The majority of people living on our planet do not doubt the holiness of Jesus Christ. All branches of the Christian religion, Muslims (Sunnis and Shiites), as well as all world sects without exception (including Satanists) recognize Christ - some as a prophet, some as an antagonist. But who do they recognize him? An outstanding historical figure? Son of God? God-man? Any definition, except for the official church dogma, smacks of heresy here. But there is a difference in the dogmas - Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Jehovah's …
So, Jesus of Nazareth was primarily the Savior. And therefore, in the early stages of Christianity, he was called Soter, which, in fact, means "Savior".
The Greek word “christ”, which means “anointed one,” refers directly to the act performed in the conduct of the ancient mysteries of the Mediterranean, namely the anointing of the initiate.
Christ was also the "messiah." The Hebrew word Mashiahh literally means the same, that is, "anointed one." Esoterically, the word "christ" does not refer to any one particular person, but to the divine individuality in every human being. The unity of the personal Ego with this individuality creates the Higher Ego or "Living Christ" (in Buddhist terminology "manushya buddha").
Esoterically, Christ means Jesus of Nazareth, a historically dark figure, the myth of the miraculous birth, life, death and resurrection of which is the basis of the Christian religion.
It was later suggested that Jesus (or Youshuhua, as the Israeli Christians now insist on the pronunciation, believing that all the troubles of the present world took place because of the wrong sounding of the name of the Savior) was an Essene originally involved in the militant movement of the Zealots opposing the Roman occupation of Judea during the reign of Tiberius, a man looking for how to fulfill the predictions of the Old Testament about the coming of the Messiah in order to free the Jews politically and spiritually.
Prophet Daniel, incidentally, described the future messiah "like a man walking with heavenly clouds."
In Aramaic, the expression "like a man" - bar enash is often translated as "son of man." This means nothing more than what is said. That there were zealots among the apostles of Jesus is assumed in the Gospel. "Simon the Zealot" means nothing more than the zealot Simon, "Judas Iscariot" may refer to the sicarius - the curved blade used by the zealots to kill.
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According to this theory and its variants, Judas betrayed Christ so that the prediction could be fulfilled. From this point of view, the betrayal of Judas is as important to Christianity as the crucifixion. But death on the cross was not a necessary part of this plan. From time to time, ideas are put forward that it was not Jesus who died on the cross, but someone else (this remains the orthodox doctrine of Islam) or that Jesus was drunk on the cross, then, when he seemed dead, he was quickly removed, placed in a crypt and then brought in a sense.
The fate of Christ after the crucifixion remains as mysterious and mysterious as all the previous thirty-three years of life. It is better not to think about this, so as not to fall into heresy. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a palisade of unpleasant questions that can lead to "scientific atheism." This is the case if we consider Christ not as a God-man, but as a concrete historical person. Let us omit the doctrine of the "immaculate conception", since there are more mysterious things in this world than the pregnancy of a young woman while maintaining the hymen. What seemed like a miracle to the ancient Jews is observed by any obstetrician five times a month. It is not surprising for us that walking on water, feeding the crowd with five loaves of bread, healing the crippled - this century has given us enough examples of levitation, mass hypnosis and healing, and all this was done by people,Not at all claiming to be holy, why not admit that the psychic Jesus of Nazareth lived two thousand years ago?
It is truly amazing that in the enlightened first century AD, when both the calendar and the writing existed, there was no documentary evidence of the life of such an outstanding person.
Among the earliest references to Christ are two episodes in the work of Josephus, a Jewish historian (died about 100 C. E.). However, one of them, a longer one, as has been convincingly shown and admitted even by Christian theologians, is of a later origin and may have been written by some Christian. Christ is glorified in him and therefore can hardly belong to such an orthodox Jew as Josephus. It is also in the middle of a section on another subject. Flavius's remark about "still existing so-called Christians" is rather unusual if it is considered that it was written in his time, but it seems quite common if it is an insert made much later.
Here is what Flavius writes: “About this time Jesus lived, a wise man, if he can be called a man at all. He performed amazing deeds and became the mentor of those people who willingly received the truth. He attracted many Jews and Hellenes to him. That was Christ. At the urging of our influential people, Pilate sentenced Him to the cross. But those who previously loved Him did not stop it now. On the third day He appeared to them alive, as the divinely inspired prophets announced about Him and about His many other miracles. To this day there are still so-called Christians who call themselves in this way by His name.”[10] In reality, references to Josephus do not appear until the fourth century. The second episode includes only the mention of "Jesus' brother named Christ." The question of the reliability of this episode is also open.
Strictly speaking, we have only the testimony of Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 58 - c. 117 CE) that Jesus really existed and was executed.
“… And so Nero, in order to overcome the rumors, looked for the guilty (in the burning of Rome. - Approx. By the author) and betrayed to the most sophisticated executions those who by their abominations incurred universal hatred and whom the crowd called Christians. Christ, on whose behalf this name is derived, was executed under Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilate; Suppressed for a while, this pernicious superstition began to break through again, and not only in Judea, where this destruction came from, but also in Rome, where everything that is most vile and shameful flows from everywhere and where it finds adherents. So, at first, those who openly recognized themselves as belonging to this sect were seized, and then, on their instructions, a great many others, exposed not so much in the villainous arson as in hatred of the human race. Their killing was accompanied by mockery, for they were clothed in the skins of wild animals,so that they were torn to death by dogs, crucified on crosses, or doomed to death in the fire set on fire at nightfall for the night illumination …. And although the Christians were to blame and they deserved the most severe punishment, nevertheless these atrocities aroused compassion for them, for it seemed that they were being exterminated not in the form of public benefit, but as a result of the bloodthirstiness of Nero alone. (Ann. XV, 44).
In this meager passage, the Christian church sees the most accurate confirmation of the existence of Christ, made by a pagan. Let's argue that this is the earliest indication of the existence of Christianity, but not Jesus of Nazareth. Further testimonies about the life of Christ were made already in the Christian era and suffer from some … let's call it "holiness", of course, divinely inspired.
In the first centuries of Christianity, many texts of the Gospels roamed the world. So it is now impossible to know what the authentic text of the New Testament is and how accurately it was transmitted. The oldest extant fragment (just a few verses from the Gospel of John) dates back no earlier than 150 AD.
Only a few Gospel texts have survived to this day. These include the so-called apocryphal literature, which consists of the writings of Clement, Thomas, Nizodim, and others, some of whom cite unflattering facts about Jesus. There are at least thirty known Gospels that existed in the first centuries of Christianity. Only in the IV century at the Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325, after a bitter struggle, it was decided what to recognize canonical and what to exclude from church use. And so it was until 367, more than three centuries after the death of the first followers of Jesus, until the official list of 27 books of the New Testament was included in the letter of Athanasius, the patriarch of Alexandria. All the other Gospels, except for the four canonical ones, were anathematized and destroyed.
So, if there are several historical evidences that differ from each other, which ones can we accept and which ones we discard? For example, Socrates was no doubt a real historical figure. Plato wrote many dialogues in which he idealized him. Xenophon and Aristotle also wrote about Socrates, as did the playwright Aristophanes, who portrayed him quite impartially. But this does not mean that we should not admit the veracity of his ridicule.
Investigating this issue further, one cannot help but be amazed at how thoroughly (worthy of better application) in the first years of the triumph of Christianity all references to the time and places of Christ's activity were destroyed, except … canonical ones. It would seem that such a powerful Christian as the Emperor Constantine (285-337 AD) had enough strength and ability to thoroughly investigate this issue, if not to conduct excavations on Calvary, then at least to ask great-grandchildren Pilate and Caiaphas, look for references to Christ in the materials of the Tiberian census, in the lists of parishioners at synagogues, in the judicial archives - but no! He was not completely satisfied with the halo of unknowability that enveloped the personality of the God-man. And in fact - miracles, suffering, crucifixion, resurrection and, finally,eternal life promised to all the righteous and the Last Judgment for sinners - all this is quite enough for the existence and development of any religion.
But the not so long ago published in the West the bestseller "Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" [11] contains provisions that are not just shivering - they can really subvert the very foundations of Christianity, if … there are facts confirming these provisions. It all began over a hundred years ago in a small French village.
Located high above the Ode River in southeastern France, Rennes-le-Chateau was a quiet backwater. In 1885, Berenger Saunier, at the age of thirty-three, a strong, intelligent local man, quarreled with his elders and was expelled from the family and cursed by them. It seemed that he did not attach much importance to this.
He studied at a theological seminary and in that city began in a sleepy Rennes-le-Chateau to the duties of a parish priest. Not long before that, fellow students at the seminary had promised the clever and rather clever Berenger a place somewhere near Paris or, at worst, Marseilles. However, the curé insisted on coming to a small village in the eastern spurs of the Pyrenees, forty kilometers from the center of Languedoc culture - the city of Carcassonne.
Having appeared in Rennes-le-Chateau, the new parish priest, earning an average of 150 francs a year - a sum, in general, very small - led the inconspicuous life of a rural priest. In the intervals between mass and funeral services, he, as in his youth, hunted in the mountains, fished in the surrounding rivers, read a lot, improved his knowledge of Latin and for some reason began to study Hebrew. His servant, maid and cook was eighteen-year-old Marie Denarnand, who later became his faithful companion in life.
Saunier often visited the Abbe Henri Boudet, the curate of the neighboring village of Rennes-le-Bains. The abbot instilled in him a passion for the moving history of Languedoc. The very name of this area appeared at the beginning of the XIII century and came from the language of its inhabitants: la langue d'oc. Saunier was surrounded everywhere by silent witnesses of the antiquity of Languedoc: a few tens of kilometers from Rennes-le-Chateau rises the hill of Le Bésoux, on which the ruins of a medieval fortress that once belonged to the Templars are picturesquely scattered, and on another hill, some one and a half kilometers the dilapidated walls of the ancestral castle of Bertrand de Blanchefort, the fourth Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of the Temple. Rennes-le-Chateau has preserved the traces of the ancient path of pilgrims who moved in those distant times from Northern Europe through France and Languedoc to Santiago de Compostela - a holy place in Spain.
Everything flowed according to a once and for all established custom until Sonia "by inspiration from above" took up the restoration of the village church, named back in 1059 after Mary Magdalene. This dilapidated temple stood on the ancient Visigothic foundation of the 6th century. and at the end of the XIX century. was in an almost hopeless state, threatening to bury the priest and his parishioners under him.
Having received the support of his friend Boudet, Saunier took a small fraction of the money from the parish treasury in 1891 and energetically set about repairing the church. Somehow propping up the roof, he moved the altar plate, which rested on two beams. It was then that the curé noticed that one of the beams was too light. It turned out that it is hollow inside. Sonier put his hand through a small hole and pulled out four sealed wooden cylinders. Forgetting about everything in the world, the priest feverishly began to pluck dusty, green from time to time seals. Ancient parchments have appeared in the light of God. Looking around and hiding the find on his chest, the priest walked home with quick steps. There he ordered the servant to close the windows and doors as soon as possible and make sure that no one interfered with him.
Hands shaking with excitement, the curé unfolded one of the parchments. For a long time he peered at the Latin letters of an incomprehensible text, until he noticed that some of these letters were higher than others. If you read them in succession, then a rather coherent message came out.
The two scrolls contained images of two genealogical trees from 1244 to 1644, apparently the ancestors of Sogne. The other two looked like religious texts. After deciphering them, Sonier recognized the first few sentences, including: “A DAGOBERT II ROI ET A SION EST CE TRESOR ET IL EST LA MORT” (“This treasure belongs to King Dagobert II and Sion, and there it is buried”).
The next day Saunier went to Paris and told his bishop, Abbot Biel and his nephew Emile Hoffe, about his find. Hoffe, although he was only 20 years old, was already well known in the capital as a specialist in the field of linguistics, cryptography and paleography. The Parisian light knew him as well as not the last person in esoteric groups, sects and secret societies that stood close to the occult. Despite his desire to become a Catholic priest, young Hoffe was included in many mystical and Masonic circles, as well as in a secret semi-Catholic-semi-Masonic (rather unusual combination for that time) order for the elite, which included the famous poet Stephen Mallarmé, the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck and composer Claude Debussy. In addition, the future priest knew the famous singer Emma Calvet well,which was known throughout Paris and as "the priestess of the esoteric subculture."
Sonier stayed in the capital for three weeks. What he talked about with the church hierarchs remained a mystery forever. A three-week stay in the city led him to the highest Parisian society. Whatever he found, it leapfrogged all the usual paths to wealth and power. It is known, however, that the humble parish priest from the Languedoc was received with open arms everywhere.
Saunier used his time in the capital to visit the Louvre, where he ordered reproductions from copyists of three rather peculiarly selected paintings: a portrait of Pope Celestine V, who at the end of the 13th century was for a short time “the governor of God on earth”; canvases "Father and Son" (or "Saint Anthony and Saint Jerome in the Desert") by the Flemish painter David Teniers, as well as the "Arcadian Shepherds" by the Frenchman Nicolas Poussin.
After Saunier's return to Rennes-le-Chateau, his oddities and quirks began, characteristic of a very rich man. First, he erected a new tombstone on the grave of the Marquise Marie de Blanchefort, wife of the Grand Master of the Templars. At the same time, Saunier ordered to knock out an inscription on the plate, which at first glance was nothing more than abracadabra. After careful study, it turned out that this inscription is an anagram of the appeal of the Templars to Poussin and Teniers (who lived in the 17th century!) Contained in one of the parchments found. From the same address, in turn, the words already known to us about Dagobert and Zion are easily distinguished.
Saunier began to spend the money he had taken from him, right and left: he became an avid philatelist, numismatist, built the Magda-la tower in the medieval style, and the Church of Mary Magdalene was not only restored by him, but also equipped in the most magnificent and bizarre way. Above the entrance, the curé ordered to emboss the inscription: "TERRIBILIS EST LOCUS ISTE" ("This place is terrible"). And a little lower in small letters - again an anagram, deciphering which, you can read: “QATARS,
ALBIGOES, TAMPLERS - KNIGHTS OF THE TRUE CHURCH"
We can only guess what Saunier meant by the true church, but the recognition at the end of the 19th century of "heretics" officially branded by the Catholic Church as knights of the true church is quite remarkable.
In the Church of Magdalene, immediately behind its portal, the one who entered was primarily struck by the disgusting statue of Asmodeus, the prince of demons, according to the Talmud - the guardian of hidden treasures and the builder of the temple in Jerusalem. On the walls of the church there were motley painted boards depicting the Way of the Cross. In the details of these drawings, there were some contradictions, hidden or outright deviations from the images generally recognized in Catholicism. For example, a child in a checkered plaid is depicted watching the burial of Christ, and in the background is the night sky and the full moon. The Bible tells us that God the Son was brought into the cave by daylight. There are also many strange inscriptions in Hebrew in the temple, which Sonia studied so diligently.
Called to account for such arts, Saunier appealed directly to the Pope, who, perhaps knowing something about what Saunier's ancestors did not know, supported him. Saunier lived until 1917, drowning in luxury, like some oriental king.
He began to make debts all over Europe, opened negotiations with bankers and (between 1896 and the year of his death - 1917) managed to squander a colossal fortune, but he still had something. He paid for the water supply and roads to the village, organized excursions to the Magdala Tower and built the luxurious Villa Bethania, in which he himself did not live. Saunier entertained Archduke Johann von Habsburg (who, by the way, as it turned out later, it was not known for what services he transferred a pretty tidy sum to Saunier's account), the French secretary of state for culture, Emma Calvet and other celebrities of the then Europe, arranged banquets in the middle of his zoo, at an abundance of expensive porcelain, fabrics and antique marble statues.
On January 7, 1917, the 65-year-old priest of Rennes-le-Chateau fell ill from a heart attack, but even five days before that his maid and girlfriend Marie Denarnand ordered a coffin for her master, although he was, like throughout his life, cheerful, fresh and in perfect health.
A priest from a neighboring village was invited to the dying priest for confession and forgiveness of sins. He, not having time to enter, jumped out of Sonia's room like a bullet and since then, according to eyewitnesses, “never smiled again” and fell into a terrible melancholy. Saunier refused to take unction and died without confession and communion on January 22. The honoring of the deceased did not take place according to Catholic customs. A day later, his corpse, dressed in a mantle decorated with purple tassels, was seated in an armchair and placed on the terrace of Magdala Castle. The cream of Parisian society arrived to say goodbye to the deceased … Unknown mourners tore the tassels from his covers during the funeral ceremony.
After his death, Marie Denarnand led a comfortable life in Villa Bethania, spending millions left by Saunier on charitable causes.
But in 1946, the government of Charles de Gaulle carried out a monetary reform and conducted an investigation to identify tax fugitives, collaborators and individuals who made money from the war: when exchanging old francs for new ones, everyone had to provide evidence of honest income. Marie did not change money, thereby dooming herself to poverty. Eyewitnesses left records that they saw her in the garden: she burned bundles of banknotes …
What did Sonia find? Merovingian gold or something more extraordinary? Did Sonia blackmail the church? Nobody knows or says anything about this. Since Catholicism is a rather mysterious thing in itself and is saturated not only with Cathar blood and the echo of troubadours, but also with a resonance like Glaston Berry Cathedral. This earthly temple, refined in its sacred geometry and covering more than forty square kilometers, with each of its nodal points, marked with a church, castle, rock ledge or other noticeable natural feature, speaks of the similarity with Rennie-le-Chateau along the western part of the perimeter. This sacred landscape and its hidden meanings told something to artists like Poussin and Teniers, who expressed what they knew in their careful symbols.
What is the mystery of the small Languedoc village? Those who lived in these places in the first millennium BC. e. the Celts considered the area around Redae (as Rennes-le-Chateau was called at that time) sacred. During the Roman era, it was a thriving area known for its healing springs. In the annals, you can find a mention of the fact that in the 6th century Redae was a city with a population of 30 thousand and for some time even the capital of the Visigoths. For another 500 years, the city remained the seat of the Counts of Rase.
Many of the historical events mentioned are also interwoven with stories about countless treasures and some mysterious documents of the Templars, giving their owner enormous power.
From the 5th to the 8th century, the Frankish state was ruled by the first royal dynasty of the Merovingians, the legendary ancestor of which was Merovey (hence the name). Among these monarchs was Dagobert II, one of the so-called "lazy kings", since power under them was actually in the hands of the mayordoms. [12] Under the board.
Dagobert II Rennes-le-Chateau served as a Visigoth bastion, and the king himself was married to a Gothic princess.
It can be assumed that the Merovingian king once buried treasures obtained in wars in this area. If Saunier found a treasure and documents, then to a certain extent the origin of the name of Dagobert II in a letter on parchment is understandable.
There is one more reason that indicates the connection between the Cathars and Rennes-le-Chateau. On one of the parchments found by Sauniere, eight small letters are highlighted, which, when read in succession, form the words: REX MUNDI (King of the World).
Almost a hundred years after the mysterious discovery, a book that appeared in New York sheds light on the mystery of Berenger Saunier's unexpected enrichment. The authors suspect that Saunier blackmailed the holy church in the person of the Pope himself (!).
The thesis that made The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail a bestseller in 1982 is the following: Jesus Christ, the noble descendant of King David and thus literally the king of the Jews, even before his ministry began, married Mary Magdalene and created a family.
Somehow, whether due to the sympathy of Pilate or by the agreement of the apostles with the soldiers, he escaped the crucifixion or did not hang long and did not die.
In this case, the resurrection of Christ and his meeting with the apostles after this exciting event is quite understandable.
The authors suggest that in the future, he may have taken his family to France, where later his embalmed body (again supposedly) was hidden in the Rennes-le-Château area in Corbieres. In one way or another, his descendants survived among the Franks and manifested themselves in the person of Merovey (died 438 AD), whose son (with the same name) became king of the Franks in 448, thereby founding the Merovingian dynasty - “long-haired kings , whose magic blood was considered sacred.
This belief was common in those days. An aura of holiness seemed to surround the Merovingians. They ruled like eastern monarchs, the church did not fight against their polygamy, their wealth was enormous, they did not even need to rule the country, it was enough just to exist. In essence, this dynasty posed a threat to the new secular order that the church wanted to create. It is argued that the church knew perfectly well about the marriage of Christ to Mary Magdalene, but in order to strengthen their religion, the clergy, firstly, changed the scriptures (Mark), and secondly, they removed the Gnostic texts (Thomas and others), which contained a hint of this that Jesus was not only at the wedding feast in Cana, but played the role of the bridegroom there, and that "the disciple whom he loved most" was Magdalene (his wife). Definitely Clement of Alexandria (2nd century AD)) knew the secret scripture of Mark, but insisted on its refutation. Therefore, it seems likely that the church knew about the descendants of Christ who survived in the Merovingians.
In 496 A. D. e. Merovingian's grandson Clovius I (456-511) converted to Roman Christianity and agreed to support the church as long as she would support him as the "New Constantine" who would rule the "Holy Roman Empire." This created an indissoluble bond between church and state: the recognition of the holiness of the Merovingian dynasty by the church in return for their military support for the aspirations of the church. Over the next century, this agreement became less and less popular with those who saw the Roman Church as a new political order.
In 679 A. D. e. King Dagobert II (whose power was increasing) was killed as a result of a Roman conspiracy. The weakened Merovingians continued to be kings of the Franks until 751. In this city, Childeric III was removed by the manager of his palace, Pepin the Short. Supported by the pope, Pepin declared himself king. Hilderic died in 754.
It was believed that the descendants of the Merovingians (that is, Christ) died out. On Christmas Day 800, Charlemagne was tricked into being crowned by the Pope, and the Karo-lings came to power. The church's games with the authorities ended successfully.
However, the descendants of the Merovingians survived. This was the greatest secret of the Middle Ages, which gave impetus to the creation of encoded (since it could not be said openly under pain of excommunication) myths about the Grail and Arthurian novels. The Holy Grail was actually "sacred blood", that is, literally "offspring." This secret was kept by the Templars.
Guillaume of Tire (the first "historical authority" to mention the Templars) around 1180 says that the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was founded in Jerusalem in 1118 by a French knight from Champagne Hugo de Payens and eight of his associates. Arriving in secret at the palace of Baudouin I, king of Jerusalem, they demanded that their organization be recognized as an order for "guarding the roads … with the special purpose of protecting the pilgrims." The king provided them with a wing of his palace. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was adjacent to it. At one time, it was the al-Aqsa mosque, the shrine of Muslims - a huge construction of the 11th century, which was supported by 280 massive columns. In the same place, according to legend, there was a temple of King Solomon at the time of Ona. In French "temple" - temple - hence the name of the order.
So, the poor knights, with the blessing of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, got everything they wanted. So says Gil-om. Presumably poor so that they had to pass horses to each other (their emblem depicted two riders on one horse), when they patrolled the roads and protected pilgrims, these knights vowed to live in modesty, chastity and obedience. Already in 1128, the Monk Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux and the head of the Cistercian Order, published a treatise For the Glory of the New Chivalry.
When, at the end of the same 1128, Hugo de Payens arrived in England, he was greeted there with great honor by King Henry I. In the Fine Arts, de Payens returned from Palestine to Europe with 300 knights-templars. In 1139, Pope Innocent II (once one of the monks of the Monk Bernard) freed the Templars from submission to any authority except the papal. Why?
A kind of symbol of the order was a white cloak, worn over the rest of the clothes of the same color. Many young aristocrats from Western European countries joined the order, generous donations went to the Templars' treasury from all sides of the Christian world, land, castles and estates were donated.
Soon, the Order of the Temple achieved a power that no other organization, including the church, had ever achieved. The Templars lent money to impoverished monarchs at substantial interest rates, turning into bankers of almost all European houses, and even to some Muslim rulers. When the Genoese and Pisan bankers did not give a loan to Louis VII, one of the leaders of the Second Crusade (11471149), the Grand Master of the Templars Ebrar de Barr sent so much money to the French king from Antioch "for a holy cause" that it was quite enough to cover all expenses for a military campaign.
There are claims that Hugo de Payens was secretly appointed by Saint Bernard (?) To establish an order not at all to protect the pilgrims, but in order to collect the esoteric knowledge of the East. If the order was founded with the aim of cooperating with unbelievers, it is not surprising that their secret is kept to this day. Free thinking and the rapid growth of wealth, the forces of the Templars look as if the order was supported from all sides. While the Crusades continued, the Templars were safe and played their double game: for all - Christians, and secretly - heretics and pagans.
In any case, their doctrines were not Orthodox. In the second crusade, their zeal was suicidal. They did not surrender to the superior forces of the Muslims and fought to the last drop of their blood. In battle, the Templars behaved like dualists, despising earthly life. Another thread to their true views is the assumption that the growth of the order's power coincided with the heyday in Provence of the teachings of the Cathars (Albigensians), with the praise of chivalry by the troubadours, the idealization of women and the development of pre-Christian, pagan philosophy, subtly converted into Christianity with the help of the myth of King Arthur and the bowl Grail.
Over the next two hundred years, this mighty order of warlike monks so concealed their true beliefs that until the time of its mysterious fall in 1307, the real goals of the order remained unknown.
In 1208 A. D. e. Pope Innocent III announced a crusade against Catharism. During this bloody war, the Inquisition was founded to destroy the heretics - a task effectively accomplished by 1244. The Templars survived, but the tide reversed itself when Acre fell in 1291 and the Holy Land was lost. For 200 years, the Crusades distracted Europe from internal wars and gave the Templars a free hand. Now that their footing was destroyed, they were at mortal risk. In the era after the Crusades, the Templars could not take root in Europe. The study of Islamic doctrines, mathematics and other sciences, the Jewish Kabbalah, the mysteries of the Celts and Druids, the connection with dualism gave rise to anarchism in them, insubordination to neither kings nor popes. But - worst of all - the kings resented them because of their debts to them,and common people because of their arrogance. In the end, the Knights Templar weakened.
At first glance, the fall of the Templars happened because they became too powerful. With their ports, backed by European kings, and their navy, the Templars became a true "state within a state." On Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip the Fair of France made mass arrests (the operation was superbly planned in advance and not a word leaked out). But the detained templars were accused not of civil crimes, but of heresy. Under torture by the Inquisition, they were accused of renouncing Christ, desecrating the Cross, corrupting the masses, worshiping an idol (Baphomet, that is, "Image of an idol"), as well as ritual murders, immoral, obscene intercourse and wearing heretical laces (like witches). Practically proven is the homosexuality that was intensively implanted in the order (the leadership of the order believed thatthat when communicating with women, the knight can divulge the secrets of the order, while communicating with men the vow of abstinence did not extend).
All captured Templars were subjected to terrible torture and executed. In 1312, Pope Clement V abolished the order. The last Grand Master Jacques de Molay died on a stake in Paris in 1314. They say that before his death he called upon King Philip and the Pope to join him as soon as possible and appear before the throne of God. Both, incidentally, died the same year.
Recently, it has been suggested that the Templars were the military wing of a much older secret alliance, the Preiure de Sion, formed to protect and represent the interests of the Merovingian dynasty believed to be descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Knights Templar were the military forces of this union. The writers claim that this alliance is alive today, thanks to the protection and further interests of the true noble blood of Christ.
However, the French Templars at the trial in 1308 called Christ "a false prophet", argued that they did not believe in the Cross, "because he is still too young." Their beliefs looked pre-Christian. Baphomet, the bearded idol they worshiped, resembles a Celtic deity. Like the Cathars, who argued that Christ did not exist, but was simply a “holy ghost,” the Templars refused to believe in the Crucifixion.
However, most of the Templars managed to avoid arrest. Where are they hiding? Who warned them? Why? The mystery of their destinies is hidden as deeply as the history of their origin in the Holy Land.
It is believed that some of them fled to Scotland and that Scottish Ritual Freemasonry is derived from them. The Templar Cross was found under the armor of Viscount Dundee who died in the Battle of Killikrank in 1689. But for more than a century, the mysticism of the Templars was less important than the role of their multinational organization with its own ports, navies and banks. By inventing bank checks, they were exempted from taxes and introduced their own. Submitting only to the Pope, the Templars lived in a splendor of loneliness, hated by everyone. However, they survived not only because of the charm of the knightly ideas they presented, but also because of the mystery, which still retains its meaning. Today, Templar influence, real or imagined, takes place in Freemasonry and other semi-occult orders.
If the authors of the book are right (and a lot of evidence has been built by them to support this assertion), then it is obvious that the Roman Catholic Church turned a blind eye to the extermination of the descendants of Christ in order to guarantee the dominance of its interpretation of Christianity, that is, to ensure the temporary development of its own power and authority.
The official Catholic and Orthodox interpretation of history that happened 2000 years ago in Judea was based on the doctrines of original sin and the salvation of all mankind through the personality of one God-man - Jesus Christ.
The Christian religion, in contrast to Islam, Taoism, Manichaeism and many, many other religions, is the fruit of the creativity of not one person, but of a whole group of authors, among whom were such authoritative pillars of the church as St. Paul, St. Peter, John the Theologian, St. Francis, John Chrysostom and others. As a result of their collective creativity, the Christian religion acquired the necessary harmony, irrefutable logic, and inexplicable attraction for millions of people. Experiencing tenderness and reverence for the torment of the Cross of the Son of God, with the singing of hymns, people went to the fires, went to battle, to monasteries, with the name of Christ they received newborns and saw off the dead on their last journey.
If the Merovingians were the descendants of Jesus of Nazareth (and Saunier, presumably, their great- … great-grandson), then the European culture and thought of the last two thousand years was influenced by a strange interpretation of religious dogma, which not only had little in common with Christ and his teaching, but which is based on the rejection of both.
Such a thought seems blasphemous. However, we are slightly comforted that the statements of the authors of this theory are not supported by irrefutable physical evidence. Even if such are found, it is unlikely to lead true Christians away from the chosen path, as for atheists and followers of other religions, it seems that this topic does not really bother them.
L. I. Zdanovich
