Fonts for Masonic Scholars

Those engaged in serious writing about Freemasonry have often required unusual typefaces. Although today's Masonic rituals are not replete with ancient languages, much Masonic literature does feature ancient script. Hebrew and Greek appear on many old Masonic documents. Valuable resources such as Mackey's Encyclopædia of Freemasonry and Pike's Morals and Dogma refer frequently to ancient languages. Possessing the fonts necessary to reproduce these scripts can be valuable for Masonic research and personal edification.

Scholars Press is a defunct publisher of monographs in the field of religious studies. SP created a series of freeware ancient language fonts for use on the Internet as well as in print. The Scholars Press fonts are well-mapped and of very good quality.

There are Scholars Press fonts for Hebrew, Greek, Coptic and Syriac, as well as a nice font for English transliteration. For a complete archive of the Scholars Press fonts for both PC and Macintosh, see the link above. Here at Orinda Lodge, we have mirrored the PC versions of the two fonts most likely to be used by Masons. These fonts are copyright © 2000 by James R. Adair.

One of the alterations which Albert Pike 33° made in his revised edition of the rituals of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite is that he changed most of the Hebrew script from the standard "square" form to the older Samaritan lettering. Masons who have searched in vain for a font to represent these characters are welcome to download and use Kadosh Samaritan, a Windows TrueType font created by Shawn Eyer (the author of this page).

FAM-Code is a freeware Masonic symbol and cipher font published by Oakland-Durant-Rockridge Lodge #188 (Oakland, California). It is particularly useful for the inclusion of Masonic emblems in documents without resorting to unwieldy clip-art. It has a clean, contemporary look and has been used to create many of the icons used at this website. Preview the images and download the font directly from the ODR website linked above.

About the Author

Shawn Eyer is an adjunct professor in the philosophy and religion program at John F. Kennedy University. He is currently the Worshipful Master of Academia Lodge no. 847, F&AM California. He also serves as the chair of the Orinda Lodge Masonic Formation Committee. His Masonic affiliations include the Southern California Research Lodge, the Oakland Valley of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, S.J., the Scottish Rite Research Society, the Golden State College of the Societas Rosicruciana in Civitatibus Foederatis, and the Masonic Restoration Foundation. He may be reached at shawn@orindalodge.org.

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