3-35 ANCIENT SQUARE
THE
SHORT TALK BULLETIN
The Masonic Service Association of the United States
VOL. 13 March 1935 NO. 3
What one symbol is most typical of Freemasonry as
a whole? Mason and non-Mason alike, nine times out of ten, will answer, "The
Square" Many learned writers on Freemasonry have denominated the
square as the most important and vital, most typical and common symbol of the
Ancient Craft. Mackey terms it "one of the most important and
significant symbols." McBride said: "-in Masonry or building,
the great dominant law is the law of the square." Newton's words glow:
"Very early the square became an emblem of truth, justice and
righteousness, and so it remains to this day, though uncountable ages have
passed. Simple, familiar, eloquent, it brings from afar a sense of the wonder
of the dawn, and it still teaches a lesson we find it hard to learn."
Haywood speaks of: "-its history, so varied and so ancient, its use, so
universal." MacKenzie: "an important emblem-passed into
universal acceptance." In his encyclopedia, Kenning copied Mackey's
praise. Klein reverently denominates it "The Great Symbol." I
Kings, describing the Temple, states that "all the doors and the posts
were square."
It is impossible definitely to say that the square
is the oldest symbol in Freemasonry; who may determine when circle, triangle,
square, first impressed men's minds? But the square is older than history.
Newton speaks of the oldest building known to man: "-a prehistoric tomb
found in the sands at Hieraconpolis, is already right angled."
Masonically the word "square" has
the same three meanings given the syllable by the world: (1) The conception of
right angledness-our ritual tells us that the square is an angle of ninety
degrees, or the fourth of a circle; (2) The builder's tool, one of our working
tools, the Master's own immovable jewel; (3) That quality of character which
has made "a square man" synonymous not only with a member of
our Fraternity, but with uprightness, honesty, dependability.
The earliest of the three meanings must have been
the mathematical conception. As the French say, "it makes us furiously
to think" to reflect upon the wisdom and the reasoning powers of men
who lived five thousand years ago, that they knew the principles of geometry by
which a square can be constructed.
Plato, greatest of the Greek philosophers, wrote
over the porch of the house in which he taught: "Let no one who is
ignorant of geometry enter my doors." Zenocrates, a follower of Plato,
turned away an applicant for the teaching of the Academy, who was ignorant of
geometry, with the words: "Depart, for thou has not the grip of
philosophy." Geometry is so intimately interwoven with architecture
and building that "geometry, or Masonry, originally synonymous terms"
is a part of most rituals. the science of measurement is concerned with angles,
the construction of figures, the solution of problems concerning both; and all
rest upon the construction of a right angle, the solutions which sprang from
the Pythagorean Problem, our "Forth-seventh Problem of Euclid,"
so prominent in the Master's degree.
The ancient Greek name of the square was gnomon,
from whence comes our word "knowledge" The Greek letter
gamma-formed like a square standing on one leg, the other pointing to the right
-in all probability derived from the square, and gnomon, in turn, derived from
the letter which was derived from the square which the philosophers knew was at
the root of their mathematics.
Democritus, old philosopher, according to Clement
of Alexandria, once exulted: "In the construction of plane figures with
proof, no one has yet surpassed me, not even the Harpedonaptae of Egypt".
The name means, literally, "rope stretchers" or "rope
fasteners." In the Berlin museum is a deed, written on leather, dating
back 2000 BC which speaks of the work of the rope stretchers; how much older
rope stretching may be, as a means of constructing a square, is unknown,
although the earliest, known mathematical handbook (that of Ahmes, who lived
in the sixteenth or seventeenth Hyskos dynasty in Egypt, and is apparently a
copy of a much older work which scholars trace back to 3400 BC). does not
mention rope stretching as a means of square construction.
Most students in school days learned a dozen easy
ways of erecting one line perpendicular to another. It seems strange that any
people were even ignorant of such simple mathematics. Yet all knowledge had a beginning.
Masons learn of Pythagoras' astonishment and delight at his discovery of the
principle of the forty-seventh Problem. doubtless the first man who erected a
square by stretching a rope was equally happy over his discovery.
Researches into the manner of construction of
pyramids, temples and monuments in Egypt reveal a very strong feeling on the
part of the builders for the proper orientation of their structures.
Successfully to place the buildings so that certain points, corners or openings
might face sun or star at a particular time, required very exact measurements.
Among these, the laying down of the cross axis at a right angle to the main
axis of the structure was highly important.
It was this which the Harpedonaptae accomplished
with a long rope.
The cord was first marked off in twelve equal
portions, possible by knots, more probably by markers thrust into the body of
the rope. The marked rope was then laid upon the line on which a perpendicular
(right angle) was to be erected. The rope was pegged down at the third marker
from one end, and another, four markers further on. This left two free ends,
one three total parts long, one five total parts long. With these ends the
Harpedonaptae scribed two semi-circles. When the point where these two met was
connected to the first peg (three parts from the end of the rope), a perfect
right angle, or square, resulted.
Authorities have differed and much discussion has been had, on the "true
form" of the Masonic square; whether a simple square should be made with
legs of equal length, unmarked with divisions into feet and inches, ore with
one leg longer than the other and marked as are carpenter's squares today.
Mackey says:
It is proper that its true form should be
preserved. The French Masons have almost universally given it with one leg
longer than the other, thus making it a carpenter's square. The American
Masons, following the delineations of Jeremy L. Cross, have, while generally
preserving the equality of length in the legs, unnecessarily marked its surface
with inches, thus making it an instrument for measuring length and breadth,
which it is not. It is simply the trying square of a stonemason, and has a
plain surface, the sides ore legs embracing an angle of ninety degrees, and is
intended only to test the accuracy of the sides of a stone, and to see that its
edges subtend the same angle.
Commenting on this the Editor of the Builder wrote
(May, 1928):
This is one of the occasions when this eminent
student ventured into a field beyond his own knowledge, and attempted to decide
a matter of fact from insufficient data. For actually there is not, and never
has been, any essential difference between the squares used by carpenters and
stone workers. At least not such differences as Mackey assumes. He seems to
imply that French Masons were guilty of an innovation in making the square with
unequal limbs. This is rather funny, because the French (and the Masons of
Europe generally) have merely maintained the original form, while English
speaking Masonry, or rather the designers of Masonic jewels and furnishings in
English speaking countries, have introduced a new form for the sake,
apparently, of its greater symmetry.; From medieval times up till the end of
the eighteenth century, all representations of Mason's squares show one limb
longer than the other. In looking over the series of Masonic designs of
different dates it is possible to observe the gradual lengthening of the
shorter limb and the shortening of the longer one, till it is sometimes
difficult to be certain at first glance if there is any difference between
them.
There is absolutely no difference in the use of
the square in different crafts. In all the square is used to test work, but
also to set it out. And a square with a graduated scale on it is at times just
as great a conveyance for the stonemason as for the carpenter. When workmen
made their own squares there would be no uniformity in size or proportions, and
very few would be graduated, though apparently this was sometimes done. It is
rather curious that the cut which illustrates this article in Mackey's
Encyclopedia actually shows a square with one limb longer than the other.
It is noted that old operative squares were either
made wholly of wood, or of wood and metal, as indeed, small try squares are
made today. Having one leg shorter than the other would materially reduce the
chance of accident destroying the right angle which was the tool's essential
quality. So that authorities who believe our equal legged squares not
necessarily "True Masonic squares" have some practical reasons
for their convictions.
It is of interest to recall McBride's explanation
of the "center" as used in English Lodges, and the "point"
familiar to us. He traces the medieval "secret of the square"
to the use of the compasses to make the circle from which the square is laid
out. Lines connecting a point, placed anywhere on the circumference of a
circle, to the intersections with the circumference cut by a straight line
passing through the center of the circle, form a perfect square. McBride
believed that our "point within a circle" was a direct
reference to this early operative method of correcting the angles in the wooden
squares of operative cathedral builders, and that our present "two
perpendicular lines" are a corruption of the two lines which connect
the point on the circumference with opposite points on the circle.
The
symbolism of the square, as we know it, is also very old; just how ancient, as
impossible to say as the age of the tool or the first conception of mathematical
"squareness." In 1880 the Master of Ionic Lodge No. 1781, at
Amoy, China, speaking on Freemasonry in China, said:
From time immemorial we find the square and
compasses used by Chinese writers to symbolize precisely the same phrases of
moral conduct as in our system of Freemasonry. The earliest passage known to me
which bears upon the subject is to be found in the book of History embracing
the period reaching from the twenty-fourth to the seventh century before
Christ. There is an account of a military expedition we read:
"Ye officers of government, apply the
Compasses!"
In another part of the same variable record a
Magistrate is spoken of as: "a man of the level, or the level man."
The public discourses of Confucius provide us with
several Masonic allusions of a more or less definite character. For instance,
when recounting his own degrees of moral progress in life, the Master tells us
that only at seventy-five years of age could he venture to follow the
inclinations of his heart without fear of "transgressing the limits of
the Square." This would be 481 BC but it is in the words of his great
follower, Mencius, who flourished nearly two hundred years later, that we meet
with a fuller land more impressive Masonic phraseology. In one chapter we are taught
that just as the most skilled artificers are unable, without the aid of the
square and compasses, to produce perfect rectangles or perfect circles, so must
all men apply these tools figuratively to their lives, and the level and the
marking-line besides, if they would walk in the straight and even paths of
wisdom, and keep themselves within the bounds of honor and virtue. In Book IV
we read:
"The Compasses and Square are the
embodiment of the rectangular and the round, just as the prophets of old were
the embodiment of the due relationship between man and man."
In Book
VI we find these words:
"The Master Mason, in teaching his
apprentices, makes use of the compasses and the square. Ye who are engaged in
the pursuit of wisdom must also make use of the compasses and the square."
In the GREAT LEARNING, admitted on all sides to
date from between 300 to 400 years before Christ, in Chapter 10, we read that a
man should abstain from doing unto others what he would not they should do unto
him: "This," adds the writer, "is called the principle
of acting on the square."
Independently of the Chinese all peoples in all
ages have thought of this fundamental angle, on which depends the solidity and
lasting quality of buildings, as expressive of the virtues of honesty,
uprightness, morality. Confucius, Plate, the Man of Galilee, stating the Golden
Rule in positive form, all make the square an emblem of virtue.
In this very antiquity of the Craft's greatest
symbol is a deep lesson; the nature of a square is an unchanging as truth
itself. It was always so, it will always be so. So, also are those principles
of mind and character symbolized by the square; the tenets of the builders'
guild expressed by a square. They have always been so, they will always be so. From
their very nature they must ring as true on the farthest star as here.
So will Freemasonry always read it, that its
gentle message perish not from the earth.
THE SHORT TALK BULLETIN
The Masonic Service Association of the United States
VOL. 13 March 1935 NO. 3