# Mosaic Pavement or the Checkered Flooring



## My Freemasonry (Jun 7, 2015)

In this installment of Symbols & Symbolism, we look at a reading from Albert G. Mackey’s _Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences _on the symbolism behind the mosaic (or checkered) pavement, objects that, Mackey says, are “appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life”

_You can read more installments of Mackey’s Encyclopedia under Symbols & Symbolism here on this site and video of these segments on YouTube._





Samuel Lee depiction of Solomons Temple

*Mosaic Pavement*


Mosaic work consists properly of many little stones of different colors united together in patterns to imitate a painting. It was much practiced among the Romans who called it _musivum opus_ whence the Italians get their _musaico_ the French their _mosaique_ and we our _mosaic_. The idea that the work is derived from the fact that Moses used a pavement of colored stones in the tabernacle has been long since exploded by etymologists. The Masonic tradition is that the floor of the Temple of Solomon was decorated with a Mosaic pavement of black and white stones. There is no historical evidence to substantiate this statement. Samuel Lee, however, in his diagram of the Temple, represents not only the floors of the building, but of all the outer courts, as covered with such a pavement (Lee’s _Orbis miraculum_; or, the _Temple of Solomon Pourtrayed by Scripture-Light_, London, 1659). The Masonic idea was perhaps first suggested by this passage in the Gospel of St. John, xix 13 “when Pilate, therefore, heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat him down in the judgment-seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.” The word here translated Pavement is in the original _Lithostroton_, the very word used by Pliny to denote a Mosaic pavement. The Greek word, as well as its equivalent, is used to denote a pavement formed of ornamental stones various colors precisely what is by a Mosaic pavement.





A 19th century depiction of the assembly of the Sanhedrin.


There was, therefore, a part of Temple which was decorated with a Mosaic pavement. The Talmud informs us that there was such a pavement in the conclave where the Grand Sanhedrin held its sessions.

By a little torsion of historical accuracy, the Masons have asserted that the ground-floor of the Temple was a Mosaic pavement and hence, as the Lodge is a representation of the Temple, that the floor of the Lodge should also be of the same pattern.

The Mosaic pavement is an old symbol of the Order. It is met within the earliest rituals of the last century. It is classed among the ornaments of the Lodge in combination with the indented tessel and the blazing star. Its parti-colored _(showing different colors or tints)_ stones of black and have been readily and appropriately interpreted as symbols of the evil and good of human life.




_*References:*_

Samuel Lee (1625–1691)
An English Puritan academic and minister. Lee produced a “very English interpretation” for the design of Solomon’s Temple. Lee suggests that the “extremely elaborate Temple designs of earlier authors took their inspiration from the visionary temple of Ezekiel, which was never intended as a real temple to be built on earth.” The Illustration of Solomon’s Temple, as mentioned by Mackey, is from _Orbis miraculum_; or, the _Temple of Solomon Pourtrayed by Scripture-Light, _London, 1659.

_Lithostroton_
A floor covering made from irregular variously colored small marble stones, not to be confused with the mosaic surface that was designed with the help of small, rectangular or almost square cubes (tessellae) made of terracotta, limestone or marble which were set into a bed of mortar and polished for foot traffic. 

_John 19:13_
When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). (NIV)






 







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## coachn (Jun 8, 2015)

http://buildinghiram.blogspot.com/2009/09/threshing-floor.html


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## coachn (Jun 8, 2015)

JamestheJust said:


> ... I doubt that the threshing floor has anything to do with the tiled pavement used in Masonry.


<snicker>
*THRESHING FLOOR*




"Among the Hebrews, circular spots of hard ground were used, as now, for the purpose of threshing corn. After they were properly prepared for the purpose, they became permanent possessions. One of these, the property of Oman the Jebusite, was on Mount Moriah (First Chronicles xxi, 15 28). It was purchased by David, for a place of sacrifice, for six hundred shekels of gold, and on it the Temple was afterward built. Hence it is sometimes used as a symbolic name for the Temple of Solomon or for a Master's Lodge. Thus it is said in the instructions that the Freemason comes "from the lofty tower of Babel, where language was confounded and Masonry lost" and that he is traveling "to the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite, where language was restored and Masonry found."

The interpretation of this rather abstruse symbolic expression is that on his initiation the Freemason comes out of the profane world, where there is *ignorance and darkness and Confusion* (BLACK TILES) as there was at Babel, and that he is approaching the Masonic world, where, as at the Temple built on Oman's threshing floor, there is *knowledge and light and order* (WHITE TILES)."  *- Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry*
*
Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? --  Mark 8:18*


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## coachn (Jun 8, 2015)

JamestheJust said:


> So Mackey just made up tiles where there were none.


Perhaps he was in Lodge and had a mosaics vision where all the tiles on the threshing-floor got really really Steve Martin Small and turned into the wheat and chaff that you would normally find on a threshing-floor. ;-)


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