The Origin of Freemasonry and Knights Templar ... - Lodge Prudentia

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARsor, with certainty, of the Building Corporationsof the Middle Ages, and through them, with lessof the Romancertainty, but with great probability,Colleges of Artificers. Its connection with theTemple of Solomon as its birthplace may have beenits invent-accidental a mere arbitrary selection byors, and bears, therefore, only an allegorical meaning;or it may be historical/' As a brotherhood,composed of Symbolic Masters and Fellows andApprentices, derived from an association of OperativeMasters, Fellows and Apprentices those buildingspiritual temples as those built material onesits age -may not far exceed si.v hundred 1 years: butas a secret association, containing within itself thesymbolic expression of a religious idea, it connectsitself with all the ancient Mysteries, which withsimilar secrecy gave the same symbolic expressionto the same religious idea. These Mysteries werenot the cradle of Freemasonry; they were only itsanalogues. In all places where these ancient religionsand mystical rites were celebrated, we findthe same lesson of eternal life, taught by a legendand inculcated by the representation of an imaginarydeath and the resurrection of some cherishedbeing, either the object of esteem as a hero, or ofdevotion as a god. And it is this legend alone, thatconnects speculative Freemasonry with the ancientMysteries of Greece, of Syria and of Egypt.There is no doubt that all Mysteries had one commonsource; and no doubt Freemasonry has derivedits legend, its symbolic mode of instruction,and the lesson for which that instruction was intended,either directly or indirectly, from the same1See page 70, last paragraph.76