‘Where would we be without the Ancients?’

     

It’s a big year for anniversaries, so let’s not forget how on this date 275 years ago the Grand Lodge in London of Free and Accepted Masons According to the Old Institutions was established. We remember them better as the Ancients.

New from Lewis Masonic.

Yesterday I received in the mail a copy of Ric Berman’s new book The Genesis of American Freemasonry. A review is forthcoming, but let me quote a little of what he says about the Ancients:

The Grand Lodge of England According to the Old Institutions, or Antients Freemasonry, as it was later called, was established by London’s emigre Irish community in the 1750s as an alternative to the Freemasonry of the Grand Lodge of England. Irish lodges had been active in London from at least the mid 1730s, but the creation of the new grand lodge in 1751 formalized their operation and lead to a considerable expansion. From the start, however, the Antients attracted members from outside the Irish diaspora, particularly the aspirational, lower middling and working class. And this is key. Unlike the Grand Lodge of England and most of the lodges that worked within its orbit in England and America, Antients Freemasonry did not restrict itself to the social elites, but welcomed a wider membership. This is not to say that everyone could join—it was still relatively expensive—but it was far less class conscious.

This is a good time to mention how the Ancients didn’t spell it “Antients.” Shawn pointed out that to me a while back. I don’t know how that alternative spelling caught on.

Back to Berman:

The key figure behind Antients Freemasonry and its success was Laurence Dermott, Its grand secretary from 1752-70 and deputy grand master from 1771-77 and again from 1783-7. Virtually from its inception, Dermott took administrative control and guided the internal and public perception of the organization, positioning the Antients as a society with a long established tradition of “keeping the ancient landmarks of the Order in view.“ He effectively coined and popularized the term Moderns to describe the rival Grand Lodge of England, a dismissive label that was, and was intended to be, pejorative. And the epithet stuck.

You must read Ahiman Rezon, the book of constitutions of this new grand lodge published in 1756. It is largely based on James Anderson’s Constitutions of 1723, not as a copy in homage, but as a launching point to document the different thinking of these Ancients. It came from Dermott’s quill and is spiced with his sardonic wit.

Berman continues:

In Ahiman Rezon, Dermott joked that the rival Moderns had:

[considered it] expedient to abolish the old custom of studying geometry in the lodge and some of the young brethren made it appear that a good knife and fork in the hands of a dextrous brother (over the right materials) would give greater satisfaction and add more to the rotundity of the lodge… from this improvement proceeded the laudable custom of charging to a public health to every third sentence that is spoke in the lodge.

The Ancients’ Masonic history, Charges of a Freemason, and General Regulations differ from the first grand lodge’s, and sometimes contradict. And then there’s the Royal Arch.

In America, the rivalry between the two grand lodges was resolved decades before the Moderns and Ancients amalgamated to form the United Grand Lodge of England in 1813, but that’s a whole other story. Suffice to say, without the Ancients, I don’t know where we’d be today.

I’m in Pennsylvania with Civil War Lodge of Research, a Virginia lodge (and the grand lodges of both states dub their respective constitutions Ahiman Rezon), but before retiring I wanted to make sure I raised my glass to this 275th anniversary. Vivat!

     

‘The meanings of Ahiman and Rezon’

    

See? Facebook is good for something.

Shawn Eyer, one of the “go to guys” in the study of eighteenth century Freemasonry, posted on social media, more than five years ago, a highly useful explanation of a commonly misunderstood point of history. It came up again this week, so I thought I’d share it here (with Shawn’s permission). Enjoy.

Clarifying a Very Old Misunderstanding

In 1756, Laurence Dermott published the first edition of Ahiman Rezon, the book of constitutions for the Masonic Ancients. This was one of the most popular Masonic books of the eighteenth century, with many daughter editions produced in England, Ireland, America, and even in Canada.

At a certain point, the meaning of the title of the book was forgotten by the fraternity, which has led to many bizarre claims. The “historians” who have theorized that these words are pseudohebrew made up by Dermott, nonsense words fabricated to sound confusing, or loan-words from other languages (Portuguese was proposed at one point!) are simply not aware of the context of these two ancient words.

Happily, the Ancients knew Hebrew better than our modern critics who like to say Ahiman and Rezon aren’t Hebrew (even though the ones writing that are not qualified to say it). Ahiman and Rezon are in fact, and quite unambiguously, Hebrew words: names, actually—and both are found in any Bible.

In the Volume of the Sacred Law, there are two characters named Ahiman. The first, an Anakite occupying Hebron, who is conquered by Caleb (Numbers 13:22, Joshua 15:14). But the Ahiman who is relevant Masonically is a later figure—one of a group of Levites appointed by King David to serve a special function in the Jerusalem sanctuary. He was, specifically, one of the four gatekeepers. (1 Chronicles 9: 17–19, 22–31) Dermott included these gatekeepers, especially Ahiman, in his introductory remarks to the original editions of Ahiman Rezon.

Shawn Eyer

Rezon is another character in the Bible: an opponent raised up by God to punish King Solomon after he had allowed his faith to wander. (1 Kings 11:23-25) Read all of chapter 11 for the story.

It is easy to understand why Dermott selected these two names (or why they were potentially emphasized in now-lost Ancients Masonic tradition): Ahiman guarded the holy of holies from the unworthy, Rezon was a thorn in King Solomon’s side during the time of his fall from purity. This is precisely how the Ancients saw themselves in relation to the Moderns.

The perception that these two words were not Hebrew came from attempting to find them in Hebrew dictionaries. Dictionaries typically do not contain names. Just as you won’t find Timothy or Edward in an English dictionary, you won’t find Ahiman or Rezon in a Hebrew dictionary. But they have been Hebrew words since before the second Temple fell.

A takeaway for us all: Before we say that our Masonic forebears were writing nonsense words or dabbling in things they didn't understand, we need to make sure that we are not the ones who are confused.