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

emphasis upon the antiquity of the order, and its linking of Egypt
with Israel? For one thing, it explodes the fancy that the idea of the
symbolical significance of the building of the Temple of Solomon
originated with, or was suggested by, Bacon's _New Atlantis_. Here is
a body of tradition uniting the Egyptian Mysteries with the Hebrew
history of the Temple in a manner unmistakable. Wherefore such names
as Hermes, Pythagoras, and Euclid, and how did they come into the old
craft records if not through the Comacine artists and scholars? With
the story of that great order before us, much that has hitherto been
obscure becomes plain, and we recognize in these _Old Charges_ the
inaccurate and perhaps faded tradition of a lofty symbolism, an
authentic scholarship, and an actual history. As Leader Scott
observes, after reciting the old legend in its crudest form:
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_The significant point is that all these names and Masonic
emblems point to something real which existed in some
long-past time, and, as regards the organisation and
nomenclature, we find the whole thing in its vital and actual
working form in the Comacine Guild._[75]
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Of interest here, as a kind of bridge between old legend and the early
history of the order in England, and also as a different version of
the legend itself, is another document dating far back. There was a MS
discovered in the Bodleian Library at Oxford about 1696, supposed to
have been written in the year 1436, which purports to be an
examination of a Mason by King Henry VI, and is allowed by all to be
genuine. Its title runs as follows: "_Certain questions with answers
to the same concerning the mystery of masonry written by King Henry
the Sixth and faithfully copied by me, John Laylande, antiquarian, by
command of his highness_." Written in quaint old English, it would
doubtless be unintelligible to all but antiquarians, but it reads
after this fashion:
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What mote it be?--It is the knowledge of nature, and the
power of its various operations; particularly the skill of
reckoning, of weights and measures, of constructing buildings
and dwellings of all kinds, and the true manner of forming
all things for the use of man.
Where did it begin?--It began with the first men of the East,
who were before the first men of the West, and coming with it,
it hath brought all comforts to the wild and comfortless.
Who brought it to the West?--The Phoenicians who, being great
merchants, came first from the East into Phoenicia, for the
convenience of commerce, both East and West by the Red and
Mediterranean Seas.
How came it into England?--Pythagoras, a Grecian, traveled to
acquire knowledge in Egypt and Syria, and in every other land
where the Phoenicians had planted Masonry; and gaining
admittance into all lodges of Masons, he learned much, and
returned and dwelt in Grecia Magna, growing and becoming
mighty wise and greatly renowned. Here he formed a great lodge