r:

After the death of Jacques du Molay, some Scottish Templars having
become apostates, at the instigation of Robert Bruce ranged
themselves under the banners of a new Order[316] instituted by this
prince and in which the receptions were based on those of the Order
of the Temple. It is there that we must seek the origin of Scottish
Masonry and even that of the other masonic rites. The Scottish
Templars were excommunicated in 1324 by Larmenius, who declared
them to be _Templi desertores_ and the Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem, _Dominiorum Militiae spoliatores_, placed for ever
outside the pale of the Temple: _Extra girum Templi, nunc et in
futurum, volo, dico et jubeo._ A similar anathema has since been
launched by several Grand Masters against Templars who were
rebellious to legitimate authority. From the schism that was
introduced into Scotland a number of sects took birth.[317]

This account forms a complete exoneration of the Scottish Templars; as
apostates from the bogus Christian Church and the doctrines of Johannism
they showed themselves loyal to the true Church and to the Christian
faith as formulated in the published statutes of their Order. What they
appear, then, to have introduced to Masonry was their manner of
reception, that is to say their outer forms and organization, and
possibly certain Eastern esoteric doctrines and Judaic legends
concerning the building of the Temple of Solomon in no way incompatible
with the teaching of Christianity.

It will be noticed, moreover, that in the ban passed by the _Ordre du
Temple_ on the Scottish Templars the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem
are also included. This is a further tribute to the orthodoxy of the
Scottish Knights. For to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem--to whom
the Templar property was given--no suspicion of heresy had ever
attached. After the suppression of the Order of the Temple in 1312 a
number of the Knights joined themselves to the Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem, by whom the Templar system appears to have been purged of its
heretical elements. As we shall see later, the same process is said to
have been carried out by the Royal Order of Scotland, All this suggests
that the Templars had imported a secret doctrine from the East which was
capable either of a Christian or an anti-Christian interpretation, that
through their connexion with the Royal Order of Scotland and the