The Holy Saints John
John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, Patron Saints of Masonry

Charles W. Jacobson

"Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ?

"Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

"Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

"Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them."

Carlyle has said that: "The history of the world is a biography of great men." Certain it is that the greatest and most enduring monuments that mark the progress and development of humanity are not built of brass or marble, but are the lives and characters of men. The same Infinite Being, who fashioned the universe, laid the foundations of the earth and gave to every one of the myriad stars its allotted course in space, also wove, with more cunning skill, the infinitely more delicate fibers of the human soul.

The life of God is inherent in all the forces of nature. It is manifest in the tiniest blade of grass as in the tallest tree, it is heard in the chirp of the smallest insect as in the lion's roar; but the soul is of God himself.

"He formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." By that act man was differentiated from the rest of creation and endowed with the essence of divinity. He was made an heir to immortality; a partaker with Him of the beauty, the glory and the wondrous heritage of eternal life.

The events and customs of the past are full of interest to all. The lives and deeds of the men of antiquity come down to us surrounded with a halo of glory; the charm of romance, the glamor of great deeds envelop them. We think of their great achievements, their fortitude, their heroism, and we envy them the greater opportunities we erroneously imagine they enjoyed. The men who worked out the divine plan centuries ago were real men. They were actuated and imbued with the same high purposes, the same spirit of devotedness that prompts thousands in our own times to give up the pleasures of the world and its attractions, and live lives of self-denial and sacrifice for the good of others. Such men have left the impress of their characters upon the world. They have planted deep within the heart of humanity the leaven of God's plans and purposes that shall swell, blossom and grow into the perfect fruit in His good time.

One thousand, nine hundred and seven years ago today, there was born in far-off Judea one who was destined to become one of the strongest, most forceful and strangely unique characters of all time. Search the history and records of all the various religions of the world and nowhere will you find his equal among men. He stands alone, unparalleled in the rugged simplicity of his life, the beauty and purity of his teachings, the steadfastness of his trust and, to the Christian, as the great exponent of faith in the coming of Christ. He stood on the border line dividing the old and the new dispensations, uniting in his own personality the sublime strength of the one with the gentle loveliness and charity of the other. Back of him was the old covenant as given to Moses, with the traditions and customs made sacred by the centuries. Before him, unfolded to his prophetic vision, was the new covenant to be transcribed into the laws of the spiritual kingdom for time and eternity.

Lodges of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons were, after the building of the first Temple at Jerusalem, dedicated to King Solomon and, later, to Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. We are met here today to commemorate the anniversary of one of these patrons of our Craft, Saint John the Baptist.

He came of a princely and priestly line. He was the product of more than thirty centuries of the highest type of Jewish culture. In his veins flowed the truest and best blood of Israel. His father was of the course of Abia and his mother of the daughters of Aaron. His birth was foretold to Zacharias, his father, as follows: "Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord and shall neither drink wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, and many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God, and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just."

At the time of his birth, both of his parents were well stricken with years and John was left an orphan while a mere child. "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was in the desert till the day of his shewing unto Israel."

The Jews of Judea, at that time, were divided into three bodies: the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes, and every Jew was obliged to belong to one of them. The Pharisees and Sadducees were religious sects, while the Essenes were a higher development of Judaism, carrying out with unusual strictness, in their life and practice, the dogmas of their faith. At the time of John, they numbered about six thousand. They dwelt in the hill country northwest of the Dead Sea. The Mosaic law of purity was strictly observed by them and, the more readily to conform to it, they formed a separate community and became a brotherhood.

Everything was held in common; there was, therefore, no rich nor poor and the only rank acknowledged by them was that of worth, which was rewarded by advancement to the several degrees. They practiced baptism as a symbol of purification. The aspirant for admission was required to put all his possessions into the common treasury. He was given an apron, a spade, a white robe and a book of regulations and placed on probation for one year, at the end of which, if found worthy, he was advanced to the second stage, where he remained for two years when, if approved, he became an associate or full member. There was, also, a third grade, called Companion, where the candidate was bound by oath to love God, to be just, charitable, truthful and to conceal the secrets of the society and its mysteries.

The Essenes were characterized by earnestness and devotion, by their self-denying and godly lives, an absolute confidence in God, resignation to providence, love of virtue, utter contempt for fame, riches and worldly pleasure, a tender regard and love for others, kindness, cheerfulness and their ever-ready welcome to death in whatever form. John was adopted by them and attained to the highest dignity in the order. Christ and Saint John the Evangelist were, without doubt, members. It is evident that the Order was held in the highest esteem, for nowhere is there a word said against them, although the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees were frequently rebuked by the Great Teacher and His disciples.

Go to the mountain country of Judea, to the banks of the Jordan, picture to yourself this marvelous man in the wilderness, clothed in camel's hair bound to his body by a girdle of leather, with coarse sandals upon his feet, eating the coarsest food and sleeping upon the bare earth. Imagine the power, the burning energy and eloquence of his preaching. The Jews were ignorant of the immortality of the soul and neither knew nor understood aught of the spiritual kingdom to be established in the hearts of men, and yet the sympathetic soul of John the Baptist, feeling the coming of God in Christ, won them in throngs to receive the baptism of water. He spoke as one who realized and understood the depths of human sin and the cleansing need of God's baptism. Stern ascetic though he was, yet his every act and deed was made bright as the meridian sun by his devoted consecration to his God. He was one of the strongest of those tremendous dynamic human forces that has ever appeared among men and created a revolution in the thought and morals of the time.

John had faith in his calling. He heard the voice of duty and obeyed it. The long years of discipline and preparation in the wilderness are evidence of that. In him was the fulfillment of prophecy. He was the harbinger of a better day, the inciter to a purer life. Those who went to hear him preach, saw not the vesture of camel's hair, the leather girdle or the coarse sandals. No, they beheld a man covered as with a shield, with the uplifting force and power of a sublime earnestness, shining through, above and around him, glorious in Its radiance, with the light of Him of whom he was the forerunner, quickening the hearts of men into a higher and nobler conception of morality and righteousness.

Turn for a moment from John the Baptist, the grand, magnificent, splendid man; strong, stern, severe, true in his sympathies, fearless and uncompromising in his reprovals and convictions, with a faith steadfast as the granite hills that surrounded him; to the other John, the gentle, lovable, refined, the "beloved disciple" of His Lord.

John the Evangelist was the son of Zebedee and Salome. He was born in Bethsaida in Galilee. The account given of him in the Bible has a peculiar charm. His character while strongly affectionate and spiritual was also one of striking strength, energy and decision; charity and brotherly love were his dominating traits; he was the youngest and most trusted of the Master, the one to whom He told the most private matters of His life; he was with Him when He raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead; he witnessed the transfiguration on the Mount; he was the trusted friend, the beloved companion of His solitude, he sat next to Him at the last supper, he was with Him throughout the terrible night in Gethsemane, he followed Him before Caiphas, and attended Him at His trial, he acknowledged Him on Calvary, and was acknowledged by Him though surrounded by armed soldiers and the bloodthirsty rabble of Jerusalem.

It was John to whom the Master committed His mother, saying: "Woman, behold thy son, son behold thy mother," and well and faithfully did he perform that sacred trust for upwards of fifteen years, until her death. He preached the gospel openly in Jerusalem. He was imprisoned, scourged and threatened with death, and, at the age of ninety years, was banished to the Island of Patmos. He is supposed to have died in Ephesus, A. D. 100, at the age of ninety-four years.

John was educated in Greek as well as in Hebrew and was the most cultured of the Disciples, but he possessed something far better than the polish of the schools—the polish of Divine grace! He was essentially humble and modest in all things, ever concealing his own merits and honor.

The Apocalypse was written by John during his exile in Patmos and the authenticity of his authorship was unquestioned until in the third century when, in order to refute certain opinions concerning the millenium deduced from it, the opponents of these opinions commenced to deny the canonical character of the book itself. No other book in the Bible, however, is better authenticated than this. Justin Martyr, who lived about sixty years after John, speaks of him as the unquestioned author of the book.

Such, in brief, is the character of John the Divine, the beloved Disciple of his Lord and one of the Patron Saints of Masonry, and he is said to be equal to John the Baptist because he finished by his learning what the Baptist began by his zeal and, by so doing, drew a second line parallel to the former.

The Baptist, dauntless, courageous as a god, immovable as a mountain which the mightiest tempest cannot subjugate, knowing nothing of the charms of home or family, of love and the delights of friendship, lived only in the future. The present was his merely for work, for the fulfilling of his destiny. He was a breaker of idols, a ruthless destroyer of shams and impositions. The Evangelist,—a perfect type and exemplification of the infinite harmony and loveliness into which the human character is capable of being developed.

The great dominating trait of John the Baptist was that he was absolutely indifferent to all outward Influences. He was guided and controlled only by his own convictions—all things else he counted as nothing against the truth. He was strong, noble, intense in his life and work. He came an ambassador from God with a message to men. He was a witness for him of the divine laws of morality and righteousness and neither public opinion nor the applause or censure of men had power to sway or swerve him in the least from discharging to the letter the sacred trust confided to him.

Opposition, suffering, danger, the headsman's ax—he heeded them not. He was armed with the invulnerable armor of a mighty principle, a great truth. "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness," proclaiming the better way, the victorious song of moral and spiritual regeneration.

Mankind was sunk to the lowest depths of degradation. It had arrived at the point where horror and detestation at its own existence were felt. Vice of all kinds, lust, hypocrisy, greed sensuality, selfishness and disregard for the rights of others were everywhere prevalent. The condition of society was such that the real facts may not be written in English and must be left, as Gibbon did in writing his history, to the obscurity of a learned language. Matthew Arnold has said:

"On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell,
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell."

The soul protested at the hideous corruption everywhere prevalent. The intolerable conditions drove people of both sexes to monasticism and asceticism. It was a pagan remedy, but a natural one for earnest men to seek. Among the Jews, it was manifested in the society of the Essenes. Rome was mistress of the world. The canker of her decay and downfall was feeding on her vitals, but she knew it not. The great mass of the Jews outwardly conformed to the principles of their ancient faith, yet its cold abstractions and only partially understood rites and symbols no longer appealed to them. They neither understood nor appreciated the pure spiritual doctrine of the Baptist and were really less acquainted with God's law and truth than the pagans they affected to despise.

But John saw the coming dawn, the rising sun of the New Dispensation, even before its first rays had pierced the gloom and spiritual darkness of the world and revealed somewhat of the beauty and glory of the approaching day. He was the advance guard, the herald of God. He felt the truth flowing free and strong in his veins. He knew and recognized it when afar off and he bowed himself a willing vassal at its coming, ready to do whatsoever God willed.

It was the steadfast loyalty and devotion to truth of the Baptist, the sympathy, gentleness, love and charity of the Evangelist as well as their traditional membership that have caused our Craft to consecrate and hallow them.

The great truths and lessons of Masonry are taught and inculcated by means of symbols. The sun is not only an important symbol but it is an essential part of the Masonic system. To many ancient people it was an object of worship, and they could not fail to observe those seasons when it reached its greatest northern and southern declination at the winter and summer solstices, marked as they are by the length of the days and nights. The Druids celebrated the 21st day of June and the 21st day of December with festivities and rejoicings. Processions of young maidens, bearing garlands of flowers, were part of the ceremonies held to celebrate the summer solstice. Fire being the symbol of the sun, bonfires were lighted on the hilltops.

The Phoenicians and Egyptians looked upon the sun as a divin- ity and it was adored by the Persians, Assyrians and Chaldeans. No people, however, worshipped the sun as a material idol. It was the means of expressing life from death, represented by its nightly disappearance in the west and its daily reappearance in the east. It was also the regenerator of all things.

The early church endeavored to purify the pagan festivals by taking the birthdays of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist, which occurred very near the solstitial periods, and making of them church festivals. Saint John the Baptist is the only saint of the Old Dispensation who has been placed in the Christian calendar, and the church, both east and west, united in fixing the 24th day of June as his birthday.

The past is the heritage of Masonry; it comes to us rich in the priceless legacy of heroic souls. Herod Antipas, receiving the head of John the Baptist on a charger, little realized that from its cold and pallid lips would flow a living torrent of eloquence more powerful and far-reaching in its influence for truth, morality and righteousness than ever before came from the heart of man. The Baptist and the Evangelist, the two Essenes, Masonry's Patron Saints, were never more alive than today; never has their influence been greater and more beneficial; the truths they taught are the truths Masonry teaches; the morality they practiced is the morality Masonry would inculcate; the principles they lived and died for are the principles Masonry seeks to maintain. Masons in word and deed were they, and our title to the matchless legacy they left us can not be disturbed or set aside if we are but true to Masonry and to Him they and we have vowed to serve.

"Ye shall know them by their fruits."

Nineteen centuries have passed away since the wise men from the East followed the Star that hung poised over the stable in Bethlehem; nineteen centuries of bloody wars and devastation, and fiendish cruelties. But the leaven planted by John on the banks of the Jordan, the teachings of faith and hope and charity inculcated by the Great Teacher, the preaching of John the Evangelist, have changed the world. And believe as you may, my brethren, before the beauty and purity of their lives, before the absolute truths they taught, before the grandeur of their deaths the powers of hatred, intolerance, bigotry and superstition have battled in vain, and today, from the ends of the earth the mists and gloom that have so long enveloped humanity are being rolled away, and the sunlight and warmth of heaven are here and there illuminating the hearts of men; and sympathy and kindness are in the ascendency. And the dove of peace that hovered over the baptism in the Jordan, is still with us, symbolizing the putting into practice of the Great Teacher's commandment, always and earnestly preached by the Evangelist during a long life spent in His service: "Love one another."

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