textfiles/magazines/STB/stb-1931-08.txt

SHORT TALK BULLETIN - Vol.IX   August, 1931   No.8

POINT WITHIN A CIRCLE

by: Unknown

<EFBFBD>There is in every regular and well governed Lodge, a certain point 
within a circle, embordered by two parallel perpendicular lines. . . 
. <20>
Familiar to every Mason, this ancient symbol is too often considered 
merely as one of many, instead of what it really is, among the most 
illuminating of the entered Apprentice<63>s Degree.
It is particularly important not only for its antiquity, the many 
meanings which have been and may be read from it by the student, but 
because of the bond it makes between the old Operative Craft and the 
modern Speculative Masonry we know.
No man may say when, where or how the symbol began.  
From the earliest dawn of history a simple closed figure has been 
man<EFBFBD>s symbol for deity - the circle for some peoples, the triangle 
for others, and a circle or a triangle with a central point, for 
still others.  The closed figure, of course, represents the 
conception of Him Who has neither beginning or ending; the triangle 
adds to this the reading of a triune nature.  It is to be noted that 
the Lesser Lights form a triangle placed in our Lodges in that 
orientation which expresses Wisdom, Strength and Beauty.  In some 
Jurisdictions a Lodge closes with the brethren forming a circle about 
the Altar, which thus becomes the point, or focus of the Supreme 
Blessing upon the brethren.
Nor must we consider that a reading which is wholly beyond the 
monitorial explanation of the point within a circle is beyond Masonic 
conception.  A symbol may have many meanings, all of them right, so 
long as they are not self-contradictory.  As the point within a 
circle has had so many different meanings to so many different 
people, it is only to be expected that it have meanings for many 
Masons.
We find it connected with sun worship, the most ancient of religions; 
ruins of ancient temples devoted both to sun and fire worship are 
circular in form, with a central altar, or <20>point<6E> which was the Holy 
of Holies.  The symbol is found in India, in which land of mystery 
and mysticism its antiquity is beyond calculation.  Of its presence 
in many of the religions of the East, Wilford says (Asiatic 
Researches):
<EFBFBD>It was  believed in India that at the general deluge everything was 
involved in the common destruction except the male and female 
principles or organs of generation, which were destined to produce a 
new race and to repeople the earth when the waters had subsided from 
its surface.  The female principle, symbolized by the moon, assumed 
the form of a lunette, or crescent, while the male principle, 
symbolized by the sun, assumed the form of the lingam (or phallus) 
and placed himself erect in the center of the lunette, like the mast 
of a ship.  The two principles in this united form floated on the 
surface of the waters during the period of their prevalence on the 
earth, and thus became the progenitors of a new race of men.<2E>
This is the more curious and interesting when a second ancient 
meaning of the symbol is considered - that the point represents the 
sun and the circle the universe.  Indeed, this meaning is both modern 
and ancient, for a dot in a small circle is the astronomical symbol 
for the sun, and the derivation of this astronomical symbol marks its 
Masonic connection.  The Indian interpretation makes the point the 
male principle, the circle the female; the point became the sun and 
the circle the solar system which ancient peoples thought was the 
universe because the sun is vivifying, the life-giving principle, for 
all the lives.
The two parallel lines, which modern Masonry states represents the 
two Holy Sts. John, are as ancient as the rest of the symbol, and 
originally had nothing to do with the <20>two eminent Christian Patrons 
of Masonry.<2E>  It is a pretty conception, but of course utterly 
without foundation.  The Holy Sts. John lived and taught many 
hundreds of years before any Masonry existed which can truly be 
called by that name.  If this is distasteful to those good brethren 
who like to believe that King Solomon was Grand Master of a Grand 
Lodge, devised the system and perhaps wrote the ritual, one must 
refute them with their own chronology, for both the Holy Sts. John 
lived long <20>after<65> the wise King wrought his <20>famous fabric.<2E>
The two perpendicular parallel lines are sometimes thought to have 
been added to the symbol of the point within a circle as a sort of 
diagram or typification of a Lodge at its most solemn moment, the 
point being the brother at the Altar, the circle the Holy of Holies, 
and the two lines the brethren waiting to help bring the initiate to 
light.
But it is obviously a mere play of fancy; the two lines against the 
circle with the point date back to an era before Solomon.  On early 
Egyptian monuments may be found the Alpha and Omega, or symbol of 
God, in the center of a circle embordered by two upright serpents, 
representing the Power and the Wisdom of the Creator.
Mackey reads into the symbol an analogy to the Lodge by observing 
that as the Master and Wardens represent the sun in three positions 
in the Lodge, and as the Lodge is a symbol of the world (or universe) 
the circle can be considered as representing the Lodge, the point the 
sun at meridian, and the two lines, the Wardens or sun at rising and 
at setting.
This also seems to many students to be a mere coincidental reading.  
That derivation of the symbol which best satisfied the mind as to 
logic and appropriateness, students found in the operative craft.  
Here is more to encourage than in all the researches into ancient 
religions and the symbolism of men long forgotten.
Fully to understand just how the point within a circle came into 
Speculative Masonry by way of Operative Craftsmanship, it is 
necessary to have some mental picture of the times in which the 
Craftsmen of the early middle ages lived and wrought.
The vast majority of them had no education, as we understand the 
word.  They could neither read nor write - unimportant matters to 
most, first because there were no books to read, second because there 
was nothing which they needed to write! Skilled craftsmen they were, 
through long apprenticeship and careful teaching in the art of 
cutting and setting stone, but except for manual skill and cunning 
artifice founded on generations of experience, they were without 
learning.
This was not true of the leaders - or, as we would call them - the 
Masters.  The great Cathedrals of Europe were not planned and 
overseen by ignorance.  There, indeed, knowledge was power, as it is 
now, and the architects, the overseer, the practical builders, those 
who laid out the designs and planned the cutting and the placing of 
the stones - these were learned in all that pertained to their craft.  
Doubtless many of them had a knowledge of practical and perhaps of 
theoretical mathematics.
Certain parts of this theoretical knowledge became diffused from the 
Master Builders through the several grades of superintendents, 
architects, overseer and foreman in charge of any section of the 
work.  With hundreds if not thousands of men working on a great 
structure, some sort of organization must have been as essential then 
as now.  And equally essential would be the overseeing of the tools.
Good work cannot be done with faulty instruments.  A square and 
upright building cannot be erected with a faulty square, level or 
plumb!
The tools used by the cathedral builders must have been very much 
what ours are today; they had gavel, mallet, setting maul and hammer; 
they had chisel and trowel as we have.  And of course, they had 
plumb, square, level and twenty-four inch gauge to <20>measure and lay 
out their work.<2E>
The square, the level and the plumb were made of wood - wood, cord, 
and weight for the plumb and level; wood alone for the square.
Wood wears when used against stone.  Wood warps when exposed to water 
or damp air.  The metal used to fasten the two arms of the square 
together would rust and perhaps bend or break.  Naturally, the 
squares would not indefinitely stay square.  Squares had constantly 
to be checked for the right-angledness.  Some standard had to be 
adopted by which a square could be compared, so that, when Operative 
Masons<EFBFBD> squares were tried by it they would not <20>materially err.<2E>
The importance of the perfect right angle in the square by which 
stones were shaped can hardly be over estimated.  Operative Masonry 
in the Cathedral building days was largely a matter of cut and try, 
of individual workmen, or careful craftsmanship.  Quality production, 
micrometer measurement, interchangeabilty of parts were words which 
had not yet been coined; ideas for which they stand had not even been 
invented.  All the more necessary, then, that the foundation on which 
all the work was done should be as perfect as the Masters knew how to 
make it.  Cathedral builders erected their temples for all time - how 
well they built, a hundred glorious structures in the Old World 
testify.  They built well because they knew how to check and try 
their squares!
Today any school boy knows the simple <20>secret of the square<72> which 
was then the closely guarded wisdom of the Masters alone; toady any 
school boy can explain the steam engine which was a wonder two 
hundred years ago, and make and use a wireless which was a miracle 
scarce ten years gone by.  Let us not wonder that our ancient 
Operative brethren thought their secret of a square so valuable; let 
us rather wonder that in time in which the vast majority of men were 
ignorant of mathematics, so many must have known and appreciated this 
simple, this marvelous, geometrical secret.
Lay out a circle - any size - on a piece of paper.  
With a straight edge draw a line across through its center.  Put a 
dot on the circle, anywhere.  Connect that dot with the line at both 
points where it crosses the circle.  Results - a perfect right 
triangle.
Draw  the circle of whatever size you will; place a dot on the 
circumference where you will, it makes no difference.  So be it.  So 
be it the lines from the dot meet the horizontal line crossing the 
circle through its center and they will form a right angle.
This was the Operative Mason<6F>s secret - knowing how <20>to try his 
square.<2E>  It was by this means that he tested the working tools of 
the Fellows of the Craft; he did so often enough, and it was 
impossible either for their tools or their work <20>to materially err.<2E>  
From this, also, comes the ritual used in the lodges of our English 
brethren, where they <20>open on the center.<2E>  Alas, we have dropped the 
quaint old words they use, and American Lodges know the <20>center<65> only 
as the point within a circle.  The original line across the center 
has been shifted to the side and became the <20>two perpendicular 
parallel lines<65> of Egypt and India and our admonitions are no longer 
what they must have once been; . .  . <20>while a mason circumscribes 
his <20>square<72> within these points, it is impossible that <20>it<69> should 
materially err.<2E>
Today we only have our Speculative meaning; we circumscribe our 
desires and our passions within the circle and the lines touching on 
the Holy Scriptures.  For Speculative Masons who use squares only in 
the symbolic sense such an admonition is of far greater use than 
would be the secret of the square as was known to our ancient 
brethren.
But - how much greater becomes the meaning of the symbol when we see 
it as a direct descent from an Operative practice!  Our ancient 
brethren used the point within a circle as a test for the rectitude 
of the tools by which they squared their work and built their 
temporal buildings.  In the Speculative sense, we used it as a test 
for the rectitude of our intentions and our conduct, by which we 
square our actions with the square of virtue.  They erected 
Cathedrals - we build the <20>House Not Made With Hands.<2E>  Their point 
within a circle was Operative - our is Speculative!
But through the two - point in a circle on the ground by which an 
Operative Master secretly tested the square of his fellows - point 
within a circle as a symbol by which each of us may test, secretly, 
the square of his virtue by which he erects an Inner Temple to the 
Most High - both are Masonic, both are beautiful.  The one we know is 
far more lovely that it is a direct descendant of an Operative 
practice the use of which produced the good work, true work, square 
work of the Master Masons of the days that come not back.
Pass it not lightly.  Regard it with the reverence it deserves, for 
surely it is one of the greatest teachings of Masonry, concealed 
within a symbol which is plain for any man to read, so be it he has 
Masonry in his heart.