The Origins of Masonry | William J. Whalen | From "Christianity And American Freemasonry" | Ignatius Insight
The Origins of Masonry | William J. Whalen | From Chapter 2 of Christianity And American
Freemasonry | Ignatius Insight
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2009/wwhalen_masonry_sept09.asp
English Grand Lodge Formed in Apple Tree Tavern
Masonry as we know it dates from 1717, but Masonic legends claim a much greater antiquity for the
Craft. Many naive and credulous members take those fanciful pretensions seriously and believe that Masonry can be traced
back to King Solomon's Temple or to the Tower of Babel. One discredited Masonic historian, Dr. George Oliver,
maintained that the lodge began with creation itself and that Adam was not only the first man but the first Masonic
Grand Master. According to Oliver, this pure Masonry became corrupted at the time of the Tower of Babel but was
rediscovered and purified by Saint John the Evangelist.
A candid appraisal of these fables is
given by Delmer Darrah in his History and Evolution of Freemasonry: "Masons have believed the things
concerning the origin of the institution that they wanted to believe and have gone forth and told them as facts. When
links were missing, they have been supplied by drawing upon fertile imaginations." [1]
He
adds: "If there is in Freemasonry any similarity between its customs and those of the practices of several
thousand years ago, it does not mean that Freemasonry has any connection whatsoever with those rites but that they were
woven into the fraternity in modern times with a view to enhancing the ritual and investing the fraternity with an
atmosphere of antiquity." [2]
Masons are led to believe by their ritual and various
commentaries that King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, Hiram Abiff (Huram abi), and Saint John the Evangelist were all active
members of the lodge. Intelligent Masons, of course, know this for the spoof that it is, but many others never question
the claim to antiquity. Their brethren, realizing the value of antiquity to esprit de corps, do not bother to
disenchant them.
Modern Masonry has borrowed from many diverse traditions, such as those of the
suppressed Knights Templar, the Roman Collegia of Artificers, the Jewish Kabbalists, the mystery cults, the
Rosicrucians, and the operative masons of the Middle Ages. The Masonic historians Pick and Knight admit:
Many of the doctrines or tenets inculcated in Freemasonry belong to the vast traditions of humanity of
all ages and all parts of the world. Nevertheless, not only has no convincing evidence yet been brought forward to prove
the lineal descent of our Craft from any ancient organization which is known to have, or even suspected of having,
taught any similar system of morality, but also from what we know of the Craft in the few centuries prior to the
formation of the first Grand Lodge in 1717, it is excessively unlikely that there was any such parentage. [3]
Of the various influences that contributed to the Masonic fraternity, the greatest was that of the
working masons. Father Humphrey J.T. Johnston states: "Modern Freemasonry, the creation of Deists and Jews with a
measure of Huguenot assistance, built on a foundation provided by the old confraternities of stonemasons which in a
degenerate form had survived the Reformation." [4]
These working masons, who built the
magnificent cathedrals and castles of medieval Europe and were greatly esteemed for their know-how, served as
apprentices and fellow craftsmen before qualifying as master masons. They devised a system of secret signs and grips
that served the purpose of today's union card and identified the initiated as properly qualified workmen. Masons
were forced to travel from place to place to pursue their occupation; membership in the powerful stonemasons'
guild meant that a mason could rely on help from his brethren in difficult circumstances and in strange lands. He could
likewise be counted upon to preserve trade secrets from outsiders.
After the Reformation had
practically halted the construction of new church buildings, the waning masonic lodges began to admit
"honorary" or nonworking members to their ranks. The original lodges were unquestionably orthodox in their
adherence to the Catholic religion that they served so admirably. One of the earliest masonic charges reads: "The
first charge is that you shall bee true man to God and holy church, and that you use no heresie or error by your
understanding or by teachings of indiscreet men."
Eventually the honorary members
outnumbered the operative masons, more or less dispossessed the active members, and took over the symbols and secret
signs of the lodges to form what we know as speculative Masonry. Members were expected to believe in God and in the
immortality of the soul, but otherwise their religious views were completely irrelevant to the lodge.
In 1717 a governing authority known as the "Grand Lodge of England" was established at a
meeting of four surviving lodges in the Apple Tree Tavern in London. Two Protestant clergymen, Dr. John Theophilus
Desaguliers and Dr. James Anderson, were instrumental in setting up the self-styled governing body. Not all lodges were
willing to submit to the rule of the new Grand Lodge, but by 1725 the original four lodges had grown to sixty four, of
which fifty were in London. The Craft captured the fancy of certain members of the English aristocracy after 1721, and
they in turn were flattered by the brethren. The first royal Grand Master took office in that year, and this position
has since then been reserved to a nobleman.
Originally, some lodges worked one degree, and others,
two. The Hieratic legend that forms the basis for the present Master Mason degree was introduced by Anderson sometime
after 1720; the three degree system was not adopted until 1730.
Anderson prepared a new Book of
Constitutions in 1723 that spelled out the new policy of the lodge toward religious affiliation.
A
Mason is obliged by his Tenure, to obey the Moral Law, and if he rightly understand 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 whatsoever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguished.
Obviously the religion to which masons in medieval times were expected to adhere was Roman Catholicism,
since it was the religion of Europe. Obviously, too, the "Religion in which all Men agree" is not
Catholicism or Christianity, since many men do not agree with the central theological positions of Christianity. These
central beliefs are relegated to the role of "particular opinions".
This change in
policy opened the door to membership by Jews, Deists, and Muslims but supposedly barred atheists and polytheists. Jews
might well feel at home in the lodge, since the Hiram Abiff legend was built on the Old rather than the New Testament,
and the Craft borrowed most of its terminology from the Hebrew scriptures. The core of Masonry, that mankind has
suffered a great loss that eventually will be recovered, could easily be understood to mean the loss of the Temple and
of Jewish nationhood.
Although the aristocrats took up the Masonic hobby, the lower classes often
sneered at the Masonic folderol and snob appeal and enjoyed pelting participants in Masonic processions. The lodges
continued to meet in taverns and were known as convivial associations. Before mid-century, the first published exposes
began to appear.
Eventually a rival Grand Lodge was founded, which charged that the main body had
de-Christianized the Craft, had transposed the modes of recognition in the first and second degrees, omitted certain
prayers, ignored saints' days, and committed other crimes. The dissidents took the name "Antients" and
labeled the original Grand Lodge the "Moderns". The rivalry continued from 1751 to 1813, when two royal
brothers headed the opposing factions and agreed to sign the articles of reunion. The amalgamated Grand Lodge consented
to include the Royal Arch degree favored by the Antients as a part of pure and ancient Masonry, although most Masons in
England, as in America, never take this degree. The Antients compromised on every point in which they had claimed to
uphold the Christian orientation of the Craft. Reunion of the Antients and Moderns in America followed the English
reunion by four years.
From England, the Craft spread to the continent and to British colonies
throughout the world, often serving as a handy instrument of British policy. Although the Church's basic
objections to Masonry apply to all branches of the Craft, we can distinguish two main Masonic traditions: those of
Anglo-Saxon Masonry, including England, Scotland, the United States, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries; and those
of the Grand Orients such as France, Spain, Italy, and South America. We shall review the status of Latin and European
Masonry in chapter 10. Suffice to say, the attitude of the Church toward the lodge meant that, in Catholic nations, only
religious rebels and Jews sought admission to the lodges. This concentration of atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, Jews,
and anticlericals turned Latin Masonry into a subversive and hostile critic of Christianity and all religions. When the
Grand Orient of France in 1877 rejected the landmark of belief in God and removed the Volume of the Sacred Law from the
lodges, the Anglo Saxons severed fraternal relations, which have never been resumed.
Latin
Freemasonry grew increasingly revolutionary and anticlerical after 1860 but seems to be undergoing a process of
disintegration today. English Freemasonry went on to become ultra-respectable, bourgeois, vaguely Protestant, and
royalist. In the United States as well as in England, the lodge has assumed the proportions of a mass movement among the
white Protestant middle class rather than an elite. The Catholic heritage of the operative Masonic lodges has been all
but obliterated, and the brethren have long been nourished on a concoction of fables and falsehoods regarding the origin
of the fraternity.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Delmer Duane Darrah, History and Evolution of Freemasonry (Chicago: Charles T. Powner, 1951), pp. 25-26.
[2] Ibid. p. 36.
[3] Fred L. Pick and Norman G. Knight, The Pocket History of Freemasonry (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), p. 9.
[4] Humphrey J. T. Johnston, Freemasonry: A Short Historical Sketch (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1952), p. 3.
Christianity And American Freemasonry
by William J. Whalen
What is it about Freemasonry that would cause churches to forbid or openly discourage seventy million Americans from membership? Why have eight popes condemned the Lodge? Why has the
relationship between the Catholic Church and the Masonic order been strained for centuries? Christianity and American Freemasonry answers these and many other questions and describes
why Christ ianity and Freemasonry are incompatible.
Today over two million American men belong to the Masonic order, the largest and oldest secret fraternal society. In earlier history the Freemasons boasted a prestigious membership, including
fourteen American presidents and such founding fathers as Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, and Alexander Hamilton. This is the most complete reference book available on the subject.
Chapters discuss the rituals and oaths, the Scottish and York rites, allied organizations such as the Shriners, and the historic antagonism of Christianity toward Masonry. It is
thoroughly documented with facts from:
• the three most noted experts on Masonry in America
• Masonic ritual books, encyclopedias, and histories
• three former Masons, now active Catholics, who contributed firsthand knowledge of Masonic ritual and structure.
William J. Whalen was a nationally known expert on comparative religion, and an author of fiften books and more than 200 articles, pamphlets, and encyclopedia
entries. He was a professor of communications at Purdue University for over forty years.
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