If the highest degree a Mason can attain is the Master Mason degree, why do we have appendant bodies like the York Rite?
The system of Masonic degrees...is the product of an evolution. ... [there are] two distinctions between two classes of Masons dubbed 'Ancient' and 'Modern.' ...There was a unification of Ancient and Modern Lodges in 1813. Prior to 1717, there is no record that Freemasonry consisted of more than one degree.
The operative Mason, prior to the revival of 1717, was designated as an Apprentice, Fellow Craft, or Master...because of the length of time of service and skill manifested in his handicraft.
Masonic historians are agreed that sometime between 1723 and 1730 the second and third degrees evolved....The central idea of the entire system of Freemasonry became the 'loss' and 'recovery' of the 'Word,' symbolizing death and the resurrection, the ending of the present and the beginning of the future life. The Royal Arch stands as...the promise of the Noachite Legend, as the resurrection of that which was lost and that which can be recovered.
In our present ritual of the third degree, the Master's word is lost. The 'Word' was never lost but was explained within the Royal Arch. Before the legend of Hiram Abiff was introduced in the Master's Degree, the 'True Word' was communicated in the Master's degree, not [the currently used] substitute. It necessarily followed that when the legend of Hiram Abiff became a part of the ritual of this degree, the loss of the 'Word' followed, as the loss is a part of the Hiramic legend. The loss without a recovery would be an absurdity. To complete the symbolism of Freemasonry, the 'Word' must be recovered, hence the necessity for a fourth degree, the Royal Arch.
In 1738 or earlier, the story of the loss of the 'Word' and the new legend, the Royal Arch, were gradually introduced into the Lodges, and when the Freemasonry of England was divided into the Moderns and Ancients in 1751, the latter organized a Grand Lodge and adopted a ritual of four degrees, which included the Royal Arch.
The Grand Lodge of Moderns evidently continued to use the old ritual, without the legend of Hiram Abiff, while the Grand Lodge of Ancients used the new ritual containing the Hiram legend and the fourth degree until the year 1813, when the two Grand Lodges united and formed the present United Grand Lodge of England. It is therefore to the Grand Lodge of Ancients that we owe the Master's degree as found in our ritual and also the preservation of the Royal Arch degree.
The Master Mason degree without the Royal Arch is a story half told, a song half sun, and a promise unfulfilled. The candidate is [left] with a substitute, left in darkness, in doubt, and to the thoughtful one, in a condition of disappointment.
It is unfortunate that the Royal Arch degree was separated from the Blue degrees, but fortunate or unfortunate, the Royal Arch stands last he last of the degrees in Ancient Craft Masonry. It is the summit, and no Master Mason is in possession of all that Freemasonry teaches without the Royal Arch. The Royal Arch stands as a part of the Master's Degree. It is the summit of its excellency. It is the privilege and should be the duty of all Master Masons to complete the Masonic story, told in allegory and revealed in symbolism, by receiving the Royal Arch.
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