The Lion’s Paw

Posted by felixramos@ymail.com on January 11, 2011 at 10:46 PM

THE STRONG GRIP OF THE LION’S PAW

by: Her. Felix D. Ramos, Jr., gr.18

Secretary, Logia Magdalo No. 79

Gran Logia Nacional de Filipinas

Among Freemasons, it is a mode of recognition so called because of the rude resemblance made by the hand and fingers to a lion’s paw. The Lion’s paw simply refers to the “Lion of the Tribeof Judah.” Towards a satisfactory understanding of the matter, let us considerthe following view points:

In India, it signifies the “Divine Spirit of Man.” Among theEgyptians, it is the “Life Giving Power.” The Nile dwellers used it as a symbol of the life-giving power of the sun and the sun’s ability to bring about the resurrection of the vegetation in the spring time. In some of the sculpture left by the Egyptians to illustrate the Rites of the Egyptian Mysteries, the candidate is shown lying on a couch shaped like lion from which he is being raised from the dead level to a living perpendicular.

Among the Jews, the lion was sometimes used as the emblem of the Tribeof Judah; as the Messiah was expected to spring from that Tribe. The lion was also made to refer to him, as may be seen in the Book of Revelation whereJesus Christ is called the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah.”  The Comacine Masters,( a guild of travelling operative and stone masons ) the great Cathedral Builders of the Middle Ages,who were always so loyal to the Scriptures, derived their habitual use of the lion in their sculptures. According to Leader Scott, the great authority on the Comacines, writes that in the Romanesque or Transition architecture, between AD1000 and 1200, the lion is to be found between columns and the arch. In ItalianGothic, from AD 1200 to 1500, it is placed beneath the column. Since the cathedral builders were in all probability among the ancestors of Freemasons itis possible that the lion symbolism was inherited from the Comacine Masters.

During the cathedral building period, the lion was one of the most popular figures in the common animal mythology, as taken from an old book” the Physiologus “which that mythology has been preserved. Accordingly, the whelps or cubs of the lioness were born dead and that at the end of three days she would HOWL above them until they were awakened into life. As in Christ’s resurrection after he had lain dead three days in the tomb. From this it naturally resulted that the Lion came to be used as a Symbol of the Resurrection and such is the significance of the picture of a lion howling above the whelps or cubs so often found in the old churches and cathedrals.

As a Christian emblem, since it stands for the life-giving power, a meaning that perfectly accords with its use in the Third Degree. This also brings it into harmony with our interpretation of the Eternal Life for in both its Egyptian and its Christian usages, it refers to a raising up to life in this world, and not a raising in the world to come.

Ref:

The Lost Symbolsof Freemasonry, by MP Hall

Mackey’s MasonicEncyclopaedia

Secret Teachingsof All Ages, by MP Hall

Print Friendly, PDF & Email