rature, ... an intellectual giant, ...
a man of immense erudition, of exalted mind, and, to judge by his
writings, of extreme personal sanctity. Ennemoser describes him as one
of the most distinguished disciples of Paracelsus...."[329] Yarker adds
this clue: "In 1630 we find Fludd, the chief of the Rosicrucians, using
architectural language, and there is proof that his Society was divided
into degrees, and from the fact that the Masons' Company of London had
a copy of the Masonic Charges 'presented by Mr. fflood' we may suppose
that he was a Freemason before 1620."[330]

A still more important link is Elias Ashmole, the antiquary, astrologer,
and alchemist, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, who was born
in 1617. An avowed Rosicrucian, and as we have seen, also a Freemason,
Ashmole displayed great energy in reconstituting the Craft; he is said
to have perfected its organization, to have added to it further mystic
symbols, and according to Ragon, it was he who drew up the ritual of the
existing three Craft degrees--Entered Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and
Master Mason--which was adopted by Grand Lodge in 1717. Whence did these
fresh inspirations come but from the Rosicrucians? For, as Ragon also
informs us, in the year that Ashmole was received into Freemasonry the
Rosicrucians held their meeting in the same room at Mason Hall![331]

How, then, can it be said that there was "no traceable connexion between
Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism?" and why should it be the part of a
"malignant reviler" to connect them? It is not suggested that
Rosicrucians, such as Fludd or Ashmole, imported any magical elements
into Freemasonry, but simply the system and symbols of the Rose-Croix
with a certain degree of esoteric learning. That Rosicrucianism forms an
important link in the chain of the secret tradition is therefore
undeniable.

The Seventeenth-Century Rabbis

There is, however, a third channel through which the Judaic legends of
Freemasonry may have penetrated to the Craft, namely, the Rabbis of the
seventeenth century. The Jewish writer Bernard Lazare has declared that
"there were Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry,"[332] and if this
statement is applied to the period preceding the institution of Grand
Lodge in 1717 it certainly finds confirmation in fact. Thus it is said
that in the preceding century the coat-of-arms now used by Grand Lodge
had been designed by an Amsterdam Jew, Jacob Jehuda Leon Templo,
collea