xtended their moral views, in conjunction with the
art of building, to many useful purposes, and to the practice of
acts of benevolence. They had significant words to distinguish
their members; and for the same purpose they used emblems taken
from the art of building._

--JOSEPH DA COSTA, _Dionysian Artificers_

_We need not then consider it improbable, if in the dark centuries
when the Roman empire was dying out, and its glorious temples
falling into ruin; when the arts and sciences were falling into
disuse or being enslaved; and when no place was safe from
persecution and warfare, the guild of the Architects should fly
for safety to almost the only free spot in Italy; and here, though
they could no longer practice their craft, they preserved the
legendary knowledge and precepts which, as history implies, came
down to them through Vitruvius from older sources, some say from
Solomon's builders themselves._

--LEADER SCOTT, _The Cathedral Builders_
#/

CHAPTER V

_The Collegia_

So far in our study we have found that from earliest time architecture
was related to religion; that the working tools of the builder were
emblems of moral truth; that there were great secret orders using the
Drama of Faith as a rite of initiation; and that a hidden doctrine was
kept for those accounted worthy, after trial, to be entrusted with it.
Secret societies, born of the nature and need of man, there have been
almost since recorded history began;[54] but as yet we have come upon
no separate and distinct order of builders. For aught we know there
may have been such in plenty, but we have no intimation, much less a
record, of the fact. That is to say, history has a vague story to tell
us of the earliest orders of the builders.

However, it is more than a mere plausible inference that from the
beginning architects were members of secret orders; for, as we have
seen, not only the truths of religion and philosophy, but also the
facts of science and the laws of art, were held as secrets to be known
only to the few. This was so, apparently without exception, among all
ancient peoples; so much so, indeed, that we may take it as certain
that the builders of old time were initiates. Of necessity, then, the
arts of the craft were secrets jealously guarded, and the architects
themselves, while they may have employed and trained ordinary workmen,
were men of learning and influence. Such glimpses of ea