CRITICA MASSONICA n 0 - gen. 2017

compiuto corpus teorico come potrebbe essere l’alchimia o

l’astrologia, esso apparve attorno al II secolo d.C. nella

cultura ellenistica e si sviluppò come un insieme intricato di

dottrine mistico-religiose, di astrologia semitica, di elementi

delle filosofie platoniche e pitagoriche, di religiosità gnostiche

e, pare, anche di richiami magici egizi72. L’interpretazione

degli esoterismi e specialmente quelli ermetici in chiave

spirituale-religiosa apparve nel Rinascimento con il

ritrovamento e la traduzione dei testi esoterici antichi;

specialmente nel XIX e XX secolo si consolidò una

sovrainterpretazione spiritualistica dei testi ermetici e di altri

esoterismi. È difficile provare che le corporazioni medioevali

e in particolare alcuni progettisti/architetti fossero a

Hermes Trismegistus conoscenza di questi testi non ancora tradotti in latino.
D’altro canto la vera questione è che manca al moderno

concetto di “spiritualità” massonica un preciso indirizzo e costrutto ermeneutico ed

epistemologico e che con questa parola general-generica si può intendere qualunque

aspetto umano che non sia di concretezza biologica. La cosa fondamentale tuttavia è

che tale spiritualità massonica non è definita in senso iniziatico e dire che essa è

esoterica non risolve la questione, ma crea ulteriore complicazione aggiungendo un

termine che anch’esso deve essere precisato nel suo valore iniziatico-massonico,

perché i termini “spirituale” ed “esoterico” non sono sinonimi e l’uno non qualifica l’altro,

così come “massonico” ed “esoterico”.

Nel linguaggio umano le parole servono a descrivere la realtà, visibile o invisibile,

fisica o metafisica, ma se le parole usate non vengono definite con precisione non si

descrive alcuna realtà.

72 Non si conoscono le versioni originali del Corpus Ermeticum, una collezione di scritti ermetico-neoplatonici, ma

solo la traduzione greca risalente al XI secolo per opera del bizantino Michele Costantino Psello. Il suo testo fu
poi acquisito intorno al 1460 da Cosimo dei Medici che lo fece tradurre da Marsilio Ficino in latino. Isaac Casaubon,
nel De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis del 1614 dimostrò che gli scritti ermetici non erano anteriori all’epoca

ellenistica e dubitò che Ermete sia mai esistito. Tale tesi ermenutica ancora non è stata confutata.

46

Helge Jordheim

Functions of Secrecy – Herder and the Masonic
Elements of Enlightenment Thought1

The point of departure for this talk is a larger project, with the working title the
“Functions of Secrecy”, in which I try to map how, in what contexts and to what ends,
functions of secrecy and concealment are in operation in the Age of Enlightenment – in
obvious opposition to the ambition of exposing every aspect of human life and of society
to the bright light of reason. In one sense the beginnings of anthropology in the late 18th
century – a frequent topic at this workshop – can in itself be regarded as a function of
secrecy, or, more precisely, as a reaction to the experience that there are aspects of
human life that remain hidden, that are not immediately accessible to the human eye or
to human reason – such as dreams, fantasies, desires, or rather, reincarnation, ghosts
and voices from beyond the grave. Parallel to these phenomena, secrecy – in its
different and more or less spiritual forms – is among the topics that bring about the so-
called “anthropological turn” in German literature and science in the second half of the
18th century, for instance – from my field of research – in novels such as Wielands

Geschichte des Agathon and Jean Pauls
Die Unsichtbare Loge, in which the
functions of secrecy are at once a force of
Bildung and a way of deceiving the hero.

If we, for a moment, return to the
presentation of this workshop on the
website, this paper will obviously mostly
have to do with – as it says – situating
Herder within the context of 18th century
German history and culture, and may be
even point at some of the limitations of the
traditional reception of Herder’s thinking.
But can a study of Herder and the Masonic
tradition – in the context of the functions of
secrecy – say anything about Herder’s
relevance today? I have already mentioned that there might be a element of secrecy at
work in the birth of anthropology, and there obviously is one at work in the rise of
hermeneutics and the philosophy of history. If this element – this function of secrecy –
is still relevant today, is a question I leave for the discussion afterwards. However, if we
look at how a popular phenomenon such as the Da Vinci Code – the book and now the
film – has been able to reintroduce notions of secrets and secrecy at the heart of global
popular culture, more or less overnight, I have the feeling that the perspective I present

1 Helge Jordheim - Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo (paper
for the workshop ‘Herder and Anthropology’, University of Oslo 29-30 May 2006)

47

here might not be completely irrelevant after all.
That concludes my introductory remarks.

I.
In the 18th century practices of secrecy manifested themselves first and foremost in

the great number of secret societies which were founded all over Germany and which –
as Reinhart Koselleck, Richard Van Dülmen and many others, even quite briefly Jürgen
Habermas have pointed out – were one of the most important institutions of bourgeois
self-organization and education in this period. The dominant intellectual and ideological
force in these secret societies was freemasonry, characterized by a strictly hierarchical
organization, Egyptian symbols, esoteric rituals, pseudonyms, code words and secret
handshakes. For obvious reasons I cannot go into the history of Freemasonry and
Masonic lodges in Germany here. However, two aspects have to be made clear if we
want to understand the role of Masonic secrets in German thought and writing from the
beginning of the 18th and well into the 19th century: Obviously, one important function of
secrecy consisted in concealing what was really taking place on, the actual plans and
activities of the secret societies, making them appear much more important than they
really were, according to a well-known logic of conspiracy theory. For instance, even as
late as in the 1820s the German public still believed that the order of the Illuminati had
planned and staged the French Revolution, together with the German and French
Jacobins. Secondly, several important intellectual figures in 18th century Germany had
affiliations with freemasonry and thus put this motive to frequent use in their works, the
most famous examples being the Turmgesellschaft in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters
Lehrjahre, the character of Marquis Posa in Schiller’s play Don
Carlos as well as the empire of Sarastro in Mozart’s
Zauberflöte. From the names featured on this list you will have
guessed that Freemasonry, Masonic practices and ideology
are by no means new to 18th century German historiography.
Moreover, in the last fifteen years there has been a renewed
interest in these topics, at least partly fuelled by the renewed
interest in 18th century anthropology. At one point this scholarly
topic even reached the headlines in German newspaper, after
the American scholar W. Daniel Wilson, in book on the order of
the Illuminati in Weimar, had claimed that both Goethe and the
prince Carl August had entered the order with the sole purpose
to spy on and control its members. The title of this paper – “The
Functions of Secrecy” – marks an attempt to move away from
this mainly biographical and highly positivistic way of studying
the secret societies of 18th century Germany as well as their prominent members. Thus,
the term “function” is meant to indicate that I do not want to focus the actual secrets or
practices of secrecy, their contents, what the Freemasons actually believed, knew or
did, but on the idea or mechanism of secrecy itself – how it was perceived, what it meant,
how it functioned. More precisely, I want to show how the functions of secrecy play a
decisive role in the genesis of some important intellectual contributions of the late 18th
century, on the fields of politics, philosophy and poetics – among them the concepts of

48

liberty, humanity, cosmopolitanism and freedom of speech, the literary genre of the
Bildungsroman and the bourgeois institution of the public sphere – just to mention some

elements of the Enlightenment heritage that I am working with.
To view the secret primarily as a function not as a kind of content is an approach I

take from Reinhart Koselleck’s seminal work Kritik und Krise from 1959, with the subtitle

“the pathogenesis of the modern world”, in which the German historian discusses at
length how freemasonry in general and the order of the Illuminati
in particular can be seen as a social and political correlate to
Enlightenment criticism, as practiced by thinkers such as Voltaire,

Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller and Kant. According to Koselleck their
thoughts on man, society and art pretend to be concerned only
with morality and not with politics, but in fact their arguments have

radically political and even revolutionary implications –
implications that need to be hidden from political authorities.
Koselleck then, in his brilliant, but singularly one-dimensional work
acknowledges only one possible function of secrecy, what he calls

a “protective function”, “eine schützende Funktion”. Hence, the
sole function of the Masonic secret is to protect the lodges, their
members and their rituals from control and censorship by the

absolutist state, or more precisely to hide the fact that their
allegedly moral practices, their education and ideology, their focus
on man not as a subject, but as an autonomous human being, in
reality presents a highly political and even revolutionary attack on the absolutist regime

– a strategy that Koselleck terms “hypocritical”. In the following I will try to show that
there might be other functions of secrecy as well, that become effective in different parts
of the textual culture of the Enlightenment as well as in different parts of Herder’s work.

II.

I shall start by giving you a brief overview of Herder’s dealings with Freemasonry.

In 1766, during his time in Riga, Herder joined the lodge “Zum Nordstern”, where he,

according to his wife Caroline, came to hold the office as

secretary. After having moved to Weimar he became a

member of the order of the Illuminati that had formed

around Johann Cristoph von Bode and that counted

prominent people like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

prince Carl August of Sachsen-Weimar and Freiherr von

Knigge, only to mention a few. As W. Daniel Wilson has

shown Herder – whose name in the order was “Damasus

Pontifex” – seems to have been a rather passive member.

Furthermore, in a letter from 1786, Herder gives the

following – rather crushing – summary of his experiences

as a freemason and a member of different secret Adam Weishaupt – fondatore
societies:
dell’Ordine degli Illuminati

Ich hasse alle geheime Gesellschaften auf den Tod

und wünsche Sie nach den Erfahrungen, die ich aus und in ihrem Innersten gemacht

49

habe, zum T –; denn der schleichende Herrsch-, Betrug-, und Kabalengeist ist’s, der
hinter ihrer Decke kriechet.2 This, however, is by no means marks the end of Herder’s

engagement with Freemasonry and Masonic lodges.

Much later, between 1800 and 1803 Herder joins the

theater director, actor and well-known Freemason

Friedrich Ludwig Schröder in his work to bring about a

reform of Masonic rites and practices in Germany,

particularly in Hamburg. The goal of this reform was to

create a new Masonic ritual, suppressing almost entirely

the idea of secrecy and replacing it with a moral obligation

to work for the best of mankind. A vivid correspondence

between the two documents Herder’s continuing interest

in Freemasonry as fundamentally moral and humanitarian

institution. Not surprisingly, the same ambivalent and

shifting attitude to Freemasonry can be found in his texts Friedrich Ludwig Schröder
on and around this matter – the most important being his

three dialogues, his Freimaurergespräche in the tradition from Lessing: “Glaucon und

Nicias”, that was never published in his own time; “Gespräche über eine unsichtbar-

sichtbare Gesellschaft”, printed in the second part of Briefe zur Beförderung der

Humanität; and two conversations in the fourth book of the Adrastea. In this paper I am

going to concentrate on his earlier texts, from the 1780s, as they are the ones, in which

his thoughts on Freemasonry are first being formulated.

III.

I begin my discussion of some of Herder’s texts by giving a brief account of five
fairly strange letters that were published in the journal Teutsche Merkur in spring and

summer 1782, as part of a heated debate. The protagonists of this debate, or rather,
should we say, the antagonists were two seminal figures of the German Enlightenment.
Furthermore, in the study of the period they have come to represent opposing or even
contradictory versions of the Enlightenment project, between – on the one hand – a

rigid, but heroic rationalism, strictly rejecting every hint of
mysticism or sentimentality, for instance in Goethe’s Werther or

in Fichte’s idealism, and – on the other – an open-minded and

emphatic historicism, with a singular sense for historical, cultural
and linguistic difference. Prior to this debate the two men in
question were friends, or at least they tried to be, in a circle that
also included Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Moses

Mendelssohn, afterwards, they were at least for a time sworn
enemies. Their names were Friedrich Nicolai and Johann
Gottfried Herder. And it wasn’t the first time that they had clashed,

either. Some years before, Nicolai, the famous editor of the
journal Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, where Herder had been

publishing short articles mainly on literary and aesthetical

2 Dobbek 265f, zit. nach Voges 190.

50

questions, had written a rather fierce critique of one of Herder’s first experiments in the
philsophical genre, Aelteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, from 1773 and 1776.

In spring and summer 1782, shortly after the death of their common mentor and
intellectual father-figure Lessing, the two former friends went at it again. Once more, the
context was the problem of Enlightenment, its goals and means; the topic, however,

was the history and the practices of secrecy.
In the beginning of 1782 Nicolai had published a book in Berlin, with the title:

Versuch über die Beschuldigungen, welche dem Tempelherrenorden gemacht worden,
und über dessen Geheimnis; nebst einem Anhang über das

Enstehen der Freimäurergesellschaft. Only a few months later,
first in March and then in April and June, Herder published five
letters in the Teutsche Merkur, in which he criticizes Nicolai’s

book. Upon a closer look these letters consist in a full-fledged
attack on Nicolai. In part they can be read as Herder’s attempt to
vindicate himself after Nicolai’s criticism of his Aelteste Urkunde
– but obviously there is something else at stake as well. During

most part of his life Nicolai was a practicing Freemason. He was
a prominent member of the Berlin lodge “Zu den drei Weltkugeln” as well as the founder
of the “Mittwochsgesellschaft”. Furthermore, he had a scholarly interest in the history

and rituals of Freemasonry, as can be seen in the book on the Knights Templar. As the
title shows, Nicolai is out to answer two questions, one regarding the accusations made
against the order of the Templars by the Inquisition in the 14th century, and the other
regarding the origin of Freemasonry. On the one hand, Nicolai wants to show that the

accusations against the Templars were in fact not fabricated, as had been claimed in a
recently published book by Karl Anton, but true, to the extent that the Templars were
indeed a kind of Gnostic sect worshipping an arcane and esoteric knowledge, “ein
Weisheitsgeheimnis”.3 Secondly, he reconstructs a complex genealogy for 18th century
Freemasonry, going back to the order of the Rosecrucians founded by the famous
Silesian author Johannes Valentin Andrea in the 17th century. Other scholars
commenting on Herder’s critique have all concluded that Herder generally makes a fool

out of himself, unable to match Nicolai’s rhetorical powers and knowledge of the subject.
However, the question I want to ask is what Herder is trying to do in writing these letters
against Nicolai and in what sense they can be said to anticipate his reflexions on

Freemasonry.In his letters, Herder – it would seem – is out to disprove all of Nicolai’s
attempts to find the historical and esoteric content of the secret of the Templars: Neither
the Gnostic secret of wisdom – “eine geheime Tinktur der Weisheit” – or the alchemic
secret of gold-making – “die Goldtinktur” – have – according to Herder – any reality or

relevance for the history of the order. To illustrate how Nicolai have been fooled, Herder
considers the etymology of the name “Baphomet” that appears several times in the
documents from the case against the Templars. Nicolai takes this name and the bearded

head, to which it refers, to be a symbol of a secret, a piece of secret knowledge, common
to Templars and Gnosticists. Against this idea, Herder argues – over several pages –
that “Baphomet” was just another version of the name of the Muslim prophet “Mohamed”

3 Herder, 15, s. 82

51

that the Templars knew from their travels in the Holy Land. Hence, it had nothing to do

with secret Gnostic knowledge. To claim that this name, this word is the sign of a secret

is to Herder nothing more than “die gemeinste Romanlüge und Pöbelsage”. 4 Even

though Herder’s often imprecise or even incorrect arguments deals

with clearly historical questions, about of the Templars, their rituals

and secrets, it soon becomes clear that he is not really interested

in the real – historical and esoteric – content of the secret of the

Templars – what they were really hiding – at least not in the way

Nicolai is. If every secret, every practice of secrecy can be studied

both in search of a content and in search of a function, Herder –

this is at least my claim – is more interested in the functional

aspects. To Herder – it seems – secrecy is a function at work in history itself – a function

that can be controlled and put to use for the purpose of Enlightenment. In the 18th

century this functional approach to the problem of secrecy is by no means singular to

Herder, but can also be found in other texts and debates – such as in C. M. Wielands

brilliant essay “Geheimnis des Kosmopolitenordens” from 1776 as well as in the debate

between the publisher Johann Erich Biester and the philosopher Christian Garve in the

Berliner Monatsschrift in 1785.

A good example of how Herder, in his letters against Nicolai, in fact analyzes the

functions of secrecy, is his discussion of the works by the Silesian theologian and author

Johannes Valentin Andrea, who, in addition to his most

famous work of utopian fiction, Christianapolis, wrote

several books about the secret society of the

Rosecruscians, Fama fraternitatis Roseae Crucis oder Die

Bruderschaft des Ordens der Rosenkreuzer (1614),

Confessio oder Bekenntnis der Sozietät und Bruderschaft

Rosenkreuz (1615) and Chymische Hochzeit Christiani

Rosencreutz Anno 1459 (1616). In Andrea Nicolai sees not

only the founder of the order of the Rosecruscians, but

indirectly, through his influence on Francis Bacon and the

English societies, an important predecessor of

Freemasonry. Herder, however, who had the greatest

Johannes Valentin Andrea respect for Andrea, but more as a priest and a theologian,
reads these books in quite a different way, namely as pure

fictions: Also war seine Chymische Hochzeit bloß ein ludibrium, damit er die zahlreichen

monstra seiner Zeit durchzog: er siehts selbst als eine Comödie oder Roman an, mit
dem er sich seiner übermäßig gesammelten Lektur habe entledigen wollen.5

4 15, s. 84
5 15, s. 60

52

This analysis of how Andrea’s books should be considered as a compilation, in the
form of a novel, of all the superstitions and delusions of his own time, written with the

sole ambition to earn money and sell books, seems also to apply or even be directed at
Herder’s own time. One of the most important novelistic genres in the second half of the
18th century, vastly contributing to Leseseuche, the epidemic of reading, that was

spreading all over Germany, was the so-called “novel of secret societies”, the
“Geheimbundroman” – gaining a lot of its popularity from the fact that the readers were
unable to tell the difference between real and fictitious secrets. Obviously, this is one
function of secrecy that Herder wants to warn against in his letters: Chymie, Alchimie,

Mystik, Traumdeuterei, Astrologie waren im höchsten Ansehen und es konnte nicht
anders seyn, als – wie es ja auch wieder zu werden anfängt – dass mancherlei Betrug
und Wahn dahinter seine Zuflucht suchte. 6 If we move on to the first of Herder’s

dialogues on Freemasonry, “Glaucon und Nicias”, that remained unpublished till after
his death, this contemporary perspective – wie es ja wieder zu werden anfängt – is the

central one. This text is a harsh, even contemptuous criticism of Masonic practices.
Furthermore, it ties in nicely with the letters against Nicolai in the way it focuses more

or less exclusively on the functional aspects of secrecy and the effects on the culture of
Enlightenment. Almost in a systematic manner Herder explores the consequences of
secrecy for the concepts of science, of morality and of religion – geheime

Wissenschaften, geheime Moral and geheime Religion. First the two men engaged in a
conversation, Glaucon and Nicias, ridicule the notion of geheime Wissenschaft, as if

nature had decided to remove her veil and uncover all her secrets, or as if a new artificial
sense, eine neue künstliche Sinne, had been invented that only those who are initiated

to a secret society had access to. Geheime Moral, on the other hand, cannot be anything
but deceit, Betrug, practiced by beautiful women, priests and state ministers: “Minister”,

Herder writes, “glauben die ganze Welt für ihren Fürsten hintergehen zu müssen;
betrügen aber am Ende meistens ihn oder sich selbst”. 7 Third, geheime Religion,

according to Glaucon and Nicias, can be nothing but
Schwärmerei. This, they conclude, is the danger that the

secret societies represent: “Sie sind Winkel, die sich dem

Licht der Sonne verschließen, damit hier den Betrug, dort die
Schwärmerei ausbrüten können […].”8 Not by coincidence the
chapter on Freemasons in the Adrastea is placed immediately

before the chapter on Methodisten and Enthusiasten. It would

be easy, then, to conclude that Herder was in fact an enemy
of the secret societies and that his attack on Nicolai is in fact
an attack on the secret societies in general and Freemasonry

in particular, If this is the case, however, why would he take
the trouble of defending the Templars against Nicolai’s
accusations? Even though the letters themselves give no definite answer, there are

passages in them that seem to indicate that Herder have a more historico-philosophical

6 15, s. 61
7 15, s. 168
8 15, s. 171

53



















development of freemasonry, the connection to urban space becomes evident. The
cathedral/church of European style representing an ideal construction is at the core of
a city, the centre of human settlement. Craftsmen created edifices in a similar style
across European space at a time when religious teachings were more or less
homogeneous. If modern freemasonry even after the Reformation inherited these
values, it is only another step in the same direction that its expansion during the 18th
century is by and large a European urban development and with its ideology showing
elements of universal values – transformed into an Enlightenment context.

Difference and similarity
The political discourse of the 17th century was dominated by an aggressive dichotomy
between the two branches of West European Christian belief, Catholicism and
Protestantism. During the negotiations that led to the Peace of
Westphalia in 1648, however, theories of natural law had an
important impact upon the concepts of European space that
were predominant at least until the Vienna Congress in 1815.
One basic element of political theory was the European
territorial state, with its assumed right of self-determination and
independence. Supporting these ideas, it was necessary to
explain intellectually how and why European states could differ
from each other. Self-determination becomes explanatory only
when it is based upon difference, and difference (to make any
distinction between the qualities of the One and the significant
Other) is a key element of identity and identification. Against
such concepts and ideas, counter-concepts evolved during the
age of Enlightenment, all containing the basic ingredient of
similarity, or rather egalité. Their general idea was that human
beings without difference were receptive to a single all- Acta pacis Westphalicæ
embracing moral message. Related to this idea is the notion that
many branches of religions and philosophies originate from the same, single and
uncorrupted source of knowledge of the true divine, prisca teologia. In 1717, four lodges in
London announced the establishment of a Grand Lodge. The organisational and
ideological roots of modern organised freemasonry in Europe prior to that event have to
be researched further, the predominant and outdated assumption of a distinct cut
between “operative” and “speculative” freemasonry has to be abandoned once and for
all2.

2 Andrew Prescott in ”A History of British Freemasonry 1425-2000” in CRFF Working Paper Series No.1, Sheffield
2008; www.freemasonry.dept.shef.ac.uk/workingpapers.htm (accessed 22 May 2008) suggests a new
periodisation of the development of freemasonry in Great Britain. Here it becomes obvious that the “Gould-

63

In 1723, the Presbyterian minister James Anderson (1679– 1739) published a

book of constitutions, a mythical history of freemasonry that included various “Charges”
detailing its rules and regulations. The Constitutions

can be regarded as a construction of a mythical and
heroic past, as a narrative that construes a consistent

history back to the infancy of man, since it stresses
that this knowledge was passed on through all
traditions and times, codified within the symbolic
language of freemasonry. One of the last paragraphs
reads:

“In short, it would require many large Volumes to contain the
many splendid Instances of the mighty Influence of Masonry
from the Creation, in every Age, and in every Nation, as could
be collected from Historians and Travellers […]”3

James Anderson Perhaps even more prominent is the first paragraph in
Anderson’s Charges defining freemasonry “as a Center
perpetual Distance”.4 of Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship

among Persons that must else have remain’d at a

“The whole world is no other than a great republic” – Ramsay’s 1736/37 “Oration”

If the early concepts of autonomous territorial states are based upon mutually
exclusive qualities, the concept of freemasonry implies a mutual integration of mankind

under a joint ideological roof. This cosmopolitan approach becomes perfectly clear in
an oration allegedly delivered at a lodge meeting in Paris in 1736 by the Scottish
nobleman André Michel de Ramsay (1686–1743)5. Like Anderson, in his Discours he

dates the origin of freemasonry back to pre-historical and biblical times. However,

paradigm” of a pre- and post-1717- history of freemasonry has to be abandoned. Jan Snoek in “Researching
Freemasonry: Where are we?” in CRFF Working Paper Series No. 2, Sheffield 2008;

www.freemasonry.dept.shef.ac.uk/workingpapers.htm (accessed 1 June 2008) elaborates further upon the
different approaches of research into freemasonry and the devastating effects of the so-called “authentic school”
inspired by Gould.
3 Quotation from the 1734 Benjamin Franklin edition of the Constitutions of the Free- Masons, (accessed 22 May

2008), digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/25/, p. 41f.
4 Constitutions of the Free-Masons, (accessed 22 May 2008), digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/25/, p. 48.
5 C.N. Batham: ”Chevalier Ramsay: A New Appreciation” in Ars Quatuor Coronatum, Vol. 81 (1968), pp. 280–315
was one of the first to re-establish a proper understanding of one of the most influential figures in early
French/European freemasonry. For a recent and eminent discussion on Ramsay and the rise of chivalric degrees
in freemasonry see Pierre Mollier, La Chevalerie Maçonnique, Paris 2005, pp. 89-105. Here it becomes evident
that perhaps alongside his famous oration, Ramsay’s hitherto largely unknown Le Voyages de Cyrus (Paris 1727)

plays a crucial roll for the imagination of chivalric motifs within freemasonry. Gould treats Ramsay’s “unlucky
speech” in Gould’s History of Freemasonry, Pools 3rd Edition, London 1951, pp.171-189. This edition is far easier
to use than the original because of its splendid index.

64

Ramsay links the narration about the Temple of Solomon from the Book of Kings in the
Old Testament with the Chivalric Orders of the Crusades. Scotland was the cradle of
modern freemasonry, Ramsay claimed, and its true
secrets were kept there. Nonetheless, it seems rather
paradox that cosmopolitan ideas were formulated in the
context of a society that is regarded as one of the most
secretive, mysterious and even esoteric during the
Enlightenment. Where is the connection between
cosmopolitanism and secrecy? Did secrecy pave the way
for the later popularity of cosmopolitanism among
European elites? First of all, Ramsay rejects the capability
of political rulers to establish enduring institutions for the
benefit of mankind as a whole:

“It may be observed that Solon, Lycurgus, Numa and all the
other political legislators, have not been able to render their
establishment durable; and that however sagacious might have
been their laws, they had at no time the power to expand Andrew Michael Ramsay
themselves over all countries, and to all ages. Having little more in
view than victories and conquests, military violence, and the elevation of one set of people over another,
they were never universal, nor consonant to the taste, or genius, or interest of all nations. Philanthropy
was not their basis. The love of country, badly understood, and pushed into limits on which they should
not verge, destroys often, in warlike republics, the love of genral humanity.”6

This paragraph is quoted from one of the first English translations of Ramsay’s
Discours, published in the Scientific Magazine, and Freemason’s repository in 1797 under the
heading “The Influence of Freemasonry on Society. Philosophically inquired to”. The
Freemason’s Magazine was published 1793-1796 in London and was the first entirely
masonic periodical in the United Kingdom. A continuation with an altered title as above
appeared during 1797/98. As early as in volume III 1794 (p. 385-87) we find an article with
the heading “Social Influence of Freemasonry” containing translated paragraphs from
Ramsay’s Discours. In 2001, George Lamoines published a translation from the French
original of Ramsay’s oration in AQC, but I am not sure if the selected parts of an English
version in the Freemason’s Magazine were known to him or anyone else7. Perhaps even

6 The Scientific magazine, and Freemason’s repository 1797, p. 35.
7 André Michel de Ramsay, ms 1213 Bibliotheque Municipale de Toulouse, in Georges Lamoine (ed.), Discours
prononcé à la réception des Francs-Maçons (Toulouse: Éd SNES, 1999), pp. 38–45. Georges Lamoine, “The Chevalier
de Ramsay’s Oration 1736–37”, Ars Quatuor Coronatum, Vol. 114 (2001), pp. 230–233. Gould writes in the above-
quoted account (History, 1951, p.182) that Ramsay’s speech “in its entirety is unknown in an English garb”, but
doesn’t mention the partial translations in the Freemason’s Magazine. For a free French version of the text, see
also:misraim.free.fr/textes/discours_Ramsay.pdf#search=%22%22André%20Michel%2
0de%20Ramsay%22%22 and freemasons-freemasonry.com/bernheimfr.html for a selection of brilliant texts on
Ramsay and his oration.

65

earlier versions exist, hidden beneath headings that would not suggest that the main
text treats Ramsay’s oration. It is worthwhile to consider the headings in the
Freemason’s Magazine. In 1794 Ramsay’s most cosmopolitan paragraphs seem to
suggest that they explain the “social influence of freemasonry” which three years later
was slightly altered to “the influence of freemasonry on society”. I find those claims most
remarkable. They imply that this influence is mainly about inducing cosmopolitan values
into society, meaning that they differ substantially from other treaties on the topic
concerning the relationship between freemasonry and society. In numerous articles,
songs and masonic orations (in fact up to our times) across the continent, freemasonry
is tripped of potential influence upon society (and that the “profane” world by definition
will never comprehend freemasonry) other than that it produces virtuous men and that
a larger number of virtuous men in a society will influence it in the direction of a general
improvement.8 An extension of this idea is that masonic charity has a positive impact
upon society. Such a position is represented (for example) by an article with an almost
identical heading as above in a masonic periodical published in 1784-1786 in Vienna,
the Journal für Freymaurer 1784:I (p. 135): “Einfluss der Maurerei auf die bürgerliche
Gesellschaft“, “The Influence of Freemasonry on Civic Society”. In contrast, an article
entitled “Über den Kosmopolitismus des Freimaurers”, “On a Freemason’s
Cosmopolitanism” in the same journal 1785:VII (p. 114) calls for the adoption of
cosmopolitan values as a moral duty for every freemason.

But let us return to Ramsay. Using a modern term, “good governance” in Ramsay’s
view comprises long-lasting institutions, wise laws, and order that are extended to all
countries and handed over from generation to generation. The focus of good
governance is on a global scale, involving universalism and an attempt to adopt/adjust to
the genius and interest of all nations. To establish good governance requires moral
qualities, philanthropy and a general love of mankind. A “failed state” is based on military
aggression, the violent expansion of its territory, a striving for hegemony and an ill-
understood patriotism. In Ramsay’s view, each nation has its own genius and its own
interests. However, in the subsequent part of the text it becomes perfectly clear that
these variations do not constitute a definite dividing line:

“Men are not to be essentially distinguished by the difference of tongues which they speak, of
clothes which they wear, of countries which they inhabit, nor of dignities with which they are ornamented:
the whole world is no other than one great republic, of which each nation is a family, and each individual

8 As recently as November 2007, an official of a masonic organisation stated: “In that context, I was rather
surprised that some of you had been discussing the role of Freemasonry in a changing Europe and how
Freemasonry can influence, for the common good, the social and moral development of the new Europe.
The Home Grand Lodges – England, Ireland and Scotland – would respond that Freemasonry has no role
outside Freemasonry and that the only influence it should be seeking is over itself and its members.” Source:
www.freemasons- freemasonry.com/phpnews/show_news.php?uid=84 (accessed 28th May 2008). Is this the
“mighty influence” of freemasonry Anderson was writing about in 1723?

66

a child.”9

The idea of a global republic is combined with the metaphor of the particular nation
as a human subject – or rather, in this case, a collective subject, a family.
“Personification of the state”, write the authors of Organising European Space (2003),
“is a basic metaphor, which guides our thinking about international relations”.10 Each
individual is regarded as a child of the national family. Thus, there seem only to be three
levels when moving from the local to the global: the individual, the collective, and the
universal collective. Ramsay goes on to say that it “was to revive and re-animate such
maxims” (continuing with “borrowed from nature” in the version Lamoines translated in
AQC) that freemasonry was established. The goal is to unite men of an enlightened mind
so that

“the interest of the Fraternity might become that of the whole human race; where all nations might
increase all knowledge; and where every subject of every country might exert himself without jealousy,
live without discord, end embrace mutually, without forgetting, or too scrupulously remembering the spot
he was born.”11

According to Ramsay the maxims of philanthropic cosmopolitanism are based upon
“nature” (a typical figure in the context of the debate on natural law and human rights of
the period), but they have declined or even disappeared. We can also assume that he
refers to an organic metaphor: humankind is to be conceived as a tree with a joint and
diversified root system and a shared stem, divided into larger and smaller branches.
Ramsay does not specify further in what ancient period these maxims were alive, but he
might be referring to ideas of a golden age, when mankind still was pure, perhaps before
the Fall of Man. The potential return of the Golden Age is a distinctive feature of Utopian
thought – thus Ramsay sees freemasonry as a vehicle in order to realise a latent Utopian
potential among his contemporaries. Once this is realised, all nations will be enabled to
mutually increase knowledge, a very interesting statement that will be developed further
below. Although cooperation between the different people is the ultimate goal, this does
not imply renouncing the “spot where [they were] born”, the homeland. Parallel to
Anderson, Ramsay subsequently constructs a historical basis for his cosmopolitan
approach to freemasonry, calling the Crusaders of the Middle Ages its “ancestors”:

“Our ancestors, the Crusaders, gathered from all parts of Christendom in the Holy Land, wanted
to unite thus in an only Fraternity the subjects of all nations […] with the aim to “form in the course of
time a spiritual nation where, without departing from the various duties which the difference between
the States demands, a new people will be created who, getting from several nations, will cement them

9 The Scientific magazine, and Freemason’s repository 1797, p. 35.
10 Christer Jönsson, Sven Tägil, Gunnar Törnqvist, Organizing European Space (London: Sage, 2003), p. 14.
11 The Scientific magazine, and Freemason’s repository 1797, p. 35.

67

in a way by the bonds of Virtue and Science.”12

This claim is an extraordinary interpretation of the ambitions of the Crusades.

Ramsay formulates their ultimate goal: to unite subjects of all nations into one fraternity,

to create a new people within a spiritual, universal nation. Most certainly, the vision is

not a world republic in the political sense but rather an “imagined community” on a global

scale. The aim is not to depart from the duties that each separate state demands of its

subjects; however, it would be rather improbable to imagine that such subjects united in

a spiritual global fraternity organise warfare against each other. Rather, the opposite

should be the case: a common morality and science

will unite the “new people”. Ramsay terms this morality

“the Theology of the heart”, a concept whose origin

may be located in the context of Lutheran mysticism

or Protestant pietism (Zinzendorf), although Ramsay

was a dedicated Catholic. However – in parallel with

Anderson’s Constitutions – he also construes a line

back to the “feasts of Ceres in Eleusis […] of Isis in

Egypt, of Minerva in Athens, of Urania with the

Phoenicians, and Diana in Scythia” that “are all related

Nikolaus Zinzendorf predica a tutte to our solemnities”. A common source of the
le genti celebration of mysteries is described, and there is a
similarity between all traditions “where several

remnants of the ancient religions of Noah and the Patriarchs can be found”. But just a

few paragraphs later, the universality of the esoteric mysterious is transformed into a

universality of exoteric knowledge in an encyclopaedic and enlightened spirit. Ramsay

writes:

“All Grand Masters in Germany, England, Italy and throughout Europe, exhort all scholars in the

Fraternity to unite together in order to supply the material towards a universal dictionary of all liberal arts
and all useful sciences […] there will be explained, not only technical words and their etymologies, but

moreover the history of particular sciences and arts, their great principle and manner of working. The

lights of all nations will thus be united in a single work that will serve as a general store and universal
Library of what is beautiful and great in the natural sciences and all the noble arts. This work will increase

in each century along with the increase of the Enlightenment: a noble emulation will be spread together
with a taste for belles-lettres and fine arts throughout the whole of Europe.”13

12 Georges Lamoine, “The Chevalier de Ramsay’s Oration 1736–37”, Ars Quatuor Coronatum, Vol. 114 (2001), p.
230.
13 Ibid., p. 232.

68

As far as we know, at the time Ramsay delivered his speech, with the exception of
England, Scotland and France no national grand masters were appointed in the countries
listed above. The stated project for the collection of knowledge organised by the order
of freemasons therefore seems a mere construction. In reality, it was by this time only
Johann Heinrich Zedler (1706-1751) who in 1732 had launched his large encyclopaedia project

Grosses vollständiges Universallexikon aller Wissenschaften
und Künste (64 + 4 volumes) in Leipzig. This project
outsized by far Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopedia, edited in
London in 1728 (two volumes with approximately 2500
pages). Chambers is nonetheless of interest for further
examination. He included a short entry on “Free, or
Accepted Masons” in volume II, p. 506: Freemasonry is
“found in every Country in Europe” (mind-provoking to
imagine from where this information came in 1728). Its
claimed ancestry back to biblical times is mentioned, as
well as the statement that its secret is about promoting
“Friendship, Society, mutual Assistance, and Good
Fellowship”. These secrets have been kept by the
“brothers of this family” and have been “religiously
observed from Age to Age”. 14 A second edition of the
Cyclopedia was printed in 1738 and one year later it is said
that Chambers was asked to produce a French translation that was finally published
between 1743 and 1745. A couple of years later it was translated into Italian. It seems
perhaps a bit far-fetched to interpret Ramsay’s oration as a plea to support these
translations. However, the character of the Cyclopedia definitely fits into his vision. The
word “encyclopaedia” has its origin in Classical Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία, literally, a
"[well-]rounded education", meaning “general knowledge” Ramsay delivers an
imaginative forecast of the encyclopaedic ambitions of his time, creating this general
knowledge: “the lights of all nations will be united in a single work” and this single work
will substantially contribute to the augmentation of enlightenment throughout Europe.
In the XIXth volume of Universallexicon, published in 1739, we find an article on
freemasonry according to which the fraternity was originally based in England and by
then had spread to the Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy. The article also states
(clearly referring to Anderson), that “persons belonging to all religions and
congregations, if they only accept the rules of morality, may be accepted as members of
this society.” Furthermore the Zedler article on masons, “Maurer” in the same volume,
contains a draft version of Anderson’s mythological history of freemasonry. The
occurrence of these two entries begs the question of what sources the editors used, as

14 Chambers Cyclopaedia, or, An universal dictionary of arts and sciences […], London 1728, vol. II, p. 506.

69

the first German translation of Anderson was published in 174115. Still, there is no
evidence of any involvement of organised freemasonry (although there is evidence of the
involvement of single freemasons, especially in the French Encyclopédie) in the
encyclopaedic projects of the 18th century. The question remains why Ramsay mentioned
it.

Ramsay’s ideas on world citizenship might be interpreted as the following: in his
view, the concord between human beings is rooted in the natural state of man. When
political leadership interfered in this state of nature by means of aggressive and coercive
expansion, the true unanimity between humans was lost. There is also an idea of an all-
embracing morality that can be experienced by everybody. Freemasonry aims at a
revival of the true state of nature and works with the same ambitions as its historical
ancestors, the Crusaders, to create a new people who embrace a universal solidarity. The
roots of this universal solidarity are not only found in a common spiritual/mythical past,
but also in the intellectual challenges of the future: to collect, augment and disseminate
knowledge for the benefit of mankind as a whole. In the definitions established by
Pauline Kleingeld, Ramsay’s oration unites several different varieties of
cosmopolitanism16. Without doubt, we find in it the conviction “that all human beings are
members of a single moral community and that they have moral obligations to all other
human beings regardless of their nationality, language, religions, customs etc.” (moral
cosmopolitanism)17. When it comes to ideas of a world state, Ramsay does not go so far
as to advocate a certain model, although he talks about the whole world as a “vast
republic” (not a kingdom – perhaps he had the educated “Republique des Lettres” in
mind). However, it is clear that in his view, states using military power to suppress others
are “failed states”. They do not represent the true natural state of mankind. The universal
level of a world state is described as a “spiritual nation” only, with no political obligations.
In this sense, Ramsay is perhaps already very close to romantic cosmopolitanism as
represented by Novalis. Novalis, Prussian statesman and freemason Friedrich von
Hardenberg (1772-1801) gave a talk in 1799 to a Romantic circle of friends in Jena that
posthumously received the title “Christianity or Europe”, treated extensively below18.
Here he also stresses philanthropy, moral bonds, a shared faith, and a “general love of
mankind”. Romantic cosmopolitanism is fulfilled within the fraternity. Even more striking
are the parallels between Ramsay and Novalis: both refer back to the European Middle
Ages as a golden age. Novalis emphasises, however, the unity between the political
ruler and religion within Europe. Ramsay makes a link with the Crusades, where

15 Zedlers Universallexicon […], vol. 19, Leipzig 1739, column 2207-2209.
16 Pauline Kleingeld, “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany”, Journal of the
History of Ideas, 1999, pp. 505–524, where she makes the distinction between moral, political and legal reform
and cultural, economic and romantic cosmopolitanism
17 Ibid., p. 507.
18 For a good account of Novalis and his talk on Europe see Philipp W. Hildmann: “Von Novalis für Europa lernen?”
in Stimmen der Zeit 5 (2006), p. 334-343. An extended version is also available at
goethezeitportal.de/db/wiss/novalis/christenheit_hildmann.pdf (accessed 2008-04-10).

70



















Kant rejects the possibility that the human sense is able to perceive something in the

realm of ideas. Rather, the figure used by Novalis dates back to Renaissance concepts

of a “visio intellectualis”, the intellectual perception of

totality. One of Novalis’s contemporaries was the exiled

Swedish philosopher Thomas Thorild (1761-1808) who

developed a perception theory based on the so-called “all-

blick” enabling man to see everything on a scale from the

most invisible to the most visible. Thorild rejected the

Platonian and Kantian concept of a realm of ideas

unperceivable by man – it is possible to measure everything

and hence Thorild’s major work was called Archimetria (1800),

popularized in a German version as Die Gelehrtenwelt.

Thorild spent some of his time in exile in England where

Novalis – psued. di Georg according to a letter written in 1800 addressing the German
Friedrich Philipp Freiherr von philosopher Herder he had tried to “arrange humanity as an
Hardenberg invisible universal state” (“die Menschheit als einen

unsichtbaren Universalstaat einzurichten“). English

writings of Thorild are preserved, but have to the best of my knowledge never been

analysed in the context of their origin during his time in London. An examination of

Thorild’s British encounters and the way he attempted to realise the invisible universal

state would be most fascinating.

In his talk, Novalis communicates a broad picture of European historical

development and also delivers outlines of theoretical approaches towards it that in many

senses tangent the emerging trans-national history (or should we rather say post-national

historiography?) of our times. From Novalis’s point of view it is impossible to separate a

part from the whole when it comes to (European) history: “partial histories are impossible

– each history has to be universal history and only when related to the whole of history is
it possible to treat one single element historically.”25 This leads him (and subsequently

also Hegel) to the conclusion that European historical development is a result of a

dialectical opposition between the “holy sense” and its counterparts such as reason and

utility. However, there are three given phases in historical development: a “golden age”,

a phase of real, contemporary history, characterised by struggle, resistance and

alienation, and a future phase when a new realm of peace, faith and love will come into

power. This utopian picture of historical development is projected by Novalis on the

European history of state, church, religion and intellect in its development from the

strongly idealised middle ages to the strongly criticised contemporary times. The first part

of Novalis’ talk contains a bright description of a Christian realm of belief, the second

25 Quoted by Carl Paschek in Novalis Fragmente und Studien, Die Christenheit oder Europa, Stuttgart 2006, p.
148.
25 Pauline Kleingeld: “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany” in Journal of the
History of Ideas, 1999, p. 521-524.

80

part deals with the power of utility and reason, characterised by materialism, irreligiosity
and egoism. The third part is devoted to the seeds of change for the better, a realm of
freedom and eternal peace to come. Pauline Kleingeld categorises Novalis’s thoughts on
Europe as “Romantic Cosmopolitanism” 26 . She rejects the notion that he idealises
Catholicism. According to Kleingeld, Novalis uses mediaeval Europe only as a symbol in
his creative imagination for “a cosmopolitan ideal of a global spiritual community”.
Christian mediaeval Europe serves merely as a symbol for an ideal humanity united in
faith and love. However, an inescapable development of humanity subsequently
disrupts the primal unity. Individualism and profit lead to social fragmentation and
political fragmentation of the states. Religion after reformation is confined within state
borders, in contrary to its cosmopolitan intentions. Europe is in a state of constant
warfare instead of eternal peace. A true change can only be achieved through the revival
of a new spiritual power that enables one to take a new step forward.

The Extinction of the Holy from Reformation to French Revolution

“Those were beautiful times, those were splendid times, the times of Christian Europe, when one
Christianity inhabited this continent shaped in human form, and one vast, shared design united the
farthest provinces of this spiritual kingdom. Free from extended worldly possessions, one supreme ruler
held together the great political forces.”27 Novalis, 1799

These are the first lines of Novalis’s fragment. Here he strongly idealised the
mediaeval past as a period of unity of the European continent, united by a joint religion.
Everyone acted on the decrees of the church and ordinary people found “protection,
respect, and audience” in the church when needed. Churches were full of beauty, music,
smells and mystery. Politically, Europe was a unit, and religious and political powers were
in harmony with each other. The “holy sense” was defended against scientific claims.
Jerusalem, once destroyed by Rome, was now resurrected in the capital of the former
destroyers, a “holy residence of a divine government on earth”. Those were the beautiful
traits of truly Catholic or truly Christian times. “But humanity was not yet mature, not yet
educated enough for this splendid realm”. Faith and Love were replaced by Knowledge
and Possession. Due to the course of the Reformation (and the peace of religion in
Augsburg in 1555), religion was limited within the boundaries of states. Thus the
foundation of the cosmopolitan interest of religions was undermined, it lost its great
political and peacemaking influence. Novalis claims that the inner-religious split between
Protestant and Catholic was more profound than the one between Christians and
Muslims.

27 All quotes from Novalis from the edition of Carl Paschek: Novalis Fragmente und Studien, Die Christenheit oder
Europa, Stuttgart 2006, p. 67-89. Translations by the author of this article.

81

According to him, modern politics was also created during these times “and
separate powerful states sought to take into possession the vacant universal chair [of
papacy], converted into a throne”. Hence, the drive for hegemony is rooted in the
Westphalian state concept. The only cosmopolitan impulse left is ascribed by Novalis
as the Order of Jesuits, a society that is “a pattern for all societies that sense an organic
longing for infinite spread and eternal existence”. One of the most unique consequences
is the role of the Order as “the mother of the so-called secret societies, a still immature
but most surely important historical sow”. However, it was impossible to prevent
antagonism between religion and science. The holy sense became marginalised by
philosophy, “the infinite creative music of the universe was turned into a monotonous
clattering of a monstrous mill”. Nature, earth, human souls and science were cleansed
of poetry. “[E]very trace of the Holy was extinguished” by the new European guild of
philanthropists and Enlighteners.

Embellished India versus Dead Spitzbergen: the Second Revolution
According to Novalis a second revolution is about to come during the 19th century, a

revolution of religion or rather a return of religion. In the chaos of his time, Novalis sees
“true anarchy” as a “generative power of religion. From the extinction of all positive, she
lifts her glorious head as a new founder of the world.” The traces of this new world are
best observed in Germany, he continues, and Germany leads the European league into
it. Poetry is now juxtaposed to the old “chamber reason” (“Stubenverstand”) like an
“ornamented India” compared to a “cold, and dead Spitzbergen”. Within politics the new

and the old world are fighting each other, the
weakness and needs of state orders have
become obvious through grotesque
examples. Novalis, hoping that the
(Napoleonic) war creates a closer and more
diverse connection and contact between the
European states, cries out: “if a new
movement of the until now slumbering
Europe would be brought into the game, if
Europe wanted to rouse itself, if we would
face a state of states, a political state theory!”
But in his opinion it is impossible that secular
forces create harmony among themselves. A
third element, simultaneously secular and unearthly, is required to establish that (eternal)
peace:

“Blood will flow across Europe as long as the nations become aware of their horrible insanity that
leads them around in circles, [until] hit by holy music, appeased they will step in a colourful blend towards
the former altars, commit works of peace and [until] a great repast of love, as a feast of peace […] will
be celebrated with hot tears. Religion only is able to rouse Europe and to secure the people, and with

82

new splendour and visible on earth install Christianity into its old peacemaking office.”

Novalis claims finally that other continents await the reconciliation and resurrection
of Europe and that the time of eternal peace is near “when the new Jerusalem becomes
the capital of the world”. At the end of his prophetical essay he conclusively calls in the
soul-less representatives of pure and secular reason “into the peace-founding lodge”. It
is there they will receive “the kiss of brotherhood” in order to reunite them with religion
and in a new synthesis of enlightenment paired with holy sense initiate a new and shining
future for Europe and humanity.

Conclusion: two Readings of Cosmopolitanism
The cosmopolitan foundations of freemasonry are not to be found in a direct use of

the word within freemasonry. It would be easy to assume cosmopolitan foundations if,
say, Anderson or Ramsay had claimed: “the brotherhood of freemasonry is
cosmopolitan in essence”. The article in Journal für Freymaurer from 1785, referred to
above, creates – to the best of my knowledge – for the first time a direct link between
freemasonry and the concept of cosmopolitanism.

This has to take into account that this masonic periodical was edited by a lodge of
intellectuals in one of the epicentres of European enlightenment. During the first half of
the century “cosmopolitanism” does not even occur in any titles of printed publications,
neither in German nor in English28. On the other hand, the term “citizen of the world” or
“world citizen” is widespread and most likely known by educated men such as Anderson
and Ramsay. The Constitutions claim a united source of human knowledge, to be found
in all ages and among all people, transferred through freemasonry. The Charges
furthermore open up for the idea that all men who share certain moral values, can
through freemasonry experience unity in a potentially global community. This claim is
expressed vividly in Ramsay’s Oration, in which he creates the image of a world republic
made up of different nations, founded upon principles of peace and a mutual exchange
of knowledge for the benefit of all (of course he is not the first doing that, but it is
remarkable that this is pronounced on the occasion of a masonic meeting). He explicitly
defines the establishment of a world republic, a “new people” as one of the main
intentions of freemasonry. Like Anderson, Ramsay’s concept of knowledge does not
only embrace the chosen few in an esoteric circle of initiated. He claims that the grand
masters of freemasonry in Europe encourage the collection and spread of knowledge in
form of an encyclopaedic project, accessible to all people. As already mentioned, this is
notably early. At the time, most European states would not even have educated
academies and societies.

The reprint of parts of Ramsay’s oration in the flagship of English masonic press sixty
years later triggers the question of how confined his ideas actually were in the context

28 Checked in the bibliographical databases copac.co.uk and www.ubka.uni- karlsruhe.de/kvk.html as well as
in books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html.

83

of their origin in late 1730s France. Furthermore it shows a tendency of the editors
of Freemason’s Magazine, who were apparently of the opinion that Ramsay’s thoughts
mirrored the influence of freemasonry on society. Given that one of the most prominent
representatives of German radical Enlightenment, Wieland, in his essay on the Order of
Cosmopolitans fifty years after Ramsay’s oration (and six years before the first reprint of
Ramsay in London) repeats some of its central ideas, it cannot be underestimated. Again
it must be emphasised that Ramsay was not original in the sense that he invented the
concepts in his oration (although I would like to see the idea of crusaders as the “new
people” and the petition for an encyclopaedia to which all people contribute, in print or
even manuscript, before 1737), but he surely was one of the earlier representatives,
crystallising these ideas. Wieland’s essay on the Cosmopolitans is not printed for a
masonic audience but reflects the discourse of a time that was disappointed with the
turn that the first masonic, truly European, endeavour had taken. The rise and fall of the
Strict Observance was one of the most traumatic events for those who had hoped that a
new time for a trans- national community – at least among European intellectuals – would
arrive. This disappointment explains to a large extent the emergence of the Illuminati – to
which Wieland disappointment explains to a large extent the emergence of the Illuminati
– to which Wieland most certainly and leading Vienna freemasons most definitely
belonged. In the aftermath of the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic
Wars there grew a resistance against an entirely rational definition of world citizenship.
Napoleon’s dominion over Europe was perceived as a threat of a universalising force
able to erase some of the continent’s core values. Faced with the destruction of a political
order that had given sense to the German-speaking states since its foundation by Charles
Magne in the 9th century, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation – finally

dissolved by Napoleon in 1806 and thus erasing the Peace
of Westphalia of 1648 as the framework of European
statehood – Novalis attempted to secure at least the concept
of “Holiness” for a new cosmopolitan vision of Europe.
Opposing the “sacred” with the “secular” he invented a basic
dialectic pattern of world explanation (as later developed in
Hegelianism and Marxism) and saw in their synthesis a
dream of the future unity of humankind: the secular is
reconciled with the sacred in the lodge, receiving there the
kiss of brotherhood. Ramsay’s oration contains the nucleus
for two forms of world citizenship, one based upon rational
principles and the other founded upon spiritual values. Both
readings of cosmopolitanism, in a rational and an ideal sense, are possible within
fundamental texts of freemasonry.

84

Roger Dachez

Le « non-événement » de 1717…1

J’ai annoncé, dans un post précédent 2 , que lors de la Conférence du Tricentenaire organisée à
Cambridge par la loge Quatuor Coronati de Londres au début du mois de septembre dernier, le Pr
Andrew Prescott qui, depuis des années, s’est imposé en Grande Bretagne comme un réviseur parfois
très offensif et «décoiffant» de l’historiographie maçonnique admise, avait fait part d’un «scoop»: la
fameuse et mythique – le mot devient de plus en plus justifié – assemblée de juin 1717, dans la taverne
A l’Oie et le Gril…n’aurait peut-être jamais eu lieu !

Dans l’intervalle de ces deux posts, le blog 357 et plus m’a, en quelque sorte, brulé la politesse, en
exposant l’essentiel de l’affaire! Je ne lui en veux pas du tout, bien au contraire, et je renvoie tout
simplement mes lecteurs à ce blog ami et à l’exposé du problème qu’il a très bien résumé. Cela me
permet de prendre un autre point de vue pour reconsidérer le sujet en ajoutant quelques détails…

Un doute ancien
En premier lieu, si j’ai employé le mot «scoop», c’est un peu par dérision, et parce

cela constituera sans aucun doute une réelle surprise pour nombre de maçons à qui
l’on a enseigné depuis presque trois siècles que la «première Grande Loge de toutes
les Grandes Loges du monde» avait été fondée le 24 juin 1717! Pourtant, le doute sur
les circonstances de cette fondation est déjà ancien…

Celles ou ceux qui m’ont fait le plaisir et l’amitié d’assister, depuis des années,
aux tenues de la loge d’études et de recherches William Preston (Loge Nationale
Française) ou de la loge d’études et de recherches Elizabeth St Leger (Loge Nationale
Mixte Française), ont souvent entendu exposer les faits curieux qui ont conduit nombre
de chercheurs – dont je suis, modestement – à s’interroger sur la réalité de cet
événement réputé fondateur. Je résume les points majeurs qui fondent ce doute:
Dans l’édition de 1723 de ses Constitutions, Anderson, dans la partie historique, lorsqu’il
aborde la période 1717-1723 (pp. 47-18), fait mention de l’avènement de George Ier et
conclut rapidement à la renaissance des loges de Londres à la convocation d’une
«Grande Assemblée annuelle», mais il ne mentionne expressément que «notre présent
Grand Maitre, le très noble Prince, John, Duc de Montague», sans citer aucun de ses
prédécesseurs éventuels, et ne signale surtout en aucun endroit une assemblée ayant
eu lieu en juin 1717, ce qui est pour le moins surprenant.
C’est seulement dans l’édition de 1738 qu’il expose en détail (pp. 109-116) les minutes des assemblées
supposées de la Grande Loge entre 1717 et 1723 – sur ces assemblées, son témoignage est unique et se
réfère à des évènements alors vieux d’une vingtaine d’années, auxquels il n’avait lui-même

1 Le immagini nell’articolo sono state immesse dall’Autore (N.d.C.)
2L’Autore si riferisce a un suo articolo in http://pierresvivantes.hautetfort.com/archive/2016/09/29/de-retour-de-
cambridge-5854135.html

85

pas assisté.
Le livre des procès-verbaux de la Grande Loge de Londres et de Westminster ne

commence qu’en novembre 1723. Il ne porte aucune indication qu’il s’agirait d’un
«deuxième volume», et l’on ne dispose donc, pour attester l’existence d’une Grande
Loge, d’aucun procès-verbal entre 1717 et 1723. Aucune explication satisfaisante n’a
jamais été apportée à ce fait3.

En 1721, alors que la Grande Loge est supposée exister depuis quatre ans,
lorsque William Stukeley, érudit archéologue anglais, ami de Newton, est initié à
Londres, il rapporte dans son Journal qu’«il avait été la première personne à être initiée
à Londres depuis de nombreuses années (!) et qu’il avait été très difficile de trouver un
nombre suffisant de personnes pour réaliser la cérémonie» Il ajoute cependant qu’à
partir de cette époque (1721), «la franc-maçonnerie prit son essor et se développa à un
rythme effréné en raison de la folie de ses membres…» Cela ne témoigne guère d’une
grande vitalité de la maçonnerie à Londres, mais Stukeley nous signale bien l’année
1721 comme un tournant. Or, si quatre loges sont supposées avoir formé la Grande
Loge en 1717 (Anderson parle de six loges en 1716), deux dans plus tard, quand
s’ouvre le livre des procès-verbaux de la Grande Loge, on recense déjà une
cinquantaine de loges. On ignore donc ce qui s’est passé entre 1717 et 1721 mais on
doit sérieusement s’interroger sur ce qui s’est passé entre 1721 et 1723: c’est en fait la
question la plus intéressante.

Un lieu aujourd'hui disparu...et légendaire?
L’intérêt de la conférence d’Andrew Prescott est notamment d’apporter un

élément supplémentaire, qui avait d’ailleurs déjà été exposé par lui lors de la
Conférence Sankey de 2016 (Searching for the Apple Tree Tavern: What happened in
1716?).

Dans le récit que fait Anderson, en 1738, de la réunion du 24 juin 1717, ce dernier
précise en effet, ce que l’on omet souvent, qu’une réunion en quelque sorte préparatoire
aurait eu lieu l’année précédente, en 1716, à la taverne du Pommier – Antony Sayer,
traditionnellement présenté comme le premier Grand Maître élu en 1717, ayant été lui-
même membre de la loge qui s’y réunissait. Or, pour le dire en quelques mots, selon
les recherches menées par Prescott, il apparaît simplement qu’à la date envisagée, soit
en 1716, la taverne du Pommier (anciennement connue comme lieu de prostitution!)
…n’existait plus! Du reste, en 1723, Sayer est présenté comme membre d’une loge se
réunissant à la taverne La tête de la Reine (Queen’s Head), à Knaves Acre. Il faut enfin
rappeler quelques faits, également familiers aux visiteurs de William Preston et
d’Elizabeth St Leger: le personnage d’Antony Sayer est plus qu’énigmatique. On pense
qu’il fut libraire mais on note surtout que si George Payne, réputé avoir été Grand Maître

3 Je ne reviendrai pas ici les débats pénibles et inutiles survenus en 2003, à l’occasion de la célébration du 275eme
anniversaire de la maçonnerie en France, à propos de la date de 1728 – depuis lors réutilisée à tort et à travers
par pratiquement tout le monde…

86