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

FREEMASONRY AND KNIGHTS TEMPLARinvention of what are known as the high degrees,many Rites were established. All of these agreedin one important essential. They were built uponthe three symbolic degrees, which, in every instance,constituted the fundamental basis uponwhich they were erected. They were intended asan expansion and development of the Masonicideas contained in these degrees. The Apprentice,Fellow Craft, and Master's degrees were theporch through which every initiate was requiredto pass before he could gain entrance into theinner temple which had been erected by thefounders of the rite.They were the text, and thehigh degrees the commentary. Some of theseRites have lived only with their authors, and diedwhen their parental energy in fostering themceased to exert itself. The most important ofthose which have hitherto or still continue to arrestthe attention of the Masonic student is theScottish Rite. This Rite consists of thirty-threedegrees, and sprung from the Rite of Perfection,which consisted of twenty-five degrees, the highestof which was "Sublime Prince of the RoyalSecret." The Rite of Perfection was created bythe "Council of Emperors of the East and West,"a body organized at Paris, in 1758. The ScottishRite, although one of the youngest of the MasonicRites, is at this day the most popular and the mostextensively diffused. Supreme Councils of governingbodies of the Rite are to be found in almostevery civilized country of the world, and in manyof them it is the only Masonic obedience. 1 It wouldbe impossible to name all the rites of Masonicthat all were foundedorigin; suffice it to say,subsequent to the revival of Masonry in 1717.1Mackey's Encyclopaedia.82