Were the Templars what they seem:
the noble guardians of a superior spiritual wisdom?
Bestsellers such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and more recently, The DaVinci Code have catapulted the
military order of the Knights Templar into public consciousness like never
before. The fulsome praise usually accorded the soldier-monks of the Crusades
is, however, deceptive. In their own time, the Templars were hated and feared
by their fellow Christians, and for good reason. They regularly deserted the
Christian cause on the battlefield; not out of cowardice, it can be said, but
because the advantage of their Order took precedence over everything else. In
the territories under their control they set up a system of exploitation second
to none in its ruthlessness. The spiritual teaching which they supposedly
protected with such pure devotion seems on examination to reflect an early form
of Satanism.
This emerges
clearly from a historical work which first appeared in Germany in 1879: Hans
Prutz’ Geheimlehre and Geheimstatuten des
Tempelherren-Ordens. An English version is now available under the title: The Secret Teaching of the Knights Templar:
A Critical Investigation.
One of the
foremost historians of his day, Hans Prutz sought to identify the heresy which
corrupted the Order of the Knights of the Temple on the basis of the
depositions made at the Trial of 1307-9. These open a horror vista that many
today find impossible to believe. The reception of new members into the Order
involved the desecration of the Cross, the exchange of ritual kisses to naked
parts of the body, and perhaps homosexual intercourse between the participants.
The Order had its own unorthodox variations of the Catholic Sacraments. Its
prayers and liturgical rites were not addressed to the Christian God, but to an
idol called Baphomet, which they worshipped in the form of a metallic head.
The Secret Teaching of the Knights Templar offers a cogent explanation of how such an extreme heretical
development could have occurred in a seemingly faithful community. Many
enabling factors come together: the Frankish mixed-culture in the embattled
Christian States in the Holy Land, which were moving away from Catholic orthodoxy
as a result of the day-to-day contact with their Muslim neighbours; the
heretical noble families of Provence, from which many of the Knights Templar
were recruited; the papal privileges granted to the Order which made it
independent of outside scrutiny; and the corrupting effects of wealth and
power. Above all, it was the catastrophic failure of the Crusades that prepared
the way for large-scale betrayal. The loss of the Holy Places was proof to many
at the time that Christianity, far from being the one true religion, was only a
set of lies.
Under these
influences, and impelled, no doubt, by the personal power of one or more of its
leading members, the Order first adopted a version of the Albigensian heresy,
before giving itself over to a derivation of Luciferianism which was expressed
in part by the strange behaviour which came to light at the Trial.
Lamentably, much
of the evidence is provided by a collection of statements extracted under
torture at the behest of King Philip IV “The Fair” of France. Many historians
have argued that the Trial was therefore a farce, and that the Order was
innocent. In contrast, Prutz emphasises one salient fact: these dubious
confessions were confirmed by confessions made in places where there was no
threat of torture, for example in Pisa and Florence. The confessions are thus
unlikely to have been mere inventions of the King and the Inquisition. In many
cases, Prutz finds it justifiable to take the confessions at face value. He
concludes that despite the vested interests that were served by the Trial of
the Templars, the evidence brought to light proves that the Order
systematically cultivated a form of the Luciferian heresy.
In his later
work, Prutz came to abandon this strong view of the Order’s guilt. Much of the
argument in The Secret Teaching of the
Knights Templar concerns a supposed Secret Statute, a Rule expressing the
heretical belief-system of the Templars, which Prutz believed was written at
Castle Pilgrim in Palestine around the time of the Siege of Damietta in 1229.
In Entwicklung und Untergang des
Tempelherrenordens (1888), Prutz notes that new archival research had
failed to produce a physical example of this Secret Statute. This leads him to a
correction of his earlier thesis: there never was a Secret Statute in the
Order, and therefore no systematic body of secret teaching. The Order was
indeed guilty of heresy, but not in the organised way he had previously claimed.
The Luciferianism which had played such a strong explanatory role now loses its
importance.
On
consideration, Prutz’ later position appears to be much less convincing than
the earlier one. The absence of a definitive and binding codification, which a
Secret Statute would have represented, does not necessarily mean the absence of
an organised heretical doctrine. A primarily oral transmission, a possibility
which Prutz dismisses all too quickly, would be in keeping with both the
dangerous nature of the heretical teaching and the low standard of education
which we know to have prevailed in the Order. Despite the general trend towards
a rehabilitation of the Templars, which, to be fair, Prutz never shared; there
is ample reason to maintain a strong view of their guilt.
The Secret Teaching of the Knights Templar certainly discourages the false romanticism one finds in most
literary treatments of the Templars today. The Knights Templar, we learn, were
anything but noble guardians of spiritual wisdom. They created their own Church
for their own ends while preserving the appearance of orthodoxy and faithful
service. To put it plainly, they served Evil while pretending to serve Good,
and they did so with the connivance of the highest Church authorities.
To anyone with
any sympathy for the Christian Churches, or indeed, for any spiritual path,
there is a disturbing implication which might not be evident at first sight.
There is nothing, apart from the intrinsic goodness of its members, if they are
good, to prevent an institution of the Church, or even the Church as a whole,
from turning to Evil, while at the same time going through the motions of
faithful observance. This is as valid for the Orders and Institutes of the
Roman Catholic Church and other Churches, as it is for evangelical
congregations, or for spiritual communities which invoke the protection of gurus
or guardian spirits, or indeed for intentional communities of any kind. It was
possible for the Order of the Knights of the Temple to have gone thoroughly
wrong as an organisation while many individual members, their lives closed off
by systems of obedience and need-fulfilment, remained ignorant of this fact.
The discernment of Good and Evil, of Right and Wrong, is not a task that can be
left to religious superiors, elders or theological professionals, no matter how
impressive, but poses a constant daily challenge for everyone, through humble
listening to the Holy Spirit. This is perhaps the most noteworthy lesson that
the story of the Knights Templar holds ready for us today.