TRADITION AND HISTORY IN MASONRY
by Albert G. Mackey
Excerpt from The History of Freemasonry
In the study of Freemasonry there are two kinds of statements which are
presented to the mind of the inquiring scholar, which are sometimes concurrent,
but much oftener conflicting, in their character.
These are the historical and the traditional,each of which appertains to
Freemasonry as we may consider it in a different aspect.
The historical statement relates to the Institution as we look at it from an
exoteric or public point of view ; the traditional refers only to its esoteric
or secret character.
So long as its traditional legends are confined to the ritual of the Order,
they are not appropriate subjects of historical inquiry. They have been invented
by the makers of the rituals for symbolic purposes connected with the forms of
initiation. Out of these myths of Speculative Masonry its philosophy has been
developed ; and, as they are really to be considered as merely the expansion of
a philosophic or speculative idea, they can not properly be posited in the
category of historical narratives.
But in the published works of those who have written on the origin and
progress of Masonry, from its beginning to the present time, the legendary or
traditional has too much been mingled with the historical element. The effect of
this course has been, on adversely prejudiced minds, to weaken all claims of the
Institution to an historical existence. The doctrine of "false in one thing,
false in all," has been rigidly applied, and those statements of the Masonic
historian which are really authentic have been doubted or rejected, because in
other portions of his narrative he has been too credulous.
Borrowing the technical language of archaeology, I should say that the
history of Masonry' may be divided into two periods-the prehistoric and the
historic. The former is traditional, the latter documentary. Each of these
divisions must, in any historical inquiry, be clearly defined. There is also
another division, into esoteric and exoteric history. The first is exclusively
within the arcana of the Order, and can not, as I have said, be the subject of
historical investigation. The second properly comes within the sphere of
historical study, and is subjected to all the laws of historical criticism.
When we are treating of Freemasonry as one of the social organizations of the
world-as one of those institutions which are the results of civilization, and
which have sprung up in the progress of society ; and, finally, when we are
considering what are the influences that the varying conditions of that society
have produced upon it, and what influences it has reciprocally produced upon
these varying conditions-we are then engaged in the solution of a historical
problem, and we must pursue the inquiry in a historical method and not
otherwise. We must discard all speculation, because history deals only with
facts.
If we were treating the history of a nation, we should assert nothing of it
as historical that could not be traced to and be verified by its written
records. All that is conjectured of the events that may have occurred in the
earlier period of such a nation, of . which there is no record in
contemporaneous or immediately subsequent times, is properly thrown into the dim
era of the prehistoric age. It forms no part of the authentic history of the
nation, and can be dignified, at its highest value, with the title of historical
speculation only, which claims no other credence than that which its
plausibility or its probability commands.
Now, the possibility or the probability that a certain event may have
occurred in the early days of a nation's existence, but of which event there is
no record, will be great or little, as dependent on certain other events which
bear upon it, and which come within the era of its records. The event may have
been possible, but not probable, and then but very little or no importance would
be imputed to it, and it would at once be relegated to the category of myths. Or
it may have been both possible and highly probable, and we may be then permitted
to speculate upon it as something that had exerted an influence upon the
primitive character or the subsequent progress of the nation. But, even then, it
would not altogether lose its mythical character. Whatever we might predicate of
it would only be a plausible speculation. It would not be history, for that
deals not in what may have been, but only in that which actually has been.
The progress in these latter days of what are called the exact sciences has
led, by the force of example and analogy, to a more critical examination of the
facts, or, rather, the so-called facts, of history.
Voltaire said, in his Life of Charles XII1 of Sweden, that " incredulity is
the foundation of history." Years passed before the axiom in all its force was
accepted by the learned. But at length it has been adopted as the rule of all
historical criticism. To be credulous is now to be unphilosophical, and scholars
accept nothing as history that can not be demonstrated with almost mathematical
certainty.
Niebuhr began by shattering all faith in the story of Rhea Sylvia, of Romulus
and Remus, and of the maternal wolf, which, with many other incidents of the
early Roman annals, were consigned by him to the region of the mythical.
In later times, the patriotic heart of Switzerland has been made to mourn by
the discovery that the story of William Tell, and of the apple which he shot
from the head of his son, is nothing but a mediaeval fable which was to be found
in a great many other countries, and the circumstances of which, everywhere
varying in details, still point to a common origin in some early symbolic myth.
It is thus that many narratives, once accepted as veracious, have been, by
careful criticism, eliminated from the domain of history ;_ and such works as
Goldsmith's Histories of Greece and Rome are no longer deemed fitting text-books
for schools, where nothing but truth should be taught.
The same rules of critical analysis which are pursued in the separation of
what is true from what is false in the history of a nation should be applied to
the determination of the character of all statements in Masonic history. This
course, however, has, unhappily, not been generally pursued. Many of its
legends are unquestionably founded, as I shall endeavor hereafter to show, on a
historical basis ; but quite as many, if not more, are made up out of a mixture
of truth and fiction, the distinctive boundaries of which it is difficult to
define ; while a still greater number are altogether mythical, with no
appreciable element of truth in their composition. And yet, for nearly two
centuries, all of these three classes of Masonic legendary lore have been
accepted by the great body of the Fraternity, without any discrimination, as
faithful narratives of undoubted truthfulness.
It is this liberal acceptation of the false for the true, and this ready
recognition of fables as authentic narratives whereby imaginative writers have
been encouraged to plunge into the realms of absurdity instead of confining
themselves to the domain of legitimate history, that have cast an air of romance
over all that has hitherto been written about Freemasonry. Unjustly, but very
naturally, scholars have been inclined to reject all our legends in every part
as fabulous, because they found in some the elements of fiction.
But, on the other hand, the absurdities of legend-makers, and the credulity
of legend-readers, have, by a healthy reaction, given rise to a school of
iconoclasts (to whom there will soon be occasion to refer), which sprang up from
a laudable desire to conform the principles of criticism which are to govern all
investigations into Masonic history to the rules which control profane writers
in the examination of the history of nations.
As examples of the legends of Masonry which have tempted the credulity of
many and excited the skepticism of others, those almost universally accepted
legends may be cited which attribute the organization of Freemasonry in its
present form to the era of King Solomon's temple-the story of Prince Edwin and
the Grand Lodge congregated by him at the city of York in the 10th century-and
the theory that the three symbolic degrees were instituted as Masonic grades at
a period very long anterior to the beginning of the 18th century.
These statements, still believed in by all Masons who have not made the
history of the Order an especial study, were, until recently, received by
prominent scholars as veracious narratives. Even Dr. Oliver, one of the most
learned as well as the most prolific of Masonic authors, has, in his numerous
works, recognized them as historic truths without a word of protest or a sign of
doubt, except, perhaps, with reference to the third legend above mentioned, of
which he says, with a cautious qualification, that he has "some doubts whether
the Master's degree, as now given, can be traced three centuries backwards."
But now comes a new school of Masonic students, to whom, borrowing a word
formerly used in the history of religious strifes, has been given the name of
"iconoclasts." The word is a good one. The old iconoclasts, or image-breakers of
the 8th century, demolished the images and defaced the pictures which they found
in the churches, induced by erroneous but conscientious views, because they
thought that the people were mistaking the shadow for the substance, and were
worshipping the image or the picture instead of the Divine Being whom it
represented.
And so these Masonic iconoclasts, with better views, are proceeding to
destroy, by hard, incisive criticism, the intellectual images which the old,
unlettered Masons had constructed for their veneration. They are pulling to
pieces the myths and legends, whose fallacies and absurdities had so long cast a
cloud upon what ought to be the clear sky of Masonic history. But they have
tempered their zeal with a knowledge and a moderation that were unknown to the
iconoclasts of religion. These shattered the images and scattered the fragments
to the four winds of heaven, or they burnt the picture so that not even a
remnant of the canvas was left. Whatever there was of beauty in the work of the
sculptor or painter was forever destroyed. Every sentiment of aesthetic art was
overcome by the virulence of religious fanaticism. Had the destructive labors of
these iconoclasts been universal and long continued, no foundation would have
been left for building that science of Christian symbolism, which in this day
has been so interesting and so instructive to the archaeologist.
Not so have the Masonic iconoclasts performed their task of critical
reformation. They have shattered nothing ; they have destroyed nothing. When in
the course of their investigations into true Masonic history, they encounter a
myth or a legend, replete, apparently, with absurdities or contradictions, they
do not consign it to oblivion as something unworthy of consideration, but they
dissect it into its various parts ; they analyze it with critical acumen ; they
separate the chaff from the wheat ; they accept the portion that is confirmed by
other and collateral testimony as a legitimate contribution to history ; what is
undoubtedly fictitious they receive as a myth, and either reject it altogether
as an unmeaning addition to a legend, or give it an interpretation as the
expression of some symbolic idea which is itself of value in a historical point
of view.
That lamented archaeologist, Mr. George Smith, late of the British Museum, in
speaking of the cuneiform inscriptions excavated in Mesopotamia, and the legends
which they have preserved of the old Babylonian empire, said: "With regard to
the supernatural element introduced into the story, it is similar in nature to
many such additions to historical narratives, especially in the East ; but I
would not reject those events which may have happened, because, in order to
illustrate a current belief, or add to the romance of the story, the writer has
introduced the supernatural."
It is on this very principle that the iconoclastic Masonic writers, such as
Hughan and Woodford, are pursuing their researches into the early history of
Freemasonry. They do not reject those events related in the old legends, which
have certainly happened, because in them they find also mythical narratives.
They do not yield to the tendency which George Smith says is now too general,
"to repudiate the earlier part of history, because of its evident inaccuracies
and the marvelous element generally combined with it." It is in this way, and
in this way only, that early Masonic history can be rightly written. Made up, as
it has been for centuries past, of a commingled tissue of historical narrative
and legendary invention, it has been heretofore read without judicious
discrimination. Either the traditional account has been wholly accepted as
historical, or it has been wholly rejected as fabulous, and thus, in either
case, numerous errors have been the consequence.
As an example of the error which inevitably results from pursuing either of
these methods of interpretation, one of which may be distinguished as the school
of gross credulity, and the other as that of great skepticism, let us take the
legend of the Temple origin of Masonry-that is to say, the legend which places
the organization of the Institution at the time of the building of the temple at
Jerusalem.
Now, the former of these schools implicitly receives the whole legend as true
in all its details, and recognizes King Solomon as the first Grand Master, with
Hiram of Tyre and Hiram as his Wardens, who, with him, presided over the Craft,
divided into three degrees, the initiation into which was the same as that
practiced in the lodges of the present day, or at least not very unlike it.
Thus Dr. Anderson, who was the first to publicly promulgate this legend and
the theory founded on it, says, in the second edition of his " Constitutions,"
that Hiram Abif, " in Solomon's absence, filled the chair as Deputy Grand
Master, and, in his presence, was the Senior Grand Warden" ;1 and, again, that "
Solomon partitioned the Fellow Crafts into certain lodges, with a Master and
Wardens in each"; 2 and, lastly, that "Solomon was Grand Master of all Masons at
Jerusalem. King Hiram was Grand Master at Tyre, and Hiram Abif had been Master
of Work." s The modern rituals have made some change in these details, but we
evidently see here the original source of the legend as it is now generally
believed by the Fraternity.
Indeed, so firmly convinced of its truth are the believers in this legend,
that the brand of heterodoxy is placed by them on all who deny or doubt it.
On the contrary, the disciples of the latter school, whose skepticism is as
excessive as is the credulity of the former, reject as fabulous everything that
tends to connect Freemasonry with the Solomonic temple. To the King of Israel
they refuse all honor, and they contemptuously repudiate the theory that he was
a Masonic dignitary, or even a Freemason at all. One of these Pyrrhonists has
gone so far as to defile the memory of the Jewish monarch with unnecessary and
unmerited abuse. Between these two parties, each of which is misdirected by an
in• temperate zeal, come the iconoclasts-impartial inquirers, who calmly and
dispassionately seek for truth only. These disavow, it is true, the authenticity
of the Temple legend in its present form. They deny that there is any proof
which a historian could, by applying the just canons of criticism, admit as
competent evidence, that Freemasonry was organized at the building of the temple
of Solomon, and hence they look for its origin at some other period and under
different circumstances.
But they do not reject the myth connected with the temple as being wholly
unworthy of consideration. On the contrary, they respect this legend as having a
symbolic significance, whose value can not be overestimated. They trace its rise
in the Old Constitutions ; they find it plainly alluded to in the Legend of the
Craft; and they follow it in its full development in the modern rituals. They
thus recognize the influence that the story of the temple and its builders has
exerted on the internal construction of the Order, and hence they feel no
disposition to treat it, notwithstanding its historical inaccuracy, with
contumely.
Knowing what an important part the legends and symbols of Freemasonry have
performed in the progress of the Institution, and how much its philosophic
system is indebted to them for all that is peculiar to itself, they devote their
literary energies, not to the expurgation of this or any other myth or legend,
but to the investigation of the questions how and when it arose, and what is its
real significance as a symbol, or what foundation as a narrative it may have in
history. And thus they are enabled to add important items to the mass of true
Masonic history which they have been accumulating.
In short, the theory of the iconoclastic school is that truth and
authenticity must always, and in the first place, be sought ; that nothing must
be accepted as historical which has not the internal and external evidences of
historical verity, and that in treating the legends of Masonry-of almost every
one of which it may be said, " Se non vero, a ben trovato "-if it is not true,
it is well invented -we are not to reject them as altogether fabulous, but as
having some hidden and occult meaning, which, as in the case of all other
symbols, we must diligently seek to discover. But if it be found that the legend
has no symbolic significance, but is simply the distortion of a historical fact,
we must carefully eliminate the fabulous increment, and leave the body-of truth
to which it had been added, to have its just value.
Such was the method pursued by the philosophers of antiquity ; and Plato,
Anaxagoras, and Cicero explained the absurdities of the ancient mythologists by
an allegorical mode of interpretation. To this school I have for years been
strongly attached, and in the composition of this work I shall adopt its
principles. I do not fear that the claims of Freemasonry to a time-honored
existence will be injured by any historical criticism, although the era in which
it had its birth may not be admitted to be as remote as that assigned to it by
Anderson or Oliver.
Iconoclastic criticism can not depreciate, but will rather elevate, the
character of the Institution. It will relieve it of absurdities, will often
explain the cause of anachronisms, will purify the fabulous element, and confine
it within the strict domain of history.
It was a common reproach against the great Niebuhr that he had overthrown the
whole fabric of early Roman history, and yet Dr. Arnold, the most competent of
critics, has said of him that he had built up much more than he had destroyed,
and fixed much that modern skepticism had rejected as fabulous on firmer
historic grounds.
Following such a method as that pursued by the most learned of modern
historians, it will be necessary, for a faithful and comprehensible
investigation of the history of Masonry, to discriminate between the two periods
into which it is naturally divided,
The PREHISTORIC and The HISTORIC.
The HISTORIC embraces the period within which we have authentic documents in
reference to the existence of the Order, and will be considered in the second
part of this book.
The PREHISTORIC embraces the period within which we have no authentic
memorials, and when we have to depend wholly on legends and traditions.
The legendary history of Masonry will, therefore, be commenced in the next
chapter.
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