In one of these groups, known as "the children of Solomon," the legend of Hiram appears to have existed much in its present form; according to another group the victim of the murder was not Hiram Abiff, but one of his companions named Maître Jacques, who, whilst engaged with Hiram on the construction of the Temple, met his death at the hands of five wicked Fellow Crafts, instigated by a sixth, the Père Soubise.
But the date at which this legend originated is unknown. Clavel thinks that the "Hebraic mysteries" existed as early as the Roman Collegia, which he describes as largely Judaized; Yarker expresses precisely the opposite view: "It is not so difficult to connect Freemasonry with the Collegia; the difficulty lies in attributing Jewish traditions to the Collegia, and we say on the evidence of the oldest charges that such traditions had no existence in Saxon times." Again: "So far as this country is concerned, we know nothing from documents of a Masonry dating from Solomon's Temple until after the Crusades, when the constitution believed to have been sanctioned by King Athelstan gradually underwent a change." In a discussion which took place recently at the Quatuor Coronati Lodge the Hiramic legend could only be traced back--and then without absolute certainty--to the fourteenth century, which would coincide with the date indicated by Yarker.
Up to this period the lore of the masonic guilds appears to have contained only the exoteric doctrines of Egypt and Greece--which may have reached them through the Roman Collegia, whilst the