Sir Richard Arcos' World of Docetic Twaddle. V

I have been considering the contents of the Gnostic gospels and roundly abusing them. After Phillip I looked at a couple more gnostic texts. Then I got bored part way through the ghastly 'gospel of truth.' Too much neo-platonism for me! But here's the gnostic creation narrative, it's scary! "Listen to my words, my son Seth [Adam is supposed to be speaking here]. When God had created me out of the earth, along with Eve, your mother, I went about with her in a glory which she had seen in the aeon from which we had come forth. She taught me a word of knowledge of the eternal God. And we resembled the great eternal angels, for we were higher than the god who had created us and the powers with him, whom we did not know [the reference here is the the 'Demiurge', the 'builder']. Then God, the ruler of the aeons and the powers, divided us in wrath. Then we became two aeons. And the glory in our heart(s) left us, me and your mother Eve, along with the first knowledge that breathed within us. And it (glory) fled from us; it entered into [ant hole] great [ant hole] which had come forth, not from this aeon from which we had come forth, I and Eve your mother. But it (knowledge) entered into the seed of great aeons. For this reason I myself have called you by the name of that man who is the seed of the great generation or from whom (it comes). After those days, the eternal knowledge of the God of truth withdrew from me and your mother Eve. Since that time, we learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized the God who had created us. For we were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. And after these things, we became darkened in our heart(s). Now I slept in the thought of my heart. And I saw three men before me whose likeness I was unable to recognize, since they were not the powers of the God who had created us. They surpassed [...] glory, and [...] men [...] saying to me, "Arise, Adam, from the sleep of death, and hear about the aeon and the seed of that man to whom life has come, who came from you and from Eve, your wife." 'Nuff said, I think. More than enough! Excuse me while I go and... [The rest of this entry, consisting of two words, has been deleted]
He said 'throw up', or words to that effect, didn't he?

Sir Richard Arcos' World of Docetic Twaddle. IV

More gems from the Gnostic Gospels, in this case on the nature of Christ:
'"My God, my God, why, O Lord, have you forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34). It was on the cross that he said these words, for he had departed from that place.' (Philip) What place? My guess is that the author of 'Phillip' believed that the Christ Aeon descended on Jesus at his baptism and left him before the cross.
This is priceless! 'The chrism is superior to baptism, for it is from the word "Chrism" that we have been called "Christians," certainly not because of the word "baptism". And it is because of the chrism that "the Christ" has his name. For the Father anointed the Son, and the Son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. He who has been anointed possesses everything. He possesses the resurrection, the light, the cross, the Holy Spirit. The Father gave him this in the bridal chamber; he merely accepted (the gift). The Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father. This is the Kingdom of Heaven.'
It is clear from this that the author of Phillip existed in the institutional Church, also that he had not read Acts carefully.
I may be able to find the strength to read some more of this rot for next time. It's so dreadful, and, as I said, excessively like that dreary work of neognostic rubbish Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Sir Richard Arcos' World of Docetic Twaddle. III

Having been dissuaded by my secretary from bunging Dr. Langdon's book in the boiler, I return to the Gnostic texts that Dr. Langdon rests his works on.
Earlier in the 'Gospel of Phillip', we were told that 'Sophia' is barren: 'The apostles said to the disciples, "May our entire offering obtain salt." They called Sophia "salt". Without it, no offering is acceptable. But Sophia is barren, without child. For this reason, she is called "a trace of salt". Wherever they will [ant hole] in their own way, the Holy Spirit [ant hole], and her children are many.'' So, the gnostics didn't teach about Eve, did they?
'The forms of evil spirit include male ones and female ones. The males are they which unite with the souls which inhabit a female form, but the females are they which are mingled with those in a male form, though one who was disobedient. And none shall be able to escape them, since they detain him if he does not receive a male power or a female power, the bridegroom and the bride. One receives them from the mirrored bridal chamber. When the wanton women see a male sitting alone, they leap down on him and play with him and defile him. So also the lecherous men, when they see a beautiful woman sitting alone, they persuade her and compel her, wishing to defile her. But if they see the man and his wife sitting beside one another, the female cannot come into the man, nor can the male come into the woman. So if the image and the angel are united with one another, neither can any venture to go into the man or the woman.' Will anyone dare to try to work out what in the world this New Age twaddle actually means? I wish 'em luck. Then they might go on to tell me what Mary Baker Eddy was on about.

Sir Richard Arcos' World of Docetic Twaddle. II

We are continuing with the Docetic twaddle that Dr. Langdon tells us is real Christianity. It's not pretty. Here it goes:
'No one will hide a large valuable object in something large [then what in heaven's name will they hide it in, something small?], but many a time one has tossed countless thousands into a thing worth a penny [examples? Sorry, this bloke is just saying any old rubbish that comes into his mind]. Compare the soul. It is a precious thing and it came to be in a contemptible body.' And Dr. Langdon would tell us that these people glorified humanity, unlike the Church. The truth is the exact opposite!!!
And just imagine the possiblities of this little nugget of heresy! 'God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him. Before men were sacrificed, animals were being sacrificed, since those to whom they were sacrificed were not gods.' Do you believe in human sacrifice, Dr. Langdon? Do you believe God is a man-eater?
Dr. Langdon hangs a lot of his 'Jesus was married to Mary of Magdala' rot on one little verse in the 'Gospel of Phillip'. Here is the verse in context:
'As for the Wisdom who is called "the barren," she is the mother of the angels. And the companion of the [hole made by white ant] Mary Magdalene. [hole made by white ant] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her [hole made by white ant]. The rest of the disciples [hole made by white ant]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."'
The Coptic word (Coptic, Dr. Langdon, not Aramaic) here translated 'companion' means just exactly that, which is why it's translated that way. There is no mention of Marriage here; Dr. Langdon, not satisfied with declaring that the Bible is a fabrication by the emperor Constantive in the 4th century, engages in blatant eisegesis on this damaged Gnostic text! Words fail me. I must go bung Dr. Langdon's book in the boiler.

On Conspracy Theories. Dr. Barton

Langdon, like 'Eliphas Levi', is keen on conspiracy theories. Everything ties in with the 'Priory of Sion'. The Templar, the Crusades. It's all very handy really. And if Levi agreed with him, then our bright boy would be home and dry. The only trouble is, Levi doesn't. No, Levi ties everything in with the Illuminati, an organisation that was founded by Zoroaster in Persia, and introduced into Europe by the Templar in the twelfth century. According to Levi anyhow. Levi's notorious tendency to make up his 'facts' out of whole cloth is demonstrated by the fact that the Illuminati was actually a secret society within German Freemasonry created by Adam Weishaupt in 1776 and suppressed by the Bavarian government in 1785, after Illuminati attempted to overthrow the government of Bavaria.
In other words, the Illuminati were a short-lived subset of Freemasonry. But from this foundation conspiracy theorists have woven a whole history. Or rather four hundred-odd different histories. So it is with the Knights Templar. Every crackpot I meet has some theory or other about them. If I wasn't such a balanced individual I'd lose me temper with them more often.
Which reminds me, next month I'm going to the London Symbology Conference at the May Fair Hotel, where I hope to be able to speak to Dr. Langdon. I doubt he'll listen. His mind is made up, and he does not want to be confused with the facts.

A rather good article on the Illuminanti is here.

Sir Richard Arcos' World of Docetic Twaddle (I.)

We were considering what the 'Gnostic gospels' that Dr. Langdon is so inexplicably enamoured of actually contain. The answer is, as I have noted in the title of this post, 'docetic twaddle'. Docetism, let me remind you, was the heresy that Jesus only seemed to be a man, and was in fact pure spirit. The Church quite naturally proclaimed this to be not only nonsense, but heresy. The Gospels portyray a Jesus who was both man and God. Dr. Langdon seems to think the opposite, which makes me, as professor of Systematic Theology at Mount Zion Reformed Baptist College, want to bung his book out of the window. Which I would do if one of my daughters wasn't directly under the window.
And this is heretical in so many ways: 'Some said, "Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit." They are in error. They do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman?" Sorry, that is just bizarre. The Holy Spirit's a woman? "Mary is the virgin whom no power defiled. She is a great anathema to the Hebrews, who are the apostles and the apostolic men." Note that Mary here has to be the Virgin Mary, not Mary Magdalene, because no-one ever said May Magdalene concieved by the Spirit. "This virgin whom no power defiled [...] the powers defile themselves. And the Lord would not have said "My Father who is in Heaven" (Mt 16:17), unless he had had another father, but he would have said simply "My father".' This is just bonkers! How can Christ have had 'another father' (and, by implication, a father on earth) if his mother was a virgin?

More on Gnosticism, by Sir Richard Arcos

On the subject of Dr. Lagdon's 'original Christianity', better known as Gnosticism, beliefnet notes that one 'gnostic scholar' ( so called): "theorizes that Thomas is presented as a doubter in the New Testament in order to discredit the spurious Gospel of Thomas." However, it seems more likely that the gnostic writer used Thomas because he was a doubter until given a fuller revelation. I notice that this 'scholar' is assuming that John is of a very late date, an assumption that is only possible if you have an a priori opposition to the miraculous. Dr. Rainy has demonstrated that this is a false assumption, but I think that you ought to read Carson and Moo's Introduction to the New Testament (IVP, 2006) on the matter if you don't want to get bogged down in Dr. Rainy's prose (you don't). Either way, this 'scholar' is engaging in mere guesswork and interpreation. As we have no idea exactly when the gospel of Thomas was written, we simply can't say. Suffice it to say that there is no warrant for this, save the modern vogue for building up the 'Gospel' of Thomas to semi-canonical status. A collection of sayings, it isn't really a Gospel at all, presenting as it does no coherent narrative. And no coherent anything else either. Read Phillip today. It's turgid and incomprehensible rubbish, here's a gem:
'Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.'
And if you can understand that, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! That's nearly as bad as Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures!!
Here's a good example of gnostic elitism: 'Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with "the Father" and "the Son" and "the Holy Spirit" and "life" and "light" and "resurrection" and "the Church (Ekklesia)" and all the rest - people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon.' This sounds very heretical: 'One single name is not uttered in the world, the name which the Father gave to the Son; it is the name above all things: the name of the Father. For the Son would not become Father unless he wore the name of the Father. Those who have this name know it, but they do not speak it. But those who do not have it do not know it.'

More of this next time. If Dr. Langdon really wants to become a member of the Eddyist ('Christian Science') cult, I wish him luck. 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord'.

Benjamin (II): Sir Richard Arcos

I was talking about the Tribe of Benjamin, and how Dr. Langdon's claim that they were a 'powerful royal tribe' is so much hog-wash. I had noted that Saul's kingship was hardly a high-point in the history of the Israelite people. What is more, the line of Saul was practically ended during David's reign when seven of Saul's sons were put to death. Mephiboshesh (Mephi-baal, in fact), the son of Jonathan, died a poor pensioner of King David, apparently unmarried.
One of Saul's relatives, a charming bloke by the name of Shimei, appears in II Kings 16, among other places, acting like a total beast and cursing David in II Kings 16, and in II Kings 19 the same bloke appears grovelling to King David. Significantly nothing is said about it being a 'royal' line. Anyhow, Shimei got his just deserts, as we read in I Kings 2, where he was executed. Not a very creditable end.
David married Saul's younger daughter, Michal. The marriage was, as the legal types say, 'without issue'.
After the Babylonian exile Israel was never ruled again by a Davidic King, although the descent of the claim was recorded (See Matthew Chapter 1). Benjamin was never regarded as a 'royal' tribe in the way that Judah was, and in fact the line of King Saul was regarded as cursed. Equally, if the tribe of Benjamin had a stake in this 'Royal Line,' how come Paul, of the Tribe of Benjamin, mentions it not at all? Well, I'm waiting...

Benjamin (I): Sir Richard Arcos

Reading one of Dr. Langdon's pestiferous books, I note with wry amusement that it is stated that Mary Magdalen belonged to the 'powerful' tribe of Benjamin. This is linked to the Kingship of Saul, which is fair enough, I suppose.
However, I believe I'm correct in stating that the tribe of Benjamin was very far from being powerful, indeed, Saul's first reaction on being told he'd be king was: 'Am I not a Benjaminite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? And my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin?' They were important in one respect, being descended from the younger son of Rachel, but whn some of their men committed an atrocious act of sexual immorality in the days of the Judges, Rachel's blood didn't seem to count for anything.
Equally, descent from Saul hardly counted for anything either, given the hash he made of being king. Saul was one man, his son Ish-Baal (called Ish-Boshesh in Samuel, but Ish-Baal is undoubtedly the original name. Boshesh is Hebrew for 'shame', and as a pagan deity, Baal was considered shameful) who seized the throne of Israel (not Judah) was bumped off by a couple of his own officers during the war between the House of Saul and the House of David. No Benjamite ever held the throne again, although a rebel from that tribe called Sheba tried to take over the Kingdom of Israel. He was also bumped off. All this happened rather a long time before the 1st Century (during the reign of David, in fact). After the division of the monarchies on the death of King Solomon, Benjamin adhered to the tribe of Judah and there is no record that any person from the tribe ever made a claim on the throne of the Southern kingdom. The Northern Kingdom was never ruled by a single dynasty for long, and Northern Kings tended to live short lives ended by violent deaths.

Further Knights Templar Musing: Sir Richard Arcos

The King of France, as we have noted earlier, wanted to get his grubby little mitts on the treasure of the Templars, or, more properly, the IOUs he'd given them a little while beforehand. Why the Templars?
1. The Templars were getting too big for their boots. These men were the premiere millitary order. The Knights Hospitaller were like UN peacekeepers, so a bit pansy, the Teutonic Knights were basically a German rip-off of the Templars, while the Knights of St. Thomas were English and so wouldn't have anything to do with anyone else. The knights of St. Lazarus were all knights who'd got leprosy, so no-one really wanted anything to do with them.
2. The Knights Templar were suckers. The King of France asked all the leaders of the major millitary orders to come to a meeting with him to plan a new Crusade. The Master of the Hospital said he was too busy fighting Turks, while the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights told him to push off.He didn't invite the top man of the knights of St. Thomas, as he was English, or the Master of the Knights of St. Lazarus, as he was a leper.
3. The knights Templar's power was on the wane. The Teutonic Knights were carving out a state for themselves in Prussia and Livonia, while the Knights Hospitaller had Rhodes. Only the Templars had no independent enclave. It was the Hospitallers, not the Templars who were now providing the top men of chancelleries of Europe. The Templars were vulnerable and everyone knew this.
4. They were tax exempt. Always unpopular with governments, especially if they're French ones trying to get a handle on the public finances (France was, financially a mess).
5. See number two. Philip the Fair wanted to unite all the Crusading orders under himself. This would have given him access to immense millitary power as well as immense wealth. Why did the Pope agree? Given that the Pope was then resident in Avignon, a Papal enclave in France, he had very little choice but to condemn the Templars, unless he wanted the King of France to pop over to Avingnon and beat him up. Of course, the condemnation was actually very weak, most Templars were allowed to plead total ignorance and join other orders. Doesn't look like the Pope believed the accusations. Dr. Langdon talks about the Pope throwing the ashes of burned Templars into the Tiber. This is a wee bit difficult to do from Avingnon, unless one happens to be Superman.
6. Millitary orders were unpopular. The Templars, as the only purely millitary order (all of the other ones did medical care as well, especially the lepers), were accused particularly of losing the Holy Land as they should have been able to beat the Muslims all by themselves. Of course, after the challenge to trial by battle in Germany, the Knights Templar were not even arrested there. And I've already mentioned the Spanish Templars.

Baphomet and the Pentagram: By Dr. Barton

As the resident symbologist here, I think that this subject (since Sir Richard brought up the name of Baphomet again) needs to be dealt with. Dr. Langdon waxes eloquent about both Baphomet and the Pentagram with all the assurance of a man who hasn't researched the area properly. I have, and the results are most interesting.
The idea that Baphomet was a non-Christian god dates from 1818, when Von Hammer, a German anti-masonic writer, said that he was a Gnostic deity. Von Hammer didn't understand Gnosticism any more than Dr. Langdon does, but that's that.
The figure of Baphomet that appears in Dr. Langdon's book, however, is the invention of Eliphas Levi (real name Alphonse Louis Constant, 1810-1875), an apostate Roman Catholic priest who, having trained at Saint Sulpice, later abandoned the Church for a career as an occultist. Levi wrote a fantastical book about Baphomet, introducing the figure of the seated goat-demon. He introduced also the idea of the two pentagrams, the good (point upwards) and the evil (point downwards). In fact, Levi was a prolific inventor of symbols. Levi thus linked the Templar with his own occultic beliefs.
However, as I have discovered during my career, 19th Century Freemasons, Occultists and Romantics freely invented symbolism and legends. Levi's Baphomet seems to be a case in point; it springs from out of the brain of the apostate priest, not from the pages of history.

Unless you really want to believe that Mohammed was a goat-demon, of course, and that that is the true reason why images of the Prophet are forbidden.

Note: That last paragraph is a JOKE. Please do not send death-threats to my address, but to Dr. Langdon's. He started it.

Comments on the heresy accusations. Dr. Barton.

Many things could be said about the heresy accusations against the Templar, and sir Richard has already said many of them. I want to concentrate on one element of the accusations, and as my way in, I want to start with the Templar head: what was it? A fiction, yes, but why?

Actually many of the heresy accusations against the Templar are based on Medieval European conceptions of Islam. Muslims were supposed to spit on the cross and desecrate it in... other ways. They were supposed to have all sorts of idols in their mosques, Mohammed, Jupiter, Apollo... you name it, they were said to worship it (maybe even cats). There is a charming story from the siege of Acre (1189-91) concerning a Muslim who had got hold of a crucifix. He waved it about (so the story goes), yelling abuse and making obscene gestures. Finally he dropped his trousers and urinated on the crucifix, at which point a crossbowman shot him in the groin, which was generally supposed to be a judgement.
Of course (despite the silly behaviour of one Azerbijani newspaper) real Muslims do not insult Jesus (well, not by their standards. I think that denying He is the Word of God incarnate in the face of His claims could be regarded as an insult). They claim he was a prophet. And Muslims do not have idols. In fact they are violent iconoclasts... so the Templars were accused of acting like mythical stereotyped Muslims. Since the Templars knew very well what real Muslims acted like (having fought them in the East and in Spain), they were not going to adopt mythical Muslim practices, therefore the charges were untrue because absurd. And that is how I solved the Edward Irving Code, if you care to know.

No-one does
You don't know that.

How did the Accusations go down outside France? Dr. Rainy.

Like a lead balloon. The King of England wrote to the Pope saying, "you can't be serious!" A whole lot of people were totally baffled by the part about the head, and about the cat too (thank you, Sir Richard!) No-one believed that charges outside of France, which to me is further evidence that the charges were fabricated. It was widely recognised that the whole thing was a cynical plot by the French king.

Were the Templars Heretics? Sir Richard Arcos (IV)

The Templars were accused of the following errors of practice:

1 They did not make charitable gifts as they ought to have.
Translation: they were miserly and would not give to every sturdy beggar who asked. Nor would they give to the King's pet charity - himself. It was widely believed that the Knights Templar were fantastically wealthy, since they acted as the Medieval equivalent of a Swiss bank. They weren't.

2. They did not practice hospitality.
See above. They were knights, not the YMCA!

3. They did not consider it a sin to acquire someone else's proprty by legal or illegal means.
The Knights, as good Catholics, considered robbery to be a sin. The King of France, on the other hand, thought it quite all right to illegally lay his greedy little mitts on the Templars' property under the cover of trumped-up allegations of heresy.

4. Perjury was not reckoned a sin if it was to gain boodle for the order.
Again, the King was imputing his own sordid views to the Knights. Funnily enough, the Templars were constantly broke!

Were the Templars Heretics? Sir Richard Arcos (III)

7. They did not believe in the Mass or in the Sacraments of the Church. At the Mass their naughty priests did not say the words of consecration, so the Mass, paid for by a donor, could do the soul of the donor no good.
If true, they were closet protestants. But it isn't true. The Templar were loyal servants of the Pope, and would have been shocked to hear of the Mess (sorry, Mass) profaned in such a way.

8. They worshipped a bearded head.
The only bearded heads around the Templar Commanderies were attached to Templars. Beards were unfashionable in the 1300s, but the Templar kept on wearing them. The bearded head accusation was just a nasty insult to the Templar.
The Hospitallers, on the other hand, had a bearded head reliquary. The head of John the Baptist. Templars preferred female heads, having been given the head of St. Euphemia after it had been stolen from Constantinople in 1204. As the head of St. Euphemia is still in Constantinople, I suspect what they actually had was a substitute head that had been handed over by Greek Orthodox priests who were laughing up their sleeves.

9. They were taught that their officers could absolve them from sin, which in fact only a priest could do.
Actually the Templar officers had been delegated the power from the Pope, so it was their accusers who were in the wrong.

10. They were only allowed to confess their sins to a brother Templar.
And why not? The Bible says 'confess your sins to one another.'

11. They kept on adoring that cat! What was more, the cat appeared magically in locked rooms, and it could talk.
Now you're blatantly making things up.

12. They refused to correct these errors!
Because they were not guilty of them in the first place. Just as I cannot stop sending Dr. Barton suggestive e-mails because I never started sending them.

Stop it. Now.
P.S. That's a joke.

Were the Templars Heretics? Sir Richard Arcos (II)

4. Receptions were held in secret [As I said, this was standard practice in all orders, and no-one said the Benedictines were worshipping a cat], Templar were made to swear they would not leave the order, and sodomy was encouraged.
Lies, all lies. The Templar swore off all sex, like monks. In fact there were probably fewer homosexuals in the order than in monkeries, because knights are supposed to be masculine. Any sissies would pretty soon find themselves brutally disembowelled by the Muslims.

5. They still worshipped that cat.
No they didn't. But the Templars had large farms, and barns in their compounds, so the Commandery cat was a very important member of the team. He was not worshipped, just looked after very well, and greatly valued. Like Dr. Barton's cats.

6. They venerated an idol.
Right. Called Baphomet, no doubt. This was another standard practice. You were a heretic? You had to worship some idol or other.

It was a bearded male head.
Head-shaped Reliquaries were fairly common in the Middle Ages. There's one in the Museum of London, in fact. Most towns had one or two. The Templars had two, both beardless and female (though under torture one Templar declared that he had been mistaken and what he had thought was a female head was male. With two faces. And could they please stop torturing him now). Funnily enough horns were never mentioned as belonging to the head, but Dr. Langdon thinks it was horned. But then, he thinks Mohammed was a pagan fertility god. I e-mailed that one to our local Mosque, and I am eagerly awaiting the riot outside Dr. Langdon's office at Harvard.

The head had great powers.
The Mythical head. Of course it did.

Each Templar wore a knotted cord around his waist. The cord had been wrapped around the head, thus sanctifying each Templar to the service of the aforementioned head.
The head that didn't exist. In fact the cord was a symbol of chastity, and knotted cords are still worn by Roman Catholic monks today. Many of the Templars had no idea what the knotted cord meant, but they were still sure it was important. This argues a lack of education, understandable if you were being trained to go out and kill Muslims, not to sit around all day in the Scriptorium copying out books.

Sir Richard Arcos talks about cats.

In the Middle Ages the French seem to have believed that all heretics worshipped cats. If we take Dr. Langdon's view that allegations of heresy mean the person was a heretic, then we ought equally to note that Templars are only connected with the Grail in fictional stories of the Grail, and equally that the Grail Templars in Parsival are as connected with the real Templars as Simon Templar (AKA 'The Saint'). Furthermore, their role in fiction as facillitators of elopements and romance has nothing to do with the Sacred feminine, but the notion that the Templars were, on the whole, 'good eggs.' This role would later be taken by the Franciscans, on which see Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet, not to mention Friar Tuck in just about everything.
So, what do we have then? Cats. Why cats? And don't say 'the sacred feminine.' Cats are associated with the Egyptian Goddess Bastet, but the Sacred feminine is associated with Isis, who has o to do with cats. So, why cats? Well... Take Cathar, remove 'hars and what do you have? Cat. Yes, it really is that simple, some bright spark decided that as the word Cathar contained the word cat, they had to worship cats. I am not making this up, they really did! Ah, the joys of ignorance...

Were the Templars Heretics? Sir Richard Arcos

Now, after my last post I thought I ought to say something about the Knights Templar as 'heretics'. The Knights Templars were accused of the following errors of belief:

1. New members of the order were required to deny Christ as their reception into the order, spit on the cross and 'defile' it (urinate on it, etc. Obviously in anticipation of some modern 'art'). Evidence? Who needs it! The King of France just tortured some Templars until they confessed. Torture can be a very useful way of getting a confession. To anything. I bet I could get Dr. Langdon to confess to being a concealed Jesuit if I just applied the thumbscrews with enough vim.

2. The Templars exchanged obscene kisses when they were recieved into the Order.
Evidence? See above. Reception ceremonies of all oders, monastic or military, were held in private, so people could make any old wild accusation.

3. They worshipped a cat.
Evidence? None. But the French seem to have had a thing about heretics worshipping cats. They seem, in fact, to have believed that all heretics worshipped cats. What would they make of Dr. Barton's four cats, I wonder?

That is not fair. I don't worship them. I just like them a lot.

Heretics! By Sir Richard Arcos

I have once again braced myself and looked at one of Dr. Langdon's interminable and rot-laden books. The effort was great, but the sacrifice behooved to be made.
I would note that the Waldenses have been linked with the Catharii, on the grounds both were heretics. The problem with many modern popular studies is that, like the older studies of witchcraft, they take the accusations and actions of the denouncers at face value. This is rather silly. Seeing the word 'heretic,' these people construct a monolithic group called 'heretics,' as if hereic was a self-description. Note the silly statement that 'heretic' referred to those who chose the gnostic gospels, when even the gnostics were an amalgam of groups, identified as such because of their emphasis on 'hidden knowledge.' Were Dr. Langdon to do some serious research in books like Robert Rainy's The Ancient Catholic Church, or Harold O.J. Brown's Heresies so that he was actually actually aware of the differences between 'heretics,' e.g Nestorians and Monophysites, who hate each other more than the true church, he might perhaps be more sober in his assessment. But then he might not, like all people who see a 'conspiracy' running through history, he does violence to the facts in service of his beliefs. Like the more rabid Landmark Baptists and the sacrementarians, he sees all obscure sects as linked to a core group, in his case the Priory of Sion. All these 'heretics' are in some way related to said group, either because they 'knew' the 'truth,' or becasue they were set up by the group. The Knights Templar the 'Millitary arm of the Priory of Sion!' I mean, talk about blue-based baboons with Claw and Ball feet... As for the secret chapters, Dr Trevelyan is quite right that these were no more than business meetings. The Tempars were the first multi-national corporation, issuing letters of credit to knights who went on Crusade and deposited money with the Templars (a reason why the Templars had strong underground rooms). Try sitting in on a board meeting of Wal-Mart and see how far you get. These wallahs were talking about boodle most of the time. Their lands in Europe (which were very extensive) were designed to provide cash for the Crusade, not to mention rest homes for any Templars lucky enough to reach old age. Again, nothing sinister. And why, if the Crusades were designed to destroy evidence of the 'Sacred feminine', was Godfrey of Boullion on it in the first place? Oh, and if he was a member of the Priory of Sion, how could he have been elected leader by the alleged racist and sexist bigots who went along as well?

Were the Knights Templar heretics? Dr. Rainy (I)

The Knights Templar were not heretics by Roman Catholic standards. By the standards of the United Free Church of Scotland they... left something to be desired, but I'd probably let one into the Bible Class at Glenshilloch. They were actually devout Catholics. In the Middle Ages many groups were accused of heresy, ranging from the dualistic Cathari to the evangelical (and evangelistic) Waldenses. In fact, one of the easiest ways to get accused of heresy in the Middle Ages was to be extremely devout! This is true in some circles today.
Accusations of heresy were brought against the Knights Hospitaller in 1238. Pope Gregory IX declared that they had heretics in their midst. What the Hospitallers did about this is... not much. In 1312 the Beguines and Beguins, lay groups of women and men who lived together without taking formal vows, were accused of heresy. Pope John XXII condemned the Spiritual Franciscans for dividing from the Franciscan order and trying to maintain St. Francis' original rule! And the Teutonic Knights of Livonia were actually excommunicated for heresy in the late thirteenth-early fourteenth century. The Teutonic Knights got the charges dropped.

Accusations of heresy did not mean that the 'heretic' was anything of the sort.