hanzosbm
Premium Member
@coachn , forgive me for not quoting your response, but I could easily see this turning into a 14 page 'quotes within quotes'.
It sounds like (and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong) that we're talking about a matter of degrees (no pun intended). We know that early operative Masons were interested in and had knowledge of some pretty deep, non-Christian philosophy. What we don't know is what role that knowledge played. Early operative Masons looked at these philosophies as their predecessors (whether they were or not is irrelevant) so I think it's safe to say they were speculative, though whether they practiced anything even remotely close to speculative Masonry is unknown and there is no evidence of it early on. In terms of what, if any, progression there was from the philosophical teachings that were known by early operative Masons to what we have now is anyone's guess. We know that these obscure philosophical works were known to early operative masons, that they considered them their origins, that symbolism was assigned by operative masons to their working tools, and that some of that symbolism survives to today, but it comes back to the question; if what we have now is 5% from early operative masons and 95% enlightenment era external philosophies, what is the true origin?
It sounds like (and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong) that we're talking about a matter of degrees (no pun intended). We know that early operative Masons were interested in and had knowledge of some pretty deep, non-Christian philosophy. What we don't know is what role that knowledge played. Early operative Masons looked at these philosophies as their predecessors (whether they were or not is irrelevant) so I think it's safe to say they were speculative, though whether they practiced anything even remotely close to speculative Masonry is unknown and there is no evidence of it early on. In terms of what, if any, progression there was from the philosophical teachings that were known by early operative Masons to what we have now is anyone's guess. We know that these obscure philosophical works were known to early operative masons, that they considered them their origins, that symbolism was assigned by operative masons to their working tools, and that some of that symbolism survives to today, but it comes back to the question; if what we have now is 5% from early operative masons and 95% enlightenment era external philosophies, what is the true origin?