In the days after the inauguration of US President Joe Biden on January 20, social media reports claimed that the Bible he used during his swearing-in ceremony was associated with the Masonic Order or the Illuminati. A family heirloom dating back to the late 19th century, Biden’s Bible is a Douay-Rheims edition used by English-speaking Roman Catholics around the world. Claims of Freemasons or Illuminati links to this Bible edition are unfounded and, like QAnon, relate to the classic conspiracy theory that a secret organization of elites wants to establish a new world order.
Reports making this claim can be found here, here and here. One viral Facebook message, which was shared more than 18,000 times at the time of publication of this article, has the caption: “Sooo did anyone else realize this or ???? Masonic / Illuminati Bible that Biden swore yesterday … I believe very strange and scary shit will go down at some point … ”(here).
HISTORY OF THE SECRET SOCIETY KNOWN AS ILLUMINATI
The Illuminati, a secret society, was in Europe for a decade in the middle of the 18th century before dissolution, and is being investigated in articles by Vox (here) and the Guardian (here).
In the 1960s, American writers Robert Anton Wilson and Kerry Thornley published gag letters in Playboy magazine about alleged “readers” regarding a secret organization called the Illuminati (here). Although the letters were intended as satire, the myth turned into a popular conspiracy theory.
Emerging as a countercultural icon, Wilson co-publishes with Robert Shea ‘The Illuminatus! Trilogy ”in 1975, described by the New York Times in his 2007 obituary for Wilson as” a twisted science fiction series about a secret global society “that became a” cult classic “.
In the years that followed, Illuminati believers accepted the secret group’s responsibility for events such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (here). Remarkably, the novelist Dan Brown wrote about the Illuminati as a group driven by the Vatican underground in his 2000 mystery thriller “Angels and Demons.”
AND THE FREE METERS?
The Masonic Order, also known as the Masons, is another historical secret society (here). The Illuminati recruited members of the Masonic lodges across Europe during its decade in operation, which could possibly explain the current public confusion between the two groups (here).
Unlike the Illuminati, Freemasonry still exists, a network of secret fraternal organizations that officially began in Europe in the early 18th century. As explained by journalist Peter Feuerherd (here), Freemasonry, ‘influenced American history from its inception’ and ‘captured the fidelity of a large part of the early Republic’s elite’, but ‘in the first half of the 19th century ‘under widespread suspicion’.
Paranoia surrounding the Freemasons stemmed in part from the influence they exercised in the United States, and many of its founding members were members (here).
THE DOUAY-RHIMS BIBLE
On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th and second Roman Catholic president of the United States after taking his oath of office using an 1893 edition of the Douay Rheims Bible (see around point 4:15 here ).
Reuters photos of the ceremony with the Bible can be seen here and here.
The president’s use of this family heirloom, which he used twice while being sworn in as vice president in 2009 and 2013 (here
, here) and seven times as a U.S. senator, was widely reported on Inauguration Day (here, here, here).
The Douay-Rheims Bible (also spelled Douai-Reims) is an English translation of the Latin Vulgate (Bible translation) made by Roman Catholic scholars who were banished from England during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Douay-Rheims translation was “the only authorized Bible in English for Roman Catholics until the 20th century”. (here).
Biden is the second U.S. president to be sworn in with a Douay-Rheims Bible, after John F. Kennedy in 1961 (here, www.jfklibrary.org/media/2371).
HOSTILITY BETWEEN THE FREE BREEDERS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Due to historical tensions between the Masonic Order and the Catholic Church, it is’ highly unlikely that a beloved Bible Catholic would have anything to do with the Masons’, John Dickie, a historian at University College London and author of ‘The Craft: How the Masons made the modern world, ”Reuters said in an email (johndickie.net/).
As noted by Feuerherd, the theological views of the Freemasons, especially their Deistic vision of God, contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church (here).
In 1738, Pope Clemens XII excommunicated the Masons (here) and led a ‘long, long history of mutual hostility and suspicion between masons and Catholics’, Dickie said.
Candida Moss, a professor of theology at the British University of Birmingham (here), told Reuters in an email that “there is absolutely no evidence linking the Douay-Rheims Bible to the Illuminati or Freemasons.”
Moss noted that Freemasons and Roman Catholics are not ‘historical bedfellows’, and called the idea of Freemasons using this particular Bible ‘extraordinary’.
In 1983, for example, Cardinal Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) announced that the church’s negative judgment regarding Masonic associations remained unchanged. . . Membership in them remains prohibited. The believers who enroll in Masonic associations are in a serious sin and may not receive Communion ”(here).
EXPLANATION OF THE SYMBOLS ON DOUAY-RHIMS BIBLES
Some of the viral Facebook posts (here, here) contain a screenshot of a WorthPoint.com list for a “RARE 1883 ANTIQUE FAMILY BIBLE DOUAY RHEIMS ILLUMINATI MASONIC 22KT BID AT .99 !!” as alleged evidence of Biden’s ties to the Illuminati or the Freemasons.
Although the Reuters Fact Check team could not find images that clearly reflect the full cover of the Biden family’s Douay-Rheims Bible, it is true that the front pages of some ancient Douay-Rheims editions (www.ebay.com / itm / 143919256211, here) includes the “Eye of Providence”, an eye within a triangle commonly seen as a Masonic and Illuminati symbol.
When asked about the presence of the symbol, which also graces the back of the US dollar bill, on the front pages of some Douay-Rheims Bibles, Moss emphasized that the eye of Providence was used earlier than the Masons.
As stated here by the BBC, the “Eye of Providence” was originally a symbol of Christianity, found in ‘religious art from the Renaissance period to represent God’, such as the Communion of Pontormo in 1525 at Emmaus ( here). The symbol was subject to a variety of interpretations at the end of the 18th century.
The interpretation of the design as a Masonic sign became popular in 1975 with the publication of “The Eye in the Pyramid”, the first book in Wilson and Shea’s “The Illuminatus!” Trilogy, ”and more recently in 2009 with the publication of Brown’s novel“ The Lost Symbol ”(here, here).
Although the Vatican eventually abandoned the symbol (here), Moss noted that you can still find the eye of Providence in some Catholic churches, even relatively modern ones like Monroe, the St. Matthew Catholic Church in Louisiana (stmatthewmonroe.org/eye-of- god), built in 1899 (here).
VERDICT
Untrue. The Bible that Biden used during his inauguration, a Douay-Rheims 1893 edition that is a legacy, is not proof of the president’s alleged association with the Illuminati or the Freemasons. Due to the long history of tension between the Masonic Order and the Catholic Church, the use of this Bible by the Masons is extremely unlikely. Although the cover design of Biden’s specific Bible is unclear, the eye of Providence seen on some ancient Douay-Rheims Bibles has been a Christian symbol used by the Masons for centuries.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.