The Ideas Which Made
Freemasonry Possible
by William H. Stemper Jr. MPS
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the origin of fraternalism
in general and Freemasonry in particular, in terms of the
intellectual currents which made the Masonic Fraternity conceivable
as an institution.
The presuppositions of the paper are twofold:
(1) that there was
achieved an intellectual and institutional synthesis near the
beginning of 18th century culture, ca. 1717-1738, which, in
essence, "created " Freemasonry as we have come to know it in
subsequent times further
(2) that since Freemasonry is the prototype for much of subsequent fraternalism,
and that most major fraternal orders have utilized both the ritual and Masonic
structure as a model, then to understand the intellectual preconditions for
Freemasonry, allow the student to grasp with greater clarity the unique
phenomenon off fraternalism in western culture.
Freemasonry, as we know it, has existed in various places and times for about
300 years. Yet, nowhere has its impact upon culture been more profound than in
the United States of America. After the Revolution of 1776 the fraternity provided a source of symbols, myths,
and a public ethic or virtue, which--to the same extent--because of
a similar role of the Monarchy and the Established Church in
England makes the United States a unique laboratory for
understanding the role of Freemasonry as a civilizational or
cultural phenomenon.
Thus, to define the exact nature--as far as possible--of what was
unique about early Freemasonry in the United States helps any
inquiry into the preconditions for the synthesis or creation of
Freemasonry itself.
Further, to understand the unique American experience assists the
Masonic student to understand what specific philosophical currents
in the 17th Century and before made Freemasonry possible.
If this paper succeeds in clarifying these latter currents--even to
a small and suggestive degree--then its purpose will have been
served. The U.S. Masonic Imprint: 'What the Craft Achieved'
Apart from the heroic role of key Freemasons in the American
Revolution, the fund of ideas, symbols, and myths associated with
Freemasonry were instrumental to the birth of the new nation.
Historian of religions, Joseph Campbell (1)
summarizes this
achievement in two ways:
(l) that the symbols of the Craft became the symbolism of the nation; and
(2) that the ideas of fraternity within the Craft were projected beyond the mere
teachings of a particular order, into the popular mindset of the revolutionaries
themselves.
This latter point is particularly important because it signifies
that the Founding Fathers were able to articulate a vision which
achieved two potentially opposite objectives simultaneously--the
good of the whole, or the commonwealth; and the rights of the
individual within that whole.
Thus, two potentially contradictory aims, the rights of the State
vs. the rights of the person, were reconciled, and preserved in
creative tension.
Symbolically, Freemasonry's imagery provided a third, alternative
path between the symbols of the Church, on the one side; and the
symbols of Monarchy, on the other; both of which were the
prevailing systems of authority in the 18th Century European
milieu.
The point becomes more evident when it is
remembered that the
Revolutionary and later the Federalist period spawned a unique
architectural school which reflected not only the egalitarian and
enlightened ideals of the Founding Fathers, but also which lended
an aesthetic aura of believable respectability to buildings such as
the White House and Federal Hall, in New York, which came to embody
the public image of the new nation.
Nation-making is of course no easy task. Because the United States
was the first modern nation built not upon arbitrary military
power, dynastic ambition, or even pure self-interest, the foremost
task of the Founding Fathers after the Revolution was to articulate
a unifying philosophy or ideology which made sense to the educated
classes of the era. This meant that the political promises in the
Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787),
i.e., individual rights, had to be reconciled by a public
philosophy which explained, or at least made understandable, the
reality that everyone was not economically equal.(2)
In other words they had to find a philosophy which spoke of the
dignity of work, the essential democracy of hierarchical
representation--itself a potentially contradictory concept--all
within a vision of harmony which avoided sectarian strife. The
answer was of course Freemasonry.
In specific, early American Freemasonry performed three particular
functions which illuminate its earlier origins in European
intellectual history:
1. It achieved a kind of truce with sectarian religion, notably
Puritanism and Congregationalism in New England, which allowed for
persons who did not agree in theology to conduct a successful war
against a third, "greater evil," British tyranny. Because most of
the Founding Fathers were in some way associated with the Church of
England, this achievement is all the more significant. (3),(4)
2. It occasioned and justified an intelligentsia, and politica,
elite, which was both committed to the dissemination of knowledge,
and to the effective, responsible brokering of power in a
progressive spirit. (5)
3. When the Anti-Masonic era forced a restructuring of
Freemasonry's public image, and a lessening of its elitist com-
position, ca. 1826, it "recovered" to assume still another cultural
role as the acceptable middle class symbol of cooperation in
commerce and civic affairs. During the period of the United
States' relative absence from European affairs, 1776-1914, indeed
Freemasonry remained the essential philosophy of harmonious
pluralism for the entire nation. (6)
In another context,(7) I have suggested that Freemasonry can best
be understood by reference to symbolic strata within the ritual
motifs: biblical, medieval, hermetic (or occult) and Deistic or
Enlightenment elements.
This way of approaching the study of Masonic origins is helpful
because it enables the student to think of the synthesis of Masonic
ideas in the early 18th century in terms of prevailing currents of
ideas in the broader English and European context. For example, one
can usefully trace the medieval, chivalric motif, including the
degrees of the Royal Order of Ssotlands to the 1745 Jacobite era
with its interest in the revival of chivalric; and the organization
of modern Templary to the English Romantic era, ca. 1798
(9) to
1850 (beginnings of French Realism), when both the Grand Encampment
of Knights Templar, U.S.A. was instituted (1817) and the English
and Welsh "United Religious and Military Orders of the Temple and
of St. John of Jerusalem," etc. was reorganized under the Duke of
Sussex (1812-1843).
With the exception of the biblical motif, which was probably
absorbed into Free-masonry in the 17th Century with the saga of the
building of King Solomon's Temple,(l0) the medieval, hermetic, and
Enlightenment motifs can indeed be traced to the same chronological,
times in which each of these currents prospered. which each of
these currents prospered. Further, we can trace key Masonic emblems to each of these eras, as follows:
1. Operative working tools; to the Gothic Mss., 1390 ca., ff.
2. The use of architecture as a memory or mnemonic for ethics and
morality, to the 16th and 17th century "occult revival" and to
Puritan moralizing literature. (11)
3. The All Seeing Eye, as the central symbol of English and
American Deism, to the iconography of the era. (12)
One can understand the Founding Fathers, and indeed those who
synthesized Freemasonry into a coherent moral system and into an
institution simultaneously, if--and only if--it is understood that
the use of particular emblems reflect a living, mythic connection between
society, including government, and the perception of the structure of the
universe.
Thus, to understand the origin of Freemasonry, and its imprint upon
the psyche of the new American nation, for example, it is important
to understand that emblems were not as we view them today--
intellectual devices to help us recall particular precepts or
teachings, but actual, bridges between human experience and the
perceived nature of the created universe.
Another way to emphasize this point is to suggest that what 20th century man has
come to understand as a difference between the exact, literal meaning of a word,
or image; and its symbolic meaning, or allegorical, significance, did not exist in the same way for
a person in the 17th or 18th Century. What we mean today to be "
Symbolical, " they meant as "literal. "
Thus, to understand the exact currents in the intellectual history
of Europe--without which there would be no Freemasonry as we know
it--it is important also to understand that each current utilized
its symbols in unique ways. The 16th Century philosopher looking at
medieval working tools, for example, would see them as instruments
of a change in consciousness; Solomon's Temple, for example, would
be a means to experience man's place in the order of the universe;
and the All-seeing Eye would be a statement that enlightened
rationality might put one in touch with the mind of God.
Archetypal Men: The Creative Intellects Who Conceived Pre-Masonic Ideas
Freemasonry is quintessentially the product of certain historical
elites: small groups of influential or powerful men who not only
were able to conceive of an organization such as the Craft became,
but also to imprint their surrounding culture with the significance
of their ideas.
This is most clearly seen in American history, as I have noted
above, by the Founding Fathers, and the generation of men following
them, such as DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) and Andrew Jackson
(1767-1845), who were the links between the upper-class Freemasonry
of Washington and Franklin, and the more middle class Fraternity of
the post-Morgan period.
Thus Freemasonry has always been at its best when it has captured
the enthusiasm and loyalty of influential persons.
In England, two intellectual and/or commercial elites were
particularly important to the founding of Grand Lodge: the members
of the Royal Society, and the Huguenot emigres of Reformed, or
Protestant faith, who flocked to England after the Revocation of
the Edicts of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685.
Elias Ashmole, the first recorded English speculative Freemason,
was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Jean Theophile des Aguliers,
later John Theophilus Desaguliers, was both a Fellow of the Royal
Society (1714) and a Huguenot, as well as the third Grand Master of
the premier Grand Lodge. (13)
The function of the Craft in this period 1685-1717-1723, indeed,
can be seen as that of convening inquiring, progressive intellects
who believed themselves to be part of either an aristocracy of
learning; or in the case of Desaguliers and Presbyerian James
Anderson (ca. 1678-1739), a spiritual aristocracy associated with
the principles of Calvinism, notably its doctrine of the elect.
Even the Chevalier Ramsay (1686-88-1743)--though a Roman Catholic--
was reared as a Calvinist.
It is helpful, therefore, to examine representative members of the
intellectual elite of England in the period prior to the creation
of Grand Lodge, and to do so in terms of their association not only
with the "corridors of power," political or intellectual, but also
because they and their writings embody the concepts which are to be
found at the very heart of speculative Freemasonry.
These 'archetypal' figures will help us to understand what unique
comingling of specific ideas, myths, symbols, etc., made
Freemasonry as we have come to know possible.
The Medieval Stratum:
Giordano Bruno
Apart from the Gothic Manuscripts and the existence of operative
Lodges we have little evidence today that Freemasonry began in the
middle ages in any form.
Cyril Batham, Past Master and former Secretary of the premier Lodge
of Masonic Research, has nailed his scholarly "colours" to the mast
by saying that he no longer believes that speculative Freemasonry
evolved from operative Freemasonry. (14)
Rather, we should look to
the survival and existence of philosophically inclined cells within
religious fraternities which went underground when they were disendowed in 1547 at the end of the reign of Henry VIII.
If we turn to the general history of ideas in Renaissance England,
however, we find a general, though muted, fascination with the
medieval view of life far after the close of the so-called middle
ages. This motif can be seen in a revival of interest in medieval
chivalry, and the codes of ethics and morality associated with it,
far after the knight on horseback ceased to be a viable military or
social figure, and long after feudalism ceased to be the principal
factor in European economic organization.
The essential dynamic was a tension between an intellectual
appreciation for an older form of medieval thought which was not
scholastic or dogmatic, versus the imported Italian humanism
familiar to us through the lives of such men as Sir Thomas More
(1478-1535), Sir Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540), and Sir Thomas Elyot
(c. 1490-1546; pub. Bolce of the Govenour (1531)--all of whom
studied in Italy. The humanists regarded all things medieval as
corrupt--and left the universities, notably Oxford, because they
deemed them to be devoid of honest intellectual inquiry.
The 'older form' of medieval thought was not narrowly-speaking
scholastic, however, and is significant to the origin of Masonic
ideas because it incorporated through such figures as Friar Roger
Bacon (c. 1214-1292); the so-called Merton College school of
astronomy, and Bishop Robert Grossteste, one of the fathers of
modern experimental science (c. 1175-1253), a deep interest in the
mystica, significance of numbers. The philosophical trends, or
currents, most associated with this form might be termed a
combination of Platonism, with its emphasis upon the enduring idea,
as the only reality, and the medieval understanding of Pythagoras.
By the end of the 16th century, it is possible to identify a
distinct movement within the intellectual circles of Elizabethan
England which might be characterized as including the following
elements:
1. The mystically-oriented medievalism, mentioned above.
2. Renaissance humanism, which itself was deeply imprinted with a
fresher, and more secular view of Plato, called " Neo-Platonism."
(15)
3. A form of courtly, chivalric manners which was knightly in
character, but an anachronistic application of the way the
Renaissance viewed knighthood as the idea, of Renaissance manhood.
(16)
Each of these elements existed not only in a kind of creative
tension with each other, but also--after the Act of Supremacy in
1535--with increasingly extreme forms of religious sentiment: Roman
Catholic reaction to the English Reformation under Henry VIII
during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558); and strong expressions
of Calvinism which became dominant during the reign of the boy-
King, Edward VI ( 1547-1553), and toward the end of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth (1603).
The medieval strain of mysticism suffered both from the hand of
secular humanists, who considered anything medieval corrupt and
intellectually dishonest and from the newly formed Puritan
Calvinists, who considered anything medieval to be under the
influence of Roman Catholic idolatry.
The result was that those who affirmed the value of the earlier
tradition attempted to preserve a broader vision of society, and of
the life of the mind, than was acceptable to established
ecclesiastical and political authorities.
Into this situation moved--like a comet--the pivotal or bridge
figure of a former Italian, Dominican monk, Giordano Bruno
(1548-1600) whose short visit to England in 1583-1584 belies the
enormous impact he had upon intellectually and spiritually minded
Englishmen. (17)
In brief, Bruno was able to meld, or merge existing English
interest in the medieval mystical tradition, with his own
fascination in the legendary Egyptian philosopher Hermes
Trismegistus--assumed at the time to be a contemporary of Moses,
and a foreteller of the coming of Christ.
Bruno, who was ultimately executed by the Roman inquisition, is
important to the origin of Masonic ideas because he actively
advocated the preservation of medieval architecture--in a period
when Protestants were pulling down medieval abbeys and statuary
wholesale--and because he was the first major Renaissance figure to
call for a broad, tolerant international ethic of world peace and
universal brotherhood. 18(a)
That he did so with self-conscious
reference to Egyptian mythology and philosophy makes him--in the
spirit of Mozart's Magic Flute, two hundred years later, the first
identifiable pre-Masonic figure.l8(b)
There is an important sense in which the pre-Masonic ethic of Bruno
was reinforced by the enduring presence of medieval political
philosophy in the writings of Renaissance scholars such as Richard
Hooker (c. 1554-1600), the arch defender of a broad based national
Church of England against the increasing influence of Puritanism.
(19) Hooker, who rejects the political use of the Bible as too
subjective and sectarian and who advocates an early form of
constitutional monarchy, puts forward political ideas of tolerance
and justice which--balanced with Bruno's philosophy--produce a
strong re-interpretation of the medieval commonwealth appropriate
to a more modern England. (20)
After Bruno and Hooker, the stage
was set for the usage of medieval elements in both morality and
political structure which we find in Freemasonry after the
synthesis of 1717.
The "Occult" Stratum: John Dee
No stratum, or layer of pre-Masonic ideas is either so elusive or
important to Freemasonry as the esoteric, or "occult" aspect of the
Fraternity. Because Freemasonry is by definition secretive, and
therefore unlike other English institutions created at the same
time, notably livery companies, scholarly societies, schools,
churches, etc., we should be open to substantive, scholarly
inquiries into the flow of occult ideas in and around London prior
to the creation of Grand Lodge.
But, this is not the case. The proliferation of quasi-mystical, and
sometimes irregular degrees in Europe after 1717; the ambivalence
of English Freemasonry about the Royal Arch until the Union of
1813, and the general hostility of Masonic researchers to the whole
issue, has made this most important of all Masonic scholarly
questions the most difficult to answer.
It is helpful to understand the exact nature of the question. In
short, this writer's framing of the inquiry would be something like
the following:
What secret, esoteric, or hermetic influences shaped the
environment out of which Freemasonry emerged in the 17th Century?
Put this way, scholars can achieve two important objectives:
(l)
the avoidance of an uncritical association of Freemasonry with pre-
Grand Lodge precedents for morally grounded, secret societies--or
societies with secrets; and
(2) explore the reason or rationale the
esoteric or occult was so important to Freemasons after Grand
Lodge--important enough either to embrace and embellish; or
important enough to curtail or suppress.
The question is made more manageable if we select one of the most
important Masonic symbols: the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, as
a key to the inquiry.
By considering the way in which the occult/hermetic tradition
utilizes the Temple, we can perhaps understand more sharply what
its function was.
In the briefest of terms this is presaged or anticipated first in
the life and work of the Renaissance, Elizabethan Magus
John Dee (1527-1608), the Astrologer Royal to Queen Elizabeth I,
and reputedly the most learned man in England at the time.
(21)
Dee was convinced that architecture was the key to a comprehensive
understanding of the universe. The architect's role in society was
indeed that of the actualization, and symbol of the universal,
enlightened scholar. (22)
More germaine to the origin of Freemasonry, John Dee was convinced
that architecture was an 'immaterial' art, the basis for which was
in the individual moral imagination. (23)
Actual physical architecture was a magical or mystical enterprise
because "ideally structures were patterned after potent celestia,
harmonies." (24)
By 1570--147 years prior to Grand Lodge--Dee was publishing such
ideas among the emerging class of English artisans, whose
descendants two generations later were among the first Freemasons.
John Dee was anticipating the purpose or function of architecture
as a moral teaching device notably the literature Alex Horne has
pointed out with regard to the role of King Solomon's Temple as a
moralizing device among Puritans. (25)
Such literature later in the 17th century was similar to the
allegorical writings of John Milton (1608-1674) and John Bunyon
(1628-1688).
But Dee's contribution as a pre-Masonic archetype is unique not
only because he was a profound mathematician and geographer--a
premier intellect of his day--but because he understood that the
specific function of architecture was a memory device: a means for
man to recall harmonies and proportions in the universe which were
related to the harmonious ordering of human society and of the
individual soul.
He was instrumental in re-introducing the insights of the Roman
architect Vitruvius (First Century BC First Century AD) whose work,
De architectura was much used by Renaissance architects in the
classical revival.
The full use of architecture as a moral memory device
(26) --to
recall and apply the harmonies of the heavens to earthly forms--
does not develop until the influence of Rosicrucianism upon English
intellectuals, notably Robert Fludd (1574-1637), Thomas Vaughan,
and Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), but with John Dee the stage is set
for a combination of the moral medievalism of Bruno and the symbol-
making of Rosicrucianism to make speculative Freemasonry more
conceivable to those who were eventually to become the synthesizers
of the Craft.
The scope of Rosicrucianism is beyond this paper. However, no
single current of ideas is more significant to the formation of
Freemasonry than this unique and subtle current of concepts in
European intellectual circles in the early 17th century.
It is premature to state categorically that Rosicrucianism had a
direct, tangible impact upon the Craft degrees (This thesis was the
subject of a not altogether successful paper to Quatuor Coronati
Lodge No. 2076, by A.C.F. Jackson, on June 28, 1984). Yet, apart
from the Rose Croix (27) which appears after 1750, and the Royal
Arch, which appeared sometime in the 1740's, (28)
it is important
that many of us have been asking the "wrong" question about
Rosicrucian influence upon Masonic symbolism.
This issue is not to prove or disprove a mystical, magical, or even
esoterically Christian influence upon Freemasonry, but rather to
examine how precisely such images as King Solomon's Temple were
utilized--in terms of function--which might provide a clue to why
the Temple is such a central symbol.
The answer is, I suspect, to be found in a German text by an
obscure scholar known as Simon Studion, called Naomdria published
in 1604. The manuscript is important for pre-Masonic history
because it suggests that the real purpose for utilizing King
Solomon' s Temple in Masonic ritual is the interpretation of
history; in a simplistic manner, to predict or prophesy about the
future in terms of the 17th century pre Scientific Revolution
mindset, but also more philosophically to give meaning to history,
in the same way that the great classical historians, such as
Polybius, Augustine, Suetonius, Thucydides, Tacitus, etc.,--and
later Edward Gibbon himself--sought to give moral meaning to
historica, narrative.
Naometria suggests that the whole span of history can be
interpreted from the measurements of King Solomon's Temple. To us
this sounds ludicrous; but to the more mythically oriented mind of
the late Renaissance, it is plausible not only because the Temple
was the chosen biblical vessel of God's presence before Christ, but
because it became a symbol for Christian pilgrimage in the Middle
Ages. Such an effort is also similar to other 17th century efforts
such as the Discourse on Universal History by French Roman Catholic
Bishop acques Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704), whose work seeks to
prove that the French Kingdom is the inheritor of the spiritual
warrant of the Holy Roman Empire, and thus the embodiment of the
virtues of earlier classical empires, Greek and Roman.
This method is all the more significant for an inquiry into the
pre-Masonic origins of Grand Lodge because later Masonic writers,
notably George Oliver (1782-1867) in England; and Salem Town
(1779-1864) in the United States both utilize Masonic symbolism,
including the Temple, as a means to interpret all of history, from
pre-Christian antiquity to their present day.
We have been put off such writers because they are--of course--not
empirical, critical historians--and indeed, the great
accomplishment of Robert Freke Gould and other founders of Quatuor
Coronati Lodge No. 2076 was to repudiate the claims of such men to
be actual historians.
But today, to read George Oliver, (29)
and to a lesser extent Salem
Town,(30) is not so much to be reminded of Alex Horne's Puritan
moralizing on the Temple, (31)
but to be transported to the very
beginning of the 17th century in Simon Studion's Germany: 219 years
prior to Oliver.
Here we come to a remarkable issue in the understanding of the
Masonic synthesis which produced Grand Lodge, which might be
expressed as follows: Since both Dee's and the genera, Rosicrucian
influence, (32) was so notable in the lives of Elias Ashmole
(initiated, 1646) and Robert Moray, the first recorded speculative
initiate in Scotland (1641), and both were associated with the
Royal Society, as were so many founders of Grand Lodge, why was not
the occult influence more overt and noticeable in the first
Constitutions (1723-1725)?
The obvious response is that Anderson's role was not only that of
a codifier, law-writer, and historian (by the standards of the
day), but also an arbiter, compromiser, and filterer of ideas--
deciding--perhaps with a committee--what would be included, and
what would not.
There is little question that intelligent men of the late 17th and early 18th
century were horrified at the incipient violence of the century through which
they had just passed: the holocaust of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), the
English Civil War (1642-1660), the English Revolution (1688-1690), and the
upheaval of the Puritan Commonwealth, could not have but repelled men of
sensibility, when countless men and women were killed in the name of religion.
Understandably, anything that would feed sectarian strife--most
particularly quasimystica, or occult issues--were omitted from the
constitution, and--when standardized--ritual formularies.
More tangibly, any reference to King Solomon's Temple which was not explicit in
the Authorized Version of the Bible's accounts (1611) of the building of the
Temple (33) must have given respectable-minded men pause. Any
esoteric reference would have been suspect.
The issue of the filtration of occult ideas from Masonic ritual and
practice is also one of the increasing scientific sophistication of
critical scholarship in the late 1600's. Antiquaries such as John
Aubrey (1626-1697) and Elias Ashmole as models of scholarship were
giving way to persons such as Christopher Wren (1632-1723), first
an astronomer, then an architect, and Isaac Newton (1642-1727),
physicist, but also a student of the esoteric aspects of Holy
Scripture, both of whom were transitional figures from the late
Renaissance to the age of the Scientific Revolution.
An excellent laboratory to examine the filtration process is also
the so-called Cambridge Platonists--a group of scholars at
Cambridge University from 1633-1688. They sought to purify and
apply the philosophy of Neo-Platonism--which was the common denominator both to secular Renaissance humanism, and to the earlier
medieval strain associated with Giordano Bruno---to expand the
spiritual meaning of Christianity, and to avoid the extremes of
dogmatic, scholastic Catholicism, and literalistic Puritanism. In
this effort they were not unlike classic early Christian apologists
for Christianity, such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, who
found much in Plato's thought to enrich Christian theology in order
that cultured non-Christian Greeks and Romans might understand, as
well as believe the Christian Faith.
The Cambridge Platonists were also self-consciously attempting to
relate Christianity to the new spirit of philosophical thought
associated with Rene Descartes (1596-1650), which was a harbinger
of modern scientific method.
They are an intellectual, and an academic precedent for Freemasonry
because they appealed to "Reason," from Neo-Platonic sources, and
because they nurtured a concept of " Summum Bonum"--the greatest
good--which anticipates the Masonic concept of the Tetragrammaton--
the ineffable Name of God, toward which Masonic initiation is
directed.
One of these gentle scholars, Benjamin Whichcote (1609-1683)
advocated toleration for Jews during Cromwell's Protectorate--and
the then revolutionary idea that one did not have to be Christian
to be a moral person.
A second Cambridge Platonist, Henry Moore (1614-1687) advocated a
doctrine of higher truth which was attainable through steps, or
degrees; and a third Ralph Cudworth (1617 1688) considered ethics
and morality as a reflection of the harmony implicit in the universe.
(34)
Yet, in spite of their considerable toleration and efforts to
reconcile ethics and religion with science, they are a principal
"filter" through which pre-Masonic intellectual currents were
cleansed of any reference to the deep mystical symbolism of Bruno
or John Dee.
They preserved the basic framework of Neo-Platonic philosophy which
Free-masonry exhibits in its degree system; the concept of Light;
toleration; and Reason, but were persuaded to jettison any trace of
mysticism. In this they were blood brothers under the skin of James
Anderson!
The Deistic " Stratum ";
John Toland
Beyond the medievalism of Giordano Bruno, and the occultism of John
Dee, the origin of Masonic ideas can be traced to Deism--the
quintessential philosophy of Freemasonry, and of our own Founding
Fathers.
No element is as crystalline clear in Masonic ritual as this one--
conspicuously God as the Great Architect of the Universe: a God who
does not interfere in human affairs, but whose very nature orders
and structures all of creation.
Deism is implicit in much Greek and Roman philosophy, notably the
stoicism of Marcus Aurelius--yet can be traced in specific to three
early modern scholars 'who again 'set the stage' for the mind set
to be found in the Masonic view of man and the universe:
Jean Bodin (1530-1596); Pierre Charron (1541-1603), both French,
and the Englishman Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648).
Deism also recalls the philosophy of nominalism, in England most
conspicuously represented by William of Occam (c. 1300-1349)--who
advocated the separation of faith--as dealing only with the
theological attributes of God--from Reason, the hallmark of Masonic
philosophy four centuries later.
Importantly, Deism implies a kind of practicalism in public affairs
and government which first becomes evident in the role of the new
educated urban classes of urban England. (35)
Whereas the medieval state took a view only to the preservation of
order; the Renaissance Tudor State, and the State during the
Deistic era of the 18th Century presumed that educated, affluent
elites would be par excellence active and informed citizens.
Because Deism was--in effect--the "religion" of the Founding
Fathers, (36) we are accustomed to thinking of it as a backdrop for
both the American Revolution of 1776, and the French, 1789.
But in terms of pre-Masonry, Deism is important to understand
because it was the "compromise" between Bruno's medievalism and
Dee's occultism which was acceptable to Desaguliers, Anderson, and
countless other progenitors of Grand Lodge.
I have mentioned the political grounds which made such a compromise
necessary. But there were other bases for a pruning down of Masonic
symbolism at the time of the synthesis: it became intellectually
and academically indefensible to uphold the pre-Christian, "Egyptian" grounds for Bruno's and Dee's symbolism after the scholarly
work of the Swiss-born Anglican, Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614), who
disproved the existence of Hermes.
Casaubon's career signals the point at which alchemy, cabbalism,
and hermeticism cease to appeal to serious, established scholars--
and likewise the beginning of a separate intellectual elite, apart
from universities and major scholarly societies, who pursued
esoteric studies.
He, and his son Meric (1599-1671) relentlessly debunked any idea
that a mystical, pre-Christian world vision of universal
brotherhood ever existed. If we recall that John Dee articulated
such a vision, which by the way also justified to him the
Elizabethan imperial colonization of the world in terms of Neo-
Platonism, (37) we can begin to see that the respectability of
Dee's vision was dealt a death-blow. After Casaubon, and certainly
after his son's French contemporary Jean Mabillon (1632-1707)--the
French Benedictine scholar who more than anyone else is the founder
of modern historical scholarship--none of the premier intellects of
the late 17th or 18th century would touch the kind of "mythic"
history associated with Dee or Bruno. If history were written to
make a moral point, the moral point was that of current political
philosophy, such as Gibbon's Decline and Fall and not a quasi-
mystical advocacy of world brotherhood.
The path of making Deism the prevailing philosophy of Freemasonry
was a fateful one, containing both positive and negative aspects.
On the positive side was the fact that Deism was the only practical
comprehensive successor to the occultism of Bruno and Dee which
also advocated a world brotherhood of harmony and peace; and
without the risk of offending scientists or theologians, or just
plain, everyday secular businessmen.
The negative side is that much of the depth or richness of Masonic
symbolism was probably lost--at least until the recrudescence of
the so-called hautes grades after 1750.
I suspect that one thing that was lost was the possibility of
Freemasonry remaining what it certainly was at the creation of
Grand Lodge--a premier world-class gathering of the major
intellects of the day. After 1750, few truly great civilizational
figures--with the exception of the Founding Fathers and W.A. Mozart
were self-conscious Masonic intellects. It was perhaps the price of
respectability that Deistic Freemasonry did not attract--for
whatever reason--the major leaders of the 19th century, and
certainly not the 20th.
Divorced from the centers of scholarship and intellect, occultism
became increasingly idiosyncratic, under the leadership of such
persons as Robert Fludd (1574-1637) who debated Casaubon--but
without entertaining or refuting the seriousness of his points.
(38)
And without what might be termed a spiritual center, Deism--under
the intellectual leadership of such men as John Toland
(1670-1722)--became increasingly iconoclastic, and anticlerical.
While Fludd was attempting to "re-establish" the capacity of
architecture and music to evoke the divine harmony within man
Toland--the quintessential Deist--wrote a book, Christianity Not
Mysterious, (1696) in which he claims that all we need to know of
God can be discerned by and through human reason. Toland's
intellectual cousin was Voltaire--and the other French
philosophers, who tended to treat the baby the same as the bath
water.
This is where we come full circle. I suspect that the genius of the
Founding Fathers was that they perceived that there was more than
a passing connection between the rational Deism of the
Enlightenment and the earlier deeper symbolic richness of Giordano
Bruno and John Dee. At least, they maintained a keen--even razor-
sharp sense of the power of myth and symbolism, without succumbing
to occultism or superstition. They knew they were creating a 'new
order of the ages'--which their architecture and their words
described, but they made an intellectual connection directly
between Dee's appreciation of the power of symbol-as-reality and
Toland's practical rationality, without going to the excess of
either. When we see the excess of the French Revolution, and the
never-never land inhabited by l9th Century occultists, we can
perhaps be grateful that this small group of Masons and their
friends had a vision--and achieved that vision both in the American
Republic, and within the Masonic Fraternity of their time.
Perhaps our task as Masons in the 21st century is to recover,
rearticulate, and realize that vision once again--with direct
relevance to the cosmos which lies at our feet.
ENDNOTES
1 . Joseph Campbell, Thc Power of Myth, New York: Doubleday, 1988,
pp. 24-29.
2.cf. " Building A National Image": Architectural
Drawings for the
American Democracy, 1789-1912, Exhibition organized by the National
Building Museum, Washington, D.C. IBM Gallery of Science and Art,
New York City, May 12-July 11, 1987. Tim Hackler, "His Elective
Highness," Amtrak Express, Feb. March, 1989, 35 passim. Fred
Pierce Corson, Address on Freemasonry and the Constitution,
Philadelphia:, The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 1937, p. 7, ff.
"...Freemasonry was...the only common bond of unity in the Colonies
in 1987 . . . ", p . 11.
Barbara Franco, "Scipio Lodge Reflects Time Capsule of Early 19th
Century." The Northern Light, February, 1989, p. 5, "Scipio Lodge's
classical proportions and Masonic symbolism created an environment
that evoked both the republics of antiquity and the Masonic virtues. . . "
3.cf. Sidney E. Mead, The Lively Experiment, New York: Harper &
Row, 1963, pp. 38-52.
Also H. Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism,
Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Company, pp. 208-209, ff.
Note the impact of Church--State separation on the denominational
identity of evolving immigrant churches.
4.Wilson Carey McWilliams, The Idea of Fraternity in America,
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974, n.b.,
comparison of Enlightenment and Puritanism, p. 172 .
5.cf. Thomas Bender, New York Intellect, Baltimore: The John Hopkins
University Press, 1987, pp. 60-68; E. Dolby Baltzell, Puritan
Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, Boston: Beacon Press, 179-
6.cf. Lynn Dumenil, Freemasonry in American Culture
lb'b'0-1930, Princeton University Press, 1984, pp. 7-8, passim.
The Symbolic Strata: The Essential Emblems of Fraternity.
7. William H. StemperJr., "Freemasons," The Encyclopedia of
Religion, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Vol. V., pp.
416-419.
8.H.W. Coil, Masonic Encyclopedia, New York: Macoy Publishing and
Masonic Supply Company, 1961, p. 163, date dea. 1740-1743.
9. William Wordsworth's "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads.
10.Alex Horne, King Solomon's Temple in the Masonic Tradition, N.
Hollywood, CA: Wilshire Book Company, pp. 29-40.
Helen Rosenau, "Vision of the Temple: The Image of the Temple of
Jerusalem in Judaism and Christianity, " London: Oresko Books Ltd.
1979, pp. 103, 133.
11 .Alex Horne, Sources of Masonic Symbolism, Trenton, MO: The
Missouri Lodge of Research, 1981, pp. 73 ff.
12.Campbell, p. 25 and earlier Horne, Sources.... p. 63.
13.cf. Richard H. Sands, "Physicists, The Royal Society and
Freemasonry, " The Philalethes, Vol. XXXIV, Number 6, pp. 11-16.
Robin D. Gwynn, Huguenot Herita, ?c, London: Routledge, Chapman, and
Hall, 1985, pp. 89-
14.Cyril N. Batham, "The Origin of Speculative Freemasonry: A New
Hypothesis," un-published paper, given to The Goose and Gridiron
Society of the United States, October 1986. But also compare, Harry
Carr, "The Transition From Operative to Speculative Masonry"
T.L.R., September 15, 1979.
15.cf. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought New York: Harper
and Row, 1961, p. 21, n.b. Thomas More, passim.
16a. Arthur B. Ferguson, The Indian Summer of English Chivalry,
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1960.
16.b Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry, New York: Harper and
Row, 1974, pp. 311 ff.
17. Francis A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition,
The University of Chicago Press and London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1964, pp. 275 ff.
18 .Yates, supra, p. 415.
Yates, supra, p. 274.
19.cf. Alexander Passerin D'Entreves, Thc Medieval Contribution to
Political Thought: Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Richard
Hooker, New York: the Humanities Press, 1959, pp. 103 ff.
20. Also cf. Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, Chicago
and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1952, pp. 135 ff.
21 . The Standard Biography is Peter J. French,
John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1972.
It is important to note that the relationship between Renaissance
magic and "orthodox" religion in the 17th Century was not sharply
defined, which suggests the complexity of separating the 'occult'
from the 'rational' in early Masonic constitutions, cf. Keith
Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Harmondswoth, Middlesex,
England: Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 318-323 ff. Also note references
to King Solomon's Temple, Hermes, Pythagoras d. at. in English
translations of the German Mystic Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), cited
in Rufus Jones, "Jacob Boehme's Influence in Eng-land " pp.
208-234, Spiritual Reformers in the 16th and 17th Centuries,
London: Macmillan and Co., 1914.
22 .French, p. 57.
23 .French, p. 58.
24. French, p. 58-59.
25. Horne, Symbolism, supra.
26.cf. Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, The University of
Chicago Press, 1966, pp. 303-305.
27 .cf. A.C . F. Jackson, Rose
Croix--A History of the Ancient and Accepted Rite for England and
Wales
London: Lewis Masonic, 1980, pp. 17 ff., and James Fairbairn Smith,
The Rise of the Ecossais Degrees, Dayton, Ohio: The Otterbein
Press, 1965, pp. 11 ff.
28.Terrence Haunch, Anson Jones Lecture
Transactions Texas Lodge of Research, June 18,1983 March 11, 1984, Waco,
Texas Vol. XIX. ~. 155.
29. Oliver's laborious The Antiquities of Freemasonry comprising
illustrations of the Fioc Crand Paiods o Masony, from the creation
of the World to the Dedication of King Solomon's Temple, 1823.
30 .Town's A Systa II of Speculation Masonry, Salem New York: Dodd
and Stevenson, 1818, n.b. pp. 98-99.
31 . Also cf . Rosenau, supra .
32.cf. Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, Boulder,
CO: Shambbala Publications Inc., 1972, pp. 206-220;
Christopher McIntosh, The Rosicrucians, Denington Estate, Wellingborougb, North
Hamptonshire, UK: Crucible, pp. 50, 60, 67 68,
81, 82 passim.
33.I Kings 5-9; II Chronicles 2-8; Ezekiel 40-47.
34.F.L. Cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, entries
pp. 925, 360-361 passim.
35.cf. Arthur B. Ferguson, The Artuulate Citizan and the English
Ranaissance, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965, pps.
402-409. Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the
New Nation, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987. Also cf. interest
in American philosophy in Plato, with more practical Roman
philosophers, p. 86.
36.cf. Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason, Garden City,
N.Y.: Anchor Doubleday 1978, pP 43 ff
37 . cf. E . M . W . Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture in
New York: Vintage Random House, n.d.,
38.cf. Utriusque cosmi, maioris scilied et minores metaphysical,
physicae atique technica historiac, Vol. I Oppenheim, 1617, Vol. II
1619.
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