by Steven Sora
Marseilles is recognized as the oldest city in the country of the Celtic Gauls.5 Its ports were visited by Greek and Phoenician sailors at least six hundred years before Christ was born. The Phoenicians had founded nearby Monaco three hundred years before Marseilles, but the port city grew faster in prominence. For twenty-six hundred years, Marseilles has been considered France’s most important seaport. The first recorded journey to Iceland, mentioned in the second chapter, was made by the writer and explorer Pytheas, who sailed from Marseilles in 330 B.C. The south of France soon became a crossroads for maritime and overland trade and, as a result, figured prominently in political and religious history.
In A.D. 117 Rome built a highway called the Via Aurelia from Rome to Marseilles along trade routes already established from Celtic times.6 The highway attested to the position of Marseilles as a trade center. It was not a remote outpost by any means, but a very populated city and the gateway to a populated region. The Roman historian Strabo, writing on Palestine’s growing status as a world trader during the Hellenistic period, before it was conquered by Rome, states that there was not a city in the world where the Jews were not to be found. They were accomplished merchants and traders from Solomon’s day onward, as is recorded in the Bible. If Solomon’s fleets traded with Tarshish, which we now identify as Spain, Marseilles was on the route.7
As a result of the Marseilles sea trade, the overland route grew as well, and along the trade routes from Rome to Marseilles to Spain sprang up many cities, including several that hold legends of the Jesus family and their landing, traveling through, or residing in these towns. Near Marseilles is the smaller city of Aix, now called Aix-en-Provence.8 Then, as now, it was considered a center of healing—its hot springs attracted people from Rome and even farther east. Such centers were found along the trade route in France and in the Spanish Pyrennees. These springs were regarded as representations of Earth’s fertility and were often considered sacred.
Toulon, also a short distance from Marseilles, was a Phoenician source of purple dyes well before Greece and Rome began to plant settlements there. Farther along the coast are Cannes, which possibly derives its name from sailors and settlers from Canaan, and Nice, founded and named by the Greeks for their goddess of victory, Nike.9 Understanding just how active trade was between the Levant and the southern coast of France makes it easier to understand the accessibility of France to the followers of Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea had the means, owning ships and being wealthy, as well as the motive, his own safety as well as the safety of his fellow believers, to escape and travel there. In one Gnostic text it was recorded that he was set adrift in a ship as part of his expulsion from Jerusalem; other texts say he simply sailed away in his own ship. In both cases there is the common denominator in the evidence of his sea passage from Palestine.
There is other evidence that very early Christians traveled to France. The bishop of Lyons in the second century was Irenaeus.10 This Church father wrote that Christianity was established in southern Gaul by followers of Jesus who had known him when he was alive. While he doesn’t narrow down the date, he implies that these were people who were alive in A.D. 30 and most likely were in France before A.D. 60. Joseph of Arimathea, under a death threat from the same Sanhedrin who had wanted Jesus executed, could have been one of those early Christians. History records more migrations to France and other countries from the Levant as a result of the same Roman repression that was the catalyst for the execution of Jesus. Further rebellions resulted in the flight of large groups of Jews to Tunis, Morocco, Spain, and France. After the Bar Kochba struggle and the siege of Masada, the refugees numbered in the tens of thousands.11
Jews in Marseilles were so numerous that it was regarded as the “Jewish City.” Many were wealthy traders and shipowners like Joseph. Despite widespread persecution during the early history of France, Jews were still numerous in Charlemagne’s day. A document from his time refers to “Jewish and other merchants,” attesting to their entrenchment among the middle classes.12
Besides the Gnostic texts that mention Joseph and early Jewish-Christian immigrants, there are other accounts held in higher regard. The Roman theologian Tertullian declared that this new religion, Christianity, could reach areas that were not accessible even to Rome. From Marseilles comes the legend of the landing of Jesus’ party in their seaport. The group is said to have included Joseph of Arimathea, the protector of Jesus and his family; Lazarus, a close friend; Martha; and the “three Marys.”13 Saint Lazarus, as he is now called, and Mary Magdalene immediately began to preach in the Temple of Diana, which caused no small commotion among her Celtic devotees. A cathedral dedicated to Mary Magdalene is now built over the site of this former pagan temple, but the victory of the Christian religion over the pagan rite was far from easy to win.14
Lyons was the scene of early persecutions against Christians who had arrived at the same time as Joseph and his group. Viennes, to which Herod had been deported, was also the site of Christian persecution. Saint-Tropez, that glamour spot for French vacationers, was named for Torpes, a Christian officer in one of Nero’s legions who was executed for his belief in A.D. 68. Nearby, in Aix-en-Provence, is another church dedicated to Mary Magdalene. There, Saint Maximin, who had accompanied Mary, was martyred. Once an important site for pilgrimage, it still features an abbey called Saint Maximin la Sainte Baume. Baume is from the Provençal word baoumo, which means “grotto.”15 There, Mary and Maximin hid in a cave in the wooded hills that surround the coast. The church preserves a skull venerated as that of Mary Magdalene.
Aix-en-Provence was a favorite place of René d’Anjou (1408–1480), who features prominently among a medieval group that preserved the history of the Jesus family in France. The man given credit for the Renaissance was conversant in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; a student of religion and history; and adept in the more mystical arts as well. During his reign, Aix had its golden age. René’s wealth enabled him to commission great art, usually of religious themes. One painting at Aix shows the Virgin and child sitting in a “burning bush.” The child is holding a mirror reflecting himself and his mother. In the background are the castles of Beaucaire and Tarascon as they once were. We can only guess at the significance, but René and others propagated the myth of the presence of the Holy Family in his lands in France. Another of the commissioned works depicts the archangel Gabriel giving Mary the news of her conception. His wings are of owl feathers, and a light from the hand of God passes over a monkey’s head in this strange work. Both owls and monkeys are ill omens connected to the black arts. The painting is kept locked away in the church of Mary Magdalene.16
West of Aix lies Tarascan.17 There the legends of Mary and company take a bizarre turn. Martha, whose house Jesus had visited shortly before his death, is given credit for having driven away a dragon that had plagued the people of that city. Every year on the last Sunday of June, a parade commemorating that legend still takes place. From the region of Lyon and Carcassonne west, the trail of the family through France continues to Bordeaux, the city that the Frankish king Dagobert called his Aquitaine capital in the seventh century. In Bordeaux is the Place des Martyrs-de-la-Resistance, a famous cemetary reputedly dedicated by Jesus himself. Bordeaux today is known as a famous wine-growing area, as is nearby Saint-Emilion.18 Saint-Emilion is the site of Europe’s largest underground church, cut into rock. Fertility cults once held their own rites there; later they became Christianized, to a point. In Saint-Emilion there is also a Templar commandery.
At Pomeral is another church to Saint-Emilion cut into rock; this one contains a zodiac, quite an atypical design for a Christian place of worship, since astrology is condemned by the Catholic Church. That did not stop the people of Bazas from naming a cathedral the House of the Astronomer. This church, complete with some very strange carvings supposedly holds the blood of Saint John the Baptist among its collection of relics. Still another odd site is Soulomes. Home to another Templar commandery, Soulomes has depictions of Mary Magdale
ne and Jesus, of the apostle Thomas, and of Jesus in company with a Templar. These sites describe a “history” very different from the accepted history of both church and state.
The history of Christianity is rife with violence resulting from an organized central authority wishing to force its minions to adhere to a rigid doctrine of belief. The south of France, which may have received the message of Christianity from an early date, is ironically the scene of the worst bloodshed resulting from religious persecution. Even more ironic is the fact that the Church’s attacks on fellow believers have been the worst events in the history of religious persecution.
The Visigoths
The south of France, like other areas of the Mediterranean, had a history of invaders and conquerors. The Celts yielded to Roman influence at about the time of the birth of Jesus. Toulouse was a Celtic city that had been settled in ancient times by a group called the Tectosages, which called most of southern France their own before being pushed out by Rome.19 The Tectosages had raided Greece in 279 B.C. and looted the sacred oracle temple at Delphi. Later on, this tribe went to war with the Ligurians, and Rome came to their defense. Rome raided the Tectosage treasure trove, which was said to hold 110 pounds of silver and one hundred thousand ounces of gold. Before escaping with their reward, they were attacked themselves and their cache lost before reaching Marseilles. Legends of buried treasure abound in the region.
During the reign of Constantine, the Roman Empire began to see the writing on the wall. Hordes of barbarians from the steppes were heading into Europe, pushed ahead by even stronger hordes coming behind them. The Goths made up one group, divided into East Goths and West Goths, or Ostrogoths and Visigoths.20 They were forced into a collision course with Rome. The Visigoths suffered defeat at the hands of Constantius, the son of Constantine, in A.D. 332. At the same time, they had captured a religious man, Wufila, who converted many of them to Christianity while he was held captive. But the conversion was not complete.
The Visigoths kept their pagan influences, and while they accepted Christianity on the surface, they persecuted those among them who would not worship the older gods.21 These Visigoths were an unusual blend of heathen Christians who lived by plunder. A religious civil war threatened to divide them, but support from the more powerful Huns saved them from becoming assimilated into more advanced civilizations. By A.D. 390 they were on the warpath again and were soundly defeated by the Romans. By that time the Romans could no longer mount the same caliber army as it once had, and the Visigoths found themselves attacking other barbarians, who were serving as mercenaries for Rome.
Between A.D. 408 and A.D. 410 the Visigoths, under Alaric I, plundered Rome. The first attack was bought off by ransom, but they simply attacked again. During the second attack Rome was completely sacked; part of the spoils was the plunder brought home by Roman centurions who had sacked Jerusalem. The goods looted from Rome actually included the treasures of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The barbarians headed north in their retreat from Italy.
Alaric, who had survived for years as a land-bound pirate killing and looting, did not survive the rigors of his wedding night. To avoid having his body fall into the hands of his enemies, his lieutenants had slaves divert the banks of the Busento and construct a vault under the riverbed to entomb their leader. The slaves themselves were all killed afterward, to avoid the chance that anyone would find out exactly where the fearless leader rested. The river was then allowed to return to its natural course. While there is no claim to a connection between the Visigoths and the Oak Island treasure, it is interesting to note just what measures they could and would take, seventeen hundred years ago, to protect a burial vault. Similar underwater vaults are located in the Wye River in southeast Wales—one that reportedly had once contained the manuscripts of Shakespeare was discovered to be empty in 1911. Shakespeare himself—or Bacon—wrote of a king buried under the River Soar in England.
Knowing that the Visigoths had looted treasures from Rome, which included treasures taken from Jerusalem, it would not be surprising to find that they had taken even greater measures to protect them than to protect the burial vault of their king. Alaric’s brother-in-law, Ataulf, married a captive named Galla Placidia, who was the sister of Honorius of Rome.22 Honorius was the inheritor of the western Roman Empire, and the marriage raised Ataulf to a greater status. He celebrated his marriage and new status with full Roman rites in Narbonne, in southern France. The name of Ataulf's adopted city, Narbonne, means the “Good Maiden,” or “Good Virgin,” and it may be there that the Levis, the family of Jesus, met the Visigoths. The historian Origen mysteriously calls Mary Magdelene “the mother of us all” and also writes of her entrance into southern France through the port city of Marseilles.23 If Mary had been bearing the child of Jesus, that child would have been born in southern France. As late as the twelfth century the Jews of Narbonne claimed that their king (his heir) was living among them.24 The Arian Visigoths and the Jewish-Christians of the Jesus family both regarded the king in the Davidic line as a man and not a god. Both Jews and Visigoths believed that there was only one supreme God. The Visigoths later became allies of Rome and brought peace to southern France that lasted for centuries.
The next group to be pushed west by stronger barbarians in the east was the Franks. The Huns, under their legendary leader Attila, were much stronger contenders. For this reason, the Franks chose to find greener pastures in France. While the Visigoths were allied with Rome in the south of France, the Salian Franks allied themselves to Rome in the north. This alliance held against the Huns on the Plains of Moiry. The battle was the second serious defeat for the Huns and turned them eastward in retreat (A.D. 451). Peace reigned for a time as the Franks in the north and the Visigoths in the south shared Gaul. Visigothic territory was the richer land, and Euric, the leader of the Visigoths, started to expand his kingdom into Spain in A.D. 470, at the expense of the dying Roman colonies.
The Germanic Franks in the north began to grow jealous of the wealth of their neighbors in the south. Under a system called “Hospitalitas,” Visigoths became great landowners in return for having served with the Roman armed forces. The Germanic mercenaries wanted the same. As Rome gave up estates, the Visigoths steadily became wealthier, and conflict with their closest Frankish neighbors, the Merovingians, became inevitable. While the rules of a feudal system were safeguards against conflict, religion became an excuse, a catalyst for conflict.
The Visigoths had accepted the Arian Christian faith that placed the one supreme God above all. This form of the faith had been acceptable to the early Christian Church, as it had to the Jewish followers of Jesus. Later the Roman Church held the First Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) and adopted the position that Jesus was the Son of God and equal to God. They also adopted the concept of a Holy Trinity, which more closely resembled the Greek mystery religions—but without a female deity. The council declared that any divergent belief was a sin. The Frankish leader Clovis I saw his opportunity to remain with Rome. He declared himself a Christian and was baptized immediately. Immediately after conversion, he sought to conquer his wealthy neighbors in the south.
Besides the wealth of prosperous farms that was held by the Visigoths, Euric also had held the treasures plundered from Rome, specifically those of the Temple of Solomon. Euric adopted Toulouse as his base, and his treasure was hidden there.
After the reign of Euric, his son, Alaric II, took over. Alaric was no heir to his father’s and grandfather’s fighting ability and constantly yielded to Clovis in the north. The feeble Alaric was resigned to a Merovingian conquest of his region, since the Franks had the support of the Church and Rome. He continued to cede territory rather than fight and surrendered a fugitive Gallo-Roman king to Clovis. The appeasement strategy served only to build Clovis’s confidence, and in 507 the newly Christian Clovis himself killed Alaric, to become the king of France. Visigothic Spain and Frankish (Merovingian) Gaul had one last territory to battle over, the border lands between the
m known as Septimania; the struggle went on for years.25 The region became home to constant warfare, and religion was ostensibly the reason. Visigothic nobles tenaciously held on to their important centers, like Narbonne, and were backed by the Basques, who still control the mountainous region between the two countries.
The Crusade Against the Cathari
Not far from Aix is the town of Béziers.26 Just how many people from the east settled there will never be known, but Béziers became a center of what came to be regarded as the Arian heresy and the center of the sect of Christian believers known as the Cathari, who denied the central authority of Rome. They were targeted by the Roman Church as part of the debate over Christ’s nature on Earth—was he man or god? Like the Jewish-Christians, the Cathari believed that Jesus on Earth was a man, a prophet. The scions of the Jesus bloodline, too, believed that he was a man. The Church, however, taught that Jesus was God even when he was on Earth—the question was not open to debate.
In 1209 forces of the Church massacred the entire population of the city. Seven thousand Cathari were killed in the church of the Madaleine. The leader of the Christian forces asked the prelate sent by the Pope just how he would know who the Cathari were. The church leader declared, “Kill them all; God will know his own.”27 From there they massacred Cathari and Christians alike in the surrounding towns and villages in a genocidal action that depopulated much of the wealthy Languedoc region of France.
The fortress of the Cathari was their stronghold at Montsegur.28 Guy de Levis owned the temple at Montsegur, which had been regarded as the “earthly image of their faith.”29 The Cathari held out here against a siege by the Church of Rome, which they regarded as the Antichrist that John had warned about in the Apocalypse. Rome after all, was love (amor) spelled backward and thus the antithesis of everything Jesus had taught. In the Book of Revelation, John had declared that he, too, was of the royal bloodline. “I am the root and the offspring of David.”30 The Church had every intention of stamping out the root and stock of David—such a bloodline had threatened Rome previously. The Church had become the survivor of the state of Rome. In the stamping out of the “sprouts” of the sacred bloodline, the line of David, were the descendants of the family of Jesus among the casualties? There is evidence that they were and possibly this family was, in fact, the target of such a crusade.