Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry

188." Jesus conferred on His disciples the evangelical Initiation, caused His spirit to descend upon them, divided them into different orders, according to the custom of the Egyptian priests and Hebrew priests, and placed them under the authority of St. John, his beloved disciple, and whom He had made Supreme pontiff and patriarch.

189."John never quitted the East; his doctrine, always pure, was not altered by the admixture of any other doctrine.

190."Peter and the other apostles, on the contrary, carried the teachings of Christ to distant peoples; but as they were often forced, in order to ^[113] propagate the faith, to conform to the manners and customs of these different nations, and even to admit other rites than those of the East, slight variations and changes crept into the different gospels, as well as into the doctrines of the numerous Christian sects.

192."Down to 1118, the Mysteries and the hierarchical order of the Egyptian Initiation, transmitted to the Jews through Moses and afterwards to the Christians through Jesus Christ, were religiously preserved by the successors of the apostle John. These mysteries and these initiations regenerated through the evangelical initiation or baptism formed a sacred deposit which, thanks to the simplicity of primitive customs from which the brothers of the East never departed, never underwent the slightest alteration.

193."The Christians of the East, persecuted by the infidels, appreciating the courage and piety of those valiant crusaders who, sword in one hand and cross in the other, flew to the defence of the holy places; doing justice, above all, to the virtues and the ardent charity of Hugh of Payens, considered it their duty to entrust to hands so pure the treasures of knowledge acquired during so many centuries, and sanctified by the cross, the teachings and the ethics of the Man-God.

194."Hugh was then invested with the patriarchal apostolic power, and placed in the legitimate line of the successors of John the Apostle or Evangelist.

195."Such is the origin of the foundation of the ^[114] Templars, and of the introduction amongst them of the different modes of initiation of the Christians of the East designated by the name of Primitive or Johannite Christians. It is to this initiation that belong the various degrees consecrated by the rules of the Temple, and which were so much called in question in the famous but terrible action brought against this august Order.

196."Jacques de Molay, foreseeing the misfortunes that threatened the Order, appointed as his successor Brother Jean Marc Larmenius, of Jerusalem, and with magisterial power.

197."This Grand Master passed on the supreme power to Brother Theobald, of Alexandria, as is evidenced by the character of transmission, etc.

198."Let us come finally to the Levitical doctrines: God is all that exists; every part of all that exists is a part of God, but is not God.

199."Immutable in His essence, God is mutable in His parts, which after having existed under the laws of certain combinations more or less complex, live again under laws of fresh combinations. All is increate.

200." God being supremely intelligent, every one of the parts which compose Him is endowed with a portion of His intelligence, in virtue of its destiny, whence it follows that there is an infinite gradation of intelligence resulting from an infinity of different compounds, the union of which forms the entirety of ^[115] the worlds. This entirety is the Great All, or God, who alone has the power to modify, change, and govern all these orders of intelligences according to the eternal and immutable laws of an infinite justice and goodness.

201."God — infinite Being — is composed of three powers; the Father, or Being; the Son, or action; the Spirit, or mind, proceeding from the power of the Father and the Son. These three powers form a trinity, a power infinite, unique and individual.

202."There is but one only true religion, that which acknowledges one only God, Eternal, filling the infinity of time and space.