Thursday, August 25, 2022

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw on Freemasonry and the Roles of Prophet, Priest, and King

From: Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances (Orem, Utah: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2022), 281-82, 528

 

[On Joseph Smith encountering three emblems corresponding to the roles of prophet, priest, and king]

 

Perspectives from Freemasonry. Cheryl Bruno, Jose Steve Swick III, and Nicholas S. Literski cite early Latter-day Saint critic Alexander Campbell, who recognized and took issue with the fact that, in the Book of Mormon, Nephi is portrayed as a “prophet, priest, and king.” [1655] They correctly observe that this is “a phrase that Christians [like Campbell] have reserved solely for Jesus Christ.” [1656]

 

Bruno et al. also cite the nineteenth0century Christian Mason George Oliver, who concluded that these three offices were “united in one person” “in the earliest times,” presumably referring to patriarchs such as Adam, Shem, and Enoch. [1657] However, Oliver continues by saying that in the legendary tradition of ancient Masonry “a distinction was made” in “the presiding officers of our [Masonic] Order” so that—beginning with Noah, Shem, and Japheth—three separate individuals held these respective offices. Speaking of how this order of things has continued in our time, Oliver goes on to say that “the same disposition has continued unaltered and unimpaired down to the present day. . . . If we turn to the idolatrous mysteries, we find the same unvarying traces of government [by three principal Officers], which were doubtless derived from the mysteries of Noah, or in other words, from the science of Freemasonry.” [1658]

 

The Masonic tradition of allocating three separate individuals to the offices of prophet, priest, and king is carried forward in the dramatic narrative of the Royal Arch Masonry rite. At the end of the rite, the initiate is crowned in likeness of the king. However, Literski observes that “various commentaries make a point of the fact that the three officers of a Royal Arch chapter, while each bearing one of those titles, constitute one Master, directly symbolic of Christ’s roles of prophet, priest, and king. Exaltation in the Royal Arch degree is considered the ‘completion’ of the Master Mason degree; thus, the candidate ‘fully’ becomes a master, emblematic of Christ (along with various admonitions toward moral behavior, etc.). The crown is emblematic of this exaltation, much as crowns (and their artistic analogue, halos) have always been. Interestingly, the commentaries I have seen make a point of Jesus growing in his ministry through the attainment of these three roles—just as Joseph Smith made reference to advancing from prophet to priest to king.” [1659]

 

Note that although initiates in the Royal Arch degree are crowned, they are not ordained or otherwise invested permanently with any of these three offices. In contrast to temple ordinances, it is understood that the “priesthood” that administers the rite is figurative, though in likeness of biblical precedents.

 

I have not yet been able to locate sources in the Masonic literature that relate the symbolism of the square and compass to the sequence of royal, priestly, and prophetic emblems described in ancient sources, and, seemingly, in the Nauvoo Temple weathervane.

 

1655 C. L. Bruno et al., Method Infinite, p. 131. See A. Campbell, Delusions, p. 11.

 

1656 C. L. Bruno et al., Method Infinite, p. 131. See also G. Oliver, Signs and Symbols, pp. 78–79.

 

1657 G. Oliver, Signs and Symbols, p. 209.

 

1658 Ibid., pp. 209–210.

 

1659 N. S. Literski, July 22 2022.