Great Lord, who judgest sins of all degrees,
Is there no little private hell for these?
Edition 352 copies.
INTRODUCTION.
This pamphlet in its present form is the result of an inquiry into the characters represented in a historical grade of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, and the probability of their having existed at the date mentioned in the said grade. Few appeared to have any very clear notion of the relation of the characters to the period—Frederick II. being confounded with his grand-father, Frederick Barbarossa—and the date of the supposed foundation of the Order of Teutonic Knights, 1190, being placed as the date of the papacy of Oronata, otherwise Honorius III. Inquiry being made of one in authority as to the facts in the case—he being supposed to know—elicited the reply that the matter had been called to his attention some months previous by an investigator—now deceased—but the matter had been dropped. It was also surmised by the same authority that an error might have been made by one of the committee having ritualistic matter in charge—but he, having also been gathered to his fathers, was not available for evidence.
It is stated that the action took place when Frederick II. was Emperor of Germany, and Honorius III. presided over spiritual conditions; but this Pope, according to Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates, reigned 1216–1227, and the dissertation on the pamphlet names Gregory IX., successor to Honorius, (1227–1241) as the Pope against whom the treatise was written. The infamous book mentioned in the representation no one seemed to have any knowledge of. Inquiry made concerning the treatise at various libraries supposed to possess it, and of various individuals who might know something of it, elicited but the information that it was purely “legendary,” that, “it had no existence except by title,” and that “it was an item of literature entirely lost.”
Having been a book collector and a close reader of book catalogs for over twenty-five years, I had never noted any copy offered for sale, but a friend with the same mania for books, had seen a copy mentioned in a German catalog, and being interested in “de tribus Impostoribus” for reasons herein mentioned, had sent for and procured the same—an edition of a Latin version compiled from a Ms. 1598, with a foreword in German. The German was familiar to him, but the Latin was not available.
About the same time I found in a catalog of a correspondent of mine at London, a book entitled “Les Trois Imposteurs. De Tribus Impostoribus et dissertation sur le livre des Trois Imposteurs, sm. 4to. Saec. XVIII.,” and succeeded in purchasing it.