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

434 LEGEND
LEGEND
of some symbolic idea ; in which latter respect
they differ entirely from the monastic legends,
which often have only the fertile imagination
of some studious monk for the basis of their
construction .
The instructions of Freemasonry are given
to us in two modes : by the symbol and by the
legend . The symbol is a material, and the
legend a mental, representation of a truth .
The sources of neither can be in every case authentically
traced. Many of them come to us,
undoubtedly, from the old Operative Masons
of the Medieval gilds. But whence they got
them is a question that naturally arises, and
which still remains unanswered . Others have
sprung from a far earlier source- perhaps, as
Creuzer has suggested in his Sym~bolik, from an
effort to engraft higher and purer knowledge
on an imperfect religious idea . If so, then the
myths of the Ancient Mysteries, and the legends
or traditions of Freemasonry, would have
the same remote and the same final cause .
They would differ in construction, but they
would agree in design . For instance, the
myth of Adonis in the Syrian mysteries, and
the legend of Hiram Abif in the Third Degree,
would differ very widely in their details ; but
the object of each would be the same, namely,
to teach the doctrine of the restoration from
death to eternal life .
The legends of Freemasonry constitute a
considerable and a very important part of its
ritual. Without them, its most valuable portions
as a scientific system would cease to
exist . It is, in fact, in the traditions and
legends of Freemasonry, more, even, than in
its material symbols, that we are to find the
deep religious instructions which the Institution
is intended to inculcate. It must be
remembered that Freemasonry has been defined
to be "a system of morality, veiled in allegory
and illustrated by symbols ." Symbols,
then, alone, do not constitute the whole of the
system : allegory comes in for its share ; and
this allegory, which veils the Divine truths of
Masonry, is presented to the neophyte in the
various legends which have been traditionally
preserved in the Order .
They may be divided into three classes :
1 . The Mythical legend. 2. The Philosophical
legend 3 . The Historical legend . And
these three classes may be defined as follows :
1 . The myth may be engaged in the transmission
of a narrative of early deeds and
events having a foundation in truth, which
truth, however, has been greatly distorted and
perverted by the omission or introduction of
circumstances and personages, and then it
constitutes the mythical legend.
2 . Or it may have been invented and
adopted as the medium of enunciating a particular
thought, or of inculcating a certain doctrine,
when it becomes a philosophical legend .
3 . Or, lastly, the truthful elements of actual
history may greatly predominate over the fictitious
and invented materials of the myth ;
and the narrative may be, in the main, made
up of facts, with a slight coloring of imagination,
when it forms an historical legend .
Legend of Enoch. See Enoch .
Legend of Euclid . See Euclid, Legend of.
Legend of the Craft . The Old Records
of the Fraternity of Operative Freemasons,
under the general name of Old Constitutions or
Constitutions of Masonry, or Old Charges, were
written in the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries . The loss of many
of these by the indiscretion of overzealous
brethren was deplored by Anderson ; but a few
of them have been long known to us, and
many more have been recently recovered, by
the labors of such men as Hughan, from the
archives of old Lodges and from manuscript
collections in the British Museum . In these
is to be found a history of Freemasonry ; full,
it is true, of absurdities and anachronisms,
and yet exceedingly interesting, as giving us
the belief of our ancient brethren on the subject
of the origin of the Order . This history
has been called by Masonic writers the "LEG-
END OF THE CRAFT " because it is really a legendary
narrative, laving little or no historic
authenticity. In all these Old Constitutions,
the legend is substantially the same ; showing,
evidently, a common origin ; most probably
an oral teaching which prevailed in the earliest
ages of the confraternity. In giving it, the
Dowland Manuscript, as reproduced in Hughan's
Old Charges (1872), has been selected for
the purpose, because it is believed to be a
copy of an older one of the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and because its rather
modernized spelling makes it more intelligible
to the general reader .
THE LEGEND OF THE CRAFT .
"Before Noyes floode there was a man
called Lameche as it is written in the Byble,
in the iiijth chapter of Genesis; and this Lameche
had two wives, and the one height
Ada and the other height Sella ; by his first
wife Ada he gott two sons, and that one
Jahell, and thother Tuball, And by that other
wife Sella he gott a son and a daughter . And
these four children founden the begining of all
the sciences in the world . And this elder son
Jahell found the science of Geometrie, and he
departed flocks of sheepe and lambs in the
field, and first wrought house of stone and
tree, as is noted in the chapter above said .
And his brother Tuball found the science of
Musicke, songe of tonge, harpe and orgaine .
And the third brother Tubal1 Cain found
smithcraft of gold, silver, copper, iron, and
steele ; and the daughter found the craft of
Weavinge . And these children knew well that
God would take vengeance for synn, either by
fire or by water ; wherefore they writt their
science that they had found in two pillars of
stone, that they might be found after Noyes
flood. And that one stone was marble, for
that would not bren with fire ; and that other
stone was clepped laterns, and would not
drown in noe water .
"Our intent is to tell you trulie how and in
what manner these stones were found, that
thise sciences were written in . The great Hermarynes
that was Cubys son, the which Cub