nd this is the last opportunity to do it.[123] Willing to
give due credit to Cabalists and Rosicrucians, the present writer
rejects all such theories on the ground that there is no reason for
thinking that they helped to make Masonry, _much less any fact to
prove it_.

Hear now a review of the facts in the case. No one denies that the
Temple of Solomon was much in the minds of men at the time of the
organization of the Grand Lodge, and long before--as in the Bacon
romance of the _New Atlantis_ in 1597.[124] Broughton, Selden,
Lightfoot, Walton, Lee, Prideaux, and other English writers were
deeply interested in the Hebrew Temple, not, however, so much in its
symbolical suggestion as in its form and construction--a model of
which was brought to London by Judah Templo in the reign of Charles
II.[125] It was much the same on the Continent, but so far from being
a new topic of study and discussion, we may trace this interest in the
Temple all through the Middle Ages. Nor was it peculiar to the
Cabalists, at least not to such a degree that they must needs be
brought in to account for the Biblical imagery and symbolism in
Masonry. Indeed, it might with more reason be argued that Masonry
explains the interest in the Temple than otherwise. For, as James
Fergusson remarks--and there is no higher authority than the historian
of architecture: "There is perhaps no building of the ancient world
which has excited so much attention since the time of its destruction,
as the Temple of Solomon built in Jerusalem, and its successor as
built by Herod. _Throughout the Middle Ages it influenced to a
considerable degree the forms of Christian churches, and its
peculiarities were the watchwords and rallying points of associations
of builders._"[126] Clearly, the notion that interest in the Temple
was new, and that its symbolical meaning was imposed upon Masonry as
something novel, falls flat.

But we are told that there is no hint of the Hiramic legend, still
less any intimation of a tragedy associated with the building of the
Temple. No Hiramic legend! No hint of tragedy! Why, both were almost
as old as the Temple itself, rabbinic legend affirming that "_all the
workmen were killed that they should not build another Temple devoted
to idolatry, Hiram himself being translated to heaven like
Enoch_."[127] The Talmud has many variations of this legend. Where
would one expect the legends of the Temple to be kept alive and be
made use of in cerem