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

310 GRAVE
GREETING
until 1806, the Grand Commander . On
March 5, 1805, he organized a Supreme Council
at Milan in Italy, and on July 4, 1811, another
at Madrid, in' Spain . The Comte de
Grasse was an officer in the French army and
was taken prisoner by the English and detained
in England until 1815, when he returned
to Paris . He immediately resumed his
functions as Grand Commander of a body
which took the unauthorized pretentious title
of the Supreme Council of America . For
several years Scottish Masonry in France was
convulsed with dissensions, which De Grasse
vainly labored to reconcile . Finally, in 1818,
he resigned his post as Grand Commander,
and was succeeded' by the Comte Decazes .
From that period he appears to have passed
quietly out of the Masonic history of France,
and probably died soon after.
Grave. The grave is, in the Master's Degree,
the analogue of the pastes, couch or
coffin, in the Ancient Mysteries, and is intended
scenically to serve the same purpose .
The grave is, therefore, in that degree, intended,
in connection with the sprig of acacia,
to teach symbolically the great Masonic doctrine
of a future life .
Gravelot . The name of the second of the
three conspirators in the Master's Degree, according
to the Adonhiramite Rite . The others
are Romvel and Abiram . The etymology of
Gravelot is unknown.
Great Architect of the Universe. The
title applied in the technical language of Freemasonry
to the Deity . It is appropriate that
a society founded on the principles of architecture,
which symbolizes the terms of that
science to moral purposes, and whose members
profess to be the architects of a spiritual
temple should view the Divine Being, under
whose holy law they are constructing that edifice,
as their Master Builder or Great Architect
. Sometimes, but less correctly, the title
"Grand Architect of the Universe" is found .
Great Priory. The ruling body of the
Order of the Temple for England, Wales and
Canada is so called .
Greater Lights. See Lights, Greater, Bible,
Square and Compasses .
Greece . In 1867, the first steps were taken
to establish a Grand Lodge in Greece by the
Lodges which had been recently founded there
by the Grand Orient of Italy, but owing to
various causes the organization did not succeed,
and until 1872 the Grecian Lodges were
presided over by a Deputy Grand Master, appointed
by and the representative of the
Grand Orient of Italy .
On July 22, 1872, the Lodges of Greece met
at Athens, and organized the Grand Lodge of
Greece, electing His Imperial Highness Prince
Rhodocanakis the first Grand Master .
At the same time a Supreme Council of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was organized
. The seat of both bodies is at Athens.
Greece, Mysteries In. The principal
Pagan mysteries celebrated in Greece were
the Eleusinian and the Bacchic. (See Eleusinian
Mysteries .)
Green. Green, as a Masonic color, is almost
confined to the four degrees of Perfect
Master, Knight of the East, Knight of the
Red Cross, and Prince of Mercy. In the degree
of Perfect Master it is a symbol of the
moral resurrection of the candidate, teaching
him that being dead to vice he should hope to
revive in virtue .
In the degree of Knight of the Red Cross,
this color is employed as a symbol of the immutable
nature of truth, which, like the bay
tree, will ever flourish in immortal green .
This idea of the unchanging immortality of
that which is divine and true, was always connected
by the ancients with the color of green .
Among the Egyptians, the god Phtha, the
active spirit, the creator and regenerator of
the world, the goddess Pascht, the Divine preserver,
and Thoth, the instructor of men in
the sacred doctrines of truth, were all painted
in the hieroglyphic system with green flesh .
Portal says, in his essay on Symbolic Colors=
that "green was the symbol of victory" ; and
this reminds us of the motto of the Red Cross
Knights, "magna est veritas et praevalebit"
-great is truth and mighty above all things ;
and hence green is the symbolic color of that
degree.
In the degree of Prince of Mercy, or the
Twenty-sixth Degree of the Scottish Rite,
green is also symbolic of truth, and is the appropriate
color of the degree, because truth is
there said to be the palladium of the Order.
In the degree of Knight of the East, in the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, green is
also the symbolic color . We may very readily
suppose, from the close connection of this
degree in its ritual with that of the Companion
of the Red Cross, that the same symbolic explanation
of the color would apply to both, .
and I think that such an explanation might
very properly be made ; but it is generally
supposed by its possessors that the green of
the Knights of the East alludes to the waters
of the river Euphrates, and hence its symbolism
is not moral but historical .
The evergreen of the Third Degree is to the
Master Mason an emblem of immortality .
Green was with the Druids a symbol of hope,
and the virtue of hope with a Mason illustrates
the hope of immortality . In all the Ancient
Mysteries, this idea was carried out, and green
symbolized the birth of the world, and the
moral creation or resurrection of the initiate .
If we apply this to the evergreen of the Master
Mason we shall again find a resemblance, for
the acacia is emblematic of a new creation of
the body, and a moral and physical resurrection.
Greeting. This word means salutation,
and, under the form of "Thrice Greeting," it
is very common at the head of Masonic documents
. In the beginning of the last century
it was usual at the meeting of Masons to say,
"God's good greeting be to this our happy
meeting ." Browne gives the formula as practised
in 1800 : "The recommendation I bring
is from the right worthy and worshipful brothers
and fellows of the Holy Lodge of St . John,