Outremer III
Page 6
“Perhaps! She was born in the year of our Lord AD 1160. Huh, there was once talk that she would be betrothed to Stewart…or you,” Theodoric explained looking up at Paul. Alisha immediately held Paul’s hand with both of hers, looking slightly alarmed. Theodoric laughed. “Fear not, Ali, that time has long since gone.”
“Good…I am glad to hear so,” she replied.
“Tamar is of the Royal House of Bagrationi, her father was George the Third and her mother was Burdukhan. She was a fine woman…,” Theodoric said and smiled as Sister Lucy playfully thumped him. “Tamar is a Christian woman but knows much indeed. Your father told her one sentence when she was just a small child and yet she can still recount it perfectly.”
“What is that then?” Tenno asked.
“‘We have to stay true to our convictions, no matter how high the price’… that is it. Nowadays Tamar has a dream whereby she aims to merge both the Georgian and Roman Empires. She has already practically succeeded in this despite her youth. She is also known as Tamara, her Latin name. Tamar uses the name Tamar Johanna Georgia in her term as Pope, she is already known to some initiates as Pope Joan.”
“What…Pope Joan! How so?” Paul asked, utterly intrigued.
“Tamar’s youth coincided with a major upheaval in Georgia. In AD 1177, her father, George the Third, was confronted by a rebellious faction of nobles. The rebels intended to dethrone George in favour of the king’s fraternal nephew, Demna, who was considered by many to be a legitimate royal heir of his murdered father, David the Fifth. Demna’s cause was little but a pretext for the nobles, led by the pretender’s father-in-law, the amirspasalar ‘constable’ Ivane Orbeli, to weaken the crown. George the Third was able to crush the revolt and embarked on a campaign to crack down on the defiant aristocratic clans. Ivane Orbeli was put to death and the surviving members of his family were driven out of Georgia. Prince Demna, castrated and blinded on his uncle’s order, did not survive the mutilation and soon died in prison. Once the rebellion was suppressed and the pretender eliminated, George went ahead to co-opt Tamar into government with him and crowned her as co-ruler in AD 1178. By doing so, the king attempted to pre-empt any dispute after his death and legitimise his line on the throne of Georgia. At the same time, he raised men from the gentry and unranked classes to keep the dynastic aristocracy away from the centre of power. Tamar is good at diplomacy and politics and she overshadows her father in the government. Her father lets her do all the hard work and she is now the most powerful person in the kingdom. She set up new laws for more equality and less corruption in the kingdom. The kingdom is flourishing and is growing into a mighty nation. Tamar despite her young age has already reunited the Orthodox and Catholic Churches who split up in the Great Schism of AD 1054. She has also built many churches to convert many people and spread Christianity. If I told you that I know she will become a pope, would you believe me?” Theodoric asked and looked at Sister Lucy who hit him again.
“A pope?” Paul remarked.
“Yes…’tis written in her charts and is why some higher initiates already call her Pope Joan as I just said.”
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“That I should like to see,” Paul replied, looking incredulous.
“Paul, there has already been one female pope, though much of the facts have been obfuscated and erased from history…well, as much as could be.”
“What does this woman have to do with us here, now and in Cairo?” Alisha asked.
“She has in her possession a manuscript…one that she has vowed to have copied and placed back in the Vatican or wherever the popes of the future will reside. ’Tis an authentic manuscript that could turn the whole philosophy of the Christian Church upside down, for it details that Mary Magdalene was indeed the thirteenth apostle and that she was Jesus’s fiancé and later wife. The manuscript describes her as Jesus’s most trusted and closest disciple. It also describes her as the actual founder of Christianity. Tamar demanded from the Church an explanation for this act of secretion but the Church responded that if these secrets were to be revealed, then the whole of society as we know it will collapse. It is why she allows women to be ordained and hold offices in the clergy. Although women may be elected as Pope, none have been elected openly so far. She will do much to change how women are perceived within the Church…and there will come a day when the Church finally admits that Mary Magdalene was in fact, actually the first pope…not Peter!”
“Is this all true?” Paul asked quizzically.
“Yes…every word. ’Tis why despite her age she is already called a king. Granted in Georgia they have no masculine and feminine differentiation as such, but she is called Mepe, which means king…or sovereign. She is much like you,” Theodoric said looking up at Alisha.
“Then Paul shall never meet her,” she quickly replied and pulled Paul closer.
“But how does this have anything to do with Abi?” Tenno asked as he sat up straighter.
“I shall explain,” Theodoric replied and cleared his throat again. “According to written documents and family legend…and as the Georgian chronicler Sumbat Davitis-Dze writes, the ancestors of the dynasty trace their descent to the Biblical King David and came from Palestine around AD 530. Yes, the same David who killed the giant Goliath with a stone from his sling! Paul…Remember before that I told you that even King David was tall himself? The bronze helmet they tried to put upon his young head before the fight did not fit…remember?” Theodoric asked as Paul then nodded yes. “Good. Then know that native Georgians call themselves Kartvelebi, and their land Sakartvelo, which means ‘a place for Kartvelians’. According to the ancient Georgian Chronicles, the ancestor of the Kartvelian people was Kartlos, the great grandson of the biblical Japheth…Noah’s son Kartlos was son of Togarmah, son of Gomer, the eldest son of Japeth. Kartlos should have been ‘a brave, gigantic man, the legendary giant’. Well Mount Kazbek is a major mountain of the Caucasus region not far from where Abi’s ancestors came from. It is associated in Georgian folklore with Amirani, the Georgian version of Prometheus, the Titan from Greek mythology, who was chained on the mountain in punishment for having stolen fire from the gods and having given it to mortals. The legend is traced to between three thousand and two thousand years BC. The location of his imprisonment later became the site of an Orthodox hermitage located in a cave called ‘Betlemi’, almost identical in both written and spoken words as Bethlehem, at around twelve thousand feet level. According to legends, this cave housed many sacred relics, including the biblical Abraham’s tent and the manger of the infant Jesus. In the Monastery Shemokmedi in the western Georgian province of Guria you can find a painting of a six fingered angel, and it is said that giants often had six fingers. The site even pre-dates the monastery’s early Christian origins and there is also a ‘Stone of Giant’. According to a legend a giant used to terrify the village until Saint George was called to help. He killed the giant, as he had killed the dragon, and the grateful people erected the church for Saint George. See how similar the tales are to those of Britain?”
“And?” Tenno asked bluntly as if impatient to learn more.
“And…and in Greek mythology Aeëtes was a King of Colchis, an ancient Georgian kingdom. Aeëtes was a son of the Titan Sun God Helios and Perseis, a daughter of the Titan Oceanus. His daughter Medea, sometimes known as the witch of Colchis, helped Jason of Argonaut fame secure the Golden Fleece. Medea then fled with Jason. Her son Medeus became the eponymous founder of the Persians. Now according to the gospels of Luke and Matthew, David was an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Joseph and Mary. He is depicted as an acclaimed warrior, musician, and poet…and he is also known for having red hair, based on the description of his physical appearance as ‘admoni’, ‘red-haired’, in 1 Samuel 16–17. He had a fine appearance and handsome features and his life is conventionally dated to 1040–970 BC. Jesus Christ of the Bible will be proved to have been a genuine historical person just as King David was…and that he was tall, blonde and had blue eyes j
ust as the letter from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar stated.”
“Why what did it state?” Alisha asked.
“It said…if I can recall it all, but you can verify the facts as it is all written down…‘His golden coloured hair and beard gave to his appearance a celestial aspect.’ Or from the Archko Volume in The Vatican where its states ‘He is the picture of his mother. His hair is a little more golden than hers. He is tall, and his shoulders are a little drooped. His eyes are large and a soft blue.’ According to Genesis and Ruth, David is the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob of Israel and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants. He was the grandson of Abraham. Father Abraham made according to the scriptures a covenant with God, who promised land and descendants as numerous as the stars. Abraham’s father, Terah, was born in Nippur into a priestly-royal family, but moved later to the ancient city of Ur and then to Haran, which was an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia and now a village in Sanliurfa. Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Babylonian cities of which we have any knowledge, the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil. The Sumerian scriptures say that when Enlil saw that the humans created by his brother Enki were demi-gods, giants, he decided to kill them by sending a flood. Christians believe that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham through Isaac. Isaac who was saved by an angel when God tested Abraham’s faith by telling him to sacrifice his son on an altar…at the very place where the dome of the rock now stands in Jerusalem. Abraham was a descendant of Noah’s son Shem. Noah of the Great Flood had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. We all know the biblical story about Noah and the Ark yes?” Theodoric explained and asked then looked at Tenno.
“Yes I too know full well the story,” Tenno replied.
“Good…Well to remind ourselves again…God saw that man had become wicked and decided to send a great flood to cleanse the earth. But God told Noah to build a large ark. When Noah, his family and all the animals were on board, God sent the Flood, which rises until all the mountains are covered and all life on earth is destroyed. According to the Bible the Ark came to rest on one of the tops of the mountains of Ararat. Noah and his family were safe and could start to repopulate the earth.”
“Forgive me, but I fail to see how this has anything to do with Abi or giants,” Tenno interrupted as Attar smiled at his look.
“In short,” Theodoric started to reply then thought on his choice or words and laughed briefly. “Okay, not short, but in simple terms, there is a clear link between the ruling family of Georgia and Noah of the Great Flood. As the scriptures state… ‘There were giants in the earth in those days, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them’. Some biblical literalists say that the ones that God wanted to cleanse from the earth with the Great Flood were the children that his sons had with humans…the giants! So let us say that the giants were wiped from the earth by the Great Flood but obviously a few of them survived. Some say that one of the women aboard the Ark was already pregnant with a giant. It could even have been Noah’s wife, as some speculate! The giant’s blood-line survived through the Great Flood, and was brought to what was supposed to be a giant-free earth! A Jewish legend tells that the giant King Og begged and prayed to Noah to come aboard the Ark, and that Noah made an agreement with him that he could sit on the back of a giant unicorn that was tied to the outside of the Ark since there was not enough room inside for it. Recall that the flag of Georgia has a unicorn upon it? Og was the king of the Amorites, described in Genesis 10:16 as descendants of Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah. They are described as a powerful people of great stature like ‘the height of the cedars’, who had occupied the land east and west of the Jordan. King Og is being described as the last ‘of the remnant of the Rephaim’, the giants.
“It is a sad but real truth that many in the years ahead will disbelieve our holy books and label them as purely the ignorant ramblings of a people in time who simply did not understand the past and the reality of our world,” Attar said quietly.
“True…but likewise, that attitude will go full circle as man learns even more and again recognises the hidden truths carried within all holy books,” Theodoric commented.
“But there is no physical evidence to support most of what the holy books claim,” Paul remarked.
“Oh yes there is, my young man…and plenty of it. Just travel beneath the pyramids and you will see,” Theodoric replied instantly with a large smile upon his face.
“Oh no you won’t,” Alisha snapped and scowled mockingly at Paul but meaning it none the less.
“Many doubt that the story from the Bible about Noah and the Flood has anything to do with reality, and say that no physical evidence of the Ark has been found. Well, the biblical version is but a copy and borrowing of an even earlier telling of the story, but it is a story that really happened and now carries over into our times. All the mathematical and esoteric codes are likewise all carried over within them. All across the known world, including China and even your own home lands,” Theodoric said looking at Tenno, “all have great flood stories and legends as recounted for millennia before our peoples made contact. Your fathers and I found seashell fossils on mountain tops all over the high places we have visited. How could they possibly get deposited there?”
“My father says because the lands changed…what were valleys became mountains and what were mountains sank beneath the seas…,” Paul remarked.
“Yes…all of those things happened. We found on more than one trip great stone harbours…but thousands of feet above sea level. On Mount Ararat we discovered a piece of ancient wood but also a strange metal trestle over 450 feet long by 75 feet wide buried on the side of the mountain. It still lays beneath the earth now. The measurements correspond to the dimensions of the Ark given to Noah in the Bible. But as we also learnt… there were many arks, not just the one,” Theodoric explained and paused as he took a sip of some water from a glass upon the low table. “Have you heard of Gog and Magog?”
“Yes,” Paul answered as Alisha and Tenno shook their heads no.
“Well Magog is the second of the seven sons of Japheth, one of Noah’s three sons, as mentioned in Genesis. The land given to Magog after the Flood was the region north and east of the Caucasus, and his descendants were referred to by the Greeks as Scythians. Gomer was Japeth’s eldest son, and it has been debated what land he and his ancestors populated. According to the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, Gomerians or Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Stone stelae found in the region and the northern Caucasus have been connected with the Cimmerians, and they are in a style clearly different from both the later Scythians. Military intelligence reports to the Assyrian king Sargon in the eighth century BC described the Cimmerians as occupying territory south of the Black Sea, while the first century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus placed Gomer and the Gomerites in ancient Galatia…an area in the highlands of central Anatolia. Some believe that Galatia was named after the immigrant Gauls, the Celts from Thrace, who settled there and became its ruling caste in the third century BC…and remember the Greek myth about the hundred Thracian giants who waged war on the gods? The Scythians were a race of superb horsemen and archers. The Kurgans were quite literally the original Caucasians, having originated from the area around the Caucasus from which the term has derived almost a thousand years before the Scythians, even if the Scythians can be said to be Kurgans, for they were tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, expert horsemen and chariot riders. They buried their dead in large burial mounds, the term kurgan means ‘burial mound’. Now Meshech was another son of Japeth. He is named with his brother Tubal as principalities of Gog, prince of Magog. Yes, Magog is in the Book of Ezekiel as a place and not an individual. Son of man, direct your face towards Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince, leader of Meshech and Tubal.”
“So who was Gog?” Alisha asked, even more puzzled.