The History of Freemasonry

by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Chapter 35 - Non-Existence of a Master Mason's Degree among the Operative Freemasons

THE history of the origin of the Third or Master's degree - that is, so much of it as refers to the precise time of its invention - has, at this day, been involved in much doubt, and been the source of earnest controversy in consequence of the searching investigations of recent scholars, whose incisive criticism has shown many theories to be untenable which were once held to be plausible.

Until within a few years the opinion was universally entertained that the Third degree must have been in existence from the time of the invention of the Masonic system, and at whatever period that event was placed, the doctrine was held as indisputable that the First, the Second, and the Third degrees must have had a contemporaneous origin, no one preceding the other in point of time, but all springing at the same epoch into form and practice.

The theory that Freemasonry originated at the Temple of Solomon was for a very long time a universally accepted proposition, constituting, in fact, the orthodox creed of a Freemason, and conscientiously adopted, not merely by the common and unlearned masses of the Fraternity, but even by Masonic scholars of distinguished reputation.

Consequent upon this theory was another, that at the same time the Master's degree was invented and that the builders of the Temple were divided into the same three classes distinguished as de. greed which constitute the present system of Freemasonry.

This theory was derived from the esoteric narrative contained in the modern ritual of the Third degree. If this narrative is accepted as an authentic history of events which actually occurred at that time, then there need be no more difficulty in tracing the in vention of the Third degree to the time of King Solomon than there can be in placing the origin of Freemasonry at the same remote period.

But unfortunately for the repose of those who would be willing to solve a difficult problem by the Alexandrian method of cutting the Gordian knot, rather than by the slower process of analytical investigation, the theory of the Temple origin of the Master's degree has now been repudiated by nearly all Masonic scholars. A few may be accepted who, like Bro. Woodford, still express a doubtful recognition of the possibility that the legend may be true. (1)

Thus Bro. Woodford, referring to the Temple legend, says: "As there is no a priori reason why an old Masonic tradition should not be true in the main, we see no reason to reject the world-wide story of King Solomon's protection of a Masonic association. Indeed, modern discovery seems to strengthen the reality of our Masonic legends, and we should always, as it appears to us, distinguish between what is possible and probable and what is actually provable or proved by indubitable evidence." In reply to this it must be remembered that of all the arguments in favor of an event, the possibility of its occurrence is the weakest that can be adduced. In dialectics there is an almost illimitable gulf between possibility and actuality. A hundred things may be possible or even probable, and yet not one of them may be actual. With the highest respect for the scholarship of our reverend Brother, I am compelled to dissent from the views he has here expressed. Nor am I prepared to accept the statement that "modern discovery seems to strengthen the reality of our Masonic legends." A contrary opinion now generally prevails, though it must be admitted that the modern interpretations of these legends have given them a value, as the expression of symbolic ideas, which does not pertain to them when accepted, as they formerly were, as truthful narratives.

The Temple legend, however, must be retained as a part of the ritual as long as the present system of Speculative Freemasonry exists, and the legendary and allegorical narrative must be repeated by the Master of the lodge on the occasion of every initiation into the mysteries of the Third degree, because, though it is no longer to be accepted as an historical statement, yet the events which it records are still recognized as a myth containing within itself, and

(1) Kenning's "Masonic Cyclopedia," art. Temple of Solomon, p. 612.

independent of all question of probability, a symbolical significance of the highest importance.

This mythical legend of the Temple, and of the Temple Builder, must ever remain an inseparable part of the Masonic ritual, and the narrative must be repeated on all appropriate occasions, because, without this legend, Speculative Masonry would lose its identity and would abandon the very object of its original institution. On this legend, whether true or false, whether a history or a myths is the most vital portion of the symbolism of Freemasonry founded.

In the interpretation of a legendary symbol or an allegory it is a matter of no consequence to the value of the interpretation whether the legend be true or false; the interpretation alone is of importance. We need not, for instance, inquire whether the story of Hiram Abif is a narrative which is true in all its parts, or merely a historical myth in which truth and fiction are variously blended, or, in fact, only the pious invention of some legendmaker, to whose fertile imagination it has been indebted for all its details.

It is sufficient when we are occupied in an investigation of subjects connected with the science of symbolism, that the symbol which the legend is intended to develop should be one that teaches some dogma whose truth we can not doubt. The symbologist looks to the truth or fitness of the symbol, not to that of the legend on which it is founded. Thus it is that we should study the different myths and traditions which are embodied in the ritual of Freemasonry.

But when we abandon the role of the symbologist or ritualist, and assume that of the historian - when, for the time, we no longer interest ourselves in the lessons of Masonic symbolism, but apply our attention to the origin and the progress of the institution, then it really becomes of importance that we should inquire whether the narrative of certain supposed events which have hitherto been accepted as truthful, are really historical or merely mythical or legendary.

And, therefore, when the question is asked in an historical sense, at what time the Third degree was invented, and in the expectation that the reply will be based on authentic historical authority, we at once repudiate the whole story of its existence at the Temple of Solomon as a mere myth, having, it is true, its value as a symbol but being entitled to no consideration whatever as an historical narrative.

It is, however, most unfortunate for the study of Masonic history that so many writers on this subject, forgetting that all history must have its basis in truth, have sought rather to charm their readers by romantic episodes than to instruct them by a sober detail of facts. One instance of this kind may be cited as an example from the visionary speculations of Ragon, a French writer of great learning, but of still greater imagination.

In his Orthvodoxie Mafonnifue he has attributed the invention of all the degrees to Elias Ashmole, near the end of the 17th century. He says that the degree of Master Mason was formulated soon after the year 1648, but that the decapitation of King Charles I., and the part taken by Ashmole in favor of the House of Stuart, led to great modifications in the ritual of the degree, and that the same epoch saw the birth of the degrees of Secret Master, Perfect Master, Elect, and Irish Master, of all of which Charles the First was the hero, under the name of Hiram. (1)

Assertions like this are hardly worth the paper and ink that would be consumed in refuting them. Unlike the so-called historical novel which has its basis in a distortion of history, they resemble rather the Arabian Tales or the Travels of Gulliver, which owe their existence solely to the imaginative genius of their authors.

Still there are some writers of more temperate judgment who, while they reject the Temple theory, still claim for the Third degree an antiquity of no certain date, but much anterior to the time of the organization of the Grand Lodge in the beginning of the I8th century.

Thus, Bro. Hyde Clark, in an article in the London Freemasons' Magazine, says that "the ritual of the Third degree is peculiar and suggestive of its containing matter from the old body of Masonry," whence he concludes that it is older than the time of the so-called Revival in 1717, and he advances a theory that the First degree was in that olden time conferred on minors, while the Second and Third were restricted to adults. (2)

This view of the origin of the degrees can only be received as a

(1) "Orthodoxie Maconnique," par J. M. Ragon, Paris, 1853, p. 29. (2) "Old Freemasonry before Grand Lodges," by Hyde Clark, in the London Freemasons' Magazine, No. 534.

bare assumption, for there is not a particle of authentic evidence to show that it has an historical foundation. No old document has been yet discovered which gives support to the hypothesis that there were ceremonies or esoteric instructions before the year 1719 which were conferred upon a peculiar class. All the testimony of the Old Records and manuscript Constitutions is to the effect that there was but one reception for the Craftsmen, to which all, from the youngest to the oldest Mason, were admitted.

It is true that one of the Old Records, known as the Sloane MS. 3329, mentions different modes of recognition, one of which was peculiar to Masters, and is called in the manuscript "their Master's gripe," and another is called "their gripe for fellowcrafts."

Of the many Masonic manuscripts which, within the last few years have been discovered and published, this is perhaps one of the most important and interesting. Findel first inserted a small portion of it in his History of Freemasonry, but the whole of it in an unmutilated form was subsequently published by Bro. Woodford in 1872, and also by Hughan in the same year in the Voice of Masonry. It was discovered among the papers of Sir Hans Sloane which were deposited in the British Museum, and there is numbered 3329. Bro. Hughan supposes that the date of this manuscript is between 1640 and 1700; Messrs. Bond and Sims, of the British Museum, think that the date is "probably of the beginning of the 18th century." Findel thinks that it was originally in the possession of Dr. Plot, and that it was one of the sources whence he derived his views on Freemasonry. He places its date at about the end of the 17th century. Bro. Woodford cites the authority of Mr. Wallbran for fixing its date in the early part of that century, in which opinion he coincides. The paper-mark of the manuscript in the British Museum appears to have been a copy of an older one, for Bro. Woodford states that though the paper-mark is of the early part of the 18th century, experts will not deny that the language is that of the 17th. He believes, and very reasonably, that it represents the cerernonial through which Ashmole passed in 1646.

As this is the only Old Record in which a single passage is to be found which, by the most liberal exegesis, can be construed even into an allusion to the existence of a Third degree with a separate ritual before the end of the second decade of the 18th century, it may be well to quote such passages of the manuscript as appear to have any bearing on the question.

The methods of recognition for Fellow-Crafts and Masters is thus described in the Sloane MS.:

"Their gripe for fellow craftes is grasping their right hands in each other, thrusting their thumb naile upon the third joynt of each others first Fing'r; their masters gripe is grasping their right hands in each other; placing their four fingers nailes hard upon the carpus or end of others wrists, and their thumb nailes thrust hard directly between the second joynt of the thumb and the third joynt of the first Finger; but some say the mast'rs grip is the same I last described, only each of their middle Fing'rs must reach an inch or three barley corns length higher to touch upon a vein y't comes from the heart."

No indication is to be found in this passage of the existence at the time of three degrees and three separate rituals. All that it tells us is that the Fellow-Crafts were provided with one form of salutation and the Masters with another, and we are left in uncertainty whether these forms used by one class were unknown to the other, or whether the forms were openly used only to distinguish one class from the other, as the number of stripes on the arm distinguish the grades of non-commissioned officers in the army.

That the latter was the use would appear evident from the fact that the close of the passage leaves it uncertain that the "gripes" were not identical, or at least with a very minute difference. "Some say," adds the writer, "the Master's grip is the same" as the FellowCraft's - "only" - and then he gives the hardly appreciable variation.

Here is another passage which appears to show that no value was attached to the use of the grip as marking a degree, though it might be employed to distinguish a rank or class.

"Another salutation," says the manuscript, "is giving the Masters or fellows grip, saying the right worshipful the mast'rs and fellows in that right worshipful lodge from whence we last came, greet you, greet you, greet you well, then he will reply, God's good greeting to you, dear brother."

Here I take it that all that is meant is that the Masters saluted with the grip peculiar to their class, and the Fellows that peculiar to theirs. But what has become of the Apprentices ? Did they salute with the grip of the Fellows or that of the Masters? If so, they must have been acquainted with one or both, and then the secret instruction incidental to the condition of degrees and a distinct ritual must be abandoned, or the Apprentices were not admitted to the privileges of the Craft, and were debarred from a recognition as members of a lodge.

Let the following questions and answers decide that point. They are contained in the manuscript, and there called "a private discourse by way of question and answer."

"Q. Where were you made a mason ?

"A. In a just and perfect or just and lawful lodge.

"Q. What is a perfect or just and lawful lodge ?

"A. A just and perfect lodge is two Interprintices two fellow crafts, and two Mast'rs, more or fewer, the more the merrier, the fewer the better chear, but if need require five will serve, that is, two Interprintices, two fellow crafted and one Mast'r on the highest hill or the lowest valley of the world without the crow of a cock or the bark of a dog."

This was no lodge of Master Masons, nor of Fellow-Crafts, nor of Entered Apprentices, as they have been distinguished since the establishment of degrees. It was simply a lodge of Freemasons to legalize and perfect whose character it was necessary that representatives of all the classes should be present. The Apprentices forming a part of the lodge must have been privy to all its secrets; and this idea is sustained by all the Old Constitutions and "Charges" in which the Apprentices are enjoined to keep the secrets of the lodge.

The manuscript speaks of two words, "the Mast'r Word" and " the Mason word." The latter is said to have been given in a certain form, which is described. It is possible that the former may have been communicated to Masters as a privilege attached to their rank, while the latter was communicated to the whole Craft. In a later ritual it has been seen that there were two words, "the Jerusalem Word" and "the universal word," but both were known to the whole Fraternity. The Sloane MS. does not positively state that the two words used in its ritual were like these two, or that the Master's was confined to one class. It is, however, likely that this Word was a privileged mark of distinction to be used only by the Masters, though possibly known to the rest of the Fraternity. How else could it be given in the lodge where the three classes were present ? Bro. Lyon has arrived at the same conclusion. He says: " It is our opinion that in primitive times there were no secrots communicated by Lodges to either fellows or craft or master's that were not known to apprentices, seeing that members of the latter grade were necessary to the legal constitution of communications for the admission of masters or fellows." (1) The argument, indeed, appears to be unanswerable.

The Word might, however, as has been suggested, have been whispered by the Master communicating it to the one to whom it was communicated. If this were so, it supplies us with the origin of the modern Past Master's degree. But even then it could only be considered as a privileged mark of a rank or class of the Crafts men and not as the evidence of a degree.

I will merely suggest, but I will not press the argument, that it is not impossible that by a clerical mistake, or through some confusion in the mind of the writer, "Mast'r Word" may have been written for "Mason Word," an expression which has been made familiar to us in the minutes of the Scottish lodges, and which is the onlv word the secrecy of which is required by the oath that is contained in the manuscript. On the other hand, " Master Word " is a phrase not met with in any other manuscript, Scotch or English.

The "Oath," which forms a part of the Sloane MS., supplies itself the strongest proof that, during the period in which it formed a part of the ritual, that ritual must have been one common to the three classes; in other words, there could have been but one degree, because there was but one obligation of secrecy imposed, and the secrets, whatever they were, must have been known to all Freemasons, to the Apprentices as well as on to the Master. The "Oath" is in the following words:

"The Mason Word and everything therein contained you shall keep secret, you shall never put it in writing directly or indirectly; you shall keep all that we or your attenders shall bid you keep secret from man, woman or child, stock or stone, and never reveal it but to a brother or in a Lodge of Freemasons, and truly observe the charges in the Constitution; all this you promise and swear faithfully to keep and observe, without any manner of equivocation or mental reservation, directly or indirectly; so help you God and the contents of this Book."

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.

The "Mason Word," with the secrets connected with it, formed a very prominent part of the ritual of the Scotch Freemasons, though there is no reference to it in any of the English manuscripts except in the Sloane.

In fact, so important was this word considered as to be sometimes figuratively employed to designate the whole body of the Fraternity. Thus, in a record of the Musselburgh Lodge, in December, 1700, where complaint is made of the great disorders into which the lodge had fallen, it is said, among other evils, that the practice of Fellow Grafts encouraging Apprentices to take work as journeymen, " at last, by degrees, will bring all law and order and consequently the Mason Word to contempt " (1) - where, evidently by a figure of speech, it is meant that the Fraternity or Craft of Masonry will be brought to contempt.

In the Lodge of Edinburgh, which was the principal Lodge of Scotland, and whose records have been best preserved, the Masons or employers were, up to the beginning of the 18th century, the dominant power, and seldom called the Fellows or Craftsmen of an inferior class, who were only journeymen, into their counsel.

The controversy between the Masters and journeymen, which led, in 1712, to the establishment of a new lodge, are faithfully de scribed by Bro. Lyon from the original records. (2) It is sufficient here to say that one of the principal grievances complained of by the latter was in respect to the giving of the Mason Word, with the secrets connected with it and the fees arising from it. The Masters claimed the right to confer it and to dispose of the fee, so to speak, of initiation.

Finally, the controversy was partially ended by arbitration. The "Decreet- Arbitral," as is the Scottish legal phrase, or award of the arbitrators made on January 17, 1715, has been recorded, and has been published by Bro. Lyon. The only point of importance to the present subject is that the arbitrators decreed that the journeymen Masons, that is, the Fellow- Crafts, should be allowed "to meet together by themselves, as a Society for giving the Mason Word and to receive dues therefor."

From this fact it is clearly evident that the knowledge of the

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 175. (2) Ibid., p. 140

"Mason Word" and the secrets pertaining to it formed no part of a degree exclusively confined to the Masters, but that all esoteric knowledge in connection with this subject was also the property of the Fellow-Crafts, and of the Apprentices, too, because it has been shown that they were required to be present at all lodge meetings.

The expression, "Mason Word," which is common in the Scottish lodge records, has been, so far, found only in one English manuscript, the Sloane 3329. But as the theory is now generally accepted as having been proved, that the Scottish Freemasons derived their secrets from their English brethren, there can hardly be a doubt that the regulations relative to this Word must have been nearly the same in both countries.

That this was the case after the organization of the Grand Lodge of England, there can be no doubt. It is proved by the visit of Dr. Desaguliers to Edinburgh in 1721, and long before. Bro. Lyon was aware of that visit. He had, from other considerations, expressed the opinion " that the system of Masonic degrees which for nearly a century and a half has been known in Scotland as Freemasonry, was an importation from England." (1)

What this "Mason Word" was, either in England or Scotland, we have, at this day, no means of knowing. But we do know from the records of the 17th century, which have been preserved, that it was the most important, and in Scotland perhaps the only, secret that was communicated to the Craft.

"The Word," says Bro. Lyon, "is the only secret that is even alluded to in the minutes of Mary's Chapel, or in those of Kilwinning, Acheson's Haven, or Dunblane, or any other that we have examined of a date prior to the erection of the Grand Lodge." (2)

We know also that in England, in Scotland, and in Germany, the giving of the Word was accompanied by a grip and by the communication of other secrets.

But we know also, positively, that this Word and these secrets were bestowed upon Fellows as well as Masters, and also, as we have every reason to infer, upon Apprentices.

Besides the proofs that we derive from old Masonic records, we have a right to draw our inferences from the prevalence of similar customs among other crafts.

(1) "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 153 (2) Ibid., p. 22.

Thus, the carpenters, wrights, joiners, slaters, and other crafts who were connected in the art of building with the Masons, were called in Scotland "Squaremen," and they had a secret word which was called the "Squaremen Word." This word, with a grip and sign, was communicated to both journeymen and apprentices in a ceremony called the "brithering." A portion of this ceremony which was performed in a closely guarded apartment of a public-house was the investiture with a leather apron. (1)

I can not doubt that the communication of the "Mason Word and the secrets pertaining to it" was accompanied by similar ceremonies in Scotland, and by a parity of reasoning also in England.

The final conclusion to which we must arrive from the proofs which have been adduced, is that as there was no such system as that of degrees known to the mediaeval Operative Freemasons, that no such system was practiced by the Speculative Freemasons who in 1717 instituted the Grand Lodge of England, until at least two years after its organization; that in 1719 the two degrees of Entered Apprentice and Fellow-Craft were invented; and that subsequently the present system of symbolic or ancient Craft degrees was perfected by the fabrication of a new degree, now recognized as the Third or Master Mason's degree.

At what precise time and under what circumstances this Third degree was invented and introduced into the Grand Lodge system of modern Freemasonry, is the next subject that must engage our attention.

(1) Lyon's "History of the Lodge of Edinburgh," p. 23.

Get More Information on Freemasonry

Masonic Secrets Revealed - The Secret Ceremonies And Oaths Of The Masons Exposed!
Masonic Secrets - The Secret Masonic Handshakes, Words, And Signs Of Craft Masonry.
Freemasonry and the Druids by W. Winwood Reade. Published 1861.
Secret Masonic Initiation Video - Secret video footage from Turkey.
Bristol Masonic Ritual - The Oldest and Most Unusual Craft Working in England
The Meaning of Masonry by W. L. Wilmhurst
Freemasonry - Its Hidden Meaning - by George H. Steinmetz
Masonic Books - Check out our selection of books on freemasonry.

Chapters in Part 2

Back to Masonic Secrets Revealed

Masonic Secrets recommends the following sites:

Sacred-Magick.Com: The Esoteric Library