Scottish Rite Masonry Illustrated - The Masonic Trowel

432 SUBLIME PRINCE OF THE ROYAL SECRET.
right or not, you must yourself judge. It is not given
you as sacramental.
Prior to 1786 at least, the Ancient and Accepted Rite
consistcd of only twenty-five degrces. The first eighteen
were the same as at prcserit. That you may fully ~undcrstand
i~hat is to be said hereafter, we subjoin, the degrees
above the eighteenth, as they then existed.
1762.
19. Grand Pontiff, Master ad vitain.
20. Grand Patriarch, Noachite.
21. Grand Mastcr of the Key of Masonry.
22. Prlncc of Libanus, or Knight of Royal Axe.
23. Prince Adept.
24. Commander of the Whitc find Black Eagle.
25. Commander of the Royal Secret.
1786.
19. Grand Pontiff.
20. Grand Master ad vitam.
21. Noachite or Prussian Knights.
22. Prince of Libanus.
23. Chief of the Tabe*~nacle.
24. Prince of the,Tabernacle.
25. Knight of the Brazen Serpent.
26. Prince of Mercy.
2?. Grand Commander of the Temple.
28. Knight of the Sun.
29. Grand Scotch Knight of St. Andrew.
30. Knight Kadosh.
31. Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander.
32. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.
In other words, our 19th and 20th degrees were then
in one, the 19th. Our 21st was the 20th; our 22nd was
then the 22nd; and our 28th was then the 23rd; our
INITIATION.
433
30Th or a degree like it, was then the 24th; our 32nd
was then the 25th, and there was no degree above that;
and our 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th, as well as the 33rd
were not tlicn known. The 27th was a dctached degree,
and the 29th ~va~part of another system. The rcgulations
and constitutions, said to have been n;ade at Bordeaux,
by tile Princes of the Royal Secret in 1762, give
the list of the degrees and require 81 months;-that is
9 times 9, by 1, 3, 5, 7, to be occupied in obtaining
them. They arc di~ idcd into sex-en classes of 3, 5, 3,
3, 5, 3, 3, degrees icspecti~cly ; the time required for
obtaining the degrces, in each class rchpectively 9 and
15, or three tinics five months. The regulations term
thesc the Illystcrious numbcrs, and there is in article
two a paragraph in regard which is translated as follows:
“All these degrces, in which one must bc initiated in
a mysterious number of months, to arrive in succesbion
at each degree, form the numher of 81 months;
8+1=9; as 8 and 9 express 89, and as 9 times 9=81;
all of which are perfect numhers and very different
from 1 and 8 which make 9 and 1 and 8 compose 18,
for these are imperfect numhers, and this combination
is imperfect.” But a true Mason, who has completed
his time, gathers at last the Masonic rose.
Now taking the numhers of the different figures of
the camp: Of the circle, or unity, the triangle, pentagon,
heptagon and nonagon, we have 1+3+5+7
+9, which added together make ~5, the number of degrees
in 1762, and placing the Commanders of the
Royal Secret in the circle, it leaves one degree for each
side of all the right hand figures. Thus the number of
degrees corresponds with the figures; the heptagon
ceases to be useless, arid the arrangement of the degrees
ceases to be arbitrary.
We conclude, at once, that this tracing-board ws.~