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The Lost Word
CHAPTER XXXI
the symbolism of freemasonry
albert gallatin mackey
The last of the symbols, depending for its existence on its connection
with a myth to which I shall invite attention, is the Lost Word, and
the search for it. Very appropriately may this symbol terminate our
investigations, since it includes within its comprehensive scope all the
others, being itself the very essence of the science of masonic symbolism.
The other symbols require for their just appreciation a knowledge of the
origin of the order, because they owe their birth to its relationship with
kindred and anterior institutions. But the symbolism of the Lost Word has
reference exclusively to the design and the objects of the institution.
First, let us define the symbol, and then investigate its
interpretation.
The mythical history of Freemasonry informs us that there once existed
a WORD of surpassing value, and claiming a profound veneration; that this
Word was known to but few; that it was at length lost; and that a
temporary substitute for it was adopted. But as the very philosophy of
Masonry teaches us that there can be no death without a resurrection,—no
decay without a subsequent restoration,—on the same principle it follows
that the loss of the Word must suppose its eventual recovery.
Now, this it is, precisely, that constitutes the myth of the Lost Word
and the search for it. No matter what was the word, no matter how it was
lost, nor why a substitute was provided, nor when nor where it was
recovered. These are all points of subsidiary importance, necessary, it is
true, for knowing the legendary history, but not necessary for
understanding the symbolism. The only term of the myth that is to be
regarded in the study of its interpretation, is the abstract idea of a
word lost and afterwards recovered.
This, then, points us to the goal to which we must direct our steps in
the pursuit of the investigation.
But the symbolism, referring in this case, as I have already said,
solely to the great design of Freemasonry, the nature of that design at
once suggests itself as a preliminary subject of inquiry in the
investigation.
What, then, is the design of Freemasonry? A very large majority of its
disciples, looking only to its practical results, as seen in the every-day
business of life,—to the noble charities which it dispenses, to the tears
of widows which it has dried, to the cries of orphans which it has hushed,
to the wants of the destitute which it has supplied,—arrive with too much
rapidity at the conclusion that Charity, and that, too, in its least
exalted sense of eleemosynary aid, is the great design of the institution.
Others, with a still more contracted view, remembering the pleasant
reunions at their lodge banquets, the unreserved communications which are
thus encouraged, and the solemn obligations of mutual trust and confidence
that are continually inculcated, believe that it was intended solely to
promote the social sentiments and cement the bonds of friendship.
But, although the modern lectures inform us that Brotherly Love and
Relief are two of "the principal tenets of a Mason's profession," yet,
from the same authority, we learn that Truth is a third and not less
important one; and Truth, too, not in its old Anglo-Saxon meaning of
fidelity to engagements,232
but in that more strictly philosophical one in which it is opposed to
intellectual and religious error or falsehood.
But I have shown that the Primitive Freemasonry of the ancients was
instituted for the purpose of preserving that truth which had been
originally communicated to the patriarchs, in all its integrity, and that
the Spurious Masonry, or the Mysteries, originated in the earnest need of
the sages, and philosophers, and priests, to find again the same truth
which had been lost by the surrounding multitudes. I have shown, also,
that this same truth continued to be the object of the Temple Masonry,
which was formed by a union of the Primitive, or Pure, and the Spurious
systems. Lastly, I have endeavored to demonstrate that this truth related
to the nature of God and the human soul.
The search, then, after this truth, I suppose to constitute the end and
design of Speculative Masonry. From the very commencement of his career,
the aspirant is by significant symbols and expressive instructions
directed to the acquisition of this divine truth; and the whole lesson, if
not completed in its full extent, is at least well developed in the myths
and legends of the Master's degree. God and the soul—the unity of
the one and the immortality of the other—are the great truths, the search
for which is to constitute the constant occupation of every Mason, and
which, when found, are to become the chief corner-stone, or the stone of
foundation, of the spiritual temple—"the house not made with hands"—which
he is engaged in erecting.
Now, this idea of a search after truth forms so prominent a part of the
whole science of Freemasonry, that I conceive no better or more
comprehensive answer could be given to the question, What is
Freemasonry? than to say that it is a science which is engaged in the
search after divine truth.
But Freemasonry is eminently a system of symbolism, and all its
instructions are conveyed in symbols. It is, therefore, to be supposed
that so prominent and so prevailing an idea as this,—one that constitutes,
as I have said, the whole design of the institution, and which may
appropriately be adopted as the very definition of its science,—could not
with any consistency be left without its particular symbol.
The WORD, therefore, I conceive to be the symbol of Divine Truth;
and all its modifications—the loss, the substitution, and the recovery—are
but component parts of the mythical symbol which represents a search after
truth.
How, then, is this symbolism preserved? How is the whole history of
this Word to be interpreted, so as to bear, in all its accidents of time,
and place, and circumstance, a patent reference to the substantive idea
that has been symbolized?
The answers to these questions embrace what is, perhaps, the most
intricate as well as most ingenious and interesting portion of the science
of masonic symbolism.
This symbolism may be interpreted, either in an application to a
general or to a special sense.
The general application will embrace the whole history of Freemasonry,
from its inception to its consummation. The search after the Word is an
epitome of the intellectual and religious progress of the order, from the
period when, by the dispersion at Babel, the multitudes were enshrouded in
the profundity of a moral darkness where truth was apparently forever
extinguished. The true name of God was lost; his true nature was not
understood; the divine lessons imparted by our father Noah were no longer
remembered; the ancient traditions were now corrupted; the ancient symbols
were perverted. Truth was buried beneath the rubbish of Sabaism, and the
idolatrous adoration of the sun and stars had taken the place of the olden
worship of the true God. A moral darkness was now spread over the face of
the earth, as a dense, impenetrable cloud, which obstructed the rays of
the spiritual sun, and covered the people as with a gloomy pall of
intellectual night.
But this night was not to last forever. A brighter dawn was to arise,
and amidst all this gloom and darkness there were still to be found a few
sages in whom the religious sentiment, working in them with powerful
throes, sent forth manfully to seek after truth. There were, even in those
days of intellectual and religious darkness, craftsmen who were willing to
search for the Lost Word. And though they were unable to find it,
their approximation to truth was so near that the result of their search
may well be symbolized by the Substitute Word.
It was among the idolatrous multitudes that the Word had been
lost. It was among them that the Builder had been smitten, and that the
works of the spiritual temple had been suspended; and so, losing at each
successive stage of their decline, more and more of the true knowledge of
God and of the pure religion which had originally been imparted by Noah,
they finally arrived at gross materialism and idolatry, losing all sight
of the divine existence. Thus it was that the truth—the Word—was said to
have been lost; or, to apply the language of Hutchinson, modified in its
reference to the time, "in this situation, it might well be said that the
guide to heaven was lost, and the master of the works of righteousness was
smitten. The nations had given themselves up to the grossest idolatry, and
the service of the true God was effaced from the memory of those who had
yielded themselves to the dominion of sin."
And now it was among the philosophers and priests in the ancient
Mysteries, or the spurious Freemasonry, that an anxiety to discover the
truth led to the search for the Lost Word. These were the craftsmen who
saw the fatal-blow which had been given, who knew that the Word was now
lost, but were willing to go forth, manfully and patiently, to seek its
restoration. And there were the craftsmen who, failing to rescue it from
the grave of oblivion into which it had fallen, by any efforts of their
own incomplete knowledge, fell back upon the dim traditions which had been
handed down from primeval times, and through their aid found a substitute
for truth in their own philosophical religions.
And hence Schmidtz, speaking of these Mysteries of the pagan world,
calls them the remains of the ancient Pelasgian religion, and says that
"the associations of persons for the purpose of celebrating them must
therefore have been formed at the time when the overwhelming influence of
the Hellenic religion began to gain the upper hand in Greece, and when
persons who still entertained a reverence for the worship of former times
united together, with the intention of preserving and upholding among
themselves as much as possible of the religion of their forefathers."
Applying, then, our interpretation in a general sense, the Word
itself being the symbol of Divine Truth, the narrative of its loss
and the search for its recovery becomes a mythical symbol of the decay and
loss of the true religion among the ancient nations, at and after the
dispersion on the plains of Shinar, and of the attempts of the wise men,
the philosophers, and priests, to find and retain it in their secret
Mysteries and initiations, which have hence been designated as the
Spurious Freemasonry of Antiquity.
But I have said that there is a special, or individual, as well as a
general interpretation. This compound or double symbolism, if I may so
call it, is by no means unusual in Freemasonry. I have already exhibited
an illustration of it in the symbolism of Solomon's temple, where, in a
general sense, the temple is viewed as a symbol of that spiritual temple
formed by the aggregation of the whole order, and in which each mason is
considered as a stone; and, in an individual or special sense, the same
temple is considered as a type of that spiritual temple which each mason
is directed to erect in his heart.
Now, in this special or individual interpretation, the Word, with its
accompanying myth of a loss, a substitute, and a recovery, becomes a
symbol of the personal progress of a candidate from his first initiation
to the completion of his course, when he receives a full development of
the Mysteries.
The aspirant enters on this search after truth, as an Entered
Apprentice, in darkness, seeking for light—the light of wisdom, the light
of truth, the light symbolized by the Word. For this important task, upon
which he starts forth gropingly, falteringly, doubtingly, in want and in
weakness, he is prepared by a purification of the heart, and is invested
with a first substitute for the true Word, which, like the pillar that
went before the Israelites in the wilderness, is to guide him onwards in
his weary journey. He is directed to take, as a staff and scrip for his
journey, all those virtues which expand the heart and dignify the soul.
Secrecy, obedience, humility, trust in God, purity of conscience, economy
of time, are all inculcated by impressive types and symbols, which connect
the first degree with the period of youth.
And then, next in the degree of Fellow Craft, he fairly enters upon his
journey. Youth has now passed, and manhood has come on. New duties and
increased obligations press upon the individual. The thinking and working
stage of life is here symbolized. Science is to be cultivated; wisdom is
to be acquired; the lost Word—divine truth—is still to be sought for. But
even yet it is not to be found.
And now the Master Mason comes, with all the symbolism around him of
old age—trials, sufferings, death. And here, too, the aspirant, pressing
onward, always onward, still cries aloud for "light, more light."
The search is almost over, but the lesson, humiliating to human nature, is
to be taught, that in this life—gloomy and dark, earthly and carnal—pure
truth has no abiding place; and contented with a substitute, and to that
second temple of eternal life, for that true Word, that divine
Truth, which will teach us all that we shall ever learn of God and his
emanation, the human soul.
So, the Master Mason, receiving this substitute for the lost Word,
waits with patience for the time when it shall be found, and perfect
wisdom shall be attained.
But, work as we will, this symbolic Word—this knowledge of divine
Truth—is never thoroughly attained in this life, or in its symbol, the
Master Mason's lodge. The corruptions of mortality, which encumber and
cloud the human intellect, hide it, as with a thick veil, from mortal
eyes. It is only, as I have just said, beyond the tomb, and when released
from the earthly burden of life, that man is capable of fully receiving
and appreciating the revelation. Hence, then, when we speak of the
recovery of the Word, in that higher degree which is a supplement to
Ancient Craft Masonry, we intimate that that sublime portion of the
masonic system is a symbolic representation of the state after death. For
it is only after the decay and fall of this temple of life, which, as
masons, we have been building, that from its ruins, deep beneath its
foundations, and in the profound abyss of the grave, we find that divine
truth, in the search for which life was spent, if not in vain, at least
without success, and the mystic key to which death only could supply.
And now we know by this symbolism what is meant by masonic
labor, which, too, is itself but another form of the same symbol.
The search for the Word—to find divine Truth—this, and this only, is a
mason's work, and the WORD is his reward.
Labor, said the old monks, is worship—laborare est orare; and
thus in our lodges do we worship, working for the Word, working for the
Truth, ever looking forward, casting no glance behind, but cheerily hoping
for the consummation and the reward of our labor in the knowledge which is
promised to him who plays no laggard's part.
Goethe, himself a mason and a poet, knew and felt all this symbolism of
a mason's life and work, when he wrote that beautiful poem, which Carlyle
has thus thrown into his own rough but impulsive language.
"The mason's ways are
A type of existence,—
And to his
persistence
Is as the days are
Of men in this world.
"The future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow;
We press still
thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us—onward.
"And solemn before us
Veiled the dark portal,
Goal of all
mortal;
Stars silent rest o'er us
Graves under us silent.
"While earnest thou gazest
Come boding of terror,
Comes
phantasm and error,
Perplexing the bravest
With doubt and
misgiving.
"But heard are the voices,
Heard are the sages,
The worlds and
the ages;
'Choose well; your choice is
Brief and yet endless.
"'Here eyes do regard you,
In eternity's stillness;
Here is all
fullness,
Ye, brave to reward you;
Work and despair not.'"
And now, in concluding this work, so inadequate to the importance of
the subjects that have been discussed, one deduction, at least, may be
drawn from all that has been said.
In tracing the progress of Freemasonry, and in detailing its system of
symbolism, it has been found to be so intimately connected with the
history of philosophy, of religion, and of art, in all ages of the world,
that the conviction at once forces itself upon the mind, that no mason can
expect thoroughly to comprehend its nature, or to appreciate its character
as a science, unless he shall devote himself, with some labor and
assiduity, to this study of its system. That skill which consists in
repeating, with fluency and precision, the ordinary lectures, in complying
with all the ceremonial requisitions of the ritual, or the giving, with
sufficient accuracy, the appointed modes of recognition, pertains only to
the very rudiments of the masonic science.
But there is a far nobler series of doctrines with which Freemasonry is
connected, and which it has been my object, in this work, to present in
some imperfect way. It is these which constitute the science and the
philosophy of Freemasonry, and it is these alone which will return the
student who devotes himself to the task, a sevenfold reward for his labor.
Freemasonry, viewed no longer, as too long it has been, as a merely
social institution, has now assumed its original and undoubted position as
a speculative science. While the mere ritual is still carefully preserved,
as the casket should be which contains so bright a jewel; while its
charities are still dispensed as the necessary though incidental result of
all its moral teachings; while its social tendencies are still cultivated
as the tenacious cement which is to unite so fair a fabric in symmetry and
strength, the masonic mind is everywhere beginning to look and ask for
something, which, like the manna in the desert, shall feed us, in our
pilgrimage, with intellectual food. The universal cry, throughout the
masonic world, is for light; our lodges are henceforth to be schools; our
labor is to be study; our wages are to be learning; the types and symbols,
the myths and allegories, of the institution are beginning to be
investigated with reference to their ultimate meaning; our history is now
traced by zealous inquiries as to its connection with antiquity; and
Freemasons now thoroughly understand that often quoted definition, that
"Masonry is a science of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by
symbols."
Thus to learn Masonry is to know our work and to do it well. What true
mason would shrink from the task? FOOTNOTES
232. Bosworth (Aug. Sax. Dict.) defines treowth to
signify "troth, truth, treaty, league, pledge, covenant."
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