Lessing’s Templars and the Reform of German Freemasonry

Abstract

The figure of the Templar plays an important part in two of Lessing’s later works, Ernst und Falk: Gespräche fü r Freimaurer and Nathan der Weise. His references in the first of these to English freemasonry, and to the role of Sir Christopher Wren in making the lodges more accessible and thus preparing the ground for the constitution of the Grand Lodge of London in 1717, contrast sharply with his description of the corrupt practices of the Scottish Lodges in Germany which believed the Templars to have been their predecessors. This negative image of the Templars is complemented by the positive one of the ‘Tempelherr’ in Nathan, whose characterisation is drawn from the early years of their existence around 1118, almost thirty years before they too succumbed to the same kind of corruption as the Scottish Lodges. Ferdinand I, Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, Grand Master of the Scottish system throughout Germany, was the political force which brought about the reform of German freemasonry. As a result, the Wilhelmsbad Convention of freemasons, which met in 1782, approved a decision to abolish the Scottish Lodges. This article examines Lessing’s treatment of the Templar image as an integral part of his contribution to the process of masonic reform in Germany.