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[–]Jesus 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Part 3

Now that contention by one German writer "that the object of the Jesuits in seeking a control of the Masonic Institution was that they might be thus assisted in their design of establishing an aristocracy within themselves", sounds an awful lot like the propaganda coming out of National Socialist Germany, which also asserted that Jesuitism, Catholicism was or one with Freemasonry. These claims alone led to the persecution of Catholics and liquidation of Freemasonry in Germany.

Mackey, does however, display the opposing argument for these claims; "But the more generally accepted reason for this attempted interference with the Lodges is that they [Jesuits] thus sought by their influence and secret working to aid the Stuarts to regain the throne, and then, as an expected result, to re-establish the Roman Catholic religion in England."

Mackey concludes;

But I think that we must concur with Gadeike in the conclusion to which he had arrived, that it is proved by history to be a false- hood that Freemasonry was ever concealed under the mask of Jesuitism, or that it derived its existence from that source. 1 It is, however, but fair that we should collate and compare the arguments on both sides.

Robison, who, where Masonry was concerned, could find a spec- ter in every bush, is, of course, of very little authority as to facts ; but he may supply us with a record of the opinions which were prevalent at the time of his writing. He says that when James II. fled from England to France, which was in 1688, his adherents took Freemasonry with them to the continent, where it was received and cultivated by the French in a manner suited to the tastes and habits of that people. But he adds that “ at this time, also, the Jes- uits took a more active hand in Freemasonry than ever. They insinuated themselves into the English Lodges, where they were caressed by the Catholics, who panted after the re-establishment of their faith, and tolerated by the Protestant royalists, who thought no concession too great a compensation for their services. At this time changes were made in some of the Masonic symbols, particularly in the tracing of the Lodge, which bear evident marks of Jesuitical interference.” 2

Speaking of the High Degrees, the fabrication of which, how- ever, he greatly antedates, he says that “in all this progressive mummery we see much of the hand of the Jesuits, and it would seem that it was encouraged by the church.” 3 But he thinks that the Masons, protected by their secrecy, ventured further than the clergy approved in their philosophical interpretations of the symbols, opposing at last some of “ the ridiculous and oppressive superstitions of the church,” 4 and thus he accounts for the persecution of Freemasonry at a later period by the priests, and their attempts to suppress the Lodges.

The story, as thus narrated by Robison, is substantially that which has been accepted by all writers who trace the origin of Freemasonry to the Jesuits. They affirm, as we have seen, that it was instituted about the time of the expulsion of James II. from England, or that if it was not then fabricated as a secret society, it was at least modified in all its features from that form which it originally had in Eng- land, and was adapted as a political engine to aid in the restoration of the exiled monarch and in the establishment in his recovered kingdom of the Roman Catholic religion.

These theorists have evidently confounded primitive Speculative Masonry, consisting only of three degrees, with the supplementary grades invented subsequently by Ramsay and the ritualists who succeeded him. But even if we relieve the theory of this confusion and view it as affirming that the Jesuits at the College of Clermont modified the third degree and invented others, such as the Scottish Knight of St. Andrew, for the purpose of restoring James II. to the throne, we shall find no scintilla of evidence in history to support this view, but, on the contrary, obstacles in the way of anachronisms which it will be impossible to overcome.

James II. abdicated the throne in 1688, and, after an abortive attempt to recover it by an unsuccessful invasion of Ireland, took up his residence at the Chateau of St. Germain-en-Laye, in France, where he died in 1701.

Between the two periods of 1688, when James abdicated, and 1701, when he died, no one has been enabled to find either in Eng- land or elsewhere any trace of a third degree. Indeed, I am very sure that it can be proved that this degree was not invented until 1721 or 1722. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible that any modification could have been made in the latter part of the 17th century of that which did not exist until the beginning of the 18th. And if there was no Speculative Masonry, as distinguished from the Operative Art practiced by the mediaeval guilds, during the lifetime of James, it is equally absurd to contend that supplementary grades were in- vented to illustrate and complete a superstructure whose foundations had not yet been laid.

The theory that the Jesuits in the 17th century had invented Freemasonry for the purpose of effecting one of their ambitious projects, or that they had taken it as it then existed, changed it, and added to it for the same purpose, is absolutely untenable.

Another theory has been advanced which accounts for the establishment of what has been called “Jesuitic Masonry,” at about the middle of the 18th century. This theory is certainly free from the absurd anachronisms which we encounter in the former, although the proofs that there ever was such a Masonry are still very unsatisfactory.

It has been maintained that this notion of the intrusion, as it may 'veil be called, of the Jesuits into the Masonic Order has been attributed to the Illuminati, that secret society which was established by Adam Weishaupt in Bavaria about the year 1776.

The original object of this society was, as its founder declared, to enable its members to attain the greatest possible amount of virtue, and by the association of good men to oppose the progress of moral evil. To give it influence it was connected with Freemasonry, whose symbolic degrees formed the substratum of its esoteric instructions. This has led it incorrectly to be deemed a Masonic Rite ; it could really lay no claim to that character, except inasmuch as it required a previous initiation into the symbolic degrees to entitle its disciples to further advancement.