Hiram Abiff & The Knights Templar
The Knights Templars
"the three assassins (of Hiram Abiff ) symbolise the three betrayers of the Order (Knights Templars), and Hiram the Grand Master Molay; and according to the ritual of the Grand Lodge of the Three Globes, a German degree, the lights around the coffin signify the flames of the pile on which Molay was burnt. To the Rosicrucians and to certain German lodges Hiram is Christ, and the three assassins, Judas that betrays, Peter that denies Him, and Thomas that disbelieves His resurrection ."-An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry by Albert Gallatin Mackey
"..the symbolic Degrees of Ancient Craft Freemasonry, the three blows (Hiram Abiff received) are said to be typical of the trials and temptations to which man is subjected in youth and manhood, and to death, whose victim he becomes in old age. Hence the three Assassins are the three stages of human life. In the advanced Degrees, such as the Kadoshes, which are founded on the Templar system commonly credited to Ramsay, the reference is naturally made to the destruction of the Order, which was effected by the combined influences of Tyranny, Superstition, and Ignorance, which are therefore symbolized by the three blows; while the three Assassins are also said sometimes to be represented by Squin de Florean, Naffodei, and the Prior of Montfaucon, the three perjurers who swore away the lives of DeMolay and his Knights. In the astronomical theory of Freemasonry, which makes it a modern modification of the ancient sun-worship, a theory advanced by Ragon, the three blows are symbolic of the destructive influences of the three winter months, by which Hiram, or the Sun, is shorn of his vivifying power. Des Etangs has generalized the Templar theory, and, supposing Hiram to be the symbol of eternal reason, interprets the blows as the attacks of those vices which deprave and finally destroy humanity. However interpreted for a special theory, Hiram the Builder always represents, in the science of Masonic symbolism, the principle of good; and then the three blows are the contending principles of evil."-An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry by Albert Gallatin Mackey
"Some Masonic historians take the allegory literally, almost always a mistake, and state that what was lost was the "word" of the Grand Master, or the "secrets" of the Master. What the Templars had lost, literally, was their wealth, respect, and power...
...The man being initiated as a Master by acting out the murder is being turned into another Hiram . Every Master takes that role, and becomes Hiram (a name by which Masons sometimes address each other). He is the "son of the widow," and it is his task to replace that which was lost: the leadership, the direction, the work required to "finish" the building of the (Order of the) Temple, which was brutally stopped by beatings and murder."- Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson Pg. 274
"On the 19th day of March, 1314, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templars, was burned on a pyre erected upon that point of the islet of the Seine, at Paris,where afterwards was erected the statue of King Henry IV. (See The Indian Religions, by Hargrave Jennings.) "It is mentioned as a tradition in some of the accounts of the burning," writes Jennings, "that Molay, ere he expired, summoned Clement, the Pope who had pronounced the bull of abolition against the Order and had condemned the Grand Master to the flames, to appear, within forty days, before the Supreme Eternal judge, and Philip [the king] to the same awful tribunal within the space of a year. Both predictions were fulfilled." The close relationship between Freemasonry and the original Knights Templars has caused the story of CHiram to be linked with the martyrdom of Jacques de Molay. According to this interpretation, the three ruffians who cruelly slew their Master at the gates of the temple because he refused to reveal the secrets of his Order represent the Pope, the king, and the executioners. De Molay died maintaining his innocence and refusing to disclose the philosophical and magical arcana of the Templars."-The Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall pg. 77-81
30º - Knight Kadosh, A.A.S.R., and The Knights Templar
"...the history of the Knights Templar is revealed to him. It is also explained to him that the Knights Kadosh do not fight to revenge DeMolay. Rather, they fight in the present world to oppose tyranny and to protect the weak. And then, it is essentially left to him.
He knows what tyranny is. He has been made aware that a king, a president, a congress, or a school board can enforce it. He has been assured that tyranny is not something that happened only in the past; it is something which happens every day in his world. He may encounter examples of it a dozen times a day, and a dozen times a day he will have to decide whether to let tyranny continue or to oppose it. If he truly understands the 30th Degree, he realizes that he has undertaken a very great responsibility. But a true Knight Kadosh also understands that if no one fights, the battle is lost before it starts." - Knight of Kadosh, or Knight of the White and Black Eagle by Jim Tresner, 33° Grand Cross
"According to scripture, Hiram was not an architect but a master worker in brass and bronze. He was not murdered but lived to see the temple completed and then went back to his home. The clues to Masonic origin and purpose are found in the allegorical legend, not in the scriptures.
As we search British history to find an unfinished temple as a basis for, an exclusively, British secret society, we find just one answer, in the religious order that often called itself by that simple name alone: the Temple. Jacques de Molay and his predecessors signed documents over the title Magister Templi, Master of the Temple. And that temple, taking its name from the Temple of Solomon, certainly was left unfinished upon the murder of its masters, who also had been tortured to reveal their secrets by three assassins who ultimately destroyed them. Not Jubela, Jubelo, and Jubelum, but Philip the Fair of France, Pope Clement V, and the order of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem."- Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson Pg. 271-272
"...every twelve years (reminding us of the twelve 'Fellows that Solomon sent, in parties of three, to search for Hiram Abiff) two ships sail out into the world in search of learning "That in either of these ships there should be a mission of three of the Fellows or Brethren of Salomon's House whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures and inventions of all the world; and withal to bring us books, instruments and patterns in every kind. . . ."- Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson Pg. 286
"Twelve Fellow Craftsmen are exploring the four points of the compass. Are not these twelve the twelve great world religions, each seeking in its own way for that which was lost in the ages
past, and the quest of which is the birthright of man? Is not the quest for Reality in a world of illusions the task for which each comes into the world? We are here to gain balance in a sphere of
unbalance; to find rest in a restless thing; to unveil illusion; and to slay the dragon of our own animal natures. As David, King of Israel, gave to the hands of his son Solomon the task he could
not accomplish, so each generation gives to the next the work of building the temple, or rather, rebuilding the dwelling of the Lord, which is on Mount Moriah."- The Lost Keys of Freemasonry or The Secret of Hiram Abiff by Manly P. Hall
"Eliphas Levi points out the great resemblance which exists between King Hiarchas and the fabulous Hiram, of whom Solomon procured the cedars of Lebanon and the gold of Ophir. We would like to know whether modern Masons, even "Grand Lecturers" and the most intelligent craftsmen belonging to important lodges, understand who the Hiram is whose death they combine together to avenge?" -Isis Unveiled by Helena Blavatsky pg. 17
"The compass and square appear allegorically as the unfinished Seal of Solomon, directly symbolizing the unfinished temple. The compass and square hidden in the Seal of Solomon provide a graphic link impossible to ignore, a link between the major badge of Freemasonry and the interruption of the building of Solomon's temple in the legend of Hiram Abiff, as symbolized by the "unfinished" Seal of Solomon.
That legend, which is the central feature of Masonic ritual, adds credence to the Templar origin, especially since it is based upon an allegorical temple whose construction was halted because of the beating and murder of Grand Master Hiram Abiff. We know that the real Temple of Solomon was fully completed and in use for several centuries. The Temple of Solomon that was not completed can only be the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar. The dead master is replaced by the initiate who is raised to the degree, of Master Mason. He not only "becomes" Hiram Abiff in the ritual drama, but also assumes the, Grand Master's interrupted objective, the completion of the temple, by keeping the secret society alive and growing, symbolically rescuing the Order of the Temple from the cessation ordered for it by king and pope."- Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson Pg. 278-279
"This uninterrupted chain (modern Freemasonry chain from the Knights Templar) leads us back to the important Initiatic Schools of Egypt in which certain adherents had attained the highest degree of initiation; among them Moses, Pythagoras and Plato are believed to be among these high initaties." - The Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim Grand Lodge Untied States pg.9
"This secret legend is the same as that of the Carpocratians, which is that Jesus chose some of the Apostles and confided to them a Secret Science, which was transmitted afterwards to the priests of the Order of the Knights Templars, and through them to the Building Fraternities, down to the present Freemasons of the Swedish Rite. " - Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry By R. Swinburne Clymer pg. 74
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