PREHISTORIC MASONRY

CHAPTER IX
THE LEGEND OF LAMECH'S SONS AND THE PILLARS
THE traditional history of Masonry now begins, in the Legend of the Craft, with an account of the three sons of Lamech, to whom is attributed the discovery of all sciences. But the most interesting part of the Legend is that in which the story is told of two pillars erected by them, and on which they had inscribed the discoveries they had made, so that after the impending destruction of the world the knowledge which they had attained might be communicated to the post-diluvian race.This story is not mentioned in the Bible, but is first related by Josephus in the following words:"They also [the posterity of Seth] were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies and their order.

And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone; they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain and exhibit those discoveies to mankind, and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day." (1) Although this traditional narrative has received scarcely any estimation from scholars, and Josephus has been accused either of incredible audacity or frivolous credulity," (2) still it has formed the(1) Josephus, "Antiquities of the Jews," B.I., ch. ii., Whiston's trans. (2) " Incredibili audacia aut futili credulitate usus est," is the language of Hornius in his "Geographia Vetus."
But Owen ("Theologomena," lib. iv., c. ii., 6), although inclined to doubt the story, thinks it not impossible if we suppose hieroglyphics like those of the Egyptians to have been used for the inscriptions, instead of letters. foundation on which the Masonic Legend of the pillars has been erected.
But in passing from the Jewish historian to the Legend- maker of the Craft, the form of the story has been materially altered. In Josephus the construction of the pillars is attributed to the posterity of Seth; in the Legend, to the children of Lamech. Whence was this important alteration derived ? The Dowland and all subsequent manuscripts cite the fourth chapter of Genesis as authority for the Legend. But in Genesis no mention is made of these pillars. But in the Cooke MS., which is of an earlier date, we can trace the true source of the Legend in its Masonic form, which could not be done until that manuscript was published.

To the Cooke MS. has been accorded the date of 1490. It differs materially in form and substance from the Halliwell MS., which preceded it by at least a century, and is the first of the Old Constitutions in which anything like the present form of the Legend appears.
The way in which the Legend of Lamech is treated by it, enables us to dicover the true source whence this part of the Legend of the Craft was derived.
It must be remarked, in the first place, that the Halliwell poem, the earliest of the old manuscripts, the date of which is not later than the close of the 14th century, contains no allusion to this Legend of Lamech and his children. The Cooke MS. is the first one in which we find the details. The Cooke MS. is assigned, as has been before said, to the end of the 15th century, about the year 1490. In it the Legend of the pillars is given (from line 253 to 284) in the following words:"And these iii brotheryn [the sons of Lamech] aforesayd, had knowlyche that God wold take vengans for synne other by fyre or watir, and they had greter care how they myght do to saue the sciens that they founde, and they toke her [their] consell to gedyr and by all her [their] witts they seyde that were ij manner of stonn of suche virtu that the one wolde neuer brenne [burn] and that stonn is called marbyll and that other stonn that woll not synke in watir, and that stone is namyd laterus, (1) and so they deuysyd to wryte all the sciens that they had Found (2) in this ij stonys if that god wolde
(1) From the Latin "later," a brick.
(3) It is to be regretted that in nearly all the recent printed copies of the old manuscripts, the editors have substituted the double ff for the capital F which is in the original. The scribes or amanuenses of the Middle Ages were fond of employing capital letters often when there was really no use for them, but they never indulged in the folly of unnecessarily doubling initial letters. What the modern editors of the manuscripts have mistaken for a double ff was really the ff or ff the capital F of the scribes. This is not of much importance, but even in small things it is well to be accurate. Bro. Hughan, in his edition of the "Old Charges," is, as we might expect, generally correct in this particular. But sometimes, perhaps inadvertently, he has printed the double instead of the capital letter.-
(4) take vengeans by fyre that the marbyll scholde not brenne. And yf god sende vengeans by watir that the other scholde not droune, and so they prayed her elder brother jobell that wold make ij pillers of these ij stones, that is to sey of marbill and of laterus, and that he wolde write in the ij pylers alle the sciens and crafts that alle they had founde, and so he did."Comparing this Legend with the passage that has been cited from Josephus, it is evident that the Legend-maker had not derived his story from the Jewish historian. The latter attributes the building of the pillars to the children of Seth, while the former assigns it to the children of Lamech. How are we to explain this change in the form of the Legend ? We can only solve the problem by reference to a work almost contemporary with the legendist.Ranulph Higden, a Benedictine monk of St. Werburg's Abbey, in Chester, who died in the latter half of the 14th century, wrote a Universal history, completed to his own times, under the title of Polychronicon.

The Polychronicon was written in the Latin language, but was translated into English by Sir John Trevisa. This translation, with several verbal alterations, was published in London by William Caxton in 1482, about ten years before the date of the Cooke MS. With this work, the compiler of the Legend in the Cooke MS. appears to have been familiar. He cites it repeatedly as authority for his statements.Thus he says: "Ye schal understonde that amonge all the craftys of the world of mannes crafte Masonry hath the most notabilite and moste parte of this sciens Gemetry as his notid and seyd in storiall as in the bybyll and in the master of stories. And in policronico a cronycle prynted." Now the Legend of Lamech's children is thus given in Caxton's edition of the translation of Higden's Polychronicon: (1)(1) Book 11., ch. v.

"Caym Adams fyrste sone begate Enoch, he gate Irad, he gate Manayell, he gate Matusale, he gate Lameth. This Lameth toke twey wyves, Ada and Sella, and gate tweyne sons on Ada. Iabeh that was fader of them that woned in tentes and in pauylons. And Tuball that was fader of organystre and of harpers. And Lameth gate on Sella Tubal cayn that was a smith worchyng with hamer, and his sister Noema, she found fyrst weuynge crafte."Josephus. Jabell ordayned fyrste flockes of beestes and marks to know one from another. And departed kyddes from lam bes and yonge from the olde. Peir s Tubalcayn founde fyrst smythes crafte. Tuball had grete lykynge to here the hareers sowne. And soo he vsed them moche in the accords of melodys, but he was not finder of the instruments of musyke. For they were founde longe afterwarde."

The reader will at once perceive whence the composer of the Legend in the Cooke MS. derived his information about the family of Lamech. And it will be equally plain that the subsequent writers of the Old Constitutions took the general tone of their Legend from this manuscript.
The Polychronicon, after attributing the discovery of music to Pythagoras, proceeds to descant upon the wickedness of mankind immediately after the time of Seth, and repeats the biblical story of the intermarriage of the sons of God and the daughters of men, which he explains as signifying the sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain. Then follows the following passage"Josephus. That tyme men wyste as Adam and sayde, that they sholde be destroyed by fyre or elles by water. Therefore bookes that they hadde made by grete trauaille and studys, he closed them in two grete pylers made of marbill and of brent tyle. In a pyler of marbill for water and in a pyler of tyle for fyre. For it should be sauved by that maner to helpe of mankynde. Men sayth that the pyler of stone escaped the floods, and yet is in Syrya."
Here we find the origin of the story of the two pillars as related in the Legend of the Craft. But how can we account for the change of the constructors of these pillars from the children of Seth, as stated in Josephus, and from him in the Polychronicon, to the children of Lamech, as it is given in the Legend ?
By the phrase "That tyme men wyste," or "at that time men knew," with which Trevisa begins his translation of that part of Higden's work, he undoubtedly referred to the "tyme" contemporary with the children of Seth, of whom he had immediately before been speaking. But the writer of the Legend engaged in recounting the narrative of the invention of the sciences by the children of Lamech, and thus having his attention closely directed to the doings of that family, inadvertently, as I suppose, passed over or omitted to notice the passage concerning the descendants of Seth, which had been interposed by the author of the Polychronicon, and his eye, catching the account of the pillars a little farther on, he applied the expression, "that tyme," not to the descendants of Seth, but to the children of Lamech, and thus gave the Masonic version of the Legend.

I have called this ascription of the pillars to the children of Lamech a "Masonic version," because it is now contained only in the Legend of the Craft, those who do not reject the story altogether as a myth, preferring the account given by Josephus.But, in fact, the error of misinterpreting Josephus occurred long before the Legend of the Craft was written, and was committed by one of the most learned men of his age.St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, who died in the year 636, was the author of many works in the Latin language, on theology, philosophy, history, and philology. Among other books written by him was a Chronicon, or Chronicle, in which the following passage occurs, where he is treating of Lamech:"In the year of the world 1642, Lamech being 190 years old, begat Noah, who, in the five hundredth year of his age, is commanded by the Divine oracle to build the Ark. In these times, as Josephus relates, those men knowing that they would be destroyed either by fire or water, inscribed their knowledge upon two columns made of brick and of stone, so that the memory of those things which they had wisely discovered might not be lost. Of these columns the stone one is said to have escaped the Flood and to be still remaining in Syria." (1)

It is very evident that in some way the learned Bishop of Seville had misunderstood the passage of Josephus, and that to him the sons of Lamech are indebted for the honor of being considered the constructors of the pillars. The phrase "his temporibus," in these times, clearly refers to the times of Lamech.It is doubtful whether the author of the Legend of the Craft was acquainted with the works of Isidore, or had read this passage. His Etymologies are repeatedly cited in the Cooke manuscript, but it is through Higden, whose Polychronicon contains many quotations from the Libri Etymologiarum of the Spanish Bishop and Saint. But I prefer to assume that the Legend-maker got his ideas from the Polychronicon in the method that I have described.

In the last century a new Legend was introduced into Masonry, in which the building of these pillars was ascribed to Enoch. But this Legend, which is supposed to have been the invention of the Chevalier Ramsay, is altogether modern, and has no connection with the Legend of the Craft.In borrowing the story of the antediluvian pillars from Josephus, through the Polychronicon, though they have made some confusion in narrating the incidents, the Old Operative Masons were simply incorporating into their Legend of the Craft a myth which had been universal among the nations of antiquity, for all of them had their memorial columns. Sesostris, the great Egyptian king and conqueror, sometimes called Sethos, or Seth, and who, Whiston think, has been confounded by Josephus with the Adamic Seth, erected pillars in all the counties which he conquered as monuments of his victories.

The Polychronicon, with which we see that the old Masons were familiar, had told them that Zoroastres, King of Bactria, had inscribed the seven liberal arts and sciences on fourteen pillars, seven of brass and seven of brick. Hercules was said to have placed at the Straits of Gades two pillars, to show to posterity how far he had extended his conquests.In conclusion, it should be observed that the story of the pillars as inserted in the Legend of the Craft has exerted no influence on the modern rituals of Freemasonry, and is never referred to in any of the ceremonies of Ancient Craft Masonry. The more recent Legend of the pillars of Enoch belongs exclusively to the higher and more modern degrees. The only pillars that are alluded to in the primitive degrees are those of Solomon's temple. But these develop so important a portion of the symbolism of the Institution as to demand our future consideration in a subsequent part of this work.