Untold Truth of Papal Ban on Freemasonry
I want to try something a little different this week. While I could write a single article on this, it would be pretty long because there is a lot to unpack. Breaking it down into a five-part series over the course of this week seems the best way to tackle this monumental task. Come with me on this journey.
There is an untold truth of the Papal Ban on Freemasonry that involves the Knights Templar, the Crusades, Jacobites, Jesuits, Cardinals, Prime Ministers, Popes and Kings. However it gets even more jucier with Cardinals and Popes breaking the 9th commandment “you shall not bear false witness” not only against Freemasonry but a number of times before against other Christians as well.
In this 5 Part Series of Daily Masonic Progress, we will go into the Untold Truth of the Papal Ban on Freemasonry and discover how Pope Clement XII came to issue his infamous Papal Bull in 1738 that broke the 9th Commandment to condemned the Liberi Muratori and Francs Massons (Freemasons) and since has lead to centuries of misinformation and lies about Freemasonry.
Before we get into Pope Clement XII’s 1738 Papal Bull we need understand the key events that lead to this and who was the Brother likely responsible for poking the bear that spurred a Cardinal who was Prime Minister of France into convincing the Pope to take this action.
Bro Sir Andrew Michael Ramsay was born on the 9th July 1686 ain Ayr, Scotland and lived until 6th May 1743. He was comonly called Chevalier Ramsay being the French for “Knight Ramsay” as in 1723 he was knighted into the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem who are also known as the Leper Brothers of Jerusale or Lazarists being a Catholic millitary order founded during the Crusades at a leper hospital in Jerusalem and named after its patron saint, Lazarus. The Lazarist Order was a hospitaller and military order of chivalry under the rule of Saint Augustine. Ramsay would become the Grand Master of the Order of Lazarus.
In 1724 he entered the Jacobite household in Rome after being sent to tutor the two sons of James Francis Edward Stuart who was House of Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland. The two sons he was to tutor were Charles Edward Stuart and Henry. Charles Edward Stuart is affectionatley known as Bonnie Prince Charlie and after his fathers death would ascend as the Stuart claimant to the thrones, and lead the Jacobite rising in 1745. As Bonnie Prince Charlie, the eldest was only three and a half, tutoring the two sons proved impratical which lead Ramsay to return to Paris.
Earlier in his life Ramsay became steady friends with Marquis de Fenelon who was a young relative of the archbishop and pupil of Madame Guyon. Fenelon is credited with converting Ramsay to Catholicism, but its through their friendship that allowed Ramsay to be remarked by the notability of the time leading him to become active in the high level negotations over a tax on the assets of the Jacobite exiles proposed by the British government. It’s in these negotiations where Ramsay would become well acquainted with Cardinal Fleury who later became the Prime Minister behind King Louix XV of France and was the effective ruler of France with the king’s assent.
In 1730 while visiting England, Ramsay was initiated into the Horn Lodge in London aling with several other brethren of noble birth. As a notable writer and thinker and through his works, nobility and Freemasonry he would go to also hold membership in the Club de l'Entresol, an early modern think tank as well as fellowship to the Royal Society and Spalding Gentlemans Society, the later of which held correspondence with the Society of Antiquaries of London. The Spaling Gentlemans Society and the Royal Society were influential in the rise of sepculative freemasonry.
Between Freemasonry as well as his membership into those clubs, he had a circle of friends that included Isaac Newton, David Hume and John Desaguliers along with associations with John Gay and Alexpander Pope.
Many of Ramsay’s works both written and lobbying focused on the restoration of the Jacobite claim to the English, Scottish and Irish thrones. A staunch Jacobite he married Marie Nairne in June of 1735. She was the daughter of Sir David Nairne who was a central figure in the administration of Jacobite politics resulting in being made a baronet in the Jacobite peerage. It was for the occasion of his marriegae to Marie Narne that Ramsay was created a Scottish Knight and Baronet.
Ramsay was associated with Freemasonry at its introduction into France around 1725 where he rose to become the Grand Orator of the Order of Francs Masons. There in 1737 he worte his “Discourse pronounced at the reception of Freemasons” known as Ramsay’s Oration or Ramsay’s Discours where he connected Freemasonry with the Crusader knights. Ramsay then sent his speach to Cardinal Fleury as I mentioned earlier who was the Prime Minister (Chief Minister actually) and the proxy ruler of France under King Louis XV.
Since the Jacobite retreat to France in the early 1700’s both the Jacobites and the Jesuits shared a warm relationship. In fact, many of the Scottish Degrees or High Degrees in Freemasonry today known as the Scottish Rite were formed in France and bare strong Jesuit influence, most notably the 18th or Rose Croix Degree. However it is the Jesuit/Jacobite coalition which is attributed to have had the most impact on the formation of the Chivalric Degrees in Masonry.
But by sending of his Discours to Cardinal Fleury along with the Jacobite/Jesuit coalition within the Francs Masons which would ultimately result in the Papal Bull banning Freemasonry. So what exactly was in Ramsay’s Discors that was so heretical, here is it below in full.
Here is the version from the website of Quinte St. Alban's Lodge A.F. & A.M. No. 620 G.R.C. - https://www.freemasonryresearchforumqsa.com/ramsay.php#a6
For tomorrow we will take a look into this a discors a little further.
THE 1736 VERSION
Oration of the chevalier Ramsay
given in the St. John Lodge the 26th of Xmber 7)
Omne trinum perfectum (equilateral triangle)
Gentlemen, The noble ardor that you show to enter the ancient and very illustrious Order of Freemasons is a sure proof that you already have all the qualities necessary to become its members. These qualities are philanthropy, inviolable secrecy and a taste for the fine arts.
Lycurgus, Solon, Numa and all the other political legislators could not make their republics durable: however wise their laws were, they could not spread in all countries and in all centuries. As they were based on victories and conquests, on military violence and the rise of one people above another, they could not become universal or meet all tastes, genius, and interests of all the Nations. Philanthropy was not their basis; the false love of a patch of men who live in a small canton of the universe and who called it the fatherland, destroyed in all these warlike republics the love of humanity in general. Men are not essentially distinguished by the difference in the languages they speak, the clothes they wear, or the corners of this anthill they occupy. The whole world is but one great republic, of which each nation is a family, and each individual a child. It is, gentlemen, to revive and spread these ancient maxims taken from the nature of man that our society was established. We want to bring together all the men of a sublime taste and a pleasant humor by the love of the fine arts, where ambition becomes a virtue, where the interest of the brotherhood is that of the whole human race, where all nations can draw upon solid knowledge, and from which subjects of all different kingdoms can conspire without jealousy, live without discord, and cherish each other. Without renouncing their principles, we banish from our laws all disputes which can affect peace of mind, gentleness of manners, tender feelings, reasonable joy, and this perfect harmony which is found only in the excision of all indecent excesses and all discordant passions.
We also have our mysteries: these are figurative signs of our science, very ancient hieroglyphs and words drawn from our art, 8) which compose a language sometimes silent and sometimes very eloquent to communicate at the greatest distance, and for recognizing our colleagues from whatever language or country they may be. We only disclose the literal meaning to those who we receive for the first time. It is only to followers that we reveal the sublime and symbolic meaning of our mysteries. This is how the Orientals, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the sages of all nations hid their dogmas under figures, symbols, and hieroglyphs. The letter of our laws, our rituals, and our secrets often present to the mind only a confused heap of unintelligible words: but the initiates find there an exquisite dish which nourishes, which uplifts, and which reminds the spirit the most sublime truths. It happened among us that which hardly happened in any other society. Our lodges were established in the past and are spread today in all the policed nations, and yet in such a large multitude of men, no member has ever betrayed our secret. The lightest minds, the most indiscreet and the least educated learn to be silent as soon as they enter in the midst of this our great science: they then seem to transform themselves and become new men, both impenetrable and penetrating. If someone breached the oaths that bind us, we have no other criminal law than remorse for their conscience and exclusion from our society, according to these words of Horace:
For faithful silence there is a sure reward
I will forbid anyone who has revealed
the sacred rite of mysterious Ceres to reside
in the same abode or to unloose
the delicate ship with me. …
Horace was formerly orator of a large lodge established in Rome by Auguste, while Maecenas and Agrippa were overseers there. 9) The best odes of this poet are hymns which he composed to be sung at our orgies. Yes, gentlemen, the famous festivals of Ceres at Eleusis, of which Horace speaks, as well as those of Minerva in Athens and Isis in Egypt were none other than lodges of our initiates, where we celebrated our mysteries with meals and libations but without the excesses, the debauchery and the intemperance into which the pagans fell, after having abandoned the wisdom of our principles and the cleanliness of our maxims.
The taste for the liberal arts is the third quality required to enter our Order, the perfection of this taste is the essence, the end and the object of our union. Of all the mathematical sciences, that of architecture, whether civil, naval or military, is without doubt the most useful and the oldest. It is through it that we defend ourselves against the insults of the air, against the instability of the waves, and above all against the fury of other men.
It is through our art that mortals have found the secret of building houses and cities to bring together large societies, of traveling the seas to communicate the riches of the earth and of the waves from one hemisphere to the next, and finally to form ramparts and machines against an enemy more formidable than the elements and the animals, I mean against the very man who is only a ferocious beast, unless his naturalness is softened by the gentle, peaceful and philanthropic maxims which reign in our society.
These are, gentlemen, the qualities required in our Order, the origin and history of which we must now disclose for you in a few words.
Our science is as old as the human race, but the general history of art should not be confused with the particular history of our society. There have been architects in all countries and in all centuries, but all these architects were not Freemasons initiated into our mysteries. Each family, each republic and each empire whose origin is lost in obscure antiquity has its fable and its truth, its legend and its history, its fiction, and its reality. The difference between our traditions and those of all other human societies is that ours are based on the records of the oldest people in the universe, 10) the only one that exists today under the same name as formerly, without being confused with the other nations although dispersed everywhere, and of the only one which has preserved its ancient books, while those of almost all other peoples are lost. 11). So here is what I have been able to gather from our origin in the very old archives of our Order, 12) in the acts of the Parliament of England which often speak of our privileges, and in the living jurisdiction of a nation which was the center of our arcane science since the tenth century. Deign, gentlemen, to redouble your attention; supervising brothers cover the lodge, get the common layman away from here. Keep away, oh keep away you Profanes, I hate the common masses and avoid them, keep silent.
The supreme taste for order and symmetry and projection can only be inspired by the Great Surveyor 13) Architect of the Universe whose eternal ideas are the models of real beauty. 14) So we see in the sacred annals of the legislator of the Jews that it was God himself who taught the restorer of mankind the proportions of the floating building which was to shelter during the flood animals of all species to repopulate our globe when it came out of the waters. 15 Noah therefore must be regarded as the author and inventor of naval architecture as well as the first Grand Master of our Order. 16)
The Arcane science 17) was transmitted by an oral tradition 18) from him to Abraham and to the patriarchs, the last of whom brought our sublime art to Egypt. 19) It was Joseph who gave the Egyptians the first ideas of labyrinths, pyramids and obelisks, which have been the admiration of all centuries, 20) It is by this patriarchal tradition that our laws and our maxims were spread in Asia, in Egypt, in Greece and in all the Gentility, but our mysteries were soon altered, degraded, corrupted and mixed with superstitions, the secret science 21) was kept pure only among the people of God.
Moses, inspired by the Most High, built in the desert a mobile temple conforming to the model he had seen in a celestial vision 22) on the top of the holy mountain, obvious proof that the laws of our art 23) are observed in the invisible world where everything is harmony, order and proportion. 24) This traveling tabernacle, a copy of the invisible palace of the Most High which is the upper world, then became the model of the famous temple of Solomon 25) the wisest of kings and mortals. This superb edifice, supported by fifteen hundred columns of Paros marble, pierced with more than two thousand windows, capable of containing four hundred thousand people, was built in seven years by more than three thousand princes or master masons whose chief was Hiram-Abif, Grand Master of the Lodge of Tire, to whom Solomon entrusted all our mysteries. 26) He was the first martyr of our Order … his fidelity to keep … his illustrious sacrifice. 27) After his death, King Solomon wrote in hieroglyphic figures 28) our statutes, our maxims and our mysteries, and this ancient book is the original code of our Order.
After the destruction of the first temple and the captivity of the favorite nation, the Lord's anointed the great Cyrus, who was initiated into all our mysteries, constituted Zerubbabel Grand Master of the lodge at Jerusalem, 29) and ordered him to lay the foundations for the second temple where the mysterious Book of Solomon 30) was deposited. This Book was kept for 12 centuries in the temple of the Israelites, but after the destruction of this second temple under Emperor Titus and the dispersion of this people, this ancient book was lost until the time of the crusades, that it was found partly after the capture of Jerusalem. 31) We deciphered this sacred code and without penetrating the sublime spirit of all the hieroglyphic figures which were there, we renewed our ancient Order 32) of which Noah, 33) Abraham, 34) the patriarchs, 35) Moses, 36) Solomon, 37) and Cyrus 38) were the first grandmasters. These, gentlemen, are our ancient traditions. 39) Now here is our real story. 40)
At the time of the holy wars in Palestine, 41) several princes, lords and artists entered into a society, made a vow to restore the temples of the Christians in the Holy Land, undertook by oath to use their science and their goods to bring back the architecture to the primitive institution, 42) recalled all the ancient signs and the mysterious words of Solomon, 43) to distinguish themselves from the infidels and to recognize each other … (and decided to) unite intimately with …. 44) From then on and since, our lodges have been known as lodges of Saint John 45) in all countries. This union was made in imitation of the Israelites when they rebuilt the second temple. While some wielded the trowel and the compasses, the others defended them with the sword and the shield. 46)
After the deplorable adventures of the holy wars, the withering away of the Christian armies, and the triumph of Bendocdor Sultan of Egypt during the eighth and last crusade, the son of Henry III of England, the great prince Edward, seeing that there would be no more safety for his fellow masons in the holy land when the Christian troops would withdraw, brought them all back and this colony of followers thus established itself also in England. As this prince was gifted with all the qualities of spirit and heart which form the heroes, he loved the fine arts and especially our great science. Having ascended the throne, he declared himself grand master of the Order, granted it several privileges and franchises, 47) and from then on the members of our brotherhood took the name of Freemasons. 48)
Since that time Great Britain became the seat of arcane science, the custodian of our dogmas and the depositary of all our secrets. 49) From the British Isles the ancient science begins to pass into France. 50) The most spiritual nation in Europe 51) will become the center of the Order and will diffuse on our statutes graces, delicacy and good taste, essential qualities in an Order whose basis is wisdom, strength and beauty 52) of genius. 53) It is in our lodges in the future that the Frenchmen will see without traveling, as in a abridged table, the characters of all nations, 54) and it is here that foreigners will learn by experience that France is the true homeland of all peoples. 55)
Here are the notes that QSA Lodge has made on the discours
7) December.
8) Masonry, in particular that of the monuments described in the Bible, like the temple of Solomon, whose names of the two columns (Boaz and Jakin) are used in masonry as sacred words.
9) Historically impossible. This abuse of language can be explained in Ramsay's pen by the analogy that the latter retains between Masonic feasts and banquets of the mysteries of Greco-Roman antiquity.
10) The Hebrew Bible
11) Statement as important as it is true: the Bible today constitutes the only memorial known to the entirety of the primordial tradition, a memorial whose intact and intelligible character makes it the only document currently capable of enabling contemporaries to find the content of this tradition.
12) The Old Charges.
13) Even if the divine geometry is found in the Greek philosophy of antiquity, this symbol of the Geometrician God seems to be directly inspired by Book of Wisdom II, 20: "You have settled everything with measure, number and weight."
14) Platonic thought. "True beauty" here refers to the ontological principles symbolized by the Grand Geometrician, Architect of the universe.
15) Gen. 6, 13-22.
16) Not from a socio-historical point of view, but from a typological point of view.
17) The esotericism proper to architectural symbolism.
18) The very essence of Qabalah that is "tradition" or oral transmission of the principles of symbolic exegesis from the Bible.
19) Gen. 39-50.
20) This science of architectural symbolism had probably been transmitted to Joseph by Jacob, who had had the revelation of the cosmological symbolism of the menhirs whose obelisks are the Egyptian translation (Gen. 28, 10-22).
21) See note 17 and the relevant passage. It is a fact that until proven otherwise, only the Bible mainly in its first five chapters (Gen. 1-5) accounts for the primordial Tradition which was the traditional symbolism of the constellations, common source of the whole symbolic traditions that have appeared throughout history.
22) See Exodus. 25, 9. The model of the sanctuary seen by Moses on the mountain could only be the structure of the starry sky (cf. Heb. 8, 5), which plays a capital role in the whole of the Bible. In his Constitutions of 1723, Anderson had evoked the model of the tabernacle shown to Moses on the mountain, but without speaking of its celestial nature.
23) Ethical, ontological and psychological laws symbolized by the plan of sacred buildings of antiquity, whether in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel (see biblical descriptions of Jewish shrines), or later in Greece.
24) Cf. Book of Wisdom, 11, 20.
25) Assertion based on the biblical typology of the temple.
26) For the whole of this passage, see I Kings 5-7.
27) A vague echo of the companion legend of the murder of master Hiram (15th century), which was taken up by speculative masonry in 1730 (Samuel Prichard, Masonry Dissected).
28) We first think of the sapiential books attributed to King Solomon: the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, and the Book of Wisdom. In reality, Ramsay here refers to I Kings 5, 9-14 and Book of Wisdom 7, 15-21 which evoke the esoteric knowledge of Solomon, which he presents as the basic cultural reference of the Masonic tradition.
29) The use of the word lodge is here an anachronism.
30) This Book of Solomon refers to I Kings 5, 9-14 and the Book of Wisdom 7, 15-21.
31) We have not preserved any trace of this apocryphal legend. Would Ramsay, nonetheless, refer here to the Solomon symbolism of the Gothic art of cathedrals?
32) Taking note 31 into account, Ramsay would refer here to the Solomonic origins of the Gothic art of medieval cathedrals, which gave birth during the Hundred Years War to the first operational lodges in Great Britain.
33) As builder of the ark and of the first altar.
34) Because of which he built four altars.
35) By reference to the fact that Jacob raised a menhir.
36) By virtue that he was the builder of the Tabernacle at the time of the Exodus.
37) Because he built the temple in Jerusalem.
38) Because he rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem.
39) The traditions are simple cultural borrowings which do not imply any socio-historical filiation.
40) History in the sense of sociological, institutional parentage.
41) Ramsay makes the institutional history of Freemasonry start at the beginning of the Crusades, that is, at the end of the 11th century (the first Masonic text actually dates from 1356).
42) That is to say, their symbolic and didactic function which was originally theirs, a project apparently carried out by the Gothic style of the cathedrals insofar as the latter took up the model provided by the temple of Solomon.
43) See. note 28.
44) The rest of the text and the final version (1737) of the Oration allow this empty space to be filled with: "The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem". Possible borrowing from a passage from a writing by Jonathan Swift dated 1724, the Letter from the Grand Mistress of the Freemasons to Mr. Harding printer, of which Ramsay does not seem to have perceived the completely fictitious and ironic character. However, it should be noted that the theme of the crusaders may have been inspired in Ramsay by the Duchess de Bouillon who was lady of the Order of the Crusade (Pierre CHEVALLIER, Les Ducs sous acacia, op. Cit., p. 260).
45) The name of the lodges of Saint John had nothing to do with the knightly orders; it was exclusively due to the analogy between the figure of John the Baptist and the symbolism of the penal sign known as guttural used by the masons (see on this subject our annotation to the manuscript of Edinburgh).
46) See Nehemiah 4, 7-17.
47) The first known Masonic text, the Regulation for the masons of London (1356), is after Edward I (1239-1307), who could not therefore fulfill the role which Ramsay mistakenly attributes to him, who seems to confuse him with Edouard III.
48) The first Anglo-Saxon Masonic text dates from 1356: it is the Rules for Masons in London.
49) The esotericism proper to architectural symbolism, as studied by the Freemasons.
50) Freemasonry passed from Britain to France in 1725.
51) Ramsay here disavows the spiritual quality of Anglo-Saxons, perhaps due to the persistence in Great Britain of inter-confessional and inter-regional conflicts.
52) These are the three denominations of three pillars which occupy the center of a Masonic lodge.
53) One of the interpretations of the Masonic symbol of the letter G. But especially in Ramsay, borrowed from the 1723 Constitutions of Anderson, which evoked the "genie" (genius) twice (p. 25 and 47 of the English edition).
54) Allusion to cosmopolitanism which transcends national Identitarianism . Ramsay's conclusion seems to indicate that in his eyes, Anglo-Saxon masonry was in 1736 incapable of showing internationalism. Let us not forget that as a Scottish, Ramsay may have been the subject of a certain ostracism on the part of the English.
55) This text was published whole in: Raoul CHANDON DE BRIAILLES and Henri BERTAL, Municipal Archives of Epernay, Paris, Leclerc 1906, p. 332-336; and partly in: Pierre CHEVALLIER, Les Ducs sous acacia, Genève, Slatkine 1994, p. 147-149.