The
Festival of St. John the Evangelist
The Craftsman - Dec
1866
All Christian nations celebrate Christmas time - the
anniversary of the birth of Christ, the founder of the Christian
religion and the object of its worship. Many curious
ceremonies are practiced by the people of Northern Europe,
on each recurrence of this festival time, the signification and
origin of which are little thought of by those who partake in
them. The bringing in of the great Yule Log wherewith to
make the great Christmas fire. The elevation of the oak tree
bough, intertwined with the slender branches of the
mistletoe, in each house, forming the kissing bush, which, for
the period of twelve days, reigns supreme, and requires from
all who pass beneath it, whether man or maid, submission to
the kissing ordeal or payment of a fine. These and many
other Christmas customs of the old world, are associated
very closely with the commemoration of this anniversary
season, yet in themselves are so foreign to the occasion, or
rather are so wanting in all suggestion of meaning as
appertaining to this Christian festival, that it is not a little
surprising that more do not ask whence come these strange
and peculiar usages. They have no natural relation ship to
the celebration of the anniversary of Christ's birth. There is
but one answer to the inquiry here suggested, and that is,
that these customs properly belong to the celebration of an
anniversary season celebrated in the North of Europe for as
many years before the birth of Christ as that time is previous
to the present. Two clays after Christmas comes the
anniversary of the day given to St. John the Evangelist by the
Church Calendar. Anciently this was the great Masonic Festival
Day, latterly much neglected for Saint John the Baptist's day,
six months earlier in the year. The Evangelist's Day was
observed as the great Masonic Festival time from the period of
the middle ages, when the Masons in Europe, actuated by their
conflict with the Moslems of the East, began to christianize
their system by the adoption of Saint John as their patron
Saint. Saint John the Baptist's day, on the other hand, did not
rise to any note, even among Masons, until after the year
1720. We have alluded to the Christmas customs in this
connection, and for this purpose, namely, to claim that those
customs belong with quite as much, if not more propriety to
the Masonic anniversary of St. John the Evangelist on the
27th of December. We do not claim that these customs partake
of any relationship to the Evangelist more than to his Lord and
Master. The customs to which we allude are associated with this
period of the year, and refer to celebrations observed by Masons
long before the days of St. John or Jesus Christ. Centuries
before in the oak forests of Germany or Britain, the old time
Druids and Druidesses presided over similar festivals. The
conquering church adopted the customs of the period, and
adapting them to their new religious systems, assigned to them a
Christian name, but failed to give to them a Christian
signification. The Masons, finding the St. John's day of the
church occurred about the time when, for reasons having nothing
to do with St. John the Evangelist, they had been in the habit
of enjoying a festival season for ages, chose to call it St.
John's day, and so observe it; until those who have inherited
their Masonry, having overlooked the true Masonic reason for the
celebration at this season of the year, have very generally
ceased to celebrate it, even as the anniversary of one of
their patron Saints. We regard it as very much to be
regretted that Masons fail to celebrate the day of the
Evangelist St. John. It is a loss to Masonry. It is a surrender
of an opportunity to direct the minds of the Fraternity to the
origin of their Institution, antedating the times of Christ and
the Evangelist, antedating the times of the ancient Druids, who
in celebrating the great winter festival were merely
commemorating a season which had been observed by men and Masons
from the beginning. "And God said, Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and
let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years."
As the sun ruled the day and the moon the night, so the moon
marked the week of seven days and by its quartering the month of
four weeks; so the sun measured the year, and the earth by
its revolution and the eccentricity of its axis, pointed out the
equinoxes and the solstices. Very much in Masonry has thus
an astronomical origin. The moon has always been used to
indicate by its quarterings the time for lodge meetings. And
among all the nations of antiquity, the equinoxes and
solstices were ever regarded as seasons of great importance.
Especially in the ancient mysteries, was great stress laid upon
the solstices, and the winter and summer solstice, the shortest
day and the longest day of the year, commemorated with great
ceremony. The well-known Masonic symbol, the point within a
circle bounded by the two parallels - refers to this - the
point, the sun, the centre of the solar system; the circle, the
earth's orbit around the sun; the parallels, where they touch
the circle, the winter and summer solstice, the limit of the
sun's apparent course to the Northward and Southward of the
Equator; the left hand perpendicular, Boaz or the Northern
Pillar, the right hand perpendicular, Jachin, the Southern
Pillar, standing in the porch of the Temple of the Lord, which
is the Universe, while the Bible, as now placed in the symbol,
or more properly in our opinion the sun, as the symbol of
divinity, has its place in the Orient. Just in the same
manner as the Christmas celebration, and the Evangelist St.
John's celebration, Masonically refer to seasons having an
astronomical origin, so even do those celebrated pillars in
front of Solomon's temple, although usually referred to the
pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, which followed and
preceded the Hebrews in the wilderness, - so even do these
pillars refer to that older custom of erecting in front of
temples one pillar to fire and another to the wind, in allusion
to the solstices, in the one when the rays of Sol are most
fiery, and in the other, when the winds of Boreas are most
piercing and violent. The summer solstice occurs about the
twenty-first of June, near enough to the anniversary of St. John
the Baptist to lead to the ready adoption by the middle age
christianizing Masons of that day, in preference to the
twenty-first. The Winter solstice occurs about the twenty-second
of December, near enough to the day given by the Church to
St. John the Evangelist, to induce the Masons to surrender
to it their preference for the twenty-second. A day or two
either way, it was thought, no doubt, made no essential
difference. But a great mistake was committed. It cast adrift
the Fraternity from the reverence for days and seasons of
deep Masonic significance, and led them to the adoption of
anniversaries which have no essential Masonic meaning. And
during the present generation the entire neglect of the
anniversary of St. John the Evangelist has led to the
surrender of the Christmas festivities to the Church, which
more properly and only legitimately belong to the
Freemasons. Can this departure from old Masonic custom have
gone so far as to render it altogether hopeless to expect that
the great Masonic festival of the Winter solstice may ever be
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