lished in 1861. If we apply the
laws of higher-criticism to this old document a number of things
appear, as obvious as they are interesting. Not only is it a copy of
an older record, like all the MSS we have, but it is either an effort
to join two documents together, or else the first part must be
regarded as a long preamble to the manuscript which forms the second
part. For the two are quite unlike in method and style, the first
being diffuse, with copious quotations and references to
authorities,[72] while the second is simple, direct, unadorned, and
does not even allude to the Bible. Also, it is evident that the
compiler, himself a Mason, is trying to harmonize two traditions as to
the origin of the order, one tracing it through Egypt and the other
through the Hebrews; and it is hard to tell which tradition he favors
most. Hence a duplication of the traditional history, and an odd
mixture of names and dates, often, indeed, absurd, as when he makes
Euclid a pupil of Abraham. What is clear is that, having found an old
Constitution of the Craft, he thought to write a kind of commentary
upon it, adding proofs and illustrations of his own, though he did not
manage his materials very successfully.

After his invocation,[73] the writer begins with a list of the Seven
Sciences, giving quaint definitions of each, but in a different order
from that recited in the _Regius Poem_; and he exalts Geometry above
all the rest as "the first cause and foundation of all crafts and
sciences." Then follows a brief sketch of the sons of Lamech, much as
we find it in the book of Genesis which, like the old MS we are here
studying, was compiled from two older records: the one tracing the
descent from Cain, and the other from Seth. Jabal and Jubal, we are
told, inscribed their knowledge of science and handicraft on two
pillars, one of marble, the other of lateres; and after the flood one
of the pillars was found by Hermes, and the other by Pythagoras, who
taught the sciences they found written thereon. Other MSS give Euclid
the part here assigned to Hermes. Surely this is all fantastic enough,
but the blending of the names of Hermes, the "father of Wisdom," who
is so supreme a figure in the Egyptian Mysteries, and Pythagoras who
used numbers as spiritual emblems, with old Hebrew history, is
significant. At any rate, by this route the record reaches Egypt
where, like the _Regius Poem_, it locates the origin of Masonry. In
thus ascribing the o