The Powerful Myth Of Hiram Abiff

Short Papers Competition 2009 © 2010 Internet Lodge and the author Paper 2/2009 Title The Powerful Myth of Hiram Abiff Author Bro Roger Marjoribanks – England Brethren, let us consider for a moment t he legend of Hiram Abiff as told in our 3 rd Degree ceremony, remembering that what we have is not the Hiram of Biblical histor y but a powerfully mythical figure designed to illustrate dramatically an important Masonic lesson - the s upreme importance of fidelity.
Hiram, although faced with the imminent prospect of death, replies firmly that “he would rather suffer death than betray the sacred trust reposed in him.” He is duly murdered, having clothed the well-known saying “death before dishonour” in flesh and blood. Whether the story was a revival in the 1720s of an old dramatic tale of our ancient operat ive brethren or invented out of whole cloth cannot now be determined for certain; but the lesson imparted is both dramatic and clear - that se crecy and fidelity to one’s brethren are supreme Masonic virtues. Thus the instructions contained in the Charge to the Initiate are reinforced.
There is a further mystery in this story: if, as Hiram is made to say, the secret of a Master Mason is known to “but three in the world” - King Solomon, King Hiram and himself - how can his death cause Solomon to say later that as a result “the secrets of a Master Mason were lost”; surely there were still two people who knew them? This just might be an oversight by t he story-teller; the only sa tisfactory answer I have come across is that it was not so much the secrets themselves that were lost but any legitimate method of communicating them, which required the co-operation of the three Masters, rather as such communication in our chapters requires. Just as a triangle is a perfectly rigid figure when complete, but swings uselessly when one is removed, so it is envisaged is the case with the secrets of a Master Mason. Finally, brethren, a new-made Master Mason may well ask why he is being fobbed off with mere “substituted secrets,” when it is well known that the three degrees of the Craft form a complete whole.
This section is quite deliberately in troduced, and is clearly integral to the ceremony. Some may say that exaltation to the Holy Royal Arch is required for co mpletion, but a fairly re cent ruling destroys that comforting illusion. Otherwise, differi ng explanations have been given, no tably by Rev. N. B.Barker-Cryer and Julian Rees 1. I should not presume to choose betw een various choices, though my personal preference is for Rees’s suggestion that the genuine secrets of a Master Mason are to be found within the Mason’s heart as he progresses in Masonic spirituality. Whatever our interpretation of the problems raised by the story of Hiram, there can surely be no doubt that the new-made Master Mason has a right for his mentors within the lodge to confront these difficulties - very genuine ones for an intelligent br other - with him, in the hope that for him the light may shine in the darkness. 1 E.G. in Barker-Cryer’s “Did You Know This, Too?” and Rees’s “Making Light.” Rees also confronts the problem of the “loss” of the secrets, referred to earlier.