Time To Drop “anno Lucis”

Paper 58/2007 Title Time to Drop “Anno Lucis”? Author Bro Phil Fyles - England Anno Lucis, the Masonic “year of light”, is calculated by adding 4000 to the Common Era, for example, 2008 + 4000 = 6008. This system is based on the mid-17th Century chronology of Bishop James Ussher who, by analysing Biblical history, computed the time of the Creation as the evening before 23 October 4004 BC . As the Bible was the literal ‘Word of God’, many (pre-20th Century) printed editions included comments referring to Ussher’s dates as historical facts! Our problem is that Ussher and his contemporaries al so believed that the world would only exist for 6000 years. This was based on an understanding that one God-Day was equal to 1000 man-days, and as the Creation took 6 God-Days, the year 6000 would therefore mark the end of the world ! There’s not much information about what follows except that it would be quite ‘cataclysmic’, but in the Bible, the Seventh Day was when God moved from Labour to Refreshment , and commanded man to do the same by observing the Sabbath. In the Seventh Millennium, therefore, we should expect all labour to cease for 1000 years! According to Ussher, King So lomon’s Temple was completed 3000 years after the creation of the world , (which hopefully rings a Masonic bell!). Ju st as the Holy Temple was situated at the Centre of Jerusalem, i.e. the city at the Centre of the Universe, so the building work was completed at the Centre of Time: the year 3000 = 6000 divided by 2. Solomon’s Temple existed at the Centre of both Space and Time! You can see why the developers of Freemasonry were so keen to adopt Ussher’s chronology! Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and Ussher’s 6000 years were up on Thursday, October 23, 1997! Even with the Masonic ‘rounding up’ adjustment of 4 years, the world ended in the year 2000!
We are now, according to Masonry, in the Sevent h Millennium – i.e. 1000 years of Sabbath when no labour is permitted. Now here’s the bombshell: we are called ‘Masons’ because, symbolically, we ‘build’ the Temple (it’s that simple!). However, ask your lo cal Rabbi if Temple-building was permitted on the Sabbath Day and he’ll tell you that observing the Sabbath always took precedence over building the Temple, because ‘building’ equals ‘labour’. Symbolically, therefore, as the Seventh Millennium is a Sabbath, all Masonry must come to an end after the year 6000 and Masonic dates, such as ‘AL 6008’, are symbolically absurd! But don’t worry Brethren. We now know the Univer se came into existence 13.7 billion years ago, and Supreme Grand Chapter has already deleted those silly Ussher dates from the Lectures. We just need to go a wee bit further with the Third Degree: maybe c hange the wording to “he was slain at the Centre of Time and Space” and remove AL from our certificates. Brethren, it’s time to drop Anno Lucis!