Mackey A G - Encylopedia of Freemasonry - The Grand Masonic ...

00 BACON
BACULUS
there emplo in physical researches . There
were, says e, deep grottoes and towers for
the successful observation of certain phenomena
of nature ; artificial mineral waters ; large
buildings, in which meteors, the wind, thunder,
and rain were imitated ; extensive botanic gardens
; entire fields, in which all kinds of
animals were collected, for the study of their
instincts and habits ; houses filled with all the
wonders of nature and art ; a great number of
learned men, each of whom, in his own country,
had the direction of these things ; they made
journeys and observations ; they wrote, they
collected, they determined results, and deliberated
together as to what was proper to
be published and what concealed .
This romance became at once very popular,
and everybody's attention was attracted by
the allegory of the House of Solomon . But
it also contributed to spread Bacon's views on
experimental knowledge, and led afterward
to the institution of the Royal Society, to
which Nicolai attributes a common object
with that of the Society of Freemasons,
established he says, about the same time, the
difference being only that one was esoteric
and the other exoteric in its instructions .
But the more immediate effect of the romance
of Bacon was the institution of the Society
of Astrologers, of which Elias Ashmole was a
leading member. Of this society Nicolai, in
his work on the Origin and History of Rosicrucianism
and Freemasonry, says :
"Its object was to build the House of
Solomon, of the New Atlantis, in the literal
sense, but the establishment was to remain as
secret as the island of Bensalem-that is to
say, they were to be engaged in the study of
nature-but the instruction of its principles
was to remain in the society in an esoteric
form. These philosophers presented their
idea in a strictly allegorical method . First,
there were the ancient columns of Hermes, by
which lamblichus pretended that he had enlightened
all the doubts of Porphyry . You
then mounted, by several steps, to a chequered
floor, divided into four regions, to denote the
four superior sciences ; after which came the
types of the six days' work, which expressed
the object of the society, and which were the
same as those found on an engraved stone in
my possession. The sense of all which was
this : God created the world, and preserves it
by fixed principles, full of wisdom- he who
seeks to know these principles-tLat is to
say the interior of nature-approximates to
God, and he who thus approximates to God
obtains from his grace the power of commanding
nature ."
This society, he adds met at Masons' Hall
in Basinghall Street, because many of its
members were also members of the Masons'
Company, into which they all afterward
entered and assumed the name of Free and
Accepted Masons, and thus he traces the origin
of the Order to the New Atlantis and the
House of Solomon of Lord Bacon . It is only
a theory, but it seems to throw some light
on that long process of incubation which
terminated at last, in 1717, in the production
of the Grand Lodge of Fnglgnd. The connection
of Ashmole with the Masons is a
singular one, and has led to some controversy .
The views of Nicolai, if not altogether correct,
may suggest the possibility of an explanation .
Certain it is that the eminent astrologers of
England, as we learn from Ashmole's Diary,
were on terms of intimacy with the Masons
in the seventeenth century, and that many
Fellows of the Royal Society were also prominent
members of the early Grand Lodge of
England which was established in 1717 .
Bacon, Roger . An English monk who
made wonderful discoveries in many sciences .
He was born in Ilchester in 1214, educated at
Oxford and Paris, and entered the Franciscan
Order in his twenty-fifth year. He explored
the secrets of nature, and made many discoveries,
the application of which was looked
upon as magic. He denounced the ignorance
and immorality of the clergy, resulting in
accusations, through revenge, and final imprisonment
. He was noted as a Rosicrucian .
Died in 1292 .
Baculus . The staff of office borne by the
Grand Master of the Templars . In ecclesiology,
baculus is the name given to the
pastoral staff carried by a bishop or an abbot
as the ensign of his dignity and authority .
In pure Latinity, baculus means a long stick
or staff, which was commonly carried by
travelers, by shepherds, or by infirm and
aged persons, and afterward from affectation,
by the Greek philosophers In early
times, this staff, made a little longer, was
carried by kings and persons in authority, as
a mark of distinction, and was thus the origin
of the royal scepter . The Christian church,
borrowing many of its usages from antiquity,
and alluding also, it is said, to the sacerdotal
power which Christ conferred when he sent
the apostles to preach, commanding them to
take with them staves, adopted the pastoral
staff, to be borne by a bishop, as symbolical
of his power to inflict pastoral correction ; and
Durandus says, "By the pastoral staff is likewise
understood the authority of doctrine .
For by it the infirm are supported, the wavering
are confirmed, those going astray are
drawn to repentance." Catalin also says
that "the baculus, or episcopal staff is an
ensign not only of honor, but also of dignity,
power, and pastoral jurisdiction."
Honorius, a writer of the twelfth century,
in his treatise De Gemma Animas, gives to
this pastoral staff the names both of baculus
and virga. Thus he says, "Bishops bear the
staff (baculum), that by their teaching they
may strengthen the weak in their faith ; and
they carry the rod (virgam), that by their power
they may correct the unruly ." And this is
strikingly similar to the language used by St .
Bernard in the Rule which he drew up for the
government of the Templars. In Artxviii
he says, "The Master ought to hold the- stag
and the rod (baculum et virgam) in his hand,
that is to say, the staff (baculum), that he may
support the infirmities of the weak, and the