exclusion from the Freemason lodge. The “Order of Woodsplitters”
(fendeurs), founded in 1747 by the Chevalier Beauhaine, a distinguished
Freemason, took its symbolism entirely from the work of the woodsplitter
or woodchopper; the lodges were yards (i. e., woodyards, chantiers), the
members were cousins (cousins, cousines; i. e., male and female
cousins), the candidate was a Steel (used to strike fire from a flint),
and so forth. The “Order of Hope” (esperance) was founded expressly for
the behoof of Freemasons’ wives, and they alone were admitted; but
masons of the higher degrees could visit the lodges without initiation.
The president was a woman. There were Esperance lodges in several cities
of Germany; at Goettingen the university students joined the order for
the sake of the refinement of manners got from association with the
ladies. There is some doubt as to the true character of the “Order of
Saint Jonathan” (afterward of Saint Joachim), qualified as “for True and
Perfect Friendship,” or “for the Defense of the Honor of Divine
Providence.” Its end would seem to have been to propagate belief in the
Trinity, to refrain from the dance (especially the waltz), and from
games of chance; also (this for the female members) to nurse their own
children. It was founded by some German nobles, and its first
grandmaster was Christian Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg. Though
Protestants and Catholics were members of the order, it took on a
strongly Catholic character, and in 1785 adopted the style of “the
knightly Secular Chapter of the Order of Saint Joachim, the blessed
Father of the Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ” (ritterlich-weltliches ordenskapitel von St. Joachim, etc.) The
society passed quietly out of existence. The “Order of the Pilgrims’
Chain” (Kette der Pilgrime), in Germany and Denmark, whose members
belonged to the higher classes, had for its motto “Courtesy,
Steadfastness, and Silence” (Willfaehrigkeit, Bestaendigkeit,
Stillschweigen), and wore in a buttonhole a white ribbon bearing the
initial letters of those three words. The members, male and female, were
called Favorites (favoriten); to admit a new member was “to add a link
to the chain”; and any member could add any “link” whom he might have
known for half a year. The symbolism was borrowed from travel. The
“Order of Argonauts” was founded in 1772 by Conrad von Rhetz, a
Brunswick Freemason. On an islet in a pond leased to him by the state he
built a temple in which the members were initiated. They approached the
temple in barges and there were entertained by the Grand Admiral, as the
founder was styled. There was no fee for admission. The motto was “Long
Live Gladness”; the badge of the order was a green-enameled anchor of
silver. The officers, besides the Grand Admiral, were the Pilot, the
Ship’s Chaplain, and so forth, and the members were Argonauts. After the
founder’s death the order went to wreck, and the temple disappeared,
leaving no vestige. The renowned Fenelon founded at Douai an order
called “the Palladium,” its secret dialect was taken from his romance
“Telemasque.”
The “Order of the Mustardseed,” said to have been founded in England in
1708: it spread over Holland and Germany: it assumed the form of a
Protestant clerico-knightly order, and concerned itself chiefly with
religious affairs: its emblem was a gold cross, with mustard tree in the
middle. This society was reputed to be connected with the Herrnhuters
(Moravian brethren).
The “Order of the Leal” (Orden der Echten), founded in 1758, at
Landeshut, by Bessel, a Prussian military officer, had for its end
simply good-fellowship: it labored to win over to Prussia the Silesian
nobility.
The “Society of the Ducats” (Dukatensocietat) had for its founder (1746)
Count Louis of Neuwied, colonel in the Prussian Army. The members
contributed one ducat a month; but when a member induced outsiders to
join the society, then for the first outsider his own contribution for
the month current was remitted; for the third, fifth and each following
odd-numbered new accession procured by him he received a ducat. This
vulgar swindle, which was the sole end of the society, worked finely,
and the membership grew rapidly: but the Society of the Ducats was
suppressed by the government after an existence of two years.
Attempts to establish other fraudulent orders were made by a swindler
who understood the foible of his contemporaries for mysteries. Matthew
Grossinger, or as he styled himself, Francis Rudolf von Grossing, son of
a butcher, born 1752, at Komorn, in Hungary, would seem to have been
once a Jesuit. After the suppression of his order, he offered to sell to
Frederic the Great some Austrian official documents, but met with a
repulse; then he represented himself to Joseph II. as a victim of the
reactionary policy of the preceding reign, and in 1784 founded in the
interest of his own pocket the “Order of the Rose,” and again in 1788,
donning women’s clothes, the “Order of Harmony,” both orders admitting
members of either sex. He named “Frau von Rosenwald,” a non-existent
personage, as head of the order, with the title Stiftsrose (The
Institute’s Rose). The several local societies were known as Roses, and
their presiding officers as Rosylords and Rosyladies (Rosenherren,
Rosendamen). But in fact Grossing was all in all, and he appropriated to
himself the very liberal contributions and all other income: for that
end alone were the societies established. He died in wretched
circumstances, having always squandered his gains in luxury and
extravagance.
2. OBSCURANTIST INFLUENCES.
The daybreak of illuminism in the 18th century gave to the partisans of
the ancient despotism of creed and privilege matter of most serious
concern. They saw all their contrivances for keeping the people ignorant
and submissive baffled. For them, as for the Papacy at the daybreak of
the Reformation the question was, To be or Not to be. But theirs was a
war with a far more redoubtable foe than Protestantism ever was.
Illuminism did not aim merely at separation from the Roman Church: it
declared a war of extermination against Rome, it aimed at abolition of
all authority that presumed to determine the beliefs of men or to
dictate their opinions. To down this hateful spirit of illuminism with
one blow—what satisfaction that would afford to the obscurantists of
that time! But where should they begin? It was vain to think of
silencing the literary champions of illuminism. The age of witch trials
and courts of Inquisition was past. The problem was to find an organized
institution in which the odious spirit of illuminism was, as it were,
incorporated, and that could be no other than the society of the
Freemasons. But the experience of the Popes and the Inquisition had
shown that Freemasonry was not to be overmastered by persecution, by
prisons, or by the stake. Hence, other champions must take the place of
the Dominican inquisitors: the Freemasons must be won over to the good
cause by flatteries and cajoleries. Among the illuminists of that day
the Jesuits were regarded as the agents chosen for carrying out this
plan; and though it cannot be demonstrated that they had an actual part
in the business, the scheme surely was one quite consonant with the
spirit of their order. The plan was shrewdly contrived. It dealt with
political considerations affecting England, the native home of
freemasonry; and thus the conspiracy aimed, so to speak, at capturing
the den of the “dragon” of illuminism. The Stuart dynasty, which had
returned to the Catholic fold, was in exile from the end of the 17th
century, but, aided by France materially and by Rome intellectually, was
ever striving to regain the lost throne. The efforts of kings and kings’
sons in exile possess a poetical and romantic quality. It was possible
to win over all sympathetic enthusiasts by exploiting their foibles, the
nobles and legitimists (the Tories) by preaching legitimacy, and the
whole body of the Catholics by appealing to their loyalty to the Church.
Now, the masonic order was a secret society, and as such, of course, was
a rallying point for all enthusiasts, mystics, and dreamers. Besides,
the nobility was strongly represented in the society: after the first
four grandmasters of the Grand Lodge of England, who were all practical
masons (architects), all the succeeding grandmasters belonged to the
highest nobility of the realm. Among them we find dukes of Montague,
Richmond, Norfolk, Chandos, to say nothing of a long series of
viscounts, earls, and marquises. As for the Catholic element, it had
many things in common with Freemasonry—ceremonies and mysticism,
hierarchic degrees, and cosmopolitan extension; hence, with a little
Jesuit finesse, the order might gradually and insensibly be made
Catholic, as had been done with the Buddhist ceremonial in India: in
this way the Society of Saint John might be transformed into a
preparatory school for the Society of Jesus. And now, if we consider
what a scandal it must have been to the coronetted chiefs of Freemasonry
that their order originated among mechanics, we can see how easy it
would be, by dishing up a few fables in proof of a nobler origin, to
make converts of them for any ends whatever. In the event of success,
the stronghold of illuminism would be captured, and with the help of its
former champions the most powerful kingdom in Europe, and a great centre
of illuminism, would be given back to a Catholic King, and thereby the
road to conquest opened for the Church of Rome. Of course, these vast
designs could not be carried out all at once. The work had to proceed by
stages, as thus: 1. Aristocratic sentiment would be gratified by the
institution of higher masonic degrees; 2. These degrees would be
connected with the religious orders of knighthood by a chain of fable;
3. Obstinate Protestants would be quieted by the offer of a cryptic
Catholicism which apparently would be in accordance with their own
beliefs; 4. Persons inaccessible to religious considerations would be
influenced by hopes of riches to be acquired through the secret arts of
alchemy, and the like; 5. The whole purpose of the order would be
directed toward spiritual and Catholic ends; finally, 6. when the
process was completed, there would stand forth in all its nakedness the
savage fury of the Inquisition.
3. THE “HIGH DEGREES” SWINDLE.
Without any sufficient reason assigned, there arose in England between
the years 1741 and 1743 a new degree, Royal Arch, at first as a higher
division of the master’s degree afterward as an independent degree. Its
content was a hotchpotch of New Testament passages, religious dogmas,
and masonic, or, rather, unmasonic fables. Its tradition went back to
the building of the second Temple of Jerusalem, after the return from
Babylonian captivity; hence the president of a Royal Arch lodge took the
name of Zerubbabel, and wore a vesture of scarlet and purple. The
meeting was called a “chapter”; the three masonic degrees were dubbed
“probationary degrees”; and soon, on the title page of the rules of the
degree was represented an ark, with the inscription “Nulla Salus Extra”
(no safety outside), whereby we are reminded that according to Catholic
doctrine the ark of Noah was a type of the Church. Afterward the Royal
Arch degree published a program of its work, in which masonry is divided
into Operative and Speculative, and the former subdivided into manual,
instrumental, and scientific; the aim of the “order” was defined to be,
to gather the human race in one fold under the great Shepherd of souls.
For the rest, the work of this degree was childish play.
Even before this fruit was borne in England, there came into circulation
in France, how or why nobody knows, a statement that Freemasonry arose
in Palestine during the Crusades, and was there consolidated with the
Knights of St. John (Hospitalers), wherefore the lodges came to be
called Saint John’s lodges; that after the Crusades the order was
established in Scotland, was thence afterward introduced into England,
and later into other countries. This historic lie was, of course,
welcomed by the nobles who were members of the order; as for the many
uneducated members who had been admitted into the French lodges, they
were easily deluded. Thenceforward there were High Degrees of all sorts
in France. And as the fable assigned to Scotland the foremost place in
the history of masonry, the highest degrees began to be known as
Scottish, or, after the name of Scotland’s patron, Saint Andrew, Saint
Andrew’s degrees, and the lodges Scottish or Saint Andrew’s lodges. In
their rites of admission they adopted from the traditions of the English
and French stonemasons a lot of myths about the death of Hiram, and
taught the aspirants for admission to avenge that death, the meaning
being that they were to avenge the expulsion of the Stuarts, and the
wrongs done the Catholic Church by the Reformation and by illuminism.
But as degrees were multiplied the Hiram myth no longer sufficed, and
for the higher steps it was necessary to have recourse to other myths.
Meanwhile it was seen that the story of the consolidation of the
Freemasons and the Knights of Saint John would not work, for that
knightly order was still in existence; therefore, if the aristocratic
brethren were to have their vanity flattered, recourse must be had to a
suppressed order of knighthood. True, that was not pleasing to strict
Catholics, but there was no alternative—and a bond of connection had to
be formed between Masonry and the order of the Templars—the heretical
Templars.
So here is the story of the relation of the Freemasons to the Templars:
A few Templars, fleeing from papal and royal persecution—among them
Grand Comptroller Harris and Marshal Aumont—reached Scotland, and in
that country, in order to gain a livelihood, worked as common masons.
Advised of the death of the Grandmaster Molay, and of his last will,
wherein he had directed the brethren to perpetuate the order, these
fugitive knights that same year established the “Freemasons’ league,”
and on the Scotch Isle of Mull held the first “chapter” in 1314. Now, to
say nothing of the fact that, as we shall see, the story took more than
one different shape afterward, it is on other grounds quite unworthy of
belief. It is beyond question that documentarily the Freemason league
can assign for itself no other origin but the constitution of the Grand
Lodge of England in 1717. But, besides, the story is ridiculous, not
only in that Harris and Aumont are purely fictitious personages, but
also in that the Grand Lodge of Scotland and the oldest lodges of that
ancient kingdom know nothing of any such creation of a society; and,
furthermore, the objects and the sentiments of Templarism and masonry
differ too widely for any unification to take place between them. In the
one body free thinking through levity of temperament: in the other
repudiation of odium theologicum out of love of fellowmen; on one side
egotism: on the other regard for the general weal; on one side pride of
aristocracy: on the other regard only for the dignity of manhood.
And yet the most eminent men of the 18th century were fooled into
believing that the Freemasons are descended from the Templars. The first
serious and formal introduction of spurious Templarism into masonry took
place in France. The Chevalier de Boneville, on November 24, 1764,
founded at Paris a chapter of the high degrees called (apparently in
honor of the then grandmaster of Freemasons, Louis de Bourbon, count of
Clermont) the “Clermont chapter”; its members were, for the most part,
partisans of the Stuarts, and therefore of the Jesuits also. Here it was
that the story of the wondrous transformation of Templars into
Freemasons in Scotland was invented, taught, and employed as part of the
ceremonial of admission to the higher degrees. The members wore the
masonic togs, and in their ritual the death of the Grandmaster Molay
took the place of that of Hiram; and, in fact, by Hiram, as some
asserted, Molay was meant. From this chapter the influence of the
Jesuits extended soon over the whole field of French Freemasonry.
Surely, it was not by accident nor out of patriotism that the very next
year the French Grand Lodge, till then dependent on England, declared
itself independent, and adopted statutes according to which the
“Scottish Masters” (unknown both in England and Scotland) were to have
oversight of the work.
4. APOSTLES OF NONSENSE.
Soon the craze spread further still, and first, of course, through
Germany, where, in those degenerate days, whatever bore the French stamp
was received with reverence and conscientiously aped. The Scottish
lodges got entrance into Berlin as early as 1742. The dubious honor of
this importation belongs to Baron E. G. von Marschall, who had been
initiated into the new Templarism at Paris. Dying soon afterward, he was
succeeded by a man who presented the curious spectacle of noblest and
most strenuous endeavor toward a fantastic goal, of the nature of which
he knew nothing. Charles Gotthilf, Imperial Baron of Hund and
Altengrottkau (so he was styled), born in 1722, was a nobleman of
Lusatia and actual privy councilor of the Emperor; he was a man of
narrow mind, without high education, but he was an idealist, a
chivalrous, hospitable and kindly gentleman. At Paris he was received
into the Catholic Church and into the spurious order of Templars, to
which he was devoted heart and soul: he was commissioned “Master of the
Host” in Germany. He founded a lodge on one of his estates, which bore
the ominous name of Unwurde (unworth), and soon had several subordinate
lodges under his jurisdiction.
“About this time,” says a contemporary writer, “the Seven-Years War
broke out. The French troops came into Germany, and with them many
Jesuits. With the French Army, and particularly in its commissariat,
were a great many Freemasons of the higher degrees, and some of those
gentlemen had calculated to make a good deal of money by the sale of
merchandise in Germany. I knew one French commissary who had a whole
wagonload of decorations for some forty-five degrees, and these he
peddled all the way from Strasburg to Hamburg. Thereafter no German
lodge was any longer content with the three symbolic degrees, but nearly
every one of them had a series of higher degrees of one brand or
another, according to the particular windbag each fell victim to; and so
they dropped one system and took up another when a new apostle came that
way and reformed them.”
Such an apostle of fraud was the Marquis de Lernais or Lerney. Taken
prisoner of war to Berlin, he there made known the Jesuitical doctrine
of the Chapter of Clermont, and even founded a chapter in the Grand
Lodge of the Three World-Spheres. To spread these chapters over the rest
of Germany, or, in plain terms, to give the whole country into the hands
of the Jesuits, a character by no means ambiguous, one Philip Samuel
Rosa, once a Protestant clergyman, counsel to the consistory, and
superintendent, but afterward deposed for immorality, was employed.
Rosa’s whole endeavor was to make money. Joining the Chapter of Clermont
he got the title “Knight of Jerusalem and Prior of the Chapter of
Halle.” As he traveled up and down the land, the lodge at Halle paid his
expenses. The eyes of the deluded brethren were at last opened, on the
discovery of the relations between Rosa and another swindler, one
Leuchte, who palmed himself off as an Englishman, Baron Johnson, and who
founded a Grand Chapter, admitted novices and knights, boasted of armies
and fleets at his command, and sent forth to all Templars in Germany an
encyclical letter summoning them to his standard. Many were his dupes,
among them Rosa, who visited him at Jena, humbled himself before him,
and consented to the expulsion of the Berlin chapter from the “order.”
But as Rosa was loth to admit at Halle his submission to Johnson, and
counseled the “knights” there not to recognize Johnson, his
double-dealing was betrayed to his dupes at Halle by the “Baron,” and he
was dismissed from their service in disgrace. The “Baron” himself, after
the discovery of his frauds, was repudiated by his followers, and in
1765 was imprisoned in the famous castle of Wartburg, and there remained
till his death in 1775.
This was the opportunity of the Baron von Hund, the Don Quixote of the
18th century. He became now the acknowledged head of the “order,” and
ruled it as his fancy dictated. He always spoke of “Unknown Superiors”
of the order as though his policy was guided by them; but the
“Superiors” who imposed on the guileless gentleman were the intriguants
at Paris. Because of the unconditional obedience required of the
members, Hund called the system of the order that of “Strict
Observance,” in contradistinction to the “lax observance” of ordinary
Freemasons. The Strict Observance comprised seven degrees; viz., the
three masonic degrees, the degree of the Scottish Master, that of the
Novice, that of the Knight-Templar, finally the degree of the Eques
Professus, or Professed Knight (one who has “professed” or taken the
monastic vows!). All knights assumed Latin names or surnames. Hund was
Eques ab Ense (Knight of the Sword); others were Knight of the Sun, of
the Lion, of the Star, even of the Whale, of the Chafer, of the Golden
Crab, of the Mole, etc. Soon Strict Observance was dominant in the
German lodges, while genuine Freemasonry was forgotten. No less than
twenty-six German princes joined the order, and so puffed up were its
directors in consequence that forthwith they divided Europe up into
provinces, after the manner of the Templars and the Jesuits, naming for
each province a Master of the Host. The subdivisions of provinces were
called, as among the Templars, Priories, Prefectures, Comptrollerships,
etc. To give these subdivisions something more than an existence on
paper, Hund dispatched the Baron G. A. von Weiler, Knight of the Golden
Ear (of wheat, barley, etc.) to France and Italy, where he founded
several chapters: even the Grand Orient of France united itself with the
Strict Observance. Toward those German lodges which held aloof from this
bastard masonry the Hundian Templars were supremely disdainful, and but
few of the lodges had the spirit to speak out against the “obscurantist
innovations.” Chief among the few was the gallant old Lodge of Unity, at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, which declared itself an English provincial
lodge, to show its independence of pseudo-Templarism.
A zealous apostle of the Strict Observance was John Christian Schubart
of Kleefeld, Knight of the Ostrich, who was constantly on the road
converting lodges to that system. Schubart devised a plan by which the
order was to acquire great wealth. Hund’s financial affairs were in
confusion, in consequence of the war, and he proposed to bequeath his
property to the order, in consideration of a certain sum in cash: but
the order had not the money. Schubart now proposed to exact enormous
fees for initiations and admissions to high degrees (for example, 350
thalers for admission). But the scheme could not be worked, and Schubart
withdrew from the order.
The order had no longer any use for Hund. The time had come for the
Jesuit influence to assert itself: it would have no more fooleries with
helmets, swords, accoutrements, and Templar’s mantles. It was seen by
the original projectors of the “order” that if they would succeed in
their design of winning over Freemasonry to the plan of catholizing
Germany, they must betimes provide a clerical directorate for the
organization, which till now had worn the mask of knighthood. They found
a convenient instrument in the person of the Protestant theologian, John
Augustus von Stark, born at Schwerin in 1741. While a student in
Goettingen Stark was admitted (1761) to the masonic order; then he was a
teacher in Petersburg, where he adopted the mystic system of one
Melesino, a Greek. The ceremonial of Melesino’s system comprised a
number of prayers and genuflections, and even a mass; the high-degree
meetings were called Conclaves, and the members wore surplices. Later,
at Paris, Stark took an interest in Oriental manuscripts, and joined the
Catholic Church, but all the same, on his return home he served as
professor of theology at Koenigsberg, and then as court preacher and
general ecclesiastical superintendent in the same city, and afterward in
Darmstadt. Through some acquaintances, who were members of the Strict
Observance, he got an introduction to Hund, to whom he revealed the
great secret which he had learned at Petersburg, namely, that the grand
mysteries of the Templars were revealed not to the knights, but only to
the clerical members, and that these mysteries had been kept and handed
down to that time; further, that the true chief of the order of Templars
was none other but the Knight of the Golden Sun, Charles Edward Stuart,
the Pretender, then resident in Florence. Delighted at the prospect of
an enhancement of what he fancied to be his sciences, Hund recognized
Stark and two of Stark’s friends as Clerics of the Order of Templars.
These clerical Templars thereupon drew up a ceremonial and created
degrees of their own, and as a special favor initiated some secular
knights into their mysteries. But because Hund declined to accommodate
Stark with a loan of two hundred thalers to defray the expenses of a
journey to Petersburg, where Pylades, head of the Templar clerics,
resided, the two fell out, and Stark announced his purpose to keep the
“Clericate” independent of the “Order.” Nevertheless, he begged a friend
to negotiate on his behalf with the secular Templars. This friend was a
noble personage, Ernest Werner von Raven, Knight of the Pearl, a wealthy
landowner, “prior” in the “order,” member of a Chapter under Rosa and
Hund, and also an initiate in Stark’s own clerical order of Templars.
Like Hund, he was a man of honor, but vain and narrow-minded, a mystic
and an alchemist. Raven, in 1772, attended a convention held at Kohlo,
in Lusatia, for the purpose of bringing about an understanding between
the Knights and the clerics. He appeared in the costume of the Templar
clerics, viz.; white cassock with red cross on the breast and a hat like
that of a cardinal. He presented to the meeting a project of union drawn
up by Stark, which the knights received with plaudits of satisfaction.
Hund was deposed from his high office, and appointed one of the Masters
of the Host, while Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick was made Grandmaster, and
other princes were named to be Superiors and Protectors under him.