Legends about Solomon’s Temple and a word identifying the genuine members of the guild were passed from the “operative” to the “speculative” Freemasons.
by Massimo Introvigne
Article 3 of 8. Read article 1 and article 2.
In the second article of this series, I discussed the distinction between the “operative” Freemasonry, i.e., the Medieval guild of architects and stonemasons, and the modern “speculative” Freemasonry. The latter included honorary members who had different professions but were interested in the legends and “secrets” of the ancient guild. I mentioned that what was transmitted from “operative” to “speculative” Freemasons mostly referred to two manuscripts called “Regius” and “Cooke,” dating from the years 1390–1410, and to the so-called “Masonic word.”
The manuscripts include two different legends about the origins of Masonry. The older has been called the “short ancient history,” and the more recent one, the “long new history.” The “short ancient history” starts from a mythical journey to Egypt by Euclid (ca. 360–280 B.C.), who is said to have founded there a school of the art of geometry and construction. The teaching, it is argued, was later transmitted to numerous peoples and particularly to the English at the time of King Athelstan (895–939). He gave the freemasons their first regulations and constitutions.
In contrast, the “long new history” starts from before the Flood and mentions various Biblical characters. They include Jabal, presented as a master builder employed by Cain, and Enoch, who transcribed the secrets of the masonry on gold foils or hidden columns. They were later confused with the Jachin and Boaz columns of Solomon’s temple, with which they were not originally identified. Later, we are told, these secrets were revealed to Abraham. His pupil Euclid taught the art to the Egyptians. From the latter, the art of masonry was retransmitted to the Jews, and found its culmination with Solomon and his temple. After the destruction of the temple, the story claims, the art was passed to the Christians, including four European martyrs, builders by profession, the Four Holy Crowned Ones (Quatuor Coronati). It was promoted in England by the martyr Alban (2nd–3rd centuries AD) and codified by Athelstan.
Characterizing the distinct Christian imprint of medieval operative Freemasonry was the commemoration of the patron saints of the trade, namely the Four Holy Crowned Ones, martyred in 287 and still honored by stonemasons in various parts of Italy and abroad on the feast day dedicated to them. The Regius manuscript already mentioned: “The names of the four crowned ones and their feast day are known to all: the eighth day after All Saints” (“Regius,” v. 563–65).
The evocation of the Four Holy Crowned Ones (v. 527–65) refers the reader who wants to know more to a book that in the Middle Ages enjoyed extraordinary success in codifying Christian spiritual life. It was the “Legenda aurea” (Golden Legend) of Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1228–1298): “If anyone wants to know more about their lives, they can find it in the book of the Legend of the Saints” (v. 560–62). Jacobus identified the four martyrs as Severus, Severianus, Carpophorus, and Victorinus. Pope Melchiades or Miltiades (? –314, reigned from 310 to 314) in 310 commanded to honor them along with five other martyrs, namely Claudius, Castorius, Symphorian, Nicostratus, and Simplicius.
“Regius” reports that “they knew the art of sculpture to perfection but refused to carve an idol for Diocletian [243–311]” in fear of “diverting the people from the law of Christ” (“Regius,” v. 541). For the refusal, they were locked alive in leaden boxes and thrown into the sea. This is how medieval builders were asked to remember them: “Now let us pray to Almighty God and his sweet Mother, the shining Mary, that we may observe the present articles, and these dictates as did the four holy martyrs who enjoy great honor in this trade. They were such good masons as there are none on earth” (“Regius,” v. 528–34).
The material in the “Regius” and “Cooke” manuscripts dates from before the Reformation and is thus the corpus of legends of a Catholic guild. It was later reworked into dozens of other manuscripts, which added the themes of Noah’s ark and of Solomon’s temple and its architect Hiram Abiff. However, the legend of Hiram Abiff as today’s Freemasons know it, which includes his killing by three traitors to whom he would not reveal the “word of the Master,” appears only in eighteenth-century manuscripts.
Alexander Horne, in a very detailed study on the subject (“King Solomon’s Temple in the Masonic Tradition,” Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: The Aquarian Press, 1972), traces more archaic precedents for the Temple of Solomon cycle and also for Hiram Abiff. He argues that ancient themes relating to Noah’s ark were transposed and referred to Solomon’s temple, although very few of these precedents have anything to do with the Masonic guilds. It is therefore also possible that to a large extent the legend of Hiram Abiff was not found but rather brought by the “accepted” and “speculative” into the old “operative” Freemasonry.
The second element relevant to the later “speculative” developments found by the “accepted” in the “operative” lodges of Masonry was the “Masonic word.” This was a secret word or sign of recognition on which we often read remarkable inaccuracies. The “Masonic word” was born in Scotland in the 16th century. It was unknown in the Middle Ages and unknown among “operatives” in England. Its purpose was practical: as Masonic historians Douglas Knoop (1883–1948) and Gwilym Peredur Jones (1892–1975) wrote, it “came into existence because it was useful… [But] little reflection is required in order to realise that the Mason Word could have had little or no use merely as a means of distinguishing skilled masons from others. That could have been better done by a practical test, by requiring the man who claimed to be skilled to prove his ability on the spot by hewing or laying stones.” In fact, the “Masonic word” responded to a new problem: the presence in Scotland in the 16th century of workers in the construction industry called “cowans.” They were technically capable of doing their work (and passing a test) but had not gone through the regular guild apprenticeship or were working outside the guild, sometimes accepting lower wages. The “Masonic word” allowed the guild-bound foremen and entrepreneurs to recognize workers who belonged to the masonic guild and to protect the system against the abusive cowans (Knoop and Jones, “The Genesis of Freemasonry: An Account of the Rise and Development of Freemasonry in Its Operative, Accepted and Early Speculative Phases, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1947, 93–4).
However, the “Masonic word” was a 16th-century innovation, and at the end of the sixteenth century “accepted” and “speculative” precisely began to appear in the lodges. Around the “Masonic word” thus began to arise legends such as the one according to which it was a magical word capable of making one invisible.
Reverend Robert Kirk (1644–1692) played a decisive role in the spread of these legends. This Scottish Presbyterian pastor is best known for his work popularizing the belief in fairies. Although his “Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies” will not be published until the 19th century, he was already a well-known figure during his lifetime. When he died, the legend circulated that he was not really deceased but had been abducted by fairies into their realm. Kirk took an interest in all the mysteries of Scotland, among which he listed “the Masonic word.” He stated that it was “like a Rabbinical tradition in a way of comment on Jachin and Boaz the two pillars erected in Solomon’s Temple; with an addition of some secret signe delivered from hand to hand, by which they know, and become familiar with one another.”
In 1652, the Church of Scotland authorities declared that there was nothing sinful in the “Masonic word,” and it is possible that Rev. Kirk was himself an “accepted” Freemason in the Scone and Perth Lodge No. 3. Kirk wrote between 1680 and 1691, and the reference to “some secret signe” may already indicate the “five points of fellowship”: “Hand to Hand, Foot to Foot, Cheek to Cheek, Knee to Knee, and Hand to Back.” These were described without reference to their origins in a text of 1696. They were explained in later manuscripts with rather macabre attempts to put back together, by removing them from the grave, the bodies of Noah or Hiram Abiff, to extract their secrets from the corpses. Connected to such legends would be the expression “here is yet mar[r]ow in this bone,” promised to a career in “speculative” rituals.
In any case, we find here an element of practical origin, the “Masonic word,” enriched with occult significance through the work of “accepted” Freemasons, a category possibly including Kirk. And it is through the “accepted” and “speculative” Freemasons that the legends about the ancient history of the craft and the “Masonic word,” whose respective origins are different, are welded together, and the “word” is referred to a “Rabbinical tradition” and the Temple of Solomon.
