Masons track their roots back much further than the eighteenth century!!!
Yes they claim such....Masonary "beliefs" go all the way to Babylon as a matter of fact and the ancient pagan rituals of that time.
you wrote:
“Masons track their roots back much further than the eighteenth century!!!”
Nope. Masons simply invented a phony history. They had no history whatsoever before the sixteenth century. There is no known evidence anywhere in the world of Masonry existing before then. The Grand Lodge (early 18th century) is the real birth of modern Masonry.