SOCIETIES
72
SOCIETIES
by extracts therefrom, or by its being placed on an
altar within a lodge-room, by the use of prayers, of
hymns, of religious signs and symbols, special funeral
eervices, etc." (Rosen, "The Catholic Church and
Secret Societies", p. 2). Raich gives a more elabo-
rate description: "Secret societies are those organiza-
tions which completely conceal their rules, corporate
activity, the names of their members, their signs, pass-
words and usages from outsiders or the 'profane'.
As a rule, the members of these societies are bound to
the strictest secrecy concerning all the business of the
association by oath or promise or word of honour, and
often under the threat of severe punishment in case of
its violation. If such secret society has higher and
lower degrees, the members of the higher degree must
be equally careful to conceal their secrets from their
brethren of a lower degree. In certain secret societies,
the members are not allowed to know even the names
of their highest officers. Secret societies were
founded to promote certain ideal aims, to be obtained
not by violent but by moral measures. By this, they
are distingushed from conspiracies and secret plots
which are formed to attain a particular object through
violent means. Secret societies may be reUgious,
scientific, pohtical or social" (Kirchenlex., V, p.
519). Narrowing the definition still more to the
technical meaning of secret societies {societates clan-
desliiue) in ecclesiastical documents. Archbishop Kat-
zer in a Pastoral (20 Jan., 1895) says: "The Cathohc
Church has declared that she considers those societies
illicit and forbidden which (1) unite their members
for the purpose of conspiring against the State or
Church ; (2 ) demand the observance of secrecy to such
an extent that it must be maintained even before the
rightful ecclesiastical authority; (3) exact an oath
from their members or a promise of bUnd and abso-
lute obedience; (4) make use of a ritual and cere-
monies that constitute them sects."
II. Origin. — Though secret societies, in the mod- ern and technical sense, did not exist in antiquity, yet there were various organizations which boasted an esoteric doctrine known only to their members, and carefully concealed from the profane. Some date societies of this kind back to Pythagoras (582-507 B. c). The Eleusinian Mysteries, the secret teach- ings of Egyptian and Druid hierarchies, the esoteric doctrines of the Magian and Mithraic worshippers furnished material for such secret organizations. In Christian times, such heresies as the Gnostic and Manicha;an also claimed to possess a knowledge known only to the illuminated and not to be shared with the vulgar. Likewise, the enemies of the religious order of Knights Templars maintained that the brothers of the Temple, while externally professing Christianity, were in reality pagans who veiled their impiety under orthodox terms to which an entirely different meaning was given by the initiated. Orig- inally, the various guilds of the Middle Ages were in no sense secret societies in the modern acceptation of the term, though some have supposed that symbolic Freemasonry was gradually developed in those or- ganizations. The fantastic Ro.sicrucians are credited with something of the nature of a modern secret so- ciety, but the association, if .such it was, can scarcely be said to have emerged into the clear Ught of history.
III. Modern Or(!.\nizations. — Secret societies in the true sense began with symbolic Freemasonry about the year 1717 in Ix)ndon (see Masonry). This widespread oath-bound as.sociation soon became the exemplar or the parent of numerous other fraternities, nearly all of which have some connexion with Free- masonry, and in almost every instance were founded by Masons. Among these may be mentioned the lUuminati, the Carbonari, the Odd-Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Sons of Temperance and similar societies whose number is legion. Based on the same principles as the secret order to which they
are aSiliated are the women-auxiliary lodges, of
which almost every secret society has at least one.
These secret societies for women have also their
rituals, their oaths, and their degrees. Institutions of
learning are also infected with the glamour of secret or-
ganizations and the "Eleusis" of Chi Omega (Fayette-
ville. Ark.) of 1 June, 1900, states that there are twenty-
four Greek letter societies with seven hundred and
sixty-eight branches for male students, and eight sim-
ilar societies with one hundred and twenty branches for
female students, and a total membership of 142,456 in
the higher institutions of learning in the United States.
IV. Attitude of Ecclesiastical Authorities. —
The judgment of the Church on secret oath-bound
associations has been made abundantly clear by papal
documents. Freemasonry was condemned by Clem-
ent XII in a Constitution, dated 28 April, 1738. The
pope insists on the objectionable character of societies
that commit men of all or no religion to a system of
mere natural righteousness, that seek their end by
binding their votaries to secret pacts by strict oaths,
often under penalties of the severest character, and
that plot against the tranquillity of the State. Ben-
edict XIV renewed the condemnation of his predeces-
sor on 18 May, 1751. The Carbonari were declared
a prohibited society by Pius VII in a Constitution
dated 13 Sept., 1821, and he made it manifest that
organizations similar to Freemasonry involve an
equal condemnation. The Apostolic Constitution
"Quo Graviora" of Leo XII (18 March, 1825) put
together the acts and decrees of former pontiffs on the
subject of secret societies and ratified and confirmed
them. The dangerous character and tendencies of
secret organizations among students did not escape
the vigilance of the Holy See, and Pius VIII (24 May,
1829) raised his warning voice concerning those in
colleges and academies, as his predecessor, Leo XII,
had done in the matter of universities. The suc-
ceeding popes, Gregory XVI (15 Aug., 1832) and
Pius IX (9 Nov., 1846; 20 Apr., 1849; 9 Dec., 1854;
S Dec., 1864; 25 Sept., 1865), continued to warn the
faithful against secret societies and to renew the ban
of the Church on their designs and members. On
20 Apr., 1884, appeared the famous Encyclical of
Leo XIII, "Humanum Genus". In it the pontiff
says: "As soon as the constitution and spii-it of the
masonic sect were clearly discovered by manifest signs
of its action, by cases investigated, by the publication
of its laws and of its rites and commentaries, with the
addition often of the personal testimonj' of those who
were in the secret, the Apostolic See denounced the
sect of the Freemasons and publicly declai-ed its con-
stitution, as contrary to law and right, to be perni-
cious no less to Christendom than to the State; and it
forbade anyone to enter the society, under the penal-
ties which the Church is wont to inflict upon excep-
tionally guilty persons. The sectaries, indignant at
this, thinking to elude or to weaken the force of these
decrees, partly by contempt of them and partly by
calumny, accused the Sovereign Pontiffs who had
uttered them, either of exceeding the bounds of mod-
eration or of decreeing what was not just. This was
the manner in which they endeavoured to elude the
authority and weight of the Apostolic Constitutions
of Clement XII and Benedict XIV', as well as of
Pius VIII and Pius IX. Yet in the very society itself,
there were found men who unwillingly acknowledged
that the Roman Pontiffs had acted within their right,
according to the Catholic doctrine and discipline.
The pontiffs received the same assent, and in strong
terms, from many princes and hcails of governments,
who made it their business either to delate the
masonic society to the Holy See, or of their own accord
by special enactments to brand it as pernicious, as for
example in Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Spain,
Bavaria, Savoy and other parts of Italy. But, what
is of the highest importance, the course of events has
