A further indication of the Templar influence in Craft Masonry is the system of degrees and initiations. The names of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason are said to have derived from Scotland,[309] and the analogy between these and the degrees of the Assassins has already been shown. Indeed, the resemblance between the outer organization of Freemasonry and the system of the Ismailis is shown by many writers. Thus Dr. Bussell observes: "No doubt together with some knowledge of geometry regarded as an esoteric trade secret, many symbols to-day current did pass down from very primitive times. But a more certain model was the Grand Lodge of the Ismailis in Cairo"--that is to say the Dar-ul-Hikmat.[310] Syed Ameer Ali also expresses the opinion that "Makrisi's account of the different degrees of initiation adopted in this lodge forms an invaluable record of Freemasonry. In fact, the lodge at Cairo became the model of all the Lodges created afterwards in Christendom."[311] Mr. Bernard Springett, a Freemason, quoting this passage, adds: "In this last assertion I am myself greatly in agreement."[312]
It is surely therefore legitimate to surmise that this system penetrated to Craft Masonry through the Templars, whose connexion with the Assassins--offshoot of the Dar-ul-Hikmat--was a matter of common knowledge.
The question of the Templar succession in Freemasonry forms perhaps the most controversial point in the whole history of the Roman Collegia theory, Continental Masons more generally accepting it, and even glorying in it.[313] Mackey, in his Lexicon of Freemasonry, thus sums up the matter:
The connexion between the Knights Templar and the Freemasons has been repeatedly asserted by the enemies of both institutions, and has often been admitted by their friends. Lawrie, on this subject, holds the following language: "We know that the Knights Templar not only possessed the mysteries but performed the ceremonies and inculcated the duties of Freemasons," and he attributes the dissolution of the Order to the discovery of their being Freemasons and their assembling in secret to practise the rites of the Order.[314]
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 manœuvres 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.[315]
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[316] instituted by this prince and in which the receptions were based on those of the Order of the Temple. It is there 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, Dominiorum Militiæ 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.[317]
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 was 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.