The next Stated Convocation of Washington Chapter No. 2, Royal Arch Masons, will be held at the Masonic Hall at 4911 Montrose Boulevard at 7:00 PM on Monday, July 16, 2025. Members of the Chapter are encouraged to attend. All Royal Arch Masons are welcome.
Proper attire is recommended.
Houston York Rite Masonry would like to wish all Brothers and Companions a safe and happy day.
By ALEX HORNE, F. P. S.
1897 - 1988
The first printed
reference to a Royal Arch Degree comes in connection with a little work by Dr.
Fifield Dassigny (Dublin, 1744) as part of a general discussion of Masonic
conditions in Ireland and elsewhere.
Here Dassigny makes mention of a certain “Brother of probity and wisdom,
who had some space before attained that excellent part of Masonry in London,”
but gives no further details as to what this “excellent part of Masonry”
consisted of. But he did say that he had
been informed that some Royal Arch Masons did assemble in York in 1744, and
were “excellent Masons,” comprising “an organized body of men who have passed
the Chair and given undeniable proofs of their skill.” Bernard E. Jones, in his excellent and definitive
Freemasons’ Book of the Royal Arch (London, 1957) – a companion volume
to his equally authoritative Freemasons’ Guide and Compendium (London,
1950) – says that “there is a general consensus of opinion that his
(Dassigny’s) statement is sound evidence of an early R. A. Degree in working order,
even at a date a few years earlier than 1744;” and in Scotland as well where a
Lodge Minute from Sterling is found, date July 30, 1743, citing two petitioners
who, “having found qualified, they were admitted Royal Arch Masons of this
Lodge.”
Now, as to the
essence of the Royal Arch, in the early formative years, we get some tentative
suggestions in the way of words, phrases, ideas, that crop up here and there in
our printed literature, such as the Early Masonic Catechisms of the 18th
century, and in newspaper accounts, and other sources, and which are later
found to have become incorporated into Royal Arch work. A characteristic example is The Whole
Institutions of Free-Masons Opened (Dublin, 1725), with its reference to
“the primitive Word” pointing to “God in six Terminations: to wit I am, and Jehovah is the answer to
it,” and citing as proof, the first verse of St. John. What is sometimes referred to as “Scots”
Masonry may have contributed to this type of tradition, this being a superior
kind of Masonry, it was believed, which R. F. Gould says “had as its motif the
discovery in a vault by Scottish Crusaders of the long-lost and Ineffable Word”
as cited by Jones, who offers two early sections of his work on the development
of the proto-material that gradually accumulated and finally crystallized into
what we have today as the Royal Arch Degree.
The next Stated Assembly of Houston Council No. 1, Royal and Select Masters, will be held at the Masonic Hall at 4911 Montrose Boulevard at 7:00 PM on Monday, June 9, 2025. In addition to the regular order of business, the election of officers for the 2025 - 2026 Cryptic year will be held. Members of the Council are encouraged to attend. All Select Masters are welcome.
Proper attire is recommended.
The next Stated Convocation of Washington Chapter No. 2, Royal Arch Masons, will be held at the Masonic Hall at 4911 Montrose Boulevard at 7:00 PM on Monday, May 12, 2025. In addition to the regular order of business, the election of officers for the 2025 - 2026 Capitular year will be held. Members of the Chapter are encouraged to attend. All Royal Arch Masons are welcome.
Proper attire is recommended.
