Special thanks to George Helmer FPS

MASONIC TRADITION AND THE ROYAL ARCH

Part 1 of 2

E. A. WAITE

THE old distinction between Blue and Red has almost fallen
into desuetude, so far as  normal parlance is concerned,
among members  of the Craft in England; but we know that a
memorial remains among us in the colour-symbolism found
in the ROYAL ARCH. The Blue also connotes Symbolical
Masonry, and this is a valid qualification, because the Third
Degree opens a door into  a great figurative Mystery as into
the blue distance. It is not of our concern now or we might
dwell for a moment on the significant fact that in Irish Craft
workings the Candidate is told invariably that even the
official and conventional penalties of the Three Degrees are
to be regarded as a part  integral of the symbolism which
rules in all. The  ROYAL ARCH, or Red Masonry, has
passed by its hypothesis out the symbolical domain: on the
surface, at least, it is dealing no longer with allegory, but with
an actual historical event. According to that version of the
Holy Order which is at work in England and Wales, under the
obedience  of the Supreme Grand Chapter, it belongs - as
we  are all well aware - to the time of Zerubbabel and the
building of the Second Temple. With  certain variations,
which are not essential in character, it is the same, I believe,
in Scotland and the United States. In Ireland the historical
time of the Grade is much later, being that of Josiah the
King, but of this I am unable to speak except by report, as
there are no Rituals available. There is a sense, however, in
which all differences draw to the same end, for all are
concerned with the central fact of a Secret Tradition,
perpetuated by its hypothesis from an immemorial past,
derived originally from sources behind Masonry and carried
from Degrees leading up to the ROYAL ARCH, through the
Holy Order itself and thence into Christian and some other
High Grades.

It is a remarkable fact that on the surface of the Craft
Degrees there is practically no intimation of this traditional
inheritance. The presumable explanation is that those who
constructed the Legend of the Third Degree, following any
vestiges which may have come into hands of the 18th
Century from the part of York or Scotland, had a mind to
follow - a little roughly and crudely the lines of the Ancient
Mysteries concerning figurative death and resurrection. A
signal confusion followed, for they slew the prototypical
Master, whereas they raised the Candidate, creating a
complete fissure in the logic of symbolism. So it has
remained among us, but something like sixty years after the
approximate date of construction, the Loge de la
Bienfaisance at Lyons, which transmuted the RITE OF THE
STRICT OBSERVANCE, intervened to save the situation, so
far as French Masonry was concerned, and in the Grade of
PERFECT MASTER of St. Andrew they raised Hiram as
Christ. If we pursue the subject of confusion from another
point of departure, we know that - by the hypothesis of the
Third Degree -  the Temple of Solomon was left unfinished,
like the legend itself, from which consideration of simple fact
it follows that any completion of the Third Degree should
take up the Hiramic myth at the point where its story broke
off, and lead it to an end in symbolism.

Now we are familiar, and more than familiar, with the
affirmation concerning the ROYAL ARCH, which is (1) that it
is not to be regarded as in any sense a further Degree
superposed upon the Craft, but (2) rather as a completion of
the whole. So far, however, from concluding the Hiramic
myth it leaves unbridged in Ritual a gap of several centuries,
understood as historical time, and jumps to an examination
of certain legendary events connected with preliminaries to
the building of the Second Temple in the days of
Zerubbabel. It follows that the Third Degree - historically
speaking - is a story without an end, like Canova's German
romance, while the ROYAL ARCH is a prolegomenon to
another story, which story is not to be found in Masonry.

The sense in which the one is supplementary to the other is
a matter of the Secret Tradition, a formula of loss and
recovery, according to which the Holy Order seeks to elevate
the Craft out of a region of untinctured symbolism to the
threshold of Divine Science. It could have been done in a
logical manner, preserving all the unities, and it so happens
that the necessary elements were ready to the hands of the
symbolists, if we can suppose as I think, is possible - that
certain so-called side grades, or steps, were already existing
in some primitive form. In this case the ROYAL ARCH has
been lifted out of a sequence to which it belongs essentially,
and apart from which its real message is divided and
confused, if it must not be called lost. My purpose is to
collect the links of the broken chain and then join them up.

If the question be why does the Craft Candidate pass
through a figurative experience which connotes the idea of
death, and then through a shadow of resurrection, the
answer is that the god died and rose in the Ancient
Mysteries, as in the great proto typical example which is that
of Osiris. He was of the Divine Pantheon, and he returned
thereto, as to former companions at once of toil and
attainment. So also Iacchos was torn to pieces, but again he
was restored to life; Tammuz died and rose; the dead Adonis
was given back to the arms of Venus, even as Persephone
to Demeter. If it be asked, on the other hand, why in the
ROYAL ARCH there is a quest followed ad interiora terra
and a discovery consequent thereon, the answer is that this
is precisely the thesis concerning the preservation of a
Secret Tradition, which descended from Adam, of which
Enoch was a notable custodian, which came down to the
time of Solomon and is carried thereafter through several
eloquent memorials of Masonic Rite. It was not invented by
Masonry, and if I speak here only of the mythos in Israel it is
not peculiar thereto, though it appears under other aspects
in other regions of traditional lore. Before linking up briefly
the chain of Ritual, it is necessary to make a proviso with
respect to the sources.

They are texts of what I am accustomed to call the Greater
Exile of Israel, being that of the Christian centuries, and they
are three in number: (1) The TALMUD BABLI; (2) The
TALMUD HIEROSOLYMAE, and (3) The SEPHER HA
ZOHAR. The last is the latest of all in respect of time, its final
reduction being referred by scholarship to the 13th Century,
though it contains old elements. It is the great text of the
Secret Tradition in Israel, and this - according to the ZOHAR
- began with Adam, for Latin theology and that which is
termed Kabalism meet unawares, and seem to clasp hands
over things appertaining to the hypothetical state of unfallen
man in Paradise. It was in a state of supernal know ledge, of
the science which - by the theosophical hypothesis - has its
root in the Tree of Life, in the unity of Divine things, not in the
duality and sophistication which is referable to the Tree of
Knowledge. It is said that when the Holy One, blessed be
He, created Adam, He exhorted him to advance in the path
of goodness and revealed to him the Mystery of Wisdom.
Adam contemplated, indeed, all wisdom and all highest
mysteries. He was "encompassed by the glory from on high,"
and was intended in the scheme of divine things to be united
for ever with God, in Whose Image he had been made. But
from the path of the Good and the One - all this
notwithstanding - Adam fell into ways of separation and
abandoned the Tree of Life, meaning the supreme
theosophy of the inward Secret Doctrine. The penalty of this
separation is described under the term death in the text of
Genesis.

By the hypothesis of the ZOHAR, the Secret Doctrine, the
Supreme Wisdom, in a word, that Hidden Treasure which
was transmitted in perpetuity thereafter as a tradition through
the ages, was communicated to the First Man by means of a
book, which came down from heaven in the hands of the
angel Raziel, and was delivered to Adam, the messenger in
question being denominated Chief of Supreme Mysteries. It
remained in the possession of Adam till he was driven out of
the Garden, when it was ravished out of his hands. But as it
is obvious that there could have been no Secret Tradition -
such as was conceived by the mind of Israel - unless its
depository were restored, so we hear in due course that in
answer to his tears and entreaties it was given back in the
end to our progenitor by the angel Raphael. Adam
transmitted it to Seth, from whom it passed to Enoch, who,
after he was taken by God became the great angel Metatron,
the Angel of the Presence and Chief of the Celestial School.
It is said that the School of Metatron is the School of the
Holy One, and that in his hands are the Keys of Heaven. It
came about for these reasons that the Secret Book is called
the BOOK OF ENOCH, though it passed down ultimately to
Abraham. Thereafter the ZOHAR is silent regarding its
travels and whereabouts, but the Secret Tradition of which it
is the source was communicated to the elders by Moses and
thence, in the myth concerning it, through succeeding
generations to the doctors of the Zoharic school, the chief
repository at the time of the fall of Jerusalem being Rabbi
Simeon ben Yochai.

 From Zoharic Kabalism the tradition descended to the follies
and iniquities of Jewish Ceremonial Magic, and so it comes
about that in these dregs and lees there is a BOOK OF
RAZIEL, which is a book of Divine Names and Conjurations
based thereon. It is a favourable specimen of its class, in
comparison with Keys of Solomon, texts of Goetia, Sworn
Books of Honorius and things under the generic title of
Grimoires; but it presents a corrupted form of the tradition
concerning Enoch. Antecedent to the ZOHAR, as I have
intimated, are certain Talmudic fables, which exceed the
scope of this notice. Antecedent to both are Josephus and a
comparatively ancient apocrypha of the apocalyptic class
under the name of the BOOK OF ENOCH. To Josephus we
owe the well-known myth concerning the Pillars of Stone and
Brick, on which Enoch inscribed the Mysteries of Knowledge
belonging to the age before the Flood: there are many
variations of the legend, which concerns broadly the
perpetuation of the Secret Tradition. It is not otherwise to our
purpose. But the BOOK OF ENOCH, which is a series of
visions beheld by the prophet when he was in the spirit, like
the seer of Patmos, is a prototype of Masonic tradition and
that especially which is reflected into the ROYAL ARCH. It is
said that GOD shewed Enoch nine vaults in a vision, and
that with the assistance of Methuselah his son, he
proceeded to erect in the bosom of the mountain of Canaan
a secret sanctuary, on the plan of what he had beheld, being
vaults beneath one another.

In the ninth, or undermost vault, Enoch placed a triangle of
purest gold, on which he had inscribed that which was
presumably the heart, essence and centre of the Secret
Tradition, the True Name of God, comprehending all grace,
all power and the providence of Divine Mercy. It is the
development of this legend which can be followed through
several Grades and various Rites of Masonry, the root of all
therein being referable to the Traditional History in the Third
Craft Degree. We know that which it was attempted to wrest
by violence from the keeping of the Master Builder: we know
what he died to preserve inviolable, and though in reality it
did not perish with him - because there were other Keepers -
we know that Masonry suffered a loss through the centuries,
and is represented as in the quest of its discovery in the
Opening and Closing of the Lodge in the Master Grade. We
know in fine what substitutes were accepted as distinctive
tests, to prevail everywhere, until in some manner as yet
unknown the term of quest should be reached and the pearl
of great price restored. When Moses, Aholiab and Bezaleel
sat in the Holy Lodge, at the foot of Mount Horeb, during the
long wanderings of Israel in the desert of Sinai, by the great
hypothesis of the tradition, they were in plenary possession
of all the Masonic treasures. When Solomon and others of
the triad, who ruled the Sacred Lodge, sat on Mount Moriah,
it was still as if the sun were at its meridian, a noon-tide glory
of Masonry. But a change came over, by which the triad was
broken and the light of the Art was obscured. It seems to me
that in the deeper understanding our Craft Lodges are a
memorial of this original loss: it is a logical inference from all
that we are told in the story and from that which we claim to
seek; for it is with us as it was with those Brethren of old,
who, after the passing of the Master-Builder, agreed - till
they could do better - to be content with things casual,
though they desired things essential, and with accidents in
place of the noumenal. It is as if, having heard and followed
a great call, and been long on the quest of God, it came
about that - for want of a term - we had to rest satisfied with
His image, or with unconsecrated Bread and Wine in place
of the Higher Eucharist and the Holy Grail.
Freemasonry is founded on the immutable laws of Truth and
Justice and its grand object is to promote the happiness of
the human race.  WASHINGTON.

George Helmer FPS
PM Norwood #90 GRA
PZ Norwood #18 RAM
MBBFMN #362

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