The Degree Rituals The Supreme Council, 33 ... - Scottish Rite, NMJ

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66 The Degree Rituals of the degree; that is, Franklin’s lifetime of personal accomplishments and public service. This allowed the second prologue to be eliminated as well. Scene two was retained without change. The main prologue was rewritten to emphasize personal industry, exemplified in the life of a prominent Freemason, Benjamin Franklin, as the lesson of the degree. The effect of these revisions was to eliminate one scene change, reduce the cast by three speaking roles, and decrease the length of the script by one-third, with a consequent shortening of playing time. The traditional and now meaningless title of the degree, “Knight of the Brazen Serpent,” was changed to “Master of Achievement” to reflect the current subject matter and lesson of the ritual. These revisions were incorporated in the 25° Ritual of 2003. A lingering issue for Masonic scholars was Franklin’s Masonic status and whether he would have attended a Pennsylvania lodge at the time depicted in the ritual. This was addressed in the historical notes to the degree without injecting complications into the drama of the ritual.
The Degree Rituals The Twenty-sixth “Gettysburg” Degree The development of the ritual of the 26° has been a drama in itself and at times along the way has been a center of intense controversy. The earliest surviving ritual for the degree dates only from the mid-1850’s. More recently, there have been four different rituals for the 26° within the space of 65 years. The 26° was not part of the Rite of Perfection. Thus, no mention of it appeared in the Francken Manuscript. In fact, it was not mentioned in any of the early ritual sources until 1805 (Doszedardski’s manuscript), and then only by name, without more. According to the Masonic scholar Albert Mackey, the original title of the degree, (translated from the French) “Prince of Mercy or Scottish Trinitarian,” referred to the “Triple Covenant” made by God with humanity through Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Christ. We have no written ritual for the 26° before Albert Pike’s 1855 opus of 53 pages. The setting of Pike’s ritual was the catacombs of ancient Rome. Pike’s inevitable series of long lectures described the tribulations of early Christians during the Persecution of Emperor Domitian. At the Union of 1867 the Pike ritual for the 26° (there was no other) was adopted by the Northern Jurisdiction and, except for an abridgement of (only) 31 pages in 1911, remained in use for 75 years. In 1938, the Committee on Rituals reported bluntly that the ritual of the 26° “failed utterly to teach the quality of mercy as it should be taught in the Scottish Rite.” Soon thereafter, the committee settled on what appeared to be a more satisfactory theme, the Old Testament story of Joseph and his brethren. A tentative ritual was approved for trial exemplification in 1940. It was based on a play, Joseph and His Brethren, written for public presentation by Ill. Ernest W. Hotchkiss, 33°, a member of the Valley of Detroit. Although other compositions on the subject were considered, the substance of the tentative ritual was approved as the 26° Ritual of 1942. Preceded by the customary ceremonial opening, reception, and prologue, the allegory of “Joseph and His Brethren” was dramatized in five scenes, exemplifying the lesson of the degree, mercy. 67
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