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

LEGEND
bolism of the second Temple as a type of the
second life, but which still have an indirect
bearing on the general idea . Thus the'particular
legend of the three weary sojourners is
undoubtedly a mere myth, there being no
known historical testimony for its support ;
but it is evidently the enunciation symbolically
of the religious and philosophical idea that
Divine truth may be sought and won only by
successful perseverance through all the dan-
F.ers, trials, and tribulations of life, and that
it is not in this, but in the next life, that it is
fully attained .
The legend of the English and the American
systems is identical ; that of the Irish is very
different as to the time and events ; and the
legend of the Royal Arch of the Scottish Rite
is more usually called the legend of Enoch.
Legend of the Third Degree . The most
important and significant of the legendary
symbols of Freemasonry is, undoubtedly, that
which relates to the fate of Hiram Abif, commonly
called, "by way of excellence," the
Legend of the Third Degree .
The first written record that I have been
able to find of this legend is contained in the
second edition of Anderson's Constitutions,
published in 1738 (p . 14), and is in these
words :
"It (the Temple) was finished in the short
space of seven years and six months, to the
amazement of all the world ; when the capestone
was celebrated by the Fraternity with
b eat joy. But their joy was soon interrupted
y the sudden death of their dear master,
Hiram Abif, whom they decently interred in
the Lodge near the Temple, according to
ancient usage."
In the next edition of the same work, published
in 1756 (p. 24), a few additional circumstances
are related, such as the participation
of King Solomon in the general grief and the
fact that the King of Israel "ordered his
obsequies to be performed with great solemnity
and decency ." With these exceptions,
and the citations of the same passages, made
by subsequent authors, the narrative has always
remained unwritten, and descended,
from age to age, through the means of oral
tradition.
The legend has been considered of so much
importance that it has been preserved in the
symbolism of every Masonic rite . No matter
what modifications or alterations the general
system may have undergone-no matter how
much the ingenuity or the imagination of the
founders of rites may have perverted or corrupted
other symbols, abolishing the old and
substituting new ones-the legend of the
Temple Builder has ever been left untouched,
to present itself in all the integrity of its
ancient mythical form .
What, then, is the signification of this symbol
so important and so extensively diffused?
What interpretation can we give to it that
will account for its universal adoption? How
is it that it has thus become so intimately
interwoven with Freemasonry as to make, to
all appearances, a part of its very essence, and
LEGEND 437
u
to have been always deemed inseparable
from it?
To answer these questions satisfactorily, it
is necessary to trace, in a brief investigation,
the remote origin of the institution of Freemasonry
and its connection with the ancient
systems of initiation .
It was, then, the object of all the rites and
mysteries of antiquity to teach the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul . This dogma,
shining as an almost solitary beacon-light in
the surrounding gloom of Pagan darkness, had
undoubtedly been received from that ancient
people or priesthood, among whom it probably
existed only in the form of an abstract proposition
or a simple and unembellished tradition .
But in the more sensual minds of the Pagan
philosophers and mystics, the idea, when
presented to the initiates in their mysteries,
was always conveyed in the form of a scenic
representation. The influence, too of the
early Sabian worship of the sun and heavenly
bodies, in which the solar orb was adored
on its resurrection, each morning, from the
apparent death of its evening setting, caused
this rising sun to be adopted in the more ancient
mysteries as a symbol of the regeneration
of the soul .
Thus, in the Egyptian mysteries we find a
representation of the death and subsequent
regeneration of Osiris ; in the Phoenician, of
Adonis ; in the Syrian, of Dionysus ; in all of
which the scenic apparatus of initiation was
intended to indoctrinate the candidate into
the dogma of a future life .
It will be sufficient here to refer to the
theory of Oliver, that through the instrumentality
of the Tyrian workmen at the Temple
of King Solomon, what he calls the spurious
and pure branches of the Masonic system were
united at Jerusalem, and that the same
method of scenic representation was adopted
by the latter from the former, and the narrative
of the Temple Builder substituted for that
of Dionysus, which was the myth peculiar to
the mysteries practised by the Tyrian workmen
.
The idea, therefore, proposed to be communicated
in the myth of the ancient mysteries
was the same as that which is now conveyed
in the Masonic Legend of the Third
Degree .
Hence, then, Hiram Abif is, in the Masonic
system, the symbol of human nature, as developed
in the life here and the life to come ;
and so, while the Temple was the visible symbol
of the world, its builder became the
mythical symbol of man, the dweller and
worker in that world .
Man, setting forth on the voyage of life,
with faculties and powers fitting him for the
due exercise of the high duties to whose performance
he has been called, holds, if he be
"a curious and cunning workman," skilled in
all moral and intellectual purposes (and it is
only of such men that the Temple Builder can
be the symbol), within the grasp of his attainment,
the knowledge of all that Divine truth
imparted to him as the heirloom of his race-