A Tournament Of Shadows
VI. The Grand Master Of Malta
An unintended consequence of the Ottoman’s capture of Constantinople was the flood of new, or rather, lost knowledge, found its way into the West. Greek scholars and Greek learning spread throughout Europe as a result of the monks who fled that ancient capital of the Eastern Empire. The effect of Greek manuscripts flooding Western Europe was many-layered. It produced a renewed impulse for language study and translation. It also introduced a magical texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum, and with it the seeds for what would become the European occult revival.[1] The first translation into Latin was completed in 1471 (with the sponsorship of the Médicis) by Marsilio Ficino, who presided over The Platonic Academy, reviving the Hermetic philosophies, as well as Neoplatonism, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, etc. He coined the term prisca theologia to articulate a new doctrine that espoused a single, true, theology revealed by God in the beginning, and which threaded through all religions. This intellectual movement that Ficino expressed was carried further by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, a zealous disciple of Ficino. Mirandola went to Paris in search of more knowledge, and supplemented Ficino’s system by researches into Jewish traditions, leading him to the Kabbalists. Integrating these arcane systems into the unifying prisca theologia, Mirandola sought to reform the Church.[2] He was not the only one.
In 1502 the University of Wittenberg was founded without papal approval. It began when a few scholars, with access to a printing press, began teaching Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Soon after, an Augustinian friar in Wittenberg named Martin Luther urged Christendom to return to re-examine the foundational texts of the Christian faith and study them in their original languages of Greek and Hebrew. For Luther, this was his “calling,” which, as it was understood by medieval theologians, was a state of life mandated by Heaven, and therefore impious to rebel against. Luther ultimately protested the sacerdotal administration of the Church in 1517 with his 95 Theses and called for the dismantling of the highly ritualistic praxis of the Church, as well as emphasizing sola scriptura (scripture alone) thus sparking the Protestant Reformation. One of the first works Luther published was his Small Catechism (1529.) Catechisms being the manuals for Christian religious instruction (catechesis,) that appeared in the Late Middle Ages. Luther’s catechism implemented a question-and-answer format, as he wanted students (catechumens) to comprehend and assimilate what they were learning. Two parties to participated, a master and a student, and after each section of the catechism (Decalogue, Lord’s Prayer, and Apostles’ Creed) the question was asked: “What does this mean?” When the Protestant Reformation split the Christian Church of the West, Latin church services were replaced with various European vernaculars, but the notion that language was a system of sacred semiotics and an instrument of divine unity remained. National languages became sacred for the respective state churches and consequently gave rise to modern nationalism.[3]
In 1530 John Calvin, a French lawyer-turned-theologian, broke from the Catholic Church. When religious upheavals targeted Protestants in France, Calvin fled to Switzerland. For Calvin, a “calling” was not a condition under which an individual was born, but rather a strenuous enterprise chosen by the individual himself and pursued with religious responsibility. In Geneva, Calvin published an innovative exegesis of Christian theology titled Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which he outlined a comprehensive system that, among other topics, expounded on the doctrines of predestination. He also seized upon the concept of the threefold office of Christ (teacher, priest, king,) to provide the divine sanction for ordering of the relationship among Academy, Church, and State. To protect the Academy and Church from encroachments on the part of the State, Calvin reaffirmed the sovereignty of Christ over mind, body, and soul, when he established his new cultural ethic. A conflict between Protestants and Catholics would be waged in many European kingdoms, known broadly as the “The European Wars of Religion” between sixteenth century and eighteenth century. One such conflict was The English Civil War between the Royalists (conservative Protestants and some Catholics) and the Parliamentarians (Puritans i.e. strict Calvinists.) Some English migrants fled the religious conflict to settle in North American colonies, as both Protestants and Catholics alike, maintained that religious uniformity was a requirement for a peaceful society. Roughly mirroring the geographical demarcation of their homeland, the Puritans settled in the North, in New England, the Anglicans settled in the South, while the Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Quakers, etc. settled in the Middle colonies.[4] As the Anglophone colonies of North America were being established, the conflicts of Europe were cooling down. The “Peace of Westphalia” of 1648 brought about the emergence of the modern nation-state under a new political reality known as “Westphalian Sovereignty.”
It was the prevailing belief of the classical world that human nature was unchangeable, and that the historical process (as observed in nature) was cyclical. Christian scholars, having little hope for temporal improvement, subjected everything to the will of God. This changed during the Protestant Reformation with its challenge to ancient authority. Progress, simply put, was a doctrinal innovation within Christianity. At its core, the scaffolding of the progressive worldview is the belief in a unilinear passage of time, and that humanity develops through an inexorable process as it passes through gradual civilizational stages, (from an inferior society to a superior one.)[5] Presupposing the truth of a linear time (with a beginning, middle, and end,) it was the belief that it was by this process that humanity would reach the Eschaton, the Christian End of Days. “No single idea has been more important than […] the idea of progress in Western Civilization for nearly three thousand years,” observed Robert Nisbet. With the advent of empirical science, greater value was subsequently placed on secular life.[6] This new conception of religion changed the moral standard, and the pursuit of wealth became an economic virtue expressed in the praxis of capitalism, the social counterpart of Calvinist theology.[7] Whereas earlier generations regarded the covetous world of business as perilous to salvation, mercantilism was now sanctified. It was one’s responsibility to embark on profitable occupations. Those who were successful in the business world were seen to possess the virtues of “diligence, thrift, sobriety, prudence,” while those who were in poverty were seen to exhibit the vice of sloth or laziness.[8] This saw the ride of exploration, trade, and Empire.[9] The British East India Company went to India, “heartened by the defeat of the great Spanish Armada twelve years before.” The London Company trading to Virginia and the Plymouth Company of New England were a part of the same outflowing tide. The impulse that led Captain John Smith to found Jamestown in 1607, was the same which carried Captain Hawkins to Surat in Western India (and contact with the Mughals.) For the century and a half from 1600 to 1750, the English took no (direct) part in Indian politics and occupied no territory (except the ground on which their warehouses were built.)[10]
In antiquity, the conception of nature was eternal, self-generating, unchangeable in character, and repetitive in cycle. The medieval Christian philosopher, Thomas Aquinas re-contextualized this Greek hylomorphism with the Biblical narrative as the motive of creation, descent into sin, and redemption through Christ. When Luther and Calvin emerged, they stressed the uncreated God’s sovereignty and complete independence; He stood apart from the universe “infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His being.” Whereas Medieval Christians focused their attention on the appearance of God in the afterlife, the Protestants had a vested interest in the living world. According to Calvin, God was a personal ruler who created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing) according to His own sovereign will. Calvin maintained that everything operates in accordance with the divine laws which God endowed nature with, and only on rare occasions (special revelation/redemptive action,) did God directly interfere. This secularization of nature marked the first stage in the development of modern science. It was understood that humans were given the responsibility of developing a material and social culture that would manifest the benevolence and power of God, and thereby provide humanity with the material conditions for living “the good life.” Calvin held that God placed humans on earth to subdue and use it.[11] 1662 saw the foundation of the Royal Society, “the great invasion of Nature’s realms.”[12] These ideas helped bring about the European Age Of Enlightenment, a time of revolutionary social ideas focused on rationalism and empiricism, and the advent of political ideals like “natural law,” “liberty,” “progress,” “tolerance,” “fraternity,” constitutional government, and eventually the formal separation of church and state. This epoch dovetailed directly into the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840,) which saw rapid technological advances in the West, mechanized production of goods, and mass migrations from the fields to cities. There were other sciences.
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European Alchemists such as Paracelsus, Heinrich Khunrath, and Cornelius Agrippa, made considerable contributions during this period.[13] Indeed, not only had Hermetic texts found their way into, so too did Hermetic praxis, especially the alchemy of Jabir ibn Hayyan. The knowledge of distillation made its way to Europe in the late sixteenth century, and alchemical elixirs soon became famous for their magical property (known as aqua vitae—the water of life—the terminology was preserved in many European languages, “eau-de-vie” in French, and “uisce-beatha” or “whiskey,” in Irish.)[14] Gin, another Alchemical aqua vita, was first distilled with jenever in the mid-1600s. In 1669 a German Alchemist named Hennig Brand created a substance called phos-phorus, or “bringer of light.” (Incidentally, in the late 1660s John Milton reimagined the character of Lucifer, the “light-bringer,” in his epic English poem, Paradise Lost.
More mysterious still, in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, a mysterious Order called the Rosicrucians, or Brotherhood of the Rosy-Cross, made their appearance. It began when a text from an unknown author called The Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (1614) began circulating in Europe. It claimed that a German mystic born in 1378 named Christian Rosencreutz (though not yet named in this tract) had lived to be 106 years old after learning occult secrets in the Holy Land from various masters and elemental spirits. When he returned to Europe he allegedly founded the aforementioned secret society. Two other tracts, Confessio Fraternitas (1615) and The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz (1617,) followed, expanding on the history of the Brotherhood, as well as the cosmology.[15] Next came the Freemasons.
The origins of Freemasonry remained shrouded in mystery, exoterically it is a fraternal order whose ethical infrastructure was modeled on a set of rituals and symbols that are connected to the imagined architecture of King Solomon’s Temple and its chief architect, Hiram Abiff. This brotherhood, which also went by the monikers “Speculative Masonry” and “The Craft,” owed its origins to the guild systems of practical “operative” Masonry. Evidence of a cleavage between operative and speculative Masonry can be found in the British Isles in the seventeenth century, but there is uncertainty on how and when this split occurred.[16] Distancing ourselves from Freemasonry’s claim of an ancient lineage, we can trace its origins back to the medieval guilds of the Stonemasons, whose governing infrastructure of tiered hierarchy and reputation for preserving ancient secrets began to arouse the interests of gentleman intellectuals throughout the seventeenth century. The lodges of speculative Freemasons, by the eighteenth century, had supplanted their operative counterpart as a fraternal enlightenment institution. This transformation process from Stonemasonry to speculative Freemasonry owed its origins to the broader environment of late Renaissance Hermeticism, the rumors of a secret network of mystics, and the Rosicrucian brotherhood. Freemasonry fostered an image of an elite brotherhood tasked with the preservation of occult secrets. For those seeking the arcane ancient and mystical knowledge of antiquity, Freemasonry was seen as the answer.[17]
By 1717, the first Grand Lodge was established in London, and with the arrival of this governing body, organized Masonry was formally introduced to the world. At its inception, only two degrees of initiation were offered: “Entered Apprentice” and “Fellow Craft.” The degree of “Master Mason” was incorporated not long after, rounding out what would be known as the “craft degrees.” This tri-gradal system offered the initiates, in each successive degree, instructions in morals and Masonic symbolism; incorporating an extensive choreography of passwords, handshakes, secret signs, and penalties for revealing its secrets to non-Masons.[18] Around 1730, the movement was adopted by the French-educated classes, which contributed to Masonry’s continental foothold and expansion. It was at this time (1731) that Freemasonry first came to Russia, early in the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna. General James Keith, a Scottish Jacobite in the service of the Prussian army was named Provincial Grand Master for Moscow on the authority of the Grand Lodge of England. The movement flourished in Russia among the upper classes, and several Masonic lodges would soon be formed in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the provinces, and quickly establish connections with their French, Swedish, and German counterparts.[19] (Malta was another of these places where modern Freemasonry first installed itself, the first Lodge on that island being established in 1730.)[20] In that same decade (1730s) Masons in Paris erected their own Grand Lodge that would later be christened the Grand Orient de France. In France, Masonry would continue to develop in ways that deviated from its sister Lodge across the channel. The inclusion of mystical and chivalric elements to the rituals significantly altered the egalitarian tone and style of craft masonry.[21] The roots of these conflicting interpretations are inherent in the craft. The organization is egalitarian in the sense that its members are equal and united in their reverence for the “Great Architect of the Universe,” abandoning sectarian and dogmatic strife in favor of creating a fraternity where all men are brothers. The other side of Masonry, however, is an organization with a highly elaborate system of secret rites and ritual symbolism of ancient gnosis that are revealed in a gradation of degrees to be protected from the profane. The Scottish émigré Andrew Michael Ramsay, a member of the household of the Stuart pretender, published a speech in 1737 that tied Masonry’s origins to the Crusades. This etiology contributed to the chivalric developments in Masonry, conjuring up a knightly mythic past where Freemasonry had been created and transmitted by the Knights Templar. According to Ramsay the sacred information the Templar Order was thought to have discovered in the Holy Land was preserved and passed down to Scottish Lodges. Masonry in France and the rest of Europe continued to branch out and develop into competing institutions with divergent views. After Ramsay’s death, in 1743, the lodges that believed the legend of Scotland’s role in providing refuge for the medieval Templar. Scottish Rite came to represent the mystically charged rituals that extended past the three-tiered craft degrees. The lodges that offered degrees past master mason were referred to as “red” Masonry; the craft degrees were known as “blue” Masonry. Throughout the rest of the eighteenth- century, red masonry continued to incorporate hermetic and millenarian philosophies. It was the work of Ramsay that not only changed the possibilities of Masonry, but also helped pave the way for the greater European occult revival.[22]
Colonial American Freemasonry was originally established under the patronage of the London Grand Lodge and took its cue from the parent body overseas. Therefore, the rites and culture in these branches reflected the Enlightenment disposition of their English founders. Before the American Revolution these outposts were limited to the few coastal towns of New England and the Tidewater. During the Revolution, Masonry spread among the officers of the Continental Army, but it was not until around 1790 that the movement became truly widespread. In France, this tension between tradition and Enlightenment thought was a throughline of their own revolution. It was the latter of these two revolutions that gave us the terms “left-wing” and “right wing” for political discourse. It was based on the seating arrangements of the first French General Assembly in 1789, when supporters of the political ideas favoring the Enlightenment sat on the left side of the president of the Assembly, while those who supported the ancien régime sat to his right.[23] The Trans-Atlantic and Trans-National movement of people during and after the American Revolutionary War likely contributed to the exposure of the European occult revival to the American colonies. The Hessian mercenaries that aided the British and the French allies of the Americans would have brought with them the Red Masonry of the Continent and shared it with their colonial counterparts. Whether directly inspired by Masonry or not, what is evident is the rapid influx of hermetic literature being published in the early republic in the last two decades of the eighteenth century.[24]
Within this milieu, a few other names would emerge that would contribute to the occult revival of Europe. There was Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystic and theologian whose visions of the spiritual world would inform his writing, and subsequent restorationist church by his followers. Then there was Franz Mesmer, a German physician who postulated the existence of energy transference called “animal magnetism.” This, in turn, gave us the term “mesmerism.” And lastly, there was Count Alessandro Cagliostro, the Italian occultist and Freemason who visited St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great. So now we return to her son, Tsar Pavel Petrovich, and how he became the Grand Master of The Knights Of Malta. It had been two-hundred and sixty-eight years since the Order retained possession of the island of Malta. That changed in the summer of 1798.[25]
When Napoleon conquered Malta, he sent an ultimatum of surrender to Ferdinand von Hompesch, Grand Master of the Knights Of Malta. Von Hompesch, who surrendered without struggle, subsequently abdicated. The event was the commencement of the suppression of that Order as an active power. The great body of Maltese Knights proceeded to Russia, where Tsar Pavel Petrovich became protector of the Order, and on October 27, 1798, the Russian Emperor was made their Grand Master in an official ceremony.[26]
SOURCES:
[1] Johnston, Charles. “Sanskrit Study In The West Pt. II.” The Theosophist. Vol. X., No. 116. (May 1889): 492-496.
[2] Creighton, Mandell. A History Of The Papacy During The Period Of The Reformation: Vol. III. Longmans, Green, And Co. (1887): 143; Worsley, Henry. The Dawn Of The English Reformation. Elliot Stock. London, England. (1890): 30.
[3] Saarikivi, Janne; Sinnemäki, Kaius. “Sacred Language: Reformation, Nationalism, and Linguistic Culture.” Chapter in: On the Legacy of Lutheranism in Finland. (eds.) Kaius Sinnemäki, Anneli Portman, Jouni Tilli, Robert H. Nelson. Finnish Literature Society. Helsinki, Finland. (2019): 39-68.
[4] Greg, Percy. History Of The United States From The Foundation Of Virginia To The Reconstruction Of The Union: Volume I. W.H. Allen & Company. London, England. (1887): 22-23, 36, 44-46, 55, 77-80, 83, 131-132.
[5] Rochefort, David A. “Progressive And Social Control Perspectives On Social Welfare.” Social Service Review. Vol. LV, No. 4 (December 1981): 568-592.
[6] Wagar, W. Warren. “Modern Views of the Origins of the Idea of Progress.” Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. XXVIII, No. 1. (January-March 1967): 55-70.
[7] Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York, New York. (1930): 1-11 [Foreword by R.H. Tawney.]
[8] Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism. Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York, New York. (1930): 1-11 [Foreword by R.H. Tawney.]
[9] Wagar, W. Warren. “Modern Views Of The Origins Of The Idea Of Progress.” Journal Of The History Of Ideas. Vol. XXVIII, No. 1. (January-March 1967): 55-70.
[10] Johnston, Charles. “The English In India.” The North American Review. Vol. 189, No. 642 (May 1909): 695- 707.
[11] Williams, George Huntston. “An Excursus: Church, Commonwealth, And College: The Religious Sources Of The Idea Of A University.” In The Harvard Divinity School: Its Place in Harvard University and American Culture. George Huntston Williams. Beacon Press. Boston, Massachusetts (1954): 295-351; Taylor, E.L. Hebden. “The Reformation And The Development Of Modern Science.” The Churchman. Vol. LXXXII, No. (1968): 87-103.
[12] Johnston, Charles. “Materialistic Science.” The Theosophist. Vol. X, No. 112. (January 1889): 209-214.
[13] Khunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrvm Sapientiae Aeternae, Solius, Verae: Christiano-Kabalisticvm, Divino-Magicvm, Physico-Chymicvm, Tertrivnvm-Catholicon. Tobiam Gvndermannvm. (1653); Morley, Henry. The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa Von Nettensheim: Vol. I. Chapman And Hall. London, England. (1856): v-ix; Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Paracelsus: Essential Readings. North Atlantic Books. Berkeley, California. (1999): 13-22.
[14] Silver, Carole G. Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. Oxford University Press. Oxford, England. (2009): 38.
[15] Waite, Arthur Edward. The Real History Of The Rosicrucians. George Redway. London, England. (1887): 1-4, 68, 99-100.
[16] McIntosh, Christopher. The Rose Cross And The Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism In Central Europe And Its Relationship To The Enlightenment. Suny Press. Albany, New York. (2011): 39.
[17] Brooke, John L. The Refiners Fire: The Making Of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, England. (1996): 94.
[18] Bowman, Matthew. The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith. Random House. New York, New York. (2012): 46.
[19] Carlson, Maria. “No Religion Higher Than Truth.” A History Of The Theosophical Movement In Russia, 1875-1922. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. (1993): 15-18.
[20] Mollier, Pierre. “Malta, The Knights, And Freemasonry.” Ritual, Secrecy, And Civil Society. Vol. II, No. 1 (Spring 2014): 15-25.
[21] McIntosh, The Rose Cross And The Age of Reason, 40.
[22] Brooke, Refiners Fire, 95.
[23] Bienfait, H.F; van Beek, W.E.A. “Right and Left as Political Categories. An Exercise in ‘Not-so-Primitive’ Classification.” Anthropos. Bd. 96, H. 1. (2001): 169-178.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Chamber’s Encyclopedia: A Dictionary Of Universal Knowledge. Vol. IX. William & Robert Chambers. London, England. (1892): 307.
[26] Mackey, Albert Gallatin. An Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry And Its Kindred Sciences: Vol. I. The Masonic History Company. New York, New York. (1913): 392-395.
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