Peter Gower = Pythagoras

[Anonymous]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/gar/gar54.htm

The above is an unusually brilliant specimen of the logic of the Brotherhood, that assumes in every notice of building and builders to be found in antiquity a recognition of the then existence of their own society exactly as at present constituted. The old guild of working-masons seems to have made pretensions of the same nature (if we allow the genuineness of the supposed Bodleian MS. copied by Locke); for their great patron Henry VI. informs his scholar that "the Mystery was first brought into England by Peter Gower" (Pythagoras)--a corruption of the name, by the way; plainly betraying that he had obtained this piece of information from a French mouth, probably from some one in the suite of his queen. It is not unlikely that this connexion of the Father of Mathematics with the building trade arose from the study of that science by the Greek and Roman architects: for upon the vital importance of a knowledge of Mathematics to his own profession Vitruvius repeatedly and strongly insists. But this very king, whom our Freemasons claim as their chief resuscitator, furnishes the most conclusive evidence against the reality of their modern pretensions.

http://www.masonicdictionary.com/pythagoras.html

After this account of the Pythagorean school, the Freemason will find no difficulty in understanding that part of the so called Lowland Manuscript which is said to have so much puzzled the great metaphysician John Locke. This manuscript-the question of its authenticity is not here entered upon-has the following interesting paragraphs:

How comede ytt-Fremasonryn Engellonde? Peter Gower, a Grecian, journeyeded for kunnynge ye Egypte and in Syria, and yn everyche londe whereat the Venetians hadde plauntedde Maconrye, and wynnynge entraunce yn al Lodges of Maconnes, he lerned muche and retournedde and worked yn Grecia Magna wachsynge and becommynge a myghtye wysacre and gratelyche renowned, and here he framed a grate Lodge at Groton, and maked many Maconnes, some whereoffe dyd journeye yn Fraunce, and maked manye Maconnes wherefromme, yn process of tyme, the arte passed yn Engelonde.

Locke confesses that he was at first puzzled with those strange names, Peter Gower, Groton, and the Venetians; but a little thinking taught him that they were only corruptions of Pythagoras, Crotona, and the Phenicians. It is not singular that the old Freemasons should have called Pythagoras their "ancient friend and Brother," and should have dedicated to him one of their geometrical symbols, the forty-seventh problem of Euclid; an epithet and a custom that have, by the force of habit, been retained in all the modern instructions of the Craft.

Recent conclusions ascribe to Pythagoras and his followers equal esteem to that accorded them by the old Freemasons. In their mathematical work the leading characteristic was a combination of arithmetic and geometry. The studies containing the germ of algebra were developed in the Pythagorean School into a true scientific method in its theory of proportion and in fact Pythagoras has been not only credited with a method common in value to all branches of mathematics but to be personally comparable himself with Descartes who decisively combined geometry and algebra.

- Source: Mackey's Encyclopedia of Freemasonry

[Anonymous]

Nice find.  Just going to add a tie-in with your previous post that has info relating to Venice/Phenice/Phoenicians:  http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3051#p12744