booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

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.(27) 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." (28) 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 Cabal 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 between Freemasonry and Essenism-degrees of initiation, oaths of
secrecy, the wearing of the apron, and certain masonic sign; whilst to the Sabeist traditions of the Essenes
may perhaps be traced the solar and stellar symbolism of the lodges.(29) 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.(30) 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...."(31) The Freemason Ragon likewise declares that
the catastrophe they lamented was the catastrophe that destroyed their Order.(32) 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 Templar 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.(33) 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 fourteen 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.(34) " 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 bund to have
a substratum of truth."(35)
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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