The Moral And Religious Origin Of Freemasonry.

lived amidst the same people amongst whom , towards the end of His course on earth , He worked so many prodigies ? May it not be seen that , although I may not have on my side the historians of the epoch , their silence would not in itself confirm that which I suggest ? On His return to Palestine , at the age of thirty-two years , He set himself to go amongst the Tribes of Israel , preaching everywhere the heavenl

y doctrine . He soon had proselytes in crowds , to whom He spoke more often in parables , as was the custom of the school from which He came ; but His parable was clear , precise , and its point had no need of explanation . This was one further step which the inspired One of the Omnipotent had made for the Order . He fell a victim for the propagation of His doctrine . After His death His disciples opened many schools . They took as the angular stone

( Petros ) of the edifice of the social reform the Divine Master , who the first had dared to preach publicly the mysteries to the peoples . Persecutions were set loose against the disciples of Christ . Schism likewise supervened to increase the confusion . The fall of the Roman Empire , instead of being a fortunate event for the propagation of the true light , was simply fatal to it . The Papacy assumed its place on the broken throne

of the Ccusars , ancl it was it ( the Papacy ) which adopted the most monstrous schism which could ever have existed , and which has involved so many deplorable consequences .... Falsification of facts , alteration of tradition , adoption of absurdities , employment of brutal force—no means , in a word , were spared by that sacrilegious court to stifle the light ancl uproot the society .

Beside the sepulchre of Christ there existed , since the year 1118 , a military and religious Order , a severe conservator of morality , of the initiatory schools and of the tradition of the word of Jesus . This Order , of which Hugues Payens and Geffroi de S . Aldemar were the founders , assumed the title of Templars , or Knights of the Temple .

TheHeresiarchofRome , whopridefullydesignateshimself"GoduponEarth , was affrighted by the increasing power of the Templars , who in Europe alone possessed , in 1312 , nine thousand brotherhoods and lordships . Clement V ., of execrable memory , was not long in finding in Philip the Fair , King of France , a worthy accomplice in the extermination of the Order , ready to take possession of their wealth . Who is ignorant of the history of this shameful persecution of the

Knights Templar ? What Mason who does not ceaselessly recall to memory the 13 th of March , 1344—that clay of blood and infamy ? We recall all this with grief profound ; but , at the same time , we cease not to trust in Divine Justice when we find in our memories that the Grand Master of the Templars , James Burg de Molay , from the platform of the scaffold , invoking the anger of heaven upon the persecutors ancl butchers of the Templars , summoned

( ajouma ) Pope Clement V . and King Philip le Bel to the tribunal of God , ancl that , in truth , both those wicked men died at the time predicted by their illustrious victim . It is from that lamentable epoch that we date the material organisation of our modem Masonry . As to its spiritual origin , we derive that from the first initiative schools which appeared upon the earth ; for , just as the Egyptian

Temples were the inheritors and continuators of the primitive initiatory schools , so Christ , the Saviour of the human race—the Divine Revealer—was the Inheritor , the Continuator , and the Reformer of the mysteries of the Temple and of the Schools , in the same way as the Templars were the inheritors , continuators , and conservators of the dogmata of Christ , of the Temples and initiatory schools . So our modern Masons , being the heirs , continuers , and

propagators of the doctrines of the Templars , we are enabled to trace back our origin from those up to Christ , from Christ up to the Egyptian Temples , and from those Temples up to the primitive or primal initiatory schools . In brief ,