instigated by a sixth, the Pere Soubise.[287]

But the date at which this legend originated is unknown. Clavel thinks
that the "Hebraic mysteries" existed as early as the Roman Collegia,
which he describes as largely Judaized[288]; Yarker expresses precisely
the opposite view: "It is not so difficult to connect Freemasonry with
the Collegia; the difficulty lies in attributing Jewish traditions to
the Collegia, and we say on the evidence of the oldest charges that such
traditions had no existence in Saxon times."[289] Again: "So far as
this country is concerned, we know nothing from documents of a Masonry
dating from Solomon's Temple until after the Crusades, when the
constitution believed to have been sanctioned by King Athelstan
gradually underwent a change."[290] In a discussion which took place
recently at the Quatuor Coronati Lodge the Hiramic legend could only be
traced back--and then without absolute certainty--to the fourteenth
century, which would coincide with the date indicated by Yarker.[291]

Up to this period the lore of the masonic guilds appears to have
contained only the exoteric doctrines of Egypt and Greece--which may
have reached them through the Roman Collegia, whilst the traditions of
Masonry are traced from Adam, Jabal, Tubal Cain, from Nimrod and the
Tower of Babel, with Hermes and Pythagoras as their more immediate
progenitors.[292] These doctrines were evidently in the main geometrical
or technical, and in no sense Cabalistic. There is therefore some
justification for Eckert's statement that "the Judeo-Christian mysteries
were not yet introduced into the masonic corporations; nowhere can we
find the least trace of them. Nowhere do we find any classification, not
even that of masters, fellow-crafts, and apprentices. We observe no
symbol of the Temple of Solomon; all their symbolism relates to masonic
labours and to a few philosophical maxims of morality."[293] The date
at which Eckert, like Yarker, places the introduction of these Judaic
elements is the time of the Crusades.

But whilst recognizing that modern Craft Masonry is largely founded on
the Cabala, it is necessary to distinguish between the different
Cabalas. For by this date no less than three Cabalas appear to have
existed: firstly, the ancient secret tradition of the patriarchs handed
down from the Egyptians through the Greeks and Romans, and possibly
through the Roman Collegia to the Craft Masons of Britain; secondly, the
Jewish