Leigh McConnel Grand Lecturer glect@grandlodgens.org 2004-12-21

“WHY IS MASONIC RITUAL REGARDED AS SO IMPORTANT? Truth may be taught without ritual, but truth taught by ritual is always taught as the original teachers desired and makes a lasting impression upon the mind of the learner. Man has always devised ceremonies of initiation for his organizations; the Men’s House of the Indians had them; tribes bring their young men officially to manhood by rites which are sometimes terrible; ancient religions admitted to the temple only those who could qualify by successfully completing a course of initiation; many modern churches – especially those denominated “high” – have set forms for religious worship; crafts and guilds of all kinds in all ages have had certain preparatory rites. A ritual that becomes sacred and/or inviolable in human belief tends to stabilize truth and to keep it uncontaminated by “modern” ideas. Many a man has thought he could “improve” the ritual of Freemasonry. None has succeeded in making better that which was already “best”, since its content was and is living, breathing sentient truth, conveyed in words, actions and symbols which by the very antiquity prove that they are the “best” for the purpose. Dr. Joseph Fort Newton, a beloved teacher of the spiritual aspects of Freemasonry, said: “Ritual is the dramatization of belief, hope, and spiritual dream. It assists imagination by giving form to what otherwise would remain formless, presenting vivid mental images which lend a reality-feeling to what is often abstract and unreal. It is picture philosophy, truth visualized, at once expressing and confirming the faiths and visions of the mind.” In short, Freemasonry without ritual would no longer be Freemasonry. SOME RITUAL ORIGINS Freemasonry has been built around certain old documents. Whether an ancient ritual long lost to us was father to the Old Charges or whether the Old Charges themselves were the beginnings of ritual is an unanswerable question. But there is no question that there was a beginning, we just don’t know when. The ritual is, as has often been observed, fundamental to Freemasonry, and it gives form to our proceedings. We like to think of it as one of the landmarks, but it does change, though only slowly. I would like to show you how far back in Masonry we can trace certain words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, episodes, etc. What we know of Freemasonry prior to the formation of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717 and the publication of the so called “Anderson’s Constitutions” in 1723, is found in a relatively small body of surviving source materials; printed from early exposures of Masonry and manuscripts. The latter are the most colourful and revealing and are handwritten copies of the “Old Charges”, each manuscript copy constituting a somewhat separate version. Usually, these “Charges” or regulations, were prefaced by historical accounts of Masonry which were inclined to be more legendary than factual. The original manuscripts are very scarce and rare, and the discovery of one of them constitutes an outstanding event in Masonic history. With a few exceptions, these manuscripts are of unknown authorship. They are handwritten by brethren of the 1300’s to the 1700’s who merely copied onto parchment or vellum what they had heard verbally of the customs, regulations, traditions, and allegory of the Craft in the years before there was any organizational authority. They were usually written on skins of varying lengths, crudely sewn together, between 3 and 14 inches wide and up to 14 ½ feet in length, so that the whole would be narrow and long and could be rolled up. For this reason these ones are commonly called “Masonic Rolls”. The surviving rolls have been named in various ways. Some are named for the library or institution now owning them, such as the Trinity College, Dublin MS; or named for the Lodge, Provincial Grand Lodge, Grand Lodge, or other Masonic body possessing it. Some are named for the past or present owner, or named for a purchaser who acquired it and then donated it to some museum, library, or Masonic depository. Only a few have changed name once their identity was established. The old manuscripts are variously referred to as “the Old Gothic Constitutions”, “The Old Gothic’s”, “The Gothic’s”, “the Old Manuscripts”, “the Manuscript Constitutions”, “Masonic Rolls”, or most commonly, “The Old Charges”. When you hear these terms they are all referring to these old manuscripts. The Old Charges are the earliest proof of our modern Masonry. In all, 119 have survived, with references to 15 others that have been lost, and 20 others that are known to have been destroyed. Five of these are located in North America. The four in the U.S. are: The Boyden Manuscript, c. 1700 in Washington D.C; The Carmick Manuscript, in 1727 in Philadelphia and the The Carson Manuscript, 1677 and The Spencer Manuscript, 1726, both in Boston. Canada has The Scarborough Manuscript, c. 1700, in the Library of the Grand Lodge of Canada at Hamilton, Ontario. Most of the others are located in England. London alone has more than fifty. Thirteen are in Scotland – none of them earlier than 1650 and one in Germany. New discoveries still happen; in the last 10 years, 6 more have turned up. Few brethren, however, have easy access to these precious old manuscripts. This article is written so that some understanding of the heritage and antiquity of our ceremonies, their teachings and their sources may be had. The contents of these Ms’s nearly all begin with an invocation, then an announcement of the purpose and contents, followed by a traditional history, and/or a description of the Seven Liberal Arts or Sciences, then the regulations or Charges, and finally the oath. The oldest document is the Regius Poem or Regius Manuscript. It is also called the Halliwell Document from the name of the antiquarian who in 1840 first discovered that the little book catalogued in the British Museum as “A poem of moral duties” was really a Masonic writing. Most brethren, however, recognize the name Regius Ms, so called because King George II presented it again to the British Museum in ceremony in 1757. The Regius MS was written in verse about 1390 A.D. and bears internal evidence of being a copy of a much older instrument. The candidate for Freemasonry must be “free born.” This is one of the most ancient Masonic thoughts about servitude and dates back to a time when bondage actually existed. A “bondman” could be claimed by his lord; he was not “free.” His membership among the Craft could cause serious trouble for the lodge. In the Regius Manuscript we read: “The Fourth Article this must be That the master him well besee (i.e. take care) That he no bondman prentice make For no covetize (i.e. avarice) do him take.” A few lines later we read: “For more ease then, and honesty Take a prentice of high degree By old time written I find That the prentice should be of gentle kind.” The document now called Grand Lodge No. 1 Ms. states (spelling here modernized) “Masters or Fellows take no prentice but for a term of VII years and the prentice be able of birth that is to say free born and whole of limbs as a Man ought to be.” The great majority of all the old manuscripts have a similar caution regarding apprentices. All Masons know that Ancient Craft reverences womanhood and enjoins protection of the weaker sex. In the Regius Ms. we find: “Thou shalt not by thy master’s wife lie Nor by thy fellow’s, in no manner wise Lest the craft would thee despise Nor by thy fellow’s concubine No more than woulds’t he did by thine.” and a later line describes such conduct as: “such a fowle (i.e. foul) deadly sin.” The Regius Ms. Mentions four “oaths” required of a Mason: “He shall swear never to be no thief Nor succor him in his false craft * * * A good true oath he must there swear To his master and his fellows that be there * * * And all these points here before To them thou must need by y-swore (i.e. sworn) And all shall swear the same oath Of the masons, be they willing be they loath,” and at the annual assembly all Masons were again to be sworn: “To keep these statutes, every one.” The Regius Ms. Ends with the oldest words in our ceremonies; “Amen, Amen, so mote it be, We say so all with charity.” Freemasonry’s second oldest document is the Matthew Cooke Ms., written in 1410 A.D. It begins with an invocation to Deity, a practice followed in every English-speaking Masonic body to this day. Its fourth article is similar to that in the Regius Ms., in that it forbids the taking of a slave as an apprentice: “That no master for no profit take no prentice for to be learned that is bore (i.e. born) of bond blood.” The Cooke Ms. continues, warning of the possibility of manslaughter resulting from the inclusion of a slave or serf among free men. The word “hele” (pronounced hail) appears for the first time Masonically in the Cooke Ms. “Hele” or “heill” is old English for “cover” or “conceal”; it is from the Anglo-Saxon “helan” meaning to keep secret. The Cooke Ms. has the words, “That he can hele the counsel of his fellow in lodge and in chamber and in every place there masons be.” The Cooke Ms. also prohibits improper relations between a Mason and a Mason’s wife or daughter and then continues with some moral restrictions: “Never to be thieves nor thieves’ maintainers To truly fulfill their day’s work for their pay To give a true account of their fellows and love them as themselves To be true to the King and the realm To keep with all their might the articles aforesaid.” Like the Regius, the manuscript ends with, “Amen, Amen, so mote it be.” Masonic lodges open and close with a prayer. The Grand Lodge Manuscript No. 1 in the possession of the Mother Grand Lodge in England (the earliest known which has a date – “Decembris 25 1583”), begins with a solemn prayer, thus setting the pattern for all lodge meetings. The prayer reads: “The Might of the Father in Heaven and the wisdom of the glorious Son through the grace and the goodness of the Holy Ghost that be three persons and one God be with us at our beginning and give us grace so to govern us here in our living that we may come to His bliss that shall never have ending, Amen.” Following the prayer is a most curious and interesting ritualistic instruction which is found in most of the Old Charges and nearly always in Latin. It is the command that “one of the Seniors” hold the book (the Volume of the Sacred Law) while the candidate places his hand upon it as the charges of a Mason are read to him. The great Albert G. Mackey thought that the fact that this instruction was so often given in Latin was a potent argument for the belief that Freemasonry was lineal descendant from the Roman Collegia. The “charges” to which the candidate listened with his hand on the book were thirty in number; they concluded with the statement: “These charges that we have now rehearsed unto you and all others that belong to Masons ye shall keep, so help you God and your hallydome, and by this book in your hand unto your power. Amen, so mote it be.” “Unto your power”, of course, means “with all your power.” “Hallydome” – variously spelled in the many manuscripts in which the word is used – holidome, Holy Dame, holy Doome, holydoom, Halidom, etc – comes from the Anglo-Saxon “halig”, meaning holy and “dom” meaning “doom” or “judgment.” Thus, in swearing “by my halidom”, the candidate offered his hope of a just and happy judgment in the world to come as an earnestness of his sincerity. In many of the Old Charges are additional oaths – we would call them obligations – which change a little from manuscript to manuscript as the years go by. For instance, in the Buchannon Ms. dated approximately three hundred forty years ago (1660-1680) appears this: “These charges that you have received you shall well and truly keep not disclosing the secrecy of our Lodge to man, woman or child; stick nor stone; thing moveable or unmovable; so God you help and his holy Doome. Amen.” The Aberdeen Manuscript, dated 1670, particularly styles the prayer at the beginning “A Prayer before the Meetyng”, again showing the antiquity of a petition to the Great Architect as a part of opening a lodge. The custom of requiring a candidate to kiss the Volume of the Sacred Law on taking his obligations is at least as old as the second half of the 1600’s; the Harris Ms. of that date has the phrase, “after the Oath taken and the book kist.” In general, according to a comparative study of all the old manuscripts, lodge meetings of the pre-Grand Lodge era were opened with prayer, followed by the reading of a legendary history of the Craft. The candidate was then caused to place his hand or right hand (the “right” hand is first specified in the late seventeenth century, Colne Ms. No. 1) on the Bible, which was held for him by a senior member. The articles binding upon all brethren were then read to him, after which the candidate had imposed upon him a short oath or obligation. Later he received another obligation, regarding secrecy, and then the “secrets” – whatever they may have been – were communicated to him. Just what the earliest ceremonies of “making” were is a tantalizing speculation, as may be understood by reading the following passage from Chetwood Crawley Ms. of 1730. This must have been written very shortly after the Master Mason ceremony was fully developed in the then new Grand Lodge: “First, all the Apprentices are removed out of the Company and non suffered to stay, only Masons-masters. Then, he who is to be admitted … a member of the fellowship is put again upon his knees and gets the Oath administered to him anew. Afterwards, he must go out of the Company with the youngest Master to learn the words and signs of fellowship. Then coming in again he makes the Master-sign and says the same words of entry as the prentice did, only leaving out the Common Judge. Then the Masons whisper the word among themselves, beginning at the youngest as formerly. Afterwards the young Master must advance and put himself in the posture wherein he is to receive the word, and says to the Honorable Company, whispering, The Worthy Masons and Honorable Company that I come from Greet you well, Greet you well. Then the Master Mason gives him the word and grips his hand, and afterwards all the Masons, which is all done to make a perfect Mason.” The “Common Judge” has been something of a puzzle but is now generally believed to be a corruption of “Common Gauge.” The Chetwood Crawley Ms. indicates that an apprentice was sworn on the square, compasses and common gauge, while a Master Mason’s obligation was taken on the square and compasses only. The Steinmetzen in Germany as early as 1462 were obligated on “the gauge and square.” In the Dumfries-Kilwinning Ms. No. 4 appear words which have a familiar ring today. This manuscript, written in 1710 states in its obligation, “you that are under voues to, see yt (that) you keep ye ath and promise you made in presence of Almighty God think not yt (that) a mental reservation or equivocation will serve…” Also in this one are mentioned together “the square, the compass, and the Bible.” In the Gateshead Ms., 1702 appear these words: “That you be true to one another when you stand in peril or danger by height, Lift or otherwise, whereby a man may be much hurt, or his life endangered, taking good heed thereunto as well for your fellow as for yourself”, which is suggestive of some modern ritual. In the same manuscript it is written, “You are not to wrong them or see them wronged but timeously to apprise them of approaching danger.” It is interesting to note that there is no reference to Solomon in the Regius Poem, but the seven liberal sciences and the building of Solomon’s Temple are spoken of in the Cooke Ms., 1410: “And the making of Solomon’s temple that king David began … And at the making of the temple in Solomon’s time … Solomon had 4 score thousand masons at his work. And the king’s son, of Tyre, was his master mason. And … Solomon confirmed the charges that David, his father, had given to masons and Solomon himself taught them manners (with) but little difference from the manners that now are used. And from thence this worthy science was brought into France and into many other regions.” In the Dowland Ms. (c. 1550) is to be read this: “And furthermore there was a kinge of another region that men called Iram, and he loved well Kinge Solomon, and he gave him tymber to his worke. And he had a sonn that height Aynon, and he was a Master of Geometrie, and was chiefe Maister of all his Masons, and was Master of all his gravings And carvinge, and of all manner of Masonrye that belonged to the Temple; and this is witnessed by the Bible, in libro Regum, the third chapter. And this Solomon confirmed both charges and the manners that his father had given to Masons. And thus was that worthy Science of Masonrye confirmed in the country of Jerusalem, and in many other Kingdomes.” It is extremely interesting to note that in none of the pre-Grand Lodge era manuscripts is there any account of the story of the Master Builder as we know it. All that is attempted in these few pages is to give readers an idea of how ancient many of our ceremonies are, and how vital – to live so many hundred years – the ideas of our early forefathers have proved to be. In the 1600’s operative masonry in Scotland developed a ritual of which the most important element was the Mason Word. Trade secrets were important to the craftsmen; they did not wish “cowans” to have them. These secrets were communicated to the initiate upon the “five points of fellowship,” listed in the Edinburgh Register House Ms, 1696, as “foot to foot, knee to knee, heart to heart, hand to hand, and ear to ear”. The ceremony was part of a single degree only, most of which formed a part of our present Fellowcraft degree. According to W. Bro. Robert L.D. Cooper, Curator, Museum and Library, Grand Lodge of Scotland in a paper delivered to Heritage Lodge # 730 (a research lodge in Toronto, Ontario) on Sept. 19, 2001, “In 1696 a significant event took place, someone wrote out the first copy of Masonic ritual. Of all the books on Masonic history, few mention sources like the Edinburgh House Register Ms. Most refer instead to the first printed ritual by Samuel Pritchard of London in 1730.” Mr. Pritchard was a non-Mason and wrote it as an exposé of Freemasonry. It was called “Masonry Dissected.” (Go to www.grandlodgescotland.com.) However, it backfired because for the first time Masons had a ritual to read instead of learning it by memory through oral transmission. This book was reprinted until at least 1802. We do not know the date of origin of the word called the Grand Masonic Word today. It antedated 1598, (one authority even says 1475), since it was referred to in the Schaw Statutes of 1598. These were passed in response to a petition from Kilwinning Lodge to regulate the operative craft. The word itself went through various changes of spelling and meaning before it became the word we use today. While the Mason Word, the Grand Masonic Word, was originated simply to enable an operative mason to prove himself and be admitted among strangers, there did arise a ceremony during which it might be revealed. An examination, or catechism, preceded the actual communications, so that each mason might know the other had been duly invested with these secrets. One of the first questions required this answer, - “by signs, tokens and other points of my entrie.” A later question of the old catechism, coming from the Edinburgh Register House Manuscript, brought the answer, “The first (point) is to heill and conceal; second, under no less pain, which is then cutting of your throat. For you must make that sign when you say that.” The catechism then proceeded through the five points of fellowship, ending with a primitive version of the penalty of our present first degree obligation, and the giving of the word. Early in Scottish operative masonry there were two ceremonies, for they quickly divided entered prentices from fellows of the craft; but there were no lectures as we know them today. A tradition did gradually grow up around the word. – (Our ancient brethren had both little education and much superstition.) – the idea of a word too sacred to be pronounced, except under very special circumstances. In 1723, the Rev. James Anderson, with the approval of his Grand Lodge, published the most influential work on Masonry ever printed, the first book of The Constitutions of the Free-Masons. He included a section called “The Charges of the Free-Mason, extracted from the antient Records of Lodges beyond Sea, and of those in England, Scotland, and Ireland, for the Use of the Lodges in London.” Apart from a number of tiny changes, the modern wording is identical. What about Anderson’s sources? Why did this book of Constitutions, designed for non-operative Masons, include rules that apply to operative masons? And where did Anderson find this material? The second edition of his Constitutions, printed in 1738, tells a bit more. At the Annual Festival on 24 June 1718, when the Grand Lodge was one year old, the Grand Master “desired any Brethren to bring to the Grand Lodge any old Writings and Records concerning Masons and Masonry in order to shew the Usages of ancient Times; And this Year several old Copies of the Gothic Constitutions were produced and collated.” And in September 1721, the Grand Master and the Grand Lodge, “finding Fault with all the Copies of the old Gothic Constitutions, order’d Brother James Anderson, A.M., to digest the same in a new and better Method.” The end result of his labours was the book of Constitutions, which was duly approved by the Grand Lodge, and printed in 1723. And James Anderson did make use of the old manuscripts that he called “the Old Gothic Constitutions.” We can tell from the wording of his text that by the time of his second edition he had obtained access to at least six of them, and that he quoted and paraphrased them quite extensively. Dr. James Anderson, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, and Dr. John Theophilus Desaguliers, an Episcopal clergyman, were two of the foremost Masons who guided and directed the development of the newly organized Grand Lodge of England, born St. John the Baptist day, June, 24th, 1717. John Desaguliers was responsible for gathering and organizing most of the material; John Anderson did the copying. They probably changed the entire course of Masonic history by removing a Christian belief as a requirement for membership, changing it to a belief in God only, thus establishing universality as a fundamental landmark of the Order. Anderson’s book of 1723 mentions the toast to “The King and the Craft.” It also refers to God as the Great Architect of the Universe (a phrase first used by John Calvin), and alludes in passing to Hiram Abif (a name which comes from 2 Chronicles 4:16, in Cloverdale’s Bible of 1535.) A short note on exposures. A London newspaper of 1723 published an exposure of Masonic ceremonies, and there we find the five orders of architecture duly listed. The well-known trio “Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth,” comes from another exposure, a pamphlet printed in London in 1724. The most popular of the early exposures was Samuel Prichard’s Masonry Dissected, first published in 1730. And there we find such familiar phrases as “Neither naked nor cloathed, bare-foot nor shod,” Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty,” “Square, Level, and Plumb-Rule,” and “a Sprig of Cassia at the Head of his Grave.” The earliest version of the Charge to the Newly Initiated Candidate, the one with the words “Antient, as having subsisted from Times immemorial,” that outlines our duty “to God, our Neighbours, and Ourselves,” appears in William Smith’s Pocket Companion (Dublin, 1735). The story of Ephraimites at the passage of the River Jordan turns up in a French exposure of 1747. Whether it had been borrowed from English sources is not clear; at any rate, it soon appears in printed English rituals. The next landmark in the evolution of our ceremonies is the advent of the three great expounders of the ritual, who were the first ones to provide more substantial lectures. Wellins Calcott lived from 1726 until after 1779; in his book A Candid Disquisition (1769), he offers some familiar words of advice: “Right Worshipful Sir, BY the unanimous voice of the members of this lodge, you are elected to the mastership thereof for the ensuing half-year … You have been of too long standing, and are too good a member of our community, to require now any information in the duty of your office. What you have seen praiseworthy in others, we doubt not you will imitate; and what you have seen defective, you will in yourself amend … For a pattern of imitation, consider the great luminary of nature, which, rising in the east, regularly diffuses light and luster to all within its circle. In like manner it is your province, with due decorum, to spread and communicate light and instruction to the brethren in the lodge.” To be sure, the sentiments expressed here have now been assigned to two different charges. But their original source is unmistakable. William Hutchinson (1732-1814), in his Spirit of Masonry (1775), offers a series of Moral Observations on the Instruments of Masonry. They interpret the significance of the working tools. “The Level should advise us that … we are all descended from the same common stock, partake of the like nature, have … the same hope …; and though distinctions necessarily make a subordination among mankind, yet eminence of station should not make us forget that we are men, nor cause us to treat our brethren, because placed on the lowest spoke of the wheel of fortune, with contempt; because a time will come, and the wisest of men know not how soon, when all distinctions, except in goodness, will cease, and when death – that grand leveler of all human greatness – will bring us to a level at the last.” Once again, beyond any question our present wording is derived from this text. And the great William Preston (1742-1818), in his Illustrations of Masonry (2nd edition, 1775), offers a familiar prayer: “Vouchsafe thine aid, Almighty Father and supreme Governor of the world, to this our present convention; and grant that this candidate for Masonry may dedicate and devote his life to thy service, and become a true and faithful brother among us. Endue him with a competence of thy divine wisdom, that, by the secrets of this Art, he may be better enabled to unfold the mysteries of godliness, to the honour of thy holy name. Amen.” This prayer for the candidate in the first degree found in the 5th edition, 2003 of the Authorized Work of G.L.N.S. has a few phrases changed, but in the ritual of Virgin Lodge #3 on the Register of G.L.N.S. the wording is almost identical. Many today consider our ritual virtually unchangeable. But this was not so in 1717 and the years before and after. The Charges were read or repeated from memory; they were not secret. But the signs and words, used originally to identify the operative, and later the speculative Mason, were strictly secret and unwritten. The original ceremonies were brief and simple. They consisted of the administering of an oath of secrecy; the communication of the secrets; and the giving of the charges. Each lodge was a separate unit, with no standard to go by. The ritual therefore became a matter of the Master’s preference as to what words to use to convey the ideas involved. It was several decades after the Grand Lodge was formed before any standardization was accomplished, or even sought after. Thus we find the ritual evolving through a system of trial and error. A gifted Master or Masonic lecturer would frame a passage of appealing beauty. Soon others would use it and gradually it found acceptance in many lodges. This was a slow evolution; in the first several decades of the newly organized Grand Lodge, no uniformity existed. Even today there are eight rather widely variant rituals in use in England, all accepted as valid and regular. And Scotland to this day does not have a standard ritual. Between 1720 and 1730 Speculative Masonry was exported to the European continent. There in the next 50 years, particularly in France, it proliferated into tens if not hundreds of degrees. Authorities agree that two degrees might have been worked in England, and certainly were worked in Scotland, before 1720; but we know from undisputed fact that somewhere about 1723 two degrees were being worked by the fifty or so subordinate lodges under the Grand Lodge. There was as yet no official Master’s degree. The Grand Lodge rules provided that the Grand Officers need only be Fellowcrafts. But somewhere in this decade a Master’s degree was instituted, originally conferred only on those called to preside, but later on all brethren. In the meantime, the original ceremony or degree, as developed in the Scottish Lodges and adopted by the English, was divided into the two degrees of Entered Apprentice and Fellowcraft. The original ceremony was our second degree, and contained the genesis of our lecture on Geometry. This was then divided into a ceremony of admission and one passing, and gradually assumed the status of the degrees we know today. The evolution of the Master’s degree resulted from the introduction and assimilation of the Hiramic Legend into the Master’s Degree. The origin of the story of Hiram, the Widow’s Son, is as great a mystery as anything in Masonry. We know the miracle plays, religious drama and tales of folklore were a common inheritance from the Middle Ages. We know that the story of Hiram developed over a couple of centuries. It may have been referred to in lodge ceremonies for half a century before 1717. But it was definitely adopted into the ritual and probably gradually, somewhere between 1723 and 1730. In 1723 Dr. Anderson makes no mention of it whatsoever in his Constitutions. But in 1738, when he published a revised edition he refers to the “sudden death of their dear Master Hiram Abif, whom they decently interr’d in the Lodge near the Temple, according to ancient usage.” In 1730 Samuel Prichard published the first exposé of our ritual, “Masonry Dissected.” It is the first printed indication of the existence of three degrees in the Grand Lodge system, and the first proof of the use of the Hiramic Legend in the third degree. Where the Legend came from no one knows. Hiram is mentioned in the Bible in I Kings and II Chronicles. He was also mentioned in the Cook Manuscript of 1410. But the Graham Manuscript, discovered in 1936 and dated 1726, and filled with Masonic ritual, tells the legend of Noah. A valuable secret died with Noah. His three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth supposed Noah had carried it with him into his grave and determined to exhume the body, “agreeing beforehand that if they did not find the very thing itself, the first thing they found was to be to them as a secret. They found nothing in the grave except the dead body; when the finger was gripped it came away, and so with the wrist and elbow. They then reared up the dead body, supporting it by setting foot to foot, knee to knee, breast to breast, cheek to cheek and hand to back. One said here is yet marrow in this bone and the second said but a dry bone and the third said it stinketh.” That story of Hiram developed many years before its absorption into Masonic ritual no one can deny. It probably derived from a mystery, or miracle play of the 1500’s. Many interpretations of its meaning have been suggested. It might have been an allusion to the murder of Thomas a’ Becket in 1170, to the martyrdom of Jacques de’Molay in 1314, or to the execution of Charles I in 1649, whose followers, the Scottish Jacobites, were numerous in early Masonic membership. Is it an allegory of the death of winter and the resurrection of spring? Could it refer to the ancient practice of insuring the stability of a structure by burying a human sacrifice in the foundation? Or did Hiram Abif represent Jesus, whose death and resurrection form the foundation stone for a Christian belief in immortality? Whatever your interpretation, the legend of the third degree is one of the finest conceptions ever to come from the mind of man. Brothers, the creation of modern Masonic ritual is a long, detailed and difficult study. That the Old Charges were a major source of some of it is sufficiently indicated by the quotations given above. Of course, there are many more in other manuscripts which space here does not permit mentioning. I personally find the historical aspect of these old sources fascinating. If any brother in our or any jurisdiction has information on these manuscripts, that he would like to share, I would be most pleased to hear from you. Leigh MacConnell, G.L.