Dec. 30, 2019 Stated Meeting

Information forthcoming after the meeting

Degrees of Significance

By A. Brother, excerpted from Allied Masonic Degrees – Degrees of Significance

The degrees of the Allied Masonic Degrees do not specifically relate to each other.  Some have erroneously described them as a bunch of rather secondary degrees which no-one else really wanted and which should have been allowed to die out.  Yet these degrees contain masonic ally significant elements, two of them with great ritual importance.

The Grand Lodge of the Ancients, formed in 1751, allowed its lodges to work virtually any masonic degree.  Many of the earliest traveling military lodges were warranted by the Ancients and facilitated the spread of what we consider the “additional” degrees both to and from the continent and America.  in 1791 the Knights Templar came together and in 1793 Thomas Dunckerley also organized the degree of Royal Ark Mariner.  Although in 1871 it came under the permanent supervision o the Mark.  1813 at last saw the unification of the Ancients and the Moderns (the premier Grand Lodge of 1717) into the United Grand Lodge and in 1817 Supreme Grand Chapter was established to rule over the Royal Arch.  From 1879/1880 the Grand Council of the AMD formally came into being, at first controlling just four degrees.  The new Grand Council’s purpose was twofold: to regularize what those involved at the time regarded as significant degrees outside the nationally recognized bodies, as well as to prevent the spread of those seen as less worthy.

This article looks at the degrees of St. Lawrence the Martyr, the Grand Tilers of Solomon, and the Knights of Constantinople.

AMD candidates can take the degrees in any order – there is no connection between them, nor any sense of philosophical progress one to another, each being complete and discreet.  St. Lawrence became of importance in Christendom after Philip II of Spain won his great battle of St Quentin against the French on 10th August 16, 1557, the saint’s feast day.  In gratitude he named his new palace-monster, built near Madrid in the very center of Spain, El Escorial.  This translates as “the place of ashes” in reverent allusion to St. Lawrence’s martyrdom, with the gridiron, his symbol, everywhere displayed.  The gridiron, not surprisingly, is the jewel of the masonic degree.  St. Lawrence is honored for his example, not for his specific beliefs.  The degree teaches fortitude and humility.

What is really important about St. Lawrence the Martyr is its possible link with our operative predecessors.  Some form of this degree has been worked in England for over 200 years.  It may well be that the present version is a perpetuation of an operative degree.

The next degree is the Grand Tiler of Solomon, or Masons Elect of Twenty-Seven.  It did not join the Allied Degrees until 1893.  It relates the legend of the accidental intrusion of a mason into the Vault beneath the Temple.  The central characters represent Solomon, Hiram and Hiram Abif.  The degree in its allied form specifically teaches the mason admitted a Grand Tiler not to judge hastily of a man’s motives, nor to blame others for his own carelessness, as well as to acknowledge his own mistakes and accept the consequences.

All too frequently one hears talk of “side degrees.” In addition to the questionable suggestion that these are somewhat less significant than the Craft, the description is simply wrong for these “additional” degrees.  However, the Knights of Constantinople is a genuine side-degree in that it was originally conferred by one brother taking another aside, probably after a meeting in another degree.  Its origin is uncertain, but the emphasis in its ritual on the equality of all men before God suggests an origin in the North of England, before it appeared in America, via Scotland, where it was being worked by 1830.  Like St. Lawrence the Martyr, the operative flavor is also clear.  Set in the courtyard of the palace of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century A.D. the degree is somewhat quirky and quite humorous.  Many appreciate the serious message as to humility which it contains:  that true greatness is not to be found in rank and fortune, but rather in nobility of character and in a willingness to acknowledge that in others of whatever their station in life.