The oldest Masonic ritual in the world is the Edinburgh Register House MS, (Scotland). The following is taken from that catechism, as it appears in Cracking the Freemason's Code by Robert L. D. Cooper:Question 11: Are there any lights in your lodge?
Answer: Yes, three. The northeast, southwest, and eastern passage. The one denotes the master mason, the other the warden, and the third, the setter croft [fellow craft].
Here we see that lights in a Lodge were two things. First, they were passages in the northeast, southwest and east. These are, therefore, positions within the Lodge.
Second, they were officials of the Lodge (known as "office-bearers" in Scotland and "officers" in England).
A seventeenth-century imaginary view of King Solomon's Temple, shows the porch. (From Orbis Miraculum or the Temple of Solomon Portrayed by Scripture Light, London, 1659.)
It seems reasonable to assume that the officials were placed at these passages. There is very little to go on here, but it may be that this was how a stonemasons' lodge was originally laid out. A layout that was subsequently changed following the influx of non-stonemasons, along with the elaborations, additions and inventions that they introduced to what took place there. In modem Freemasonry, the lights, for example, are no longer passages or these three particular officials. The lights have in fact been developed into three Great Lights and three Lesser Lights.
Fraternally,
Norm Leeper, PM, HA
