, consciously or unconsciously, would be Hermetic
in a general sense rather than Rosicrucian exclusively; but this is a
distinction which will not be realized readily by those who are 
acquainted only at second-hand with the mystical and occult movements
of the seventeenth century. As to the ritual side of the Operative
Masonry in that century we know next to nothing, while of Rosicrucian
ritual procedure- if any- we know nothing at all.
    Such in rough outline is the case as it stands for the
interference of two Hermetic Schools in Freemasonry, prior to the
first historical evidence for the ritual of the Third Craft degree and
apart from any long since exploded hypothesis which has sought to
connect the Brotherhood with older Mysteries by means of direct
transmission within their own bends. I have registered my feelings
that some day it may assume a less uncertain aspect, in other words
that sources of additional knowledge may become available. I know that
the root-matter of the Third degree belongs to the Secret Tradition
and is not only of the Hermetic Schools but of Schools thereunto
antecedent. This is not a speculative question or one of simple
persuasion. It is, moreover, no question of history and does not stand
or fall with particular personalities and with claims made concerning
them. As regards these there is work remaining to be done- that is to
say, in the purely historic field, but unfortunately the subject has
only a few sympathizers in England and among these a small proportion
only who are qualified to work therein. In the meantime it remains
that the position of Hermetic Schools, so far delineated, is not
unlike that of speculation on Comacines, Roman Collegia, and Dionysian
architects. When we pass, however, to the third Hermetic School the
position is, I think, different. The root-matter of much that is
shadowed forth in the traditional history of the Craft, as regards the
meaning of the Temple and the search for the Lost Word, is to be found
in certain great texts known to scholars under the generic name of
Kabalah. We find therein after what manner, according to mystic
Israel, Solomon's Temple was spiritualized; we find profound meanings
attached to the, two pillars J and B; we find how a Word was lost and
under what circumstances the chosen people were to look for its
recovery. It is an expectation for Jewish theosophy, as it is for the
Craft Mason. It was lost owing to a certain untoward event, and
although the time and circumstances of its recovery have been
calculated in certain texts, there has been something amiss with the
methods. Those who were keepers of the tradition died with their faces
towards Jerusalem, looking for that time; but for Jewry at large the
question has passed long since from the field of view, much as the
quest is continued by Masons in virtue of a ceremonial formula but
cannot he said to mean anything for those who undertake and pursue it
officially. It was lost owing to the unworthiness of Israel, and the
destruction of the First Temple was one consequence thereof. By the
waters of Babylon, in their exile, the Jews are said to have
remembered Zion, but the Word did not return into their hearts; and
when Divine Providence inspired Cyrus to project the building of a
second temple and the return of Israel into their own land, they went
back empty of all recollection in this respect.
    The Word to which reference is made in that Divine Name out of the
consonants of which we have formed <B>Jehovah,</B> or, by another
speculation, <B>Yahve.</B> When Israel fell into a state that is
termed impenitence it is said in Zoharic symbolism that VAV and HE
final were separated. The name was thus dismembered, and this is the
first sense of loss which is registered concerning it. The second is
that it has no proper vowel points, those of the name ELOHIM being
substituted, or alternatively, of the name ADONAI. It is said, for
example: "My name is written YHVH and read ADONAI." The epoch of
restoration and completion is called, almost indifferently, that of
resurrection, the world to come and the advent of Messiah. In such day
the present separation between the letters will reach its term, once
and forever.
    It is also to this Kabalistic source, rather than to the variant
account in the first book of Kings or in Chronicles, that we must have
recourse for the important Masonic symbolism concerning the pillars J
and B. There is very little in Holy Scripture to justify a choice of
those objects as particular representstives of an art of building
spiritualized. But in later Kabalism, in the texts called <B>The
Garden of Pomegranates</B> and <B>The Gates of Light</B> there is a
very full explanation of the strength which is attributed to B, the
left hand pillar, and of that which is "established" in and by the
right hand pillar, called J.
    As regards the temple itself, I have explained elsewhere after
what manner it is spiritualized in various Kabalistic and semi-
Kabalistic texts, so that it appears as "the proportion of the height,
the proportion of the depth, and the lateral proportion" of the
created universe. It offers another aspect of the fatal loss to Israel
and the world which is commented on in the Tradition. That which the
temple symbolizes above all things is, however, a House of Doctrine,
and as on the one hand the Zohar shows us how a loss and substitution
were perpetuated through centuries, owing to the idolatry of Israel at
the foot ef Mount Horeb in the wilderness of Sinai, and illustrated by
the breaking of the tables of stone on which the Law was inscribed, so
does Speculative Masonry intimate that the Holy House, which was
planned and begun after one manner, was completed after another and a
word of death was substituted for a word of life.
    But if these are among the sources of Craft Masonry, taken at its
culmination in the Sublime degree, what manner of people were those
who grafted so strange a speculation and symbolism on the Operative
procedure of a building guild, even when this has been symbolized? The
answer is that all about the period which represents what is called
the "transition," and indeed between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries many Latin-writing scholars of Europe were animated with
zeal for an exposition of the tradition in Israel, with the result
that memorable and even great books were produced on the subject. But
this zeal for Kabalistic literature had more than a scholastic basis.
It was believed that the texts of the Secret Tradition showed plainly,
out of the mouth of Israel itself, that the Messiah had come. This is
the first fact. The second is in Ceremonial Masonry itself, and,
namely, that although the central event of the Third degree is the
candidate's raising, it is not said in the legend that the Master
Builder rose, thus suggesting that something remains to come after,
which might at once complete the legend and conclude the quest. The
third fact is that in an important high grade of a philosophical kind,
now almost unknown, the Master Builder of the Third degree rises as
Christ. The dismembered Divine Name is completed therein by insertion
of the Hebrew letter SHIN, thus producing YEHESHUAH, the official
restoration of the Lost Word in the Christian degrees of Masonry. It
follows that although the opening and closing of the Third degree and
the legend of the Master-Builder, with all their speaking Mysteries,
may seem to come from very far away, they are not so remote that we
cannot trace them to their source.
    It is to be observed that the presence of a Kabalistic element in
the traditional history of the Craft by no means connotes antiquity,
and antiquity is a difficult thing to predicate of the Third degree,
at least in its present form. By whomsoever created or developed, its
author was a student of the Secret Tradition in Israel, and drew great
lights therefrom, possibly at first hand, but much more probably
perhaps from those Latin commentaries and synopses already mentioned.
The bulk of these were already compiled, whether we place his work
late in the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth cehtury. Much of it
was available previously, supposing that more considerable antiquity
could be predicated of the Third degree. But we must cleave to that
which is evidentially reasonable in this respect, until time or
circumstances shall provide better warrants. For Speculative Masonry
as a whole we may have to rest content also, if we cannot date it much
further back than the close of the seventeenth century, recognizing
that its present characteristic develoments are to be sought in and
about the Revival period. Such recognition puts an end to romantic
hypotheses, but the great intimations of the Third degree remain a
speaking pageant in Symbolism, however late its origin. The quest of
the Word remains, with all Zoharic Theosophy behind it and all the
rites of Christian Masonry in front. The mythos connects our Order
with the figurative Mysteries of past ages, while the opening and
closing of the lodge in that degree are much greater than anything in
the memorials of Greece and Egypt.
    I shall, therefore, reach a general conclusion on the Hermetic
Schools and their alleged intervention for the transformatiom of an
Operative Guild into an Emblematic Freemasonry and it shall be
expressed in such a manner as will be without detriment to ourselves
or our connections as loyal and devoted Masons. In Dionysian
architects, Roman Collegia, Gomacines, and Building Guilds of the
Middle Ages, I have failed to discover any traces of an art of
building spritualized. I have taken the old Gothic Constitutions and
have sought to digest them like Anderson "in a new and better method";
but, however they were passed and repassed through the mental alembic,
they have yielded nothing corresponding to a "system of morality
veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." Not even the Regius
MSS. betray a single vestige, though I have followed Gould anxiously.
As regards the Hermetic Schools, and speaking, if I may venture to say
so, as one who knows the literature, the allegation of Albert Pike is
true in respect of a few world-wide symbols which prove nothing and
false in all things else. There is no legend of three Grand Masters in
Alchemy; there is no Substituted Word; and there is no Master of the
lodge, for there is no need of ritual procedure among all its cloud of
witnesses. The witness of Alchemy to Masonry is the witness of Elias
Ashmole, the sole alchemist in the seventeenth century whom we know to
have become a Mason. The Rosicrucian influence I believe to have been
marked in character and exercised for a considerable period, but we
know it only in its developments which belong to the eighteenth
century, and are, of course, beyond our scope. Provisionally, and
under all reserve, I am inclined to hold that it began earlier, but
more especially as an atmosphere belonging to the formative period of
Emblematic Freemasonry. But the great Rosicrucian maxim cited by
Robert Fludd about 1630 must be ruled out unfortunately.
<B>Transmutemini, transmutemini de lapidibus mortuis in lapides vivos
philosophicos,</B> does not signify that the Brothers of the Rosy
Cross had either joined or invented our figurative and speculative
art; it is rather a contract established between material and
spiritual alchemy. For the present, at least, we are asked also to set
aside the winning speculation concerning a secret school of Emblematic
Masonry co-existent through several generations or centuries with the
Operative Guild and sometimes identified with Rosicrucians. There are
no Rosicrucian traces prior to 1578. Moreover, the alleged school is a
notion arising out of a false construction of the Regius MS.
    We are left in this manner with the Kabalistic element about which
I have spoken plainly. But now, as a last point, supposing that there
is no trace of Third degree prior to 1717, that after this epoch it
was devised by a group of Masonic literati or alternatively by an
anonymous brother, whether famous like Desaguliers, or obscure; what,
then, is our position? My own at least is this: that the Third degree
was formulated on the basis of the Ancient Mysteries and illustrated
by the light of Kabalism: facts about which there is no open question;
that it belongs as such to an old and secret tradition, though not in
respect of time; that it stands on its own symbolical value and that,
in the words of Martines de Pasqually: We must needs be content with
what we have. As a student of the past, again I could wish that it
were otherwise; but in this, as in all else, the first consideration
is truth. There are high grades of Masonry for which no one in his
senses predicates antiquity, and yet they are great grades. They are
even holy grades, which, from my point of view, carry on the work of
the Craft towards something that stands for completion. I conclude,
therefore, with an affirmation which I have made in other places, that
antiquary <B>per se</B> is not a test of value. I can imagine a rite
created at this day which would be much greater and more eloquent in
symbolism than anything that we work and love under the name of
Masonry. Yet, for what Masonic antiquity is, let us call it two
hundred years, under all needful reserves, such an invention would not
haye the hallowed and beloved associations which have grown about our
Emblematic Craft. Here is the matter of antiquity which really
signifies: it is part of the life of the Order. And after all the
fables and all the fond reveries, the false analogies and mythical
identifications with other and immemorial Mysteries, it is again the
life which counts, the life of that great world-wide Masonic organism,
in which we ourselves live and move and have our Masonic being.


Scanned from the periodical "The Builder", published by the National 
Masonic Research Society, Anamosa Iowa. Volume VII, number 6; June,
1921. Formatting and corrections by hand.