From the booklet – “PENETRATING THE VEIL”
– by David C. Bradley–Grand Master–1989-1990
This month’s issue is titled –
“The Ancients and Moderns”
(As the presentations in this website are available to all readers,
items involving the Second and Third Degrees will be excluded.)
The Ancients and Moderns
The year 1751 witnessed the formation of another Grand Lodge by Irish Masons, who had serious disagreements with the existing Grand Lodge. These members felt that the 1717 Grand Lodge was arbitrarily changing cherished parts of the rituals. The original Grand Lodge was, therefore, known as the Moderns. The new Grand Lodge became known as the Antients, because it felt that was preserving the purity of the ritual. The quarrel ended in 1813 when the two Grand Lodges put aside their differences to form the United Grand Lodge of England, and an agreed ritual was established and published. The degree work as we know it today only came into being at that time. The Articles of Union of 1813, agreed to by both Grand Lodges, proclaimed that Ancient Masonry consisted of three degrees and no more, and named as the first of these, the Entered Apprentice.
R.W. Bro. Robert South