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

Hear now a review of the facts in the case. No one denies that the
Temple of Solomon was much in the minds of men at the time of the
organization of the Grand Lodge, and long before--as in the Bacon
romance of the _New Atlantis_ in 1597.[124] Broughton, Selden,
Lightfoot, Walton, Lee, Prideaux, and other English writers were
deeply interested in the Hebrew Temple, not, however, so much in its
symbolical suggestion as in its form and construction--a model of
which was brought to London by Judah Templo in the reign of Charles
II.[125] It was much the same on the Continent, but so far from being
a new topic of study and discussion, we may trace this interest in the
Temple all through the Middle Ages. Nor was it peculiar to the
Cabalists, at least not to such a degree that they must needs be
brought in to account for the Biblical imagery and symbolism in
Masonry. Indeed, it might with more reason be argued that Masonry
explains the interest in the Temple than otherwise. For, as James
Fergusson remarks--and there is no higher authority than the historian
of architecture: "There is perhaps no building of the ancient world
which has excited so much attention since the time of its destruction,
as the Temple of Solomon built in Jerusalem, and its successor as
built by Herod. _Throughout the Middle Ages it influenced to a
considerable degree the forms of Christian churches, and its
peculiarities were the watchwords and rallying points of associations
of builders._"[126] Clearly, the notion that interest in the Temple
was new, and that its symbolical meaning was imposed upon Masonry as
something novel, falls flat.
But we are told that there is no hint of the Hiramic legend, still
less any intimation of a tragedy associated with the building of the
Temple. No Hiramic legend! No hint of tragedy! Why, both were almost
as old as the Temple itself, rabbinic legend affirming that "_all the
workmen were killed that they should not build another Temple devoted
to idolatry, Hiram himself being translated to heaven like
Enoch_."[127] The Talmud has many variations of this legend. Where
would one expect the legends of the Temple to be kept alive and be
made use of in ceremonial, if not in a religious order of builders
like the Masons? Is it surprising that we find so few references in
later literature to what was thus held as a sacred secret? As we have
seen, the legend of Hiram was kept as a profound secret until 1841 by
the French Companionage, who almost certainly learned it from the
Free-masons. Naturally it was never made a matter of record,[128] but
was transmitted by oral tradition within the order; and it was also
natural, if not inevitable, that the legend, of the master-artist of
the Temple should be "the Master's Part" among Masons who were
temple-builders. How else explain the veiled allusions to the name in
the _Old Charges_ as read to Entered Apprentices, if it was not a
secret reserved for a higher rank of Mason? Why any disguise at all if
it had no hidden meaning? Manifestly the motif of the Third Degree was
purely Masonic, and we need not go outside the traditions of the order
to account for it.
Not content to trace the evolution of Masonry, even so able a man as
Albert Pike will have it that to a few men of intelligence who
belonged to one of the four old lodges in 1717 "is to be ascribed the
authorship of the Third Degree, and the introduction of Hermetic and
other symbols into Masonry; that they framed the three degrees for the
purpose of communicating their doctrines, veiled by their symbols, to