THE TEMPLE

THE TEMPLE

Brethren, I need not ask but for the purpose of recollection, condescend to answer me;Which Temple is the most popular in the life of Freemasonry?
Right glad am I to find your answers correct. The King Solomon's Temple, of course has the greatest connection with Freemasons. It has great allusions to our teachings and it is quite dramatically rhapsodic to relate our ceremonies in the craft Freemasonry to its contruction.
It, therefore becomes more than necessary that we learned a little about this historic superstructure, which has continued to shape good men into better ones even after its collapse.

The Temple was built on a table of rock which apexed a hill in Jerusalem called Mount Moriah. This particular location,according to Hebrew tradition, was where Adam was created and his boys Cain and Abel sacrificed. It was on same hill that Noah built his altar at the hiatus of the flood, where Abraham offered a his son Isaac a sacrificial lamb to God and it was on same Mount Moriah, David erected his altar. The Mohammedans named it the centre of the world and gate to Heaven, for it was on this same hill that,Mohammed convinced his followers that he had made his famous ascent to Heaven.
Brethren, it cannot be by mere coincidence that KS, H of Tyre and HA chose this same location to erect the first Temple at Jerusalem. Freemasonry,like I have always said, has more than can be seen or heard in a lodge room. Only the seekers decipher the encrypted.

Few realize how high the temple towered in the history of the olden world and how the story of its building haunted the legends and traditions of timed following. Great writers such as Durandus and Bunyan,used it as a symbol of religious truth. Until proven otherwise about some 50yrs ago, many masonic writers of old,thought that our craft had been organized during the building of the Temple,even in detail,that our order has survived from then to now. Archaelogical research has proved that the Temple was built by phoenician Masons since some phoenician Marks were uncovered on the original foundation stones. Though history does not recognize the actual connection between the building of the Temple and our fraternity, we still don't have to minify the relevance of the Temple in our rituals and the dramatic nexus we have manufactured. For we stand as Masons, to all external appearances, just and upright Men, as was the Temple.
However, if we still will accept Vibert's contention that there existed no evidence of our possesion of the Temple until the eighteen century, we still have the question of how it entered our masonic system and why that time to answer. A masonic scholar, Brother Ryland said "no satisfactory reason has so far been offered why the Temple of Solomon and its builders have been selected to play an important part in one division of our legendary history"...well,what I say is, who cares.

Ever since Bro. Rylands wrote the above, Brother A.E Waite came up with a reason that I find befitting, holding that,many of the speculatives who were admitted in the 18th century were mostly Kabbalists in one degree or the other,therefore he believed that we may have borrowed the Temple symbolism from that source. A point I firmly second,because the Kabbalists owned the Temple symbolism some 400years before the 18th century and any inside out student of masonry will accept a basic fact that,symbolism in masonry was greatly influenced by Kabbalists, those guys were very influencial teachers. Be that as it may, we shall always retain the Temple symbolism,for nothing could better explain the ideal of craft masonry than the Temple - the building of a superstructure of morality in good men and the divine brotherhood among men on earth.
The temple was built of stones,wood and metals, which were collected from earth but well prepared,adjusted and joined to result in a solemn aesthetically beautiful house dedicated to the service of God. It has a likewise allusion to the development of self. We are also gathering materials which seem earthly or common, our flesh,appetites and passion. We so hope to also prepare,adjust and join in the holy communion of brotherly love, to build a house not made by hands, in which our human nature will be transfigured. As brothers to Solomon,we too have to build a Temple for God, but whereas the Jews would have Him dwell in Temples of stone, we would fain prepare for Him a Temple of Flesh. We hope that through the morphallaxis of men, the fraternity of men, The Great Architect would continue to cement and adorn us with every virtue that,when finally we are summoned fron this sublunary abode, we may ascend to the Grand Lodge Above, where the world's greatest Architect lives and reigns for ever.

By Bro. Oppong Clifford Benjamin
References : Symbolical Masonry by H.L. Haywood
The Great Teachings of Masonry by H.L Haywood
Speculative Masonry by A.S. MacBride
The Builders by Joseph Fort Newton
Symbolism of the Three Degrees by Oliver Day Street.