1711.
CATEGORIES OF JEWELS
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TRINITY MANUSCRIPT
1711.
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EXTRACT
FROM
"THE ALTERNATIVE THIRD DEGREE"
BY
VW. BRO. GARY KERKIN. (1)
The first hint of a Third Degree appears in a MS known as the Trinity College, Dublin, Manuscript, dated 1711, found among the papers of a famous Irish doctor and scientist, Sir Thomas Molyneux.
Carr (2) writes:
“This document
is headed with a kind of Triple Tau, and underneath it the words 'Under no less
a penalty'. This is followed by a set of eleven Q. and A. and we know straight
away that something is wrong! We already have three perfect sets of fifteen
questions, so eleven questions must be either bad memory or bad copying -
something is wrong! The questions are perfectly normal, only not enough of
them. Then after the eleven questions we would expect the writer to give a
description of the whole or part of the ceremony but, instead of that, he gives
a kind of catalogue of the Freemason's words and signs.”
He gives this sign … for the EA with the word 'B........'
“He gives 'knuckles, & sinues' as the sign for the 'fellow-craftsman', with the word 'J..........'.
The 'Master's sign is the back
bone' and for him (ie the MM) the writer gives the world's worst description of
the FPOF. …..
“Squeese the Master by ye back bone, put your knee between his, &
say Matchpin.
“That, Brethren, is our second version of the word of the third degree. We started with 'Mahabyn', and now 'Matchpin', horribly debased. Let me say now, loud and clear, nobody knows what the correct word was. It was probably Hebrew originally, but all the early versions are debased. We might work backwards, translating from the English, but we cannot be certain that our English words are correct. So, here in the Trinity College, Dublin, MS, we have, for the very first time, a document which has separate secrets for three separate degrees; the enterprentice, the fellowcraftsman and the master.
It is
not proof of three degrees in practice, but it does show that somebody was
playing with this idea in 1711.”
VW. Bro. Gary Kerkin
is PM Lodge Piako No 160,
PM Waikato Lodge of Research No 445,
Past Grand Lecturer, Grand Lodge of New Zealand,Grand Lecturer (2009), Supreme Grand Royal Arch Chapter of New Zealand,
Northern Division.
Henry Carr ~ "Six Hundred years of Craft Ritual".
For the complete Paper click on the folowing Link ~ "henry Carr".
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