Carpocratians and Freemasons
Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2023 5:52 am
David Litwa in Carpocrates, Marcellina, and Epiphanes quotes from a popular modern encyclopedia of Ocuultism a passage about the Carpocratians as an example of academic fake news.
Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry ...
Litwa is right to regard this as nonsense but it is based on an older source Arcane Schools by the Freemason John Yarker.The Carpocratians were a sect of Gnostics who clained Christ derived the mysteries of his religion from the Temple of Isis in Egypt, where he was said to have studied for six years, and that he taught them to his apostles, who transmitted them to Carpocrates. Members used theurgic incantations and had their own peculiar greetings, signs and words, and symbols and degrees of rank...The sect endured until the sixth century
There is a fascinating history of the role of the Carpocratians in 19th and 20th century esotericism, as the supposed transmitters of a secret doctrine from Jesus to modern occultist groups via the Knights Templar.Carpocratians. The founder of this Sect was Carpocrates of Alexandria. He would seem to have been a Disciple of Jehoshua ben Panther, previously mentioned, rather than the Gospel Jesus. It is not improbable that the older portions of the Jewish Sepher Toldoth Jeshu was a Gospel of Cabalistic Sects, and that Jesus ben Panther was an Essenian leader. The system of Carpocrates taught that Jesus derived the Mysteries of his religion from the temple of Isis in Egypt, where he had studied for six years, and that he taught them to his Apostles, who transmitted them to Carpocrates. The sect used Theurgic incantations, and had grips, signs, and words; symbols and degrees. His son Epiphanes wrote {167} a work on his father's system, but died young. The sect is believed to have endured for some centuries.
Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry ...
Andrew CriddleIt was conceded, that the Freemasonry of our days (St. John's Freemasonry) sprang from the Building Fraternities of the Middle Ages, but at the same time asserted that in the early ages there existed a secret society which strove to compass the perfecting of the human race, precisely in the same manner, and employing similar means, as did the Swedish system, which in fact only followed in the wake of its predecessor, being concealed in the Building Fraternities, so that our society did not rise from them, but made itself a way through them. The secret science, the mystery, was very ancient indeed. This mystery formed the secret of the Higher Degrees of the Rite, which were not merely kept hidden from the rest of the confederation, but also from the members of the inferior degrees of the system itself. This mystery was fully confirmed by documents, which the Grand Lodge of Germany had in its keeping…. This secret legend is the same as that of the Carpocratians, which is that Jesus chose some of the Apostles and confided to them a secret science, which was transmitted afterwards to the priests of the Order of the Knights-Templars, and through them to the Building Fraternities, down to the present Freemasons of the Swedish Rite….