The Hiramic Legend and the Medieval Stage

Sourced By Martin Solis, Staff Writer - From The Builder Magazine February to July 1926

PART I

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We are very pleased indeed to introduce to the readers of The Builder a new contributor.  Bro. Thiemeyer is young both in years and in Masonry, yet already he has made more progress in knowledge than many of his seniors.  He has chosen to deal with a very difficult, yet most interesting subject, and we have the promise of further articles from his pen.

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A DISCUSSION IN THREE PARTS

Bro. Ernest E. Thiemeyer, Missouri

THE INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE STORY

NOTHING in the so-called Blue Degrees of Masonry even remotely approaches the Legend of the Third Degree for solemnity, beauty, impressiveness, or philosophy, it is, in fact, the summit of Craft Freemasonry.  As a subject of constantly recurring interest it has appealed to students as a problem to be solved, a mystery to be unraveled, and has attracted the minds of the greatest Masonic scholars of all times.  They find in it abundant opportunities for philosophizing and, further, when they attempt to trace its origin and growth, they are at liberty to occupy their inventive genius in a manner unparalleled in any other branch of Masonic research.  So far as the expounding of the teachings of the Legend is concerned, everyone is entitled to his own opinion; the only boundary that can be placed on such an interpretation is that it remain within the limits of logical reasoning.  To you it may mean one thing, but to me it may have an entirely different significance.  We may not agree with the teachings of Socrates, Plato, or the classical philosophers any more than we do with Freud, James, or the modern schools, but we do not have that type of intelligence which will permit us to say that they are wrong.  The most that can be said is that their opinions are not in accord with ours, and so it is with the teachings of Masonry; on the other hand, when it comes to investigating the sources of the Masonic Legend, we can, with a fair degree of certainty, disagree with theories advanced, and base our disagreement not on an interpretation of facts, but on facts which are conclusive in themselves.

From the cradle of Masonic scholarship we find just this.  The theories of many students concerning the origin of our Legend have been torn down and new structures based on new evidence erected to replace them.  On investigating the field, one finds those who are firmly convinced that the Legend in its present form is a dramatic, or narrative, account of an actual happening at the building of King Solomon's Temple.  We find these extremists replaced by other students who cannot agree with the arguments advanced and substitute their own theories, gradually tending toward a more and more iconoclastic viewpoint until we reach the other extreme and find advocates of the theory that the whole fabric was invented shortly after the formation of the Grand Lodge in 1717 by some of the ritualists of that day. To most scholars of our time these theories will appear absurd.  The present trend of opinion is toward a course midway between the two.  It is these compromise (if I may call them such) theories that are receiving the most credence today, and it is one of these that will form the basis of this discussion.

In the Transactions of the Lodge of Research, No. 2429, Leicester for 1920-21, there appears an article by Bro. Robert Race advancing the theory that the Legend was originally a Miracle or Mystery Play.  In support of this theory he advances many arguments, which on first thought appear beyond refutation.  Because his reasoning is so apparently water-tight this theory has come into quite good repute, and Masonic students are feeling more and more inclined to accept this opinion as probably the true origin of the Legend.  The italics above indicate the impression given by Bro. Race's arguments.  However, on giving the matter deeper thought and a careful reading for a second or third time, a number of peculiarities — absurdities, if you prefer — come to light.  It is with these that this article intends to deal.  It is not written with any predestined course of destructive criticism tending to develop or advocate a new or at least a different theory as to the origin of the Legend, but solely to dispose of the Race theory as impracticable and untenable.  There is no intention of showing what the Legend is or has been, but merely to point out what it is not.

When an analysis of Race's theory is made, we find that his discourse divides itself naturally into three sections and an introductory foundation.  It is with the three sections of the main argument that we are particularly concerned; in the order of their appearance they are: — first, a ritualistic discussion which points out numerous inconsistencies and absurdities in the narrative account of the Legend; second, an explanation of these defects as consequent on the crudity of the medieval stage; and lastly, an astronomical interpretation of the Legend to which allocated the true foundation of the fabric. The first and last of these sections are relatively unimportant when viewed in the light of the second; to state differently, if it can be proved that the internal difficulties of the story are explicable in any other manner than through the exigencies of the stage, and that the explanation of these inconsistencies and improbabilities cannot logically be attributed to the theory that the Legend was originally the plot of a Miracle or Mystery play of medieval times, we have destroyed Bro. Race's theory with the utmost dispatch. If addition, we can prove that many of the internal inconsistencies may be explained in other ways, and can destroy his astronomical foundation for the Legend, we are only adding fuel to a fire which has already reached a temperature sufficient to cremate the corpse.

That Bro. Race has assigned the true foundations of the Legend to the symbolism of the astronomical universe is unfortunate.  That we can find reason to make this assumption cannot be denied, but if we are to uncover the true symbolical foundation of the Legend it is necessary to discover the first symbolical interpretation of death and the resurrection.  It is hardly conceivable, if we care to go to the root of the matter, that the diurnal rotation and the annual revolution of the heavenly bodies, interpreted as their death and resurrection, was the first devised system of symbolism treating with this subject.  There appears, early in Bro. Race's symbolical treatment, a glaring misinterpretation of the symbolism of the Temple, which he says represents the Heavens.  This is the exact antithesis of what it really signified if it had any meaning whatever. It was built in the form of an oblong square, longer from East to West than from North to South. The square, in its symbolical interpretation, has always been connected with things earthly, and an oblong square has been considered the emblem of the Earth, bearing out one ancient type of cosmogonic belief that the earth was of rectangular form, longer from East to West than from North to South. If there was any symbolic significance in King Solomon's Temple, it was beyond reasonable doubt, emblematic of the Earth.

 

PART II — THE LIVING LEGEND

IN discussing the internal difficulties of the story of Hiram two of the main divisions of Bro. Race's argument have been covered. The last and most important phase remains — the dramatic character of the story and its connection with the stage. Bro. Races's theory to be water-tight must preclude a possibility of other satisfactory explanations of the difficulties which have led to his conclusions. One such explanation has been suggested at the conclusion of the foregoing section of this argument. The theory is, then, not above reproach. It has been conclusively proven that the legend is a product of evolution. That, in itself, is not sufficient to exclude the possibility of the legend being a type of drama such as Bro. Race presents, but only shows that if it was ever a drama, it was not such a one as Bro. Race would have us believe. It remains to be shown that those peculiarities in the legend which lead to the opinion that the story itself was once a drama can be explained more conclusively and more satisfactorily in another way. Before this can be done the conclusions that may be drawn from the evolutionary character of the difficulties in the story must be understood. It is then that the explanation of the dramatic feature will become apparent. The present portion of this discussion will, therefore, necessarily take the form of an excurses on evolution and its effects on our legend.

There is no more sure sign of the evolutionary character of the legend than the fact that it is undergoing change at the present time. It is alive, growing, vital, and living. If it were universally practiced in a uniform manner it would be more difficult to reach such a conclusion, but the history of the story within the known period of Masonic development would convince even the most skeptical that it is a product and at present neither beginning nor ending. But aside from this, the source from which all regular lodges of the world sprang is to be found in the British Isles, and some variations might be expected because of the several branches along which the descent could be traced. If the changes were of a purely corrective or legislative nature, the versions would be less divergent than they are. Such corrections would tend toward uniformity rather than the reverse, just as legislative changes do today.

If through the medium of this effort some student of Masonry is encouraged to delve into the subject and propound a new and more feasible theory on the "Origin of the Legend of the Third Degree" its purpose will have been accomplished. The quotation marks are used advisedly. The subject has been so much discussed that the phrase is hackneyed. It is noteworthy how readily the Masonic minds flock to a new development on this subject and how quickly they accept something that is different — provided it seems to have even a germ of truth in it. When Bro. Robert Race delivered his address some years ago, he made more emphatic statements than the evidence warrants accepting, but he brought into being a brain-child which has been recognized among many students as probably accounting for the origin of our Craft Drama. Criticism, attempted verification, presumption, variation, and all the other forms of analysis and error have been applied to it in an attempt to prove its logic; the numerous expressions of opinion and many statements of Race's intended meaning now make it essential that the original be consulted if any understanding of the theory is to be reached. It is now ready for scientific raising (or razing if one prefers).  It has been pointed out in the first part that there is much against accepting the Legend as the plot of a Medieval Drama.

OUR Legend having suffered in its treatment from the same errors that other legends have undergone is now ready for scientific treatment.  It can be considered for its manner rather than for its matter and mainly valued for its evidence of the thoughts of former times.  It is not to be wondered that such treatment has not been given it before, because "this turning of mythology to account as a means of tracing the history of the laws of the mind, is a branch of science scarcely discovered before the nineteenth century." (8) If an understanding of these laws of mind and their development can be attained a point from which our classification of the Legend as ritual myth can be developed is reached.

It would be desirable from the point of view of this article to trace the development of myth from its simplest stages to the present time.  Such a procedure would entail the production of a mass of evidence which would prolong the length of the discussion beyond the limits of an article, and it would easily assume the length of a fair-sized book.  A brief outline with some elaboration of the principal points is all that can be attempted.  For most of the ideas expressed the author is indebted to Tylor's Primitive Culture, Frazer's Golden Bough and to the Editor of THE BUILDER.  There will be no effort made to attribute a definite idea to any one of these authorities and no other credit than the above will be given except in the case of direct quotations.

The original sources from which the required material comes are numerous.  Tylor says that there is "evidence of races both ancient and modern, who so faithfully represent the state of thought to which myth development belongs, as still to keep up both the consciousness of meaning in their old myths, and the unstrained unaffected habit of creating new ones." (9) It is from savage races that a clear idea of the early stages of myth-making can be shown in relation to the products of later civilization.  That the technical foundation for our Legend is to be found in these ancient myths is comparatively plain to see.  Even a casual reading of Tylor's great work will convince one of that.  Herein lies an important question for Masonic discussion.  Is our myth a survival or a revival of this ancient culture?  Independent of all other considerations, it is undoubtedly true that a satisfactory answer to this question will do much to solve the riddle which attaches itself to the antiquity of Masonry.  It may in some way account for the evidences of Masonry which some students believe they see in the Aztecs, Incas, and North American Indian tribes.  A discussion of that phase of the question cannot be attempted here, but must of necessity be left for some other development.

By comparing the myths found to exist among savage tribes in various parts of the world it is an easy matter to analyze the mental processes which promote them.  It requires no evidence to prove that there can be found even today tribes which are far behind the culture of the recognized ancient civilizations such as Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and Rome.  To trace the reasoning of these primitive tribes through transitional stages until they reach the cultural level of the classic, civilizations is a difficult and lengthy process.  The connection has been found by long and troublesome research, suffering many setbacks and traveling the path of error that is common to all such investigations.  The line of descent is fairly well marked and a sketchy tracing of it will enable us to understand something of the growth of mythical fiction.  With this link established we have arrived at a starting point in our disscussion, in fact we have gone farther.  Myth is developed from its primitive beginnings to its most complex structure, and we can apply these steps in evolution to our own Legend.

 

 

 

PART III — THE LEGEND AND THE DRAMA

THE dramatic features of the Legend of Hiram are apparent immediately; but why is the Legend a drama?  Why not just plain narrative?  If some of the modern presentations of the story were viewed by students of drama, they might be inclined to the opinion that the story possessed dramatic possibilities, but they would hardly make the positive statement that it was drama.  The type of work presented in the British Isles tends to eliminate the mimetic features, while the usual American working lays much stress on them.  What accounts for this variation?  The answer to that question would be interesting, but it is not essential so far as this discussion is concerned and no more is actually necessary than an agreement on the question of whether the essentials of drama are present or lacking.  If there is no drama in the Legend, there is no support either for the present argument or the assumption on which it is based.  If, on the other hand, dramatic characteristics do exist it is not such a simple matter to trace them to their source as Bro. Race's theory would indicate.

Sufficient grounds were presented in the foregoing section of this discussion to permit the acceptance of the hypothesis that the Legend is an evolutionary product, and this conclusion makes the dramatic elements of the Legend differ materially from the generally accepted opinion of what they are.  The investigation of these features will lead us far from the period of mystery and miracle plays and it will be found that these plays are only survivals of a culture which, in point of time, antedates miracle plays by centuries.  If there is any basis for the assumption that the Legend of Hiram is a ritual myth, proof must be offered that the myth-making type of mind survived at least to a date equivalent to the time when the Masonic ritual was sufficiently developed to require an explanation of certain features therein contained.  Undoubtedly this stage of ritual growth was reached by the 14th or 15th century, possibly much earlier.

While on this subject of miracle and mystery plays, it might be well to digress somewhat from the general trend of the discussion.  The views advanced by Bro. Robert Race in his expression on the origin of the Legend are not entirely new, although it is probable that he is responsible for much of the discussion on the subject that has arisen in recent years.  Bro. E. Conder, speaking before Quatuor Coronati Lodge in 1894 makes a similar statement, though there is some reason to believe that his idea and that of Bro. Race are not entirely in accord.  To quote:

For myself, the ritual of the third degree takes me back in imagination to the pre-reformation "miracles" and I personally have little doubt that our modern third degree was built up in the early 18th century from the ruins of a very early trade mystery.

There is, in this opinion, at least one statement with which many scholars of today disagree; namely, that the third degree was built up in the 18th century.  But there is more than just that, evidently Bro. Conder is confused in his terms.  If he uses the word "miracle" as synonymous with "mystery" he pronounces much the same idea as that promulgated by Bro. Race some quarter of a century later.  If, on the other hand, the two terms are used in the sense common to modern students, there is a decided contradiction, and one is at a loss to understand exactly what is meant.  "Miracle" from the content would seem to mean "miracle play" in which case it is similar to the plays to which Bro. Race has reference.  "Mystery" carries with it a hint of secrecy that is not implied in "miracle".  The distinction that "miracle" was a play in a church and "mystery" one performed outside enters into the question.  Possibly "miracle" is a synonym for "mystery", in which event Bro. Conder's statement is almost in accord with the views herein expressed.  We seem to be barred from accepting such an interpretation, however, by the reference to the pre-reformation "miracles".  Whatever the ultimate conclusion, it can have little bearing on the question at hand, and merely serves as an illustration of the time-worn expression that "there is nothing new under the sun" and that the germ of an idea so fruitful in the case of Bro. Race, was entirely neglected when advanced at an earlier date.

Returning to the subject at hand, if any valid conclusions on the dramatic nature of the Legend are to be reached, it is essential to prove not only that the myth-making type of mind survived to the Middle Ages, but also that drama is a product of this same mentality.  If this can be done, the battle is won.  It will be very easy to trace the survival of mentality through the drama, but not quite so simple if drama is eliminated, although the wealth of folk-custom surviving throughout Continental Europe and England would not make the task an impossible one.  It appears that drama, ritual, and myth go almost hand in hand.  Myth and ritual are contemporaneous in their development, and the term need not be varied when drama is added to form the trilogy.  For the most part primitive rituals were dramatic; and myths, that is primitive ritual myths, were only explanations or accompaniments of dramatic rituals.  The three are so closely connected that it is almost beyond possibility to separate them.

The search for evidence leads far from the recognized paths of Masonic research and throughout one is reminded of the opening lines of Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha":

Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
with the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you:
"From the forests and the prairies
From the Great Lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dakotahs,
From the mountains, moors and fen-lands,
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes."

It is even farther afield, in the wide-open spaces and the vastness of savage empires that one finds the evidence necessary to substantiate such an hypothesis as the advocated here.  To clearly understand the argument to follow, an elementary conception of the thought processes of primitives is essential.  M. Lucien Levy-Bruhl has termed the primitive mind "pre-logical,” and a better term does not present itself.  It is in all of its ramifications a mind lacking in what modern civilization calls logic and reasoning.  This is a stage earlier in mental development than the one producing myth, ritual, and drama.  This type of mind is made up of "collective representations,” and these can be recognized by the following signs:

They are common to the members of a given social group, they are transmitted from one generation to another within it; they impress themselves upon its individual members and awaken in them sentiments of respect, fear, adoration, and so on, according to the circumstances of the case.  This is not because they imply a collective entity apart from the individuals composing the social group, but because they present themselves in aspects which cannot be accounted for by considering individuals merely as such.

These representations are collective in a sense somewhat different from the usual application of the term.  They may be the ideas of one individual, but they include both the effect and the mystic force, call it what you will, mana, wa-kon-da, emanating from it.  In other words,

The primitive makes no distinction between this world and the other, between what is actually present and what is beyond.  He actually dwells with the invisible spirits and intangible forces.

It is necessary in dealing with mentalities of primitive peoples to formulate an entirely new code of judgment — they cannot be measured by the standards commonly used.  With these ideas in hand it is not difficult to understand that pre-logical not only means before logic, but without logic.  The effect is attributed to a mystic force without any effort.

At the very moment when he perceives what is presented to his senses, the primitive represents to himself the mystic force which is manifesting itself thus.  He does not "infer" the one from the other, any more than we "infer" the meaning of a word from its sound in our ears.  According to Berkeley's shrewd observation, we really do understand the meaning at the time we hear the word, just as we read sympathy or anger in a person's face without first needing to see the signs of such emotions in order to interpret them. It is not a process accomplished in two succeeding moments; it takes place all at once.  In this sense, then, pre-connections amount to intuitions.

There is, then, according to at least one scholar, a pre-conceived connection between the effect and the mystic force which, to the primitive, is responsible for it.  In this respect, primitive mentality differs only in one major respect from our own.  Modern civilized mentalities, assisted as they are by logical processes and secondary causes, eventually reach a point in reasoning where things can no longer be attributed to natural causes and the supernatural comes into play.  The essential difference, then, is only in the insertion of a chain of secondary causes.  An illustration of this point may be cited from experience in New Guinea:

Natives never believe in being sick from anything but spiritual causes, and think that death, unless by murder, can take place from nothing but the wrath of the sprits.  Where there is sickness in a family, all the relatives begin to wonder what it means.  The sick person getting no better, they conclude something must be done.  A present is given; perhaps food is taken and placed on the sacred place, then removed and divided amongst friends.  The invalid still being no better, a pig is taken to the sacred place and there speared and presented to the spirits.

This illustration while stating that the illness is attributed to spiritual or mystic forces does not attempt to trace the reasoning of the native.  In the light of what has gone before we would be safe in assuming that the mystic relation becomes immediately apparent.  What is the general practice in civilized communities?  A doctor would be called in, certainly, but that has nothing to do with the reasoning processes.  It merely shows that moderns look for someone to do their reasoning for them; someone who is specially equipped to locate natural causes.  What is this reasoning process and to what end does it lead if carried to its natural conclusion?  First, perhaps, some organ is out of order, that is the immediate cause of the illness, and civilized reasoning rarely goes beyond that stage.  But what caused this organic disorder?  Something the patient had eaten, possibly.  So through various stages: What caused this substance to disagree with the patient?  Poison; what put the poison in the food?  A normal plant function, perhaps.  What caused the plant to behave in this manner?  Environment, maybe.  And what caused the environment?  The chain might be carried on indefinitely, but regardless of that, a point is finally reached when there seems to be no natural cause, and the question can be answered only by attributing the last stage to some super-natural power.  Generally, moderns call this power God.  Thus the same point is reached by a long and circuitous path at which the primitive arrived in one direct and immediate thought process.  The essential variation between modern mentalities and primitive ones is, then, to be found in the utter lack of logic among savages, the omission of secondary causes in their mental functions.

THE idea of conciliation, of influencing the gods to do your will, finds expression in many ways.  The war ceremonies, the initiation rites, the fertility practices connected with the securing of abundant crops and plentiful food are all magical in intent.  Frazer points out many of them and offers voluminous proof of their magical nature, but more to the point, so far as the present discussion is concerned, they are all mimetic as well as magical.  Drama is present in all of them.  But most essential is the fact that they are ritualistic in practice.  They are not only pre-done, but re-done.  The pre-enactment of a particular journey, hunt, or battle has become the re-enactment of a general ceremony typifying journeying, hunting, or fighting, just as the re-enaction of a past event became generalized as heretofore pointed out.  They become religious and ritualistic.  A characteristic of primitive religions is secrecy — they are all mystery religions.  In many cases, particularly those ceremonies connected with puberty rites, only the initiated take part.  In others, it is only a particular group who are allowed to perform the rites — the members of a totem clan, for instance, in the case of food ceremonies.  These particular groups are generally endowed with some particular mystic power which specially fits them for the performance of such ceremonies.  The rites are, in most instances, known only to those who perform them, or, if they are performed in public, the performers are the only ones cognizant of the real reason for their enactment.  As the necessity for every man to be initiated was abolished, ceremonies which were originally the property of a given social group may have come to belong only to a small circle of that group, but this certainly is not the same as a public ceremony becoming private in the sense that Bro. Race infers.

That is possibly aside from the question, but contributes materially to the analogies to be drawn between the Masonic Legend and more primitive ritual myths.  It is proof in itself that stories of this sort are not first public and then private, but that they develop in private (within a social group) and continue to be secret until some particular circumstance makes them public.

In Greek mystery religions the following ritual features are to be found:

"1.  An Agon or contest, the year against its enemy, Light against Darkness, Summer against winter.

"2.  A Pathos of the Year-Daimon, generally a ritual or sacrificial death, in which Adonis, or Attis is slain by the tabu animal, the Pharmakos stoned, Osiris, Dionysus, Pentheus, Orpheus, Hippolytus torn to pieces.

"3.  A Messenger.  For this Pathos seems seldom or never to be actually performed under the eyes of the audience.  (The reason of this is not hard to suggest.)  It is announced by a Messenger.  'The news comes' that Pan the Great, Thammuz, Adonis, Osiris is dead, and the dead body is often brought in on a bier.  This leads to

"4.  A Threnos or Lamentation.  Specially characteristic however, is a clash of contrary emotions, the death of the old being also the triumph of the new.

"5 and 6. An Anagnorisis — discovery or recognition — of the slain and mutilated Daimon, followed by his Resurrection or Apotheosis or, in some sense, his Epiphany in glory.  This, I shall call by the general name Theophany.  It naturally goes with a Peripeteia or extreme change of feeling from grief to joy."

That the ritual forms preserved in Greek tragedy are elemental and basic is a conclusion which finds no foundation in fact.  Evidence indicates that for the most part they are developments of a period later than the most primitive drama with which we have been dealing.  It is, nevertheless, essential that we have some place to begin and the nomenclature applied by Professor Murray to Greek rituals will be of much value in analyzing more primitive ceremonies and will assist immeasurably in tracing survivals to a much later period.  One of these forms is, generally speaking, conspicuous by its absence.  It seems to have been confined, in a large measure, to the Greek drama.  The Messenger is, in all probability, an outgrowth of the Greek dislike for representing death scenes upon the stage or before the eyes of an audience, or it may have developed from some person (official) like the 'dadoukos' of Eleusis, who proclaimed the intent of what is being done.  Hence this element as the bringer of bad tidings is to be found only in rare instances in primitive ceremonies and still more rarely in later survivals.  The personage of the Messenger is conspicuous in the Masonic Legend, but in a different sense from the Greek usage.  In this particular, then, little or no assistance can be found in surviving ceremony.  The others, however, are found in many instances and represent both development and survival.