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Freemasonry

Symbolical Masonry: Part Three: The Third Step: Chapter X...

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This is an excerpt from a 1923 work of Masonic scholarship, specifically a chapter exploring the origins and symbolic meaning of the "Lion's Paw" — a gesture used in Freemasonry's Third Degree ritual. Haywood traces the lion symbol across multiple ancient traditions: in Egyptian religion it represented solar life-giving power and resurrection (with candidates ritually raised from a lion-shaped couch), while among medieval Jews and Christians it signified the Messiah springing from the Tribe of Judah. He argues that the Comacine cathedral builders of the Middle Ages — probable ancestors of Freemasons — inherited this Judaic/Christian lion symbolism and embedded it structurally in Romanesque and Gothic architecture. A parallel thread traces the Lion's Paw to the Egyptian *crux ansata* (Nile-measuring staff that became a symbol of life), a connection advanced by Albert Pike. Haywood's central claim is that despite their different cultural origins, both the Egyptian and Christian traditions converge on the same core meaning — life-giving, resurrection power — making them mutually reinforcing rather than contradictory interpretations of the same Masonic symbol.

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