Browse the Encyclopedia by Clicking on Any of the Letters Below s3

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
FREEMASONRY
AND ITS KINDRED SCIENCES
by ALBERT C. MACKEY M. D.

Browse the Encyclopedia by clicking on any of the letters below.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M

N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

H

In Hebrew the letter is n. Cheth; the hieroglyph was an altar as in the illustration, and finally the Hebrew n. The eighth letter in the alphabet, and in Hebrew has the value in number of 8, while the Hebrew an, He, which is of the same hieroglyphic formation, has the numerical valuation of 5.

H. . A. . B. .

An abbreviation of Hiram Abif

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HABAKKUK

The Hebrew is "pipan", meaning a struggler, a favorite. The eighth of the twelve minor prophets. No account is contained in the Book of Habakkuk, either of the events of his life or the date when he lived. He is believed by many to have flourished about 630 B. C. In the Thirty-second Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, his name answers to the passwords Tuesday and Xerxes.

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HABIN

The Hebrew is p'an, Intelligus. Name of the initiate in the Fourth Degree of the modern French Rite, sometimes given as Johaben, or Jabin.

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HABRAMAH
or JABAMIAH

The Hebrew word is probably "noan" , the Fanum excelsum or high holy place. The French explanation is that the word was applied to a holy place or an elevation near the altar in the Jewish Tabernacle where a feast was prepared. Said to be used in the Thirtieth Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in France; it is not used in America.

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HACQUET, G. A.

French notary at Port-au Prince, subsequently a member of the Grand Orient of Paris, and President of the Royal Arch Chapter at Paris in 1814.

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HADEESES

An Arabic word, signifying the traditions handed down by Mohammed and preserved by the Mohammedan doctors. They are said to amount to 5266 in number. Many of the traditions of Mohammedan Freemasonry are said to be borrowed from the Hadeeses, just as much of the legendary lore of European Freemasonry is to be found in the Jewish Talmud.

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HADLY, BENJAMIN

English Freemason said to have attended the Occasional Lodge at The Hague for the conferring of the first two Degrees on the Duke of Tuscany and Lorraine, afterwards Emperor Francis I. William Preston (Illustrations of Masonry, 1812, page 231) asserts Brother Hadly then acted as a Warden.

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HAFEDHA

The second of the four gods worshiped by the Arak tribe of Ad, before the time of Mohammed, to which Hud, or Heber, was sent. These were Sakia, the god of rain; Hafedha, the preserver from danger; Razeka, the provider of food; and Solemn, the god of health.

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HAGAMATANA

See Echatana

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HAGAR

The old lectures taught the doctrine, and hence it was the theory of the Freemasons of the eighteenth century, that the landmark which requires all candidates for initiation to be free born is derived from the fact that the promise which was given to Isaac, the free-born son of Abraham and Sarah, was denied to Ishmael, the slave-born son of the Egyptian bondwoman Hagar. This theory is entertained by Brother Oliver in all his writings, as a part of the old Masonic system (see Free Born).

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HAGGAI

According to Jewish tradition, Haggai was born in Babylon during the captivity, and being a young man at the time of the liberation by Cyrus, he came to Jerusalem in company with Joshua and Zerubbabel, to aid in the rebuilding of the Temple. The work being suspended during the reigns of the two immediate successors of Cyrus, on the accession of Darius, Haggai urged the renewal of the undertaking, and for that purpose obtained the sanction of the king. Animated by the courage and patriotism of Haggai and Zechariah, the people prosecuted the work with vigor, and the second Temple was completed and dedicated in the year 516 B.C.

In the Royal Arch system of America, Haggai represents the Scribe, or third officer of a Royal Arch Chapter. In the English system he represents the second officer, and is called the Prophet.

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HAGUE, THE

A city of the Netherlands, formerly South Holland. Freemasonry was introduced there in 1731 by the Grand Lodge of England, when an occasional Lodge was opened for the initiation of Francis, Duke of Lorraine, afterward Emperor of Germany. Between that year and 1735 an English and a Dutch Lodge were regularly instituted, from which other Lodges in Holland subsequently proceeded. In 1749, the Lodge at The Hague assumed the name of the Mother Lodge of the Royal Union, whence resulted the National Grand Lodge, which declared its independence of the Grand Lodge of England in 1770 (see Netherlands).

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HAH

The Hebrew definite article "n" or the. It forms the second syllable of the Substitute Word.

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HAHNEMANN, SAMUEL CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH

Famous physician. Born April 10, 1755, at Meissen, Saxony, and a member of the Lodge Minerva at Leipsic, Germany, from 1817. Founder of the homoeopathic system. He died at Paris on July 9, 1843.

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HAIL
or HALE.

This word is used among Freemasons with two very different significations.
l. When addressed as an inquiry to a visiting Brother it has the same import as that in which it is used under like circumstances by mariners. Thus: "Whence do you hail?" that is, "Of what Lodge are you a member?" Used in this sense, it comes from the Saxon term of salutation huel, and should be spelled hail.

2. Its second use is confined to what Freemasons understand by the tie, and in this sense it signifies to conceal, being derived from the Saxon word helan, to hide, the e being pronounced in Anglo-Saxon as a in the word fate. By the rules of etymology, it should be written hate, but is usually spelled hele.

The preservation of this Saxon word in the Masonic dialect, while it has ceased to exist in the vernacular, is a striking proof of the antiquity of the Order and its ceremonies in England. "In the western parts of England," says Lord King (Critical History of the Apostle's Creed, page 178), "at this very day, to hele over anything signifies, among the common people, to cover it; and he that covereth an house with tile or slate is called a helliar."

"As regards the Anglo-Saxon hele, it survives of course in the word Hell—the covered world—of the Apostle's Creed, but," says Brother Canon J. W. Horsley, (page 21, Transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xxvi, 1913), "I thought until lately that a hellyer, that is, a thatcher who covers over with thatch the sticks of corn, was only North Country. However, lately when asking who had so well covered a stick close to Detling Church I was told it was a hellyer from the next village. And in the best dictionary of the Kentish dialect I find:

Hele (heel) verb, to cover
Heal (heel) verb, to hide, to cover anything up; to roof in.
''All right! I'll work Jim; I've only just got this 'ere row o taturs to heal."
Heler (hee-ler) substantive. anything which is laid over another: as, for instance, the cover of a thurrick, or wooden drain.

To the above information Brother Doctor Hammond added that in the West of England, the word "hele" is used at the present time, and its common pronunciation there and on the moors of the Cornish Country is hale (see also Heler). From correspondence with Brother Charles E. Funk in regard to the pronunciation of the word, we learn he is convinced that in most Lodges until 1750, and perhaps even later than 1800, the words hele, conceal, reveal, were perfect rhymes pronounced hayl, concayl, revayl, as they would be in Ireland today, but modern dictionaries give the pronunciation as heel.

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HALE, NATHAN

American patriot, born at Coventry, Connecticut, in 1756. Gave his life for his country in 1776, when he was hanged as a Spy by the British in New York City on September 29. He was a member of Saint John's Regimental Lodge of New York City and had already received recognition as a Freemason although not twenty-one years of age (see New Age, September, 1924).

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HALL COMMITTEE

A Committee established in all Lodges and Grand Lodges which own the buildings in which they meet, to which is entrusted the supervision of the building. The Grand Lodge of England first appointed its Hall Committee in 1773, for the purpose of superintending the erection of the hall which had been projected.

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HALL, MASONIC

For a long time after the revival of Freemasonry in 1717, Masonic Lodges continued to meet, as they had done before that period, in taverns. Thus, the Grand Lodge of England was organized, and, to use the language of Anderson, "the Quarterly Communications were revived" by four Lodges, whose respective places of meeting were the Goose and Gridiron Ale-House, the Crown Ale-House, the Apple-Tree Tavern, and the Rummer and Grapes Tavern. For many years the Grand Lodge held its quarterly meetings sometimes at the AppleTree, but principally at the Devil Tavern, and kept the Grand Feast at the hall of one of the Livery Companies. The first Lodge in Paris was organized at a tavern kept in the Rue des Boucheries by one Hure, and the Lodges subsequently organized in France continued to meet, like those of England, in public houses. The custom was long followed in other countries of Europe. In the United States the practice ceased only at a comparatively recent period, and it is possible that in some obscure villages it has not yet been abandoned.

At as early a period as the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Gilds, or Livery Companies, of London, had their halls or places of meeting, and in which they stored their goods for sale. At first these were mean buildings, but gradually they rose into importance, and the Goldsmith's Hall, erected in the fifteenth century is said to have been an edifice of large dimensions and of imposing appearance. These halls, probably, as they were very common in the eighteenth century, were suggestive to the Freemasons of similar edifices for their own Fraternity; but undoubtedly the necessity, as the Association grew into importance, of a more respectable, more convenient, and more secure locality than was afforded by temporary resort to taverns and alehouses must have led to the erection of isolated edifices for their own special use.

The first Masonic Hall of which we have any account is the one that was erected by the Lodge at Marseilles, in France, in the year 1765. Smith describes it very fully in his Use and Abuse of Freemasonry (page 165), and calls it "a very magnificent hall." In 1773, the Grand Lodge of England made preliminary arrangements for the construction of a hall, a considerable sum having been already subscribed for that purpose. On May 11 1775, the foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid in solemn form, according to a ceremonial which was then adopted, and which, with a few modifications, continues to be used at the present day on similar occasions. On the foundation-stone it was designated as Aula Latamorum meaning The Freemasons Hall. It was finished in less than twelve months, and was dedicated on May 23, 1776, to Masonry, Virtue, Universal Charity and Benevolence: a formula still adhered to without variation in the English and American lectures.

In the same year, the Lodge at Newcastle, stimulated by the enterprise of the London Freemasons, erected a hall; an example which was followed, two years afterward, by the Lodge of Sunderland. And after this the erection of isolated halls for Masonic purposes became common not only in England, Scotland, and Ireland, but all over the Continent, wherever the funds of a Lodge would permit of the expenditure.

In the United States, Lodges were held in taverns up to a comparatively recent period. It is not now considered reputable. It is impossible to tell at what precise period and in what locality the first Masonic Hall was erected in the United States. It is true that in a Boston paper of 1773 we find, according to Moore's Magazine (xv, page 162), an advertisement summoning the Freemasons to celebrate the festival of Saint John the Evangelist at "Freemasons Hall"; but, on examination, we learn that this was no other than a room in the Green Dragon Tavern. Other buildings, such as the Exchange Coffee-House, only partially used for Masonic purposes, were subsequently erected in Boston, and received by courtesy, but not by right, the name of Masonic Halls: but it was not until 1832 that the first independent hall was built in that city, which received the name of the Masonic Temple, a title which has since been very usually conferred on the halls in the larger cities. We may suppose that it was about this time, when a resuscitation of Masonic energy, which had been paralyzed by the anti-Masonic opposition, had commenced to develop itself, that the Lodges and Grand Lodges began to erect halls for their peculiar use. At present there is no dearth of these buildings for Masonic use of imposing grandeur and architectural beauty to be found scattered all over the land.

In the United States, as well as in Britain, the construction of Masonic Halls is governed by no specific rules, and is too often left to the judgment and taste of the architect, and hence if that person be not an experienced Freemason, the building is often erected without due reference to the ritual requirements of the Order. But in these particulars, says Brother Oliver, the Freemasons of the Continent are governed by a Ritual of Building, and he quotes, as a specimen of the Helvetian ceremonies in reference to the laying of the foundation-stone of a Masonic Hall, the following directions:

A Mason, assisted by two others, if there be a dearth of workmen, or distress, or war, or peril, or threats of danger, may begin the work of building a Lodge; but it is better to have seven known and sworn workmen. The Lodge is, as we know, due east and west; but its chief window or its chief door must look to the east. On a day allowed and a place appointed, the whole company of builders set out after high noon to lay the first stone.