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

DESIGN
DEVELOPMENT 209
hood, and Ambition; and hence the Third Degree
is supposed to typify the battle between
liberty and despotism . In the same spirit,
the justness of destroying impious kings is
considered the true dogma of the Rose Croix .
In fact, the tumults of the French Revolution,
in which Des Etangs took no inconsiderable
share, had infected his spirit with a political
temperament, which unfortunately appears
too prominently in many portions of his Masonic
system. Notwithstanding that he incorporated
two of the high degrees into his
Rite, Des Etangs considered the three Symbolic
degrees as the only legitimate Masonry,
and says that all other degrees have been instituted
by various associations and among
different peoples on occasions when it was desired
to revenge a death, to reestablish a
prince, or to give success to a sect .
Design of Freemasonry . It is neither
charity nor almsgiving, nor the cultivation of
the social sentiment ; for both of these are
merely incidental to its organization ; but it
is the search after truth, and that truth is the
unity of God and the immortality of the soul .
The various degrees or grades of initiation
represent the various stages through which
the human mind passes, and the many difficulties
which men, individually or collectively,
must encounter in their progress from ignorance
to the acquisition of this truth .
Destruction of the Temple . The Temple
of King Solomon was destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Chaldees, during
the reign of Zedekiah, A .m . 3416, s.c.
588, and just four hundred and sixteen years
after its dedication . Although the city was
destroyed and the Temple burnt, the Masonic
legends state that the deep foundations of the
latter were not affected . Nebuchadnezzar
caused the city of Jerusalem to be leveled to
the ground, the royal palace to be burned,
the Temple to be pillaged as well as destroyed,
and the inhabitants to be carried captive to
Babylon. These events are symbolically detailed
in the Royal Arch, and in allusion to
them, the passage of the Book of Chronicles
which records them is appropriately read
during the ceremonies of this part of the
degree .
Detached Degrees . Side or honorary
degrees outside of the regular succession of
degrees of a Rite, and which, being conferred
without the authority of a supreme controlling
body, are said to be to the side of or detached
from the regular regime . The word detached
is peculiar to the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite. Thus, in the circular of the
Southern Supreme Council, October 10, 1802,
is the following : "Besides those degrees which
are in regular succession, most of the Inspectors
are in possession of a number of detached
degrees, given in different parts of the world,
and which they generally communicate, free
of expense, to those brethren who are high
enough to understand them ."
Deuchar Charters . Warrants, some of
which are still in existence in Scotland, and
which are used to authorize the working of
the Knights Templar Degree by Certain Encampments
in that country . They were
designated "Deuchar Charters," on account
of Alexander Deuchar, an engraver and
heraldic writer, having been the chief promoter
of the Grand Conclave and its first
Grand Master. To his exertions, also, the
Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Scotland
may be said to have owed its origin .
He appears to have become acquainted with
Knights Templarism earl y in the present century
through brethren who had been dubbed
under a warrant emanating from Dublin,
which was held by Fratres serving in the
Shrop shire Militia . This corps was quartered
in Edinburgh in 1798 ; and in all probability
it was through the instrumentality of
its members that the first Grand Assembly of
Knights Templar was first act up in Edinburgh .
Subsequently, this gave place to the Grand
Assembly of High Knights Templar in Edinburgh,
working under a charter, No . 31, of
the Early Grand Encampment of Ireland, of
which in 1807 Deuchar was Grand Master.
The Deuchar Charters authorized Encampments
to install "Knights Templar and
Knights of St . John of Jerusalem "--one condition
on which these warrants were held being
"that no communion or intercourse shall
be maintained with any Chapter or Encampment)
or body assuming that name, holding
meetmgs of Knights Templar under a Master
Mason's Charter ." In 1837 the most of these
warrants were forfeited, and the Encampments
erased from the roll of the Grand Conclave,
on account of not making the required
returns.
Deus Meumque Jus. God and my right .
The motto of the Thirty-third Degree of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and
hence adopted as that also of the Supreme
Council of the Rite . It is a Latin translation
of the motto of the royal arms of England,
which is "Dieu et mon droit," and concerning
which we have the following tradition . Richard
Cceur de Leon, besieging Gisors, in Normandy,
in 1198, gave, as a parole, "Dieu et
mon droit," because Philip Augustus King of
France, had, without right, taken that city,
which then belonged to England . Richard,
having been victorious with that righteous
parole, hence adopted it as his motto ; and
it was afterward marshaled in the arms of
England .
Development . The ancients often wrote
their books on parchment, which were made
up into a roll, hence called a volume, from
volvere, "to roll up ." Thus, he who read the
book commenced by unrolling it, a custom
still practised by the Jews in reading their
Sacred Law, and it was not until the whole
volume was unrolled' and read that he became
the master of its contents . Now, in the
Latin language, to unfold or to unroll was
devolvere, whence we get our English word
to develop . The figurative signification thus
elicited from etymology may be well applied
to the idea of the development of Masonry.
The system of Speculative Masonry is a vol-