PIAKO
Royal Arch Chapter No 48

Meetings of Other Chapters

A rehearsal will not be held this month

What does the Royal Arch Degree bring to Freemasonry?

In my recent writings and conversations I have commented that the Royal Arch Degree among other things restores the lost secrets referred to in the Third Degree. On occasion this point of view has been queried and, indeed, I have been told I am wrong—that the secrets were not lost. The latter I refer to the catechisms of the opening and closing of a Lodge in the Third Degree when the Wardens respond to questions by the Master that they are in search of the "genuine secrets of a Master Mason" and who, when asked "How come they lost" reply "by the untimely death of ... Hiram Abiff". In the closing the Master advises the Brethren of the "substituted secrets".

I think confusion arises because in the Royal Arch Degree we do not so much refer to "secrets" as to a Word, or Words, and the peculiar method of pronouncing them. A "Word" is not referred to in the Craft ritual (Grand Lodge of New Zealand), only secrets. However Roy A Wells gives us an insight¹:

When the Craft adopted the Hiramac(sic) legend it sowed the seed for an expansion of the ritual which would provide for the recovery of the Word which, incidentally, was never lost. In the Craft it is asserted that the pronunciation of the Ineffable Name of the Almighty was known to the three Grand Masters and this was spoken by them, in a particular manner, when they met together for this purpose.

He continues:

We have no record that the WORD was ever used in Craft ritual but it does appear on the “Master’s Floor Plan” printed in various Exposures dated c.: 1745. The Word is there prominently displayed on the coffin and in the Index is described as the “Former Word of a Master”. In the “Master’s Catechism” of that same period (Le Sceau Rompu—1745) we find the following:

Q. What come you here to do?
A. To seek for that which was lost.
Q. What is that which was lost?
A. The Master’s Word.
Q. How was it lost?
A. By three great knocks, or the death of Adoniram (sic).
Q. How was our very worthy Master Adoniram assassinated?
A. By three ruffians, who conspired to extort the word from him or take his life.

This catechism goes on until the final question which is:—

Q. What did he order to be placed on his tomb?
A. A gold Medal, in triangular form, on which was engraved the word JEOVA (sic) which is the name of God in Hebrew.

Here is something that every Royal Arch Mason will instantly recognise—not a “secret” but a word. The Royal Arch Degree tells us that a peculiar method of pronouncing it was required. Take one of the elements away and the ability to pronounce it is lost. By implication, the word, the secret, is “lost”.

You might like to note that this early Craft ritual does not refer to Hiram Abiff, but to Adoniram, so it must predate the introduction of the Hiramic legend. Perhaps Laurence Gardner is right when he wrote²:

… a rather more than adequate 3rd degree already existed. It was much older, and had evolved quite separately from Craft Freemasonry, with records of a Scottish working as far back as 1590 in Stirling. Laurence Dermott, Grand Secretary of the Antients, explained to the Moderns that he knew of this degree, which existed quite independently of the Craft, and that he firmly believed it to be the ‘the root, heart, and marrow of Freemasonry’, but he was ignored.

Gary Kerkin

¹  “The Royal Arch as the Perfection of the Masters Degree”, An Inaugural Address given to the London First Principals’ Chpater No 2712, 28 September 1973, re-printed in the Transactions of the Research Chapter of New Zealand No 93, Vol IV No 9, June 1977, p132.

² Laurence Gardner “The Shadow of Solomon” Harper Element 2005 ISBN 13 978 0 00 720761 9, ISBN 10 0 00 720761 1, p 193.