Temple on Side

A French tracing board from the early 1700’s has a temple on its side and also the Master’s chair is flipped over. Feddersen (F/19a and F/24) describes it as a third degree tracing board. The pillars at the entrance are also broken, so this is not your typical third degree as these elements may refer to a destroyed temple.

It took some effort, but Feddersen is right. The image comes from the book Les Francs Maçons Écrasé (‘the crushed Freemasons’) of Abbé Larudan. It was first published in 1747, but there are also editions of 1774 and 1778. I found the text describing the third degree tracing board:

The Lodge of Masters represents the entire Temple of Solomon with its three walls, as in the image of the Apprentice Lodge but it is painted as falling into ruin, as demolished, as entirely turned upside down. Its doors have been forced open, the walls have been breached to its walls, its staircases ruptured its columns knocked down, its pavilions torn. Its Sun, Moon & Star, suffer an eclipse; its windows are cracked; the Tabernacle & Altar overturned, extreme confusion, and in a deplorable state. However, we must exclude Mount Sinai, on which a branch still preserves its greenery, which remains greenery, which remains firm despite the upheaval of the whole Temple.

So indeed, King Solomon’s Temple has been destroyed in the third degree. There is one more degree in this book: “Des Architectes ou Écossois”, ‘Architects or Scots’, see “Lion“.

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