STARCK, JOHANN AUGUST VON
Encyclopedia Masonica
J. A. von Starck, whose life is closely connected with the history of German Freemasonry, and especially with that of the Rite of Strict Observance, was born at Schwerin, October 29, 1741. He studied at the University of Göttingen, and was made in 1751 a Freemason in a French Military Lodge. In 1763 he went to St. Petersburg, where he received the appointment of teacher in one of the public schools. There, too, it is supposed that he was adopted into the Rite of Melesino, then flourishing in the Russian capital, and became first acquainted with the Rite of Strict Observance, in which he afterward played so important a part.
After two years' residence at St. Petersburg, Brother von Starck went for a short time to England, and was in August, 1766, in Paris. In 1767 he was Director of the schools at Wismar, where he was Junior Warden of the Lodge of the Three Lions. In 1770 he was called to Königsberg, to occupy the chair of theology, and to fill the post of Court Chaplain. The following year he resigned both offices, and retired to Mettau, to devote himself to literary and philosophical pursuits. But in 1781 the Court at Darmstadt conferred upon him the posts of Chief Preacher and the first place in the Consistory, and there he remained until his death which occurred Mach 3, 1816.
The knowledge that Starck acquired of the Rite of Strict Observance convinced him of its innate weakness, and of the necessity of some reformation. He therefore was led to the idea of reviving the spiritual branch of the Order, a project which he sought to carry into effect, at first quietly and secretly, by gaining over influential Freemasons to his views. In this he so far succeeded as to be enabled to establish, in 1767, the new system of clerical Knights Templar, as a schism from the Strict Observance, and to which he gave the name of Clerks of Relaxed Observance. It consisted of seven Degrees, as follows: 1. Apprentice 2. Fellow; 3. Master; 4. Young Scottish Master; 5. Old Scottish Master, or Knight of Saint Andrew; 6. Provincial Chapter of the Red Cross; 7. Magus, or Knight of Brightness and Light; which last Degree was divided into five classes, of Novice, Levite, and Priest—the summit of the Order being Knight Priest. Thus he embodied the idea that Templarism was a hierarchy, and that not only was every Freemason a Templar, but every true Templar was both a Knight and a Priest. Starck, who was originally a Protestant, had been secretly connected with Romanism while in Paris; and he attempted surreptitiously to introduce Roman Catholicism into his new system. He professed that the Rite which he was propagating was in possession of secrets not known to the chivalric branch of the Order; and he demanded, as a prerequisite to admission, that the candidate should be a Roman Catholic, and have previously received the Degrees of Strict Observance.
Starck entered into a correspondence with Von Hund, the head of the Rite of Strict Observance, for the purpose of effecting a fusion of the two branches— the Chivalric and the Spiritual. But, notwithstanding the willingness of Von Hund to accept any league which promised to give renewed strength to his own decaying system, the fusion was never effected. It is true that in 1768 there was a formal union of the two branches at Wismar, but it was neither sincere nor permanent.
At the Congress of Brunswick, in 1775, the clerical branch seceded and formed an independent Order; and after the death of Von Hund the Lodges of the Strict Observance abandoned their name, and called themselves the United German Lodges. The spiritual branch, too, soon began to lose favor with the German Freemasons, partly because the Swedish system was getting to be popular in Germany, and partly because Starck was suspected of being in league with the Catholics, for whose sake he had invented his system. Documentary evidence has since proved that this suspicion was well founded. Ragon says that the Order continued in successful existence until the vear 1800; but Doctor Mackey doubted if it lasted so long.
The German writers have not hesitated to accuse Starck of having been an emissary of the Jesuits, and of having instituted his Rite in the interests of Jesuitism. This, of course, rendered both him and the Rite unpopular, and gave an impetus to its decay and fall. Starck himself, even before his appointment as Court Chaplain at Darmstadt, in 1781, had, by his own confession, not only abandoned the Rite, but all interest in Freemasonry. In 1785 he wrote his Saint Nicaise, which was really anti-Masonic in principle, and in 1787 he published his work Ueber Kripto Catholicesmus, etc., or A Treatise on Secret Catholicism, on Proselyte Making, on Jesuitism, and on Secret Societies, which was a controversial work directed against Nicolai, Gädicke, and Biester. In this book he says:
"It is true that in my youthful days I was a Freemason. It is also true that when the so-called Strict Observance was introduced into Masonry I belonged to it, and was, like others, an Eques, Socius, Armiger, Commendator, Prefect, and Sub-Prior; and having taken some formal cloister-like profession, I have been a Clericus. But I have withdrawn from all that, and all that is called Freemasonry, for more than nine years."
While an active member of the Masonic Order, whatever may have been his secret motives, he wrote many valuable Masonic works, which produced at the time of their appearance a great sensation in Germany. Such were his Apology for the Order of Freemasonry, Berlin, 1778, which went through many editions; on the Design of the Order of Freemasonry, Berlin, 1781; and on the Ancient and Modern Mysteries, 1782. He was distinguished as a man of letters and as a learned theologian, and has left numerous work on general literature and on religion, the latter class showing an evident leaning toward the Roman Catholic faith, of which he was evidently a partisan.
"There is," says Feller ( Universal Biography) "in the life of Starck something singular, that has never been made public." Doctor Mackey deemed the verdict well established, that in his labors for the apparent reformation of Freemasonry there was a deplorable want of honesty and sincerity, and that he abandoned the Order finally because his schemes of ambition failed, and the Jesuitical designs with which he entered it svere frustrated.
