SUBLIME
Learned students of art have discovered that the word "Sublime" as applied to
the degree of Master Mason is not one of those matters which are of an antiquity
of "Time Immemorial." It seems to have made its appearance in print first about
1801. Today, its use is practically universal.
That the degree "Is" sublime, in all the highest meanings of that much abused
word, is not a matter for discussion or proof; it is sublime if we feel it as
sublime; it is just an ordinary ceremony if that is all it is to us. Sublimity
is not in the thing, but in us.
The Forty-Seventh Problem of Euclid in its absolute perfection is sublime to
a mathematician, to a six year old child or a savage who cannot count beyond
ten, it is less than nothing. The most beautiful sunset which ever thrilled the
senses of color could not be sublime to a blind man, nor can harmonies of
Beethoven or Wagner be sublime to a man born deaf. If the Master Mason degree is
sublime, it is because of what it is and what it does to a man's heart.
The Master Mason's degree is immensely different from the two preceding ones.
It has the same externals as far as entry and closing are concerned; it uses
also a circumambulation, a passage from Scripture, has an obligation and a
bringing to more light - "All The Light Which Can Be Communicated To You In A
Blue Lodge." But its second section departs utterly from the architectural
symbolism of the fist two degrees, and concerns itself with a living, a dying
and a living again. It is at once more human and more spiritual than the
preceding degrees. It strikes in upon the heart with the force and effect of a
great bell, heard in a silent place; no thoughtful man receives, or ever sees
this degree, with any understanding of its symbolism, who does not feel a sense
of awe and wonder that a mind of man could conceive it, put it together, place
so much of wisdom in so simple a vehicle, give so much light in so few words and
in so short a time.
The Master's degree as whole is a symbol of old age; of wisdom and
experience. It is a symbol of preparation for that other life which it so
grandly promises. It brings to the initiate the symbolism of the Sprig of
Acacia, and tells him in one breath that a man must stand alone, even while he
must lean upon the Everlasting Arms. It lays before him the whole drama of man's
longing for a Something Beyond; it tells the tale of what ignorance and brute
strength may do to destroy knowledge and virtue, even while it shows that, never
can darkness overcame light, never can evil win over what is good, never can
error prevail over truth.
There are those who find in the symbolism of the Third Degree a promise of
the resurrection of the body. None can blame them; the symbolism is there. Nor
can one blame the miner who digs in the earth after the outcroppings of an ore,
for believing that the ore is al he can expect to find; even when a later delver
in the earth goes through the ore and finds a diamond. If, to a devout and
orthodox Christian the Master Mason degree is symbolic of the resurrection of
the body, that doctrine of bodily resurrection is in itself a symbol of a
spiritual raising. Each of us, then, may interpret this part of the degree in
according to the light which is given him, and no man has either the wisdom or
the right to say, "That Interpretation is True, This One False."
There have been some twenty or more interpretations of the whole degree; they
range all the way from the story of the Garden of Eden to a sort of cipher drama
of the violent death of King Charles the First. Modern students, however, are
reasonably well agreed that the Hiramic Legend is a retelling of the immortality
of the soul; it belongs with the story of Isis and Orsiris, and the most
beautiful of the early religious myths, the Brahmanic story of Ademi and Heva.
Thus interpreted, the soul, mind or spirit; after it acquires knowledge, is
subjected to temptation. It must bargain with conditions, make a pact with evil,
compromise with reality, or suffer. Every life demonstrates the truth of this;
we are all tempted to compromise with the best that is in us for the sake of
expediency. Not infrequently, we, as did a Certain Three, think to win
knowledge, power, place, and reward for themselves; not be patient effort, but
by force alone.
In the sublime degree there is no compromise. Those who seek unlawfully are
bidden to wait until they are found worthy . . . but there is no suggestion of
yielding to their importunity if they will not. Nor do they wait. For a time it
appears that force is superior to righteousness, that evil can overcome good.
But only for a time. And while, indeed, That Which Was Lost has never been
recovered, yet the manner of its losing has been an inspiration to all men in
their search for it ever since; a just retribution overtook the evil and the
consequences of wrong doing are set forth unequivocally.
It is difficult to write about that which is sublime, translate it into words
of everyday, and at the same time comply with the statutory requirements. All
Master Masons will forgive the seeming vagueness of these references; indeed,
they should not find them vague. But in any attempt to translate the symbolism
into words, it loses in two ways; first, as any symbol must lose (can you
describe a rose so that it appears beautiful or put the majesty of a mountain or
the magnitude of the ocean in a phrase?); second, because the appeal of the
symbol is to the heart, the soul or the spirit; when one attempts to make of it
also an appeal to the mind, the spirit symbolism becomes clouded over with
materiality; the bloom is gone from the petal; the butterfly is crushed.
The moral lessons in the degree are many; the virtue of loyalty is most
obvious and, perhaps, least important, symbolically. That truth wins in the end;
that evil does not flourish; that strength of heart is greater than strength of
arm; that it is by the spirit of brotherhood, not by one man alone, that which
has fallen can be raised; that in his greatest extremity man has but One to Whom
to turn; that beyond brotherhood the soul stands always, and must always stand,
alone before God, when no prayers save its own may avail; That he who would win
true brotherhood must give proof of his fitness to be a brother; these, and many
more can be read from the degree by the most casual minded.
But there is a deeper lesson, for him who is minded to dig far enough. There
are certain matters which can be proved by logic, and by experiment. Thus, we
know not only by vision, by experience and by counting on the fingers that two
added to two make four, but also by demonstrating this fact by mathematics.
It is entirely obvious to all scientists that the laws of nature are
constant; they do not vary between here and there. But it is not demonstrable!
We are confident that the laws of motion and gravitation as we see them
demonstrated on earth and in the solar system, are the same in some far off
planet of an unknown sun, in some other solar system of the existence of which
we do not even know. But we cannot prove it.
In this sense we cannot prove either God or Immortality. A God who could be
proved to a finite mind by a finite means would be a finite God, and The Great
Architect we believe to be infinite. The crux of the whole controversy between
those who profess a science and those who profess a religion, has been over this
demand on the part of those scientists that religion reduce God to figures and
prove Him by a Rule; while the follower of a religion founded entirely on faith
demands that the scientist forego his reason and believe without proof!
In other words, one all Mind demands that one all Soul work and talk wholly
in terms of Mind. One all Soul insists that Mind forget its reason and its logic
and deal wholly in belief and faith. But a man is not only Mind, nor is he only
Immortal Soul.
The ego is made up of both. When they become at war with each other we have
either a religious fanatic or an atheist. Luckily for most of us, there is no
conflict; we believe the things of the heart because of proofs the mind cannot
understand, just as we know the demonstrable truths of science with expositions
which mean nothing to a heart.
The esoteric meaning the Sublime Degree of Master Mason is not at all for the
mind. To the mind it is not a proof of anything. But it truly is the Forty
Seventh Problem of Euclid of the heart!
As that strange and wonderful mathematic wonder contains the germ of all
scientific measurement, so does the symbolism of the Third Degree contain the
germ of all doctrines of immortality, all beliefs in a hereafter, all heart
certainty of a beneficent Creator Who has us in His Holy Keeping.
There have been those who, fearing that Freemasonry was about to set up a
doctrine and a church to teach it, have frowned upon Freemasonry because of this
symbolism. But note carefully, there is not in all the Master Mason Degree any
suggestion of creed or dogma or even of a "Way to Heaven." The Mohammedan who
believes that the way to Allah is to kill a Christian or two, will find no
contradiction of his queer faith in the Master Masons degree. The Christian who
sincerely believes that only by Baptism can he be "Saved" will find nothing in
the Master Mason degree to hurt that faith. The Spiritualist who feels that
unseen friends are waiting to receive him and carry him forward, can be a good
Master Mason. The Third Degree teaches not how to win immortality, not how to
get to heaven, not any particular way to worship the Great Architect; it teaches
that immortality is; that God is; and leaves to others the fitting of those
ineffable truths into what frames they please.
How could the degree be otherwise than sublime? It contains the greatest
thought, the most intense hope, the most sincere prayer which all mankind
possesses. From the dawn of humanity man has tried to see God. He has believed
in God. He has struggled toward the light, often stumbling, often failing; but
always stretching forth hands upward, winning his slow way to a little better
spiritual comprehension of the Great Mystery.
The Sublime degree of Master Mason is at once a promise and a performance; an
exposition and a demonstration; a doing and a believing of the loftiest
aspirations in the heart of humanity. Of course it is sublime; and, equally of
course, many who fail to see its inner meaning do not find it so. The beauty of
the unseen sunset is there only for eyes which can see. The man who finds the
degree otherwise than sublime must blame the man, not the degree. For it is not
of the earth, earthy; there is in this ceremony and its simple but awful words,
something as much beyond the minds of the generations of men who made it, as
there is in its mystery. Something Beyond the comprehension of those who give
it, and they, fortunate among men . . . who receive it and take it to their
hearts.
back to top |
