The Masonic Book Club, Vol. 38

Freemasonry is a fraternity whose beginnings are shrouded in mystery. Most believe that Masonry evolved from the operative guilds of builders called the masons. Others believe that the Craft developed from the Knights Templar which is embedded in so much of the literature of today. Yet, a few still hold the belief that Freemasonry comes from the beginning days of Adam and the Creation of all that exists.

The author of the Masonic Book Club for 2007 is The Antiquities of Free-Masonry by The Rev. George Oliver, D.D., M.A.S.E. which appears at first to be a historical account of Freemasonry since the beginning of time. Oliver, however, was not a historian, but rather, a philosopher and theologian. When early in his writing career he was accused of writing falsehoods about the beginnings of Freemasonry he pointed out these very things and stated that "Ancient Masonic traditions say, and I think justly, that our science existed before the creations of this globe......The Great Architect of the Universe was the founder of Masonry." In his Freemasons Treasury, Oliver reminds us that he did not intend his statements to be taken literally, as history, but merely as symbolic traditions and that when he spoke of the gray antiquity of the Order, tracing it back into Paradise, it was with its truth he had in mind__and truth is eternal."

Albert Woody in his introduction to Oliver's The Revelations of a Square, Volume Eleven of the Masonic Book Club's offerings states, "In the overall history of the Fraternity, Dr. Oliver is outstanding for the extent of his knowledge, the depth of his devotion, the height of his endeavors, and his unequalled popularity among the Craft. While his critics have accused him of 'a too easy credulity and a too great warmth of imagination,' -------a better evaluation might be: A learned and dedicated Brother, writing with his head in the clouds, his heart on his sleeve, and his feet on the ground.' "