THE SECRETS OF FREEMASON Part Two

THE ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE MIDDLE AGES
of studies specific to the art or science that it professed. In addition, for
each novitiate degree, students were subjected to trials of initiation the
purpose of which was to ensure them a vocation and which added to
the mysteries whose teaching was hidden from the public. It must be
assumed that architecture, like all other sciences, was taught in secret.
Louis Hautcoeur writes:
The first architects known in Egypt, in Asia Minor, performed
sacred duties independent from their role as builders . . . Imhotep,
who built the first large stone complex in Saqqarah, was counselor
to the pharaoh Sozer (circa 3800 B.C.), but was also priest of the
god Amun. Sennemut, architect of Queen Hatseput, was the head
of the prophets of Monthu in Armant and controller of the gardens
and domains of Amun. Dherti was the director of buildings and a
high priest. In the Louvre there are seated statues of Goudea, who
was both a patesi, meaning a governor representing the gods, and
an architect. . . . The architects seem to have been inspired by the
gods they served.3
The Books of I Kings (5:13 ff and 7:13, 14) and II Chronicles (2:14
and 4:11) inform us that in Judea during the construction of the Temple
of Jerusalem, under the direction of master builder Hiram of Tyre and
Adoniram, Solomon had 70,000 men to carry loads and 80,000 to
carve the stones from the mountains, not to mention those who had
managed each job, who numbered about 3,300 and gave orders to the
workers. Though we have no actual historical information on the sub￾ject, this story reveals that among the artisans busy on the construction
of the temple there was a professional hierarchy and an organization, if
not a corporation.
In Greece, professional organizations were known as hetarias. One
of the laws of Solon (593 B.C.), the text of which was preserved for us
by Gaius in his De Collegiis et corporibus (Digest), allowed the various
colleges or hetarias of Athens to make rules for themselves freely, pro￾vided none of these rules went against the laws of the state.
Although the sacred nature of the builders appears to have become
somewhat blurred among the Greeks, it survived all the same, not

The Ancient Corporations: Colleges of Builders in Rome 7
in the legends concerning architect kings such as Dadaelus, Trophonius,
and Agamedes. A typical example is that of the priests of Dionysius or
Bacchus. They were the first to erect theaters in Greece and to institute
dramatic representations principally linked to worship of the god. The
architects responsible for the construction of these buildings maintained
a priesthood through initiation; they were called Dionysian workers or
Dionysiasts. We know through Strabo and Aulu-Gelle that the
Dionysiasts' organization in Teos was assigned to them as a residence
by the kings of Pergama around 300 B.C. They had a specific initiation
as well as words and signs by which they recognized one another and
were divided into separate communities called synods, colleges, or soci￾eties. Each of these communities was under the direction of a teacher
and chairmen or supervisors who were elected annually. In their secret
ceremonies the Dionysians made symbolic use of the tools of their
trade. At certain times they threw banquets during which the most
skilled workers were awarded prizes. The richer members gave help and
assistance to the indigent and the sick. In Greece the Dionysians were
organized in the same way, and Solon's legislation gave them some spe￾cial privileges.4
It is important to note that banquets have held a religious and
sacred significance from the time of greatest antiquity. Even the members
of primitive clans gathered together to eat the sacred animal. "They
communed," Durkheim wrote, "with the sacred principle that dwelled
within it and they assimilated it. . . The purpose of sacrificial banquets
was to bring about communion of the believer and his god in one flesh
in order to knit between them a bond of kinship." Thus we may say
that dietary communion was one of the earliest forms of religion.5
The Roman Collegia
It is supremely important to establish the connection between operative
freemasonry and the collegia artificum et fabrorum of Rome, for the
collegia exerted a major influence over trade brotherhoods of the
Middle Ages, which more or less directly descended from them.
According to Plutarch, colleges of artisans were founded in Rome
by King Numa Pompilius around 715 B.C. Plutarch cites nine colleges,

THE SECRETS OF FREEMASON

THE SECRETS OF FREEMASON

BY SIXBERTY LUIZ MANSON

INTRODUCTION

"We must become aware of the knowledge of self and the time in which we are living. You must know these things whether you agree that Sixberty Manson  is on time or out of time. If what I say is out of season, it goes for nothing. If I am on time or in season, then all I say will bear fruit."

Behold the days come, oracle of the Eternal. . . I will set
my law within them and write it on their hearts . . .
Behold the days come that city shall be built.
JEREMIAH 31:33-38

To find the origins of Freemasonry, it is important first to iso- late its original characteristics, which can be found in the institutions from which it appears to have emerged:

1. It was a professional builders—or, more precisely, construc- tion—organization; the long-ago vocation of mason does not correspond directly to the modern specialization, but included an extensive knowledge of architecture. The organization was represented hierarchically.
2. The organization extended beyond a strictly professional frame- work. Its members considered themselves brothers and provided mutual assistance.
3. The association, in both its operations and assistance, followed traditional rites. Members were accepted into it through an ini- tiation and the brothers were united by sacred practices that were illustrative of an asceticism, an indispensable condition for the realization of the work.
4. The association accepted members who were not practitioners of the trade.

5. The association displayed and highlighted its character of universalism.


Purchase this book to continue reading ( +255 714 823 432)
Email; sixbertyluiz@gmail.com

Let’s continue 

This study of Freemasonry looks at both its specific history and the influences and events that have left their imprint over time on its for- mation and evolution. As such, it includes an examination of various spheres—social, juridical, religious, and philosophical—that have con- ditioned these events.
From a chronological perspective, the most certain sources of Freemasonry have emerged as the following:
1. The Roman collegia, the remnants of which remained in the West following invasions and survived in the East as institutions discovered by the Crusaders at the end of the eleventh century.
2. The ecclesiastical associations of builders formed by the bishops of the early Middle Ages, especially the Benedictines, the Cistercians, and the Templars.
3. Trade-based freemasonry, which was born under the aegis of these associations and followed the form of lay brotherhoods or guilds.
The history of Freemasonry and its origins will form the first part of this book. In the second part, we will study the evolution of the pro- fessional organization; its purposes, both operational and speculative; its initiatory and spiritualist nature; its gradual transformation from an organization of those who worked in the art of building to those who engaged in a stricto sensu art of thinking and living; and the creation of modern Freemasonry under the influences of and in circumstances con- nected to British history.

The greatest common denominator that we can distinguish across the centuries, truly the millennia, is the coexistence and interdepend- ence of masonic objectives and a sense of the sacred. In fact, it is the sacred that is the effective and ultimate cause of these objectives, how- ever different from one another they may appear in the various stages of their evolution. This is an exemplary illustration of an important truth: Faith lives only through works and works are worth only the faith that moves them.

PART 1 (Sehemu ya kwanza)

The Origins of Freemasonry from

Ancient Times to

the Middle Ages

The  Corporations: Colleges of Builders in Rome

The Religious Character of the Ancient Corporations
The corporative organization of labor goes back to distant antiquity, and associations of builders are among the most ancient. When humans abandoned the nomadic lifestyle, they formed builders associations to erect durable shelters, protective ramparts, and temples in which to worship their gods. Architecture became an art—a difficult one demanding unique empirical knowledge prior to the development of the exact sciences. In some ways builders created the first aristocracy of jealous exclusivity whose services were indispensable to the gradu- ally forming states. The association proved necessary because isolated individuals were incapable of erecting large structures by themselves and because this work required extensive general, technical, and artis- tic knowledge. Here it is necessary to make an important, preliminary observation if we truly wish to understand the history of labor and trades: First and foremost, this association always had a religious basis. For the people of antiquity, every action of life was commingled with religion. Humans considered themselves the playthings of higher pow- ers without whose help it was impossible to succeed at anything. Work was notably invested with a sacred nature. Oswald Wirth, in Les Mysteres de l'Art Royal, translated this religious sentiment with great skill:
The Ancient Corporations: Colleges of Builders in Rome 5
The hunter sacrificed to the guardian spirit of the animal he sought to kill, just as prior to chopping down a tree, the carpenter won the approval of the hamadryad. The quarryman, in turn, would have felt he had committed a sacrilege if he began cutting into rock without beforehand obtaining the consent of Mother Earth, whom he was mutilating. This is not the entire story, because avoidance of inspiring the hatred of a deity corresponds only to the negative side of worship by the professions. For his labor to be successful, the worker additionally had to ensure the positive support of the gods who dispensed the talents required. A pact was therefore nec- essary: By devoting himself body and soul to the service of the deity of the particular profession, the artisan would bilaterally contract sacred obligations, because by fervently striving to do his best in the domain of art, he compelled the god of his trade to come to his aid ... So a union was therefore effected between the humble mortal and the god who worked through him, using him as an intermediary, therefore deifying the human through work . . . Each trade exalted its tutelary deity . . . Rich in imagination, the ancients were able to poeticize the actions of daily life and give
their professional occupations a celestial aura. Thus were born the
1
mysteries of the different trades.
The cult of the ancient builders must have been of a distinct scope, for the noblest object of their labor was the construction of temples in which the gods were worshipped. In addition, human dwellings had religious significance. Rituals were an indispensable part of their con- struction. Among the Romans the home was the temple of the lares gods. This was true for all ancient peoples and still survives in the tra- ditional societies of the East. "The dwelling was not an object, a 'machine to inhabit': It was the Universe that man built in imitation of
2
God's exemplary creation, the cosmogony." The home was not merely
a geometrical space; it was an existential and sacred place.
When trade associations were indispensable, as was the case with those of the builders in ancient times, they were of a sacerdotal nature. Among the Egyptians, the priest embodied a special branch of human knowledge. Each grade put its students through a predetermined series