The Grand Lodges and Modern Freemasonry 249Persuations they may be distinguish'd; whereby Masonry becomes
the Center of Union and the Means of conciliating true Frienship
among Persons that must have remain'd at a perpetual Distance.This is a magnificently literal declaration of tolerance, which seems
to put an end to the conflict dividing Catholics and Anglican Protestants
on the subject of the "Holy Church." In the silence that surrounds the
actual intentions of the text and in order to discover what they may pre-
cisely have been, quite a few highly debated interpretations have been
offered. At the outset it is important to note that it would be an exag-
geration to claim, as some in France have done, that the tolerance this
document displays is akin to a proclamation of free thought.^2 This
would be the equivalent of declaring that modern Freemasonry no
longer has anything whatsoever in common with operative freema-
sonry. But this is a highly partisan form of reasoning and completely
ignores the climate of the time and environment in which the Book of
Constitutions was written.
In 1943, Knoop and Jones, in their study Freemasonry and the
Idea of Natural Religion, which was presented before the Quatour
Coronati Lodge of London,^3 have emphasized the evidence that the
1723 constitutions involved a kind of deism, but they did not push
their analysis more deeply. In 1965, another member of the Lodge
Quatour Coronati, J. E. Clarke, went much further. Under the title The
Change from Christianity to Deism in Freemasonry,^4 he maintained
the theory that the Book of Constitutions deliberately rejected
Christianity and replaced it by simple deism as the religious basis and
profession of faith in Freemasonry, despite the order's apparent
monotheism. He did not explain, however, what meaning could thus
remain invested in what remained of the rituals and ancient symbolism
of operative masonry.
Akin to Clarke's theory, but reaching a different conclusion, was
the hypothesis put forth by Albert Lantoine in 1925 in his book La
Franc-Maconnerie chez elle. It is interesting to note that Lantoine had
little inclination to center his interpretation of Freemasonry on its sym-
bolism. In his opinion, the liberal deism of 1723 was assumed as a ploy
Until Anglican Protestantism should emerge triumphant and that this is