The Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew is the 29th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. It is a knightly degree with a philosophical edge, standing between the reflective Knight of the Sun and the strongly chivalric Knight Kadosh. Its theme is the knight who carries no armour but his own virtue, and its heroes are the patient, humble and generous men and women of every age who keep the old ideals of honour alive when the institutions that once taught them have fallen into ruin.
The degree at a glance
- Body: Council of Kadosh (19°–30°).
- Degree: 29°, Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew. Pike’s Morals and Dogma calls it the Grand Scottish Knight of St. Andrew, and some jurisdictions simply say Knight of Saint Andrew.
- Setting: a hall hung in crimson with white columns, the colours of the Knights Templar, and then the roofless court of a ruined castle where a band of knights is encamped.
- Place in the Rite: a bridge between the philosophical Knight of the Sun and the chivalric Knight Kadosh. Several images of the 30° (the skulls with crown and mitre, and the martyrdom of the last Templar Grand Master) appear here briefly as a foretaste.
- In the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction: the 29° (Knight of Saint Andrew) dramatises an episode from the long wars between Islam and Christianity in Europe, resolved through Masonic teaching and tolerance.
The lesson
Saint Andrew, brother of Peter and one of the first disciples called by Jesus, is the patron saint of Scotland, and tradition says he was crucified on an X-shaped cross, although Rex Hutchens notes in A Bridge to Light that there is no historical evidence for it. His name is Greek and means “manly”. Hutchens quotes a Bible dictionary’s portrait of him as a man who “was continually open to new light”, teachable and eager to share the truth once he had found it. A Scottish legend adds that in the ninth century Andrew appeared to Hungus, King of the Picts, before a battle against the English king Athelstan, and set the shape of his cross in the sky as a promise of victory. That cross, the saltire, is now on the flag of Scotland.
The degree also links Saint Andrew with the Knights Templar. After Pope Clement V ordered the Templars dissolved in 1307 and many were imprisoned, tortured and executed in France, survivors scattered into other countries. Pike’s Legenda tells the story that some found refuge in Scotland and fought for King Robert the Bruce against Edward II of England, and that Bruce then created the Order of Saint Andrew of Scotland and absorbed them into it. This is a Masonic legend, not established history, but it explains why the colours and memory of the Templars run through the degree.
The candidate is received among knights camped in the ruins of an old castle. The ruin is the main symbol of the degree: institutions, like ideas, rise, decay and are born again in the great cycle of time, and the age of chivalry has passed even though its ideals have not. The first lessons he receives are the three virtues of humility, patience and self-denial, which Pike calls “the three essential qualities of a Knight of St. Andrew”. He is then charged with guarding the banner of the Order, dressed in a plain white linen cassock and given a sword and shield but no armour. If he is truly a knight, the degree teaches, virtue will protect him better than steel. The presiding officer, hidden from the candidate throughout, stands for the Templars left leaderless after their last Grand Master was burned in 1314, and for virtue and honour themselves, which are never seen but are known by their effects.
Pike’s lecture adds two more triads to make nine knightly qualities in all: charity, generosity and clemency; and virtue, truth and honour. It also contains an unusual guest contribution by the Rev. W. W. Lord, 32°, who reflects on the troubles of his own nineteenth century and concludes that a man’s stature is God’s gift but the greatness of his nature is his own choice. “Freemasonry,” the lecture says, “is continual effort to exalt the nobler nature over the ignoble, the spiritual over the material, the divine in man over the human.”
Duties of the degree
- Reverence and obey the Deity.
- Serve the truth.
- Protect virtue and innocence. Pike recalls that the old Knights of St. Andrew vowed to defend orphans and widows and to bring oppressors to justice.
- Defend the people against tyranny, and stand up for truth and right, free speech and free thought.
- Lesson: ideas and institutions wax and wane in the great cycle of time, which is nothing but change.
In the Southern Jurisdiction today the name of the degree is also carried by the Knights of Saint Andrew, a service organisation of 32° Masons in many Valleys who help run the Rite’s ceremonies and events, mentor newer members and take part in charitable work. Examples are the groups in the Valley of Orange County and the Valley of Galveston.
Symbols and regalia
The collar and scarf. A Knight of Saint Andrew wears a green collar edged with crimson around the neck and a white silk scarf fringed with gold, worn across the body from left to right.
The jewel is a gold Saint Andrew’s cross with a large emerald in the centre, a knight’s helmet above and a gold thistle between the lower arms. According to A Bridge to Light, the emerald signifies the manliness and uprightness of chivalry, and its bright green colour the constant renewal of virtue. The thistle, the national emblem of Scotland, recalls an old tale: Danish raiders, creeping barefoot across a castle moat at night, found it dry and full of thistles, and their cries woke the garrison, which drove them off.
The banner of the Order is a green Saint Andrew’s cross on a white field fringed with gold, with a circle of five stars around a thistle above it and, at the ends of the cross, the four Hebrew letters of the divine name.
Important symbols are the Saint Andrew’s cross, the castle in ruins and the knight without armour. Hutchens adds a note on the cross itself: perfectly symmetrical, it stands for the balance of the earthly and spiritual forces within us. It is also the Roman numeral ten, the number of the Pythagorean Tetractys, which Pike says was among the ancient sages “a sign of concord, love, and peace”, and the Greek letter chi, the first letter of the name Christ.
Reflections
A Bridge to Light sets this question: is virtue an armour stronger than the strongest metal? Pike’s answer is yes. Virtue, he writes, “protects us when we are unarmed; and is an armor that we cannot lose, unless we be false to ourselves” (Morals and Dogma, lecture XXIX).
His closing charge to the new knight is one of the gentlest passages in the whole book: lay aside uncharitable feeling, “learn to hate the vices and not the vicious”, and remember that loving-kindness matters more than any dispute.
Please view the video on the left, for a more detailed explanation of the 29th° Degree.
Sources:
– Rex R. Hutchens, A Bridge to Light: The Revised Standard Pike Ritual, 4th edition, edited by Arturo de Hoyos (Washington, D.C.: The Supreme Council, 33°, S.J., 2010), chapter “The 29th Degree – Scottish Knight of Saint Andrew”. Purchase ‘A Bridge To Light‘ by Rex R. Hutchens
– Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), lecture XXIX “Grand Scottish Knight of St. Andrew”. Purchase ‘Morals & Dogma‘ by Albert Pike.
– Knights of Saint Andrew: Valley of Orange County, https://www.ocscottishrite.org/introduction-to-the-knights-of-st-andrew; Valley of Galveston, http://www.galvestonscottishrite.org/index.php/committee/14-knights-of-st-andrew
– Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction, “Scottish Rite 29th Degree”: https://scottishritenmj.org/degrees/degrees-29