There is, however, a third channel through which the Judaic legends of Freemasonry may have penetrated to the Craft, namely, the Rabbis of the seventeenth century. The Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has declared that "there were Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry,"[332] and if this statement is applied to the period preceding the institution of Grand Lodge in 1717 it certainly finds confirmation in fact. Thus it is said that in the preceding century the coat-of-arms now used by Grand Lodge had been designed by an Amsterdam Jew, Jacob Jehuda Leon Templo, colleague of Cromwell's friend the Cabalist, Manasseh ben Israel.[333] To quote Jewish authority on this question, Mr. Lucien Wolf writes that Templo "had a monomania for ... everything relating to the Temple of Solomon and the Tabernacle of the Wilderness. He constructed gigantic models of both these edifices."[334] These he exhibited in London, which he visited in 1675 and earlier, and it seems not unreasonable to conclude that this may have provided a fresh source of inspiration to the Freemasons who framed the masonic ritual some forty years later. At any rate, the masonic coat-of-arms still used by Grand Lodge of England is undoubtedly of Jewish design.
"This coat," says Mr. Lucien Wolf, "is entirely composed of Jewish symbols," and is "an attempt to display heraldically the various forms of the Cherubim pictured to us in the second vision of Ezekiel--an Ox, a Man, a Lion, and an Eagle--and thus belongs to the highest and most mystical domain of Hebrew symbolism."[335]
In other words, this vision, known to the Jews as the "Mercaba,"[336] belongs to the Cabala, where a particular interpretation is placed on each figure so as to provide an esoteric meaning not perceptible to the uninitiated.[337] The masonic coat-of-arms is thus entirely Cabalistic; as is also the seal on the diplomas of Craft Masonry, where another Cabalistic figure, that of a man and woman combined, is reproduced.[338]
Of the Jewish influence in Masonry after 1717 I shall speak later.
To sum up, then, the origins of the system we now know as Freemasonry are not to be found in one source alone. The twelve alternative sources enumerated in the Masonic Cyclopædia and quoted at the beginning of this chapter may all have contributed to its formation. Thus Operative Masonry may have descended from the Roman Collegia and through the operative masons of the Middle Ages, whilst Speculative Masonry may have derived from the patriarchs and the mysteries of the pagans. But the source of inspiration which admits of no denial is the Jewish Cabala. Whether this penetrated to our country through the Roman Collegia, the compagnonnages, the Templars, the Rosicrucians, or through the Jews of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose activities behind the scenes of Freemasonry we shall see later, is a matter of speculation. The fact remains that when the ritual and constitutions of Masonry were drawn up in 1717, although certain fragments of the ancient Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrines were retained, the Judaic version of the secret tradition was the one selected by the founders of Grand Lodge on which to build up their system.
6. The Grand Lodge Era
Whatever were the origins of the Order we now know as Freemasonry, it is clear that during the century preceding its reorganization under Grand Lodge of London the secret system of binding men together for a common purpose, based on Eastern esoteric doctrines, had been anticipated by the Rosicrucians. Was this secret system employed, however by any other body of men? It is certainly easy to imagine how in this momentous seventeenth century, when men of all opinions were coalescing against opposing forces--Lutherans combining against the Papacy, Catholics rallying their forces against invading Protestantism, Republicans plotting in favour of Cromwell, Royalists in their turn plotting to restore the Stuarts, finally Royalists plotting against each other on behalf of rival dynasties--an organization of this kind, enabling one to work secretly for a cause and to set invisibly vast numbers of human beings in motion, might prove invaluable to any party.
Thus, according to certain masonic writers on the Continent, the system used by the Rosicrucians in their fight against "Popery" was also employed by the Jesuits for a directly opposite purpose. In the manuscripts of the Prince of Hesse published by Lecouteulx de Canteleu it is declared that in 1714 the Jesuits used the mysteries of the Rose-Croix. Mirabeau also relates that "the Jesuits profited by the internal troubles of the reign of Charles I to possess themselves of the symbols, the allegories, and the carpets (tapis) of the Rose-Croix masons, who were only the ancient order of the Templars secretly perpetuated. It may be seen by means of what imperceptible innovations they succeeded in substituting their catechism to the instruction of the Templars."[339]
Other Continental writers again assert that Cromwell, the arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, was "a higher initiate of masonic mysteries," and used the system for his own elevation to power[340]; further, that he found himself outdistanced by the Levellers; that this sect, whose name certainly suggests masonic inspiration, adopted for its symbols the square and compass,[341] and in its claim of real equality threatened the supremacy of the usurper. Finally, Elias Ashmole, the Rosicrucian Royalist, is said to have turned the masonic system against Cromwell, so that towards the end of the seventeenth century the Order rallied to the Stuart cause.[342]
But all this is pure speculation resting on no basis of known facts. The accusation that the Jesuits used the system of the Rose-Croix as a cover to political intrigues is referred to by the Rosicrucian Eliphas Lévi as the outcome of ignorance, which "refutes itself." It is significant to notice that it emanates mainly from Germany and from the Illuminati; the Prince of Hesse was a member of the Stricte Observance and Mirabeau an Illuminatus at the time he wrote the passage quoted above. That in the seventeenth century certain Jesuits played the part of political intriguers I suppose their warmest friends will hardly deny, but that they employed any secret or masonic system seems to me perfectly incapable of proof. I shall return to this point later, however, in connexion with the Illuminati.