"A Scottish Rite Decalogue"

From the September/October 2025 edition of The Scottish Rite Journal.  Any accompanying photographs or citations for this article can be found in the corresponding print edition.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Scottish Right Journal podcast, an audio presentation
of the Scottish Rite Journal, brought to you by the
Supreme Council of the Scottish Right Southern Jurisdiction Mother Supreme
Council of the World. This week's article is a Scottish
Rite Decalogue by Brother Lucas Walsh, thirty second degree KCCH
and comes from the September October twenty twenty five issue

(00:24):
of the Scottish Right Journal. Freemasonry. According to Illustrious Albert Pike,
thirty third degree in his first degree Entered Apprentice lecture
in Morals and Dogma, nothing usurps the place of nor
apes religion, but it is plainly religious in nature. In
this spirit, Pike proposed a decalogue meant to express not

(00:45):
the tenets of one faith, but a universal morality. The
decalogue most commonly refers to the ten Commandments or ten
Maxims of Moses, delivered according to the Bible, by the
God of Abraham to the Hebrew prophet Moses at Mount
Ssie and I after the exodus from Egypt. Although the
literal phrase ten commandments does not appear in scripture, the

(01:06):
commandments are numerated in Exodus chapter twenty, verses one through
seventeen and Deuteronomy chapter five, verses four through twenty one.
It is generally accepted that these principles represent a cultural
and liturgical touchstone for Jewish and Christian adherents. They have
endured to the present day, and there is something appealing
about a short list of seemingly universal rules from which

(01:29):
few in the Judeo Christian tradition can dissent. Why then,
did Pike propose his own decalogue of moral principles in
the very first degree lecture of Morals and Dogma? And
is it prudent to consider these maxims to be a
rubric for Masonic students. It is well known that Morals
and Dogma is not intended to be viewed as an

(01:49):
unchallengeable and authoritative text on the teachings of Freemasonry. The
Supreme Council even stated as much in the preface to
the first edition in eighteen seventy one, which in part reads,
the teachings of these readings are not sacramental so far
as they go beyond the realm of morality into those
of other domains of thought and truth. Everyone is entirely

(02:10):
free to reject and dissent from whatsoever herein may seem
to him to be untrue or unsound. If we may
be permitted to understand a law to not be only
prescriptive and authoritative in itself, but also a mechanism for
maintaining social identity and cultural cohesion, then the relationship between
Pike's usage and the original Hebrew Decalogue begins to coalesce

(02:33):
into a special meaning. The Masonic Decalogue is as much
an identity marker as it is a charge to every Mason. Consider,
for example, the first of Pike's commandments, God is the eternal, omnipotent,
immutable wisdom and supreme intelligence and exhaustless love. Thou shalt adore,
revere and love him. Thou shalt honor him by practicing

(02:56):
the virtues. This command has little to do thematically or
conceptually with the first of the Biblical commandments, which reads
in part, I am the Lord Thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of bondage, Exodus, chapter twenty, verse two. In
his Quest for Universality, Pike omits overt allusions to the

(03:19):
God of the Hebrews. He in fact takes extra pains
to include attributes of a universal and omnipotent God, although
of course by implication, Pike has integrated the concept of
yh wh into his universalist assertion of Masonry's origins. Not insignificantly,
the first commandment of Moses terminates with the command thou

(03:42):
shalt have no other gods before me Exodus, chapter twenty,
verse three. Pike's second commandment opens, thy religion shall be
to do good because it is a pleasure to thee,
and not merely because it is a duty. Thematically, this
bears a strike being similarity to the New Testament idea
of self sufficiency being inadequate as a standard of good.

(04:06):
In fact, Pike later agrees with New Testament doctrine that
of James chapter one, verse twenty seven, when he quotes
in the fourteenth degree perfect elu lecture of morals and
dogma pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father.
Is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,
and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Exploring further

(04:31):
a central notion of the Scottish rite thirty first degree
inspector inquisitor is that doing only as much for your
fellows as the laws of man require, and no more
is sufficient for condemnation in the afterlife. The commandments of
Moses were a blueprint for the people of a specific
time and place, but the Scottish Rite Decalogue offered by
Albert Pike differs. It is built upon the supposition that

(04:54):
masonry itself is universal, transcending the exigencies of any one
particular people, geography, religion, or creed, that it contains an
assemblage of the best of man's effort to regulate his
passions and liberate his mind, and that is a scaffold
erected for all good men to stand upon together to
labor for the expansion of the empire of reason and

(05:17):
the promise of a better world for everyone everywhere. Like
and share this article and don't forget to subscribe to
the channel. If you wish to comment, please leave one
and as a reminder, hit the notifications bell. Any accompanying
photographs or citations for this article can be found in
the corresponding print edition. The Scottish Right Journal is published

(05:38):
by the Supreme Council of the Scottish Right Southern Jurisdiction.
Mother Supreme Council of the World, Mark Dreysenstock, thirty third
degree Managing editor. I'm your host, Matt Bauers