THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

Here, of a truth, is something more than prophecy, and those who have
any regard for facts will not again speak lightly of an order having
such ancestors as the great Comacine Masters. Had Fergusson known
their story, he would not have paused in his _History of Architecture_
to belittle the Free-masons as incapable of designing a cathedral,
while puzzling the while as to who did draw the plans for those dreams
of beauty and prayer. Hereafter, if any one asks to know who uplifted
those massive piles in which was portrayed the great drama of
mediaeval worship, he need not remain uncertain. With the decline of
Gothic architecture the order of Free-masons also suffered decline, as
we shall see, but did not cease to exist--continuing its symbolic
tradition amidst varying, and often sad, vicissitude until 1717, when
it became a fraternity teaching spiritual faith by allegory and moral
science by symbols.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] _Primitive Secret Societies_, by H. Webster; _Secret Societies of
all Ages and Lands_, by W.C. Heckethorn.
[55] We may add the case of Weshptah, one of the viziers of the Fifth
Dynasty in Egypt, about 2700 B.C., and also the royal architect, for
whom the great tomb was built, endowed, and furnished by the king
(_Religion in Egypt_, by Breasted, lecture ii); also the statue of
Semut, chief of Masons under Queen Hatasu, now in Berlin.
[56] _Historians His. World_, vol. ii, chap. iii. Josephus gives an
elaborate account of the temple, including the correspondence between
Solomon and Hiram of Tyre (_Jewish Antiquities_, bk. viii, chaps. 2-6).
[57] _Symbolism of Masonry_, Mackey, chap. vi; also in Mackey's
_Encyclopedia of Masonry_, both of which were drawn from _History of
Masonry_, by Laurie, chap. i; and Laurie in turn derived his facts from
a _Sketch for the History of the Dionysian Artificers, A Fragment_, by
H.J. Da Costa (1820). Why Waite and others brush the Dionysian
architects aside as a dream is past finding out in view of the evidence
and authorities put forth by Da Costa, nor do they give any reason for
so doing. "Lebedos was the seat and assembly of the _Dionysian
Artificers_, who inhabit Ionia to the Hellespont; there they had
annually their solemn meetings and festivities in honor of Bacchus,"
wrote Strabo (lib. xiv, 921). They were a secret society having signs
and words to distinguish their members (Robertson's _Greece_), and used
emblems taken from the art of building (Eusebius, _de Prep. Evang._
iii, c. 12). They entered Asia Minor and Phoenicia fifty years before
the temple of Solomon was built, and Strabo traces them on into Syria,
Persia, and India. Surely here are facts not to be swept aside as
romance because, forsooth, they do not fit certain theories. Moreover,
they explain many things, as we shall see.
[58] Rabbinic legend has it that all the workmen on the temple were
killed, so that they should not build another temple devoted to
idolatry (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, article "Freemasonry"). Other legends
equally absurd cluster about the temple and its building, none of which
is to be taken literally. As a fact, Hiram the architect, or rather
artificer in metals, did not lose his life, but, as Josephus tells us,
lived to good age and died at Tyre. What the legend is trying to tell
us, however, is that at the building of the temple the Mysteries