THE MENAGERIE OF MASONRY
Animals have played an important part in symbolism from its very
beginning; perhaps because man preferred to symbolize life by the
living; perhaps because he found such strong analogies between the
characteristics of, or the virtues he ascribed to animals, birds and
other forms of life and the truths he desired to express in symbols.
A lamb is actually no more “innocent” than a lion or a dog.
“Innocence” is defined as the state of being free of evil, or from
that which corrupts or taints; purity. One animal is on par with
another in these respects; neither lion nor lamb, jackal nor wolf is
“corrupted” or “tainted.”
But the quality of innocence is often associated in our minds with
ignorance; often it means a weakness to resist, as when we speak of
an “innocent child.” The lamb is weak; the lamb is meek; the lamb is
white and white is spotless, without soil or blemish; the lamb
requires care and guardianship, as does the child or the young girl -
therefore it is the weak lamb, and not the strong, predatory,
courageous and snarling lion which “in all ages” has been the symbol
of innocence.
“In all ages” is a pleasant figure of speech which makes up in
roundness what it lacks in definiteness. Throughout the Old
Testament are references to lambs, often in connection with
sacrifices, frequently used in a sense symbolic of innocence, purity,
gentleness and weakness. It is probably from both the Old and New
Testaments use of a lamb that “in all ages” it has been a symbol for
innocence, a matter aided by the color, which we unconsciously
associate with purity, probably because of the hue of snow. It is
not a universal association though; the Chinese, for instance, so
often diametrically opposite the Occidentals in their thinking,
associate white with death.
The lion is one of Freemasonry’s most powerful and potent symbols;
“The Lion of the Tribe of Judah” is so prominent in the ritual as to
be most familiar and the Masonic world needs no instruction as to the
significance of the paw of the lion. Yet both are often less fully
comprehended than their importance warrants.
The Lion of the Tribe of Judah has had various interpretations, some
of them rather unfair in their attempt to prove a point. No well-
informed Freemason thinks that Freemasonry is a Christian
organization, any more than it is Jewish or Mohammedan; albeit there
are more Christian Masons than Jewish or Mohammedan Masons. To deny
that the Lion of the Tribe of Judah refers to Christ, that it means
“only” a probable redeemer who would spring from the Tribe of Judah;
to try to read into the expression “only” a reference to King
Solomon, is to disregard the undoubted fact that in its early stages
in England, Freemasonry was not only Christian, but allied to the
Church.
The First of the Old Charges makes this very plain:
“But though in Ancient Times Masons were charged in every Country to
be of the religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet
`tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that religion
in which all Men agree, leaving their particular opinions to
themselves; that it, to be good men and true, or Men of Honor and
Honesty by whatever Denominations or persuasions they may be
Distinguished; whereby Masonry becomes a Center of Union and the
Means of conciliating true friendship among persons that must have
remained at a perpetual distance.”
Prior to this broad-minded inclusion of men of all religions in
Freemasonry, operative Masons were “of the religion of the country,
whatever it was.” This was predominately Christian, in England,
France and Germany.
Judah was symbolized as a lion in his father’s death bed blessing.
The lion was upon the standard of the large and powerful tribe of
Judah. “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” was one of Solomon’s titles.
But Christian interpretation of the phrase springs from Revelations
(V. 5(, “Behold, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David,
hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals
thereof.”
The idea of a resurrection is curiously interwoven with the lion “in
all ages” to quote the familiar phrase. In the twelfth century one
Philip de Thaun states: “Know that the lioness, if she bring forth a
dead cub, she holds her cub and the lion arrives; he goes about and
cries, till it revives on the third day.” The rest of the quotation
ascribes a wholly Christian interpretation to the ancient legend.
Another writer of the middle ages has it:
Thus the strong lion of Judah The gates of cruel death being
broken Arose on the third day At the loud sounding voice of the
father.
The lion was connected with resurrection long before the Man of
Galilee walked upon the earth. In ancient Egypt, as we learn from
the stone carvings on the ruins of Temples, a lion raised Osiris from
a dead level to a living perpendicular by a grip of his paw; the
carvings show a figure standing behind the Altar, observing the
raising of the dead, with its left arm raised, forming the angle of a
square.
The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, considered as signifying a coming
redeemer who would spring from the tribe, or meaning the King of
Israel who built the Temple, or symbolizing the Christ, must not be
confused with the mode of recognition so inextricably mingled with
the Sublime Degree, teaching of a resurrection and a future life.
A curious inversion of the idea of the lion’s paw as a symbol of life
is found in I Samuel, XVII 34:37. David tells Saul of rescuing a
lamb from a lion and a bear, and slaying both. Then (37) “David said
moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion . . .
he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.”
Unquestionably the Israelites absorbed much of Egyptian beliefs
during the captivity, which may account both for the Lion of the
Tribe of Judah, and our own use of the paw.
But read the symbolism how we will, or by whatever light we please,
the lion has a Masonic significance of tremendous importance and
hoary antiquity; one which bears deep study without revealing all its
secrets.
To the world at large the best known animal in the Masonic Menagerie
is the goat! Alas, that goat! What harm has he not done to our
gentle Fraternity! Could the brother who jokes to the prospective
initiate about the terrors of “riding the goat” and the severe
treatment he may expect when the aprochryphal animal is let loose
upon him, but learn how the idea originated, he would never more soil
the most magnificent symbol of the mightiest of man’s hopes with so
shocking and debasing an idea.
The great God Pan has been sung and storied since the birth of
mythology. Originally he was anything but terrifying; a gentle,
rather whimsical God with a sense of humor. He was that Arcadian God
of the shepherds, chief of the inferior deities, generally considered
to be the child of Mercury and Penelope. Pan possessed long ears and
horns; the lower half of his body was that of a goat. He invented
Pan’s Pipes, or “syrinx.” From him we have the word “panic,” the
state into which the Gauls were thrown on invading ancient Greece and
seeing Pan!
Myths and legends undergo strange transformations.
When the early Christian drew upon mythology they modified and
changed it; gentle Pan became Satan! To the common mind, Satan, or
the devil, was a he-goat. Thus the devil came into possession of
horns and a tail, and the familiar cloven hoof. Later, in the Middle
Ages, the devil took a more dignified form, in keeping with his
supposed power. But the people would not wholly give up the goat,
therefore their devil was supposed to appear riding on a goat.
Witches were credited with performing fearful ceremonies in which
they raised the devil in order to do homage to him and his goat.
In the early days of Masonry in London, the enemies of the Fraternity
employed the weapon of ridicule; processions of Mock Masons, the
Gormogons and or other organizations made all manner of fun of the
secrecy and the ceremonies of Freemasonry. Some of this fun was a
bitter and venomous jest; jealousy and ill-will of the excluded
circulated stories that Freemasons and witchcraft were allied. that
Freemasons were accustomed to raise the devil in their lodges - and,
of course, he appeared riding on his goat!
Gradually in common minds the belief came into being that Freemasons
“rode the goat.” We still have the expression, though not the
belief. Yet the coarse-minded and the unthinking still torment the
petitioner with tales of riding and being butted by the goat. They
pretend - or perhaps the just pretend to pretend - that the
initiative ceremonies are terrifying.
Brethren who thus regularly - albeit often innocently - tell tales of
the Masonic goat to initiates or the profane, carry forward a
ridicule and enmity of the Order begun more than two hundred years
ago. In peopling our lodge rooms with goats they perpetuate am
ignorant superstition and slander the fair fame of the Institution by
indicating that its practices are anti-religious and blasphemous.
Let him who has the good of the order in his heart cast from his mind
and eliminate from his speech all references to a Masonic goat, which
came from ridicule, which descended from the idea of the devil, which
in its turn came from the frolicsome half-goat, half-man God Pan.
No Masonic Menagerie would be complete which did not include the
beasts of the field and the birds of the air; here the influence of
the Old Testament is strongly felt. In I Samuel (XVII 41) we read:
“And the Philistine said unto David, Come to me and I will give thy
flesh to the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.”
“Beasts of the field” is an expression which denotes more than one
variety of animal. In the Old Testament the term beasts denotes any
brute, as distinguished from man; a quadruped as distinguished from
other living creatures; a wild animal as distinguished from a
domesticated one, and the apocalyptic symbol of brute force as the
opposite of Divine power.
Obviously it is not the domesticated cattle, the asses and goats and
the sheep, from the attacks of which human infant is unable to guard
himself, as in the phrases from the explanation of the Bee Hive.
Nor did the Philistine imagine, if he gave David’s flesh to cattle,
that they would eat it! His “Beasts of the Field” are the wild
beasts - the beasts of Leviticus (XXVI 22): “I will also send wild
beasts among you,” etc. These wild beasts are bears, wild bulls,
hyenas. jackals, leopards and wolves; all Old Testament animals. It
is these which must be visualized when Freemasons use the word, not
horses, cows, dogs, sheep and asses.
The vultures of the Old Testament are typified by those spoken of in
Isaiah XXXIV, in which the desolation of the enemies of God are
described. The land is to be burned and to lie waste and “none shall
pass through it for ever and ever.” Thorns and nettles and brambles
are to grow upon it; the wild beasts shall inhabit it and (15) “There
shall the great owl make her nest and lay and hatch and gather under
her shadow; there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with
her mate.”
It is unnecessary more than to mention the symbolism of the bees in
the hive. As an emblem of industry they are sufficiently explained
in the ritual; moreover, bees are hardly to be considered as parts of
a menagerie!
If small, the Masonic Menagerie is select and exclusive; its symbols
are plain for all to read; yet they have deeper and more spiritual
meanings for those who are willing to look below the surface and see
in lion and lamb - and even goat - as well as the beasts of the field
and birds of the air, a gentle teaching of man’s hope of immortality,
at once touching and comforting.
back to top | 
