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SOPHIA OF WISDOM III - TEMPLAR REVELATION 01
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THE LIBRARY OF SOPHIA OF WISDOM III
THE SOPHIA OF ALL SOPHIA OF WISDOMS
AKA
CAROLINE E. KENNEDY. JR._________________
JAN 21, 2007
RE: TEMPLAR REVELATION 01
****NOTES FROM SOPHIA OF WISDOM III AKA CAROLINE E. KENNEDY,JR....I FIND THE STATEMENT THAT THEY FOUND A SKIN AND EYES THAT SHINE LIKE HEAVEN TO BE TRUE.....
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a woman's face, and a small skull, resembling that of a woman, inside, which was said to be that of one of the eleven thousand virgins. At the same time another head was brought forward, having a beard, and supposed to be that of the idol. 91 Both these witnesses had no doubt confounded two things. Pierre Garald, of Mursac, another witness, said that after he had denied Christ and spitten on the cross, the receptor drew from his bosom a certain small image of brass or gold, which appeared to represent the figure of a woman, and told him that "he must believe in it, and have faith in it, and that it would be well for him." Here the idol appears in the form of a statuette. There was also another account of the idol, which perhaps refers to some further object of superstition among the templars. According to one deponent,
it was an old skin embalmed, with bright carbuncles for eyes, which shone like the light of heaven. Others said that it was the skin of a man, but agreed with the others in regard to the carbuncles.
92 In England a minorite friar deposed that an English knight of the Temple had assured him that the templars had four principal idols in this country, one in the sacristy of the Temple in London, another at Bristelham, a third at Brueria (Bruern in
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Lincolnshire), and the fourth at some place beyond the Humber. 93
Another piece of information relating to this "idol," which has been the subject of considerable discussion among modern writers, was elicited from the examination of some knights from the south. Gauserand de Montpesant, a knight of Provence, said that their superior showed him an idol made in the form of Baffomet; another, named Raymond Rubei, described it as a wooden head, on which the figure of Baphomet was painted, and adds, "that he worshipped it by kissing its feet, and exclaiming, 'Yalla,' which was," he says, "verbum Saracenorum," a word taken from the Saracens. 94 A templar of Florence declared that, in the secret chapters of the order, one brother said to the other, showing the idol, "Adore this head--this head is your god and your Mahomet." The word Mahomet was used commonly in the middle ages as a general term for an idol or false god; but some writers have suggested that Baphomet is itself a mere corruption of Mahomet, and suppose that the templars had secretly embraced Mahometanism. A much more remarkable explanation of this word has, however, been proposed, which is, at the least, worthy of very great consideration, especially
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as it comes from so distinguished an orientalist and scholar as the late baron Joseph von Hammer-Pürgstall. It arose partly from the comparison of a number of objects of art, ornamented with figures, and belonging apparently to the thirteenth century. These objects consist chiefly of small images, or statuettes, coffers, and cups.
Von Hammer has described, and given engravings of, twenty-four such images, which it must be acknowledged answer very well to the descriptions of their "idol" given by the templars in their examinations, except only that the templars usually speak of them as of the size of life, and as being merely heads. Most of them have beards, and tolerably fierce countenances. Among those given by Von Hammer are seven which present only a head, and two with two faces, backwards and forwards, as described in some of the depositions. These two appear to be intended for female heads. Altogether Von Hammer has described fifteen cups and goblets, but a much smaller number of coffers. Both cups and coffers are ornamented with extremely curious figures, representing a continuous scene, apparently religious ceremonies of some kind or other, but certainly of an obscene character, all the persons engaged in which are represented naked. It is not a part of our subject to enter into a detailed examination of these mysteries.
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[paragraph continues] The most interesting of the coffers described by Von Hammer, which was preserved in the private museum of the duc de Blacas, is of calcarous stone, nine inches long by seven broad, and four and a half deep, with a lid about two inches thick. It was found in Burgundy. On the lid is sculptured a figure, naked, with a head-dress resembling that given to Cybele in ancient monuments, holding up a chain with each hand, and surrounded with various symbols, the sun and moon above, the star and the pentacle below, and under the feet a human skull. 95 The chains are explained by Von Hammer as representing the chains of æons of the Gnostics. On the four sides of the coffer we see a series of figures engaged in the performance of various ceremonies, which are not easily explained, but which Von Hammer considers as belonging to the rites of the Gnostics and Ophians. The offering of a calf figures prominently among these rites, a worship which is said still to exist among the Nossarii, or Nessarenes, the Druses, and other sects in the East. In the middle of the scene on one side, a human skull is seen, raised upon a pole. On another side an androgynous figure is represented as the object of worship of two candidates for initiation,
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PLATE XIV
PRIAPIC ILLUSTRATIONS FROM OLD BALLADS
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who wear masks apparently of a cat, and whose form of adoration reminds us of the kiss enacted at the initiation of the templars. 96 This group reminds us, too, of the pictures of the orgies in the worship of Priapus, as represented on Roman monuments. The second of the coffers in the cabinet of the duc de Blacas was found in Tuscany, and is rather larger than the one just described, but made of the same material, though of a finer grain. The lid of this coffer is lost, but the sides are covered with sculpture of a similar character. A large goblet, or bowl, of marble, in the imperial museum at Vienna, is surrounded by a series of figures of similar character, which are engraved by Von Hammer, who sees in one group of men (who are furnished in the original with prominent phalli) and serpents, a direct allusion to Ophite rites. Next after these comes a group which we have reproduced in our plate, 97 representing a strange figure seated upon an eagle, and accompanied with two of the symbols represented on the coffer found in Burgundy, the sun and moon. The two symbols below are considered by Von Hammer to represent, according to the rude mediæval notions of its form, the womb, or matrix; the fecundating organ is penetrating the one, while the infant is emerging from the other. The last figure in this series, which we have also copied, 98
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is identical with that on the lid of the coffer found in Burgundy, but it is distinctly represented as androgynous. We have exactly the same figure on another coffer, in the Vienna museum, 99 with some of the same symbols, the star, pentacle, and human skull. Perhaps, in this last, the beard is intended to show that the figure must be taken as androgynous.
On an impartial comparison we can hardly doubt that these curious objects,--images, coffers, cups, and bowls,--have been intended for use in some secret and mysterious rites, and the arguments by which Von Hammer attempts to show that they belonged to the templars seem at least to be very plausible. Several of the objects represented upon them, even the skull, are alluded to in some of the confessions of the templars, and these evidently only confessed a part of what they knew, or otherwise they were very imperfectly acquainted with the secrets of their order. Perhaps the most secret doctrines and rites were only communicated fully to a small number. There is, however, another circumstance connected with these objects which appears to furnish an almost irresistible confirmation of Von Hammer's theory. Most of them bear inscriptions, written in Arabic, Greek, and Roman characters. The inscriptions on the images appear to be merely proper names, probably those of
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their possessors. But with the coffers and bowls the case is different, for they contain a nearly uniform inscription in Arabic characters, which, according to the interpretation given by Von Hammer, contains a religious formula. The Arabic characters, he says, have been copied by a European, and not very skilful, carver, who did not understand them, from an Eastern original, and the inscriptions contain corruptions and errors which either arose from this circumstance, or, as Von Hammer suggests, may have been introduced designedly, for the purpose of concealing the meaning from the uninitiated. A good example of this inscription surrounds the lid of the coffer found in Burgundy, and is interpreted as follows by Von Hammer, who regards it as a sort of parody on the Cantate laudes Domini. In fact, the word under the feet of the figure, between them and the skull, is nothing more than the Latin cantate expressed in Arabic letters. The words with which this Cantate begins are written above the head of the figure, and are read by Von Hammer as Fah la Sidna, which is more correctly Fella Sidna, i. e. O God, our Lord! The formula itself, to which this is an introduction, commences on the right side, and the first part of it reads Houvè Mete Zonar feseba (or sebaa) B. Mounkir teaala tiz. There is no such word in Arabic as mete, and Von Hammer considers it to be
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simply the Greek word μῆτις, wisdom, a personification in what we may perhaps call the Gnostic mythology answering to the Sophia of the Ophianites. He considers that the name Baphomet is derived from the Greek words Βαφη μητοες, i. e. the baptism of Metis, and that in its application it is equivalent with the name Mete itself. He has further shown, we think conclusively, that Baphomet, instead of being a corruption of Mahomet, was a name known among the Gnostic sects in the East. Zonar is not an Arabic word, and is perhaps only a corruption or error of the sculptor, but Von Hammer thought it meant a girdle, and that it alluded to the mysterious girdle of the templars, of which so much is said in their examinations. The letter B is supposed by Von Hammer to stand here for the name Baphomet, or for that of Barbalo, one of the most important personages in the Gnostic mythology. Mounkir is the Arabic word for a person who denies the orthodox faith. The rest of the formula is given on the other side of the figure, but as the inscription here presents several corruptions, we will give Von Hammer's translation (in Latin) of the more correct copy of the formula inscribed on the bowl or goblet preserved in the museum at Vienna. In the Vienna bowl, the formula of faith is written on a sort of large placard, which is held up to view by a figure apparently intended for
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PLATE XV
"IDOL" OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS
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another representation of Mete or Baphomet. Von Hammer translates it:--
"Exaltetur Mete germinans, stirps nostra ego et septem fuere, tu renegans reditus ῶρωκτὸς fis."
This still is, it must be confessed, rather mysterious, and, in fact, most of these copies of the formula of faith are more or less defective, but, from a comparison of them, the general form and meaning of the whole is made perfectly clear. This may be translated, "Let Mete be exalted, who causes things to bud and blossom! he is our root; it (the root) is one and seven; abjure (the faith), and abandon thyself to all pleasures." The number seven is said to refer to the seven archons of the Gnostic creed.
There are certainly several points in this formula which present at least a singular coincidence with the statements made in the examinations of the templars. In the first place the invocation which precedes the formula, Yalla (Jah la), agrees exactly with the statement of Raymond Rubei, one of the Provencal templars that when the superior exhibited the idol, or figure of Baphomet, he kissed it and exclaimed "Yalla!" which he calls "a word of the Saracens," i. e. Arabic. 100 It is evident that, in this case, the witness not only knew the word, but that he knew to what language it belonged. Again, the epithet germinans,
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applied to Mete, or Baphomet, is in accord with the statement in the formal list of articles of accusation against the templars, that they worshipped their idol because "it made the trees to flourish and the earth to germinate." The abjuration of the formula on the monuments seems to be identical with the denial in the initiation of novices to the order of the Temple; and it may be added, that the closing words of the formula involve in the original an idea more obscene than is expressed in the translation, an allusion to the unnatural vice in which the templars are stated to have received permission to indulge. There is another curious statement in the examinations which seems to point directly to our images and coffers--one of the English witnesses under examination, named John de Donington, who had left the order and become a friar at Salisbury, said that an old templar had assured him that "some templars carried such idols in their coffers." They seem to have been treasured up for the same reason as the mandrake, for one article in the articles against the templars is that they worshipped their idol because "it could make them rich, and that it had brought all their great wealth to the order."
The two other classes of what the Baron Von Hammer supposed to be relics of the secret worship of the templars, appear to us to be much less satisfactorily
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explained. These are sculptures on old churches, and coins or medals. Such sculptures are found, according to Von Hammer, on the churches of Schöngraber, Waltendorf, and Bercktoldorf, in Austria; in that of Deutschaltenburg, and in the ruins of that of Postyén, in Hungary; and in those of Murau, Prague, and Egra, in Bohemia. To these examples we are to add the sculptures of the church of Montmorillon, in Poitou, some of which have been engraved by Montfaucon, 101 and those of the church of Ste. Croix, in Bordeaux. We have already 102 remarked the rather frequent prevalence of subjects more or less obscene in the sculptures which ornament early churches, and suggested that they may be explained in some degree by the tone given to society by the existence of this priapic worship; but we are not inclined to agree with Von Hammer's explanation of them, or to think that they have any connection with the templars. We can
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