The Outer Portico

Masonry is divided, as we all know, into three degrees, each revealing as much as it conceals to the candidate. Masonry is a progressive science, taught by degrees alone, with the candidate lead, over time, closer to the true secrets of Freemasonry.

The degrees serve multiple purposes, and in fact, are part of the guardians of the way to the true secrets of Freemasonry. Men join Masonry for many purposes, some, craven, others, social, and others, to truly become better men.

By craven, I refer to those who simply want to obtain the secrets of Freemasonry, having no interest in anything more. These men are confused by the initiatic experience, and extremely disappointed to find they have, by their time, obtained no secrets but a grip, a word, a due guard and a sign.

These rarely come back for the second degree, thinking that there are no secrets to obtain. Some, however, come back for the second degree, and seeing only a few more grips, words and signs, drop the fraternity, and go through lives having missed the greatest opportunity ever presented to them.

Those who join for social reasons are much like the craven ones who join, though these men, discovering that there is actually work required of them, also often drop out before or after their second degree. It is the rare craven or social animal that actually make it through the third degree, though, of course, we all know a few who do so.

The degrees, therefore, act as a kind of filter against the occasional mistake of the investigation committee.

Those who become Freemasons only for the sake of finding out the secret of the order, run a very great risk of growing old under the trowel without ever realizing their purpose. Yet there is a secret, but it is so inviolable that it has never been confided or whispered to anyone.

Those who stop at the outward crust of things imagine that the secret consists in words, in signs, or that the main point of it is to be found only in reaching the highest degree. This is a mistaken view: the man who guesses the secret of Freemasonry, and to know it you must guess it, reaches that point only through long attendance in the lodges, through deep thinking, comparison, and deduction. He would not trust that secret to his best friend in Freemasonry, because he is aware that if his friend has not found it out, he could not make any use of it after it had been whispered in his ear. No, he keeps his peace, and the secret remains a secret.[1]

In the Entered Apprentice degree, the true seeker is reborn, from the profane outside, to the outer portico of the temple. Like an infant, through struggle and challenge, he opens his eyes to the new light of Freemasonry, and sees for the first time with new eyes.

Like a newborn, everything presented to him is new; he is the student of life. Like all students, knowledge comes to him in stages, in degrees. Each degree of Masonry grants new insights, new ways of seeing, and new ways of applying old knowledge.

When we were young, we were taught to add and subtract. Then we were taught to multiply, then to divide. All along the way, the skills we mastered are expanded upon until we can find the area under an arc or the cosign of a tangent.

The same is true of Freemasonry, what we learn as an Entered Apprentice is expanded upon as Fellows of the Craft, and we look back on the lessons of the first degree and chuckle at how simple those lessons were… sometimes forgetting that the profound often seems simple in retrospect.

As we progress in the degrees, our eyes are opened further to the light, until as masters of the craft, we are told that we are now in possession of all the light that can be conferred upon us in a lodge of Master Masons. We possess the light, but we are now searchers, traveling men.

And what are we traveling in search of? More light in Masonry, of course. Our studies of the craft only begin when we are raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason. The foundation has been laid, the tools explained, the fundamentals mastered. It is then time to go out, measure our work and use the tools to erect a spiritual house with perfected stones.

As Entered Apprentices, we are on the outer portico of our journey in masonry, having taken the first steps. This is the allegory of the first degree. Yet, as Masters, we are told that we are always Entered Apprentices in the ritual.

When I was the Junior Warden, I studied to sit as Master in the first degree conferrals. One of the first things I noticed in opening the lodge was my question to the Senior Warden in opening the lodge:

Brother Senior Warden, Satisfy yourself that all present are Entered Apprentice Masons.

Worshipful Master, all present are Entered Apprentice Masons.

Now, looking at the brethren in the lodge, all were Master Masons, but the ritual, and the Senior Warden, all assured me they were Entered Apprentice Masons. We all proved it by giving the due guard and sign of Entered Apprentice Masons.

It occurred to me then that we are all still Entered Apprentices, on a certain level, and though as Masters, we symbolically worked in the Sanctum Sanctorum, we were all still on the outer portico, learning, and searching for more light.

May the blessings of heaven rest upon us and all regular masons, may brotherly love prevail, and every moral and social virtue, cement us.

[1] Giovanni Giacomo Casanova, Memoirs, Volume 2a, Paris, p. 33
http://romance-books.classic-literature.co.uk/memoirs-of-jacques-casanova/volume-2