The Builders Part 2

From this brief outlook upon a wide field, we may pa.s.s to a more specific and detailed study of the early prophecies of Masonry in the art of the builder. Always the symbolic must follow the actual, if it is to have reference and meaning, and the real is ever the basis of the ideal. By nature an Idealist, and living in a world of radiant mystery, it was inevitable that man should attach moral and spiritual meanings to the tools, laws, and materials of building. Even so, in almost every land and in the remotest ages we find great and beautiful truth hovering about the builder and clinging to his tools.[14]

Whether there were organized orders of builders in the early times no one can tell, though there may have been. No matter; man mixed thought and wors.h.i.+p with his work, and as he cut his altar stones and fitted them together he thought out a faith by which to live.

Not unnaturally, in times when the earth was thought to be a Square the Cube had emblematical meanings it could hardly have for us. From earliest ages it was a venerated symbol, and the oblong cube signified immensity of s.p.a.ce from the base of earth to the zenith of the heavens. It was a sacred emblem of the Lydian Kubele, known to the Romans in after ages as Ceres or Cybele--hence, as some aver, the derivation of the word "cube." At first rough stones were most sacred, and an altar of hewn stones was forbidden.[15] With the advent of the cut cube, the temple became known as the House of the Hammer--its altar, always in the center, being in the form of a cube and regarded as "an index or emblem of Truth, ever true to itself."[16] Indeed, the cube, as Plutarch points out in his essay _On the Cessation of Oracles_, "is palpably the proper emblem of rest, on account of the security and firmness of the superficies." He further tells us that the pyramid is an image of the triangular flame ascending from a square altar; and since no one knows, his guess is as good as any. At any rate, Mercury, Apollo, Neptune, and Hercules were wors.h.i.+ped under the form of a square stone, while a large black stone was the emblem of Buddha among the Hindoos, of Manah Theus-Ceres in Arabia, and of Odin in Scandinavia. Everyone knows of the Stone of Memnon in Egypt, which was said to speak at sunrise--as, in truth, all stones spoke to man in the sunrise of time.[17]

More eloquent, if possible, was the Pillar uplifted, like the pillars of the G.o.ds upholding the heavens. Whatever may have been the origin of pillars, and there is more than one theory, Evans has shown that they were everywhere wors.h.i.+ped as G.o.ds.[18] Indeed, the G.o.ds themselves were pillars of Light and Power, as in Egypt Horus and Sut were the twin-builders and supporters of heaven; and Bacchus among the Thebans. At the entrance of the temple of Amenta, at the door of the house of Ptah--as, later, in the porch of the temple of Solomon--stood two pillars. Still further back, in the old solar myths, at the gateway of eternity stood two pillars--Strength and Wisdom. In India, and among the Mayas and Incas, there were three pillars at the portals of the earthly and skyey temple--Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty. When man set up a pillar, he became a fellow-worker with Him whom the old sages of China used to call "the first Builder." Also, pillars were set up to mark the holy places of vision and Divine deliverance, as when Jacob erected a pillar at Bethel, Joshua at Gilgal, and Samuel at Mizpeh and Shen. Always they were symbols of stability, of what the Egyptians described as "the place of establis.h.i.+ng forever,"--emblems of the faith "that the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and He hath set the world upon them."[19]

Long before our era we find the working tools of the Mason used as emblems of the very truths which they teach today. In the oldest cla.s.sic of China, _The Book of History_, dating back to the twentieth century before Christ, we read the instruction: "Ye officers of the Government, apply the compa.s.ses." Even if we begin where _The Book of History_ ends, we find many such allusions more than seven hundred years before the Christian era. For example, in the famous canonical work, called _The Great Learning_, which has been referred to the fifth century B.C., we read, that a man should abstain from doing unto others what he would not they should do to him; "and this," the writer adds, "is called the principle of acting on the square." So also Confucius and his great follower, Mencius. In the writings of Mencius it is taught that men should apply the square and compa.s.ses morally to their lives, and the level and the marking line besides, if they would walk in the straight and even paths of wisdom, and keep themselves within the bounds of honor and virtue.[20] In the sixth book of his philosophy we find these words:

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A Master Mason, in teaching apprentices, makes use of the compa.s.ses and the square. Ye who are engaged in the pursuit of wisdom must also make use of the compa.s.s and square.[21]

There are even evidences, in the earliest historic records of China, of the existence of a system of faith expressed in allegoric form, and ill.u.s.trated by the symbols of building. The secrets of this faith seem to have been orally transmitted, the leaders alone pretending to have full knowledge of them. Oddly enough, it seems to have gathered about a symbolical temple put up in the desert, that the various officers of the faith were distinguished by symbolic jewels, and that at its rites they wore leather ap.r.o.ns.[22] From such records as we have it is not possible to say whether the builders themselves used their tools as emblems, or whether it was the thinkers who first used them to teach moral truths. In any case, they were understood; and the point here is that, thus early, the tools of the builder were teachers of wise and good and beautiful truth. Indeed, we need not go outside the Bible to find both the materials and working tools of the Mason so employed:[23]

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For every house is builded by some man; but the builder of all things is G.o.d ... whose house we are.[24]

Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation.[25]

The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.[26]

Ye also, as living stones, are built up into a spiritual house.[27]

When he established the heavens I was there, when he set the compa.s.s upon the face of the deep, when he marked out the foundations of the earth: then was I by him as a master workman.[28]

The Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pa.s.s by them any more.[29]

Ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city.[30]

And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth.[31]

Him that overcometh I will make a pillar in the temple of my G.o.d; and I will write upon him my new name.[32]

For we know that when our earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building of G.o.d, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.[33]

If further proof were needed, it has been preserved for us in the imperishable stones of Egypt.[34] The famous obelisk, known as Cleopatra's Needle, now in Central Park, New York, the gift to our nation from Ismail, Khedive of Egypt in 1878, is a mute but eloquent witness of the antiquity of the simple symbols of the Mason.

Originally it stood as one of the forest of obelisks surrounding the great temple of the Sun-G.o.d at Heliopolis, so long a seat of Egyptian learning and religion, dating back, it is thought, to the fifteenth century before Christ. It was removed to Alexandria and re-erected by a Roman architect and engineer named Pontius, B.C. 22. When it was taken down in 1879 to be brought to America, all the emblems of the builders were found in the foundation. The rough Cube and the polished Cube in pure white limestone, the Square cut in syenite, an iron Trowel, a lead Plummet, the arc of a Circle, the serpent-symbols of Wisdom, a stone Trestle-board, a stone bearing the Master's Mark, and a hieroglyphic word meaning _Temple_--all so placed and preserved as to show, beyond doubt, that they had high symbolic meaning. Whether they were in the original foundation, or were placed there when the obelisk was removed, no one can tell. Nevertheless, they were there, concrete witnesses of the fact that the builders worked in the light of a mystical faith, of which they were emblems.

Much has been written of buildings, their origin, age, and architecture, but of the builders hardly a word--so quickly is the worker forgotten, save as he lives in his work. Though we have no records other than these emblems, it is an obvious inference that there were orders of builders even in those early ages, to whom these symbols were sacred; and this inference is the more plausible when we remember the importance of the builder both to religion and the state.

What though the builders have fallen into dust, to which all things mortal decline, they still hold out their symbols for us to read, speaking their thoughts in a language easy to understand. Across the piled-up debris of ages they whisper the old familiar truths, and it will be a part of this study to trace those symbols through the centuries, showing that they have always had the same high meanings.

They bear witness not only to the unity of the human mind, but to the existence of a common system of truth veiled in allegory and taught in symbols. As such, they are prophecies of Masonry as we know it, whose genius it is to take what is old, simple, and universal, and use it to bring men together and make them friends.

/P Sh.o.r.e calls to sh.o.r.e That the line is unbroken!

P/

FOOTNOTES:

[10] There are many books in this field, but two may be named: _The Lost Language of Symbolism_, by Bayley, and the _Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man_, by Churchward, each in its own way remarkable. The first aspires to be for this field what Frazer's _Golden Bough_ is for religious anthropology, and its dictum is: "Beauty is Truth; Truth Beauty." The thesis of the second is that Masonry is founded upon Egyptian eschatology, which may be true; but unfortunately the book is too polemical. Both books partake of the poetry, if not the confusion, of the subject; but not for a world of dust would one clip their wings of fancy and suggestion. Indeed, their union of scholars.h.i.+p and poetry is unique. When the pains of erudition fail to track a fact to its lair, they do not scruple to use the divining rod; and the result often pa.s.ses out of the realm of pedestrian chronicle into the world of winged literature.

[11] _The Word in the Pattern_, Mrs. G.F. Watts.

[12] _The Swastika_, Thomas Carr. See essay by the same writer in which he shows that the Swastika is the symbol of the Supreme Architect of the Universe among Operative Masons today (_The Lodge of Research_, No.

2429, Transactions, 1911-12).

[13] _Signs and Symbols_, Churchward, chap. xvii.

[14] Here again the literature is voluminous, but not entirely satisfactory. A most interesting book is _Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man_, by Churchward, in that it surveys the symbolism of the race always with reference to its Masonic suggestion. Vivid and popular is _Symbols and Legends of Freemasonry_, by Finlayson, but he often strains facts in order to stretch them over wide gaps of time. Dr.

Mackey's _Symbolism of Freemasonry_, though written more than sixty years ago, remains a cla.s.sic of the order. Unfortunately the lectures of Albert Pike on _Symbolism_ are not accessible to the general reader, for they are rich mines of insight and scholars.h.i.+p, albeit betraying his partisans.h.i.+p of the Indo-Aryan race. Many minor books might be named, but we need a work brought up to date and written in the light of recent research.

[15] Exod. 20:25.

[16] _Antiquities of Cornwall_, Borlase.

[17] _Lost Language of Symbolism_, Bayley, chap, xviii; also in the Bible, Deut. 32:18, II Sam. 22:3, 32, Psa. 28:1, Matt. 16:18, I Cor.

10:4.

[18] _Tree and Pillar Cult_, Sir Arthur Evans.

[19] I Sam. 2:8, Psa. 75:8, Job 26:7, Rev. 3:12.

[20] _Freemasonry in China_, Giles. Also Gould, _His. Masonry_, vol. i, chap. i.

[21] _Chinese Cla.s.sics_, by Legge, i, 219-45.

[22] Essay by Chaloner Alabaster, _Ars Quatuor Coronatorum_, vol. ii, 121-24. It is not too much to say that the Transactions of this Lodge of Research are the richest storehouse of Masonic lore in the world.

[23] Matt. 16:18, Eph. 2:20-22, I Cor. 2:9-17. Woman is the house and wall of man, without whose bounding and redeeming influence he would be dissipated and lost (Song of Solomon 8:10). So also by the mystics (_The Perfect Way_).

[24] Heb. 3:4.

[25] Isa. 28:16.

[26] Psa. 118:22, Matt. 21:42.

[27] I Pet. 2:5.

[28] Prov. 8:27-30, Revised Version.

[29] Amos 7:7, 8.

[30] Ezk. 48:20.

[31] Rev. 21:16.

[32] Rev. 3:12.

[33] II Cor. 5:1.