Up to this period the lore of the masonic guilds appears to have

contained only the exoteric doctrines of Egypt and Greece--which may

have reached them through the Roman Collegia, whilst the traditions of

Masonry are traced from Adam, Jabal, Tubal Cain, from Nimrod and the

Tower of Babel, with Hermes and Pythagoras as their more immediate

progenitors.[292] These doctrines were evidently in the main geometrical

or technical, and in no sense Cabalistic. There is therefore some

justification for Eckert's statement that "the Judeo-Christian mysteries

were not yet introduced into the masonic corporations; nowhere can we

find the least trace of them. Nowhere do we find any classification, not

even that of masters, fellow-crafts, and apprentices. We observe no

symbol of the Temple of Solomon; all their symbolism relates to masonic

labours and to a few philosophical maxims of morality."[293] The date

at which Eckert, like Yarker, places the introduction of these Judaic

elements is the time of the Crusades.

But whilst recognizing that modern Craft Masonry is largely founded on

the Cabala, it is necessary to distinguish between the different

Cabalas. For by this date no less than three Cabalas appear to have

existed: firstly, the ancient secret tradition of the patriarchs handed

down from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans, and possibly

through the Roman Collegia to the Craft Masons of Britain; secondly, the

Jewish version of this tradition, the first Cabala of the Jews, in no

way incompatible with Christianity, descending from Moses, David and

Solomon to the Essenes and the more enlightened Jews; and thirdly, the

perverted Cabala, mingled by the Rabbis with magic, barbaric

superstitions, and--after the death of Christ--with anti-Christian

legends.

Whatever Cabalistic elements were introduced into Craft Masonry at the

time of the Crusades appear to have belonged to the second of these

traditions, the unperverted Cabala of the Jews, known to the Essenes.

There are, in fact, striking resemblances betwen Freemasonry and

Essenism--degrees of initiation, oaths of secrecy, the wearing of the

apron, and a certain masonic sign; whilst to the Sabeist traditions of

the Essenes may perhaps be traced the solar and stellar symbolism of the

lodges.[294] The Hiramic legend may have belonged to the same tradition.

The Templar Tradition

If then no documentary evidence can be brought forward to show that

either the Solomonic legend or any traces of Judaic symbolism and

traditions existed either in the monuments of the period or in the

ritual of the masons before the fourteenth century, it is surely

reasonable to recognize the plausibility of the contention put forward

by a great number of masonic writers--particularly on the

Continent--that the Judaic elements penetrated into Masonry by means of

the Templars.[295] The Templars, as we have already seen, had taken

their name from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. What then more

likely than that during the time they had lived there they had learnt

the Rabbinical legends connected with the Temple? According to George

Sand, who was deeply versed in the history of secret societies, the

Hiramic legend was adopted by the Templars as symbolic of the

destruction of their Order. "They wept over their impotence in the

person of Hiram. The word lost and recovered is their empire...."[296]

The Freemason Ragon likewise declares that the catastrophe they lamented

was the catastrophe that destroyed their Order.[297] Further, the Grand

Master whose fate they deplored was Jacques du Molay. Here then we have

two bodies in France at the same period, the Templars and the

_compagnonnages_, both possessing a legend concerning the Temple of

Solomon and both mourning a Maître Jacques who had been barbarously put

to death. If we accept the possibility that the Hiramic legend existed

amongst the masons before the Crusades, how are we to explain this

extraordinary coincidence? It is certainly easier to believe that the

Judaic traditions were introduced to the masons by the Templars and

grafted on to the ancient lore that the masonic guilds had inherited

from the Roman Collegia.

That some connexion existed between the Templars and the working masons

is indicated by the new influence that entered into building at this

period. A modern Freemason comparing "the beautifully designed and

deep-cut marks of the true Gothic period, say circa 1150-1350," with

"the careless and roughly executed marks, many of them mere scratches,

of later periods," points out that "the Knights Templars rose and fell

with that wonderful development of architecture." The same writer goes

on to show that some of the most important masonic symbols, the

equilateral triangle and the Mason's square surmounting two pillars,

came through from Gothic times.[298] Yarker asserts that the level, the

flaming star, and the Tau cross which have since passed into the

symbolism of Freemasonry may be traced to the Knights Templar, as also

the five-pointed star in Salisbury Cathedral, the double triangle in

Westminster Abbey, Jachin and Boaz, the circle and the pentagon in the

masonry of the fourteenth century. Yarker cites later, in 1556, the eye

and crescent moon, the three stars and the ladder of five steps, as

further evidences of Templar influence.[299] "The Templars were large

builders, and Jacques du Molay alleged the zeal of his Order in

decorating churches in the process against him in 1310; hence the

alleged connexion of Templary and Freemasonry is bound to have a

substratum of truth."[300]

Moreover, according to a masonic tradition, an alliance definitely took

place between the Templars and the masonic guilds at this period. During

the proceedings taken against the Order of the Temple in France it is

said that Pierre d'Aumont and seven other Knights escaped to Scotland in

the guise of working masons and landed in the Island of Mull. On St.

John's Day, 1307, they held their first chapter. Robert Bruce then took

them under his protection, and seven years later they fought under his

standard at Bannockburn against Edward II, who had suppressed their

Order in England. After this battle, which took place on St. John the

Baptist's Day in summer (June 24), Robert Bruce is said to have

instituted the Royal Order of H.R.M. (Heredom) and Knights of the

R.S.Y.C.S. (Rosy Cross).[301] These two degrees now constitute the Royal

Order of Scotland, and it seems not improbable that in reality they were

brought to Scotland by the Templars. Thus, according to one of the early

writers on Freemasonry, the degree of the Rose-Croix originated with the

Templars in Palestine as early as 1188[302]; whilst the Eastern origin

of the word Heredom, supposed to derive from a mythical mountain on an

island south of the Hebrides[303] where the Culdees practised their

rites, is indicated by another eighteenth-century writer, who traces it

to a Jewish source.[304] In this same year of 1314 Robert Bruce is said

to have united the Templars and the Royal Order of H.R.M. with the

guilds of working masons, who had also fought in his army, at the famous

Lodge of Kilwinning, founded in 1286,[305] which now added to its name

that of Heredom and became the chief seat of the Order.[306] Scotland

was essentially a home of operative masonry, and, in view of the

Templar's prowess in the art of building, what more natural than that

the two bodies should enter into an alliance? Already in England the

Temple is said between 1155 and 1199 to have administered the

Craft.[307] It is thus at Heredom of Kilwinning, "the Holy House of

Masonry"--"Mother Kilwinning," as it is still known to Freemasons--that

a speculative element of a fresh kind may have found its way into the

lodges. Is it not here, then, that we may see that "fruitful union

between the professional guild of mediæval masons and a secret group of

philosophical Adepts" alluded to by Count Goblet d'Aviella and described

by Mr. Waite in the following words:

The mystery of the building guilds--whatever it may be held to have

been--was that of a simple, unpolished, pious, and utilitarian

device; and this daughter of Nature, in the absence of all

intention on her own part, underwent, or was coerced into one of

the strangest marriages which has been celebrated in occult

history. It so happened that her particular form and figure lent

itself to such a union, etc.[308]?

Mr. Waite with his usual vagueness does not explain when and where this

marriage took place, but the account would certainly apply to the

alliance between the Templars and Scottish guilds of working masons,

which, as we have seen, is admitted by masonic authorities, and presents

exactly the conditions described, the Templars being peculiarly fitted

by their initiation into the legend concerning the building of the

Temple of Solomon to co-operate with the masons, and the masons being

prepared by their partial initiation into ancient mysteries to receive

the fresh influx of Eastern tradition from the Templars.

A further indication of the Templar influence in Craft Masonry is the

system of degrees and initiations. The names of Entered Apprentice,

Fellow Craft, and Master Mason are said to have derived from

Scotland,[309] and the analogy between these and the degrees of the

Assassins has already been shown. Indeed, the resemblance between the

outer organization of Freemasonry and the system of the Ismailis is

shown by many writers. Thus Dr. Bussell observes: "No doubt together

with some knowledge of geometry regarded as an esoteric trade secret,

many symbols to-day current did pass down from very primitive times. But

a more certain model was the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo"--that

is to say the Dar-ul-Hikmat.[310] Syed Ameer Ali also expresses the

opinion that "Makrisi's account of the different degrees of initiation

adopted in this lodge forms an invaluable record of Freemasonry. In

fact, the lodge at Cairo became the model of all the Lodges created

afterwards in Christendom."[311] Mr. Bernard Springett, a Freemason,

quoting this passage, adds: "In this last assertion I am myself greatly

in agreement."[312]

It is surely therefore legitimate to surmise that this system penetrated

to Craft Masonry through the Templars, whose connexion with the

Assassins--offshoot of the Dar-ul-Hikmat--was a matter of common

knowledge.

The question of the Templar succession in Freemasonry forms perhaps the

most controversial point in the whole history of the Roman Collegia

theory, Continental Masons more generally accepting it, and even

glorying in it.[313] Mackey, in his _Lexicon of Freemasonry_, thus sums

up the matter:

The connexion between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons has

been repeatedly asserted by the enemies of both institutions, and

has often been admitted by their friends. Lawrie, on this subject,

holds the following language: "We know that the Knights Templar not

only possessed the mysteries but performed the ceremonies and

inculcated the duties of Freemasons," and he attributes the

dissolution of the Order to the discovery of their being Freemasons

and their assembling in secret to practise the rites of the

Order.[314]

This explains why Freemasons have always shown indulgence to the

Templars.

It was above all Freemasonry [says Findel], which--because it

falsely held itself to be a daughter of Templarism--took the

greatest pains to represent the Order of the Templars as innocent

and therefore free from all mystery. For this purpose not only

legends and unhistorical facts were brought forward, but

manœuvres were also resorted to in order to suppress the truth.

The masonic reverers of the Temple Order bought up the whole

edition of the _Actes du Procès_ of Moldenhawer, because this

showed the guilt of the Order; only a few copies reached the

booksellers.... Already several decades before ... the Freemasons

in their unhistorical efforts had been guilty of real forgery.

Dupuy had published his _History of the Trial of the Templars_ as

early as 1654 in Paris, for which he had made use of the original

of the _Actes du Procès_, according to which the guilt of the Order

leaves no room for doubt.... But when in the middle of the

eighteenth century several branches of Freemasonry wished to recall

the Templar Order into being, the work of Dupuy was naturally very

displeasing. It had already been current amongst the public for a

hundred years, so it could no longer be bought; therefore they

falsified it.[315]

Accordingly in 1751 a reprint of Dupuy's work appeared with the addition

of a number of notes and remarks and mutilated in such a way as to prove

not the guilt but the innocence of the Templars.

Now, although British Masonry has played no part in these intrigues, the

question of the Templar succession has been very inadequately dealt with

by the masonic writers of our country. As a rule they have adopted one

of two courses--either they have persistently denied connexion with the

Templars or they have represented them as a blameless and cruelly

maligned Order. But in reality neither of these expedients is necessary

to save the honour of British Masonry, for not even the bitterest enemy

of Masonry has ever suggested that British masons have adopted any

portion of the Templar heresy. The Knights who fled to Scotland may have

been perfectly innocent of the charges brought against their Order;

indeed, there is good reason to believe this was the case. Thus the

_Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple_ relates the incident in the

following manner:

After the death of Jacques du Molay, some Scottish Templars having

become apostates, at the instigation of Robert Bruce ranged

themselves under the banners of a new Order[316] instituted by this

prince and in which the receptions were based on those of the Order

of the Temple. It is there that we must seek the origin of Scottish

Masonry and even that of the other masonic rites. The Scottish

Templars were excommunicated in 1324 by Larmenius, who declared

them to be _Templi desertores_ and the Knights of St. John of

Jerusalem, _Dominiorum Militiæ spoliatores_, placed for ever

outside the pale of the Temple: _Extra girum Templi, nunc et in

futurum, volo, dico et jubeo._ A similar anathema has since been

launched by several Grand Masters against Templars who were

rebellious to legitimate authority. From the schism that was

introduced into Scotland a number of sects took birth.[317]

This account forms a complete exoneration of the Scottish Templars; as

apostates from the bogus Christian Church and the doctrines of Johannism

they showed themselves loyal to the true Church and to the Christian

faith as formulated in the published statutes of their Order. What they

appear, then, to have introduced to Masonry was their manner of

reception, that is to say their outer forms and organization, and

possibly certain Eastern esoteric doctrines and Judaic legends

concerning the building of the Temple of Solomon in no way incompatible

with the teaching of Christianity.

It will be noticed, moreover, that in the ban passed by the _Ordre du

Temple_ on the Scottish Templars the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem

are also included. This is a further tribute to the orthodoxy of the

Scottish Knights. For to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem--to whom

the Templar property was given--no suspicion of heresy had ever

attached. After the suppression of the Order of the Temple in 1312 a

number of the Knights joined themselves to the Knights of St. John of

Jerusalem, by whom the Templar system appears to have been purged of its

heretical elements. As we shall see later, the same process is said to

have been carried out by the Royal Order of Scotland, All this suggests

that the Templars had imported a secret doctrine from the East which was

capable either of a Christian or an anti-Christian interpretation, that

through their connexion with the Royal Order of Scotland and the Knights

of St. John of Jerusalem this Christian interpretation was preserved,

and finally that it was this pure doctrine which passed into

Freemasonry. According to early masonic authorities, the adoption of the

two St. Johns as the patron saints of Masonry arose, not from Johannism,

but from the alliance between the Templars and the Knights of St. John

of Jerusalem.[318]

It is important to remember that the theory of the Templar connexion

with Freemasonry was held by the Continental Freemasons of the

eighteenth century, who, living at the time the Order was reconstituted

on its present basis, were clearly in a better position to know its

origins than we who are separated from that date by a distance of two

hundred years. But since their testimony first comes to light at the

period of the upper degrees, in which the Templar influence is more

clearly visible than in Craft Masonry, it must be reserved for a later

chapter. Before passing on to this further stage in the history of the

Craft, it is necessary to consider one more link in the chain of the

masonic tradition--the "Holy Vehm."

The Vehmgerichts[319]

These dread tribunals, said to have been established by Charlemagne in

772[320] in Westphalia, had for their avowed object the establishment of

law and order amidst the unsettled and even anarchic conditions that

then reigned in Germany. But by degrees the power arrogated to itself by

the "Holy Vehm" became so formidable that succeeding emperors were

unable to control its workings and found themselves forced to become

initiates from motives of self-protection. During the twelfth century

the Vehmgerichts, by their continual executions, had created a veritable

"Red Terror," so that the East of Germany was known as the Red Land. In

1371, says Lecouteulx de Canteleu, a fresh impetus was given to the

"Holy Vehm" by a number of the Knights Templar who, on the dissolution

of their Order, had found their way to Germany and now sought admission

to the Secret Tribunals.[321] How much of Templar lore passed into the

hand of the Vehmgerichts it is impossible to know, but there is

certainly a resemblance between the methods of initiation and

intimidation employed by the Vehms and those described by certain of the

Templars, still more between the ceremony of the Vehms and the ritual of

Freemasonry.

Thus the members of the Vehms, known as the _Wissende_ (or Enlightened),

were divided into three degrees of initiation: the Free Judges, the

veritable Free Judges, and the Holy Judges of the Secret Tribunal. The

candidate for initiation was led blindfold before the dread Tribunal,

presided over by a _Stuhlherr_ (or master of the chair) or his

substitute, a _Freigraf_, with a sword and branch of willow at his side.

The initiate was then bound by a terrible oath not to reveal the secrets

of the "Holy Vehm," to warn no one of danger threatening them by its

decrees, to denounce anyone, whether father, mother, brother, sister,

friend, or relation, if such a one had been condemned by the Tribunal.

After this he was given the password and grip by which the confederates

recognized each other. In the event of his turning traitor or revealing

the secrets confided to him his eyes were bandaged, his hands tied

behind his back, and his tongue was torn out through the back of his

neck, after which he was hanged by the feet till he was dead, with the

solemn imprecation that his body should be given as a prey to the birds

of the air.

It is difficult to believe that the points of resemblance with modern

masonic ritual[322] which may here be discerned can be a mere matter of

coincidence, yet it would be equally unreasonable to trace the origins

of Freemasonry to the Vehmgerichts. Clearly both derived from a common

source, either the old pagan traditions on which the early Vehms were

founded or the system of the Templars. The latter seems the more

probable for two reasons: firstly, on account of the resemblance between

the methods of the Vehmgerichts and the Assassins, which would be

explained if the Templars formed the connecting link; and secondly, the

fact that in contemporary documents the members of the Secret Tribunals

were frequently referred to under the name of Rose-Croix.[323] Now,

since, as we have seen, the degree of the Rosy Cross is said to have

been brought to Europe by the Templars, this would account for the

persistence of the name in the Vehmgerichts as well as in the

Rosicrucians of the seventeenth century, who are said to have continued

the Templar tradition. Thus Templarism and Rosicrucianism appear to have

been always closely connected, a fact which is not surprising since both

derive from a common source--the traditions of the near East.

This brings us to an alternative theory concerning the channel through

which Eastern doctrines, and particularly Cabalism, found their way into

Freemasonry. For it must be admitted that one obstacle to the complete

acceptance of the theory of the Templar succession exists, namely, that

although the Judaic element cannot be traced further back than the

Crusades, neither can it with certainty be pronounced to have come into

existence during the three centuries that followed after. Indeed, before

the publication of Anderson's "Constitutions" in 1723 there is no

definite evidence that the Solomonic legend had been incorporated into

the ritual of British Masonry. So although the possession of the legend

by the _compagnonnages_ of the Middle Ages would tend to prove its

antiquity, there is always the possibility that it was introduced by

some later body of adepts than the Templars. According to the partisans

of a further theory, these adepts were the Rosicrucians.

Rosicrucian Origin

One of the earliest and most eminent precursors of Freemasonry is said

to have been Francis Bacon. As we have already seen, Bacon is recognized

to have been a Rosicrucian, and that the secret philosophical doctrine

he professed was closely akin to Freemasonry is clearly apparent in his

_New Atlantis_. The reference to the "Wise Men of the Society of

Solomon's House" cannot be a mere coincidence. The choice of

Atlantis--the legendary island supposed to have been submerged by the

Atlantic Ocean in the remote past--would suggest that Bacon had some

knowledge of a secret tradition descending from the earliest patriarchs

of the human race, whom, like the modern writer Le Plongeon, he imagined

to have inhabited the Western hemisphere and to have been the

predecessors of the Egyptian initiates. Le Plongeon, however, places

this early seat of the mysteries still further West than the Atlantic

Ocean, in the region of Mayax and Yucatan.[324]

Bacon further relates that this tradition was preserved in its pure form

by certain of the Jews, who, whilst accepting the Cabala, rejected its

anti-Christian tendencies. Thus in this island of Bensalem there are

Jews "of a far differing disposition from the Jews in other parts. For

whereas they hate the name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour

against the people amongst whom they live; these contrariwise give unto

our Saviour many high attributes," but at the same time they believe

"that Moses by a secret Cabala ordained the laws of Bensalem which they

now use, and that when the Messiah should come and sit on His throne at

Jerusalem, the King of Bensalem should sit at His feet, whereas other

kings should keep at a great distance." This passage is of particular

interest as showing that Bacon recognized the divergence between the

ancient secret tradition descending from Moses and the perverted Jewish

Cabala of the Rabbis, and that he was perfectly aware of the tendency

even among the best of Jews to turn the former to the advantage of the

Messianic dreams.

Mrs. Pott, who in her _Francis Bacon and his Secret Society_ sets out to

prove that Bacon was the founder of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry,

ignores all the previous history of the secret tradition. Bacon was not

the originator but the inheritor of the ideas on which both these

societies were founded. And the further contention that Bacon was at the

same time the author of the greatest dramas in the English language and

of _The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosengreutz_ is manifestly

absurd. Nevertheless, Bacon's influence amongst the Rosicrucians is

apparent; Heydon's _Voyage to the Land of the Rosicrucians_ is in fact a

mere plagiarism of Bacon's _New Atlantis_.

Mrs. Pott seems to imagine that by proclaiming Bacon to have been the

founder or even a member of the Order of Freemasonry she is revealing a

great masonic secret which Freemasons have conspired to keep dark. But

why should the Craft desire to disown so illustrious a progenitor or

seek to conceal his connexion with the Order if any such existed?

Findel, indeed, frankly admits that the _New Atlantis_ contained

unmistakable allusions to Freemasonry and that Bacon contributed to its

final transformation.[325] This was doubtless brought about largely by

the English Rosicrucians who followed after. To suggest then that

Freemasonry originated with the Rosicrucians is to ignore the previous

history of the secret tradition. Rosicrucianism was not the beginning

but a link in the long chain connecting Freemasonry with far earlier

secret associations. The resemblance between the two Orders admits of no

denial. Thus Yarker writes: "The symbolic tracing of the Rosicrucians

was a Square Temple approached by seven steps ... here also we find the

two pillars of Hermes, the five-pointed star, sun and moon, compasses,

square and triangle." Yarker further observes that "even Wren was more

or less a student of Hermeticism, and if we had a full list of

Freemasons and Rosicrucians we should probably be surprised at the

numbers who belonged to both systems."[326]

Professor Bühle emphatically states that "Freemasonry is neither more

nor less than Rosicrucianism as modified by those who transplanted it

into England." Chambers, who published his famous _Cyclopædia_ in 1728,

observes: "Some who are no friends to Freemasonry, make the present

flourishing society of Freemasons a branch of _Rosicrucians_, or rather

the Rosicrucians themselves under a new name or relation, viz. as

retainers to building. And it is certain there are some Freemasons who

have all the characters of Rosicrucians."

The connexion between Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism is, however, a

question hardly less controversial than that of the connexion between

Freemasonry and Templarism.

Dr. Mackey violently disputes the theory. "The Rosicrucians," he writes,

"as this brief history indicates, had no connexion whatever with the

masonic fraternity. Notwithstanding this fact, Barruel, the most

malignant of our revilers, with a characteristic spirit of

misrepresentation, attempted to identify the two institutions."[327]

But the aforesaid "brief history" indicates nothing of the kind, and the

reference to Barruel as a malignant reviler for suggesting a connexion,

which, as we have seen, many Freemasons admit, shows on which side this

"spirit of misrepresentation" exists. It is interesting, however, to

note that in the eyes of certain masonic writers connexion with the

Rosicrucians is regarded as highly discreditable; the fraternity would

thus appear to have been less blameless than we have been taught to

believe. Mr. Waite is equally concerned with proving that there "is no

traceable connexion between Masonry and Rosicrucianism," and he goes on

to explain that Freemasonry was never a learned society, that it never

laid claim to "any transcendental secrets of alchemy and magic, or to

any skill in medicine," etc.[328]

The truth may lie between the opposing contentions of Prof. Bühle and

his two masonic antagonists. The Freemasons were clearly, for the

reasons given by Mr. Waite, not a mere continuation of the Rosicrucians,

but more likely borrowed from the Rosicrucians a part of their system

and symbols which they adapted to their own purpose. Moreover, the

incontrovertible fact is that in the list of English Freemasons and

Rosicrucians we find men who belonged to both Orders and amongst these

two who contributed largely to the constitutions of English Freemasonry.

The first of these is Robert Fludd, whom Mr. Waite describes as "the

central figure of Rosicrucian literature, ... an intellectual giant, ...

a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his

writings, of extreme personal sanctity. Ennemoser describes him as one

of the most distinguished disciples of Paracelsus...."[329] Yarker adds

this clue: "In 1630 we find Fludd, the chief of the Rosicrucians, using

architectural language, and there is proof that his Society was divided

into degrees, and from the fact that the Masons' Company of London had

a copy of the Masonic Charges 'presented by Mr. fflood' we may suppose

that he was a Freemason before 1620."[330]

A still more important link is Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, astrologer,

and alchemist, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, who was born

in 1617. An avowed Rosicrucian, and as we have seen, also a Freemason,

Ashmole displayed great energy in reconstituting the Craft; he is said

to have perfected its organization, to have added to it further mystic

symbols, and according to Ragon, it was he who drew up the ritual of the

existing three Craft degrees--Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and

Master Mason--which was adopted by Grand Lodge in 1717. Whence did these

fresh inspirations come but from the Rosicrucians? For, as Ragon also

informs us, in the year that Ashmole was received into Freemasonry the

Rosicrucians held their meeting in the same room at Mason Hall![331]

How, then, can it be said that there was "no traceable connexion between

Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism?" and why should it be the part of a

"malignant reviler" to connect them? It is not suggested that

Rosicrucians, such as Fludd or Ashmole, imported any magical elements

into Freemasonry, but simply the system and symbols of the Rose-Croix

with a certain degree of esoteric learning. That Rosicrucianism forms an

important link in the chain of the secret tradition is therefore

undeniable.

The Seventeenth-Century Rabbis

There is, however, a third channel through which the Judaic legends of

Freemasonry may have penetrated to the Craft, namely, the Rabbis of the

seventeenth century. The Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has declared that

"there were Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry,"[332] and if this

statement is applied to the period preceding the institution of Grand

Lodge in 1717 it certainly finds confirmation in fact. Thus it is said

that in the preceding century the coat-of-arms now used by Grand Lodge

had been designed by an Amsterdam Jew, Jacob Jehuda Leon Templo,

colleague of Cromwell's friend the Cabalist, Manasseh ben Israel.[333]

To quote Jewish authority on this question, Mr. Lucien Wolf writes that

Templo "had a monomania for ... everything relating to the Temple of

Solomon and the Tabernacle of the Wilderness. He constructed gigantic

models of both these edifices."[334] These he exhibited in London,

which he visited in 1675 and earlier, and it seems not unreasonable to

conclude that this may have provided a fresh source of inspiration to

the Freemasons who framed the masonic ritual some forty years later. At

any rate, the masonic coat-of-arms still used by Grand Lodge of England

is undoubtedly of Jewish design.

"This coat," says Mr. Lucien Wolf, "is entirely composed of Jewish

symbols," and is "an attempt to display heraldically the various forms

of the Cherubim pictured to us in the second vision of Ezekiel--an Ox, a

Man, a Lion, and an Eagle--and thus belongs to the highest and most

mystical domain of Hebrew symbolism."[335]

In other words, this vision, known to the Jews as the "Mercaba,"[336]

belongs to the Cabala, where a particular interpretation is placed on

each figure so as to provide an esoteric meaning not perceptible to the

uninitiated.[337] The masonic coat-of-arms is thus entirely Cabalistic;

as is also the seal on the diplomas of Craft Masonry, where another

Cabalistic figure, that of a man and woman combined, is reproduced.[338]

Of the Jewish influence in Masonry after 1717 I shall speak later.

To sum up, then, the origins of the system we now know as Freemasonry

are not to be found in one source alone. The twelve alternative sources

enumerated in the _Masonic Cyclopædia_ and quoted at the beginning of

this chapter may all have contributed to its formation. Thus Operative

Masonry may have descended from the Roman Collegia and through the

operative masons of the Middle Ages, whilst Speculative Masonry may have

derived from the patriarchs and the mysteries of the pagans. But the

source of inspiration which admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala.

Whether this penetrated to our country through the Roman Collegia, the

_compagnonnages_, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, or through the Jews of

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose activities behind the

scenes of Freemasonry we shall see later, is a matter of speculation.

The fact remains that when the ritual and constitutions of Masonry were

drawn up in 1717, although certain fragments of the ancient Egyptian and

Pythagorean doctrines were retained, the Judaic version of the secret

tradition was the one selected by the founders of Grand Lodge on which

to build up their system.

6

THE GRAND LODGE ERA

Whatever were the origins of the Order we now know as Freemasonry, it is

clear that during the century preceding its reorganization under Grand

Lodge of London the secret system of binding men together for a common

purpose, based on Eastern esoteric doctrines, had been anticipated by

the Rosicrucians. Was this secret system employed, however by any other

body of men? It is certainly easy to imagine how in this momentous

seventeenth century, when men of all opinions were coalescing against

opposing forces--Lutherans combining against the Papacy, Catholics

rallying their forces against invading Protestantism, Republicans

plotting in favour of Cromwell, Royalists in their turn plotting to

restore the Stuarts, finally Royalists plotting against each other on

behalf of rival dynasties--an organization of this kind, enabling one to

work secretly for a cause and to set invisibly vast numbers of human

beings in motion, might prove invaluable to any party.

Thus, according to certain masonic writers on the Continent, the system

used by the Rosicrucians in their fight against "Popery" was also

employed by the Jesuits for a directly opposite purpose. In the

manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu

it is declared that in 1714 the Jesuits used the mysteries of the

Rose-Croix. Mirabeau also relates that "the Jesuits profited by the

internal troubles of the reign of Charles I to possess themselves of the

symbols, the allegories, and the carpets (tapis) of the Rose-Croix

masons, who were only the ancient order of the Templars secretly

perpetuated. It may be seen by means of what imperceptible innovations

they succeeded in substituting their catechism to the instruction of the

Templars."[339]

Other Continental writers again assert that Cromwell, the arch-opponent

of the Catholic Church, was "a higher initiate of masonic mysteries,"

and used the system for his own elevation to power[340]; further, that

he found himself outdistanced by the Levellers; that this sect, whose

name certainly suggests masonic inspiration, adopted for its symbols the

square and compass,[341] and in its claim of real equality threatened

the supremacy of the usurper. Finally, Elias Ashmole, the Rosicrucian

Royalist, is said to have turned the masonic system against Cromwell, so

that towards the end of the seventeenth century the Order rallied to the

Stuart cause.[342]

But all this is pure speculation resting on no basis of known facts. The

accusation that the Jesuits used the system of the Rose-Croix as a cover

to political intrigues is referred to by the Rosicrucian Eliphas Lévi as

the outcome of ignorance, which "refutes itself." It is significant to

notice that it emanates mainly from Germany and from the Illuminati; the

Prince of Hesse was a member of the _Stricte Observance_ and Mirabeau an

Illuminatus at the time he wrote the passage quoted above. That in the

seventeenth century certain Jesuits played the part of political

intriguers I suppose their warmest friends will hardly deny, but that

they employed any secret or masonic system seems to me perfectly

incapable of proof. I shall return to this point later, however, in

connexion with the Illuminati.

As to Cromwell, the only circumstance that lends any colour to the

possibility of his connexion with Freemasonry is his known friendship

for Manasseh ben Israel, the colleague of the Rabbi Templo who designed

the coat-of-arms later adopted by Grand Lodge. If, therefore, the Jews

of Amsterdam were a source of inspiration to the Freemasons of the

seventeenth century, it is not impossible that Cromwell may have been

the channel through which this influence first penetrated.

In the matter of the Stuarts we are, however, on firm ground with regard

to Freemasonry. That the lodges at the end of the seventeenth century

were Royalist is certain, and there seems good reason to believe that,

when the revolution of 1688 divided the Royalist cause, the Jacobites

who fled to France with James II took Freemasonry with them.[343] With

the help of the French they established lodges in which, it is said,

masonic rites and symbols were used to promote the cause of the Stuarts.

Thus the land of promise signified Great Britain, Jerusalem stood for

London, and the murder of Hiram represented the execution of Charles

I.[344]

Meanwhile Freemasonry in England did not continue to adhere to the

Stuart cause as it had done under the ægis of Elias Ashmole, and by 1717

is said to have become Hanoverian.

From this important date the official history of the present system may

be said to begin; hitherto everything rests on stray documents, of which

the authenticity is frequently doubtful, and which provide no continuous

history of the Order. In 1717 for the first time Freemasonry was

established on a settled basis and in the process underwent a

fundamental change. So far it would seem to have retained an operative

element, but in the transformation that now took place this was entirely

eliminated, and the whole Order was transformed into a middle-and

upper-class speculative body. This _coup d'état_, already suggested in

1703, took place in 1716, when four London lodges of Freemasons met

together at the Apple Tree Tavern in Charles Street, Covent Garden, "and

having put into the chair the oldest Master Mason (now the Master of a

lodge), they constituted themselves a Grand Lodge, _pro tempore_, in due

form." On St. John the Baptist's Day, June 24 of the next year, the

annual assembly and banquet were held at the Goose and Gridiron in St.

Paul's Churchyard, when Mr. Antony Sayer was elected Grand Master and

invested with all the badges of office.[345]

It is evident from the above account that already in 1717 the

speculative elements must have predominated in the lodges, otherwise we

might expect to find the operative masons taking some part in these

proceedings and expressing their opinion as to whether their association

should pass under the control of men entirely unconnected with the

Craft. But no, the leaders of the new movement all appear to have

belonged to the middle class, nor from this moment do either masons or

architects seem to have played any prominent part in Freemasonry.

But the point that official history does not attempt to elucidate is

the reason for this decision. Why should the Freemasons of

London--whether they were at this date a speculative or only a

semi-speculative association--have suddenly recognized the necessity of

establishing a Grand Lodge and drawing up a ritual and "Constitution"?

It is evident, then, that some circumstances must have arisen which led

them to take this important step. I would suggest that the following may

be the solution to the problem.

Freemasonry, as we have seen, was a system that could be employed in any

cause and had now come to be used by intriguers of every kind--and not

only by intriguers, but by merely convivial bodies, "jolly Brotherhoods

of the Bottle," who modelled themselves on masonic associations.[346]

But the honest citizens of London who met and feasted at the Goose and

Gridiron were clearly not intriguers, they were neither Royalist nor

Republican plotters, neither Catholic nor Lutheran fanatics, neither

alchemists nor magicians, nor can it be supposed that they were simply

revellers. If they were political, they were certainly not supporters of

the Stuarts; on the contrary, they were generally reported to have been

Hanoverian in their sympathies, indeed Dr. Bussell goes so far as to say

that Grand Lodge was instituted to support the Hanoverian dynasty.[347]

It would be perhaps nearer the truth to conclude that if they were

Hanoverian it was because they were constitutional, and the Hanoverian

dynasty having now been established they wished to avoid further

changes. In a word, then, they were simply men of peace, anxious to put

an end to dissensions, who, seeing the system of Masonry utilized for

the purpose of promoting discord, determined to wrest it from the hands

of political intriguers and restore it to its original character of

brotherhood, though not of brotherhood between working masons only, but

between men drawn from all classes and professions. By founding a Grand

Lodge in London and drawing up a ritual and "Constitutions," they hoped

to prevent the perversion of their signs and symbols and to establish

the Order on a settled basis.

According to Nicolai this pacific purpose had already animated English

Freemasons under the Grand Mastership of Sir Christopher Wren: "Its

principal object from this period was to moderate the religious hatreds

so terrible in England during the reign of James II and to try and

establish some kind of concord or fraternity, by weakening as far as

possible the antagonisms arising from the differences of religions,

ranks, and interests." An eighteenth-century manuscript of the Prince of

Hesse quoted by Lecouteulx de Canteleu expresses the view that in 1717

"_the mysteries of Freemasonry were reformed and purified in England of

all political tendencies_."

In the matter of religion, Craft Masonry adopted an equally

non-sectarian attitude. The first "Constitutions" of the Order, drawn up

by Dr. Anderson in 1723, contain the following paragraph:

Concerning God and Religion

A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he

rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor

an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were

charged in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or

Nation, whatever it was, yet, 'tis now thought more expedient only

to oblige them to that Religion in which all men agree, leaving

their particular Opinions to themselves; that is to be good Men and

true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by whatever Denominations or

Persuasions they may be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry becomes the

Centre of Union and the Means of Conciliating true Friendship among

Persons that must have remained at a perpetual Distance.

The phrase "that Religion in which all men agree" has been censured by

Catholic writers as advocating a universal religion in the place of

Christianity. But this by no means follows. The idea is surely that

Masons should be men adhering to that law of right and wrong common to

all religious faiths. Craft Masonry may thus be described as Deist in

character, but not in the accepted sense of the word which implies the

rejection of Christian doctrines. If Freemasonry had been Deist in this

sense might we not expect to find some connexion between the founders of

Grand Lodge and the school of Deists--Toland, Bolingbroke, Woolston,

Hume, and others--which flourished precisely at this period? Might not

some analogy be detected between the organization of the Order and the

Sodalities described in Toland's _Pantheisticon_, published in 1720? But

of this I can find no trace whatever. The principal founders of Grand

Lodge were, as we have seen, clergymen, both engaged in preaching

Christian doctrines at their respective churches.[348] It is surely

therefore reasonable to conclude that Freemasonry at the time of its

reorganization in 1717 was Deistic only in so far that it invited men to

meet together on the common ground of a belief in God. Moreover, some of

the early English rituals contain distinctly Christian elements. Thus

both in _Jachin and Boaz_ (1762) and _Hiram or the Grand Master Key to

the Door of both Antient and Modern Freemasonry by a Member of the Royal

Arch_ (1766) we find prayers in the lodges concluding with the name of

Christ. These passages were replaced much later by purely Deistic

formulas under the Grand Mastership of the free-thinking Duke of Sussex

in 1813.

But in spite of its innocuous character, Freemasonry, merely by reason

of its secrecy, soon began to excite alarm in the public mind. As early

as 1724 a work entitled _The Grand Mystery of the Freemasons Discovered_

had provoked an angry remonstrance from the Craft[349]; and when the

French edict against the Order was passed, a letter signed "Jachin"

appeared in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ declaring the "Freemasons who

have lately been suppressed not only in France but in Holland" to be "a

dangerous Race of Men":

No Government ought to suffer such clandestine Assemblies where

Plots against the State may be carried on, under the Pretence of

Brotherly Love and good Fellowship.

The writer, evidently unaware of possible Templar traditions, goes on to

observe that the sentinel placed at the door of the lodge with a drawn

sword in his hand "is not the only mark of their being a military

Order"; and suggests that the title of Grand Master is taken in

imitation of the Knights of Malta. "Jachin," moreover, scents a Popish

plot:

They not only admit Turks, Jews, Infidels, but even Jacobites,

non-jurors and Papists themselves ... how can we be sure that

those Persons who are known to be well affected, are let into all

their Mysteries? They make no scruple to acknowledge that there is

a Distinction between Prentices and Master Masons and who knows

whether they may not have an higher Order of Cabalists, who keep

the Grand Secret of all entirely to themselves?[350]

Later on in France, the Abbé Pérau published his satires on Freemasonry,

_Le Secret des Francs-Maçons_ (1742), _L'Ordre des Francs-Maçons trahi

et le Secret des Mopses révélé_, (1745), and _Les Francs-Maçons écrasés_

(1746)[351] and in about 1761 another English writer said to be a Mason

brought down a torrent of invective on his head by the publication of

the ritual of the Craft Degrees under the name of _Jachin and

Boaz_.[352]

It must be admitted that from all this controversy no party emerges in a

very charitable light, Catholics and Protestants alike indulging in

sarcasms and reckless accusations against Freemasonry, the Freemasons

retorting with far from brotherly forbearance.[353] But, again, one must

remember that all these men were of their age--an age which seen through

the eyes of Hogarth would certainly not appear to have been

distinguished for delicacy. It should be noted, however, when one reads

in masonic works of the "persecutions" to which Freemasonry has been

subjected, that aggression was not confined only to the one side in the

conflict; moreover, that the Freemasons at this period were divided

amongst themselves and expressed with regard to opposing groups much the

same suspicions that non-Masons expressed with regard to the Order as a

whole. For the years following after the suppression of Masonry in

France were marked by the most important development in the history of

the modern Order--the inauguration of the Additional Degrees.

The Additional Degrees

The origin and inspiration of the additional degrees has provoked hardly

less controversy in masonic circles than the origin of Masonry itself.

It should be explained that Craft Masonry, or Blue Masonry--that is to

say, the first three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and

Master Mason of which I have attempted to trace the history--were the

only degrees recognized by Grand Lodge at the time of its foundation in

1717 and still form the basis of all forms of modern Masonry. On this

foundation were erected, somewhere between 1740 and 1743, the degree of

the Royal Arch and the first of the series of upper degrees now known as

the Scottish Rite or as the Ancient and Accepted Rite. The acceptance or

rejection of this superstructure has always formed a subject of violent

controversy between Masons, one body affirming that Craft Masonry is the

only true and genuine Masonry, the other declaring that the real object

of Masonry is only to be found in the higher degrees. It was this

controversy, centring round the Royal Arch degree, that about the middle

of the eighteenth century split Masonry into opposing camps of Ancients

and Moderns, the Ancients declaring that the R.A. was "the Root, Heart,

and Marrow of Freemasonry,"[354] the Moderns rejecting it. Although

worked by the Ancients from 1756 onwards, this degree was definitely

repudiated by Grand Lodge in 1792,[355] and only in 1813 was officially

received into English Freemasonry.

The R.A. degree, which is said nevertheless to be contained in embryo in

the 1723 Book of Constitutions,[356] is purely Judaic--a glorification

of Israel and commemorating the building of the second Temple. That it

was derived from the Jewish Cabala seems probable, and Yarker,

commenting on the phrase in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ quoted

above--"Who knows whether they (the Freemasons) have not a higher order

of Cabalists, who keep the Grand Secret of all entirely to

themselves"--observes: "It looks very like an intimation of the Royal

Arch degree,"[357] and elsewhere he states that "the Royal Arch degree,

when it had the Three Veils, must have been the work, even if by

instruction, of a Cabalistic Jew about 1740, and from this time we may

expect to find a secret tradition grafted upon Anderson's system."[358]

Precisely in this same year of 1740 Mr. Waite says that "an itinerant

pedlar of the Royal Arch degree is said to have propagated it in

Ireland, claiming that it was practised at York and London,"[359] and

in 1744 a certain Dr. Dassigny wrote that the minds of the Dublin

brethren had been lately disturbed about Royal Arch Masonry owing to the

activities in Dublin of "a number of traders or hucksters in pretended

Masonry," whom the writer connects with "Italians" or the "Italic

Order."

A Freemason quoting this passage in a recent discussion on the upper

degrees expresses the opinion that these hucksters were "Jacobite

emissaries disguised under the form of a pretended Masonry," and that

"by Italians and Italian Order he intends a reference to the Court of

King James III, i.e. the Old Pretender at Rome, and to the Ecossais

(Italic) Order of Masonry."[360] It is much more likely that he had

referred to another source of masonic instruction in Italy which I shall

indicate in a later chapter.

But precisely at the moment when it is suggested that the Jacobites were

intriguing to introduce the Royal Arch degree into Masonry they are also

said to have been engaged in elaborating the "Scottish Rite." Let us

examine this contention.

Freemasonry in France

The foundation of Grand Lodge in London had been followed by the

inauguration of Masonic Lodges on the Continent--in 1721 at Mons, in

1725 in Paris, in 1728 at Madrid, in 1731 at The Hague, in 1733 at

Hamburg, etc. Several of these received their warrant from the Grand

Lodge of England. But this was not the case with the Grand Lodge of

Paris, which did not receive a warrant till 1743.

The men who founded this lodge, far from being non-political, were

Jacobite leaders engaged in active schemes for the restoration of the

Stuart dynasty. The leader of the group, Charles Radcliffe, had been

imprisoned with his brother, the ill-fated Lord Derwentwater who was

executed on Tower Hill in 1716. Charles had succeeded in escaping from

Newgate and made his way to France, where he assumed the title of Lord

Derwentwater, although the Earldom had ceased to exist under the

bill of attainder against his brother.[361] It was this Lord

Derwentwater--afterwards executed for taking part in the 1745

rebellion--who with several other Jacobites is said to have founded the

Grand Lodge of Paris in 1725, and himself to have become Grand Master.

The Jacobite character of the Paris lodge is not a matter of dispute.

Mr. Gould relates that "the colleagues of Lord Derwentwater are stated

to have been a Chevalier Maskeline, a Squire Heguerty, and others, all

partisans of the Stuarts."[362] But he goes on to contest the theory

that they used Freemasonry in the Stuart cause, which he regards as

amounting to a charge of bad faith. This is surely unreasonable. The

founders of Grand Lodge in Paris did not derive from Grand Lodge in

London, from which they held no warrant,[363] but, as we have seen, took

their Freemasonry with them to France before Grand Lodge of London was

instituted; they were therefore in no way bound by its regulations. And

until the Constitutions of Anderson were published in 1723 no rule had

been laid down that the Lodges should be non-political. In the old days

Freemasonry had always been Royalist, as we see from the ancient charges

that members should be "true liegemen of the King"; and if the adherents

of James Edward saw in him their rightful sovereign, they may have

conceived that they were using Freemasonry for a lawful purpose in

adapting it to his cause. So although we may applaud the decision of the

London Freemasons to purge Freemasonry of political tendencies and

transform it into a harmonious system of brotherhood, we cannot accuse

the Jacobites in France of bad faith in not conforming to a decision in

which they had taken no part and in establishing lodges on their own

lines.

Unfortunately, however, as too frequently happens when men form secret

confederacies for a wholly honourable purpose, their ranks were

penetrated by confederates of another kind. It has been said in an

earlier chapter that, according to the documents produced by the _Ordre

du Temple_ in the early part of the nineteenth century, the Templars had

never ceased to exist in spite of their official suppression in 1312,

and that a line of Grand Masters had succeeded each other in unbroken

succession from Jacques du Molay to the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, who was

killed in 1792. The Grand Master appointed in 1705 is stated to have

been Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, later the Regent. Mr. Waite has expressed

the opinion that all this was an invention of the late eighteenth

century, and that the Charter of Larmenius was fabricated at this date

though not published until 1811 by the revived _Ordre du Temple_ under

the Grand Master, Fabré Palaprat. But evidence points to a contrary

conclusion. M. Matter, who, as we have seen, disbelieves the story of

the _Ordre du Temple_ and the authenticity of the Charter of Larmenius

in so far as it professes to be a genuine fourteenth-century document,

nevertheless asserts that the _savants_ who have examined it declare it

to date from the early part of the eighteenth century, at which period

Matter believes the Gospel of St. John used by the Order to have been

arranged so as "to accompany the ceremonies of some masonic or secret

society." Now, it was about 1740 that a revival of Templarism took place

in France and Germany; we cannot therefore doubt that if Matter is right

in this hypothesis, the secret society in question was that of the

Templars, whether they existed as lineal descendants of the

twelfth-century Order or merely as a revival of that Order. The

existence of the German Templars at this date under the name of the

_Stricte Observance_ (which we shall deal with in a further chapter) is

indeed a fact disputed by no one; but that there was also an _Ordre du

Temple_ in France at the very beginning of the eighteenth century must

be regarded as highly probable. Dr. Mackey, John Yarker, and Lecouteulx

de Canteleu (who, owing to his possession of Templar documents, had

exclusive sources of information) all declare this to have been the case

and accept the Charter of Larmenius as authentic. "It is quite certain,"

says Yarker, "that there was at this period in France an _Ordre du

Temple_, with a charter from John Mark Larmenius, who claimed

appointment from Jacques du Molay. Philippe of Orléans accepted the

Grand Mastership in 1705 and signed the Statutes."[364]

Without, however, necessarily accepting the Charter of Larmenius as

authentic let us examine the probability of this assertion with regard

to the Duc d'Orléans.

Amongst the Jacobites supporting Lord Derwentwater at the Grand Lodge of

Paris was a certain Andrew Michael Ramsay, known as Chevalier Ramsay,

who was born at Ayr near the famous Lodge of Kilwinning, where the

Templars are said to have formed their alliance with the masons in 1314.

In 1710 Ramsay was converted to the Roman Catholic faith by Fénelon and

in 1724 became tutor to the sons of the Pretender at Rome. Mr. Gould has

related that during his stay in France, Ramsay had formed a friendship

with the Regent, Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who was Grand Master of the

_Ordre de Saint-Lazare_, instituted during the Crusades as a body of

Hospitallers devoting themselves to the care of the lepers and which in

1608 had been joined to the _Ordre du Mont-Carmel_. It seems probable

from all accounts that Ramsay was a Chevalier of this Order, but he

cannot have been admitted into it by the Duc d'Orléans, for the Grand

Master of the Ordre de Saint-Lazare was not the Duc d'Orléans but the

Marquis de Dangeau, who, on his death in 1720, was succeeded by the son

of the Regent, the Duc de Chartres.[365] If, then, Ramsay was admitted

to any Order by the Regent, it was surely the _Ordre du Temple_, of

which the Regent is said to have been the Grand Master at this date.

Now, the infamous character of the Duc d'Orléans is a matter of common

knowledge; moreover, during the Regency--that period of impiety and

moral dissolution hitherto unparalleled in the history of France--the

chief of council was the Duc de Bourbon, who later placed his mistress

the Marquise de Prie and the financier Paris Duverney at the head of

affairs, thus creating a scandal of such magnitude that he was exiled

in 1726 through the influence of Cardinal Fleury. This Duc de Bourbon in

1737 is said to have become Grand Master of the Temple. "It was thus,"

observes de Canteleu, "that these two Grand Masters of the Temple

degraded the royal authority and ceaselessly increased hatred against

the government."

It would therefore seem strange that a man so upright as Ramsay appears

to have been, who had moreover but recently been converted to the

Catholic Church, should have formed a friendship with the dissolute

Regent of France, unless there had been some bond between them. But here

we have a possible explanation--Templarism. Doubtless during Ramsay's

youth at Kilwinning many Templar traditions had come to his knowledge,

and if in France he found himself befriended by the Grand Master

himself, what wonder that he should have entered into an alliance which

resulted in his admission to an Order he had been accustomed to revere

and which, moreover, was represented to him as the _fons et origo_ of

the masonic brotherhood to which he also belonged? It is thus that we

find Ramsay in the very year that the Duc de Bourbon is said to have

been made Grand Master of the Temple artlessly writing to Cardinal

Fleury asking him to extend his protection to the society of Freemasons

in Paris and enclosing a copy of the speech which he was to deliver on

the following day, March 21, 1737. It is in this famous oration that for

the first time we find Freemasonry traced to the Crusades:

At the time of the Crusades in Palestine many princes, lords, and

citizens associated themselves, and vowed to restore the Temple of

the Christians in the Holy Land, and to employ themselves in

bringing back their architecture to its first institution. They

agreed upon several ancient signs and symbolic words drawn from the

well of religion in order to recognize themselves amongst the

heathens and Saracens. These signs and words were only communicated

to those who promised solemnly, and even sometimes at the foot of

the altar, never to reveal them. This sacred promise was therefore

not an execrable oath, as it has been called, but a respectable

bond to unite Christians of all nationalities into one

confraternity. Some time afterwards our Order formed an intimate

union with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. From that time our

Lodges took the name of Lodges of St. John.[366]

This speech of Ramsay's has raised a storm of controversy amongst

Freemasons because it contains a very decided hint of a connexion

between Templarism and Freemasonry. Mr. Tuckett, in the paper referred

to above, points out that only the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem are

here mentioned,[367] but Ramsay distinctly speaks of "our Order" forming

a union with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and we know that the

Templars did eventually form such a union. The fact that Ramsay does not

mention the Templars by name admits of a very plausible explanation. It

must be remembered that, as Mr. Gould has shown, a copy of the oration

was enclosed by Ramsay in his letter to Cardinal Fleury appealing for

royal protection to be extended to Freemasonry; it is therefore hardly

likely that he would have proclaimed a connexion between the Order he

was anxious to present in the most favourable light and one which had

formerly been suppressed by King and Pope. Moreover, if the Charter of

Larmenius is to be believed, the newly elected Grand Master of the

Temple was the Duc de Bourbon, who had already incurred the Cardinal's

displeasure. Obviously, therefore, Templar influence was kept in the

background. This is not to imply bad faith on the part of Ramsay, who

doubtless held the Order of Templars to be wholly praiseworthy; but he

could not expect the King or Cardinal to share his view, and therefore

held it more prudent to refer to the progenitors of Freemasonry under

the vague description of a crusading body. Ramsay's well-meant effort

met, however, with no success. Whether on account of this unlucky

reference by which the Cardinal may have detected Templar influence or

for some other reason, the appeal for royal protection was not only

refused, but the new Order, which hitherto Catholics had been allowed to

enter, was now prohibited by Royal edict. In the following year, 1738,

the Pope, Clement XII, issued a bull, _In Eminenti_, banning

Freemasonry and excommunicating Catholics who took part in it.

But this prohibition appears to have been without effect, for

Freemasonry not only prospered but soon began to manufacture new

degrees. And in the masonic literature of the following thirty years the

Templar tradition becomes still more clearly apparent. Thus the

Chevalier de Bérage in a well-known pamphlet, of which the first edition

is said to have appeared in 1747,[368] gives the following account of

the origins of Freemasonry:

This Order was instituted by Godefroi de Bouillon in Palestine in

1330,[369] after the decadence of the Christian armies, and was

only communicated to the French Masons some time after and to a

very small number, as a reward for the obliging services they

rendered to several of our English and Scottish Knights, from whom

true Masonry is taken. Their Metropolitan Lodge is situated on the

Mountain of Heredom where the first Lodge was held in Europe and

which exists in all its splendour. The General Council is still

held there and it is the seal of the Sovereign Grand Master in

office. This mountain is situated between the West and North of

Scotland at sixty miles from Edinburgh.

Apart from the historical confusion of the first sentence, this passage

is of interest as evidence that the theory of a connexion between

certain crusading Knights and the Lodge of Heredom of Kilwinning was

current as early as 1747. The Baron Tschoudy in his _Étoile

Flamboyante_, which appeared in 1766, says that the crusading origin of

Freemasonry is the one officially taught in the lodges, where candidates

for initiation are told that several Knights who had set forth to rescue

the holy places of Palestine from the Saracens "formed an association

under the name of Free Masons, thus indicating that their principal

desire was the reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon," that, further,

they adopted certain signs, grips, and passwords as a defence against

the Saracens, and finally that "our Society ... fraternized on the

footing of an Order with the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, from

which it is apparent that the Freemasons borrowed the custom of

regarding St. John as the patron of the whole Order in general."[370]

After the crusades "the Masons kept their rites and methods and in this

way perpetuated the royal art by establishing lodges, first in England,

then in Scotland," etc.[371]

In this account, therefore, Freemasonry is represented as having been

instituted for the defence of Christian doctrines. De Bérage expresses

the same view and explains that the object of these Crusaders in thus

binding themselves together was to protect their lives against the

Saracens by enveloping their sacred doctrines in a veil of mystery. For

this purpose they made use of Jewish symbolism, which they invested with

a Christian meaning. Thus the Temple of Solomon was used to denote the

Church of Christ, the bough of acacia signified the Cross, the square

and the compass the union between the Old and New Testaments, etc. So

"the mysteries of Masonry were in their principle, and are still,

nothing else than those of the Christian religion."[372]

Baron Tschoudy, however, declares that all this stops short of the

truth, that Freemasonry originated long before the Crusades in

Palestine, and that the real "ancestors, fathers, authors of the Masons,

those illustrious men of whom I will not say the date nor betray the

secret," were a "disciplined body" whom Tschoudy describes by the name

of "the Knights of the Aurora and Palestine." After "the almost total

destruction of the Jewish people" these "Knights" had always hoped to

regain possession of the domains of their fathers and to rebuild the

Temple, and they carefully preserved their "regulations and particular

liturgy," together with a "sublime treatise" which was the object of

their continual study and of their philosophical speculations. Tschoudy

further relates that they were students of the "occult sciences," of

which alchemy formed a part, and that they had "abjured the principles

of the Jewish religion in order to follow the lights of the Christian

faith." At the time of the Crusades the Knights of Palestine came out

from the desert of the Thebaïd, where they had remained hidden, and

joined to themselves some of the crusaders who had remained in

Jerusalem. Declaring that they were the descendants of the masons who

had worked on the Temple of Solomon, they professed to concern

themselves with "speculative architecure," which served to disguise a

more glorious point of view. From this time they took the name of Free

Masons, presented themselves under this title to the crusading armies

and assembled under their banners.[373]

It would of course be absurd to regard any of the foregoing accounts as

historical facts; the important point is that they tend to prove the

fallacy of supposing that the Johannite-Templar theory originated with

the revived _Ordre du Temple_, since one corresponding to it so closely

was current in the middle of the preceding century. It is true that in

these earlier accounts the actual words "Johannite" and "Templar" do not

occur, but the resemblance between the sect of Jews professing the

Christian faith but possessing a "particular liturgy" and a "sublime

treatise"--apparently some early form of the Cabala--dealing with occult

science, and the Mandæans or Johannites with their Cabalistic "Book of

Adam," their Book of John, and their ritual, is at once apparent.

Further, the allusions to the connexion between the Knights who had been

indoctrinated in the Holy Land and the Scottish lodges coincides exactly

with the Templar tradition, published not only by the _Ordre du Temple_

but handed down in the Royal Order of Scotland.

From all this the following facts stand out: (1) that whilst British

Craft Masonry traced its origin to the operative guilds of masons, the

Freemasons of France from 1737 onwards placed the origin of the Order in

crusading chivalry; (2) that it was amongst these Freemasons that the

upper degrees known as the Scottish Rite arose; and (3) that, as we

shall now see, these degrees clearly suggest Templar inspiration.

The earliest form of the upper degrees appears to have been the one

given by de Bérage, as follows:

1. Parfait Maçon Élu.

2. Élu de Perignan.

3. Élu des Quinze.

4. Petit Architecte.

5. Grand Architecte.

6. Chevalier de l'Épée et de Rose-Croix.

7. Noachite ou Chevalier Prussien.

The first of these to make its appearance is believed to have been the

one here assigned to the sixth place. This degree known in modern

Masonry as "Prince of the Rose-Croix of Heredom or Knight of the Pelican

and Eagle" became the eighteenth and the most important degree in what

was later called the Scottish Rite, or at the present time in England

the Ancient and Accepted Rite.

Why was this Rite called Scottish? "It cannot be too strongly insisted

on," says Mr. Gould, "that all Scottish Masonry has nothing whatever to

do with the Grand Lodge of Scotland, nor, with one possible

exception--that of the Royal Order of Scotland--did it ever originate in

that country."[374] But in the case of the Rose-Croix degree there is

surely some justification for the term in legend, if not in proven fact,

for, as we have already seen, according to the tradition of the Royal

Order of Scotland this degree had been contained in it since the

fourteenth century, when the degrees of H.R.M. (Heredom) and R.S.Y.C.S.

(Rosy Cross) are said to have been instituted by Robert Bruce in

collaboration with the Templars after the battle of Bannockburn. Dr.

Mackey is one of the few Masons who admit this probable affiliation, and

in referring to the tradition of the Royal Order of Scotland observes:

"From that Order it seems to us by no means improbable that the present

degree of Rose-Croix de Heredom may have taken its origin."[375]

But the Rose-Croix degree, like the Templar tradition from which it

appears to have descended, is capable of a dual interpretation, or

rather of a multiple interpretation, for no degree in Masonry has been

subject to so many variations. That on the Continent it had descended

through the Rosicrucians in an alchemical form seems more than probable.

It would certainly be difficult to believe that a degree of R.S.Y.C.S.

was imported from the East and incorporated in the Royal Order of

Scotland in 1314; that by a mere coincidence a man named Christian

Rosenkreutz was--according to the Rosicrucian legend--born in the same

century and transmitted a secret doctrine he had discovered in the East

to the seventeenth-century Brethren of the Rosy Cross; and finally,

that a degree of the Rose-Croix was founded in circ. 1741 without any

connexion existing between these succeeding movements. Even if we deny

direct affiliation, we must surely admit a common source of inspiration

producing, if not a continuation, at any rate a periodic revival of the

same ideas. Dr. Oliver indeed admits affiliation between the

seventeenth-century fraternity and the eighteenth-century degree, and

after pointing out that the first indication of the Rose-Croix degree

appears in the _Fama Fraternitatis_ in 1613, goes on to say:

It was known much sooner, although not probably as a degree in

Masonry, for it existed as a cabalistic science from the earliest

times in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as amongst the Jews and

Moors in times more recent, and in our own country the names of

Roger Bacon, Fludd, Ashmole, and many others are found in its list

of adepts.[376]

Dr. Mackey, quoting this passage, observes that "Oliver confounds the

masonic Rose-Croix with the alchemical Rosicrucians," and proceeds to

give an account of the Rose-Croix degree as worked in England and

America, which he truly describes as "in the strictest sense a Christian

degree."[377] But the point Dr. Mackey overlooks is that this is only

one version of the degree, which, as we shall see later, has been and

still is worked in a very different manner on the Continent.

It is, however, certain that the version of the Rose-Croix degree first

adopted by the Freemasons of France in about 1741 was not only so

Christian but so Catholic in character as to have given rise to the

belief that it was devised by the Jesuits in order to counteract the

attacks of which Catholicism was the object.[378] In a paper on the

Additional Degrees Mr. J.S. Tuckett writes:

There is undeniable evidence that in their _earliest forms_ the

Ecossais or Scots Degrees were Roman Catholic; I have a MS. Ritual

in French of what I believe to be the _original_ Chev. de l'Aigle

or S∴P∴D∴R∴C∴ (Souverain Prince de Rose-Croix) and in it the New

Law is declared to be "la foy Catholique," and the Baron Tschoudy

in his _L'Étoile Flamboyante_ of 1766 describes the same Degree as

"le Catholicisme mis en grade" (Vol. I. p. 114). I suggest that

Ecossais or Scots Masonry was intended to be a Roman Catholic as

well as a Stuart form of Freemasonry, in which none but those

devoted to both Restorations were to be admitted.[379]

But is it necessary to read this political intention into the degree? If

the tradition of the Royal Order of Scotland is to be believed, the idea

of the Rose-Croix degree was far older than the Stuart cause, and dated

back to Bannockburn, when the degree of Heredom with which it was

coupled was instituted in order "to correct the errors and reform the

abuses which had crept in among the three degrees of St. John's

Masonry," and to provide a "Christianized form of the Third Degree,"

"purified of the dross of paganism and even of Judaism."[380] Whether

the antiquity attributed to these degrees can be proved or not, it

certainly appears probable that the legend of the Royal Order of

Scotland had some foundation in fact, and therefore that the ideas

embodied in the eighteenth-century Rose-Croix degree may have been drawn

from the store of that Order and brought by the Jacobites to France. At

the same time there is no evidence in support of the statement made by

certain Continental writers that Ramsay actually instituted this or any

of the upper degrees. On the contrary, in his Oration he expressly

states that Freemasonry is composed of the Craft degrees only:

We have amongst us three kinds of brothers: Novices or Apprentices,

Fellows or Professed Brothers, Masters or Perfected Brethren. To

the first are explained the moral virtues; to the second the heroic

virtues; to the last the Christian virtues....

It might be said then that the Rose-Croix degree was here foreshadowed

in the Masters' degree, in that the latter definitely inculcated

Christianity. This would be perfectly in accord with Ramsay's point of

view as set forth in his account of his conversion by Fénelon. When he

first met the Archbishop of Cambrai in 1710, Ramsay relates that he had

lost faith in all Christian sects and had resolved to "take refuge in a

wise Deism limited to respect for the Divinity and for the immutable

ideas of pure virtue," but that his conversation with Fénelon led him to

accept the Catholic faith. And he goes on to show that "Monsieur de

Cambrai turned Atheists into Deists, Deists into Christians, and

Christians into Catholics by a sequence of ideas full of enlightenment

and feeling."[381]

Might not this be the process which Ramsay aimed at introducing into

Freemasonry--the process which in fact does form part of the masonic

system in England to-day, where the Atheist must become, at least by

profession, a Deist before he can be admitted to the Craft Degrees,

whilst the Rose-Croix degree is reserved solely for those who profess

the Christian faith? Such was undoubtedly the idea of the men who

introduced the Rose-Croix degree into France; and Ragon, who gives an

account of this "Ancien Rose-Croix Francais"--which is almost identical

with the degree now worked in England, but long since abandoned in

France--objects to it on the very score of its Christian character.[382]

In this respect the Rose-Croix amongst all the upper degrees introduced

to France in the middle of the eighteenth century stands alone, and it

alone can with any probability be attributed to Scottish Jacobite

inspiration. It was not, in fact, until three or four years after Lord

Derwentwater or his mysterious successor Lord Harnouester[383] had

resigned the Grand Mastership in favour of the Duc d'Antin in 1738 that

the additional degrees were first heard of, and it was not until eight

years after the Stuart cause had received its death-blow at Culloden,

that is to say, in 1754, that the Rite of Perfection in which the

so-called Scots Degrees were incorporated was drawn up in the following

form:

Rite of Perfection

1. Entered Apprentice.

2. Fellow Craft.

3. Master Mason.

4. Secret Master.

5. Perfect Master.

6. Intimate Secretary.

7. Intendant of the Buildings.

8. Provost and Judge.

9. Elect of Nine.

10. Elect of Fifteen.

11. Chief of the Twelve Tribes.

12. Grand Master Architect.

13. Knight of the Ninth Arch.

14. Ancient Grand Elect.

15. Knight of the Sword.

16. Prince of Jerusalem.

17. Knight of the East and West.

18. Rose-Croix Knight.

19. Grand Pontiff.

20. Grand Patriarch.

21. Grand Master of the Key of Masonry.

22. Prince of Libanus or Knight of the Royal Axe.

23. Sovereign Prince Adept.

24. Commander of the Black and White Eagle.

25. Commander of the Royal Secret.[384]

We have only to glance at the nomenclature of the last twenty-two of

these degrees to see that on the basis of mere operative Masonry there

has been built up a system composed of two elements: crusading chivalry

and Judaic tradition. What else is this but Templarism? Even Mr. Gould,

usually so reticent on Templar influence, admits it at this period:

In France ... some of the Scots lodges would appear to have very

early manufactured new degrees, connecting these very distinguished

Scots Masons with the Knights Templar, and thus given rise to the

subsequent flood of Templarism. The earliest of all are supposed to

have been the Masons of Lyons who invented the Kadosch degree,

representing the vengeance of the Templars, in 1741. From that time

new rites multiplied in France and Germany, but all those of French

origin contain Knightly, and almost all, Templar grades. In every

case the connecting link was composed of one or more Scots

degrees.[385]

The name Kadosch here mentioned is a Hebrew word signifying "holy" or

"consecrated," which in the Cabala is found in conjunction with the

Tetragrammaton.[386] The degree is said to have developed from that of

Grand Elect,[387] one of the three "degrees of vengeance" celebrating

with sanguinary realism the avenging of the murder of Hiram. But in its

final form of Knight Kadosch--later to become the thirtieth degree of

the "Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite"--the Hiramic legend was changed

into the history of the Templars with Jacques du Molay as the

victim.[388] So the reprobation of attack on authority personified by

the master-builder becomes approbation of attack on authority in the

person of the King of France.

The introduction of the upper degrees with their political and, later

on, anti-Christian tendencies thus marked a complete departure from the

fundamental principle of Freemasonry that "nothing concerning the

religion or government shall ever be spoken of in the lodge." For this

reason they have been assailed not only by anti-masonic writers but by

Freemasons themselves.[389] To represent Barruel and Robison as the

enemies of Freemasonry is therefore absolutely false; neither of these

men denounced Craft Masonry as practised in England, but only the

superstructure erected on the Continent. Barruel indeed incurs the

reproaches of Mounier for his championship of English Freemasons:

He vaunts their respect for religious opinion and for authority. When he

speaks of Freemasons in general they are impious, rebellious successors

of the Templars and Albigenses, but _all those of England are innocent_.

More than this, all the Entered Apprentices, Fellow Crafts, and Master

Masons in all parts of the world are innocent; there are only guilty

ones in the higher degrees, which are not essential to the institution

and are sought by a small number of people.[390]

In this opinion of Barruel's a great number of Masonic writers

concur--Clavel, Ragon, Rebold, Thory, Findel, and others too numerous to

mention; all indicate Craft Masonry as the only true kind and the upper

degrees as constituting a danger to the Order. Rebold, who gives a list

of these writers, quotes a masonic publication, authorized by the Grand

Orient and the Supreme Council of France, in which it is said that "from

all these rites there result the most foolish conceptions, ... the most

absurd legends, ... the most extravagant systems, the most immoral

principles, and those the most dangerous for the peace and preservation

of States," and that therefore except the first three degrees of

Masonry, which are really ancient and universal, everything is "chimera,

extravagance, futility, and lies."[391] Did Barruel and Robison ever

use stronger language than this?

To attribute the perversion of Masonry to Jacobite influence would be

absurd. How could it be supposed that either Ramsay or Lord Derwentwater

(who died as a devout Catholic on the scaffold in 1746) could have been

concerned in an attempt to undermine the Catholic faith or the monarchy

of France? I would suggest, then, that the term "Scots Masonry" became

simply a veil for Templarism--Templarism, moreover, of a very different

kind to that from which the original degree of the Rose-Croix was

derived. It was this so-called Scots Masonry that, after the resignation

of Lord Derwentwater, "boldly came forward and claimed to be not merely

a part of Masonry but the real Masonry, possessed of superior knowledge

and entitled to greater privileges and the right to rule over the

ordinary, i.e. Craft Masonry."[392] The Grand Lodge of France seems,

however, to have realized the danger of submitting to the domination of

the Templar element, and on the death of the Duc d'Antin and his

replacement by the Comte de Clermont in 1743, signified its adherence to

English Craft Masonry by proclaiming itself Grande Loge _Anglaise_ de

France and reissued the "Constitutions" of Anderson, first published in

1723, with the injunction that the Scots Masters should be placed on the

same level as the simple Apprentices and Fellow Crafts and allowed to

wear no badges of distinction.[393]

Grand Lodge of England appears to have been reassured by this

proclamation as to the character of French Freemasonry, for now, in

1743, it at last delivered a warrant to Grand Lodge of France. Yet in

reality it was from this moment that French Freemasonry degenerated the

most rapidly. The Order was soon invaded by intriguers. This was

rendered all the easier by the apathy of the Comte de Clermont,

appointed Grand Master in 1743, who seems to have taken little interest

in the Order and employed a substitute in the person of a dancing master

named Lacorne, a man of low character through whose influence the lodges

fell into a state of anarchy. Freemasonry was thus divided into warring

factions: Lacorne and the crowd of low-class supporters who had followed

him into the lodges founded a Grand Lodge of their own (Grande Loge

Lacorne), and in 1756 the original Freemasons again attempted to make

Craft Masonry the national Masonry of France by deleting the word

"Anglaise" from the appellation of Grand Lodge, and renaming it "Grand

Loge Nationale de France." But many lodges still continue to work the

additional degrees.

The rivalry between the two groups became so violent that in 1767 the

government intervened and closed down Grand Lodge.

The Templar group had, however, formed two separate associations, the

"Knights of the East" (1756) and the "Council of the Emperors of the

East and West" (1758). In 1761 a Jew named Stephen Morin was sent to

America by the "Emperors" armed with a warrant from the Duc de Clermont

and Grand Lodge of Paris and bearing the sonorous title of "Grand Elect

Perfect and Sublime Master," with orders to establish a Lodge in that

country. In 1766 he was accused in Grand Lodge of "propagating strange

and monstrous doctrines" and his patent of Grand Inspector was

withdrawn.[394] Morin, however, had succeeded in establishing the Rite

of Perfection. Sixteen Inspectors, nearly all Jews, were now appointed.

These included Isaac Iong, Isaac de Costa, Moses Hayes, B. Spitser,

Moses Cohen, Abraham Jacobs, and Hyman Long.

Meanwhile in France the closing of Grand Lodge had not prevented

meetings of Lacorne's group, which, on the death of the Duc de Clermont

in 1772, instituted the "Grand Orient" with the Duc de Chartres--the

future "Philippe Égalité"--as Grand Master. The Grand Orient then

invited the Grande Loge to revoke the decree of expulsion and unite with

it, and this offer being accepted, the revolutionary party inevitably

carried all before it, and the Duc de Chartres was declared Grand Master

of all the councils, chapters, and Scotch lodges of France.[395] In 1782

the "Council of Emperors" and the "Knights of the East" combined to form

the "Grand Chapitre Général de France," which in 1786 joined up with the

Grand Orient. The victory of the revolutionary party was then complete.

It is necessary to enter into all these tedious details in order to

understand the nature of the factions grouped together under the banner

of Masonry at this period. The Martinist Papus attributes the

revolutionary influences that now prevailed in the lodges to their

invasion by the Templars, and goes on to explain that this was owing to

a change that had taken place in the _Ordre du Temple_. Under the Grand

Mastership of the Regent and his successor the Duc de Bourbon, the

revolutionary elements amongst the Templars had had full play, but from

1741 onwards the Grand Masters of the Order were supporters of the

monarchy. When the Revolution came, the Duc de Cossé-Brissac, who had

been Grand Master since 1776, perished amongst the defenders of the

throne. It was thus that by the middle of the century the Order of the

Temple ceased to be a revolutionary force, and the discontented elements

it had contained, no longer able to find in it a refuge, threw

themselves into Freemasonry, and entering the higher degrees turned them

to their subversive purpose. According to Papus, Lacorne was a member of

the Templar group, and the dissensions that took place were principally

a fight between the ex-Templars and the genuine Freemasons which ended

in the triumph of the former:

Victorious rebels thus founded the Grand Orient of France. So a

contemporary Mason is able to write: "It is not excessive to say

that the masonic revolution of 1773 was the prelude and the

precursor of the Revolution of 1789." What must be well observed is

the secret action of the Brothers of the Templar Rite. It is they

who are the real fomentors of revolution, the others are only

docile agents.[396]

But all this attributes the baneful influence of Templarism to the

French Templars alone, and the existence of such a body rests on no

absolutely certain evidence. What is certain and admits of no denial on

the part of any historian, is the inauguration of a Templar Order in

Germany at the very moment when the so-called Scottish degrees were

introduced into French Masonry. We shall now return to 1738 and follow

events that were taking place at this important moment beyond the

Rhine.

7

GERMAN TEMPLARISM AND FRENCH ILLUMINISM

The year after Ramsay's oration--that is to say in 1738--Frederick,

Crown Prince of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, who for two

years had been carrying on a correspondence with Voltaire, suddenly

evinced a curiosity to know the secrets of Freemasonry which he had

hitherto derided as "Kinderspiel," and accordingly went through a hasty

initiation during the night of August 14-15, whilst passing through

Brunswick.[397]

The ceremony took place not at a masonic lodge, but at a hotel, in the

presence of a deputation summoned by the Graf von Lippe-Bückeburg from

Grand Lodge of Hamburg for the occasion. It is evident that something of

an unusual kind must have occurred to necessitate these speedy and

makeshift arrangements. Carlyle, in his account of the episode,

endeavours to pass it off as a "very trifling circumstance"--a reason

the more for regarding it as of the highest importance since we know now

from facts that have recently come to light how carefully Carlyle was

spoon-fed by Potsdam whilst writing his book on Frederick the

Great.[398]

But let us follow Frederick's masonic career. In June 1740, after his

accession to the throne, his interest in Masonry had clearly not waned,

for we find him presiding over a lodge at Charlottenburg, where he

received into the Order two of his brothers, his brother-in-law, and

Duke Frederick William of Holstein-Beck. At his desire the Baron de

Bielfeld and his privy councillor Jordan founded a lodge at Berlin, the

"Three Globes," which by 1746 had no less than fourteen lodges under its

jurisdiction.

In this same year of 1740 Voltaire, in response to urgent invitations,

paid his first visit to Frederick the Great in Germany. Voltaire is

usually said not to have yet become a Mason, and the date of his

initiation is supposed to have been 1778, when he was received into the

_Loge des Neuf Soeurs_ in Paris. But this by no means precludes the

possibility that he had belonged to another masonic Order at an earlier

date. At any rate, Voltaire's visit to Germany was followed by two

remarkable events in the masonic world of France. The first of these was

the institution of the additional degrees; the second--perhaps not

wholly unconnected with the first--was the arrival in Paris of a masonic

delegate from Germany named von Marschall, who brought with him

instructions for a new or rather a revived Order of Templarism, in which

he attempted to interest Prince Charles Edward and his followers.

Von Marschall was followed about two years later by Baron von Hunt, who

had been initiated in 1741 into the three degrees of Craft Masonry in

Germany and now came to consecrate a lodge in Paris. According to von

Hundt's own account, he was then received into the Order of the Temple

by an unknown Knight of the Red Plume, in the presence of Lord

Kilmarnock,[399] and was presented as a distinguished Brother to Prince

Charles Edward, whom he imagined to be Grand Master of the Order.[400]

But all this was afterwards shown to be a pure frabrication, for Prince

Charles Edward dened all knowledge of the affair, and von Hundt himself

admitted later that he did not know the name of the lodge or chapter in

which he was received, but that he was directed from "a hidden centre"

and by Unknown Superiors, whose identity he was bound not to

reveal.[401] In reality it appears that von Hundt's account was exactly

the opposite of the truth,[402] and that it was von Hundt who, seconding

von Marschall's effort, tried to enrol Prince Charles Edward in the new

German Order by assuring him that he could raise powerful support for

the Stuart cause under the cover of reorganizing the Templar Order, of

which he claimed to possess the true secrets handed down from the

Knights of the fourteenth century. By way of further rehabilitating the

Order, von Hundt declared that all the accusations brought against it

by Philippe le Bel and the Pope were based on false charges manufactured

by two recreant Knights named Noffodei and Florian as a revenge for

having been deprived of their commands by the Order in consequence of

certain crimes they had committed.[403] According to Lecouteulx de

Canteleu, von Hundt eventually succeeded--after the defeat of

Culloden--in persuading Prince Charles Edward to enter his Order. But

this is extremely doubtful. At any rate, when in 1751 von Hundt

officially founded his new Templar Order under the name of the _Stricte

Observance_, the unfortunate Charles Edward played no part at all in the

scheme. As Mr. Gould has truly observed, "no trace of Jacobite intrigues

ever blended with the teaching of the _Stricte Observance_."[404]

The _Order of the Stricte Observance_ was in reality a purely German

association composed of men drawn entirely from the intellectual and

aristocratic classes, and, in imitation of the chivalric Orders of the

past, known to each other under knightly titles. Thus Prince Charles of

Hesse became Eques a Leone Resurgente, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick Eques

a Victoria, the Prussian minister von Bischoffswerder Eques a Grypho,

Baron de Wachter Eques a Ceraso, Christian Bode (Councillor of Legation

in Saxe-Gotha) Eques a Lilio Convallium, von Haugwitz (Cabinet Minister

of Frederick the Great) Eques a Monte Sancto, etc.

But according to the declarations of the Order the official leaders,

Knights of the Moon, the Star, the Golden Sun, or of the Sacred

Mountain, were simply figure-heads; the real leaders, known as the

"Unknown Superiors," remained in the background, unadorned by titles of

chivalry but exercising supreme jurisdiction over the Order. The system

had been foreshadowed by the "Invisibles" of seventeenth-century

Rosicrucianism; but now, instead of an intangible group whose very

existence was only known vaguely to the world, there appeared in the

light of day a powerful organization led apparently by men of influence

and position yet secretly directed by hidden chiefs.[405] Mirabeau has

described the advent of these mysterious directors in the following

passage:

In about 1756 there appeared, as if they had come out of the

ground, men sent, they said, by unknown superiors, and armed with

powers to reform the order [of Freemasonry] and re-establish it in

its ancient purity. One of these missionaries, named Johnston, came

to Weimar and Jena, where he established himself. He was received

in the best way in the world by the brothers [Freemasons], who were

lured by the hope of great secrets, of important discoveries which

were never made known to them.[406]

Now, in the manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx

de Canteleu it is said that this man Johnston, or rather Johnson, who

proclaimed himself to be "Grand Prior of the Order," was a Jew named

Leicht or Leucht.[407] Gould says that his real name was either Leucht

or Becker, but that he professed to be an Englishman, although unable to

speak the English language, hence his assumption of the name

Johnson.[408] Mr. Gould has described Johnson as a "consummate rogue and

an unmitigated vagabond ... of almost repulsive demeanour and of no

education, but gifted with boundless impudence and low cunning." Indeed,

von Hundt himself, after enlisting Johnson's services, found him too

dangerous and declared him to be an adventurer. Johnson was thereupon

arrested by von Hundt's friend the councillor von Pritsch, and thrown

into the castle of Wartburg, where sudden death ended his career.

It is, however, improbable that Mirabeau could be right in indicating

Johnson as one of the "Unknown Superiors," who were doubtless men of

vaster conceptions than this adventurer appears to have been. Moreover,

the manner of his end clearly proves that he occupied a subordinate

position in the _Stricte Observance_.

Here, then, we have a very curious sequence of events which it may be

well to recapitulate briefly in order to appreciate their full

significance:

1737. Oration of Chevalier Ramsay indicating Templar origin of

Freemasonry, but making no mention of upper degrees.

1738. Duc d'Antin becomes Grand Master of French Freemasonry in the

place of Lord "Harnouester."

1738. Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, initiated into Masonry at

Brunswick.

1740. Voltaire pays his first visit to Frederick, now King.

1741. Baron von Marschall arrives in Paris with a plan for reviving

the Templar Order.

Templar degrees first heard of in France under name of "Scots

Masonry."

1743. Arrival in France of Baron von Hundt with fresh plans for

reviving the Templar Order.

Degree of Knight Kadosch celebrating vengeance of Templars said

to have been instituted at Lyons.

1750. Voltaire goes to spend three years with Frederick.

1751. Templar Order of the Stricte Observance founded by von Hundt.

1754. Rite of Perfection (early form of Scottish Rite) founded in

France.

1761. Frederick acknowledged head of Scottish Rite.

" Morin sent to found Rite of Perfection in America.

1762. Grand Masonic Constitutions ratified in Berlin.[409]

It will be seen then that what Mr. Gould describes as "the flood of

Templarism," which both he and Mr. Tuckett attribute to the so-called

Scots Masons,[410] corresponds precisely with the decline of Jacobite

and the rise of German influence. Would it not therefore appear probable

that, except in the case of the Rose-Croix degree, the authors of the

upper degrees were not Scotsmen nor Jacobites, that Scots Masonry was a

term used to cover not merely Templarism but more especially German

Templarism, and that the real author and inspirer of the movement was

Frederick the Great? No, it is significant to find that in the history

of the _Ordre du Temple_, published at the beginning of the nineteenth

century, Frederick the Great is cited as one of the most distinguished

members of this Order in the past,[411] and the Abbé Grégoire adds that

he was "consecrated" at Remersberg (Rheinsberg?) in 1738, that is to say

in the same year that he was initiated into Masonry at Brunswick.[412]

There is therefore a definite reason for connecting Frederick with

Templarism at this date.

I would suggest, then, that the truth about the Templar succession may

be found in one of the two following theories:

1. That the documents produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the

nineteenth century, including the Charter of Larmenius, were genuine;

that the Order had never ceased to exist since the days of the Crusades;

that the Templar heresy was Johannism, but that this was not held by the

Templars who escaped to Scotland; that the Rose-Croix degree in its

purely Christian form was introduced by the Scottish Templars to

Scotland and four hundred years later brought by Ramsay to France; that

the Master of the Temple at this date was the Regent, Philippe Duc

d'Orléans, as stated in the Charter of Larmenius. Finally, that after

this, fresh Templar degrees were introduced from Germany by von Hundt,

acting on behalf of Frederick the Great.

2. That the documents produced by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the

nineteenth century were, as M. Matter declares, early eighteenth-century

fabrications; that although, in view of the tradition preserved in the

Royal Order of Scotland, there appears to be good reason to believe the

story of the Scottish Templars and the origin of the Rose-Croix degree,

the rest of the history of the Templars, including the Charter of

Larmenius, was an invention of the "Concealed Superiors" of the _Stricte

Observance_ in Germany, and that the most important of these "Concealed

Superiors" were Frederick the Great and Voltaire.

I shall not attempt to decide which of these two theories is correct;

all that I do maintain is that in either case the preponderating rôle in

Templarism at this crisis was played by Frederick the Great, probably

with the co-operation of Voltaire, who in his _Essai sur les Mæurs_

championed the cause of the Templars. Let us follow the reasons for

arriving at this conclusion.

Ramsay's oration in 1737 connecting Freemasonry with the Templars may

well have come to the ears of Frederick and suggested to him the idea of

using Masonry as a cover for his intrigues--hence his hasty initiation

at Brunswick. But in order to acquire influence in a secret society it

is always necessary to establish a claim to superior knowledge, and

Templarism seemed to provide a fruitful source of inspiration. For this

purpose new light must be thrown on the Order. Now, there was probably

no one better qualified than Voltaire, with his knowledge of the ancient

and medieval world and hatred of the Catholic Church, to undertake the

construction of a historical romance subversive of the Catholic

faith--hence the urgent summons to the philosopher to visit Frederick.

We can imagine Voltaire delving amongst the records of the past in order

to reconstruct the Templar heresy. This was clearly Gnostic, and the

Mandæans or Christians of St. John may well have appeared to present the

required characteristics. If it could be shown that here in Johannism

true "primitive Christianity" was to be found, what a blow for the

"infâme"! A skilful forger could easily be found to fabricate the

documents said to have been preserved in the secret archives of the

Order. Further we find von Marschall arriving in the following year in

France to reorganize the Templars, and von Hundt later claiming to be in

possession of the true secrets of the Order handed down from the

fourteenth century. That some documents bearing on this question were

either discovered or fabricated under the direction of Frederick the

Great seems the more probable from the existence of a masonic tradition

to this effect. Thus Dr. Oliver quotes a Report of the Grand

Inspectors-General in the nineteenth century stating that:

During the Crusades, at which 27,000 Masons were present, some

masonic MSS. of great importance were discovered among the

descendants of the ancient Jews, and that other valuable documents

were found at different periods down to the year of Light 5557

(i.e. 1553), at which time a record came to light in Syrian

characters, relating to the most remote antiquity, and from which

it would appear that the world is many thousand years older than

given by the Mosaic account. Few of these characters were

translated till the reign of our illustrious and most enlightened

Brother Frederick II, King of Prussia, whose well-known zeal for

the Craft was the cause of so much improvement in the Society over

which he condescended to preside.[413]

I suggest, then, that the documents here referred to and containing the

secrets claimed by von Hundt may have been the ones afterwards published

by the _Ordre du Temple_ in the nineteenth century, and that if

unauthentic they were the work of Voltaire, aided probably by a Jew

capable of forging Syriac manuscripts. That Johnson was the Jew in

question seems probable, since Findel definitely asserts that the

history of the continuation of the Order of Knights Templar was his

work.[414] Frederick, as we know, was in the habit of employing Jews to

carry out shady transactions, and he may well have used Johnson to forge

documents as he used Ephraim to coin false money for him. It would be

further quite in keeping with his policy to get rid of the man as soon

as he had served his purpose, lest he should betray his secrets.

At any rate, whatever were the methods employed by Frederick the Great

for obtaining control over Masonry, the fruitful results of that "very

trifling circumstance," his initiation at Brunswick, become more and

more apparent as the century advances. Thus when in 1786 the Rite of

Perfection was reorganized and rechristened the "Ancient and Accepted

Scottish Rite"--always the same Scottish cover for Prussianism!--it is

said to have been Frederick who conducted operations, drew up the new

Constitutions of the Order, and rearranged the degrees so as to bring

the total number up to thirty-three[415], as follows:

26. Prince of Mercy.

27. Sovereign Commander of the Temple.

28. Knight of the Sun.

29. Grand Scotch Knight of St. Andrew.

30. Grand Elect Knight of Kadosch.

31. Grand Inspector Inquisitor Commander.

32. Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret.

33. Sovereign Grand Inspector-General.

In the last four degrees Frederick the Great and Prussia play an

important part; in the thirtieth degree of Knight Kadosch, largely

modelled on the Vehmgerichts, the Knights wear Teutonic crosses, the

throne is surmounted by the double-headed eagle of Prussia, and the

President, who is called Thrice Puissant Grand Master, represents

Frederick himself; in the thirty-second degree of Sublime Prince of the

Royal Secret, Frederick is described as the head of Continental

Freemasonry; in the thirty-third degree of Sovereign Grand

Inspector-General the jewel is again the double-headed eagle, and the

Sovereign Grand Commander is Frederick, who at the time this degree was

instituted figured with Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, Grand Master of the

Grand Orient, as his lieutenant. The most important of these innovations

was the thirty-second degree, which was in reality a system rather than

a degree for bringing together the Masons of all countries under one

head--hence the immense power acquired by Frederick. By 1786 French

Masonry was thus entirely Prussianized and Frederick had indeed become

the idol of Masonry everywhere. Yet probably no one ever despised

Freemasonry more profoundly. As the American Mason Albert Pike shrewdly

observed:

There is no doubt that Frederick came to the conclusion that the

great pretensions of Masonry in the blue degrees were merely

imaginary and deceptive. He ridiculed the Order, and thought its

ceremonies mere child's play; and some of his sayings to that

effect have been preserved. It does not at all follow that he might

not at a later day have found it politic to put himself at the head

of an Order that had become a power....[416]

It is not without significance to find that in the year following the

official foundation of the _Stricte Observance_, that is to say in 1752,

Lord Holdernesse, in a letter to the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord

Albemarle, headed "Very secret," speaks of "the influence which the King

of Prussia has of late obtained over all the French Councils"; and a few

weeks later Lord Albemarle refers to "the great influence of the

Prussian Court over the French Councils by which they are so blinded as

not to be able to judge for themselves."[417]

But it is time to turn to another sphere of activity which Masonry

opened out to the ambitions of Frederick.

The making of the _Encyclopédie_, which even those writers the most

sceptical with regard to secret influences behind the revolutionary

movement admit to have contributed towards the final cataclysm, is a

question on which official history has thrown but little light.

According to the authorized version of the story--as related, for

example, in Lord Morley's work on the Encyclopædists--the plan of

translating Ephraim Chambers's _Cyclopædia_, which had appeared in 1728,

was suggested to Diderot "some fifteen years later" by a French

bookseller named Le Breton. Diderot's "fertile and energetic

intelligence transformed the scheme.... It was resolved to make

Chambers's work a mere starting-point for a new enterprise of far wider

scope." We then go on to read of the financial difficulties that now

beset the publisher, of the embarrassment of Diderot, who "felt himself

unequal to the task of arranging and supervising every department of a

new book that was to include the whole circle of the sciences," of the

fortunate enlisting of d'Alembert as a collaborator, and later of men

belonging to all kinds of professions, "all united in a work that was as

useful as it was laborious, without any view of interest ... without any

common understanding and agreement," further, of the cruel persecutions

encountered at the hands of the Jesuits, "who had expected at least to

have control of the articles on theology," and finally of the tyrannical

suppression of the great work on account of the anti-Christian

tendencies these same articles displayed.[418]

Now for a further light on the matter.

In the famous speech of the Chevalier Ramsay already quoted, which was

delivered at Grand Lodge of Paris in 1737, the following passage occurs:

The fourth quality required in our Order is the taste for useful

sciences and the liberal arts. Thus, the Order exacts of each of

you to contribute, by his protection, liberality, or labour, to a

vast work for which no academy can suffice, because all these

societies being composed of a very small number of men, their work

cannot embrace an object so extended. All the Grand Masters in

Germany, England, Italy, and elsewhere exhort all the learned men

and all the artisans of the Fraternity to unite to furnish the

materials for a Universal Dictionary of all the liberal arts and

useful sciences; excepting only theology and politics. The work has

already been commenced in London, and by means of the unions of our

brothers it may be carried to a conclusion in a few years.[419]

So after all it was no enterprising bookseller, no brilliantly inspired

philosopher, who conceived the idea of the _Encyclopédie_, but a

powerful international organization able to employ the services of more

men than all the academies could supply, which devised the scheme at

least six years before the date at which it is said to have occurred to

Diderot. Thus the whole story as usually told to us would appear to be a

complete fabrication--struggling publishers, toiling _littérateurs_

carrying out their superhuman task as "independent men of letters"

without the patronage of the great--which Lord Morley points out as "one

of the most important facts in the history of the Encyclopædia"--writers

of all kinds bound together by no "common understanding or agreement,"

are all seen in reality to have been closely associated as "artisans of

the Fraternity" carrying out the orders of their superiors.

The _Encyclopédie_ was therefore essentially a Masonic publication, and

Papus, whilst erroneously attributing the famous oration and

consequently the plan of the _Encyclopédie_ to the inspiration of the

Duc d'Antin, emphasizes the importance of this fact. Thus, he writes:

The Revolution manifests itself by two stages:

1st. _Intellectual revolution_, by the publication of the

_Encyclopédie_, due to French Freemasonry under the high

inspiration of the Duc d'Antin.

2nd. _Occult revolution_ in the Lodges, due in great part to the

members of the Templar Rite and executed by a group of expelled

Freemasons afterwards amnestied.[420]

The masonic authorship of the _Encyclopédie_ and the consequent

dissemination of revolutionary doctrines has remained no matter of doubt

to the Freemasons of France; on the contrary, they glory in the fact. At

the congress of the Grand Orient in 1904 the Freemason Bonnet declared:

In the eighteenth century the glorious line of Encyclopædists

formed in our temples a fervent audience which was then alone in

invoking the radiant device as yet unknown to the crowd: "Liberty,

Equality, Fraternity." The revolutionary seed quickly germinated

amidst this _élite_. Our illustrious Freemasons d'Alembert,

Diderot, Helvétius, d'Holbach, Voltaire, Condorcet, completed the

evolution of minds and prepared the new era. And, when the Bastille

fell, Freemasonry had the supreme honour of giving to humanity the

charter (i.e. the Declaration of the Rights of Man) which it had

elaborated with devotion. (_Applause_.)

This charter, the orator went on to say, was the work of the Freemason

Lafayette, and was adopted by the Constituent Assembly, of which more

than 300 members were Freemasons.

But in using the lodges to sow the seeds of revolution, the

Encyclopædists betrayed not only the cause of monarchy but of Masonry as

well. It will be noticed that, in conformity with true masonic

principles, Ramsay in his oration expressly stated that the encyclopædia

was to concern itself with the liberal arts and sciences[421] and that

theology and politics were to be excluded from the contemplated scheme.

How, then, did it come to pass that these were eventually the two

subjects to which the Encyclopædists devoted the greatest attention, so

that their work became principally an attack on Church and monarchy? If

Papus was right in attributing this revolutionary tendency to the

_Encyclopédie_ from the time of the famous oration, then Ramsay could

only be set down as the profoundest hypocrite or as the mouthpiece of

hypocrites professing intentions the very reverse of their real designs.

A far more probable explanation seems to be that during the interval

between Ramsay's speech and the date when the _Encyclopédie_ was begun

in earnest, the scheme underwent a change. It will be noticed that the

year of 1746, when Diderot and d'Alembert are said to have embarked on

their task, coincided with the decadence of French Freemasonry under the

Comte de Clermont and the invasion of the lodges by the subversive

elements; thus the project propounded with the best intentions by the

Freemasons of 1737 was filched by their revolutionary successors and

turned to a diametrically opposite purpose.

But it is not to the dancing-master Lacorne and his middle-class

following that we can attribute the efficiency with which not only the

_Encyclopédie_ but a host of minor revolutionary publications were

circulated all over France. Frederick the Great had seen his

opportunity. If I am right in my surmise that Ramsay's speech had

reached the ears of Frederick, the prospect of the _Encyclopédie_

contained therein may well have appeared to him a magnificent method for

obtaining a footing in the intellectual circles of France; hence then,

doubtless, an additional reason for his hasty initiation into Masonry,

his summons to Voltaire, and his subsequent overtures to Diderot and

d'Alembert, who, by the time the first volume of the _Encyclopédie_

appeared in 1751, had both been made members of the Royal Academy of

Prussia. In the following year Frederick offered d'Alembert the

presidency of the Academy in place of Maupertuis, an offer which was

refused; but in 1755 and again in 1763 d'Alembert visited Frederick in

Germany and received his pension regularly from Berlin. It is therefore

not surprising that when the _Encyclopédie_ had reached the letter P, it

included, in an unsigned article on Prussia, a panegyric on the virtues

and the talents of the illustrious monarch who presided over the

destinies of that favoured country.

The art of Frederick the Great, as of his successors on the throne of

the Hohenzollerns, was to make use of every movement that could further

the design of Prussian supremacy. He used the Freemasons as he used the

philosophers and as he used the Jews, to carry out his great scheme--the

destruction of the French monarchy and of the alliance between France

and Austria. Whilst through his representatives at the Court of France

he was able to create discord between Versailles and Vienna and bring

discredit on Marie Antoinette, through his allies in the masonic lodges

and in the secret societies he was able to reach the people of France.

The gold and the printing presses of Frederick the Great were added to

those of the Orléanistes for the circulation of seditious literature

throughout the provinces.[422]

So as the century advanced the association founded by Royalists and

Catholics was turned into an engine of destruction by revolutionary

intriguers; the rites and symbols were gradually perverted to an end

directly opposed to that for which they had been instituted, and the two

degrees of Rose-Croix and Knight Kadosch came to symbolize respectively

war on religion and war on the monarchy of France.

It is no orthodox Catholic but an occultist and Rosicrucian who thus

describes the rôle of Masonry in the Revolution:

Masonry has not only been profaned but it has been served as a

cover and pretext for the plots of anarchy, by the occult influence

of the avengers of Jacques du Molay and the continuers of the

schismatic work of the Temple. Instead of avenging the death of

Hiram, they have avenged his assassins. The anarchists have taken

the plumb-line, the square, and the mallet and have written on them

liberty, equality, fraternity. That is to say, liberty for

envyings, equality in degradation, fraternity for destruction.

Those are the men whom the Church has justly condemned and that she

will always condemn.[423]

But it is time to turn to another masonic power which meanwhile had

entered the lists, the Martinistes or French Illuminés.

French Illuminism