224 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING
The time of their writing stretches from 1696 to 1730, but it seems
obvious that they are simply transcribing a traditional ritual whose ori-
gin reaches back far into the past, although we are not able to precisely
identify this genesis.
The fact that this operative ritual is so old can be supported on the
one hand by crosschecking the texts against the contents of the statutes
and old charges, which are greater in number and which date back to
the fourteenth century, and on the other hand by comparing them to the
customary rituals of other organizations, which, although different
from those of freemasonry, shared the same common root. For instance,
the French Compagnonnage and the German Bruderschaft shared
masonry's symbolic themes.
Perhaps one of the best proofs of the age of the masons' ritual has
been overlooked until now: the nature of its symbolism, which is the
key to its iniatory and esoteric meaning and which can be illuminated
as an overall value only through its Christian explanation such as that
doctrine was professed in medieval times.
Comparison of the symbols of the ritual to those expressed by
Christian religious thought during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies allow us to grasp the high scope of the ritual and to establish,
albeit approximately, the time of its birth. It is significant that, starting
at the end of the fourteenth century, all the symbolism that had been
used in previous centuries to formulate the Christian truths that expe-
rienced an apotheosis in the thirteenth century gradually fell into disuse
and became incomprehensible. Without renouncing them, the
Renaissance that occurred from the fourteenth century in Italy to the
beginning of the sixteenth in France, the Low Countries, and Great
Britain replaced it with a symbolism restored from antiquity, even
though it may have led to the same traditional values. After around
1530, this tradition became blurred and the symbolic thought
employed in religion, art, and philosophy became foreign and eventu-
ally disappeared altogether from popular thought. It no longer had any
deep roots. How could the people have any genuine interest in those
who took the place of the saints—Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Ceres, and
Proserpine or the ancient heroes of Greece and Rome or the Caesars?
Even if this new art, especially prominent in the plastic arts, still