#34 HIRAM ABIFF: THE FIRST GRAND MASTER OF THE FREEMASONS
In about 940BC, King Solomon, the great, great-grandson of Ruth and Boaz, carried through with his father’s plan to build a magnificent, gold-encrusted temple in Jerusalem to house the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God.
His ally, Hiram, (pron. Hye-ram) King of Tyre, lent him skilled craftsmen and supplied him with building materials, especially cedar from Phoenicia. Solomon’s Israelites were pastoral people with neither a history of architecture nor experience in large construction so Solomon needed help.
Little did Solomon realise that his decision to build a house for God atop the Temple Mount would have such a profound impact on millions of people in the future. The Jews would revere his temple as a holy site and gather daily to pray near a remnant of the third temple built on that site by King Herod. The Moslems would associate the site with Mohammed’s ascent into heaven. And the Freemasons, a worldwide and once secret order of men promoting brotherly love, would rebuild the same temple daily in their ceremonies. The story of Hiram and the story of the freemasons are inextricably interwoven.
According to Biblical sources Hiram Abiff was a brass worker from Tyre and the son of a Jewish widow, Abiff (means both son of a widow and nobly born), who was employed as one of the thousands of labourers and masons to build King Solomon’s temple. We know he cast two bronze pillars, which Solomon named after Boaz and Joachin. With such scant information, Hiram should merely be a Biblical footnote; (I Kings 7:14, II Chronc 4:16, I Kings 7:40) Instead he has been hauled from obscurity by the freemasons into a starring role in their shadowy rituals of ceremonial magic. As Hiram Abiff, he is the central figure in the legend and initiation of the Third Degree.
Masonry is a system of moral teachings, expounded in symbols which can only be understood by those initiated into its rites and secret rituals. The first three degrees of Masonry signify health, life and death, in that order. Each candidate who advances to be a Master Mason, (the third degree) acts out a ritual which impersonates Abiff and replicates his death. He was murdered and hurriedly buried by three ruffians because he refused to divulge to them a secret. Later Abiff was reburied by them and eventually symbolically rose from the dead when he was buried a third time beneath the Temple. Abiff, in Masonic lore, was the “First Grand Master”, and as the architect of Solomon’s temple he was the only one at that time who knew not only all the secrets of a master stonemason but he knew the most important secret of all: the secret name of God. This is called the ‘Grand Masonic word’.
How the Masonic legend came into contemporary practice is unclear but tradition says that Masonic practice was brought back by the Crusaders from the Middle East and specifically by the Knights Templar. Whatever the truth of it, if various communicants through Dr Litchfield over the years had not stressed the importance of this life for St Germain and the critical role the Count played in spreading and fostering freemasonry over thousands of years I would not have even a passing interest in Hiram, the brass worker. I wondered how his life might link him to the elusive White Brotherhood
Conversation with the Gatekeeper
“Who was Hiram, Gatekeeper that two-and-a-half thousand years later, modern-day Masons still act out his death?”
“Hiram was the illegitimate brother of King Hiram of Tyre. He was acknowledged by the former King and brought up with all the other royal children in the palace. Hiram was very bright and trained as an architect and builder. King David and King Ab Ibal, Hiram’s father, were allies and the division between their religions was not strictly drawn then. You would find Canaanite and Hisite gods in Jewish texts. King Hiram, like David, believed in one god and was happy to cooperate building a temple in Jerusalem. Solomon said ‘I’ll pay your workers with a present of much gold if we sign a mutual defence treaty in which neither of us will attack the other’s kingdom during the building of the Temple, and will come to each one another’s aid if one of us is attacked. It will be a treaty of mutual defence, cooperation and friendship.’ It was a diplomatic triumph! Solomon paid all the workers, sent one thousand bushels of wheat, one thousand gallons of olive oil and much gold to King Hiram. He bought peace during the time of construction.
Solomon used Hiram Abiff to design his columns and a special crypt under the temple to house what you would call a time capsule. Unfortunately, word got out in distorted gossip that a great treasure was buried there and Abiff was captured by stonemasons who wanted to know where this treasure was buried. They tortured him to reveal his truths, hammering nails into his head until they accidentally went too far. Hiram Abiff was a real person who was murdered, his body was found in decay and he was resurrected in spirit and went on to rebirth.”
“I’ll return to those ideas shortly to clarify them. But for now, could you tell me how Hiram’s story got to be associated with masonry?”
“Because of the secret group Hiram belonged to. We’ve spoken of it before. It was called the White Brotherhood, or, in deference to your modern sensibilities, the White Order. It was, in his time, again a male cult concerned with propagating the old belief of reincarnation whose theme was born, died, resurrected from the dead. Reincarnation did exist beside Judaism as part of the Baal philosophy although in this instance it had come with Moses and Aaron out of Egypt. The Order’s progeny were the instigators of Solomon’s architectural plans for the Temple. This White Order placed a second time capsule with the first capsule and the skull and bones of Hiram Abiff together in a casket.”
“What was in the time capsule?”
“I’ll answer what was in one of the capsules. The contents of the other capsule, the Count wants an old friend to reveal to you later – when the time is right. In it, there was a detailed doctrine on reincarnation, Hiram’s life story and his skull and leg bones. This still forms a small part of the ceremony in masonry as the skull and crossbones are a sign of reincarnation. The Crusaders Du Bouillon and du Payen will find them two thousand years later and get the works translated to understand what they were all about. There was a smaller scroll which laid out the beliefs of the Brotherhood. These beliefs would grow under the Templars and give rise to Masonry. At du Payen’s insistence the skull and crossbones were placed at the top of the sword hilt of all Knights Templar.”
“Were there any Jewish patriarchs, judges or kings active in the White Order?”
“Yes. There was Abraham, Joseph, Aaron, Joshua, Gideon, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elias, Solomon and Saul. Moses was initiated by Aaron.”
“Did the Order have an initiation rite like today’s Freemasonry?”
“Yes, but it was not as complicated. It had a three-tiered system of seniority: initiate practitioner and master very similar to academia with its bachelor, master and doctorate.
The Brotherhood had no allegiances, no formality. It was a coalition of spiritual power figures who were of different cultures and beliefs. It was very ecumenical. They believed in one God, but agreed to disagree about how you adored your God. Their major concern was holding the vibrational balance of the world. The Dionysian’s and the… I can’t find the word in the Doctor’s memory… help me… it’s an Egyptian sect…”
“… The Gnostics?”
“Yes, the Gnostics were to become their remnants in Egypt. They believed in the balance of good and evil, they came early to Britain and co-existed with the Druids. The Rosicrucians would also grow from them only to wander off in a totally different direction. What is most important is that all precepts in modern day freemasonry derive from the White Order and once you are a member of it you remain so forever in all subsequent incarnations whether you know it or not. They would help conceive the great temples of France… Chartres, Reims and Notre Dame.”
“What is it that makes Solomon’s Temple so special?”
“Solomon’s Temple is, in its minutest detail, the ultimate symbol of the perfect world. It is a perfect creation of God. Every detail of it is symbolic and associated with the concept of the new Jerusalem.”
“What is that?”
“The new Jerusalem occurs when evil is finally enchained and when the final struggle is won. Then the King of Creation establishes God’s kingdom of light on Earth.”
“When does this kingdom occur? Soon-ish I hope!”
“There is no date. t is dependent on too many factors. In fact, the date is non-existent and time will have a different conception. It could even be timelessness.”
“Why did St Germain have to incarnate as Hiram, Gatekeeper?”
“You have finally arrived at the most important question! Why, indeed? Hiram Abiff was one of the few recorded instances of this Thessian legend.”
“And what is that?”
“It refers to Theseus who slew the Minotaur. It is the legend of the King who must die. Ancient people who were planning an important enterprise built into it a human sacrifice. In this case, the human sacrifice of a man of royal blood who will be buried in the foundations of Solomon’s temple”.
“Are you saying that Hiram was an intentional victim of such a sacrifice?”
“Yes. He was aware of his destiny at the beginning of his incarnation. He heard it from a soothsayer. His sacrifice was part of the secret of the White Brotherhood and part of the great secret of the origins of Freemasonry. You are shocked, I see. Much has been written of human sacrifice but actually in primitive societies it was quite rare. We stumble across it, without explanation, in Abraham and Isaac and in later centuries as you know a goat, the scapegoat, the first-born kid of the herd would become the receptacle for the sins of the community. It was slaughtered as the scapegoat or in other words, the substitute for the human sacrifice. See, too, the gesture of the sacrifice of the Son of God taking all the sins of humanity with him in his death. His was not only a perfect sacrifice but it was a cumulative perfection of all the sacrifices preceding it by Lord Sananda. Finally the perfect, the complete human sacrifice! While this is not true of other societies and cultures sacrifice is at the root of Judeo-Christian society.
You have a remnant of this when the bones of a martyr are placed in the altar stone upon which the priest celebrates Mass. It was Hiram’s sacrifice which the crusaders found in the Temple foundation boxes.”
“Did King Solomon know of Hiram’s sacrifice?”
“Solomon knew and approved of his sacrifice. The High Priest was there to properly consecrate it and inform Solomon when it was complete.”
“And did his half brother King Hiram know?”
“He learned of it afterwards … he was not present. He grieved and became angry and the political relationship between Judea and Phoenicia suffered. Eventually he got over it, but the King was very upset and it caused a period of strain.”
“Why did the High Priest select Hiram Abiff?”
“Because he was the builder of the temple, a perfect form and of noble blood. Abiff, remember, means ‘Noble One’. It is a convenient coincidence that he was also a son of a widow.”
“Why was the Jewish High Priest officiating?”
“So he could consecrate the Temple.”
“Where is such an act sanctioned in Judaism?”
“Judaism in Solomon’s time was a great cross-pollination of culture, religion and politics. It was not always as pure and monotheistic as the Jews would like to think now. It was infiltrated by Canaanite, Egyptian and Phoenician gods often brought in by the slave mothers of Jewish sons. The Jewish people would from time to time abandon God for various idols and in the Bible you have God angry as a result and sending a prophet to bring them back in line.”
“From what you’ve described of his death, it was very messy. Not what I imagine of a ritual sacrifice!”
“His death went badly wrong. The murderers made a mess of his sacrifice. Hiram escaped from his executioners and ran into the wilderness. After smashing his head and temporarily covering him, he decomposed quickly and they didn’t want to take his body back as they had promised because it had gone putrid. So they buried him under an acacia tree. This is the foundation of the Masonic version.”
“Do the Masons today know Hiram was a human sacrifice?”
“No, they have no idea.”
“Did Hiram know the soothsayer was right and he was about to be sacrificed?”
“No, he didn’t and when he realised it, he ran.”
“Whose idea was this?”
“It was the High Priest’s idea with the inner cabal the Sanhedrin. Jews today would be ashamed that a sacrificed body was buried in their temple.”
“Was this Hiram’s life’s purpose?”
“His life’s purpose was knowingly to become a human sacrifice and knowingly resign himself to it. It gives one a new dimension on the good Comte does it not?”
“I am confused. You are saying he both knew and he didn’t know. Which is it?”
“He knew from the soothsayer, he denied it, he was attacked, he ran, once attacked again he accepted it and resigned himself to his death.”
“One could say then that he achieved his life purpose?”
“Yes, and he managed to do so and at the same time to ennoble his killers, as Christ did. In both sacrifices, their killers’ lives were changed forever.”
“Yet this is the second time St Germain has been involved in a sacrificial death. Why did it take so long for this new dimension of Abiff’s story to come out in our conversations?”
“My dear friend, you’ll only find a Templar treasure when the time is right!” (Litchfield 2006)
St Germain’s sacrificial deaths are leading somewhere but now it’s time to meet his half-brother, the King.
