Who was Tubal-cain?

Tubal-cain is a biblical figure; a smith, and master of metallurgy.

He is a descendent of Cain, the son of Lamech and Zillah, and his
three siblings are:

Jabel – in the Bible he is described as a shepherd, but according to

the Cooke Manuscript he was reputed to have discovered geometry
and became Cain’s Master Mason.

Jubal – the forefather of musicians, he is described as “the father

of all those who play the harp and flute”.

Naamah – she is attributed to be a teacher of reading, and/or the

inventor of weaving.

TUBAL-KAÏN IN ZIJN SMIDSE; GESCHIEDENIS VAN DE FAMILIE VAN KAÏN / OVER GOEDE EN
SLECHTE WERKZAAMHEDEN; BONI ET MALI SCIENTIA
IMAGE LINKED:  EUROPEANA.EU ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL (CC BY 4.0)
In the Bible, Genesis 4:22 describes him variously as ‘an instructor
of every artificer in bronze and iron’ (KJ21) or ‘a forger of all
[cutting] instruments of bronze and iron’ (AMPC). The ERV states:

Tubal-cain was the father of people

who work with bronze and iron.

 

Flavius Josephus, in his book Antiquities of the Jews stated that

Tubal-cain “exceeded all men in strength, and was very expert and
famous in martial performances”.

Tubal-cain and his family make their first Masonic-related

appearance in the Matthew Cooke Manuscript (c.1450) the second
oldest of the Masonic ‘Old Charges’, which recants the legend of
the construction of two pillars, by the four children of Lamech i.e.
Jabel, Jubel, Tubal, and Naamah.

Fearing the destruction of the world by fire or water, the siblings

decided to inscribe all the sciences they had founded onto these
pillars, one made of marble, which would not burn, and the other
from clay-brick, which would not sink.

Ye shall understand
that this son Tubal Cain
was [the] founder of smiths’
craft, and of other crafts of
 metal, that is to say, of iron,
of brass, of gold, and of silver,
as some doctors say, and his
sister Naamah was finder of
weavers-craft…

[Cooke MS – 239-247]

TUBAL-CAIN AND HIS SISTER NAAMAH – (NL) TUBAL-KAÏN EN ZIJN ZUSTER NAÄMA; TUBALCAI
/ NOEMA; LIBER CHRONICARUM –
IMAGE LINKED:  EUROPEANA.EU ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL (CC BY 4.0)

…They took their counsel

together and, by all their witts,
they said that [there] were 2 manner of
stone[s] of such virtue that the one
would never burn, and that stone
 is called marble, and that the other stone
that will not sink in water and
that stone is named latres, and
so they devised to write all
the sciences that they had found in
these 2 stones, [so that] if that God would
take vengeance, by fire, that the
marble should not burn.
And if God sent vengeance,
by water, that the other should not
Drown…

[Cooke Ms, 262-277] [1]

Importantly, James Anderson had access to the Cooke manuscript

when he produced his 1723 Constitutions.

He quotes the final sixty lines in a footnote to his description of

the York assembly.

The Woodford manuscript, which is a copy of the Cooke, has a note

explaining that it was made in 1728 by the Grand Secretary of
the  Premier Grand Lodge of England , William Reid, for William
Cowper, Clerk of the Parliaments, who had also been Grand
Secretary.  [2]

Notes:

[1] Translation of the Matthew Cooke MS from

https://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/cooke.html
[2] Text Source: Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-
ShareAlike License

The following is an excerpt from Harry Carr’s The Freemason at

Work which gives us a concise answer as to why Tubal-cain is
prominent in Masonic ritual:

Q. Why does Tubal-cain, an artificer in metals, play such a

prominent part in our ritual? Why was not a builder chosen—
or at least someone connected with the art of building?

A. For a full answer to this question, we have to go back to the

oldest documents of the Craft, the MS. Constitutions, but first
we should glance at the Biblical background to the story, which
appears in Gen. 4, vv. 16-22.

The Bible tells how Cain, having murdered his brother,

escaped from Eden to Nod where his wife bore him a son,
Enoch.

Cain then built, or started to build, a city and knowing himself

to be accursed, he named it after his son Enoch.

The succeeding verses then recount the birth of Enoch’s

grandson, Lamech, with the story of Lamech’s two wives, and
their four children:

Jabal, the father, or the originator, of the science of tending

flocks. (Abel had been a shepherd, but Jabal had widened the
class of animals that could be domesticated.)
Jubal, founder of the art of music.

Tubal-cain, inventor of the forge, skilled in brass and

ironwork and in cutting instruments.

Naamah. The O.T. [Old Testament] text simply names her as

Lamech’s daughter. But a Jewish tradition arose, and was well
established among historians in the Middle Ages, that she was
the inventor of the arts of weaving and other related skills.

So much for the background, amplified slightly with notes

from the early commentaries.

The story, in so far as it concerns our present ritual, is derived

from the earliest pillar legend incorporated in the historical
portion of the MS. Constitutions, our Old Charges.

It tells how the four children of Lamech, fearing that the world
was to be destroyed by fire or flood, ‘took counsel together’
and decided to inscribe ‘all the sciences’ that they had
founded, upon two pillars, one of marble and the other of
lacerus’ (clay-brick), because the one would not burn and the
other would not sink in water.

There is no need to discuss the ‘accuracy’ of the legend.

Josephus gave one version of it in his Antiquities, and the story
reappears in the writings of many of the medieval historians.

The earliest ‘Masonic’ version appears in the Cooke MS. of c.

1410, where the compiler had clearly attempted to reconcile
several conflicting accounts, but the Cooke MS. legend was
repeated regularly (with variations) in all subsequent versions
of the MS. Constitutions.
These two pillars, not Solomon’s, were the earliest pillars in
the legendary history of the Craft and our story then goes on to
recount how the world was saved in Noah’s flood and how the
science of masonry traveled from the east through Egypt into
Europe and was finally established in England.

Why was not a builder chosen? Doubtless because the first

builder of a city, according to the O.T., was Cain, a murderer.

Why Tubal-cain? I would say, because he was the forerunner of

Hiram Abiff; indeed the Old Testament (Gen. 4, v. 22, and I
Kings 7, v. 14) uses precisely the same two Hebrew words in
describing their craft, (choreish nechosheth) ‘a worker in
brass’.

Tubal-cain was the founder of the craft in which Hiram Abiff,

above all, excelled and he was the direct link between the two
earliest pillars and those of Solomon’s Temple.

Although the name Tubal-cain appears regularly in all our Old

Charges, it should be noted that the name did not come into
our ritual until a comparatively late date, c. 1745; there is no
printed evidence of that name in the Masonic ritual earlier
than 1745, but recently discovered transcripts of evidence
given to the Portuguese Inquisition authorities suggest that the
name was in use in a Lodge of Irishmen at Lisbon as early as
1738. (AQC 84, p.93)

Excerpted from:

The Freemason At Work

Harry Carr & revised by Frederick Smyth
Lewis Masonic
1992
Fur ther Reading

THE FREEMASON AT WORK

by Harry Carr & revised by Frederick Smyth
This is one of the most successful Masonic Publications in recent times
due to the immense knowledge of the late Harry Carr and his entertaining
writing style.
If you enjoy your masonry then this book will bring a new delight to all that
you see and hear in lodge.
When Harry Carr became secretary and editor of the Quatuor Coronati
Lodge of Research, the answering of lodge questions became a major
 part of his duties.
In a style that became a hall mark of all his masonic writing, he always
answered a little more than the original question.
In response to hundreds of requests from all over the world, the answers
he gave to questions during his twelve years office as editor of Quatuor
Coronati Transactions have been collected together in this book.
Only the best and most interesting subjects are included and every
question will be relevant to most brethren in the course of their work in
the lodge ? hence the title The Freemason at Work
This book was substantially revised by Frederick Smyth, the eminent
Masonic author and Past Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, in 1992;
brining the text right up-to-date for much had change since the book was
first published in 1976.
This is a book to be treasured, one that will provide a wealth of knowledge
in an easy to read style.
A collection of more than 200 questions with comprehensive answers to
all manner of masonic subjects.

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