by
Edward M. Selby (PGHP Ohio)
1905
- 1976
Albert Pike was a great leader in
American Masonry and perhaps its greatest intellect. He was not, however, noted for charity to an
opponent. The Scottish Rite in both
Southern and Northern Jurisdictions got off to a slow start in the early years
of the 19th century. The
Southern Jurisdiction, which Pike headed (1859 – 1891), was torn asunder by the
Civil War and Pike himself was attainted as a former Confederate General. In addition, segments of the York Rite, which
were by then firmly entrenched, persisted in a policy of regarding Scottish
Rite Masons as a small body of Masonic elite, in which membership was
predicated on previous York Rite affiliation.
Born out of impatience with this situation, Pike displayed his temper
with this statement (Allocution 1876):
Our American
Masons generally have heretofore seemed to imagine that there is no Masonry
entitled to the name, in the world, outside the United States; and that there
is but one legitimate Rite of Masonry, the “York” Rite. There neither is nor ever was a York
Rite. The very name asserts a
falsehood. There never was any grand
lodge of York.
Ill-humored as this statement was it nonetheless contained an element of
truth, particularly if Pike is permitted to define a Masonic Rite as he once
did:
A Rite is an
aggregation and succession of any number of degrees given by one or more
bodies, but under the authority of a single supreme Government.
By this yardstick the York Rite does not exist, since its government
rests upon many state and provincial grand bodies. The Commandery alone has a national body with
sovereign powers. Pike’s definition,
however, ignores the fact that thousands of Masons holding membership in
chapters, councils, and commanderies have persisted over the years in
considering themselves members of a York Rite.
The York Rite has a de facto
if not a de jure reality. Further, Pike’s assertion that there never
was a Grand Lodge at York is a patent error.
Prior to 1717 there existed in York, from time immemorial, a lodge of
Masons which constituted itself as a grand lodge in 1725 and continued to
function until about 1790. During much
of its life it consisted of only one lodge, but in its later years it
constituted a number of others. It was
in this lodge, or grand lodge, that much happened that gave the York Rite its
name.
Before exploring this, it would be profitable to consider the meaning of
the name “York” in Masonry. York is a
venerable name in the history of the Craft.
All the ancient constitutions tell of an assembly held in the city of
York in the year 926 A.D., called by Prince Edwin, who was either a son or a
younger brother of King Athelstan. At
this assembly a charter was given to the craft of Masons together with rules
and regulations that were henceforth to govern their conduct. Those rules were carefully recorded and preserved
in a number of old Masonic constitutions, some of which go back as far as the
14th century. Modern grand
lodges subscribe to these constitutions and preserve their landmarks in
constitutions of their own and in codes of Masonic jurisprudence. The individual Mason of today, in essence,
takes obligations, the terms of which can be found in these old documents.
Whether the story of the York Assembly is true or false is beside the
point. What is pertinent is that Masons
for the greater part of six centuries accepted and believed it and the Masonic
structure, in the lodge and in many of the advanced degrees, has been built on
this York tradition. There is nothing
more clear than that. Lodge Masonry is
therefore definitely York in origin, descent, and character.
The origin of additional degrees is as obscure as the lodge degrees
themselves. The old theory that they can
only date subsequent to the founding of the Mother Grand Lodge is hardly
tenable. That grand lodge originally
embraced only a very small number of lodges located in and around London and
Westminster. Early in its operation it
encountered competition from another group of Masons who charged it with
modernizing the ancient structure of Freemasonry and omitting some of its most
important essentials. This second group
organized a second grand lodge which was dedicating to preserving the ancient
constitutions as they knew them.
According to Lawrence Dermott, the grand secretary of these “Ancients,”
one of the chief differences was the conferring of the Royal Arch Degree, which
the original “modern” grand lodge disallowed.
In support of the “Ancient” position, modern research in pre-grand lodge
Masonic documents suggests that esoteric elements now contained in the Royal
Arch Degree were known and employed by speculative Masons for several years
prior to 1717.
The rift between the two grand lodges lasted until the 19th
century, when two royal brothers of the House of Hanover agreed to accept the
office of grand master in each of these grand lodges. The purpose was to promote unification, which
by then most Masons ardently desired.
In a preliminary meeting the Royal Arch was acknowledged to be the Perfection of the Master’s Degree. A union was then consummated on December 27,
1813, which declared that –
Ancient Craft Masonry consists of
three Degrees and no more, including the Supreme Order of the Holy Royal Arch.
This has been interpreted by English Masons as meaning that the Royal
Arch is the complement of the Master Mason degree and is actually not an additional degree, as was formerly
charges, but a necessary part of the lodge’s tri-gradal system.
Important as was this admission by the Modern Grand Lodge, the Masons of
1813 had to deal with a reality in which the Royal Arch had, both in England
and America, been organized into chapters under the supervision of grand
chapters.
This fact was confirmed in 1817 when the present Grand Chapter of
England was constituted.
From all this we draw the conclusion that the Royal Arch, in its basic
principles, existed in pre-Grand Lodge Masonry.
Perhaps, as some are inclined to believe, it contained secrets
originally possessed only be a class of Masters, viz. those who actually directed the work of operative masons. Be that as it may, the Royal Arch has a
legitimated claim of being part of the York tradition on which the lodge
degrees are based. As to York itself,
the earliest evidence of the actual existence of the (Royal Arch) degree places
it in the City of York about 1740.
The Council Degrees are a special case.
They are better known and better received in the United States than
elsewhere. They seem to have existed at
one time as a sort of auxiliary to the Rite of Perfection (Scottish Rite). Abraham Jacobs, a Deputy of that Rite,
brought them to America in 1783. The
Southern Jurisdiction A.A.S.R. asserted a claim over those degrees as late as
1870. In the Northern Jurisdiction, J.
J. J. Gourgas, one of its founders and for several years its Sovereign Grand
Commander, never did relinquish his claims.
Always he insisted those degrees had been purloined from his Rite. In 1850 he issued a circular, asserting the
claims of his Supreme Council and condemning other systems of Masonry which
presumed to confer the Royal Master and Select Master Degrees or Select Masons
of 27. Two of Gourgas’ fellow members, Edward
Asa Raymond and Charles Whitlock Moore, happened to be officers of the Grand
Council R. & S. M. of Massachusetts, and both refused to sign the
document. Whereupon Gourgas proceeded to
legislate authority to confer the Council Degrees on members of a Lodge of
Perfection.
By then it was the familiar story of too little and too late. The Council Degrees were firmly established and had been incorporated into the American system of York Rite Masonry.
Early operators of the York Rite degrees found in the Council degrees a
twofold purpose. First they were
attractive enough to find a ready and profitable sale that benefited such
traveling purveyors of Masonry as Jeremy Cross, James Cushman, and John
Barker. The last of these established
Cryptic Masonry in Ohio in 1828. Second,
the degrees of the Council, while of Scottish Rite origin, seem to have lent
themselves readily to the system of American Masonry which was just then coming
into being. Whatever resemblance those
degrees may have had to those in the old Rite of Perfection was altered by
association with work in American lodges and Royal Arch chapters. As the Royal Arch was regarded as the
complement of the Master Mason Degree, the Council Degrees became, as we say in
the ritual, illustrative of the Royal Arch.
Thus they developed into important components of the York Rite, where in
spirit and by adoption they are today as vital to the philosophy of that Rite
as any of its other parts.
Thus we do have a York Rite of Freemasonry. It is composed of degrees conferred in Royal
Arch chapters, councils of Royal and Select Masters, and commanderies of
Knights Templar. Unlike Pike’s A.A.S.R.,
it has no governing head. Its power and
authority emanate from a consciousness of common interest. Like the Edwin legend, its real strength lies
in the fact that thousands of Masons glory in the York tradition and the name
of York Rite Mason. In addition it has
another asset. In the Royal Arch Degree
it shares a consanguinity with the Symbolic Lodge, the wellspring from which
flows everything that is Masonic.
Organically divided, it is notwithstanding a robust institution.
(Adapted from an article from The Royal Arch Mason, Volume X, Number 3,
Fall 1970, pages 69 – 71, 89)
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