Day tries to connect every panel and symbol to degrees. Plus, he sees a progression from the “craft” degrees on panel 8 upwards. Panel 2 would then represented the highest degrees, but he gets no futher than that the panel refers to “purely Christian degrees”.
What (kind of) degrees could these be?
In my little investigation into Templar degrees, I write:
Note all the different organisation (?) names that Dunckerley brought together in a conclave, (confusingly) “H.R.D.M.”, but also “K.D.S.H.”. Further a few (“etc.”) Biblical names of orders (?). Could these -perhaps- account for the “purely Christian degrees” in panel 2? That -of course- should mean that all these titles or degrees were already known around 1785 when (and where) the scroll was painted.
This was a remark of the following quote from Jan Snoek:
In 1791, when Thomas Dunckerley was invited by the Knights Templar encampment at Bristol to become its Grand Master, he accepted the offer, and parlayed this apparently singular invitation into the creation of the Grand Conclave of the Royal, Exalted, Religious and Military Order of H.R.D.M., Grand Elect Masonic Knights Templar, K.D.S.H. of Saint John of Jerusalem, Palestine, Rhodes, etc., with himself as the first Grand Master,
It is interesting to see that these ‘Templar systems’ seem to have had degrees similar to those on the Kirkwall Scroll, even in order. These systems seem to go back to 1779 the latest, but that would be right on time for the Kirkwall Scroll. Somewhat later (1791, see quote above) there is talk of other degrees. It is tempting to see the “purely Christian degrees” of Day on panel 2, as (precursors of) these degrees.
