Why Are We
Apprentices?
by Bro. Dudley Wright
The Master Mason - January 1926
PERHAPS familiarity with the term "Entered Apprentice" has
led to a disregard of the meaning of what, upon our initiation,
must have seemed a quaint and novel expression. To whom
and to what were we apprenticed? The dictionary tells us
that a deed of apprenticeship is a contract whereby one
person binds himself to teach and another undertakes to
learn. When barristers were first appointed by Edward I, they
were known as apprenticii ad legem, apprentices of the law,
and today a barrister of less than sixteen years' standing is
technically an apprentice. Similarly university students had to
pass through a curriculum or apprenticeship of seven years
before they could graduate as Masters in the arts or
sciences.
Apprenticeship undoubtedly arose in the peculiar conditions
of a craft guild of the Middle Ages and formed a very
important part of the guilds and corporations, as a means by
which men were educated and given protection from the
feudal lords. The object of the apprentice laws of England
was stated in the act to be "to banish idleness and to
advance husbandry." In ancient operative masonry, the
apprentice was not only taught in stone work, he was also
taught in the great school of life. His conduct towards his
master's wife, daughter, servant, and home was made the
subject of instruction. His conduct on the street and in public
places and his decorum in general was the subject of
discipline. He was, in short, trained during his apprenticeship
to be an honorable, honest, manly, and true man.
IN EGYPT, Greece, and among other ancient nations, secret
and sacred rites formed an agency employed to effect the
improvement and enlightenment of men. Cicero tells us that
"the establishment of these rites among the Athenians
conferred upon them a supreme benefit. Their effect was to
civilize men, reform their wild and ferocious manners, and
make them comprehend the true principles of morality, which
initiate men into a new order of life, more worthy of a being
destined to immortality." In ancient Egypt the neophyte was
presented with a cup of water, and addressed in these
words: "Aspirant to the honor of a divine companionship!
Seeker after celestial truth! This is the water of forgetfulness.
Drink! Drink to the oblivion of all your vices - the
forgetfulness of all your imperfections, and thus be prepared
for the reception of the new revelation of Truth, with which
you are soon to be honored." That spirit, although not the
form, of that ceremony, is to be found in Freemasonry, and
the candidate for apprenticeship is directed to close his eyes
on the past, to lay aside the trappings and vestures of the
outside world, the symbols of traffic and war, all that reminds
him of the selfishness and discords of life, and turn his face
towards more glorious future.
THE ANCIENT Indian mysteries were celebrated in
subterranean caverns or grottoes formed in solid rock by
human art and industry or in secret recesses of gloomy
pyramids and dark pagodas. The Cavern of Elephanta is the
most ancient temple in the world formed by human agency.
It is 135 feet square and 18 feet in height, supported by four
massive pillars, and the walls are covered with emblematic
decorations. There were four degrees in those Indian
mysteries and the apprentice was first invested with the
sacred cord of three threads, symbolic of earth, fire, and air.
After passing through the initiatory ceremonies and being
instructed in the management of the consecrated fire and
told how to perform the holy rites of morning, noon, and
evening, the apprentice was clothed in a seamless linen
garment and the cord placed over his right arm as an
emblem of purification. He was then placed under the
special and exclusive care of a professed Brahmin, who
became his spiritual guide, whose special duty it was to
prepare him for the second degree.
The training was very severe; the apprentice was inured to
hardship, he had to undergo rigid penances; he was
inhibited from all indulgence, whether carnal or intellectual,
and the whole of his time of preparation was passed in
prayer and ablutions. His body was described figuratively as
the city of nine gates, referring to the nine modes of exit -
ears, nose, mouth, etc. Much time was devoted to the study
of the Sacred Books, and when the candidate reached the
specified age, he was, if found upon examination to have
made the necessary progress, advanced to the second
degree.
IN THE Mithraic Mysteries the candidate was prepared by
numerous lustrations with water, fire, and honey. There were
many intense and protracted trials in the gloomy recesses of
a subterranean cavern and, during his probation, the
apprentice was condemned to perpetual silence, secluded
from all society, kept in a cold, naked, and hungry condition,
accompanied with an extreme degree of refined torture, and
not infrequently did probationers die under the terrible strain.
If the candidate permitted his courage to forsake him he was
rejected with the strongest expressions of contempt and
forever regarded as profane and excluded from all religious
rites. On the completion of his probation he was brought into
the cavern of initiation, on entering which the point of a
sword was presented to his naked left breast, by which he
was slightly wounded. Then he was crowned with olive,
anointed with oil of ban (balsam of benzoin), supplied with
enchanted armor, furnished with talismans, and purified with
fire and water. Finally he was received by the Archimagus,
who was seated in the Fast, who entrusted him with the
sacred words, and explained to him the meaning of all the
mysteries through which he bad passed.
IN CHINA the initiations were performed in a cavern, after
which processions were made around the altar and
sacrifices were offered to the celestial gods. In Japan, the
caverns of initiations were in the immediate vicinity of the
temples and the term of probation before the apprentice
could attain to the highest degree was twenty years. The
initiation ceremony itself was regarded as very sacred, and
during his period of probation the apprentice learned how to
subdue his passions by devoting himself to the lodge into
which he was seeking adstaining from every carnal
indulgence.
Freemasonry, like all the ancient mysteries, in which the
Eleusinian and Druidical may be included, is a vehicle of
regeneration, of which the Third Degree is particularly an
illustration. The Masonic apprentice, did he but realize it, has
entered upon the regenerative path, or, in monastic and
ascetic phraseology, the path that leads to Illumination. It is
the Entered Apprentice Degree if rightly understood and
applied, that gives the most lasting conception of the worth
of Masonry.
IN FRANCE at one time it was the practice for the candidate
for initiation to pass some hours in solitude in a wood or
cemetery to reflect on the topics which had formed the
subject of a conference between him and the Master of the
lodge into which he was seeking admission. He was
instructed particularly to meditate on the human passions -
hatred, jealousy, avarice, ambition, and all the other causes
of disorder in society; then on the diversity of laws and
religions in the world which so often prove the unhappy
causes of war, hatred, and division. In France also the
candidate, after initiation and entry into the degree of
Apprentice had to undergo certain prescribed probations in
order that the Master might ascertain his moral character.
According to Masonic tradition, at the building of the Temple
of Solomon, the Fellow Crafts took care of their succession
by instructing the Entered Apprentices, the Fellow Crafts, in
turn, being under the supervision and instruction of the
Master Masons.
ACORDING also to tradition, Entered Apprentices had three
virtues particularly recommended to them, viz, a listening
ear, a silent tongue, and a faithful heart, in order that they
might listen to the instructions of the Master and to the cries
of a worthy and distressed brother, that they might be silent
in the lodge and not disturb its peace and harmony, but more
especially in the presence of the uninitiated, that they might
faithfully keep and conceal the secrets of Masonry and those
of a brother delivered as such, which might thus remain
secure and inviolable.
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