booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

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 man uvres 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.(50)
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 (51) instituted by this
prince and in which the receptions were based on those of the Order of the Temple. It is here 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, Domniorum Militi 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.(52)
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 were 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 Knight 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.(53)
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 con-
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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