The Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite degrees are divided into 5 Parts and are as follows:
(1) Lodge of Perfection – 4th° to 14th°
(2) Chapter of Rose Croix – 15th° to 18th°
(3) Council of Kadosh – 19th° to 30th°
(4) Consistory / Master of Kadosh – 31st° to 32nd°
(5) Honorary 33rd°
Council of Kadosh
19th° to 30th°
The Council of Kadosh is the third of the four bodies of the Scottish Rite in the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States, and by far the largest: it confers twelve degrees, from the 19th to the 30th. Its degrees take up the moral, political and religious teachings of the Lodge of Perfection and the Chapter of Rose Croix and carry them much further. This page introduces the Council and then describes its first degree, the Grand Pontiff.
The Council of Kadosh
Albert Pike classed the Council’s degrees as “chivalric” and “philosophical”, but Rex Hutchens stresses that they are all deeply mystical. Even the degrees whose titles begin with “Knight” are not simple pageants of knightly virtue. Their purpose, as Hutchens describes it, is threefold: to show why morality and the practice of virtue are indispensable to a Mason; to explain why intolerance, superstition and bigotry are the special enemies of human freedom; and, through a study of the world’s religions, to set out as clearly as possible the nature of God and His relation to humanity. Absorbing all this is meant to be the start of a lifelong effort to build a rational and consistent personal philosophy, and then to live it.
The word Kadosh is Hebrew. It is usually translated “holy”, but Hutchens explains that its root meaning is “separated” or “set apart”. The same root gives the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning that marks the separation of the living from the dead. The point, as he puts it, is not that Masonry tries to make men holy, but that it seeks to set apart, by their conduct, those who practise its virtues in the search for truth.
The degrees of the Council
The twelve degrees fall into three broad groups, according to A Bridge to Light:
- The “Mystery” degrees, the 23rd to the 26th, which explore the ancient mysteries and the great religious traditions, each to be given equal attention, since no religion is preferred in Masonry.
- The Knight of the Sun, the most purely philosophical and mystical degree of the Rite, which explains the old sciences of numbers, astrology and alchemy and shows how arithmetic, astronomy and chemistry grew out of them. Its lecture in Morals and Dogma alone fills more than a quarter of the book.
- The chivalric and moral degrees, the remainder of the Council, among them the 19th to the 22nd and the 29th and 30th, which combine knightly ideals, the practice of virtue and lessons in philosophy.
The arrangement is different in other jurisdictions. In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction (N.M.J.) there is no Council of Kadosh: the 19th to the 32nd degrees are all conferred by the Consistory, and several of them have been rewritten with new names and settings. Its 19th degree, for example, is “Brothers of the Trail”, set on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s.
The 19th degree: Grand Pontiff
The Grand Pontiff opens the Council of Kadosh. Its theme is the influence of the past on the present and of the present on the future, and it asks its members to work for generations they will never see. The title is the key to the degree: it has nothing to do with the Pope, and everything to do with building bridges.
The degree at a glance
- Number and title: 19th degree, Grand Pontiff, the title used in the Southern Jurisdiction and most other Supreme Councils. The old French name was Grand Pontife, ou Sublime Écossais, and some jurisdictions still give it the alternative title of Sublime Scottish Knight. The N.M.J. replaced it with “Brothers of the Trail”.
- Body: the Council of Kadosh (S.J.), of which it is the first degree; the Consistory in the N.M.J.
- Setting: the New Jerusalem described in the Book of Revelation, continuing the Revelation imagery begun in the 17th degree.
- The name: Hutchens explains that “pontiff” comes from the Latin for “bridge” and “to make”, so a pontiff is a bridge builder.
Older accounts, summarised in Mackey’s encyclopaedia, describe a Council presided over by a Thrice Puissant with a single Warden, its hangings blue sprinkled with gold stars, and its members dressed in white with blue fillets embroidered with twelve gold stars, styled “True and Faithful Brothers”.
The lesson
The chamber of the degree is set with twelve columns and decorated in blue and gold, blue being the colour of the vault of heaven. Its tracing board shows the New Jerusalem coming down from the sky as St John describes it: a golden city with no temple, because when good has finally defeated evil the presence of God will fill everything and no temple will be needed. Through it runs a river, and beside it grows the Tree of Life, whose fruits are the virtues and whose root is truth.
The candidate comes as a Knight Rose Croix who has already fought in the ranks of truth with faith, hope and charity. Now he must learn patience. Hutchens describes how the degree contrasts a voice of despair, which mocks human effort and tells people they will wander in darkness forever, with the Spirit of Masonry, which calls on justice, tolerance, intelligence, truth, industry and gratitude to drive the darkness out. The new Pontiff accepts that he may never see his own work bear fruit, and resolves to keep sowing anyway so that those who come after him may reap.
That is the meaning of the bridge. Every person builds a bridge to the future through the example they set for their children and companions, and their actions become a bridge to their own immortality. Masonry itself is a bridge builder, because it carries the lessons of the past forward to the future.
Duties of the degree
A Bridge to Light lists the duties of a Grand Pontiff as:
- to be content to labour for the future;
- to serve the cause of truth with patience and industry;
- to destroy error, falsehood and intolerance with truth, honesty, honour and charity.
The lessons that go with them are that good will triumph over evil, that the human mind cannot measure the designs of God, and that a life well lived is a bridge to eternal life.
Symbols and regalia
The cordon is crimson, bordered with white, and worn from left to right. Its colours signify that a Pontiff’s zeal should be matched by purity of morals, charity and generosity. Where it crosses the breast it is embroidered in gold with twelve stars and the Greek letters Alpha and Omega. The twelve stars recall the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem, the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve fruits of the Tree of Life, the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles.
A blue fillet, or headband, carries the same twelve stars. Hutchens calls it the special emblem of a Pontiff, because the slightest contact with the earth would soil it, just as the least indiscretion would stain the character the Pontiff has chosen to take on. The degree also uses the breastplate of the High Priest of ancient Israel, set with twelve different gems in four rows of three, as shown above.
The jewel is an oblong plate of solid gold, engraved with Aleph on one side and Tau on the other, the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, just as Alpha and Omega are of the Greek. Together they point to God as the beginning and the end of all things. Red gloves complete the regalia. Other symbols Hutchens lists are the twelve columns of the chamber, the tracing board of the New Jerusalem, the colours blue and gold, and the Spirit of Masonry.
Reflections
Pike’s lecture on the Grand Pontiff is among the most quoted passages in Morals and Dogma. It begins:
“The true Mason labors for the benefit of those who are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race.”
Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 19° Grand Pontiff
He argues that the wish to leave some good behind us is one of the surest signs of the soul’s immortality, and he puts it in a single memorable image:
“To plant the trees that, after we are dead, shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers planted.”
Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, 19° Grand Pontiff
Rex Hutchens reduces the degree to one question: do you live your life so that it is a bridge to immortality? And he reminds the reader that “Masonry, too, is a bridge builder because it teaches the great truths of the past for the future.”
Please view the video on the left, for a more detailed explanation of the 19th° Degree.
Sources:
– Rex R. Hutchens, A Bridge to Light: The Revised Standard Pike Ritual, 4th ed., ed. Arturo de Hoyos (Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., 2010): chapter “Introduction to the Council of Kadosh”. Purchase A Bridge To Light by Rex R. Hutchens and “The 19th Degree – Grand Pontiff”
– Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma (1871): chapter XIX, “Grand Pontiff”. Purchase Morals & Dogma by Albert Pike
– Albert G. Mackey, An Encyclopædia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences: entry “Grand Pontiff”
– Book of Revelation, chapters 21–22
– Scottish Rite, N.M.J., “The Consistory”: https://scottishritenmj.org/subordinate-bodies/consistory
– Wikipedia, “Scottish Rite” (degree names by jurisdiction)