Los sillares toscos y perfectos son piedras que sirven para simbolizar la vida espiritual y moral del hombre.
No es fácil cortar piedras con tamaños y formas perfectos. Requiere mucha experiencia, algo que solo los verdaderos artesanos poseen.
Históricamente, solo los grandes edificios se construían con sillares. Otros se construían con ladrillo y madera. Era difícil reunir artesanos expertos que supieran colocar los cimientos, apilar las piedras correctamente para edificios altos y construir arcos de piedra. También era difícil encontrar artesanos que pudieran esculpir las piedras con bonitas formas ornamentales.
Los sillares toscos eran cortados y erigidos por aprendices de albañil, bajo la supervisión de artesanos experimentados.
Los Maestros Masones eran los supervisores generales. Habían demostrado ser capaces de fabricar sillares para el Maestro a satisfacción de sus superiores.
Hay dos formas de sillares en la masonería.
Sillar tosco
El sillar tosco representa una piedra sin preparar ni labrar en la masonería operativa. En la masonería especulativa, un sillar tosco representa a un masón no iniciado antes de alcanzar la iluminación.
Sillar perfecto
El sillar perfecto es la piedra labrada, pulida y uniformizada con mazo, cincel, herramientas y otros útiles de trabajo. El cincel se utiliza en la masonería inglesa, pero no se utiliza como símbolo masónico en Estados Unidos.
El sillar perfecto es la piedra perfecta que ha sido trabajada por canteros experimentados y colocada en edificios y estructuras arquitectónicas.
Un sillar perfecto es un símbolo de un masón que trabaja para lograr una vida con propósito, basada en principios y justa y hace todo lo que puede para estar iluminado.
Sillares toscos y perfectos
Los Sillares Toscos y Perfectos se utilizan simbólicamente en el Grado de Compañero. Un hombre puede mejorar su moral y espiritualidad mediante la educación y la adquisición de conocimientos.
Un sillar tosco comienza como una piedra imperfecta. Un hombre también es imperfecto al principio. Pero, mediante el amor fraternal, la cultivación y la educación, puede moldearse en una mejor persona. Se convierte en alguien que ha sido moldeado por la virtud y se ha ceñido a los límites que le dio el Creador.
Sillares toscos y perfectos que han sido preparados para su uso por el constructor
Antiguamente, las piedras de cantera que se podían moldear fácilmente en las configuraciones requeridas se llamaban "piedras de sillería". Ejemplos de piedras de sillería son la arenisca y la caliza. Estas piedras en bruto deben refinarse y pulirse antes de su uso.
En el grado de Compañero, el Ceniza Tosca representa el estado inmaduro de un hombre y su necesidad de mejorar. El hombre inmaduro aprende que puede ser mejor mediante una mejor conducta y una mayor espiritualidad. Se le encomienda ser una mejor persona mediante obligaciones, expectativas y deberes.
Un masón suaviza continuamente sus asperezas externas e internas para convertirse en un mejor hombre y un mejor masón.
Una vez que un hombre ha pulido su sillar lo mejor posible, comienza a ayudar a sus Hermanos a convertirse en mejores personas y mejores masones.
Piedras toscas y perfectas y la capacidad del hombre para el cambio
Todos los sillares en bruto tienen el potencial de convertirse en sillares perfectos. Pero primero, deben estar hechos de materiales sólidos y presentar mínimas imperfecciones. Deben ser receptivos al cambio y capaces de ser trabajados hasta alcanzar la perfección. Por ello, a los candidatos a cada grado masónico se les formulan numerosas preguntas para conocer mejor su carácter y sus cualificaciones.
Los candidatos deben tener la capacidad de servir y apoyar a la Hermandad. Deben ser examinados cuidadosamente para certificar que se ajustan a los objetivos y principios masónicos y que son compatibles con las leyes de Dios.
Un sillar imperfecto puede perfeccionarse, pero algunos defectos importantes son difíciles de corregir, y estos pueden debilitar una estructura al encajarla. Esto aplica tanto a las personas como a las piedras.
Sillares toscos y perfectos y estados de metamorfosis
La masonería es una Hermandad noble y antigua con una larga historia. Un sillar defectuoso puede atraer pensamientos negativos, reproches y vergüenza a la Hermandad por parte de personas ajenas a ella que no son masones. Por lo tanto, no se permite la entrada a la Hermandad a los sillares defectuosos.
También debemos comprender que los sillares perfectos no se encuentran simplemente en las canteras. Deben ser martillados, cincelados y pulidos para alcanzar su estado perfecto.
Es difícil encontrar hombres perfectos que existan sin la luz, la guía y el amor fraternales. Es difícil encontrar masones que no hayan sido piedra angular en algún momento de sus vidas.
Cómo los masones pueden contribuir a la creación de otros sillares perfectos
- Los masones deben considerar seriamente su responsabilidad personal de educar a otros hermanos para su perfeccionamiento. Nos iluminamos al ayudar a otros y donar a quienes lo necesitan. Los maestros masones defienden los principios del oficio y enseñan a otros hermanos lo que han aprendido.
- Todas las Logias deben tomarse el tiempo para evaluar el potencial de un candidato. Deben sopesar su carácter y evaluar su potencial de cambio.
- Todos los masones debemos extender una mano amiga de afecto y amor para ayudar a los nuevos masones a ser mejores personas. Debemos ayudarlos a mantenerse firmes, a vivir con rectitud y a convertirse en verdaderos masones que enorgullezcan al Creador.
Todo hombre digno debe tomar en serio la lección del Sillín Tosco y Perfecto. Debemos tomar en serio estas lecciones para que podamos ser más sabios y menos ignorantes, pasar de la muerte a la vida y de la oscuridad a la luz.
4 comments
Daniel K Gray
I had the opportunity to visit Scotland, and view, close up, standing buildings constructed 13 centuries ago. It occurred to me that each stone was probably selected from a pile of stones, all different, all imperfect. The bricklayer’s talent was in selecting “which stone will work here”. The stones were not like the machined brick used today. To make the mortar work with machined brick, all bricks alike, it is required that there be holes in the brick to bind with the mortar. Highly polished stones, all alike, will make a pretty building, but not a building that will stand for centuries. In interviewing applicants, we need to realize that that applicant is not perfect, but the investigating committee must think, “This brick is not perfect, but might be just the right brick to give our building strength.” In diversity there is strength. That is the basis of evolution: Strength by diversity.
I had the opportunity to visit Scotland, and view, close up, standing buildings constructed 13 centuries ago. It occurred to me that each stone was probably selected from a pile of stones, all different, all imperfect. The bricklayer’s talent was in selecting “which stone will work here”. The stones were not like the machined brick used today. To make the mortar work with machined brick, all bricks alike, it is required that there be holes in the brick to bind with the mortar. Highly polished stones, all alike, will make a pretty building, but not a building that will stand for centuries. In interviewing applicants, we need to realize that that applicant is not perfect, but the investigating committee must think, “This brick is not perfect, but might be just the right brick to give our building strength.” In diversity there is strength. That is the basis of evolution: Strength by diversity.
Martin Eador
Do you have rough and perfect ashlar stones for ceremony use?
Do you have rough and perfect ashlar stones for ceremony use?
P. G. Pete Normand
This is informative up to a point. But, it reinforces the incorrect notion that stonemasons only made perfect ashlars, set row upon row. But, that is not true.
In the middle ages, the word “mason” was used to describe the rank and file craftsmen with limited skill, who made perfect ashlars, and lay and set the stones in place.
However, the highly skilled craftsmen, who could carve soft freestone into statuary, and other elaborate and decorative elements like window tracery and fan vaulting, were called “freestone masons,” and later “free-masons” or “freemasons.” They were paid a lot more than the rank and file masons.
In many cases, these skilled freemasons were sent to Paris and Rome to learn more about architecture, engineering, design, aesthetics, proportions and stresses.
Master Masons were contractors who hired and fired other masons to work for them. The Master Mason on a particular job site was not elected by his employees. He selected them, paid them, and supervised them with the help of one or two wardens. The notion that English masons on a particular job met together in a “lodge,” governed by the Master and Wardens, duly elected, is a fantasy created by the grand lodge Freemasons of the 18th century and later.
Medieval stonemasons did not have a local organization called a “lodge” until the 16th century in Scotland. And even then, Scottish lodges were created for the purpose of taking care of the fraternal aspects of the craft (banquets, initiations, disputes, financial assistance, etc.). The operative craft was governed by the local Incorporation (the Scottish equivalent of a guild).
But, in England, stonemasons never had lodges, and they didn’t have guilds, either, with the sole exception of London, where a masons’ guild was created in the late 14th century, and continues to this day.
In England, the term “lodge” was used by speculative Freemasons during the 17th century to describe their meetings. They would say that they “held a lodge.” They would never say that “the lodge held a meeting,” because a lodge WAS a meeting. A lodge was not a local organization in the way we think of it today. The lodge as a local organization, to which a member belonged, is an invention of the grand lodge era.
This is informative up to a point. But, it reinforces the incorrect notion that stonemasons only made perfect ashlars, set row upon row. But, that is not true.
In the middle ages, the word “mason” was used to describe the rank and file craftsmen with limited skill, who made perfect ashlars, and lay and set the stones in place.
However, the highly skilled craftsmen, who could carve soft freestone into statuary, and other elaborate and decorative elements like window tracery and fan vaulting, were called “freestone masons,” and later “free-masons” or “freemasons.” They were paid a lot more than the rank and file masons.
In many cases, these skilled freemasons were sent to Paris and Rome to learn more about architecture, engineering, design, aesthetics, proportions and stresses.
Master Masons were contractors who hired and fired other masons to work for them. The Master Mason on a particular job site was not elected by his employees. He selected them, paid them, and supervised them with the help of one or two wardens. The notion that English masons on a particular job met together in a “lodge,” governed by the Master and Wardens, duly elected, is a fantasy created by the grand lodge Freemasons of the 18th century and later.
Medieval stonemasons did not have a local organization called a “lodge” until the 16th century in Scotland. And even then, Scottish lodges were created for the purpose of taking care of the fraternal aspects of the craft (banquets, initiations, disputes, financial assistance, etc.). The operative craft was governed by the local Incorporation (the Scottish equivalent of a guild).
But, in England, stonemasons never had lodges, and they didn’t have guilds, either, with the sole exception of London, where a masons’ guild was created in the late 14th century, and continues to this day.
In England, the term “lodge” was used by speculative Freemasons during the 17th century to describe their meetings. They would say that they “held a lodge.” They would never say that “the lodge held a meeting,” because a lodge WAS a meeting. A lodge was not a local organization in the way we think of it today. The lodge as a local organization, to which a member belonged, is an invention of the grand lodge era.
Michael Thomason
I found this piece very informative! All Brethren should read, learn, mark & inwardly digest that which is presented here!!
I found this piece very informative! All Brethren should read, learn, mark & inwardly digest that which is presented here!!