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,