Scottish Rite History

Origins

The "Double-Headed Eagle"

The double-headed eagle was probably first accepted by Masonry, as a symbol, in the year 1758. In that year the body calling itself the Council of Emperors of the East and West was established in Paris. The double-headed eagle was likely to have been adopted by this Council, which claimed a double jurisdiction; one head inclined to the East to guard any and all who might approach from that direction, the other head guarding the West for a like purpose. The Council adopted a ritual of twenty-five Degrees, all of which are now contained in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, to which eight more were added so as to make thirty-three Degrees of which our Rite is now composed.

The eagle, as a symbol, is rooted in antiquity. According to Albert G. Mackey, the great Masonic encyclopedist, the bird was sacred to the sun in Egypt, Greece and Persia. To the pagans it was an emblem of Jupiter, and among the Druids it was a symbol of their Supreme Being. A distinguished reference is frequently made to the eagle in the Scriptures. It is agreed by all that while the single-headed eagle with extended wings as if the act of flying, has always, from the majestic character of the bird, been deemed an emblem of imperial power and dignity, the extension and multiplication of that power and dignity is symbolized by the two heads. Among the pagans, the eagle also symbolized great strength and endurance as evidenced by its keen sight, aerial prowess and resourcefulness in outwitting its prey, never wanting for its daily necessities. Cicero, in speaking of the myth of Ganymede, as having been carried up to Jove on the eagle’s back, states that “It teaches us that the truly wise, illuminated by the shining lights of virtue, become more and more like God, until by wisdom they are borne aloft and soar to him.” May the shining light of virtue guide and guard our life’s pathway.

The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

After the organization of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717, Masonry became very popular. It passed over the Channel to France in 1721 where many ritualists invented numerous “side degrees” subject to no governing body and hawked them about the country and through the continent.

In 1740, Chevalier Ramsey, a Scottish nobleman, gave some famous lectures in Paris and Bordeaux on the origin and objects of Masonry. He subdivided the “Three Degrees” and concocted degrees from the parts explained by his philosophic lectures. He established a Lodge which he called Harodim, but the French styled it Scotchman’s Lodge Masonry, which fact may have had something to do with the misnomer, Scottish Rite.

The Scottish Rite had its beginning in France. In 1754, the Chevalier de Bonneville established in the College of Clermont in Paris a chapter of twenty-five so-called “High Degrees.” This college was a sort of refuge for the Stuarts of Scotland, which fact may have had some bearing on the name Scottish Rite. The body established by Bonneville, including the three symbolic degrees, was called the Rite of Perfection. In 1758, these Degrees were taken by Marquis de Lernais to Berlin where they in the following year were placed under a body called the Council of the Emperors of the East and West, which was formed at Paris from the ruins of the Clermont Chapter.

In 1762, it is said that Frederick the Great “formed and promulgated” what is known as the Constitutions of 1762. In 1786, a reorganization took place in which eight degrees were added to the twenty-five and the name changed to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. By these Constitutions, Frederick resigned the authority of Grand Commander, which title he had held since the adoption of the Grand Constitutions in 1762, and deposited his Masonic prerogatives with a council in each nation to be composed of Sovereign Grand Inspectors General of the Thirty-third and last degree of Freemasonry

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Moves to America

In 1761, the year before Frederick the Great was said to have taken under his patronage all Masonry in Germany, Stephen Morin of France was commissioned Inspector General for the New World by the Grand Consistory of Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret in Paris to introduce the Rite in America. Morin established bodies in Santo Domingo and Jamaica, but he did not enter the continent. He did, however, commission Henry Andrew Francken who had come to Jamaica to establish the Rite in the American Colonies.

Francken reached New York in 1767 and established a Lodge of Perfection in Albany, the first in continental “America”. Francken brought a copy of the Grand Constitutions of 1762 with him, which he left at Albany. Both Morin and Francken were given authority to establish Lodges and to appoint Inspectors possessing powers equivalent to their own. Records of many established Lodges of Perfection seem to have been lost, but some accounts are still extant. A Lodge of Perfection was established at Philadelphia in 1781. In 1783, one was organized at Charleston, South Carolina, by Isaac DeCosta.

The Lodges of Perfection from the beginning were in full harmony with the Symbolic Lodges, assuming no authority over them and invariably beginning their work with the Fourth Degree. Agreeable to the Constitution in 1786 the United States was divided into two Masonic Jurisdictions of the Rite. The Northern Masonic Jurisdiction consists of fifteen states, and the Southern Masonic Jurisdiction of thirty-three states. Since 1845, each jurisdiction, “In deference to the Constitution of the York Rite practiced in this country, waives its rights of privileges, so far as they relate to the first three degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry.”

The Supreme Council, 33°

When the Grand Constitutions of 1762 were ratified in Berlin and proclaimed throughout the world for the government of the “Ancient and Accepted Rite over the surface of two hemispheres,” a copy was sent to Inspector General Stephen Morin, who accepted the resolutions, Before the adoption of the Constitutions of 1786, which provided for a Supreme Council, no Supreme Councils had been established. The powers and duties now vested in such councils rested upon the authority of Deputy Inspectors General within certain geographical limits.

The new Constitutions of 1786 provided for a Supreme Council of nine members in each nation, who had all Masonic prerogatives within their districts. Two Supreme Councils, however, were provided for within the realm of the United States of America with equal powers in their respective jurisdictions. The first Supreme Council to be established under the Constitutions of 1786 was at Charleston, South Carolina. On May 31, 1801, the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree was “opened with high honors.” It recognized Morin’s Patent of 1761, the Grand Constitutions of 1762, and the Grand Constitutions of 1786. The founders of the Council were John Mitchell and Frederick Dalcho, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General who soon enlarged the membership to the requisite number nine. The names added were Emanuel De La Motta, Dr. J. Auld, Dr. James Moultrie, Abraham Alexander, M. C. Levy, Thomas B. Bower, and J. De Lieben.

The Supreme Council, 33°, whose See is at Charleston, South Carolina, now sitting in Washington, D. C., is in truth, “Mother Council of the World,” but she claims no rights and privileges superior to those tendered her daughters throughout the world