THE SUCCESSORS OF THE PROPHET

The above table shows the rival lines of Khalifas—on the left the elected successors, choice of the Sunnis; on the right the lineal descendants, choice of the Shiahs. The figure at the side of each name indicates the number in succession of the Khalifa mentioned. The table inset shows the sects to which the disputes over the succession gave birth.

]

So far, however, in spite of divisions, no body of Shiahs had ever deviated from the fundamental doctrines of Islamism, but merely claimed that these had been handed down through a different line from that recognized by the Sunnis. The earliest Ismailis, who formed themselves into a party at about the time of the death of Mohammed, son of Ismail (i.e. circ. A.D. 770), still remained believers, declaring only that the true teaching of the Prophet had descended to Mohammed, who was not dead but would return in the fullness of time and that he was the Mahdi whom Moslems must await. But in about A.D. 873 an intriguer of extraordinary subtlety succeeded in capturing the movement, which, hitherto merely schismatic, now became definitely subversive, not only of Islamism, but of all religious belief.

This man, Abdullah ibn Maymun, the son of a learned and free-thinking doctor in Southern Persia, brought up in the doctrines of Gnostic Dualism and profoundly versed in all religions, was in reality, like his father, a pure materialist. By professing adherence to the creed of orthodox Shi-ism, and proclaiming a knowledge of the mystic doctrines which the Ismailis believed to have descended through Ismail to his son Mohammed, Abdullah succeeded in placing himself at the head of the Ismailis.

His advocacy of Ismail was thus merely a mask, his real aim being materialism, which he now proceeded to make into a system by founding a sect known as the Batinis with seven degrees of initiation. Dozy has given the following description of this amazing project:

To link together into one body the vanquished and the conquerors; to unite in the form of a vast secret society with many degrees of initiation free-thinkers—who regarded religion only as a curb for the people—and bigots of all sects; to make tools of believers in order to give power to sceptics; to induce conquerors to overturn the empires they had founded; to build up a party, numerous, compact, and disciplined, which in due time would give the throne, if not to himself, at least to his descendants, such was Abdullah ibn Maymun's general aim—an extraordinary conception which he worked out with marvellous tact, incomparable skill, and a profound knowledge of the human heart. The means which he adopted were devised with diabolical cunning....

It was ... not among the Shi-ites that he sought his true supporters, but among the Ghebers, the Manicheans, the pagans of Harran, and the students of Greek philosophy; on the last alone could he rely, to them alone could he gradually unfold the final mystery, and reveal that Imams, religions, and morality were nothing but an imposture and an absurdity. The rest of mankind—the "asses," as Abdullah called them—were incapable of understanding such doctrines. But to gain his end he by no means disdained their aid; on the contrary, he solicited it, but he took care to initiate devout and lowly souls only in the first grades of the sect. His missionaries, who were inculcated with the idea that their first duty was to conceal their true sentiments and adapt themselves to the views of their auditors, appeared in many guises, and spoke, as it were, in a different language to each class. They won over the ignorant vulgar by feats of legerdemain which passed for miracles, or excited their curiosity by enigmatical discourse. In the presence of the devout they assumed the mask of virtue and piety. With mystics they were mystical, and unfolded the inner meanings of phenomena, or explained allegories and the figurative sense of the allegories themselves....

By means such as these the extraordinary result was brought about that a multitude of men of diverse beliefs were all working together for an object known only to a few of them....[128]

I quote this passage at length because it is of immense importance in throwing a light on the organization of modern secret societies. It does not matter what the end may be, whether political, social, or religious, the system remains the same—the setting in motion of a vast number of people and making them work in a cause unknown to them. That this was the method adopted by Weishaupt in organizing the Illuminati and that it came to him from the East will be shown later on. We shall now see how the system of the philosopher Abdullah paved the way for bloodshed by the most terrible sect the world had ever seen.



The Karmathites

The first open acts of violence resulting from the doctrines of Abdullah were carried out by the Karmathites, a new development of the Ismailis. Amongst the many Dais sent out by the leader—which included his son Ahmed and Ahmed's son—was the Dai Hosein Ahwazi, Abdullah's envoy to Irak in Persia, who initiated a certain Hamdan surnamed Karmath into the secrets of the sect. Karmath, who was a born intriguer and believed in nothing, became the leader of the Karmathites in Arabia, where a number of Arabs were soon enlisted in the society. With extraordinary skill he succeeded in persuading these dupes to make over all their money to him, first by means of small contributions, later by larger sums, until at last he convinced them of the advantages of abolishing all private property and establishing the system of the community of goods and wives. This principle was enforced by the passage of the Koran: "Remember the grace of God in that whilst you were enemies, He has united your hearts, so that by His grace you have become brothers...." De Sacy thus trans-scribes the methods employed as given by the historian Nowairi:

When Karmath had succeeded in establishing all this, and everyone had agreed to conform to it, he ordered the Dais to assemble all the women on a certain night so that they should mingle promiscuously with all the men. This, he said, was perfection and the last degree of friendship and fraternal union. Often a husband led his wife and presented her himself to one of his brothers when that gave him pleasure. When he (Karmath) saw that he had become absolute master of their minds, had assured himself of their obedience, and found out the degree of their intelligence and discernment, he began to lead them quite astray. He put before them arguments borrowed from the doctrines of the Dualists. They fell in easily with all that he proposed, and then he took away from them all religion and released them from all those duties of piety, devotion, and the fear of God that he prescribed for them in the beginning. He permitted them pillage, and every sort of immoral licence, and taught them to throw off the yoke of prayer, fasting, and other precepts. He taught them that they were held by no obligations, and that they could pillage the goods and shed the blood of their adversaries with impunity, that the knowledge of the master of truth to whom he had called them took the place of everything else, and that with this knowledge they need no longer fear sin or punishment.

As the result of these teachings the Karmathites rapidly became a band of brigands, pillaging and massacring all those who opposed them and spreading terror throughout all the surrounding districts.

Peaceful fraternity was thus turned into a wild lust for conquest; the Karmathites succeeded in dominating a great part of Arabia and the mouth of the Euphrates, and in A.D. 920 extended their ravages westwards. They took possession of the holy city of Mecca, in the defence of which 30,000 Moslems fell. "For a whole century," says von Hammer, "the pernicious doctrines of Karmath raged with fire and sword in the very bosom of Islamism, until the widespread conflagration was extinguished in blood."

But in proclaiming themselves revolutionaries the Karmathites had departed from the plan laid down by the originator of their creed, Abdullah ibn Maymun, which had consisted not in acts of open violence but in a secret doctrine which should lead to the gradual undermining of all religious faith and a condition of mental anarchy rather than of material chaos. For violence, as always, had produced counter-violence, and it was thus that while the Karmathites were rushing to their own destruction through a series of bloody conflicts, another branch of the Ismailis were quietly reorganizing their forces more in conformity with the original method of their founder. These were the Fatimites, so-called from their professed belief that the doctrine of the Prophet had descended from Ali, husband of Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. Whilst less extreme than the Karmathites, or than their predecessor Abdullah ibn Maymun, the Fatimites, according to the historian Makrizi, adopted the method of instilling doubts into the minds of believers and aimed at the substitution of a natural for a revealed religion. Indeed, after the establishment of their power in Egypt, it is difficult to distinguish any appreciable degree of difference in the character of their teaching from the anarchic code of Abdullah and his more violent exponent Karmath.



The Fatimites

The founder of the Fatimite dynasty of the Khalifas was one Ubeidallah, known as the Mahdi, accused of Jewish ancestry by his adversaries the Abbasides, who declared—apparently without truth—that he was the son or grandson of Ahmed, son of Adbullah ibn Maymun, by a Jewess. Under the fourth Fatimite Khalifa Egypt fell into the power of the dynasty, and, before long, bi-weekly assemblages of both men and women known as "societies of wisdom" were instituted in Cairo. In 1004 these acquired a greater importance by the establishment of the Dar ul Hikmat, or the House of Knowledge, by the sixth Khalifa Hakim, who was raised to a deity after his death and is worshipped to this day by the Druses. Under the direction of the Dar ul Hikmat or Grand Lodge of Cairo, the Fatimites continued the plan of Abdullah ibn Maymun's secret society with the addition of two more degrees, making nine in all. Their method of enlisting proselytes and system of initiation—which, as Claudio Jannet points out, "are absolutely those which Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, prescribed to the 'Insinuating Brothers'"[129]—were transcribed by the fourteenth-century historian Nowairi in a description that may be briefly summarized thus[130]:

The proselytes were broadly divided into two classes, the learned and the ignorant. The Dai was to agree with the former, applauding his wisdom, and to impress the latter with his own knowledge by asking him perplexing questions on the Koran. Thus in initiating him into the first degree the Dai assumed an air of profundity and explained that religious doctrines were too abstruse for the ordinary mind, but must be interpreted by men who, like the Dais, had a special knowledge of this science. The initiate was bound to absolute secrecy concerning the truths to be revealed to him and obliged to pay in advance for these revelations. In order to pique his curiosity, the Dai would suddenly stop short in the middle of a discourse, and should the novice finally decline to pay the required sum, he was left in a state of bewilderment which inspired him with the desire to know more.

In the second degree the initiate was persuaded that all his former teachers were wrong and that he must place his confidence solely in those Imams endowed with authority from God; in the third he learnt that these Imams were those of the Ismailis, seven in number ending with Mohammed, son of Ismail, in contradistinction to the twelve Imams of the Imamias who supported the claims of Ismail's brother Musa; in the fourth he was told that the prophets preceding the Imams descending from Ali were also seven in number—namely Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, the first Mohammed, and finally Mohammed son of Ismail.

So far, then, nothing was said to the initiate in contradiction to the broad tenets of orthodox Islamism. But with the fifth degree the process of undermining his religion began, he was now told to reject tradition and to disregard the precepts of Mohammed; in the sixth he was taught that all religious observances—prayer, fasting, etc.—were only emblematic, that in fact all these things were devices to keep the common herd of men in subordination; in the seventh the doctrines of Dualism, of a greater and a lesser deity, were introduced and the unity of God—fundamental doctrine of Islamism—was destroyed; in the eighth a great vagueness was expressed on the attributes of the first and greatest of these deities, and it was pointed out that real prophets were those who concerned themselves with practical matters—political institutions and good forms of government; finally, in the ninth, the adept was shown that all religious teaching was allegorical and that religious precepts need only be observed in so far as it is necessary to maintain order, but the man who understands the truth may disregard all such doctrines. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the other prophets were therefore only teachers who had profited by the lessons of philosophy. All belief in revealed religion was thus destroyed. It will be seen then that in the last degrees the whole teaching of the first five was reversed and therefore shown to be a fraud. Fraud in fact constituted the system of the society; in the instructions to the Dais every artifice is described for enlisting proselytes by misrepresentation: Jews were to be won by speaking ill of Christians, Christians by speaking ill of Jews and Moslems alike, Sunnis by referring with respect to the orthodox Khalifas Abu Bakr and Omar and criticizing Ali and his descendants. Above all, care was to be taken not to put before proselytes doctrines that might revolt them, but to make them advance step by step. By these means they would be ready to obey any commands. As the instructions express it:

If you were to give the order to whoever it might be to take from him all that he holds most precious, above all his money, he would oppose none of your orders, and if death surprised him he would leave you all that he possesses in his will and make you his heir. He will think that in the whole world he cannot find a man more worthy than you.

Such was the great secret society which was to form the model for the Illuminati of the eighteenth century, to whom the summary of von Hammer might with equal truth apply:

To believe nothing and to dare all was, in two words, the sum of this system, which annihilated every principle of religion and morality, and had no other object than to execute ambitious designs with suitable ministers, who, daring all and knowing nothing, since they consider everything a cheat and nothing forbidden, are the best tools of an infernal policy. A system which, with no other aim than the gratification of an insatiable lust for domination, instead of seeking the highest of human objects, precipitates itself into the abyss, and mangling itself, is buried amidst the ruins of thrones and altars, the wreck of national happiness, and the universal execration of mankind.[131]



The Druses

The terrible Grand Lodge of Cairo before long became the centre of a new and extraordinary cult. Hakim sixth Fatimite Khalifa and founder of the Dar ul Hikmat—a monster of tyranny and crime whose reign can only be compared to that of Caligula or Nero—was now raised to the place of a divinity by one Ismail Darazi, a Turk who in 1016 announced in a mosque in Cairo that the Khalifa should be made an object of worship. Hakim, who "believed that divine reason was incarnate in him," four years later proclaimed himself a deity, and the cult was finally established by one of his viziers, the Persian mystic Hamza ibn Ali. Hakim's cruelties, however, had so outraged the people of Egypt that a year later he was murdered by a band of malcontents, led, it is said, by his sister, who afterwards concealed his body—a circumstance which gave his followers the opportunity to declare that the divinity had merely vanished in order to test the faith of believers, but would reappear in time and punish apostates. This belief became the doctrine of the Druses of Lebanon, whom Darazi had won over to the worship of Hakim.

It is unnecessary to enter into the details of this strange religion, which still persists to-day in the range of Lebanon; suffice it to say that, although the outcome of the Ismailis, the Druses do not appear to have embraced the materialism of Abdullah ibn Maymun, but to have grafted on a primitive form of Nature-worship and of Sabeism the avowed belief of the Ismailis in the dynasty of Ali and his successors, and beyond this an abstruse, esoteric creed concerning the nature of the Supreme Deity. God they declare to be "Universal Reason," who manifests Himself by a series of "avatars." Hakim was the last of the divine embodiments, and "when evil and misery have increased to the predestined height he will again appear, to conquer the world and to make his religion supreme."

It is, however, as a secret society that the Druses enter into the scope of this book, for their organization presents several analogies with that which we now know as "masonic." Instead of the nine degrees instituted by the Lodge of Cairo, the Druses are divided into only three—Profanes, Aspirants, and Wise—to whom their doctrines are gradually unfolded under seal of the strictest secrecy, to ensure which signs and passwords are employed after the manner of Freemasonry. A certain degree of duplicity appears to enter into their scheme, much resembling that enjoined to the Ismaili Dais when enlisting proselytes belonging to other religions: thus in talking to Mohammedans, the Druses profess to be followers of the Prophet; with Christians, they pretend to hold the doctrines of Christianity, an attitude they defend on the score that it is unlawful to reveal the secret dogmas of their creed to a "Black," or unbeliever.

The Druses are in the habit of holding meetings where, as in the Dar ul Hikmat, both men and women assemble and religious and political questions are discussed; the uninitiated, however, are allowed to exercise no influence on decisions, which are reached by the inner circle, to which only the "Wise" are admitted. The resemblance between this organization and that of Grand Orient Freemasonry is clearly apparent. The Druses also have modes of recognition which are common to Freemasonry, and M. Achille Laurent has observed: "The formula or catechism of the Druses resembles that of the Freemasons; one can learn it only from the Akals (or Akels = Intelligent, a small group of higher initiates), who only reveal its mysteries after having subjected one to tests and made one take terrible oaths."

I shall refer again later in this book to the affinity between the Druses and Freemasons of the Grand Orient.



The Assassins

It will be seen that the Druses, distinguishing themselves from other Ismaili sects by their worship of Hakim, yet retaining genuine religious beliefs, had not carried on the atheistical tradition of Abdullah ibn Maymun and of the Grand Lodge of Cairo. But this tradition was to find in 1090 an exponent in the Persian Hasan Saba, a native of Khorasan, the son of Ali, a strict Shiah, who, finding himself suspected of heretical ideas, ended by declaring himself a Sunni. Hasan, brought up in this atmosphere of duplicity, was therefore well fitted to play the Machiavellian role of an Ismaili Dai.

Von Hammer regards Hasan as a mighty genius, one of a splendid triad, of which the two others were his schoolfellows the poet Omar Khayyam and Nizam ul Mulk, Grand Vizier under the Seljuk Sultan, Malik Shah. Hasan, having through the protection of Nizam ul Mulk secured titles and revenues and finally risen to office at the Court of the Sultan, attempted to supplant his benefactor and eventually retired in disgrace, vowing vengeance against the Sultan and vizier. At this juncture he encountered several Ismailis, one of whom, a Dai named Mumin, finally converted him to the principles of his sect, and Hasan, declaring himself now to be a convinced adherent of the Fatimite Khalifas, journed to Cairo, where he was received with honour by the Dar ul Hikmat and also by the Khalifa Mustansir, to whom he became counsellor. But his intrigues once more involving him in disgrace, he fled to Aleppo and laid the foundations of his new sect. After enlisting proselytes in Bagdad, Ispahan, Khusistan, and Damaghan, he succeeded in obtaining by strategy the fortress of Alamut in Persia on the Caspian Sea, where he completed the plans for his great secret society which was to become for ever infamous under the name of the Hashishiyin, or Assassins.

Under the pretence of belief in the doctrines of Islam and also of adherence to the Ismaili line of succession from the Prophet, Hasan Saba now set out to pave his way to power, and in order to achieve this end adopted the same method as Abdullah ibn Maymun. But the terrible efficiency of Hasan's society consisted in the fact that a system of physical force was now organized in a manner undreamt of by his predecessor. As von Hammer has observed in an admirable passage:

Opinions are powerless, so long as they only confuse the brain, without arming the hand. Scepticism and free-thinking, as long as they occupied only the minds of the indolent and philosophical, have caused the ruin of no throne, for which purpose religious and political fanaticism are the strongest levers in the hands of nations. It is nothing to the ambitious man what people believe, but it is everything to know how he may turn them for the execution of his projects.[132]

Thus, as in the case of the French Revolution, "whose first movers," von Hammer also observes, "were the tools or leaders of secret societies," it was not mere theory but the method of enlisting numerous dupes and placing weapons in their hands that brought about the "Terror" of the Assassins six centuries before that of their spiritual descendants, the Jacobins of 1793.

Taking as his groundwork the organization of the Grand Lodge of Cairo, Hasan reduced the nine degrees to their original number of seven, but these now received a definite nomenclature, and included not only real initiates but active agents.

Descending downwards, the degrees of the Assassins were thus as follows: first, the Grand Master, known as the Shaikh-al-Jabal or "Old Man of the Mountain"—owing to the fact that the Order always possessed itself of castles in mountainous regions; second, the Dail Kebir or Grand Priors; third, the fully initiated Dais, religious nuncios and political emissaries; fourth, the Rafiqs or associates, in training for the higher degrees; fifth, the Fadais or "devoted," who undertook to deliver the secret blow on which their superiors had decided; sixth, the Lasiqus, or law brothers; and lastly the "common people," who were to be simply blind instruments. If the equivalents to the words "Dai," "Rafiqs," and "Fadais" given by von Hammer and Dr. Bussell as "Master Masons," "Fellow Crafts," and "Entered Apprentices" are accepted, an interesting analogy with the degrees of Freemasonry is provided.

Designs against religion were, of course, not admitted by the Order; "strict uniformity to Islam was demanded from all the lower rank of uninitiated, but the adept was taught to see through the deception of 'faith and works.' He believed in nothing and recognized that all acts or means were indifferent and the (secular) end alone to be considered."[133]

Thus the final object was domination by a few men consumed with the lust of power "under the cloak of religion and piety," and the method by which this was to be established was the wholesale assassination of those who opposed them.

In order to stimulate the energy of the Fadais, who were required to carry out these crimes, the superiors of the Order had recourse to an ingenious system of delusion. Throughout the territory occupied by the Assassins were exquisite gardens with fruit trees, bowers of roses, and sparkling streams. Here were arranged luxurious resting-places with Persian carpets and soft divans, around which hovered black-eyed "houris" bearing wine in gold and silver drinking-vessels, whilst soft music mingled with the murmuring water and the song of birds. The young man whom the Assassins desired to train for a career of crime was introduced to the Grand Master of the Order and intoxicated with haschisch—hence the name "Hashishiyin" applied to the sect, from which the word assassin is derived. Under the brief spell of unconsciousness induced by this seductive drug the prospective Fadai was then carried into the garden, where on awaking he believed himself to be in Paradise. After enjoying all its delights he was given a fresh dose of the opiate, and, once more unconscious, was transported back to the presence of the Grand Master, who assured him that he had never left his side but had merely experienced a foretaste of the Paradise that awaited him if he obeyed the orders of his chiefs. The neophyte, thus spurred on by the belief that he was carrying out the commands of the Prophet, who would reward him with eternal bliss, eagerly entered into the schemes laid down for him and devoted his life to murder. Thus by the lure of Paradise the Assassins enlisted instruments for their criminal work and established a system of organized murder on a basis of religious fervour. "'Nothing is true and all is allowed' was the ground of their secret doctrine, which, however, being imparted but to few and concealed under the veil of the most austere religionism and piety, restrained the mind under the yoke of blind obedience."[134] To the outside world all this remained a profound mystery; fidelity to Islam was proclaimed as the fundamental doctrine of the sect, and when the envoy of Sultan Sajar was sent to collect information on the religious beliefs of the Order he was met with the assurance: "We believe in the unity of God, and consider that only as true wisdom which accords with His word and the commands of the prophet."

Von Hammer, answering the possible contention that, as in the case of the Templars and the Bavarian Illuminati, these methods of deception might be declared a calumny on the Order, points out that in the case of the Assassins no possible doubt existed, for their secret doctrines were eventually revealed by the leaders themselves, first by Hasan II, the third successor of Hasan Saba, and later by Jalal-ud-din Hasan, who publicly anathematized the founders of the sect and ordered the burning of the books that contained their designs against religion—a proceeding which, however, appears to have been a strategical manoeuvre for restoring confidence in the Order and enabling him to continue the work of subversion and crime. A veritable Reign of Terror was thus established throughout the East; the Rafiqs and Fadais "spread themselves in troops over the whole of Asia and darkened the face of the earth"; and "in the annals of the Assassins is found the chronological enumeration of celebrated men of all nations who have fallen the victims of the Ismailis, to the joy of their murderers and the sorrow of the world."[135]

Inevitably this long and systematic indulgence in blood-lust recoiled on the heads of the leaders, and the Assassins, like the Terrorists of France, ended by turning on each other. The Old Man of the Mountain himself was murdered by his brother-in-law and his son Mohammed; Mohammed, in his turn, whilst "aiming at the life of his son Jalal-ud-din, was anticipated by him with poison, which murder was again avenged by poison," so that from "Hasan the Illuminator" down to the last of his line the Grand Masters fell by the hands of their next-of-kin, and "poison and the dagger prepared the grave which the Order had opened for so many."[136] Finally in 1250 the conquering hordes of the Mongol Mangu Khan swept away the dynasty of the Assassins.

But, although as reigning powers the Assassins and Fatimites ceased to exist, the sects from which they derived have continued up to the present day; still every year at the celebration of the Moharram the Shiahs beat their breasts and besprinkle themselves with blood, calling aloud on the martyred heroes Hasan and Husain; the Druses of the Lebanon still await the return of Hakim, and in that inscrutable East, the cradle of all the mysteries, the profoundest European adept of secret society intrigue may find himself outdistanced by pastmasters in the art in which he believed himself proficient.

The sect of Hasan Saba was the supreme model on which all systems of organized murder working through fanaticism, such as the Carbonari and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, were based, and the signs, the symbols, the initiations, of the Grand Lodge of Cairo formed the groundwork for the great secret societies of Europe.

How came this system to be transported to the West? By what channel did the ideas of these succeeding Eastern sects penetrate to the Christian world? In order to answer this question we must turn to the history of the Crusades.



3

THE TEMPLERS



In the year 1118—nineteen years after the first crusade had ended with the defeat of the Moslems, the capture of Antioch and Jerusalem, and the instalment of Godefroi de Bouillon as king of the latter city—a band of nine French gentilshommes, led by Hugues de Payens and Godefroi de Saint-Omer, formed themselves into an Order for the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. Baldwin II, who at this moment succeeded to the throne of Jerusalem, presented them with a house near the site of the Temple of Solomon—hence the name of Knights Templar under which they were to become famous. In 1128 the Order was sanctioned by the Council of Troyes and by the Pope, and a rule was drawn up by St. Bernard under which the Knights Templar were bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

But although the Templars distinguished themselves by many deeds of valour, the regulation that they were to live solely on alms led to donations so enormous that, abandoning their vow of poverty, they spread themselves over Europe, and by the end of the twelfth century had become a rich and powerful body. The motto that the Order had inscribed upon its banner, "Non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam," was likewise forgotten, for, their faith waxing cold, they gave themselves up to pride and ostentation. Thus, as an eighteenth-century masonic writer has expressed it:

The war, which for the greater number of warriors of good faith proved the source of weariness, of losses and misfortunes, became for them (the Templars) only the opportunity for booty and aggrandizement, and if they distinguished themselves by a few brilliant actions, their motive soon ceased to be a matter of doubt when they were seen to enrich themselves even with the spoils of the confederates, to increase their credit by the extent of the new possessions they had acquired, to carry arrogance to the point of rivalling crowned princes in pomp and grandeur, to refuse their aid against the enemies of the faith, as the history of Saladin testifies, and finally to ally themselves with that horrible and sanguinary prince named the Old Man of the Mountain, Prince of the Assassins.[137]

The truth of the last accusation is, however, open to question. For a time, at any rate, the Templars had been at war with the Assassins. When in 1152 the Assassins murdered Raymond, Comte de Tripoli, the Templars entered their territory and forced them to sign a treaty by which they were to pay a yearly tribute of 12,000 gold pieces in expiation of the crime. Some years later the Old Man of the Mountain sent an ambassador to Amaury, King of Jerusalem, to tell him privately that if the Templars would forgo the payment of this tribute he and his followers would embrace the Christian faith. Amaury accepted, offering at the same time to compensate the Templars, but some of the Knights assassinated the ambassador before he could return to his master. When asked for reparations the Grand Master threw the blame on an evil one-eyed Knight named Gautier de Maisnil.[138]

It is evident, therefore, that the relations between the Templars and the Assassins were at first far from amicable; nevertheless, it appears probable that later on an understanding was brought about between them. Both on this charge and on that of treachery towards the Christian armies, Dr. Bussell's impartial view of the question may be quoted:

When in 1149 the Emperor Conrad III failed before Damascus, the Templars were believed to have a secret understanding with the garrison of that city; ... in 1154 they were said to have sold, for 60,000 gold pieces, a prince of Egypt who had wished to become a Christian; he was taken home to suffer certain death at the hands of his fanatical family. In 1166 Amaury, King of Jerusalem, hanged twelve members of the Order for betraying a fortress to Nureddin.

And Dr. Bussell goes on to say that it cannot be disputed that they had "long and important dealings" with the Assassins "and were therefore suspected (not unfairly) of imbibing their precepts and following their principles."[139]

By the end of the thirteenth century the Templars had become suspect, not only in the eyes of the clergy, but of the general public. "Amongst the common people," one of their latest apologists admits, "vague rumours circulated. They talked of the covetousness and want of scruple of the Knights, of their passion for aggrandizement and their rapacity. Their haughty insolence was proverbial. Drinking habits were attributed to them; the saying was already in use 'to drink like a Templar.' The old German word Tempelhaus indicated a house of ill-fame."[140]

The same rumours had reached Clement V even before his accession to the papal throne in 1305,[141] and in this same year he summoned the Grand Master of the Order, Jacques du Molay, to return to France from the island of Cyprus, where he was assembling fresh forces to avenge the recent reverses of the Christian armies.

Du Molay arrived in France with sixty other Knights Templar and 150,000 gold florins, as well as a large quantity of silver that the Order had amassed in the East.[142]

The Pope now set himself to make enquiries concerning the charges of "unspeakable apostasy against God, detestable idolatry, execrable vice, and many heresies" that had been "secretly intimated" to him. But, to quote his own words:

Because it did not seem likely nor credible that men of such religion who were believed often to shed their blood and frequently expose their persons to the peril of death for Christ's name, and who showed such great and many signs of devotion both in divine offices as well as in fasts, as in other devotional observances, should be so forgetful of their salvation as to do these things, we were unwilling ... to give ear to this kind of insinuation ... (hujusmodi insinuacioni ac delacioni ipsorum ... aurem noluimus inclinare).[143]

The King of France, Philippe le Bel, who had hitherto been the friend of the Templars, now became alarmed and urged the Pope to take action against them; but before the Pope was able to find out more about the matter, the King took the law into his own hands and had all the Templars in France arrested on October 13, 1307. The following charges were then brought against them by the Inquisitor for France before whom they were examined:

1. The ceremony of initiation into their Order was accompanied by insults to the Cross, the denial of Christ, and gross obscenities.

2. The adoration of an idol which was said to be the image of the true God.

3. The omission of the words of consecration at Mass.

4. The right that the lay chiefs arrogated to themselves of giving absolution.

5. The authorization of unnatural vice.

To all these infamies a great number of the Knights, including Jacques du Molay, confessed in almost precisely the same terms; at their admission into the Order, they said, they had been shown the cross on which was the figure of Christ, and had been asked whether they believed in Him; when they answered yes, they were told in some cases that this was wrong (dixit sibi quod male credebat),[144] because He was not God, He was a false prophet (quia falsus propheta erat, nec erat Deus).[145] Some added that they were then shown an idol or a bearded head which they were told to worship[146]; one added that this was of such "a terrible aspect that it seemed to him to be the face of some devil, called in French un maufe, and that whenever he saw it he was so overcome with fear that he could hardly look at it without fear and trembling."[147] All who confessed declared that they had been ordered to spit on the crucifix, and very many that they had received the injunction to commit obscenities and to practise unnatural vice. Some said that on their refusal to carry out these orders they had been threatened with imprisonment, even perpetual imprisonment; a few said they had actually been incarcerated[148]; one declared that he had been terrorized, seized by the throat, and threatened with death.[149]

Since, however, a number of these confessions were made under torture, it is more important to consider the evidence provided by the trial of the Knights at the hands of the Pope, where this method was not employed.

Now, at the time the Templars were arrested, Clement V., deeply resenting the King's interference with an Order which existed entirely under papal jurisdiction, wrote in the strongest terms of remonstrance to Philippe le Bel urging their release, and even after their trial, neither the confessions of the Knights nor the angry expostulations of the King could persuade him to believe in their guilt.[150] But as the scandal concerning the Templars was increasing, he consented to receive in private audience "a certain Knight of the Order, of great nobility and held by the said Order in no slight esteem," who testified to the abominations that took place on the reception of the Brethren, the spitting on the cross, and other things which were not lawful nor, humanly speaking, decent.[151]

The Pope then decided to hold an examination of seventy-two French Knights at Poictiers in order to discover whether the confessions made by them before the Inquisitor at Paris could be substantiated, and at this examination, conducted without torture or pressure of any kind in the presence of the Pope himself, the witnesses declared on oath that they would tell "the full and pure truth." They then made confessions which were committed to writing in their presence, and these being afterwards read aloud to them, they expressly and willingly approved them (perseverantes in illis eas expresse et sponte, prout recitate fuerunt approbarunt).[152]

Besides this, an examination of the Grand Master, Jacques du Molay, and the Preceptors of the Order was held in the presence of "three Cardinals and four public notaries and many other good men." These witnesses, says the official report, "having sworn with their hands on the Gospel of God" (ad sancta dei evangelia ab iis corporaliter tacta) that—

they would on all the aforesaid things speak the pure and full truth, they, separately, freely, and spontaneously, without any coercion and fear, deposed and confessed among other things, the denial of Christ and spitting upon the cross when they were received into the Order of the Temple. And some of them (deposed and confessed) that under the same form, namely, with denial of Christ and spitting on the cross, they had received many Brothers into the Order. Some of them too confessed certain other horrible and disgusting things on which we are silent.... Besides this, they said and confessed that those things which are contained in the confessions and depositions of heretical depravity which they made lately before the Inquisitor (of Paris) were true.

Their confessions, being again committed to writing, were approved by the witnesses, who then with bended knees and many tears asked for and obtained absolution.[153]

The Pope, however, still refused to take action against the whole Order merely because the Master and Brethren around him had "gravely sinned," and it was decided to hold a papal commission in Paris. The first sitting took place in November 1309, when the Grand Master and 231 Knights were summoned before the pontifical commissioners. "This enquiry," says Michelet, "was conducted slowly, with much consideration and gentleness (avec beaucoup de menagement et de douceur) by high ecclesiastical dignitaries, an archbishop, several bishops, etc."[154] But although a number of the Knights, including the Grand Master, now retracted their admissions, some damning confessions were again forthcoming.

It is impossible within the scope of this book to follow the many trials of the Templars that took place in different countries—in Italy, at Ravenna, Pisa, Bologna, and Florence, where torture was not employed and blasphemies were admitted,[155] or in Germany, where torture was employed but no confessions were made and a verdict was given in favour of the Order. A few details concerning the trial in England may, however, be of interest.

It has generally been held that torture was not applied in England owing to the humanity of Edward II, who at first absolutely refused to listen to any accusations against the Order.[156] On December 10, 1307, he had written to the Pope in these terms:

And because the said Master or Brethren constant in the purity of the Catholic faith have been frequently commended by us, and by all our kingdom, both in their life and morals, we are unable to believe in suspicious stories of this kind until we know with greater certainty about these things.

We, therefore, pity from our souls the suffering and losses of the Sd. Master and brethren, which they suffer in consequence of such infamy, and we supplicate most affectionately your Sanctity if it please you, that considering with favour suited to the good character of the Master and brethren, you may deem fit to meet with more indulgence the detractions, calumnies and charges by certain envious and evil disposed persons, who endeavour to turn their good deeds into works of perverseness opposed to divine teaching; until the said charges attributed to them shall have been brought legally before you or your representatives here and more fully proved.[157]

Edward II also wrote in the same terms to the Kings of Portugal, Castile, Aragon, and Sicily. But two years later, after Clement V had himself heard the confessions of the Order, and a Papal Bull had been issued declaring that "the unspeakable wickednesses and abominable crimes of notorious heresy" had now "come to the knowledge of almost everyone," Edward II was persuaded to arrest the Templars and order their examination. According to Mr. Castle, whose interesting treatise we quote here, the King would not allow torture to be employed, with the result that the Knights denied all charges; but later, it is said, he allowed himself to be overpersuaded, and "torture appears to have been applied on one or two occasions,"[158] with the result that three Knights confessed to all and were given absolution.[159] At Southwark, however, "a considerable number of brethren" admitted that "they had been strongly accused of the crimes of negation and spitting, they did not say they were guilty but that they could not purge themselves ... and therefore they abjured these and all other heresies."[160] Evidence was also given against the Order by outside witnesses, and the same stories of intimidation at the ceremony of reception were told.[161] At any rate, the result of the investigation was not altogether satisfactory, and the Templars were finally suppressed in England as elsewhere by the Council of Vienne in 1312.

In France more rigorous measures were adopted and fifty-four Knights who had retracted their confessions were burnt at the stake as "relapsed heretics" on May 12, 1310. Four years later, on March 14, 1314, the Grand Master, Jacques du Molay, suffered the same fate.

Now, however much we must execrate the barbarity of this sentence—as also the cruelties that had preceded it—- this is no reason why we should admit the claim of the Order to noble martyrdom put forward by the historians who have espoused their cause. The character of the Templars is not rehabilitated by condemning the conduct of the King and Pope. Yet this is the line of argument usually adopted by the defenders of the Order. Thus the two main contentions on which they base their defence are, firstly, that the confessions of the Knights were made under torture, therefore they must be regarded as null and void; and, secondly, that the whole affair was a plot concerted between the King and Pope in order to obtain possession of the Templars' riches. Let us examine these contentions in turn.

In the first place, as we have seen, all confessions were not made under torture. No one, as far as I am aware, disputes Michelet's assertion that the enquiry before the Papal Commission in Paris, at which a number of Knights adhered to the statements they had made to the Pope, was conducted without pressure of any kind. But further, the fact that confessions are made under torture does not necessarily invalidate them as evidence. Guy Fawkes also confessed under torture, yet it is never suggested that the whole story of the Gunpowder Plot was a myth. Torture, however much we may condemn it, has frequently proved the only method for overcoming the intimidation exercised over the mind of a conspirator; a man bound by the terrible obligations of a confederacy and fearing the vengeance of his fellow-conspirators will not readily yield to persuasion, but only to force. If, then, some of the Templars were terrorized by torture, or even by the fear of torture, it must not be forgotten that terrorism was exercised by both sides. Few will deny that the Knights were bound by oaths of secrecy, so that on one hand they were threatened with the vengeance of the Order if they betrayed its secrets, and on the other faced with torture if they refused to confess. Thus they found themselves between the devil and the deep sea. It was therefore not a case of a mild and unoffending Order meeting with brutal treatment at the hands of authority, but of the victims of a terrible autocracy being delivered into the hands of another autocracy.

Moreover, do the confessions of the Knights appear to be the outcome of pure imagination such as men under the influence of torture might devise? It is certainly difficult to believe that the accounts of the ceremony of initiation given in detail by men in different countries, all closely resembling each other, yet related in different phraseology, could be pure inventions. Had the victims been driven to invent they would surely have contradicted each other, have cried out in their agony that all kinds of wild and fantastic rites had taken place in order to satisfy the demands of their interlocutors. But no, each appears to be describing the same ceremony more or less completely, with characteristic touches that indicate the personality of the speaker, and in the main all the stories tally.

The further contention that the case against the Templars was manufactured by the King and Pope with a view to obtaining their wealth is entirely disproved by facts. The latest French historian of mediaeval France, whilst expressing disbelief in the guilt of the Templars, characterizes this counter-accusation as "puerile." "Philippe le Bel," writes M. Funck-Brentano, "has never been understood; from the beginning people have not been just to him. This young prince was one of the greatest kings and the noblest characters that have appeared in history."[162]

Without carrying appreciation so far, one must nevertheless accord to M. Funck-Brentano's statement of facts the attention it merits. Philippe has been blamed for debasing the coin of the realm; in reality he merely ordered it to be mixed with alloy as a necessary measure after the war with England,[163] precisely as own coinage was debased in consequence of the recent war. This was done quite openly and the coinage was restored at the earliest opportunity. Intensely national, his policy of attacking the Lombards, exiling the Jews, and suppressing the Templars, however regrettable the methods by which it was carried out, resulted in immense benefits to France; M. Funck-Brentano has graphically described the prosperity of the whole country during the early fourteenth century—the increase of population, flourishing agriculture and industry. "In Provence and Languedoc one meets swineherds who have vineyards; simple cowherds who have town houses."[164]

The attitude of Philippe le Bel towards the Templars must be viewed in this light—ruthless suppression of any body of people who interfered with the prosperity of France. His action was not that of arbitrary authority; he "proceeded," says M. Funck-Brentano, "by means of an appeal to the people. In his name Nogaret (the Chancellor) spoke to the Parisians in the garden of the Palace (October 13, 1307). Popular assemblies were convoked all over France";[165] "the Parliament of Tours, with hardly a dissentient vote, declared the Templars worthy of death. The University of Paris gave the weight of their judgement as to the fullness and authenticity of the confessions."[166] Even assuming that these bodies were actuated by the same servility as that which has been attributed to the Pope, how are we to explain the fact that the trial of the Order aroused no opposition among the far from docile people of Paris? If the Templars had indeed, as they professed, been leading noble and upright lives, devoting themselves to the care of the poor, one might surely expect their arrest to be followed by popular risings. But there appears to have been no sign of this.

As to the Pope, we have already seen that from the outset he had shown himself extremely reluctant to condemn the Order, and no satisfactory explanation is given of his change of attitude except that he wished to please the King. As far as his own interests were concerned, it is obvious that he could have nothing to gain by publishing to the world a scandal that must inevitably bring opprobrium on the Church. His lamentations to this effect in the famous Bull[167] clearly show that he recognized this danger and therefore desired at all costs to clear the accused Knights, if evidence could be obtained in their favour. It was only when the Templars made damning admissions in his presence that he was obliged to abandon their defence.[168] Yet we are told that he did this out of base compliance with the wishes of Philippe le Bel.

Philippe le Bell is thus represented as the arch-villain of the whole piece, through seven long years hounding down a blameless Order—from whom up to the very moment of their arrest he had repeatedly received loans of money—solely with the object of appropriating their wealth. Yet after all we find that the property of the Templars was not appropriated by the King, but was given by him to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem!

What was the fate of the Templars' goods? Philippe le Bel decided that they should be handed over to the Hospitallers. Clement V states that the Orders given by the King on this subject were executed. Even the domain of the Temple in Paris ... up to the eve of the Revolution was the property of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The royal treasury kept for itself certain sums for the costs of the trial. These had been immense.[169]

These facts in no way daunt the antagonists of Philippe, who we are now assured—again without any proof whatever—was overruled by the Pope in this matter. But setting all morality aside, as a mere question of policy, is it likely that the King would have deprived himself of his most valuable financial supporters and gone to the immense trouble of bringing them to trial without first assuring himself that he would benefit by the affair? Would he, in other words, have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs without any guarantee that the body of the goose would remain in his possession? Again, if, as we are told, the Pope suppressed the Order so as to please the King, why should he have thwarted him over the whole purpose the King had in view? Might we not expect indignant remonstrances from Philippe at thus being baulked of the booty he had toiled so long to gain? But, on the contrary, we find him completely in agreement with the Pope on this subject. In November 1309 Clement V distinctly stated that "Philippe the Illustrious, King of France," to whom the facts concerning the Templars had been told, was "not prompted by avarice since he desired to keep or appropriate for himself no part of the property of the Templars, but liberally and devotedly left them to us and the Church to be administered," etc.[170]

Thus the whole theory concerning the object for which the Templars were suppressed falls to the ground—a theory which on examination is seen to be built up entirely on the plan of imputing motives without any justification in facts. The King acted from cupidity, the Pope from servility, and the Templars confessed from fear of torture—on these pure hypotheses defenders of the Order base their arguments.

The truth is, far more probably, that if the King had any additional reason for suppressing the Templars it was not envy of their wealth but fear of the immense power their wealth conferred; the Order dared even to defy the King and to refuse to pay taxes. The Temple in fact constituted an imperium in imperio that threatened not only the royal authority but the whole social system.[171] An important light is thrown on the situation by M. Funck-Brentano in this passage:

As the Templars had houses in all countries, they practised the financial operations of the international banks of our times; they were acquainted with letters of change, orders payable at sight, they instituted dividends and annuities on deposited capital, advanced funds, lent on credit, controlled private accounts, undertook to raise taxes for the lay and ecclesiastical seigneurs.[172]

Through their proficiency in these matters—acquired very possibly from the Jews of Alexandria whom they must have met in the East—the Templars had become the "international financiers" and "international capitalists" of their day; had they not been suppressed, all the evils now denounced by Socialists as peculiar to the system they describe as "Capitalism"—trusts, monopolies, and "corners"—would in all probability have been inaugurated during the course of the fourteenth century in a far worse form than at the present day, since no legislation existed to protect the community at large. The feudal system, as Marx and Engels perceived, was the principal obstacle to exploitation by a financial autocracy.[173]

Moreover, it is by no means improbable that this order of things would have been brought about by the violent overthrow of the French monarchy—indeed, of all monarchies; the Templars, "those terrible conspirators," says Eliphas Levi, "threatened the whole world with an immense revolution."[174]

Here perhaps we may find the reason why this band of dissolute and rapacious nobles has enlisted the passionate sympathy of democratic writers. For it will be noticed that these same writers who attribute the King's condemnation of the Order to envy of their wealth never apply this argument to the demagogues of the eighteenth century and suggest that their accusations against the nobles of France were inspired by cupidity, nor would they ever admit that any such motive may enter into the diatribes against private owners of wealth to-day. The Templars thus remain the only body of capitalists, with the exception of the Jews, to be not only pardoned for their riches but exalted as noble victims of prejudice and envy. Is it merely because the Templars were the enemies of monarchy? Or is it that the world revolution, whilst attacking private owners of property, has never been opposed to International Finance, particularly when combined with anti-Christian tendencies?

It is the continued defence of the Templars which, to the present writer, appears the most convincing evidence against them. For even if one believes them innocent of the crimes laid to their charge, how is it possible to admire them in their later stages? The fact that cannot be denied is that they were false to their obligations; that they took the vow of poverty and then grew not only rich but arrogant; that they took the vow of chastity and became notoriously immoral.[175] Are all these things then condoned because the Templars formed a link in the chain of world revolution?

At this distance of time the guilt or innocence of the Templars will probably never be conclusively established either way; on the mass of conflicting evidence bequeathed to us by history no one can pronounce a final judgement.

Without attempting to digmatize on the question, I would suggest that the real truth may be that the Knights were both innocent and guilty, that is to say, that a certain number were initiated into the secret doctrine of the Order whilst the majority remained throughout in ignorance. Thus according to the evidence of Stephen de Stapelbrugge, an English Knight, "there were two modes of reception, one lawful and good and the other contrary to the Faith."[176] This would account for the fact that some of the accused declined to confess even under the greatest pressure. These may really have known nothing of the real doctrines of the Order, which were confided orally only to those whom the superiors regarded as unlikely to be revolted by them. Such have always been the methods of secret societies, from the Ismailis onward.

This theory of a double doctrine is put forward by Loiseleur, who observes:

If we consult the statutes of the Order of the Temple as they have come down to us, we shall certainly discover there is nothing that justifies the strange and abominable practices revealed at the Inquiry. But ... besides the public rule, had not the Order another one, whether traditional or written, authorizing or even prescribing these practices—a secret rule, revealed only to the initiates?[177]

Eliphas Levi also exonerates the majority of the Templars from complicity in either anti-monarchical or anti-religious designs:

These tendencies were enveloped in profound mystery and the Order made an outward profession of the most perfect orthodoxy. The Chiefs alone knew whither they were going; the rest followed unsuspectingly.[178]

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 Assassins 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 Assassins, and they insist on the affinity that existed between the two associations. 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 Assassins 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 God" 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:

God, the Supreme Father, has two sons, the elder Satanael, the younger Jesus. To Satanael, who sat on the right hand of God, 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 Hell 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 worshipped him lest he might do them harm"; subsequently they were known as Luciferians, their doctrine (as stated by Neuss and Vitoduranus) 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 worship between God and His two sons, the latter worshipped 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 worship, 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 god, incommunicable to man and consequently without symbolic representation, and a bad god, to whom they give the features of an idol of fearful aspect.[184]

Their most fervent worship was addressed to this god of evil, who alone could enrich them. "They said with the Luciferians: 'The elder son of God, 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 God of Heaven who could save them."[186] According to Loiseleur, the idol they were taught to worship, the bearded head known to history as Baphomet, represented "the inferior god, 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 Carcassonne 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 assertion 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 association 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 reinstituted under a new Grand Master, Fabre Palaprat, in 1804. Besides publishing 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 document drawn from the same repository describing the origins of the Order. This manuscript, 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 God 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 God, 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 instituted 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-God. 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 title 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 principally 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 "God 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 attitude 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 manuscripts composing the secret archives of the Order from the search made by authority, and these authentic manuscripts 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 worship 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 superstitious 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 asserts 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 God 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 God, and yet he said he was God and the King of the Jews, which was an outrage to the true God 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 God and King of the Jews and he asked pardon of the true God; then the true God pardoned him. It is thus that we apply to the crucified Christ these words: "as God 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 pass from legend to facts. For the whole story of the initiation of the Templars by the "Johannites" rests principally on the documents produced by the Ordre du Temple in 1811. According to the Abbes Gregoire and Munter the authenticity and antiquity of these documents are beyond dispute. Gregoire, referring to the parchment manuscript of the Levitikon and Gospel of St. John, says that "Hellenists versed in paleography believe this manuscript 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 manuscripts 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 manuscript 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 manuscript containing the history of the Templars thus remains an open question on which no one can pronounce an opinion without having seen the original. In order, then, to judge of the probability of the story that this manuscript 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 Mandai Iyahi, that is to say, the disciples, or rather the wise men, of John, the word mandai being derived from the Chaldean word manda, corresponding to the Greek word [Greek: gnosis] 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 Meshiha (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 God 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 asserts 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 God 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]

Although not strictly a secret society, the Albigenses were divided after the secret society system into initiates and semi-initiates. The former, few in number, known as the Perfecti, led in appearance an austere life, refraining from meat and professing abhorrence of oaths or of lying. The mystery in which they enveloped themselves won for them the adoring reverence of the Credentes, who formed the great majority of the sect and gave themselves up to every vice, to usury, brigandage, and perjury, and whilst describing marriage as prostitution, condoning incest and all forms of licence.[217] The Credentes, who were probably not fully initiated into the Dualist doctrines of their superiors, looked to them for salvation through the laying-on of hands according to the system of the Manicheans.

It was amongst the nobles of Languedoc that the Albigenses found their principal support. This "Judaea of France," as it has been called, was peopled by a medley of mixed races, Iberian, Gallic, Roman, and Semitic.[218] The nobles, very different from the "ignorant and pious chivalry of the North," had lost all respect for their traditions. "There were few who in going back did not encounter some Saracen or Jewish grandmother in their genealogy."[219] Moreover, many had brought back to Europe the laxity of morals they had contracted during the Crusades. The Comte de Comminges practised polygamy, and, according to ecclesiastical chronicles, Raymond VI, Comte de Toulouse, one of the most ardent of the Albigense Credentes, had his harem.[220] The Albigensian movement has been falsely represented as a protest merely against the tyranny of the Church of Rome; in reality it was a rising against the fundamental doctrines of Christianity—more than this, against all principles of religion and morality. For whilst some of the sect openly declared that the Jewish law was preferable to that of the Christians,[221] to others the God of the Old Testament was as abhorrent as the "false Christ" who suffered at Golgotha; the old hatred of the Gnostics and Manicheans for the demiurgus lived again in these rebels against the social order. Forerunners of the seventeenth-century Libertines and eighteenth-century Illuminati, the Albigense nobles, under the pretext of fighting the priesthood, strove to throw off all the restraints the Church imposed.