Geometry and Masonry, by Anderson, in the year 1723, who, in the Constitutions printed in that year, has the following passage: 66 By some vestiges of antiquity we find one of them (the offspring of Seth) prophesying of the final conflagration at the day of Judgment, as St. Jude tells, and likewise of the general deluge for the punishment of the world. Upon which he erected his two large pillars (though some ascribe them to Seth), the one of stone and the other of brick, whereon were engraven the liberal sciences, etc. And that the stone pillar remained in Syria until the days of Vespasian, the Emperor.": Fifteen years afterward, when he published the second edition of the Constitutions, he repeated the Legend, with the additional statement that Enoch was "expert and bright both in the science and the art" of Geometry and Masonry, an abridgment of which he placed on the pillars which he had erected. He adds that "the old Masons firmly believed this tradition," but as there is no appearance of any such tradition in the old records, of which since his date a large number have been recovered (for in them the building of the pillars is ascribed to the sons of Lamech), we shall have to accept this assertion with many grains of allowance, and attribute it to the general inaccuracy of Anderson when citing legendary authority. But as the first mention of Enoch as a Freemason is made by Anderson, and as we not long afterward find him incorporated into the legendary history of the Order, we may, I think, attribute to him the suggestion of the Legend, which was, however, afterward greatly developed. It was not, however, adopted into the English system, since neither Entick nor Northouck, who subsequently edited the Book of Constitutions, say anything more of Enoch than had already been said by Anderson. They, indeed, correct to some extent his statement, by ascribing the pillars either to Seth or to Enoch, leaning, therefore, to the authority of Josephus, but, equally with Anderson, abandoning the real tradition of the old Legend, which gave them to the children of Lamech. It is, I think, very evident that the Legend of Enoch was of Continental origin, and I am inclined conjecturally to assign its invention to the fertile genius of the Chevalier Ramsay, the first fab 1" Constitutions," 1723, p. 3, notes. |