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

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARof ranks, there being but one form of initiation andone catechism for all. The earliest ritual extant,which is contained in tlte Grand Mystery, publishedin 1725, makes no reference to any degrees, butgives only what was the common initiation in useabout that time. The division of the Masonic systeminto three degrees, Dr. Mackey says, "must havegrown up after the revival in 1717, but in so gradualand imperceptible a manner that itwas impossibleto fix the precise date of the introduction ofeach degree. From the old records, it appears tohave been about 1721 that the three degrees wereintroduced, but the second and third were not perfecteduntil 1738. Even as late as 1735 the EnteredApprentice degree contained the most prominentform of initiation, and he who was an apprenticewas, for all practical purposes, a Freemason. Itwas not until repeated improvements, by the adoptionof new ceremonies and new regulations, thatthe degree of Master Mason took the place whichit now occupies; having been confined at first tothose who had passed the chair." But there is unquestionableevidence that the modes of recognition,the method of government, the legends, and muchof the ceremonial of initiation, were in existenceamong the Operative Masons of the Middle Ages,and were transmitted to the Speculative Masonsof the eighteenth century. The work of Anderson,of Desaguliers, and their contemporaries, was toimprove and to enlarge, but not to invent. TheMasonic system of the present day has been theresult of a slow but steady growth, just as the earliestauthorized lectures, arranged by Anderson andDesaguliers in 1720, were subsequently modified79