POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE
“There is in every regular and well governed Lodge, a certain point
within a circle, embordered by two parallel perpendicular lines. . .
. “
Familiar to every Mason, this ancient symbol is too often considered
merely as one of many, instead of what it really is, among the most
illuminating of the entered Apprentice’s Degree.
It is particularly important not only for its antiquity, the many
meanings which have been and may be read from it by the student, but
because of the bond it makes between the old Operative Craft and the
modern Speculative Masonry we know.
No man may say when, where or how the symbol began.
From the earliest dawn of history a simple closed figure has been
man’s symbol for deity - the circle for some peoples, the triangle
for others, and a circle or a triangle with a central point, for
still others. The closed figure, of course, represents the
conception of Him Who has neither beginning or ending; the triangle
adds to this the reading of a triune nature. It is to be noted that
the Lesser Lights form a triangle placed in our Lodges in that
orientation which expresses Wisdom, Strength and Beauty. In some
Jurisdictions a Lodge closes with the brethren forming a circle about
the Altar, which thus becomes the point, or focus of the Supreme
Blessing upon the brethren.
Nor must we consider that a reading which is wholly beyond the
monitorial explanation of the point within a circle is beyond Masonic
conception. A symbol may have many meanings, all of them right, so
long as they are not self-contradictory. As the point within a
circle has had so many different meanings to so many different
people, it is only to be expected that it have meanings for many
Masons.
We find it connected with sun worship, the most ancient of religions;
ruins of ancient temples devoted both to sun and fire worship are
circular in form, with a central altar, or “point” which was the Holy
of Holies. The symbol is found in India, in which land of mystery
and mysticism its antiquity is beyond calculation. Of its presence
in many of the religions of the East, Wilford says (Asiatic
Researches):
“It was believed in India that at the general deluge everything was
involved in the common destruction except the male and female
principles or organs of generation, which were destined to produce a
new race and to repeople the earth when the waters had subsided from
its surface. The female principle, symbolized by the moon, assumed
the form of a lunette, or crescent, while the male principle,
symbolized by the sun, assumed the form of the lingam (or phallus)
and placed himself erect in the center of the lunette, like the mast
of a ship. The two principles in this united form floated on the
surface of the waters during the period of their prevalence on the
earth, and thus became the progenitors of a new race of men.”
This is the more curious and interesting when a second ancient
meaning of the symbol is considered - that the point represents the
sun and the circle the universe. Indeed, this meaning is both modern
and ancient, for a dot in a small circle is the astronomical symbol
for the sun, and the derivation of this astronomical symbol marks its
Masonic connection. The Indian interpretation makes the point the
male principle, the circle the female; the point became the sun and
the circle the solar system which ancient peoples thought was the
universe because the sun is vivifying, the life-giving principle, for
all the lives.
The two parallel lines, which modern Masonry states represents the
two Holy Sts. John, are as ancient as the rest of the symbol, and
originally had nothing to do with the “two eminent Christian Patrons
of Masonry.” It is a pretty conception, but of course utterly
without foundation. The Holy Sts. John lived and taught many
hundreds of years before any Masonry existed which can truly be
called by that name. If this is distasteful to those good brethren
who like to believe that King Solomon was Grand Master of a Grand
Lodge, devised the system and perhaps wrote the ritual, one must
refute them with their own chronology, for both the Holy Sts. John
lived long “after” the wise King wrought his “famous fabric.”
The two perpendicular parallel lines are sometimes thought to have
been added to the symbol of the point within a circle as a sort of
diagram or typification of a Lodge at its most solemn moment, the
point being the brother at the Altar, the circle the Holy of Holies,
and the two lines the brethren waiting to help bring the initiate to
light.
But it is obviously a mere play of fancy; the two lines against the
circle with the point date back to an era before Solomon. On early
Egyptian monuments may be found the Alpha and Omega, or symbol of
God, in the center of a circle embordered by two upright serpents,
representing the Power and the Wisdom of the Creator.
Mackey reads into the symbol an analogy to the Lodge by observing
that as the Master and Wardens represent the sun in three positions
in the Lodge, and as the Lodge is a symbol of the world (or universe)
the circle can be considered as representing the Lodge, the point the
sun at meridian, and the two lines, the Wardens or sun at rising and
at setting.
This also seems to many students to be a mere coincidental reading.
That derivation of the symbol which best satisfied the mind as to
logic and appropriateness, students found in the operative craft.
Here is more to encourage than in all the researches into ancient
religions and the symbolism of men long forgotten.
Fully to understand just how the point within a circle came into
Speculative Masonry by way of Operative Craftsmanship, it is
necessary to have some mental picture of the times in which the
Craftsmen of the early middle ages lived and wrought.
The vast majority of them had no education, as we understand the
word. They could neither read nor write - unimportant matters to
most, first because there were no books to read, second because there
was nothing which they needed to write! Skilled craftsmen they were,
through long apprenticeship and careful teaching in the art of
cutting and setting stone, but except for manual skill and cunning
artifice founded on generations of experience, they were without
learning.
This was not true of the leaders - or, as we would call them - the
Masters. The great Cathedrals of Europe were not planned and
overseen by ignorance. There, indeed, knowledge was power, as it is
now, and the architects, the overseer, the practical builders, those
who laid out the designs and planned the cutting and the placing of
the stones - these were learned in all that pertained to their craft.
Doubtless many of them had a knowledge of practical and perhaps of
theoretical mathematics.
Certain parts of this theoretical knowledge became diffused from the
Master Builders through the several grades of superintendents,
architects, overseer and foreman in charge of any section of the
work. With hundreds if not thousands of men working on a great
structure, some sort of organization must have been as essential then
as now. And equally essential would be the overseeing of the tools.
Good work cannot be done with faulty instruments. A square and
upright building cannot be erected with a faulty square, level or
plumb!
The tools used by the cathedral builders must have been very much
what ours are today; they had gavel, mallet, setting maul and hammer;
they had chisel and trowel as we have. And of course, they had
plumb, square, level and twenty-four inch gauge to “measure and lay
out their work.”
The square, the level and the plumb were made of wood - wood, cord,
and weight for the plumb and level; wood alone for the square.
Wood wears when used against stone. Wood warps when exposed to water
or damp air. The metal used to fasten the two arms of the square
together would rust and perhaps bend or break. Naturally, the
squares would not indefinitely stay square. Squares had constantly
to be checked for the right-angledness. Some standard had to be
adopted by which a square could be compared, so that, when Operative
Masons’ squares were tried by it they would not “materially err.”
The importance of the perfect right angle in the square by which
stones were shaped can hardly be over estimated. Operative Masonry
in the Cathedral building days was largely a matter of cut and try,
of individual workmen, or careful craftsmanship. Quality production,
micrometer measurement, interchangeabilty of parts were words which
had not yet been coined; ideas for which they stand had not even been
invented. All the more necessary, then, that the foundation on which
all the work was done should be as perfect as the Masters knew how to
make it. Cathedral builders erected their temples for all time - how
well they built, a hundred glorious structures in the Old World
testify. They built well because they knew how to check and try
their squares!
Today any school boy knows the simple “secret of the square” which
was then the closely guarded wisdom of the Masters alone; toady any
school boy can explain the steam engine which was a wonder two
hundred years ago, and make and use a wireless which was a miracle
scarce ten years gone by. Let us not wonder that our ancient
Operative brethren thought their secret of a square so valuable; let
us rather wonder that in time in which the vast majority of men were
ignorant of mathematics, so many must have known and appreciated this
simple, this marvelous, geometrical secret.
Lay out a circle - any size - on a piece of paper.
With a straight edge draw a line across through its center. Put a
dot on the circle, anywhere. Connect that dot with the line at both
points where it crosses the circle. Results - a perfect right
triangle.
Draw the circle of whatever size you will; place a dot on the
circumference where you will, it makes no difference. So be it. So
be it the lines from the dot meet the horizontal line crossing the
circle through its center and they will form a right angle.
This was the Operative Mason’s secret - knowing how “to try his
square.” It was by this means that he tested the working tools of
the Fellows of the Craft; he did so often enough, and it was
impossible either for their tools or their work “to materially err.”
From this, also, comes the ritual used in the lodges of our English
brethren, where they “open on the center.” Alas, we have dropped the
quaint old words they use, and American Lodges know the “center” only
as the point within a circle. The original line across the center
has been shifted to the side and became the “two perpendicular
parallel lines” of Egypt and India and our admonitions are no longer
what they must have once been; . . . “while a mason circumscribes
his “square” within these points, it is impossible that “it” should
materially err.”
Today we only have our Speculative meaning; we circumscribe our
desires and our passions within the circle and the lines touching on
the Holy Scriptures. For Speculative Masons who use squares only in
the symbolic sense such an admonition is of far greater use than
would be the secret of the square as was known to our ancient
brethren.
But - how much greater becomes the meaning of the symbol when we see
it as a direct descent from an Operative practice! Our ancient
brethren used the point within a circle as a test for the rectitude
of the tools by which they squared their work and built their
temporal buildings. In the Speculative sense, we used it as a test
for the rectitude of our intentions and our conduct, by which we
square our actions with the square of virtue. They erected
Cathedrals - we build the “House Not Made With Hands.” Their point
within a circle was Operative - our is Speculative!
But through the two - point in a circle on the ground by which an
Operative Master secretly tested the square of his fellows - point
within a circle as a symbol by which each of us may test, secretly,
the square of his virtue by which he erects an Inner Temple to the
Most High - both are Masonic, both are beautiful. The one we know is
far more lovely that it is a direct descendant of an Operative
practice the use of which produced the good work, true work, square
work of the Master Masons of the days that come not back.
Pass it not lightly. Regard it with the reverence it deserves, for
surely it is one of the greatest teachings of Masonry, concealed
within a symbol which is plain for any man to read, so be it he has
Masonry in his heart.
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