[MR] Of Bees and Freemasonry

[Ron Osceola]

*The Early Masonic Catechisms* printed in 1724:

*"A bee has in all Ages and Nations been the Grand Hierogliphick of Masonry,
because it excells all other living Creatures in the Contrivance and
Commodiousness of its Habitation or combe; … nay Masonry or Building seems
to be of the very Essence or Nature of the Bee, for her Building not the
ordinary Way of all other living Creatures, is the Generative Cause which
produces the Young ones. (you know I suppose that Bees are of Neither Sex.)*
* *

*For this Reason the Kings of France both Pagans and Christians, always
Eminent Free-Masons, carried three Bees for their Arms.*
* *

*What Modern Masons call a Lodge was for the above Reasons by Antiquity
call'd a HIVE of Free-Masons, and for the same Reasons when a Dissention
happens in a Lodge the going off and forming another Lodge is to this Day
call'd SWARMING. (wording and spelling of 1724)"* (Roberts, *The Craft and
Its Symbols*, p. 73)



-- 
Ron Osceola

http://ronsmagic.com
804.385.0485