The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

Chapter 4 - Signs & Symbols 119
and the Senior and Junior Deacons. A Fellow Craft Lodge consists of five
brethren, viz.: Worshipful Master, Senior and Junior Wardens, and Senior and
Junior Deacons. Three Master Masons can constitute a Masters' lodge. 317 There
may be additional officers, like the Chaplain or the Senior and Junior Stewards,
two officers just below the Deacons in the American system. 318 It is their
principal duty to prepare and introduce the candidates.
The technical term for a Master Masons' lodge which confers only the first
three degrees is "Blue Lodge 319 " in American English and "Craft Masonry" in
British English. In an Entered Apprentices' lodge or a Fellow Crafts' lodge, no
business is done, for they are merely intended to confer the corresponding
degree. 320 Therefore, the lodges open in the Third Degree for business.
As to the symbolic significance of the lodge, its geographical orientation is
important, which is "due East and West." For this reason, the floor plans of the
rituals discussed in Chapter 7. have been included in the corresponding sections,
in order to show where the officers are placed. The stations of the officers have a
special signification, according to the four points of the compass. The reason for
the lodge being situated due East and West is explained in Simon's Standard
Masonic Monitor and alludes to the erection of a tabernacle by Moses:
Lodges are situated due East and West, because King Solomon's
Temple was so situated. Moses, by divine command, after having
conducted the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, from the house
of bondage, through the Red Sea into the wilderness, erected a
Tabernacle to God, which he situated due East and West, to
commemorate to the latest posterity that miraculous east wind which
wrought their mighty deliverance. King Solomon's Temple is said to
have been a representation of that Tabernacle. 321
The lodge is universally known as a symbol of King Solomon's Temple.
Thus, its Master sits on King Solomon's throne; his seat or office sometimes
being called more fully "the Oriental Chair of King Solomon" 322 : "Each Lodge is
and must be a symbol of the Jewish Temple; each Master in the chair a
representative of the Jewish king; and every Mason a personation [sic] of the
Jewish workman." 323
Masonic lodges are dedicated. According to Simons, the ancient brethren
dedicated their lodges to King Solomon as the first Most Excellent Grand
Master, however, present day Masons, who profess Christianity, dedicate their
lodges to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, as patrons of Masonry,
317 Duncan, p. 9.
318 Cf. CME, p. 634.
319 Cf. Duncan, p. 9.
320 Ibid.
321 Cf. Simons, p. 39/40.
322 Cf. Mackey, EFKS, p. 140.
323 Ibid, p. 769