booknetsaWebster-secretSocietiesAndSubversiveMovements

Cross; and finally, that a degree of the Rose-Croix was founded 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.(38)
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."(39) 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.
(40) In a paper on the Additional Degrees Mr. J.S. Tackett writes: There is undeniable evidence that in their
earlier 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'Etoile Flamboyante of
1766 describes the same Degree as " le Catholicisme mis en grade " (Vol. in. p. 114). I suggest that
Ecossais or Scots Masonry was intended to be a Roman Catholic as well as a Stuart form of Freemasonry,
into which none but th ose devoted to both Restorations were to be admitted.(41)
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."(42) 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 conversion by Fénelon. When he first met the Archbishop Cambrai in 1710,
Ramsay relates that he had lost faith in 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 sequence of ideas full of enlightenment
and feeling."(43)
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.(44)
In this respect the Rose-Croix amongst all the upper degrees introduced to France in the middle of the
Nesta H. Webster — Secret Societies and Subversive Movements — Part I
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