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

Chapter 6 - Peculiarities of Masonic Language 369
kingdoms of nature, the Holy Trinity, or of the words of Christ: 'Where
two or three are assembled in my name, there will I be in the midst of
you.' We may also consider ourselves as the third party in unity and
love, whose duty it is to exercise those two cardinal virtues. The
Christian can also take the number three as the grand distinguishing
doctrine of his faith. There are three principal parts in a man, body, soul,
and spirit. Faith, love, and hope, support and adorn life. 1174
Numerical gnosis was taken over by Masonry from the ancient mysteries of
the Greeks, Romans, and Eastern nations, from the Kabbalists, and also from the
Bible, where holy numbers prevail, e.g. the Trinity and the twelve apostles.
However, this kind of numerology must not be over-interpreted in connection
with Freemasonry. Not all interesting mathematical properties have to do with
occultism. Furthermore, the Kabbalah is not a Masonic product and contains as
much superstition as abstractions with regard to numbers. As Mackey states in
his EOF,
[...] a number is in Masonry a symbol, and no more. It is venerated, not
because it has any supernatural efficacy, as thought the Pythagoreans
and others, but because it has concealed within some allusion to a
sacred object or holy thought, which it symbolizes. The number three,
for instance, like the triangle, is a symbol; the number nine, like the
triple triangle, another. The Masonic doctrine of sacred numbers must
not, therefore, be confounded with the doctrine of numbers which
prevailed in other systems.
The most important symbolic or sacred numbers in Masonry are
three, five, seven, nine, twenty-seven, and eighty-one. 1175
This topic will not be explained further since Section 4.1.5 comments on the
symbolism of the "Winding Stairs" (divided into flights of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 steps,
which is 36 in all; or into 3, 5, 7 flights, 15 in all, which is the general
arrangement in the United States). Further, Section 4.6.4 explains the Masonic
symbolism of the three steps (youth, manhood, old age). Then, Section 4.9
discusses Masonic formations, marches, and movements that employ mythical
numbers, such as the "three times three" of Royal Arch Masonry. Finally,
Section 6.9 on Masonic calendars, ages, and hours deals with symbolic numbers.
Some pretend that Masonic number symbolism consists only of odds, 1176
which is very reasonably opposed by Coil in his encyclopedia who lists the many
evens occurring in Freemasonry, for example the two columns (Jachin and
Boaz), the two ashlars (rough and perfect), the two deacons, the four cardinal
1174
Cf. GHCDF, as quoted from Gädicke, p. 685.
1175
EOF, p. 521.
1176
This is claimed by Mackey in his EOF, p. 521: "The respect paid by Freemasons to certain
numbers, all of which are odd, is founded not on the belief of any magical virtue, but because
they are assumed to be the types or representatives of certain ideas."