been a set of vagabonds,* against whom the senate found it requisite to enact severe laws in the vain hope of expelling them from the city. But we are to disbelieve all such authorities and hold fast by the new faith.

In the same way Higgins will have it that the Freemasons were connected with the Templars, who had also the misfortune of labouring under a particularly bad character. In claiming the relationship, therefore, it became a matter of policy to make their faces white, as a Persian would say, and above all to repel the ferocious attacks of Von Hammer, who had certainly made out a very ugly case against them. The laborious German sets out with saying that no doubt there were many good and simple folks among them, who were acquainted with the exoteric doctrines only

*"Facta," says Tacitus, "et de mathematicis magisque Italia pellendis, Senatus consulta, quorum e numero L. Pituanius saxo dejectus est." Annalium, lib. ii. s. 32. Again "Urgentibus etiam mathematicis, dum novos motus et clarum Othoni annum observatione siderum affirmant; genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus fallax, quod in civitate nostrâ et vetabitur semper, et retinebitur." Hist. lib. i. sec. 22. A pretty set of kinsfolk the Freemasons must have had by their own showing. Even if we suppose the historian to have been too severe a judge, still the law against these vagabonds cannot be denied, and the whole Roman senate thus become witnesses against them. Nor can we attribute this edict to the ill will of the emperor, for at a yet earlier period similar enactments had been made against them. Valerius Maximus in his chapter upon Religion says, "C. Cornelius Hispallus, prætor peregrinus, M. Popilio Lænate, Cn. Calpurnio Coss. edicto Chaldæos-(this is the same fraternity) intra decimum diem abire ex urbe atque Italia jussit : levibus et ineptis ingeniis, fallaci siderum interpretatione, quæstuosam mendaciis suis caliginem injicientes." Val. Maxim. de Deitis, &c. lib. i. cap. iii. s. 2. But I might go on and fill pages with authorities for the utter worthlessness of these Mathematici or Chaldæi, who yet, according to Higgins, were Freemasons under another name.

+ Fundgruben des Orients. Sechster Band. Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum.

of the order, and these he admits were both moral and religious. But then he contends that the Templars had an esoteric faith, which was the exact reverse; and he proves it, I think, very sufficiently, from sculptures, stones, brasses, and a variety of idolatrous images, called Baphomets, which he explains to have been so named from two Greek words, signifying the "baptism of Mete, or Mind."* This he supposes, with every appearance of reason, to have reference to the spiritual lustration by fire of the Gnostics, and in some of their sculptures we see goblets full of the etherial fire, and children about to undergo this heretical form of baptism. On other stones we find the hermaphrodite God of the Hindoos and Egyptians, and indeed all the symbols of some secret faith quite opposite to Christianity. Now in what way were such evidences as these to be disposed of?—simply by supposing that these idols were merely the material symbols of a spiritual philosophy, this being Mr. Higgins's mode of cutting every Gordian knot that troubles him. The Bible, the Koran, the Iliad, nay three parts of the characters that figure in poem or history are all so many emblems-mere shadows, not substances. But if we allow all this, the Gnostic worship was not exactly the creed of Moses or of Jesus. This connection, therefore, would be fatal to the extreme Christianity of the Free

masons.

Not contented with having established these doubtful relations for the brotherhood, the author of the Anacalypsis, next proceeds to identify them with the Assassins; but first, according to custom, he attempts to free the latter from the stains upon their character-in fact, to upset all history in regard to them. In Von Hammer's "History of the Assassins," he found an account of a certain House of

Baon untεos, i. e. tinctura, seu baptisma Metis.

Wisdom that had been formed at Cairo towards the end of the tenth century by Hakem, and had thus arisen. Under Maimun, the seventh Abasside caliph, a certain Abdallah established a secret society, and divided his doctrines into seven degrees, after the fashion of Pythagoras and the Indian schools. The last degree inculcated the vanity of all religion, and the indifference of actions, which he would have it, are neither visited with recompense nor chastisement here or hereafter.* He ap

pointed emissaries, whom he sent abroad to enlist disciples, initiating them in the different degrees according to their aptitude. In a little time these doctrines were improved upon, and Karmath, one of the most distinguished of his followers, contended of the Koran, as the most learned Jews did of Genesis, that it was to be understood allegorically, and in this way, as there is no limit to symbolical interpretation, they made the Koran say exactly what they pleased. The injunction to prayer meant nothing but obedience to a certain mysterious Imam, whom they pretended to be seeking; the injunction of alms-giving meant paying to him his tithes; and the command to fast signified silence as in regard to the Ismaelitish secrets. The Karmathites, the more violent branch of this sect, entering into open war with the Caliphs to subvert both the throne and religion, were at length rooted out with fire and the sword. But the more prudent portion, which worked in secret, under the general name of Ismaelites,

* Such too, or nearly such, was the ethic teaching of the Gnostics, who contended that prudence alone was virtue. "Hæc autem erat Gnosticorum doctrina ethica, quod omnem virtutem in prudentia sitam esse credebant, quam Ophitæ per Metem (Sophiam) et serpentem exprimebant, desumpto iterum ex Evangelii præcepto; estote prudentes ut serpentes,-ob innatam hujus animalis astutiam."-Fundgruben des Orents. tom. vi. p. 85.

Hammer, Hist. of the Assassins, p. 43.

VOL. II.

E

were at length fortunate enough to place one of their sect upon the throne. They had now their Societies of Wisdom, which they held openly twice a week, and in process of time erected a large building, which they called the House of Wisdom,* furnished with books, mathematical instruments, professors, and attendants. Men and women were equally admitted to the use of these literary treasures, without charge, and the caliphs held here public disputations, at which the professors were present, divided into their different classes of logi cians, mathematicians, legalists, and physicians, all in their robes, a costume which is said to have descended from them to our English universities. So far it was a public institution, different in nothing from academies, except in the slight article of dispensing its literary wares without charge to its customers. The candidate for the real mysteries had to pass through nine several degrees—the seven had now grown into that number-till he learnt the grand secret of atheism, and a code of morals, which may be summed up in a few words, as believing nothing and daring every thing. But the object of the founders was chiefly political-to obtain fit partisans for overthrowing the house of Abbas in favour of the Fatemites; and this could be done only by undermining the strong-grounded belief in the prevailing religion, for Mahomet had, like the Jews, deposited the power of the throne and the power of the altar in the same hand. To pull down the one it was indispensable first to destroy the other.

This society becoming in process of time troublesome to the government was broken up; or rather, their lodge was closed, for in about a year they were again enabled to open a new one, which was called Darolilm-Jedide, or the New House of Sciences. Hammer thinks that it is free

*Hammer, Hist. of the Assassins, p. 43.

masonic, and what is more strange, Higgins, himself a freemason, quotes it as such. It was from this brotherhood and their lessons that the Assassins sprang, and surely this is not a genealogy for the very Christian Freemasons to be proud of. The tigress does not usually bring forth lambs. But, nothing daunted by such considerations, Higgins maintains that it was a link which connected ancient and modern Freemasonry, and makes out, I know not on what authority, that the Assassins were an amiable race.* I can however easily believe that the atheism, and unlimited profligacy, of which von Hammer accuses them, is the mere invention of their religious enemies, who naturally enough detested a sect having more philosophic ideas of the Deity than themselves. We have only to imagine what in our own more enlightened days would be said of any body of men, who were known to believe simply in a Creator. All their immoralities would be attributed to their creed, while men, who added to their vices those of fanaticism or hypocrisy, would be deemed infinitely their superiors.

There is yet another way in which this question is to be viewed, and which at once reveals the nature of the Freemasons' secret beyond the shadow of dispute. All their historians, as we have already noticed, allow their connection with the Druids, who had their knowledge from Pythagoras, who himself had it from the Jews or the Egyptians. Now the creed of Pythagoras is well known to every scholar, if not in its details, at least in its general principles. He taught the unity of the Godhead, and explained away the whole host of gods worshipped by the people and all their forms of religion. into so many myths and symbols. Mosheim in his Commentaries (Cent. ii. Sect. xxxv.) compares the secret

* P 700, vol. i.