THE SUN AT ITS MERIDIAN

A STUDY FOR THE ENQUIRING FREEMASON

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“The Sun at its Meridian”

In the days of the cathedral builders a lodge was usually a temporary wooden
structure, erected against the southern wall of the edifice, where the operative
craftsmen were to do their work. It also served as a tool-house or storage
shed, and probably contained lofts in which the workmen enjoyed their
noonday rest. Sometimes it was tiled, i.e. covered with tiles, but more
generally it had a roof of straw or thatch. Such a building housed a great deal
of rough and practical activity. Stones were cut, trimmed, and squared.
Mortar was prepared and borne away. A group of workmen engaged in their
tasks was literally a lodge at labour. It was governed by the master or
overseer of the work, who was generally a skilled craftsman who had
advanced himself to the position which we would call today the building
contractor. To assist him in the superintendence of the workers he had
wardens, or deputy overseers, who had been selected or elected because of
their skill and qualities of leadership. Their duties were specific and quite
practical, although the echoes of their assignments in our ritual sometimes
seems strange or romantic to our modern ears.

The speculative Junior Warden has his position in the South, the better to
observe the time. In a medieval workshop, filled with labourers, tools, and the
dust and debris of their work, it is exceedingly unlikely that the warden
observed a timepiece to announce the arrival of high twelve, the hour of
refreshment. Clocks were in existence, but they were complicated bits of
machinery used largely for ornamentation on buildings or as expensive pieces
of furniture in the castles of the wealthy. How, then did the operative Junior
Warden observe the time? It was important that he do so, because the
schedule of daily work depended on his observations. Since the lodge was
usually erected against the south wall of the edifice under construction, its
east, south, and west walls were capable of fenestration, while the north wall
of the lodge would have to be windowless, a place of darkness. A window in
the south would permit the rays of the sun to enter the lodge to make possible
simple calculations of the passage of time as measured by a sundial.

One of the supervisors, whose title became the Junior Warden, had his station
'in the South,' where a convenient window permitted the sun's parallel rays to
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enter. At high noon, by ' local sun time,' any short staff or column, or even a
suspended plumb line, would cast a shadow which pointed north for that
particular location. Even to this day the Junior Warden has a column and a
jewel, the plumb, which is really a piece of string with a weight attached to it.
It suggests that his speculative duty is to observe the time.' The operative
Junior Warden used his simple column or plumb line to make a sun clock, a
technique which is sometimes taught to Boy Scouts even today. He set up a
vertical staff or column and tested it by his plumb line to make sure that it
was truly vertical. By borrowing a level from the Senior Warden, he also
made sure that his column stood on level ground, so that it would be truly
perpendicular.

Sometimes in the latter part of the morning he would take a string (the line of
his plummet would serve nicely) and make a circle on the floor with the
column at its centre, with a radius of such length that the shadow cast by the
column would just touch the circle. Then by due observation in the early
afternoon he would note that moment at which the shadow of the column
again just touched the circle he had drawn. By marking this point on the circle
he would have two points equidistant from a point to which the shadow of his
column would point at high noon, or due north from the column. By making
the proper measurements he was able to determine that point of high noon on
his circle; and by increasing the height of his column, since the shadow at
noon is the shortest of the day, he could be sure that the sun would cast a
shadow of sufficient length to tell him when it was high noon on the circle of
his simple sun clock.

By further experimentation and measurement he learned that the radius would

divide his circle into six equal parts. If he started at the point of high noon
and laid off six points on his circle, each a radius length from the last, each of
these points would denote a four hours' lapse of time as the shadow of the sun
travelled around a part of the circle. By further bisection, he could determine
two and even one hour intervals. It is interesting to speculate on the legendary
function of Hiram, the widow's son, who assisted King Solomon in the
building of the temple. Although the Bible describes him as ' cunning to work
all works in brass,' Masons have generally regarded him as the chief architect
at the building of the temple, whose station in the lodge was ' in the South.'
He was described as ' filled with wisdom and understanding.' When he came
to King Solomon at the bidding of the King of Tyre, the first accomplishment
that he wrought was to `cast two pillars of brass, of eighteen cubits high
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apiece; and a line of twelve cubits did compass either of them about.'
Whatever else he possessed in the way of operative skills, Hiram was a
geometrician, as these references to the height and the circumference of the
pillars show. His first concern was to erect two permanent plumb lines, the
pillars known as Boaz and Jachin. The speculative Junior Warden, therefore,
has a legendary precedent for being concerned with plumb lines ' to observe
the time.'

The operative warden could also do a great many things of a practical nature
with just his plumb line—or a column or obelisk. No workman's kit is
complete without a plumb line and a level, which is a square and a plumb line
combined. To be sure, most workmen in these days have spirit levels and
carpenter's squares, but these instruments may become fallible when they are
out of order or damaged. Both can be corrected by a line and proved with a
piece of string, like the line in the warden's plummet. To prove a square,
which in ancient times was two pieces of wood crudely fastened together, or
to make an angle of ninety degrees, the operative craftsman simply draws a
circle with a diameter through its centre. Then he marked off any point on the
circumference of the circle and laid the apex of his square on that point, so
that the arms of his instrument would fall along the ends of the diameter of
his circle. If the square were absolutely ' true,' the arms would exactly touch
the two ends of the diameter of the circle. The operative warden was simply
demonstrating for very practical purposes the theorem that ' any angle
inscribed in a semi-circle is a right angle,' but he never troubled himself to
write out a Euclidian proof as so many long-suffering high school students
have to do in our day.

In his beautiful and vivid talk, 'The Mystic Tie,' Carl Claudy gives an
unforgettable demonstration of how a Master once ' proved' a square for the
workman who was about to undertake his master's piece. The operative
warden also learned to use his plumb line or column for seasonal observations
of the time. When the shadow cast on his sun clock at high noon was the
longest of the year, he knew that it was mid-winter, since the sun in its annual
revolution was now at its farthest point south. It was time for the celebration
of St John the Evangelist Day. On the other hand, when the sun was at its
most northerly point at high noon, it cast the shortest shadow of the year; and
it was now time to celebrate the feast of St John the Baptist. Of course the
celebration of religious festivals at the time of the solstices is more ancient
than Christianity; but it is easy to see that the lengthening and the shortening
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of the daylight hours must have been of considerable concern to the ancient
builders who depended on daylight, and especially sunlight, for the
completion of their tasks. Some scholars tell us that the builders laid the
cornerstone of an edifice in the north-east corner because they were working
in the northern latitudes and that in the seasons most favourable for working
in stone, the sun rose in that quarter.

It was their knowledge of these geometric and astronomic facts which gave
the operative craftsmen their special skill and advantage. These were
originally the ' secrets' of a Master Mason; for by them he was enabled to '
observe the time ' and to complete his undertakings in due season. Viewed in
the light of the Junior Warden's sun clock, columns and pillars take on a more
practical function than those we usually associate with their erection. Boaz
and Jachin were symbols of Jehovah and His strength. The columns erected
by the sons of Lamech were to serve as repositories for recorded knowledge
in case of fire or inundation. But a column is simply a fixed or permanent
plumb line! It could and did serve as a faithful warden ' to observe the time.'
Many of the obelisks of ancient Egypt, we know, were not raised merely for
ornamentation or memorials. Egyptian temples were situated with the
entrance to the east and with the altar in the western part of the interior. The
two granite obelisks at the entrance were so arranged that at the summer
solstice the sun cast the shadow of the north pillar on the altar, and at the
winter solstice it cast the shadow of the south pillar on the altar. Such
obelisks were placed ' to observe the time.'

Ancient man feared the possibility of the sun's wandering from his true
course, so that the solstices became unusually important days of propitiation
and religious observance. By their knowledge of astronomy and the positions
of the sun, the priests were able to foretell and to reassure the populace that '
the sun's in his heaven and all's right with the world.' By means of
astronomical predictions which developed from their skill in observing the
time, the priestly class obtained the tremendous power which it enjoyed in the
dawn of civilisation. In the ruins of primitive civilisations in the jungles of
Central America we also find that the ancient priests had developed their
knowledge of the sun, the stars, and the moon to such a degree, that, by
celestial computations, they could predict eclipses, equinoxes, and other
natural phenomena with a high degree of accuracy. By means of stelae and
pyramidal temples erected in just the right position, such as those at Uxmal
and Chichen Itza, they could depend on the shadows cast by such structures

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to tell when the annual events connected with the changing seasons were
about to occur.

Even the position of the cubical, the Holy of Holies, in the original Temple of
Jehovah, the Tabernacle of Moses, was probably arranged as a link between
the earthly and the celestial, for its presumed position suggests that it
symbolised the projection of the Infinite, by intercepting the angle of the sun's
ecliptic with an imaginary column of seven cubes, each having the same size
as the cubical. At this, a much higher stage of spiritual development, we find
a speculative column being used ' to observe the time ' by intercepting the
sun's parallel rays at definite and pre-calculated angles. Pythagoras
proclaimed that God is always geometrising. Moses, one of the most highly
educated men of ancient times, undoubtedly tried to reach Him by observing
the geometry of Nature! In ancient times ' the Sun ruled the day and the Moon
governed the night,' because men had to live closer to nature and the divine
order. They were forced to observe the times of the seasons and the ratios of
nature, of which they knew a great deal more than they have usually been
credited; and the really wise men of that day, the builders and the
geometricians, knew much more than we realise about the workings of nature
in her innermost recesses.'

We can marvel, but we should not be incredulous, at the permanent relics

they have left of their art and their knowledge in buildings of order and
beauty that reign forever.' They had learned to build well because they had
learned ` to observe the time.' For the speculative Mason, therefore, the Junior
Warden's duty ' to observe the time ' is no mere fancy or quaint reliquary. It is
one of the most ancient skills of the operative craftsman, and from it
developed most of the ' secrets ' by which he laboured and prospered. In the
building of the mystical Temple of Brotherhood, it is important that every
Master Mason learn ' to observe the time;' for in the erection of that
speculative house not made with hands, human relationships and spiritual
aspirations are the stuff with which the craftsman builds. Like the preacher of
old, he must learn that:

'To every thing there is a reason, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to
pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to
break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a
time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to
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gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing; a time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast
away; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to
speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.'
Of such observations of the time is Wisdom made. You are charged,
Brethren, to observe the time!

THE SUN AT ITS MERIDIAN

Reprinted from The Masonic Journal of South Africa.

Sourced from Grand Lodge of Scotland 1966 Year Book

Studies for the Enquiring Freemason.

Article 163 – 2023
This article was sourced, scanned, prepared and type-set for this booklet by Bro. J. Stewart
Donaldson, Hawick, Scotland for the education of the enquiring Freemason. Where any typo
errors occur, I apologise, however, where possible I have tried to keep the original spelling
and grammar.
A Study for the enquiring Freemason is published as a Masonic information booklet. The views therein are
those of the contributors and are not intended to represent an official Lodge viewpoint, unless specifically
stated. The views held within this article are not necessarily the views of SRA76 and/or the editor.