Chapter IV
"Revolutionary Nihilism" of the Jews

We have seen how M. Copin-Albancelli attempted to prove that subversive Freemasonry was the secret government of the Jews. This argument has the horrible implication that certain groups of the Jewish race have a secret organization which works for the destruction of the Christian nations.

A moderate and probably truthful view of this question is contained in a very remarkable book by the Abbé Joseph Lemann (L'Entree des Israelites dans la Societe francaise). Lemann, it is important to note, was himself a Jew who embraced Christianity and became a Christian priest.

Lemann, then, describes the assertions which we have discussed as an exaggeration—"une these exageree." He admits, however, that very close relations exist between Jewry and the secret societies. And he sets these relations down to the Hebraic antagonism against Christianity which led the Jews "to utilize secret societies, more or less, for their own interests."

Lemann points to the origin of these occult Masonic societies in the Cabal—a Hebrew word meaning "received tradition." From the time of Moses to the time of Christ, the Cabal had existed as the oral but secret custodian of the most sublime truths of the Hebraic religion. It was the philosophy of the Hebrews. But at the Dispersion, it turned from wine to vinegar, and passed either into a shadowy realm of vain speculations, or occupied itself with magic, terrible vows and sinister symbols, and the operations of a hateful conspiracy against the Christian religion. It was the father of Sorcery, Astrology, Alchemy, and of all the false sciences of the Middle Ages.

But here Lemann makes an important reservation:

"This science cabalistic, abstruse on its speculative side, bad and wicked on its practical side, was known only to a small number of Israel. Most honest Jews, occupied with their daily affairs, and their patriarchal customs, although not loving the Saviour of the World and His Church, had no penchant for, nor pleasure in, this commerce with the Cabal and with magic."

Owing to the strict watch kept by the Church and by the Christian monarchs, it was difficult, if not impossible, to establish relations between the Hebrew Cabal and the secret societies. Moreover, an Albigeois or a Templar would have been too proud to call a Jew his companion in arms—and in mysteries.

But with the eighteenth century things changed for the worst. The various secret societies concentrated in Freemasonry and became democratic and universal. The Convention of Wilhelmsbaden was their Grand Hall of Reunion.

How far did Judaism participate? Lemann answers this question. In 1754, he says, a Portuguese Jew, named Martinez Paschalis, had founded in France a sect, based on the Cabal, under the name of the Order of Cohens (a Hebrew word) or Priests. After his death the famous Saint-Martin had developed the sect, which spread from Paris and Lyons as far as Russia. Its sectaries were then called Martinists, or French Illumines.

Such was the preface of the liaison positive between Judaism and the secret societies.

It was a disturbing apparition—says Lemann—this union between this perverted Judaism and these degraded societies. For the one seemed to say to the other: "Tomorrow you will be with me, my plans will be your plans."

47 Lemann proceeds to describe "this little battalion of advanced Jews"—Moses Mendelssohn, who took the delicate role of conciliator between Jews and Christians; Wilhelm Dohm, a Prussian official, who utilized the arguments of Rousseau for the emancipation of the Jews; the banker, Cerfbeer, who undertook singlehanded to break down the Jewish pale of Strasbourg—to these men came Mirabeau, the Gentile Revolutionary and Freemason.

In the work on Masonic ritual in America, prepared by Albert Pike, an interesting passage in a supplementary note to the Fourteenth Degree deplores the springing up of "a dissident Masonry, opposed to the orthodox," to which schism are ascribed "the greatest calamities of the French Revolution" and, in an attempt to vindicate the ideals of "orthodox" Masonry, the passage continues:

"We shall perhaps be asked how if Masonry is so sublime and so holy, it could have been proscribed and so often condemned by the Church? We have replied to this question in speaking of the schisms and profanations of Masonry. . . . Masonry has not only been profaned, but it has even served as a veil and pretext for the plottings of anarchy, by the secret influence of the avengers of Jacques de Molay. . . . The Anarchists have retaken the Rule, the Square and the Mallet, and written on them 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' That is to say, Liberty for the covetous to plunder, Equality for the basest, and Fraternity to destroy."

Such protestations of sorrow from "orthodox" Freemasons of the Red Orders may or may not be genuine. We do not take it upon ourselves to judge. The hope of a more profitable inquiry lies, we fancy, in another direction: to what precisely does the above passage refer? Like all Masonic writing, it is enigmatical, and it would be a mistake to give it a too narrow and literal interpretation. Two points are clear, however. The "dissident" Masons are charged with using Masonry "as a veil and pretext for the plottings of anarchy," and these plottings are held in real, or assumed, abhorrence by the "orthodox" Masons. Let us see if we can discover the historical origin of this schism.

In the year 1761, a certain Stephen Morin was invested by the Grand Consistory of Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret in Paris with power to carry the Rite of Perfection to America. Among those who signed the paper was the Duke of Chartres, afterwards the Duke of Orleans, "Philip Egalite," Grand Master both of the Grand Orient and the Templars, and Morin himself is described as a Grand Perfect Elect and Past Sublime Master, etc., of all orders of Masonry. Now it has been stated that Morin was a Jew, but the Jewish Encyclopedia, in its article on Freemasonry, says that this point is in doubt. What is certain is that when Morin arrived in America he gave powers to a number of deputies who certainly were Jews. Thus, for example, his deputy inspector, Henry Francken, appointed Moses M. Hayes at Boston, and Hayes in his turn made Brother Da Costa deputy inspector-general for South Carolina, Solomon Bush deputy for Pennsylvania, and B. M. Spitzer deputy for Georgia. In 1783, Da Costa established in Charleston a Sublime Grand Lodge of Perfection; a Council of Princes of Jerusalem was also constituted, and also a Council of Knights Kadosch. In 1786, Charleston received the Grand Constitution from Germany, and in 1801 a Convention was held to form a Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. In those various institutions, such Jews as Meyers, Spitzer, John Mitchell, and Frederick Dalcho were prominent, and although the Jewish Encyclopedia alleges that the Jews were not in control of the movement, and were not in the highest degrees, it is quite evident from the names in the original proceedings that in the creation of these Charleston institutions Jewish influence was either supreme or very strong.

In the year 1896 there appeared in Paris a curious publication called Le Diable an XIX Siecle. It was an attack upon Freemasonry, and came out in parts, illustrated with grotesque and repulsive engravings. The name on the title-page is Dr. Bataille, but it is stated in the British Museum Catalogue that the real authors were Gabriel Jogand-Pages and Charles Hacks. The book, with evident knowledge and a show of authority, set out to trace the connection between Freemasonry and revolutions, but its sensationalism and the extremely doubtful character of some of the documents produced brought it into disrepute. It is now forgotten, and yet it contains a good deal that can be verified from other sources, and some things also which seem to be verified by recent events. In particular there is a letter—or an alleged letter—said to have been written by Albert Pike, the "Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry," assisted by the Ten Ancients of the Grand Lodge of the Supreme Orient at Charleston, to "the very illustrious brother" Giuseppe Mazzini. This letter is dated (in Masonic style) August 15, 1871, and sets forth an anti-clerical policy which Mazzini is to follow in Italy. The measures proposed, including secular education, the expulsion of the religious orders, and so forth, need not detain us. What is to our purpose occurs towards the end of the letter, on page 605 (vol. ii.). The writer explains that owing to the working out of this policy the Pope may be driven at some future time out of Italy, and that established religion will then find its last refuge in Russia. And the letter proceeds:

"That is why, when the autocratic Empire of Russia will have become the citadel of Papal Christianity (adonaisme papiste), we shall unchain the revolutionary Nihilistes and Atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm, which will demonstrate clearly to the nations, in all its horror, the effect of absolute unbelief, mother of savagery and of the most bloody disorder. Then, everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the mad minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate these destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned of Christianity, whose deist soul will up to that moment be without compass, thirsting for an ideal, but not knowing where to bestow their worship, will receive the True Light, by the universal manifestation of the pure Luciferian doctrine, at last made public, a manifestation which will arise from the general movement of reaction following the destruction of Atheism and Christianity, both at the same time vanquished and exterminated."

Now this letter is at least as old as 1896 (if it is a forgery); if it is genuine, it is as old as 1871. It must therefore be considered remarkable, whether as a forgery or as a genuine document. For it predicts what has happened in Russia, and it claims for its authors that they were preparing to bring about what has happened.

If we compare more closely the words of the Masonic letter with what has actually happened in Russia, we cannot but see how close is the correspondence between the threats and the reality:

The Masonic Letter.
". . . we shall unchain the revolutionary Nihilists and atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm . . . horror . . . savagery . . . the most bloody disorder."

Mr. Churchill's Description
". . . in the same way that you might send a phial . . . to tear to pieces every institution . . . long internal terrors . . . menaced by famine . . . sufferings more fearful than modern records hold.

Whatever explanation we may incline to give, we must at least allow that it is a document which is very difficult to explain. And there is this much to be said in support of it—that Mazzini certainly was connected (as we shall see) with the birth of that movement of "Revolutionary Nihilism" called the International.

One thing is certain: the motive suggested by Albert Pike for the destruction of Russia is not adequate. The cult of Adonaism, whatever that may be, and the hypothesis that the Pope might take refuge in Russia, would never have driven a body of conspirators to plot the destruction of Russia. But if the Charleston Lodge was, as it is generally supposed to be, very largely Jewish in origin and control, the motive becomes intelligible; it would lie in the hatred of the political Jew both for Russia and for Christianity.