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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
The bull In Eminenti Apostolatus Specula of April 28, 1738, by which Clement XII inaugurated the long series of papal denunciations of Freemasonry, was issued virtually without warning and without much apparent provocation. Such was not the case with the Unigenitus of 1713 or the Dominus ac Redemptor noster of 1773, affecting Jansenists and Jesuits, for both movements had for years before their proscription occasioned violent controversy not only theological but political. Today the Unigenitus is the gravestone of a dead issue, while the Jesuit order was reinstituted in 1815. But the anti-Masonic Bull of 1738 has proven to be the progenitor of increasingly severe anathemas over two centuries, and the persecutions and the political conflicts to which it gave the impetus show little abatement. Rome's sudden charge of secret heresy and political sedition against a movement which theretofore had been planned and conducted with a view to avoiding, indeed even to reconciling political and theological animus, served to create, wherever the proscriptions enjoined by the Bull were executed, the anti-clerical and revolutionary features objected to! What else could have been expected from the ensuing persecutions, which brought imprisonment, confiscation, exile, and often martyrdom to multitudes of Freemasons in the eighteenth century? And how ironical that fate was for a movement whose original purpose was to unite men of all faiths, values, and classes in a spiritual, moral, and cultural brotherhood, and whose record, prior to the Bull, was one of unprecedented sectarian fraternity. But with the publication of the Bull and the suffering at the hands of the Inquisition and the secular arm which it instigated, there began a virtual crusade, such as had been directed previously against Saracens, Cathari, Hussites, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Socinians, and Huguenots; and this crusade continues, with the connivance of Catholic Fascists, to this day.
2 For text of the Bull, see Magnum Bullarium Romanum, xxiv (1859), 366Google Scholar. English translation in Maekey, , Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (New York, 1929), II, 864Google Scholar. It will be discussed in detail later in this paper.
3 Lennhoff, E., The Freemasons (New York, 1934)Google Scholar, part III, chap. I; Michon, G., Les Documents Pontificaux sur la Démoeratie et la Société moderne (Paris, 1928)Google Scholar, gives texts of the bulls of Leo XII (1826), Pius IX (1846) and Leo XIII (1884). Digests and quotations may be found in Singer, A., Der Kampf Roms gegen die Freimaurerei (Leipzig, 1925)Google Scholar. Though almost every pope since Clement XII has given utterance to his disapproval of Freemasonry, none has used more extreme language than Leo XIII in Humanum genus, as was pointed out by Albert Pike in his Reply to Leo XIII and Humanum Genus (New York, reprint of 1930).Google Scholar
4 The record of these persecutions after the Bull of 1738, and that of Benedict XIV (Providas, 1751Google Scholar), is given in Singer Der Kampf.
5 For the modern situation, see Lang, Ossian, Freemasonry under fire in Continental Europe (New York, 1927)Google Scholar; Lennhoff, , The Freemasons, part II, chap. X, XII.Google Scholar
6 In Eminenti (1738)Google Scholar: “gravissima damna quae ut plurimum ex huiusmodi societatibus seu conventiculis nedum temporalis republicae tranquillitati verum etiam spirituali animarum saluti inferuntur.”
7 Cf. Leeky, Maeaulay, Leadam, et. al., as well as the historians of the Jacobite rebels and the Stuart pretenders, e. g., Head, F. W., The Fallen Stuarts (1901)Google Scholar. French historians of the Revolution, such as Mathiaz, Cochin, See, et. al., have explored their field more thoroughly, and B. Fay's work, Revolution, and Freemasonry (Boston, 1935)Google Scholar, is a convenient summary.
8 Cf. Ruffini, F., Religious Liberty (New York, 1912)Google Scholar; Robertson, J. M., Short History of the Freedom of Thought (New York, 1906).Google Scholar
9 The Grand Lodges of York and Ireland, though independent of London, were practically of its spirit and were not Jacobite.
10 The Book of Constitutions (London, 1723)Google Scholar is basic for the Revival. It contained several strict injunctions against political and theological controversy in the Lodges, e. g., Article VI: “And if the ancient kings and princes have always been disposed to protect the members of the corporation, it is that in the fulfillment of their duties and contrary to the accusations of their adversaries they are ever distinguished by their quiet and their loyalty and by the care which they have taken to preserve the honor of their fraternity, which peace has ever prospered.” … “Avoid especially controversies on religion, nationality and polities.” Also article II, “A Mason is a peaceable subject of the civil power … if a Brother should rebel against the state he is not to be countenanced in his rebellion, however he may be pitied as an unhappy man … though they cannot expel him from the Lodge.”
11 See chapter by the present author on “The Religion of Early Freemasonry” in the volume presented to Case, Shirley Jackson, Environmental Factors in Christian History (Chicago, 1939).Google Scholar
12 When in straitened circumstances later, Anderson was given a handsome present from Queen Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole. (Wolfstieg, A., Werden und Wesen der Freimaurerei, Pt. II, ch. III, 2).Google Scholar
13 Begemann, W., Vorgeschichte und Anfänge der Freimaurerei in Schottland (Berlin, 1914), Kap. 2, 3.Google Scholar
14 Lantoine, A., Histoire de la Franc-maçonnerie Française (Paris, 1927), 9Google Scholar. For Rosicrucian influence, Martin, G., Manuel d'Histoire de la Franc-maçonnerie Française (Paris, 1934, 2 ed.), 7 ffGoogle Scholar. The History in The Constitutions of 1723 recognizes this fact: “If it were expedient it could be made to appear that from this ancient fraternity the orders of warlike knights and religious, too, borrowed solemn usages.”
15 Melville, L., The Life and Writings of Philip, Duke of Wharton (London, 1913), 85Google Scholar on. Wharton had been president of the “Hell Fire Club,” which was closed by royal proclamation in 1721. Thereupon a bill was introduced in Parliament for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness: “If any one speaks or writes against the Being of God, the divinity of Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or the doctrine of the Trinity … or the truth of the Christian Religion and the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures …” Wharton denied, in a strong speech, that he was a patron of blasphemy or an enemy of religion. Undoubtedly he was one of those skeptical peers and members of the Royal Society whom Desaguliers sought to convert from “stupid atheism” and “irreligious libertinism” by the reverent and ethical emphases of the Masonic ritualization of the Newtonian cosmo-theology. Whatever his success, and it seems dubious, Wharton, who was indisputably a crypto-Jacobite, was converted (by romantic eompusions?) to Roman Catholicism in Madrid, 1726. Yet in 1728 he founded a Lodge there and sought its recognition from the Grand Lodge of London! The Jacobite-Jesuit order of the Gormogons is discussed by Gouis, R. F., Ars Quattuor Coronati, VIII (1895), p. 144.Google Scholar
16 Lantoine, , La Franc-maçonnerie Française, 54Google Scholar on, for an account of the lodge in Paris founded by the Jacobite Earl of Derwentwater. The English Grand Master, the Duke of Eiehmond, had sought to counteract this Jacobite strategem by founding, in 1734, a lodge at the Chateau d'Aubigny at which Montesquieu, who had become a Freemason on London, 1730, was present, as well as other men of high position. The lodge was then transferred to Paris for a more brilliant career in 1735. See Wolfstieg, , Werden und Wesen, II, ch. 3, 10Google Scholar on. Also Gould, R. F., History of Freemasonry (New York, 1884), III, 393.Google Scholar
17 G. Martin, La Franc-maçonnerie Française, 12 on.Google Scholar
18 Ramsay's career is sketehed by Martin, , La Franc-maçonnerie, 25–38Google Scholar, with a summary and quotations from the “Discourse”; by Wolfstieg, , Werden und Wesen, 27 onGoogle Scholar; Gould, R. F., Freemasonry, 332Google Scholar on, with complete English translation of his Discourse. Fay, B., Revolution and Freemasonry, 184Google Scholar. Monographs on Ramsay: Schiffman, G., Andreas Michael Ramsay 1878Google Scholar; Cherel, A., Ramsay, (Niort, 1927)Google Scholar. See also the Dictionary of National Biography.
19 For Poiret'qs general influence, see Wieser, Max, Pierre Poiret (Muenehen, 1932)Google Scholar, Pt. I, ch. 1. Ramsay's own version of the “romantic mysticism” of Guyon, Poiret, and Fénélon, which led on to a latitudinarian Catholicism can be gleaned from his books, The Travels of Cyrus (London, 1739, 6 ed.)Google Scholar, and the “Discourse upon the Theology and Mythology of the Pagans,” appended to the Travels. See also his Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion (Edinburgh, 1739), II, 401Google Scholar: “Thus we have shown that vestiges of the most sublime truths can be found in the sages of all nations, times and religions, both sacred and profane; and that these vestiges are emanations of the antediluvian Noevian tradition …” The Freemason called themselves “Noachites”, or “Noachidae.”
20 The breadth of his views is indicated by the following: “La philanthropie maçonnique est une fraternité universelle, aux yeux de laquelle le monde entier n'est q'une seul République, dont chaque nation est une famille et chaque particulier est un enfant … L'auteur donne, comme type de societé universelle, de la fraternité des nations, la tentative de Croisés.” (Martin, , La Francmaçonnerie, 28 on).Google Scholar
21 But Ramsay explicitly disavows any concern or agitation of the lodges over contemporary political issues!
22 English texts in Mackay, , Encyclopedia, II, 830Google Scholar. Ramsay assures Cardinal Fleury that “to encourage a society which tends only to re-unite all nations by a love of the truth and of the fine arts is an action worthy of a great Minister, of a father of the church, of a holy pontiff.” In the second letter, replying to Fleury's expressions of disinterest and disapproval, Ramsay protests: “I am persuaded that if wise men of your Excellency's choice were persuaded to lead these assemblies, they would become useful to religion, to the state and to literature … I have never frequented them save with a view to spreading maxims that should render, by degrees, unbelief ridiculous, vice odious and ignorance shameful.”
23 In the “Discourse:” “We wish to unite all men of enlightened spirit and genial temperament not only through love for the fine arts but even more through the high principles of virtue, whereby the welfare of the Brotherhood will become that of the whole human race so that all nations may create among themselves a definite understanding and a common science without abandoning their patriotism.” Diderot, a Freemason, began work on the great encyclopedia in 1741.
24 The lodges in Scotland openly supported the Pretender, Charles Edward, in 1745.
25 Tierce, De La, Histoire et Statuts de la Société des Franc-maçons (London, 1743).Google Scholar
26 Owing to Jansenist influence, perhaps, the papal condemnation of 1737 was never registered by the Parléments, hence French Freemasonry was practically exempt from Catholic persecution.
27 Sbigoli, F., Tommaso Crudeli e i primi Framassoni de Firenze (Milan, 1884)Google Scholar. See also Marcolongo, B., La Massonerie nel sec. XVIII (Studi storici, XIX, 1900)Google Scholar; Ferrer, E., La prime loggie di Liberi muratori et le persecuztone del clero e della polizia (Roma, 1911).Google Scholar
28 Keller, L., “Die Italienischen Akademien des XVIII Jahrhundert,” Comenius Gesellschaft, XIV (1904), 167 on.Google Scholar
29 Gould, R. F., History, IV, 106Google Scholar. Mackay-Clegg, , History of Freemasonry (New York, 1921), III, 472 on.Google Scholar
30 Cambridge Modern, History, VI, 588 on.Google Scholar
31 To avoid challenge, the Catholic historian, Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste (Freiburg, 1930), XV, 685Google Scholar, has been followed for Clement XII; XVI, Part I, 264 on, for Benedict XIV. This account may be enlarged and checked by Lennhoff, , The Freemasons, chap. XVI.Google Scholar
32 But in Samuel Pritchard's Freemasonry Dissected (London, 1730; reprint fac-simile, Cincinnati, 1867)Google Scholar, which was the first “exposure” of the movement, there is no suggestion that the lodges carried on any political activity.
33 See Singer, , Der Kampf, 10Google Scholar, for the course of proceedings against the Freemasons, on clerical complaints, in Amsterdam and Geneva, which had been dismissed as groundless.
34 For English translation of the Bull Providas of Bendict XIV (May 18, 1751), see Mackay, , Encyclopedia, II, 867.Google Scholar
35 See Mackay, , Encyclopedia, II, 865Google Scholar, for the text of Firrao's edict of Jan. 14, 1739.
36 These persecutions are recorded in detail by Singer. Gould, R. F., History of Freemasonry, IVGoogle Scholar, gives a brief review of each country.
37 See Lennhoff, , The Freemasons, 56Google Scholar on, for proofs on such inelusiveness. In 1722 the leader of the English Catholics, Lord Petrie, became a Mason, and later a Grand Master.
38 I am following the arguments of G. M. Pachtler, S. J., in Der Götze der Humanität (Freiburg, 1875)Google Scholar, which have been endorsed of late years by Hermann Gruber, author of the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia on “Freemasons.”
