Secret Societies And Subversive Movements Part 6

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.

It is certainly not surprising that an Order which gave such injunctions as these, for whatever purpose, should have become the object of suspicion.

Eliphas Levi, who, like Ragon, accepts the statements of the _Ordre du Temple_ concerning the "Johannite" origin of the Templars' secret doctrine, is, however, not deceived by these professions of Christianity, and boldly a.s.serts that the Sovereign Pontiff Theoclet initiated Hugues de Payens "into the mysteries and hopes of his pretended Church, he lured him by the ideas of sacerdotal sovereignty and supreme royalty, he indicated him finally as his successor. So the Order of the Knights of the Temple was stained from its origin with schism and conspiracy against Kings."[194] Further, Levi relates that the real story told to initiates concerning Christ was no other than the infamous _Toledot Yeshu_ described in the first chapter of this book, and which the Johannites dared to attribute to St. John.[195] This would accord with the confession of the Catalonian Knight Templar, Galcerandus de Teus, who stated that the form of absolution in the Order was: "I pray G.o.d that He may pardon your sins as He pardoned St. Mary Magdalene and the thief on the cross"; but the witness went on to explain:

By the thief of which the head of the Chapter speaks, is meant, according to our statutes, that Jesus or Christ who was crucified by the Jews because he was not G.o.d, and yet he said he was G.o.d and the King of the Jews, which was an outrage to the true G.o.d who is in Heaven. When Jesus, a few moments before his death, had his side pierced by the lance of Longinus, he repented of having called himself G.o.d and King of the Jews and he asked pardon of the true G.o.d; then the true G.o.d pardoned him. It is thus that we apply to the crucified Christ these words: "as G.o.d pardoned the thief on the cross."[196]

Raynouard, who quotes this deposition, stigmatizes it as "singular and extravagant"; M. Matter agrees that it is doubtless extravagant, but that "it merits attention. There was a whole system there, which was not the invention of Galcerant."[197] Eliphas Levi provides the clue to that system and to the reason why Christ was described as a thief, by indicating the Cabalistic legend wherein He was described as having _stolen_ the sacred Name from the Holy of Holies. Elsewhere he explains that the Johannites "made themselves out to be the only people initiated into the true mysteries of the religion of the Saviour. They professed to know the real history of Jesus Christ, and by adopting part of Jewish traditions and the stories of the Talmud, they made out that the facts related in the Gospels"--that is to say, the Gospels accepted by the orthodox Church--"were only allegories of which St. John gives the key."[198]

But it is time to pa.s.s from legend to facts. For the whole story of the initiation of the Templars by the "Johannites" rests princ.i.p.ally on the doc.u.ments produced by the Ordre du Temple in 1811. According to the Abbes Gregoire and Munter the authenticity and antiquity of these doc.u.ments are beyond dispute. Gregoire, referring to the parchment ma.n.u.script of the _Levitikon_ and Gospel of St. John, says that "h.e.l.lenists versed in paleography believe this ma.n.u.script to be of the thirteenth century, others declare it to be earlier and to go back to the eleventh century."[199] Matter, on the other hand, quoting Munter's opinion that the ma.n.u.scripts in the archives of the modern Templars date from the thirteenth century, observes that this is all a tissue of errors and that the critics, including the learned Professor Thilo of Halle, have recognized that the ma.n.u.script in question, far from belonging to the thirteenth century, dates from the beginning of the eighteenth. From the arrangement of the chapters of the Gospel, M.

Matter arrives at the conclusion that it was intended to accompany the ceremonies of some masonic or secret society.[200] We shall return to this possibility in a later chapter.

The antiquity of the ma.n.u.script containing the history of the Templars thus remains an open question on which no one can p.r.o.nounce an opinion without having seen the original. In order, then, to judge of the probability of the story that this ma.n.u.script contained it is necessary to consult the facts of history and to discover what proof can be found that any such sect as the Johannites existed at the time of the Crusades or earlier. Certainly none is known to have been called by this name or by one resembling it before 1622, when some Portuguese monks reported the existence of a sect whom they described as "Christians of St. John"

inhabiting the banks of the Euphrates. The appellation appears, however, to have been wrongly applied by the monks, for the sectarians in question, variously known as the Mandaeans, Mandaites, Sabians, Nazoreans, etc., called themselves Manda Iyahi, that is to say, the disciples, or rather the wise men, of John, the word _manda_ being derived from the Chaldean word _manda_, corresponding to the Greek word ???s?? or wisdom.[201] The multiplicity of names given to the Mandaeans arises apparently from the fact that in their dealings with other communities they took the name of Sabians, whilst they called the wise and learned amongst themselves Nazoreans.[202] The sect formerly inhabited the banks of the Jordan, but was driven out by the Moslems, who forced them to retire to Mesopotamia and Babylonia, where they particularly affected the neighbourhood of rivers in order to be able to carry out their peculiar baptismal rites.[203]

There can be no doubt that the doctrines of the Mandaeans do resemble the description of the Johannite heresy as given by Eliphas Levi, though not by the _Ordre du Temple_, in that the Mandaeans professed to be the disciples of St. John--the Baptist, however, not the Apostle--but were at the same time the enemies of Jesus Christ. According to the Mandaeans'

_Book of John_ (Sidra d'Yahya), Yahya, that is to say, St. John, baptized myriads of men during forty years in the Jordan. By a mistake--or in response to a written mandate from heaven saying, "Yahya, baptize the liar in the Jordan"--he baptized the false prophet Yishu Mes.h.i.+ha (the Messiah Jesus), son of the devil Ruha Kadishta.[204]

The same idea is found in another book of the sect, called the "Book of Adam," which represents Jesus as the perverter of St. John's doctrine and the disseminator of iniquity and perfidy throughout the world.[205]

The resemblance between all this and the legends of the Talmud, the Cabala, and the Toledot Yeshu is at once apparent; moreover, the Mandaeans claim for the "Book of Adam" the same origin as the Jews claimed for the Cabala, namely, that it was delivered to Adam by G.o.d through the hands of the angel Razael.[206] This book, known to scholars as the _Codex Nasaraeus_, is described by Munter as "a sort of mosaic without order, without method, where one finds mentioned Noah, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, the Temple of Jerusalem, St. John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, the Christians, and Mohammed." M. Matter, whilst denying any proof of the Templar succession from the Mandaeans, nevertheless gives good reason for believing that the sect itself existed from the first centuries of the Christian era and that its books dated from the eighth century[207]; further that these Mandaeans or Nazoreans--not to be confounded with the pre-Christian Nazarites or Christian Nazarenes--were Jews who revered St. John the Baptist as the prophet of ancient Mosaism, but regarded Jesus Christ as a false Messiah sent by the powers of darkness.[208] Modern Jewish opinion confirms this affirmation of Judaic inspiration and agrees with Matter in describing the Mandaeans as Gnostics: "Their sacred books are in an Aramaic dialect, which has close affinities with that of the Talmud of Babylon." The Jewish influence is distinctly visible in the Mandaean religion. "It is essentially of the type of ancient Gnosticism, traces of which are found in the Talmud, the Midrash, and in a modified form the later Cabala."[209]

It may then be regarded as certain that a sect existed long before the time of the Crusades corresponding to the description of the Johannites given by Eliphas Levi in that it was Cabalistic, anti-Christian, yet professedly founded on the doctrines of one of the St. Johns. Whether it was by this sect that the Templars were indoctrinated must remain an open question. M. Matter objects that the evidence lacking to such a conclusion lies in the fact that the Templars expressed no particular reverence for St. John; but Loiseleur a.s.serts that the Templars did prefer the Gospel of St. John to that of the other evangelists, and that modern masonic lodges claiming descent from the Templars possess a special version of this Gospel said to have been copied from the original on Mount Athos.[210] It is also said that "Baphomets" were preserved in the masonic lodges of Hungary, where a debased form of Masonry, known as Johannite Masonry, survives to this day. If the Templar heresy was that of the Johannites, the head in question might possibly represent that of John the Baptist, which would accord with the theory that the word Baphomet was derived from Greek words signifying baptism of wisdom. This would, moreover, not be incompatible with Loiseleur's theory of an affinity between the Templars and the Bogomils, for the Bogomils also possessed their own version of the Gospel of St.

John, which they placed on the heads of their neophytes during the ceremony of initiation,[211] giving as the reason for the 'I peculiar veneration they professed for its author that they regarded St. John as the servant of the Jewish G.o.d Satanael.[212] Eliphas Levi even goes so far as to accuse the Templars of following the occult practices of the Luciferians, who carried the doctrines of the Bogomils to the point of paying homage to the powers of darkness:

Let us declare for the edification of the vulgar ... and for the greater glory of the Church which has persecuted the Templars, burned the magicians and excommunicated the Free-Masons, etc., let us say boldly and loudly, that all the initiates of the occult sciences ... have adored, do and will always adore that which is signified by this frightful symbol [the Sabbatic goat].[213] Yes, in our profound conviction, the Grand Masters of the Order of the Templars adored Baphomet and caused him to be adored by their initiates.[214]

It will be seen, then, that the accusation of heresy brought against the Templars does not emanate solely from the Catholic Church, but also from the secret societies. Even our Freemasons, who, for reasons I shall show later, have generally defended the Order, are now willing to admit that there was a very real case against them. Thus Dr. Ranking, who has devoted many years of study to the question, has arrived at the conclusion that Johannism is the real clue to the Templar heresy. In a very interesting paper published in the masonic journal _Ars Quatuor Coronatorum_, he observes that "the record of the Templars in Palestine is one long tale of intrigue and treachery on the part of the Order,"

and finally:

That from the very commencement of Christianity there has been transmitted through the centuries a body of doctrine incompatible with Christianity in the various official Churches....

That the bodies teaching these doctrines professed to do so on the authority of St. John, to whom, as they claimed, the true secrets had been committed by the Founder of Christianity.

That during the Middle Ages the main support of the Gnostic bodies and the main repository of this knowledge was the Society of the Templars.[215]

What is the explanation of this choice of St. John for the propagation of anti-Christian doctrines which we shall find continuing up to the present day? What else than the method of perversion which in its extreme form becomes Satanism, and consists in always selecting the most sacred things for the purpose of desecration? Precisely then because the Gospel of St. John is the one of all the four which most insists on the divinity of Christ, the occult anti-Christian sects have habitually made it the basis of their rites.

4

THREE CENTURIES OF OCCULTISM

It has been shown in the foregoing chapters that from very early times occult sects had existed for two purposes--esoteric and political.

Whilst the Manicheans, the early Ismailis, the Bogomils, and the Luciferians had concerned themselves mainly with religious or esoteric doctrines, the later Ismailis, the Fatimites, the Karmathites, and Templars had combined secrecy and occult rites with the political aim of domination. We shall find this double tradition running through all the secret society movement up to the present day.

The Dualist doctrines attributed to the Templars were not, however, confined to this Order in Europe, but had been, as we have seen, those professed by the Bogomils and also by the Cathari, who spread westwards from Bulgaria and Bosnia to France. It was owing to their sojourn in Bulgaria that the Cathari gained the popular nickname of "Bulgars" or "Bourgres," signifying those addicted to unnatural vice. One section of the Cathari in the South of France became known after 1180 as the Albigenses, thus called from the town of Albi, although their headquarters were really in Toulouse. Christians only in name, they adhered in secret to the Gnostic and Manichean doctrines of the earlier Cathari, which they would appear to have combined with Johannism, since, like this Eastern sect, they claimed to possess their own Gospel of St.

John.[216]