The Grand Council of the Order of Royal and Select Masters of England and Wales and its Districts and Councils Overseas is more commonly known among English Freemasons as the Cryptic Rite. This Grand Council controls four degrees which are conferred in chronological order: Select Master, Royal Master, Most Excellent Master and Super Excellent Master.
    There are many masons who do not venture beyond the Craft, Royal Arch or even the Mark: joining Cryptic will mean even more evenings out, another subscription, a new masonic hierarchy and yet another four degrees to learn. One can understand why they can get put off. Indeed, as one has to be both a Mark Master Mason and a Royal Arch Mason to be eligible as a candidate, many never qualify. However, none of these factors should deter the mason in search of further understanding of Solomonic Masonry with its particular quest for the Word which was first lost and then substituted, as is well known from the Traditional History of the Master Mason's Degree. Moreover, there certainly are a great many events and masonic legends omitted between Craft and Royal Arch. It is this great gap which is one reason why the Cryptic should be seen as essential for a greater understanding of the masonic journey in search of the Lost Word. To appreciate this, one needs some understanding of both Old Testament tradition and also of the central position of the Temple in Symbolic Masonry.

The Old Testament Tradition and the Cryptic Legend

While modern archaeology has necessitated fundamental revisions in the history of the Middle East and has disengaged the historical events somewhat from the Biblical stories, masonic ritual is based upon the traditional reading of the Old Testament. A reading for which the key event is the building of Solomon’s Temple. It was built after a pattern then current in what is now Palestine and Syria, being rectangular in shape and facing East with two great, free-standing pillars in front of it. The building itself consisted of a vestibule, then the main hall of the sanctuary and, at the rear, the Holy of Holies, a small cube without windows, housing the Ark of the Covenant. There the all-powerful YHWH was believed to reside under the wings of two great cherubim. Adjacent to the Temple, we are told, were constructed the other buildings of Solomon's great complex, including the palace, the judgement hall and the treasury.
    The Old Testament makes no mention of a Secret Vault or Crypt, nor passageways underground connecting the Temple to the royal palace; neither is there reference to these in the Craft degrees. Yet, in some traditions, as is taught in the Cryptic and indeed the Royal Arch (in addition to certain degrees in the Ancient and Accepted Rite, and one of the Allied Masonic Degrees), this Secret Vault is central to the survival of the Word in Symbolic Masonry. It was this, according to the Third Degree, which was lost when, just before the completion of the First Temple, Hiram, the Architect, one of the three Grand Masters, was slain.
    After Solomon's death, it is said, his kingdom was divided into two: Israel and Judah. The former, northern, state was invaded during the 8th Century BC and became part of first the Assyrian and then the Babylonian Empires. Under the great Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar (605/4-562), Judah was also invaded and in 586 Jerusalem fell and the people were carried off into the exile commonly known as the Babylonian Captivity. The Principal Sojourner in the Royal Arch reminds the Grand Sanhedrim that it was due to the sins of the royal house and of the people, that they were led with King Jehoiachin into a seventy year exile.
    However, prior to this event, his father, a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, had rebelled. He died in the very month that a force had been dispatched to crush his rebellion and his eighteen-year old son, Jehoiachin, was placed on the throne. Within three months the city surrendered and Jehoiachin and his family were carried off to Babylon. His uncle, Zedekiah, was installed as puppet-ruler. Zedekiah was unable to control his nobles and prevent further open sedition, leading once again to a Babylonian campaign, culminating in his gruesome end and a month later to the destruction of Jerusalem (586) by the commander of Nebuchadnezzar's guard. This was followed by a very short period with Gedaliah, Zedekiah's former chief minister, installed as satrap over what remained of the devastated Judah, before he was murdered by a member of the royal house. It is at this point that the degree of Super Excellent Master is set to commemorate those who remained true when they were assailed on all sides without hope of victory.
    The Babylonian Empire was shortly afterwards overrun by the Persians under Cyrus the Great (550-530), with Babylon taken in 539. In the Royal Arch we are familiar with Cyrus's Edict of Restoration of 538. This subsequently led in the reign of Darius I (522-486) to the rebuilding of the Temple (520-515) under Zerubbabel, the Jewish Governor of Judah. We are all familiar with the recovery of the Word, during the building of this Second Temple, in the Royal Arch

Within the Secret Vault

In the first of the Cryptic degrees the candidate is "chosen as a Select Master". He is one of Twenty-Seven with knowledge of the Secret Vault, constructed in complete secrecy on the orders of the Three Grand Masters before the completion of the First Temple. This was to preserve its secrets and treasures against the day when, according to the Prophets, their enemies would destroy Jerusalem because the Children of Israel had deserted the true path. In many ways, this degree can be considered the Perfection of Symbolic Masonry, as the candidate has been especially entrusted with esoteric knowledge, as well as powerfully reminded of the need for watchfulness and secrecy.
    However, the next degree in which the candidate is "honoured as a Royal Master", is by many considered to contain one of the most beautiful and profound pieces of masonic ritual. The candidate, representing Adoniram ambitious for both knowledge and promotion, questions Hiram Abif shortly before the latter's murder in the Third Degree; he receives wise, humble counsel on man's inevitable destiny. As first the candidate, and much later, as a principal officer of the Council acting as the representative of Hiram and instructing the candidate, this is a powerful initiatory experience. This alone makes the Cryptic Rite an important addition to masonic understanding, but the Royal Master degree also continues the legend of the Vault and the means by which the Word was preserved, despite the imminent death of Hiram. The subsequent sacking of the Temple is symbolised in the last of the Cryptic degrees.

The Ark and the Triangle

The Ark of the Covenant, that most important of the Treasures of the Children of Israel as the symbol of their bond with YHWH since the days of Moses, seems surprisingly forgotten in the many degrees of masonry concerned with the very Temple built to house it! However, in the third degree of the Rite, that of Most Excellent Master, it is abundantly clear that the ceremonial placing of the Ark, the earthly seat of YHWH, in the Holy of Holies at the dedication of the Temple, was the culmination of Solomon's work. As the building of the Temple can be seen as an allegory for the spiritual journey of men, the placing of God at its centre is of utmost importance to a mason "received and acknowledged as a Most Excellent Master". Moreover, over four centuries later, in the degree of Super Excellent Master, those who have remained loyal to their God, symbolically guard the Ark of the Covenant under the command of Gedaliah at the very hour of the destruction of the First Temple. It is fitting then that the jewel and the apron of the Order are both triangular in shape, emblematical of the Deity in its triune form of Omniscience, Omnipresence and Omnipotence. The teaching is not only of the importance of faith, but also the triple duties owed to God, to one's neighbours and to one's self, not least in times of the utmost trial. Unknown to those faithful masons, as it had long passed into legend before being forgotten, beneath their very feet remained the Secret Vault and the Lost Word. It was to remain there when they had long perished, finally to be rediscovered by the Sojourners in the Royal Arch.

That which was lost

All of us are some way on the great masonic quest for Light. This is illustrated in Symbolic, 'Solomonic' Masonry as the search for the Word lost in the Third Degree and found in the Royal Arch. Without the Order of Royal and Select Masters, that search is made even more difficult. Its traditions make clear that great care had been taken to preserve in secret against disaster, the Word and the most important Temple treasures, as symbolised by the Ark of the Covenant. The Cryptic Degrees help us to understand the steps taken which, until the Royal Arch, had but faded into legend. They aid us on our journey.

Matthew Christmas is currently Thrice Illustrious Master of the Terra Sancta Council No. 151 in the Cryptic District of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.