SOME UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS ON THE ORDER OF THE ELECT COHENS

WE HAVE ALLUDED on various occasions to the _Order of the Elect Cohens_, founded by Martines de Pasqually. In a preface to the _Traité de la Réintegration des Êtres_, the 'Knight of the Rose Cross', whom we have already frequently quoted, writes:

This man [Martines], with a disinterest and sincerity beyond all suspicion, sought to bring certain Lodges back to the essential principles of Freemasonry, from which they had considerably departed during this period [the second half of the eighteenth century], through a series of events that need not be related here.

Martines' task was a difficult one: traveling successively from 1760 to 1772 through the major towns of France, he selected from among the Masonic crafthalls those he judged capable of serving as a nucleus, a center for his subsequent operations. In the name of his _Sovereign Tribunal_, established in Paris in 1767, he delivered constitutional patents to the clandestine Lodges of the provinces, not hesitating to recruit from abroad men he deemed worthy of the ministry they would be called upon to exercise.^[1] Thus was formed what M. Matter has aptly termed _Martinisme_^[2], which, under the name _Rite of the Elect Cohens_, is none other than a perfectly orthodox branch of true Freemasonry, grafted onto the ancient trunk, and based on an ensemble of very precise traditional teachings transmitted in rigorous accordance with the receptive power acquired by each of its members through an entirely personal effort. Theory and practice were closely joined together.

We quote this extract in order to establish the true character of the _Elect Cohens_. Let us now turn to a few details concerning the role played in this Order by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, details useful to keep in mind in the light of certain confusions:

A few years after Martines de Pasqually's departure for the Antilles (1772), a schism arose within the order he had labored so hard to establish, certain disciples remaining strongly attached to all that the Master had taught, while others, led by the example of Saint-Martin, abandoned active practice for the incomplete, passive path of mysticism. ^[3] This change of direction in the life of Saint-Martin might surprise us were it not known to what degree the disciple had remained aloof, during the five years he spent at the Lodge of Bordeaux, from the outward operations of the Master....

The teaching of Rodolphe de Salzmann played a large part in endowing France with a remarkable mysticism, but for Saint-Martin this teaching was unable to unlock the doctrine of the eminent theurge of Bordeaux [Martines]....

We dwell on these particular points in the life of Saint-Martin only to show how incorrect it is for certain misinformed historians to have attributed the succession of the theurge of Bordeaux to the theosophist of Amboise, and for certain others, even less well-researched, have made him the founder of an Order of Martinism. Saint-Martin never founded any Order; he never had this aim, and the term Martinists simply designates those who had adopted a perspective that conformed to his own, with the tendency to free themselves from the ritualistic dogmatism of the Lodges, and to reject it as useless.^[4]

Thus, everything concerning the _Elect Cohens_ must be related exclusively to Martines,^[5] and it is nonsense to attribute the name _Martinism_ either to this Order or to the doctrine it professes. We wished to make this clear, above all.

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THERE ARE VERY FEW published documents on the _Order of the Elect Cohens_, the most important being those we have already mentioned, which form two volumes of the _Bibliotheque Rosicrucienne_, published under the auspices of the _Rite of Misraïm_. The first is the work of Martines himself, entitled _Traité de la Reintegration des Êtres dans leurs premieres proprietes, vertus et puissance spirituelles et divines_. The second contains the _Enseignements Secret de Martines de Pasqually_, as they were received and explicated by Franz von Baader.

Then there is Papus' work on _Martines de Pasqually_, which contains letters of various provenance, some of which are interesting, although they are not always presented intelligibly. To this same work the _Catechisms_ of the following grades are also appended: (1) Apprentice Elect Cohen; (2) Companion Elect Cohen; (3) Master Particular Elect Cohen; (4) Master Elect Cohen; (5) Grand Master Cohen, surnamed Grand Architect; (6) Grand Elect of Zorabel, so-called Knight of the Orient.^[6]A

We believe that nothing of importance has been omitted from this list, which as can be seen is rather short; the least authentic fragments relating to the Elect Cohens are therefore of interest by very reason of their rarity.

THE DOCUMENTS we intend to publish here consist of a series of Instructions given to the Elect Cohens of Lyon early in 1774. These initiates belonged to the Lodge _La Bienfaisance_, presided over by Willermoz; but as a whole this Lodge never practiced the _Rite of the Elect Cohens_, as some have wrongly claimed. On this subject, the 'Knight of the Rose Cross' writes:

> We shall point out to Papus, who speaks of a Lodge of Elect Cohens that has been situated in Lyon since 1765 under the presidency of Willermoz, that at the beginning of 1770 there were still only six barely initiated Elect Cohens, including Willermoz, in Lyon.^[7]

During this period they petitioned Martines that they might obtain the foundation of a regular establishment, but it seems these steps never met with success.

It is therefore quite probable that there never was a complete organization of the Elect Cohens in Lyon, all the more so since Saint-Martin, who passed through the town in 1774, and there wrote his book _Des Erreurs et de la Verite_, speaks simply 'of a circle he instructed at the residence of Villermas [sic],^[8] an expression that would not be applied to a regular 'correct and complete' Lodge. Moreover, following the Convention of Lyon in 1778 the Lodge _La Bienfaisance_ definitively adopted the _Rectified Scottish Rite_, which Papus 'deemed useful to baptize as _Willermozisme_,'^[9] but which never had anything to do with the _Order of the Elect Cohens_. The greater part of the archives of Lyon, today dispersed, naturally relate to this _Rectified Rite_; the ignorance of certain authors in this regard has led to some singular confusions.^[10]

To return to our _Instructions_, we do not think they were written by Martines himself, who, departed for Port-au-Prince on May 5, 1772, and died there on September 20, 1774. It is certain, however, that they are directly inspired by his teachings, for in various places they present striking analogies with certain passages from the _Traité de la Reintegration des Êtres_, written in Bordeaux in the course of the year 1770.

The six _Instructions_^[11] in our possession are here reproduced in their entirety, with scrupulous respect to all particularities of language, style, and even orthography in the original manuscript. We shall limit ourselves to adding a few brief notes when called for, reserving our comments on the more interesting points for the end.