Of the numerous controversies which arose from the middle to near the end of the eighteenth century on the Continent of Europe, and especially in France, among the students of Masonic philosophy, and which so frequently resulted in the invention of new Degrees and the establishment of new Rites, not the least prominent was that which related to the person and character of the Temple Builder. The question, Who was the architect of King Solomon's Temple? was answered differently by the various theorists, and each answer gave rise to a new system, a fact by no means surprising in those times, so fertile in the production of new Masonic systems. The general theory was then, as it is now, that this architect was Hiram Abif, the widow's son, who had been sent to King Solomon by Hiram, King of Tyre, as a precious gift, and as a curious and cunning workman.
This theory was sustained by the statements of the Jewish Scriptures, so far as they threw any light on the Masonic legend. It was the theory of the English Freemasons from the earliest times; was enunciated as historically correct in the first edition of the Book of Constitutions (published in 1723, page 11); has continued ever since to be the opinion of all English and American Freemasons; and is, at this day, the only theory entertained by any Freemason in the two countries who has a theory at all on the subject. This, therefore, is the orthodox faith of Freemasonry.
But such was not the case in the last century on the Continent of Europe. At first the controversy arose not as to the man himself, but as to his proper appellation.
All parties agreed that the architect of the Temple was that Hiram, the widow's son, who is described in the First Book of Kings (chapter vii, verses 13 and 14), and in the Second Book of Chronicles (chapter ii, verses 13 and 14), as having come out of Tyre with the other workmen of the Temple who had been sent by King Hiram to Solomon. But one party called him Hiram Abif, and the other, admitting that his original name was Hiram, supposed that, in consequence of the skill he had displayed in the construction of the Temple, he had received the honorable affix of Adon, signifying, Lord or Master, whence his name became Adonhiram.
There was, however, at the Temple another Adoniram, of whom it will be necessary in passing to say a few words, for the better understanding of the present subject.
The first notice that we have of this Adoniram in Scripture is in the Second Book of Samuel (chapter xx, verse 24), where, in the abbreviated form of his name, Adoram, he is said to have been over the tribute in the house of David; or, as Gesenius, a great authority on Hebrew, translates it, prefect over the tribute service, or, as we might say in modern phrase, principal collector of the taxes.
Seven years afterward, we find him exercising the same office in the household of Solomon; for it is said in First Kings (iv, 6) that Adoniram, “the son of Abda, was over the tribute.” Lastly, we hear of him still occupying the same station in the household of King Rehoboam, the successor of Solomon. Forty-seven years after he is first mentioned in the Book of Samuel, he is stated under the name of Adoram, First Kings (xii, 18), or Hadoram, Second Chronicles (x, 18), to have been stoned to death, while in the discharge of his duty, by the people, who were justly indignant at the oppressions of his master.
The legends and traditions of Freemasonry which connect this Adoniram with the Temple at Jerusalem derive their support from a single passage in the First Book of Kings (v, 14), where it is said that Solomon made a levy of thirty thousand workmen from among the Israelites; that he sent these in courses of ten thousand a month to labor on Mount Lebanon, and that he placed Adoniram over these as their superintendent.
The ritual-makers of France, who were not all Hebrew scholars, nor well versed in Biblical history, seem at times to have confounded two important personages, and to have lost all distinction between Hiram the Builder, who had been sent from the court of the King of Tyre, and Adoniram, who had always been an officer in the court of King Solomon. This error was extended and facilitated when they had prefixed the title Aden, that is to say, lord or master, to the name of the former, making him Aden Hiram, or the Lord Hiram.
Thus, about the year 1744, one Louis Travenol published at Paris, under the name of Leonard Gabanon, a work entitled Catéchisme des Francs Maçons, ou Le Secret des Maçons, in which he says:
“Besides the cedars of Lebanon, Hiram made a much more valuable gift to Solomon, in the person of Adonhiram, of his own race, the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali. His father, who was named Hur, was an excellent architect and worker in metals. Solomon, knowing his virtues, his merit, and his talents, distinguished him by the most eminent position, intrusting to him the construction of the Temple and the superintendence of all the workmen” (see Louis Guillemain de Saint Victor's Recueil Précieuz, French for Choice Collection, page 76).
From the language of this extract, and from the reference in the title of the book to Adoram, which we know was one of the names of Solomon's tax collector, it is evident that the author of the catechism has confounded Hiram Abif, who came out of Tyre, with Adoniram, the son of Abda, who had always lived at Jerusalem; that is to say, with unpardonable ignorance of Scriptural history and Masonic tradition, he has supposed the two to be one and the same person.
Notwithstanding this literary blunder, the catechism became popular with many Freemasons of that day, and thus arose the first schism or error in relation to the Legend of the Third Degree. In Solomon in all His Glory, an English exposure published in 1766, Adoniram takes the place of Hiram, but this work is a translation from a similar French one, and so it must not be argued that English Freemasons ever held this view.
At length, other ritualists, seeing the inconsistency of referring the character of Hiram, the widow's son, to Adoniram, the receiver of taxes, and the impossibility of reconciling the discordant facts in the life of both, resolved to cut the Gordian knot by refusing any Masonic position to the former, and making the latter, alone, the architect of the Temple. It cannot be denied that Josephus (viii, 2) states that Adoniram, or, as he calls him, Adoram, was, at the very beginning of the labor, placed over the workmen who prepared the materials on Mount Lebanon, and that he speaks of Hiram, the widow's son, simply as a skillful artisan, especially in metals, who had only made all the mechanical works about the Temple according to the will of Solomon (see Josephus, viii, 3). This apparent color of authority for their opinions was readily claimed by the Adoniramites, and hence one of their most prominent ritualists, Guillemain de Saint Victor (in his Recueil Précieux de la Maçonnerie Adonhiramite, Pages 77-78), propounds their theory thus: “we all agree that the Master's Degree is founded on the architect of the Temple. Now, Scripture says very positively, in the 14th verse of the 5th chapter of the Third Book of Kings, that the person was Adonhiram. In the Septuagint, the oldest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the two books of Samuel are called the First and Second of Kings. Josephus and all the secret writers say the same thing, and undoubtedly distinguish him from Hiram the Tyrian, the worker in metals. So that it is Adonhiram then whom we are bound to honor.”
There were therefore, in the eighteenth century, from about the middle to near the end of it, three schools of Masonic ritualists who were divided in opinion identity of this Temple Builder:
Thus was the Masonic family divided by two schisms, of which the first has almost wholly disappeared, while the last was perpetuated in France in the invention of the Rite of Adonhiram or Adonhiramite Freemasonry, which survived for many years, but finally, about the end of the eighteenth century, was merged in the still existing Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, although some few modern French ritualists still retain Adonhiram in their systems.
The Adonhiramite Freemasonry originated in France and flourished in that country during the latter half of the last century. There was a tradition among the disciples of this Rite that it was introduced into France by a Society of Freemasons, who, with the title of the Architects of the Temple, had been founded in Israel during the reign of Solomon. It is, however, the more generally received opinion that the Rite owes its birth to the inventive genius of the French ritualists of the last century. It is true that there is a vast similarity between this and other Rites which at that time were in existence, a fact that might be adduced to show that the theory of the Temple was everywhere the same, and that this Rite, if not actually derived from any other, was at least suggested by it.
On the other hand, it is also probable that it sprang out of the bosom of Adonhiramite Freemasonry itself; that is to say, that the followers of that schism in Freemasonry invented the new Rite to perpetuate their own doctrines. A similar hypothesis has already been made concerning the origin of the system of Perfection, and is equally appropriate to the Adonhiramite. Be this as it may, the records of the Grand Orient show that the Rite was in existence about the year 1787. It has now ceased to exist.
The last lingering trace of Adonhiramite Masonry is to be found in the Second Degree of the French Rite. That Degree is called the Fellow Craft; but the presiding officer is styled an Adonhiramite, and is declared to represent Adonhiram, who is supposed to have been the Master of the works at the building of the Temple.
The Adonhiramite system consisted of twelve Degrees, as follows:
Some of these Degrees, in name at least, still exist in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite; and in fact the whole system is so similar to that of the degrees of Perfection, which we know to have preceded it, that it is very evident that the one Rite was derived from the other. But the Degrees of the Adonhiramite system have been so changed, and are so differently arranged, in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, that it would be impossible to recognize the identity of the one with the other. In the contemporary French Rites Adonhiramite Freemasonry is now almost unknown, although some few ritualists still adhere to its teachings.
Albert Gallatin Mackey (1807-1881) Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry