Eagle; Double-Headed Eagle. Quite naturally, the Eagle
has been adopted from earliest times as a symbol because the Eagle is the
strongest, boldest, and most courageous of birds and, since it nests in the
highest crags and flies higher than most other birds, it is the embodiment of
freedom. The Eagle was the symbol of power and was carried at the head
of each Roman legion from about the beginning of the Christian era. Among some
peoples, it was a symbol of the Sun or of Jupiter and, from the language of
Exodus 19:4, it is apparent that the Hebrews were familiar with the fable or
belief that the female Eagle trains her young to fly by bearing them up
on her wings. The Pagans had a myth that Ganymede was carried up to Jove on an
eagle’s back. The Eagle is one of the symbols of the Rose Croix
Degree and is there said to represent Christ and, in the jewel of the degree,
is represented with wings spread as if in flight.
One would suppose that the single Eagle would be an
older symbol than the Double-Headed Eagle, but Chetwode Crawley in A.
Q. C. XXIV, pp. 21-24, asserts that the latter was used as a symbol of
power for 5000 years and is one of the oldest emblematic devices in the world.
He pretends to trace it back more than 1000 years prior to the Exodus from
Egypt and more than 2000 years before Solomon’s Temple. Quoting the
Assyriologist Thureau Dangin, he states that the symbol was found in the brick
work at the city of Lagash in South Babylon about 3000 B.C. The Double-Headed
Eagle, he says, was the Storm Bird of Lagash and ”stood proudly
forth, the visible emblem of its power or domination,” but, regrettably, he
does not tell us where it stood forth or where it was visible, where it was
represented, on what its image was impressed and how. It is not likely that it
was in sculpture or bas relief on sundried brick. He refers to a cylinder
covered with ancient cuneiform (not hieroglyphic or picture writing) which were
deciphered by Dangin ”who displays to our wondering eyes the emblem of power
that was already centuries old when Babylon gave its name to Babylonia.” But
this is indirect, insinuating language, and does not state that the Double-Headed
Eagle was depicted on the cylinder but implies that, by deciphering the
wedge-shaped characters, Dangin disclosed the emblem. We are left in doubt.
The generally accepted theory is that, since the
Roman Empire used the Eagle on its standards, the division into the Eastern and
Western Roman Empires suggested the two heads, one facing to the East and the
other to the West. The two heads on one body represented one Empire with two
seats of government at Rome and Constantinople. But just when this occurred is
not certain; some say that Constantine was first to use this emblem; but it
may not have been used until both the Eastern and Western Empires had crumbled
and the remnants had been gathered together under the Holy Roman Empire. Upon
the dissolution of the latter, the German Emperors, and evidently the
Austrian, claimed to be the representatives of the whole Empire and adopted the
Double-Headed Eagle as their armorial device.
Though some have asserted that the Double-Headed
Eagle of the Austrian and Russian Empires was first adopted during the Second
Crusade to typify the grand alliance formed by the Christian sovereigns of
Greece and Germany against the Saracens, this is doubted by Millington (Heraldry
in History, Poetry and Romance, p. 290). Brewer has stated that the Russian
Double-Headed Eagle is derived from the Eagle of the Russians
and the Eagle of Poland. The generally accepted theory is that the
Russian use of the symbol arose out of the assertion that Russia represented
the Holy Roman Empire, basing that claim on the claim to Byzantium (Constantinople
or Istanbul). David E. W. Williamson stated that Ivan III adopted the device of
the Double-Headed Eagle in 1469 at his marriage to Zoe Palaeologa
(Sophia), daughter of Thomas of Morea, claimant to the imperial throne of
Byzantium. That author also stated that the emblem was first seen in western
nations in the arms of the Holy Roman Empire in 1345, and that it first appeared
in the seal of that power in 1414.
As a Masonic symbol, the Double-Headed Eagle
has not been traced in actual pictorial representation before 1802, although
it was referred to and may have been used earlier. The first actual representation
of the symbol in any Masonic connection first appeared as a rather crude
drawing or inscription in the seal of the Supreme Council A. & A. S. R.,
formed at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1801. That seal was appended to the
list of officers and members of that Supreme Council published in a circular
of 1802, wherein the Double-Headed Eagle occupied the whole face of the
seal. Also, in the same document, the seal of Knights Kadosh and Princes of the
Royal Secret bore the two heads of the Double-Headed Eagle, the body of
the Eagle being hidden. (See Mackey’s History of Freemasonry,
Vol. 7, pp. 1839, 1842.)
The folio edition of the Grand Constitutions of 1762
of the Rite of Perfection and those of 1786 of the Scottish Rite
contain references to ”Knights of the White and Black Eagle” and the appendix
to the Latin Constitutions of 1786 provides in Article I that the banner of
the order includes the Double-Headed Eagle and, in Article III, which is
signed ”Frederic,” that the Great Seal of the order includes the same insigne.
The Supreme Council of 1801 evidently derived the
symbol from those sources, though there is no evidence that it was actually
used before 1802. In the basic Rite of Perfection, which arose about
1754-1760, and the Scottish Rite of 1786-1801, there were two degrees
which might have used the Double-Headed Eagle appropriately. The first
was the 17th, Knights of the East and West, where it would have served
the same purpose as in the bifurcate Roman Empire, one head looking to the
East and the other to the West. Moreover, the Council of Emperors of the
East and West was the last and most eminent body to control the Rite of
Perfection prior to its absorption in France by
the Grand Orient and by the Scottish
Rite in America. But that solution has not appealed to any authority
since there is no trace of the symbol in that degree, which had always been
somewhat mystical, involving the symbolism of the number 7. The explanation of
the name of that degree, as given in an old ritual of the early 19th century,
is that the Crusaders, having failed to conquer Palestine, returned to their
homes and assumed that name in memory of their homes in the West and of the
East where their order was created at Jerusalem.
As to the degree in which
the symbol in question first appeared, evidence points to Knight Kadosh
or Knight of the White and Black Eagle, 24th of the Rite of
Perfection and 30th of the Scottish Rite, though the rationale
thereof is difficult to explain. The ritual of that degree in use for some
years prior to 1826 in the United States repeatedly refers to the Knight
Kadosh or Knight of the White and Black Eagle but, then, strange to
say, describes the jewel of the degree as bearing a ”black spread eagle, with
two heads suspended to a broad order of fiery bloody color, worn from the left
shoulder to the right hip. The eagle as if going to fly with a naked sword in
its claws.” In the closing lecture the following occurs: ”Q. What is your name?
A. Kadosh or Knight of the Black Eagle.” After the candidate has stated that he
is ”under the banner of the black eagle,” he is asked: ”Q. Have you any other
name than that of Kadosh or Knight of the Black Eagle?” There seems to be a
decided confusion between the White and Black Eagle and the Black
Double-Headed Eagle.
In Pike’s Morals and Dogma, published in the
latter part of the 19th century, at the head of the lecture on Knight Kadosh
at page 814, two banners of that degree are displayed, one of which carries the
Double-Headed Eagle, though neither in that lecture nor elsewhere is any
explanation afforded of Double-Headed Eagle or White and Black Eagle.
The former seems to have come into use without any applicable symbolism, though
the latter is also still in good standing as is the black and white banner. The
White and Black Eagle would not necessarily be a Double-Headed
Eagle; nor would a Double-Headed Eagle necessarily be of any particular
color or of any two colors. See Gould’s History of Freemasonry, vol. 5,
p. 522 (Scribner).
At the present day, the symbol of the Double-Headed
Eagle appertains to the 30th, 32nd and 33rd degrees of the Scottish Rite.
