Part 6 (1/2)

What, then, was the Templar heresy? On this point we find a variety of opinions. According to Wilcke, Ranke, and Weber it was ”the unitarian deism of Islam”[179]; Lecouteulx de Canteleu thinks, however, it was derived from heretical Islamic sources, and relates that whilst in Palestine, one of the Knights, Guillaume de Montbard, was initiated by the Old Man of the Mountain in a cave of Mount Lebanon.[180] That a certain resemblance existed between the Templars and the a.s.sa.s.sins has been indicated by von Hammer,[181] and further emphasized by the Freemason Clavel:

Oriental historians show us, at different periods, the Order of the Templars maintaining intimate relations with that of the a.s.sa.s.sins, and they insist on the affinity that existed between the two a.s.sociations. They remark that they had adopted the same colours, white and red; that they had the same organization, the same hierarchy of degrees, those of fedavi, refik, and dai in one corresponding to those of novice, professed, and knight in the other; that both conspired for the ruin of the religions they professed in public, and that finally both possessed numerous castles, the former in Asia, the latter in Europe.[182]

But in spite of these outward resemblances it does not appear from the confessions of the Knights that the secret doctrine of the Templars was that of the a.s.sa.s.sins or of any Ismaili sect by which, in accordance with orthodox Islamism, Jesus was openly held up as a prophet, although, secretly, indifference to all religion was inculcated. The Templars, as far as can be discovered, were anti-Christian deists; Loiseleur considers that their ideas were derived from Gnostic or Manichean dualists--Cathari, Paulicians, or more particularly Bogomils, of which a brief account must be given here.

The _Paulicians_, who flourished about the seventh century A.D., bore a resemblance to the Cainites and Ophites in their detestation of the Demiurgus and in the corruption of their morals. Later, in the ninth century, the _Bogomils_, whose name signifies in Slavonic ”friends of G.o.d” and who had migrated from Northern Syria and Mesopotamia to the Balkan Peninsula, particularly Thrace, appeared as a further development of Manichean dualism. Their doctrine may be summarized thus:

G.o.d, the Supreme Father, has two sons, the elder Satanael, the younger Jesus. To Satanael, who sat on the right hand of G.o.d, belonged the right of governing the celestial world, but, filled with pride, he rebelled against his Father and fell from Heaven. Then, aided by the companions of his fall, he created the visible world, image of the celestial, having like the other its sun, moon, and stars, and last he created man and the serpent which became his minister. Later Christ came to earth in order to show men the way to Heaven, but His death was ineffectual, for even by descending into h.e.l.l He could not wrest the power from Satanael, i.e. Satan.

This belief in the impotence of Christ and the necessity therefore for placating Satan, not only ”the Prince of this world,” but its creator, led to the further doctrine that Satan, being all-powerful, should be adored. Nicetas Choniates, a Byzantine historian of the twelfth century, described the followers of this cult as ”Satanists,” because ”considering Satan powerful they wors.h.i.+pped him lest he might do them harm”; subsequently they were known as Luciferians, their doctrine (as stated by Neuss and Vitodura.n.u.s) being that Lucifer was unjustly driven out of Heaven, that one day he will ascend there again and be restored to his former glory and power in the celestial world.

The Bogomils and Luciferians were thus closely akin, but whilst the former divided their wors.h.i.+p between G.o.d and His two sons, the latter wors.h.i.+pped Lucifer only, regarding the material world as his work and holding that by indulging the flesh they were propitiating their Demon-Creator. It was said that a black cat, the symbol of Satan, figured in their ceremonies as an object of wors.h.i.+p, also that at their horrible nocturnal orgies sacrifices of children were made and their blood used for making the Eucharistic bread of the sect.[183]

Thus the Templars recognize at the same time a good G.o.d, incommunicable to man and consequently without symbolic representation, and a bad G.o.d, to whom they give the features of an idol of fearful aspect.[184]

Their most fervent wors.h.i.+p was addressed to this G.o.d of evil, who alone could enrich them. ”They said with the Luciferians: 'The elder son of G.o.d, Satanael or Lucifer alone has a right to the homage of mortals; Jesus his younger brother does not deserve this honour.'”[185]

Although we shall not find these ideas so clearly defined in the confessions of the Knights, some colour is lent to this theory by those who related that the reason given to them for not believing in Christ was ”that He was nothing, He was a false prophet and of no value, and that they should believe in the Higher G.o.d of Heaven who could save them.”[186] According to Loiseleur, the idol they were taught to wors.h.i.+p, the bearded head known to history as Baphomet, represented ”the inferior G.o.d, organizer and dominator of the material world, author of good and evil here below, him by whom evil was introduced into creation.”[187]

The etymology of the word Baphomet is difficult to discover; Raynouard says it originated with two witnesses heard at Carca.s.sonne who spoke of ”Figura Baflometi,” and suggests that it was a corruption of ”Mohammed,”

whom the Inquisitors wished to make the Knights confess they were taught to adore.[188] But this surmise with regard to the intentions of the Inquisitors seems highly improbable, since they must have been well aware that, as Wilcke points out, the Moslems forbid all idols.[189] For this reason Wilcke concludes that the Mohammedanism of the Templars was combined with Cabalism and that their idol was in reality the _macroprosopos_, or head of the Ancient of Ancients, represented as an old man with a long beard, or sometimes as three heads in one, which has already been referred to under the name of the Long Face in the first chapter of this book--a theory which would agree with Eliphas Levi's a.s.sertion that the Templars were ”initiated into the mysterious doctrines of the Cabala.”[190] But Levi goes on to define this teaching under the name of Johannism. It is here that we reach a further theory with regard to the secret doctrine of the Templars--- the most important of all, since it emanates from masonic and neo-Templar sources thus effectually disposing of the contention that the charge brought against the Order of apostasy from the Catholic faith is solely the invention of Catholic writers.

In 1842 the Freemason Ragon related that the Templars learnt from the ”initiates of the East” a certain Judaic doctrine which was attributed to St. John the Apostle; therefore ”they renounced the religion of St.

Peter” and became Johannites.[191] Eliphas Levi expresses the same opinion.

Now, these statements are apparently founded on a legend which was first published early in the nineteenth century, when an a.s.sociation calling itself the _Ordre du Temple_ and claiming direct descent from the original Templar Order published two works, the _Manuel des Chevaliers de l'Ordre du Temple_ in 1811, and the _Levitikon_ in 1831, together with a version of the Gospel of St. John differing from the Vulgate.

These books, which appear to have been printed only for private circulation amongst the members and are now extremely rare, relate that the Order of the Temple had never ceased to exist since the days of Jacques du Molay, who appointed Jacques de Larmenie his successor in office, and from that time onwards a line of Grand Masters had succeeded each other without a break up to the end of the eighteenth century, when it ceased for a brief period but was reinst.i.tuted under a new Grand Master, Fabre Palaprat, in 1804. Besides publis.h.i.+ng the list of all Grand Masters, known as the ”Charter of Larmenius,” said to have been preserved in the secret archives of the Temple, these works also reproduce another doc.u.ment drawn from the same repository describing the origins of the Order. This ma.n.u.script, written in Greek on parchment, dated 1154, purports to be partly taken from a fifth-century MS. and relates that Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Templars, was initiated in 1118--that is to say, in the year the Order was founded--into the religious doctrine of ”the Primitive Christian Church”

by its Sovereign Pontiff and Patriarch, Theoclet, sixtieth in direct succession from St. John the Apostle. The history of the Primitive Church is then given as follows:

Moses was initiated in Egypt. Profoundly versed in the physical, theological, and metaphysical mysteries of the priests, he knew how to profit by these so as to surmount the power of the Mages and deliver his companions. Aaron, his brother, and the chiefs of the Hebrews became the depositaries of his doctrine....

The Son of G.o.d afterwards appeared on the scene of the world.... He was brought up at the school of Alexandria.... Imbued with a spirit wholly divine, endowed with the most astounding qualities (_dispositions_), he was able to reach all the degrees of Egyptian initiation. On his return to Jerusalem, he presented himself before the chiefs of the Synagogue.... Jesus Christ, directing the fruit of his lofty meditations towards universal civilization and the happiness of the world, rent the veil which concealed the truth from the peoples. He preached the love of G.o.d, the love of one's neighbour, and equality before the common Father of all men....

Jesus conferred evangelical initiation on his apostles and disciples. He transmitted his spirit to them, divided them into several orders after the practice of John, the beloved disciple, the apostle of fraternal love, whom he had inst.i.tuted Sovereign Pontiff and Patriarch....

Here we have the whole Cabalistic legend of a secret doctrine descending from Moses, of Christ as an Egyptian initiate and founder of a secret order--a theory, of course, absolutely destructive of belief in His divinity. The legend of the _Ordre du Temple_ goes on to say:

Up to about the year 1118 (i.e. the year the Order of the Temple was founded) the mysteries and the hierarchic Order of the initiation of Egypt, transmitted to the Jews by Moses, then to the Christians by J.C., were religiously preserved by the successors of St. John the Apostle. These mysteries and initiations, regenerated by the evangelical initiation (or baptism), were a sacred trust which the simplicity of the primitive and unchanging morality of the _Brothers of the East_ had preserved from all adulteration....

The Christians, persecuted by the infidels, appreciating the courage and piety of these brave crusaders, who, with the sword in one hand and the cross in the other, flew to the defence of the holy places, and, above all, doing striking justice to the virtues and the ardent charity of Hugues de Payens, held it their duty to confide to hands so pure the treasures of knowledge acquired throughout so many centuries, sanctified by the cross, the dogma and the morality of the Man-G.o.d. Hugues was invested with the Apostolic Patriarchal power and placed in the legitimate order of the successors of St. John the apostle or the evangelist.

Such is the origin of the foundation of the Order of the Temple and of the fusion in this Order of the different kinds of initiation of the Christians of the East designated under the t.i.tle of Primitive Christians or Johannites.

It will be seen at once that all this story is subtly subversive of true Christianity, and that the appellation of Christians applied to the Johannites is an imposture. Indeed Fabre Palaprat, Grand Master of the _Ordre du Temple_ in 1804, who in his book on the Templars repeats the story contained in the _Levitikon and the Manuel des Chevaliers du Temple_, whilst making the same profession of ”primitive Christian”

doctrines descending from St. John through Theoclet and Hugues de Payens to the Order over which he presides, goes on to say that the secret doctrine of the Templars ”was essentially contrary to the canons of the Church of Rome and that it is princ.i.p.ally to this fact that one must attribute the persecution of which history has preserved the memory.”[192]

The belief of the Primitive Christians, and consequently that the Templars, with regard to the miracles of Christ is that He ”did or may have done extraordinary or miraculous things,” and that since ”G.o.d can do things incomprehensible to human intelligence,” the Primitive Church venerates ”all the acts of Christ as they are described in the Gospel, whether it considers them as acts of human science or whether as acts of divine power.”[193] Belief in the divinity of Christ is thus left an open question, and the same att.i.tude is maintained towards the Resurrection, of which the story is omitted in the Gospel of St. John possessed by the Order. Fabre Palaprat further admits that the gravest accusations brought against the Templars were founded on facts which he attempts to explain away in the following manner:

The Templars having in 1307 carefully abstracted all the ma.n.u.scripts composing the secret archives of the Order from the search made by authority, and these authentic ma.n.u.scripts having been preciously preserved since that period, we have to-day the certainty that the Knights endured a great number of religious and moral trials before reaching the different degrees of initiation: thus, for example, the recipient might receive the injunction under pain of death to trample on the crucifix or to wors.h.i.+p an idol, but if he yielded to the terror which they sought to inspire in him he was declared unworthy of being admitted to the higher grades of the Order. One can imagine in this way how beings, too feeble or too immoral to endure the trials of initiation, may have accused the Templars of giving themselves up to infamous practices and of having superst.i.tious beliefs.