Answered
In Freemasons
What is a Freemason?
A Freemason is a man who is a member of the fraternity ofFreemasons. The earliest Freemasons were the medieval freestonemason who built the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe. …Today, thefraternity builds its edifices in the hearts of men. There areseveral theories about the origin of the name: 1.) Early operative Freemasons worked in freestone, a type ofquarry stone. Early Freemasons were free men, and not serfs or indenturedservants. So they were free to travel about, from one country tothe next. 2.) Lodges of Masons that were employed in the erection ofcathedrals, monasteries or preceptories were given a franchise bythe church which freed them from government control or taxation.The term franchise, in French, gave rise to the term "franc-macon." 3.) Also, Masons call each other "Brother," and in French, the term"Frere Macon," meaning "Brother Mason," gave way to the term"Freemason." It is more likely that all these origins contributedto the acceptance of the term "Freemason." During the 17th century, the fraternity began to acceptnon-operative, honorary members, who learned and passed on thetraditions and moral code of the fraternity for the betterment ofmankind. Today, Freemasonry is an entirely speculative fraternity,having left its operative origins in the past. There are other misconceptions about the fraternity, which you mayread about. The Freemasons do not claim to have their origins amongthe builders of the pyramids of Egypt. This is an unsubstantiatedmyth. Undoubtedly, the builders of the pyramids were stonemasons,because the pyramids are built of stone. But there is no evidencethat the organization of stonemasons of Ancient Egypt descendeddown to the Freemasons of 18th-century Europe. It is true that you must be a Freemason to join the Shriners, butthis rule has been challenged in recent years, and, although therule still stands, it can be changed in coming years. It is a myth that all lodges descend or "derive from a dinnerbetween four existing lodges" which met at the Goose & GridironAlehouse in St. Paul's Churchyard in London on June 24, 1717 (not1715). Although a meeting was held that day, and although thosefour lodges did form what they called a "Grand Lodge," there aremany, many lodges today that descend from the lodges of Scotlandand Ireland, and do not descend from that Grand Lodge formed inLondon in 1717. Freemasons lodges, practicing ceremonies ofinitiation, for which we have written records, date back to thevery late 1500s and early 1600s in Scotland, a century before thesilk-stockinged, upper-class "gentleman Masons" of London gatheredat the Goose & Gridiron Alehouse in London and separatedthemselves from the middle-class Masons across town. They hadpolitical purposes, and wanted to distance themselves from thoselodges with Scottish and Irish members who might be sympatheticwith the Stewart Royal family. That Grand Lodge of 1717 wasderisively referred to as "the Moderns' Grand Lodge" and wassurpassed in numbers of members and lodges by the early 19thcentury when it was virtually swallowed by the Ancients GrandLodge, which had been formed by lodges that had never been a partof the Moderns Grand Lodge. On the North American continent,Moderns lodges had all but disappeared by the beginning of theAmerican Revolution, and were replaced by lodges of the Ancientsvariety. The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, for example, descendssolely from the Ancients Grand Lodge, and not from the Grand Lodgeof 1717. (MORE)
