Calls For Speculation: Conflicting Views on The Origins Of Freemasonry
by Olivia Curcio (2023) - Amicus Illuminismi 10,(1)
"The Entered Apprentice knows but little more of Masonry than the use of signs and tokens, and certain steps and words, by which Masons can recognize each other, without being discovered by a person who is not a mason. The Fellow-Craft is not much better instructed in Masonry than the Entered Apprentice. It is only in the Master-Mason’s Lodge that whatever knowledge remains of the origin of Masonry is preserved and concealed."
—Thomas Paine, “An Essay on the Origins of Freemasonry”
For a man who was—by all accounts—not a Freemason, Founding Father and Enlightenment writer Thomas Paine (1737–1809) had many heartily formed opinions on Masonry, such as the lines quoted above. In addition to his famous works The Rights of Man, Age of Reason, and Common Sense, he also wrote a “An Essay on the Origins of Freemasonry” (1803–1805), stating of the Freemasons that “their real secret is no other than their origin.”1 Paine’s singular foray into and interest in the history of the Fraternity possibly comes with influence from his contemporaries like Brothers Washington, Lafayette, and Monroe. Speculation as to the beginnings of this Organization has been swirling since its inception, possibly not even being clear to the Founders themselves. From the most pragmatic of approaches to notions of Divine intervention, Masonic writers and scholars have been playing the origins “guessing game” for centuries.
Thomas Paine, oil on canvas, by
Auguste Millière
Fred Pick and Gordon Knight, who wrote The Pocket History of Freemasonry, argue in that work that there are five different bodies of origin from which modern Masonry might have originated. While the most widely accepted view is that Masonry came out of the practices of medieval stone workers, the fraternal body is also widely influenced by legends and stories of the past. The other lesser-known theories link the Craft to Druidic traditions and “ancient mysteries.”2
“Masonry” is used to describe both operative and speculative Masons. Coined as “Freemasons” as early as 1375, “Operative Masons” refer to those in the trade practice of building and working with stone; “free” refers to their status as independent workers, not tied to nor serving a lord. 3 Starting in the early 1600s, men were associating with Masonic lodges while not being Operative Masons themselves.4 This is thought to have been due to the influence and connections held in these lodges. It was in 1619 that men in other professions who wished to join took on the alternate name Speculative or Accepted Masons to distinguish them from the Freemasons.⁵ Out of these varied names given to members of this community comes the name that all modern Masons are familiar with, “Free and Accepted Masons.”
There are many aspects of Operative Masonry that have had a direct and lasting impact on Speculative Masonry, for Operative Masons met in lodges, performed rituals, were governed by statutes and constitutions, and had “secret signs” to prove their membership to others. Practices in operative Masonic lodges have several distinct similarities to the current practices of Speculative Freemasonry. As early as the late 1300s with the Regius Poem, fully trained members were referred to as “Master Masons,” and later on the term “Entered Apprentice” was being used for new members who had not yet completed their training yet.⁶
As early as the 1650s, rituals existed in Speculative Masonic lodges, but since its inception, Operative Masonry had rituals to welcome new members to the Lodges.⁷ These rituals often stressed the antiquities and mysticism of the Craft and related it to the religious and moral concepts that Speculative Masonry now stresses.. ⁸ Speculative Masons use modes of recognition in order to identify themselves to other Masons. This practice, yet again, stems from Operative Masonic practices wherein Masons would need to prove their status to other Masons when traveling in search of work.⁹ These “secret signs,” as they were called at the time, not only proved a Mason’s membership but also his status as an Apprentice or a Master Mason.10
Similar to the current governing documents of all Masonic appendant bodies, Operative Masonry had a clearly laid out list of rules that Masons were expected to follow. Dated around 1390, the Regius Poem is considered to be one of the oldest Masonic documents to exist.11 It lists thirty rules for the proper conduct of Masons in the workplace and in their per-sonal lives. This document was almost certainly the basis for the earliest Speculative Masonic statutes written by William Schaw in approximately 1598.12 Similar to the Regius Poem, these statutes described a system of on which Speculative Masonry is based morality that on which Speculative Masonry is based, rather than workplace conduct. The Schaw Statutes were also used heavily to influence James Anderson’s later Constitutions of the Freemasons.13 All of this evidence makes it easy, if not too easy, to conclude that speculative Masonry comes alone from the practical need for skilled stone workers. While the most simple and obvious answer is often the correct one, it would be remiss not to consider the possibility of older and murkier origins.
It also has been said, not least of all in Masonic ritual, that the roots of Freemasonry extend to biblical times and, in a sense, are as old as architecture itself.14 In the view of George Oliver, a nineteenth-century writer on Freemasonry, God passed down the gifts of the Craft to Adam in the Garden of Eden, making the Supreme Architect of the Universe the Founder of Freemasonry.15 “Placed in the garden of Eden,” Oliver writes, “Adam was made acquainted with…that science which is now termed Masonry.”16 While Adam, in this view, may have been endowed with the knowledge of Masonry, it is said that not until Hiram did the practice of Freemasonry truly begin with the construction of Solomon’s Temple. Hiram Abiff, according to Masonic lore, was the architect behind the temple, and the first Mason according to some.17 The story of Hiram was an important one in Operative Masonry long before it was introduced in a more metaphorical sense into Speculative Masonry.
Does Freemasonry have a Druidic origin, as Enlightenment writer Thomas Paine maintained? Noël Hallé (1711-1781), A Druids’ Ceremony (oil on canvas). Source: Wikimedia Commons
Returning to the essay of Thomas Paine, he speculated that Freemasonry, at least in the fraternal sense, came from Druidic tradition.18 Druids, or high-ranking members of ancient Celtic civilizations, were often priests in charge of the highly ritualistic religion. They worshiped the natural world and gods of nature, and many of their rituals involved spending long periods of time outdoors in solitude in order to be admitted into the priesthood.19 Paine uses in particular the Druid’s worship of the sun to argue that Freemasonry is directly descended from these practices. The day the United Grand Lodge of England was founded, June 24, 1717, is the feast day of Saint John, who is said to be, along with St. John the Evangelist, the patron saint of Masonry, but it is also closely aligned with the Summer Solstice 20, an extremely important day in the Druidic belief system.21 He then uses the Druid’s sun worshiping practices to compare them to the ancient Egyptians, who also worshiped the sun, and the connection to the ancient Egyptians in turn explains the story of Hiram Abiff and the construction on Solomon’s Temple that is used in Blue Lodge degrees.22 While all of this is exceptionally well thought out, we should treat this view with caution, for, among other reasons, Thomas Paine was not a Mason himself. Albert Mackey writes in The History of Freemasonry that Freemasonry and Druidism virtually have no relationship to each other.23
Given the loyalty of Masons to the Craft and the diligence of Masonic writers, it is curious that there are so many conflicting thoughts and opinions on the origin of Freemasonry. History is only as true as the evidence we have to prove it, and while many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Masonic scholars addressed the topic of Freemasonry’s origins with seriousness and the best information available at the time, they were not immune from error. For a not-so-secret society, the complicated history of Masonic beginnings remains today largely shrouded in mystery, as Thom-as Paine observed as far back as the early nineteenth century.
What do you think our origin story is?
What are some of the tales you have heard spoken by ‘wise old past masters’?
Endnotes
Thomas Paine, On the Origin of Free Masonry London: R. Carlile, 1818. p. 3
F. L., Pick, G. N., Knight, and F. Smyth, The Pocket History of Freemasonry. Trowbridge: Redwood Press Ltd., 1977. [Reprint] p. 16-21
Gilbert W Daynes. 1926. The Birth and Growth of the Grand Lodge of England 1717-1926. London: The Masonic Record, Ltd. p. 5.
Pick, Knight, and Smith, pp. 49-50
Daynes, p. 2
Pick, Knight, and Smith, pp. 26
David Stevenson. The Origins of Freemasonry. London: Cambridge University Press, 2014. p. 5
Ibid, p. 5
Pick, Knight, and Smith, p. 25
Ibid, p. 23
The Regius Poem. Masonic Book Club, 1970
Pick, Knight, and Smith, p. 194
Ibid, p. 195
Oliver, G. The Antiquities of Freemasonry. New York: Macoy. p. 18
Ibid, p. 25 16.
Ibid, p. 25-26
Ibid, p. 14
Paine, p. 5
Ibid, p. 5
Paine writes that, at the time, the Summer Solstice (also called Mid- summer) was on the June 24. While this may have been true at the time, today, the solstice usually occurs on June 21.
Paine, p. 11
Ibid, 12
Mackey, Albert G. and Wm. R. Singleton, History of Freema- sonry, New York and London: The Masonic History Company, 1898/1906, Vol. 1. 2051898/1906, Vol. 1. 205
