First Templar Nation

by Freddy Silva

  What was so special about this ruined church? Sure, it stood on the site of the former Benedictine monastery, and near where Saint Erea was martyred, “her sacred well still inside the monastery, site of many miracles,”10 but beyond a gesture of respect their actions seem irrational, metaphysical even. Stubbornly, the group commenced no other projects until the church was complete.11 Even the campaign to push the remaining Moors on Portuguese soil back to North Africa was wholly entrusted to Afonso Henriques.

  The symbolism in the architecture of this building to which the Templars so devoted themselves reveals the reason for their apparent madness. Dedicated to Mary Magdalene,*2612 the church emerged as an exercise in purity, humility, and elegant simplicity, as though the architect were a Cistercian. An enormous twelve-pointed rosette dominated the austere Gothic façade, while the crown of the building featured an unusual apse consisting of seven chambers in a fan shape similar to the star emblem of the Egyptian goddess Seshat, the patron of sacred buildings. Inside, the arch leading into the apse featured a smaller yet prominent circular window framing a carved limestone pentagram, the ancient Egyptian symbol of the divine virgin or Isis, but also Sophia, or sophis, the “wisdom” to which esoteric brotherhoods and gnostic sects are so dedicated.

  Sheshat and her seven rays.

  Santa Maria do Olival, the “mother church of all Templar churches.”

  Symbol of Isis inside Santa Maria do Olival.

  That this building was of undisclosed importance is an understatement. In time, the church of Santa Maria do Olival would become the pantheon of the Templars, with all twenty-two future Portuguese Masters buried inside.13 Interestingly, the biblical Mount Olivet (from which Olival derives its name) has long been prophesied as the place where the dead are brought to life;14 it is the site where King Solomon first erected a number of altars,15 not to mention where Jesus was betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, just as thirty silver coins became the token “price of admission” into the Templar Order. It is as though the Templars were making a point, and the humble church they erected became a focal point for a grand design when it was subsequently elected the “mother church of all Templar churches,” including those in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, during the Portuguese period of Discoveries.16

  Tellingly, this was the same title earlier awarded to the Essene church on Mount Sion; by Emperor Hadrian’s time it was already referred to as the “Mother of all churches,” built as it was over the tomb of King David and possibly an even older temple,17 and the spot upon which Godefroi de Bouillon erected the eight-pillared circular Chamber of Mysteries.

  After completing their church, the Templars finally took an interest in the adjacent limestone hill and moved to the next item on the agenda. According to legend, “Master Pais and some monks searched the site where Santa Maria do Olival now stands and found it had been built upon before . . . and launched spears three times, and three times they landed on that site and they agreed to build on that site.”18 Obviously, no human is capable of launching spears half a mile, let alone make them land three times on the same spot and on top of a hill, and yet the legend is not unusual. Identical stories exist in connection with the founding of sacred sites, one being the masterful English gothic cathedral of Salisbury, whose location was decided by the shot of an arrow from a nearby Neolithic sacred mound (also dedicated to fertility and the divine feminine) an even more preposterous two miles distant.

  Paes would not have been familiar with that legend because it was still sixty years in the future, yet to someone inducted into the Mysteries the allegory is all too familiar. In ancient times, prior to erecting a sacred structure, an elite priesthood would be called to assess and locate a hotspot of favorable earth energy, which today would be called geomancy. This practice continued into Greek and Roman times via a priesthood called the College of the Augurs, whose name and purpose is still commemorated in the opening ceremony of important places, the in-augu-ration.19 In Egypt the process included the act of “piercing the snake.”20 The snake represents the naturally occurring pathways of electromagnetism that flow through and along the Earth like invisible ribbons. This energy is a prerequisite for making the temple function like an electrical circuit, and every sacred site on Earth is located at the intersection of such telluric currents.21 However, due to its meandering nature this energy must first be rooted to the spot by a kind of earth acupuncture, and all around the world there exist emblems depicting a god pinning down a serpent with a rod or a serpent wrapped around a tall needlelike stone.

  The serpent and the pillar, later known as the caduceus, often depicted with a god.

  In medieval times the process acquired imagery recognizable to that period, such as the throwing of a spear or the shooting of an arrow. Gualdino Paes would have been familiar with such symbolism if during his second tour of the Holy Land he followed Bernard de Clairvaux’s instruction to attend the sacred places and understand the spiritual context of the land. Evidence that he did just that comes from a eulogy inscribed on a white marble slab at the behest of Afonso Henriques in honor of his friend:*27 “Master Galdino blossomed, into a true noble, native of Braga, during the reign of the illustrious king of Portugal, abandoned the secular military, and shone as a bright star, because having become a knight of the Temple, he journeyed to Jerusalem and during five years did not put down his arms nor rested; together with the Master and his brothers he engaged in battle with the king of Egypt and Syria. After five years he returned to the one who educated and trained him a knight.”

  So, this knight not only “abandoned the secular military,” he also “shone as a bright star”—not like a bright star but as one. This subtlety may seem trivial, but to anyone familiar with Egyptian mysticism the implications are immense.

  A central component for initiates of the ancient Mysteries schools was a ritual in which the soul is awakened and the individual no longer associates solely with material forces. It would follow several years of observation of the candidate and instruction in esoteric arts. The metaphor associated with this rite is “raising the dead,” whereupon the initiate becomes “as a star.”22 Paes spent five years in the Holy Land, long enough to come into contact with its sacred places, their spiritual practices, and the various esoteric sects teaching them, so it is highly likely he was indoctrinated into the sacred arts. If so, he followed in the footsteps of Count Dom Henrique, for he too “venerated the Sacred Places” and was entrusted with holy relics in Jerusalem.23 Certainly, upon his return from the Holy Land, Gualdino came armed only with the hand of Saint Gregory the Nazarene, which he later placed in the church he and the Templars dedicated a whole year to rebuild in Thamar, where its flesh remains “without corruption, just like his body in Rome, without corruption.”24

  Interior of the church at Olival.

  In a metaphysical twist, the Templars’ behavior in Thamar takes on a patina of ancient ritual.

  Not only does the Templar Master appear to have been initiated into the Mysteries, he may even have excelled as a “master of the craft,” because the three spears Gualdino figuratively launched correspond to the graphic mark carved by the master mason on the keystone of sacred buildings. This symbol at once resembles three spears or the three rays synonymous with the descent of the Holy Spirit. Such a mark exists on a keystone on the promontory above Thamar. Its date of March 1, 1160, marks the inauguration of a striking round church strangely reminiscent of the one in Jerusalem by the name of Holy Sepulcher.

  35

  68 AD. MOUNT SION. MEN IN WHITE, HIDING SCROLLS AND OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS . . .

  The Essenes were said to be “faithful even unto death” rather than give up the secrets of the Way, as though these mystics held some special covenant with God that embodied the spiritual aspirations of all peoples.1 With the Romans advancing on Jerusalem, a decision was made to evacuate their church and synagogue on Mount Sion, but not before concealing several scrolls in a vault under the Holy of Holies on Temple Mount. Regard
less of the outcome, the secrets would be preserved.

  The mystical brotherhood escaped the Roman destruction of their temples by fleeing to Jordan and taking with them the remaining scrolls to be secreted in five other locations.2

  Two years after the persecutions, the Essenes returned and rebuilt their sanctuary; after all, this had been the most important of Essene communities, located as it was on Mount Sion.*28 Leadership was provided by Simon Bar Kleopha, a descendent of the Davidic family.3

  The Essene scrolls containing the sum of all their knowledge—their “treasure”—were considered all but lost for nearly two thousand years, when two goatherds stumbled upon them in a cave at Qumran. And thus, the world learned of the existence of secret books, rituals, and knowledge “revealed by God.” One scroll made of copper even offered precise directions to no less than sixty-one different caches of goodies. More importantly, it revealed how the Knights Templar had known all along where to look under Temple Mount and how they came to follow and embody a mystical doctrine.

  Many parallels exist between the Essenes and the Templars: both favored a monastic existence, wore white habits, disposed of their wealth one year after being ordained, believed in various levels of membership, and despite a broad outer group, only initiates were allowed into the inner sanctum of their temples.4 Both undertook vows of obedience and absolute secrecy absolutely, to the point where initiates would take teachings to the grave. And no wonder, as both groups claimed to be in possession of very secret information offering nothing less than paradise itself.

  Insofar as the Essenes and the Cistercians were concerned, both practiced a communal life dedicated to asceticism, piety, voluntary poverty, and abstinence from worldly pleasures. They devoted themselves to charity, forbade expressions of anger, and also studied the Mysteries and preserved their secrets.

  All three were spiritual brotherhoods whose members practiced truth, righteousness, kindness, justice, universal benevolence, religious tolerance, honesty, and humility.

  The Essenes also shared many traits with a contemporary gnostic sect called the Nasoreans, and sufficient evidence shows both groups were one and the same, to the degree that both names were combined as Naassennes.5 The root nasrani means “a group of little fishes,” hence their logo of two interlocking arcs resembling a fish. During his time, Jesus was seen as a member rather than an original leader of this sect.6

  The Nasoreans survive today in southern Iraq as the Natzoraje, part of a Mandean sect. The Mandeans—whose name originates from manda (secret knowledge)—still follow an ancient form of gnosticism and conduct initiations leading to forms of ecstasy.7 Interestingly, they trace their religious roots not to Jesus but to an individual named Yahia Yuhana, otherwise known as John the Baptist, and their texts state how their faith was once that of Egypt.8 Like the Essenes in their time, the Mandeans’ opinion of Jesus in the bigger scheme of things is quite low; they believe him to be a rebel who, in his rashness, betrayed secret doctrines entrusted to him.9

  The thread connecting these sects is simple: they are all descendents of initiatory traditions—and antecedents of the Templar practices, which in turn were preserved in the rites of Scottish Freemasonry—that can be traced as far back as the fourteenth century BC and the time when Moses was privy to the same secret teachings of the pharaonic inner circle. Sufficient evidence suggests the reason for his hasty departure from Egypt while chased by an understandably angry pharaoh is that he absconded with secrets that should never have left the Holy of Holies of the temple. In the Assumption of Moses—an Essene work—Moses gives instruction to preserve these special books and the need to keep them hidden.10 Like a forerunner of the Essenes’ frantic efforts at concealment before the arrival of the Roman army, the books were to be placed “in earthen vessels in the place which He made from the beginning of the creation of the world.”11 Such places created by a deity at the beginning of time are known to indigenous cultures as primordial mounds or navels of the earth; they are sites of incalculable sanctity and, coincidentally, hotspots where the Earth’s telluric currents meet and influence the human body to an extraordinary degree.12 One such hotspot is Temple Mount in Jerusalem or, to be more specific, the rock beneath the Holy of Holies.

  To be privy to the knowledge contained in such teachings, the individual was first indoctrinated into an esoteric or gnostic brotherhood. Upon successfully completing a period of observation the candidate was then admitted into an inner group, a brotherhood within a brotherhood, exactly like the Templars, and initiation into the fuller Mysteries ensued. In ancient Egypt there is a recurring theme of members of the pharaoh’s household being favored to join such an inner circle to “master secret things of the pharaoh.” One individual who takes up initiation is led into a restricted chamber where he joyfully proclaims, “I found the way.”13 This expression, which can be traced to the Chinese practice of Dao (the Way) in 2800 BC, was adopted by the Essenes and by the Jerusalem Church of the early Christians, whose initiates were referred to as “those of the Way,” as well as the “children of the light.”

  Under Temple Mount.

  One of the unusual items unearthed in the caves at Qumran was the Copper Scroll, an engraved roll consisting of twenty-three items of inventory stamped across eight columns of copper, each sheet of metal riveted rather than sewn, and designed by the scribe to be handled as a normal parchment scroll, read from right to left and rolled from each end. It reads like a veritable treasure map: “In the Great Cistern which is in the Court of Peristyle, in the plaster of its floor, concealed in a hole in front of the upper opening: nine hundred talents. . . . In the cavity of the Old House of Tribute, in the Platform of the Chain: sixty five bars of gold . . . nine cubits under the southern corner: gold and silver vessels for tithe, sprinkling basins, cups, sacrificial bowls, libation vessels, in all six hundred and nine.”14 In total, the Essenes concealed sixty-five gold bars, 1,280 gold talents, and more than 3,282 talents of silver.15 That is in addition to the vessels.

  Further along it is revealed that no less than two dozen of the locations are within the precinct of Temple Mount.16 From these clues, and from cross-references in contemporary accounts by the historian Josephus, it became possible to identify the area under Herod’s Temple where part of the treasure was sequestered, specifically in a roughly hewn chamber at the north end of the western cistern, later identified as the House of the Two Pools.17 There, a copy of the Copper Scroll was secreted along with “scrolls amongst the jars,” beneath the altar, in a cave capped with a marble block with a ring at its center.18

  It was these other scrolls that were of interest to the Templars because, like those unearthed by the two goatherds at Qumran, they are concerned less with temporal matters and more with spiritual ones, in addition to works that not only precede but dramatically differ in content from the highly edited narrative put forward by the Catholic Church.19 There were just two obstacles in reading the contents, then and now: one, they were written in a forgotten language, and two, parts of the scrolls were written in code.

  One of the earliest researchers of these Dead Sea scrolls, Father J. T. Milik, noticed how certain scrolls used cryptic devices such as two parallel alphabets with randomly inserted symbols; in some cases the script ran in reverse. Then, a cipher discovered by the British Bible scholar and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Hugh Schonfield opened the way to illumination. Thanks to this Atbash Cipher, elements such as coded names hidden in the texts could now be revealed. For example, when applied to a character named Taxo (also spelled Tacho), who also appears in the Assumption of Moses, interesting details emerge. In the commentary, Taxo urges his sons to retire with him to a cave and undergo a symbolic death that ushers in a kingdom of heaven on Earth. An obviously allegorical tale, it describes an initiation of the enlightened through the resurrection of the soul that fosters a more ideal way of life. When filtered through the Atbash Cipher the name of this mysterious individual transliterates to Asaph, the name of the master mason
who assisted Solomon in the building of his temple and the pseudonym adopted by the leader of the later Essene community.

  At some point the name Taxo migrated westward to Spain and Portugal, where it is pronounced the same way but spelled Tajo and Tejo, the name of Portugal’s principal river, whose origin is a mystery in itself.*29 But two things are certain: the river Tejo once defined the southernmost boundary of Count Dom Henriques’s territory of Portugale, and it is the principal water route by which one reaches the Templars’ final home at Thamar.

  Temple of Solomon reconstructed.

  The Atbash Cipher does not just work on the Essene Scrolls, it also works on Templar code words. For example, after the Templars were rounded up on October 13, 1307, the Inquisition accused them of worshiping a mysterious devil called Baphomet, yet when the cipher is applied the word simply transliterates as sophis, the Greek term for “wisdom.”20 So, not as sinister as the church has had us believe, in fact, quite the opposite.

  The implications are clear: the Templars discovered a treasure of scrolls under Temple Mount and a monetary treasure, and they did it thanks to cryptographers who unraveled both the language and the cipher. With their newfound and carefully guarded knowledge they embarked on a journey of empowering people through enlightenment, using the finances at their disposal to build the finest medieval temples, the Gothic cathedrals, while resurrecting from the dead some of the most insensate parts of Europe. And they were loved for it.

  This outstanding journey by a group of spiritual knights on a seemingly futile quest to recover a hard-to-get treasure bears all the hallmarks of a Grail quest.