Psst!!! Calling all conspiracy theorists: what are the connections
between the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Shroud of Turin, the
Priory of Sion, the Cathars, the Knights Templar, John the Baptist, Mary
Magdalene, Leonardo da Vinci, Jesus, the St. Clairs, the Isis Cult, and
the Holy Grail? A bunch of books with titles like In His Own Image: Real
Story of the Turin Shroud, Holy Blood Holy Grail, The Second Messiah,
and The Hiram Key, feed this frenzy for alternative theories about the
origins of Christianity. There’s a host of websites devoted to these
themes [1]. You must look for clues in movies too: note that the actor
Roger Moore plays, in movie The Saint, Simon TEMPLAR, and in movie The
Persuaders Lord SINCLAIR. Why has the Catholic Church persecuted sects
connected with John the Baptist – like the Mandaeans, the Simonians, and
the Dositheans? And what about the odd things happening for centuries in
Provence and the Languedoc in the south of France? Why are the Grand
Masters of the Priory of Sion always called John? Why the ferocity by
Rome against the Cathars? (When the crusaders asked the Pope’s legates
how they would know these heretics apart from the general population,
they received the now notorious reply: ‘Kill them all. God will know his
own.’) Something’s going on here.

One of the latest books to address these themes is The Templar
Revelation. It’s written like a detective thriller. Someone on the Web
wrote: THE MOST CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET OF THE WESTERN WORLD IS ABOUT TO
BE REVEALED — AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE CHRISTIANITY IN THE SAME LIGHT
AGAIN! There’s a strand of ‘the real truth’ preserved through the
centuries but encoded in works of art and even in the great Gothic
cathedrals of Europe.

First, are there really coded messages in the paintings of Leonardo da
Vinci? Who’s the mysterious ‘Lady M’ in da Vinci’s Last Supper? Did he
really regard John the Baptist as superior to Jesus? Now remember
Leonardo might have been Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. Why the
veneration of John the Baptist by the Templars and the Priory of Sion?
Trips to the South of France turn up clues that Mary Magdalene might
have lived there: and factor in the connections with the pagan cult of
the Black Madonna. Why was this Mary so significant to the heretical
underground movements in Europe? Why the strong links with medieval
troubadours and Gothic Cathedrals, and the Priory of Sion?

The investigation moves to the central theme of the Feminine in the
works/worship of individuals and groups like the Templars, St. Bernard
of Clairvaux and the Abbe Sauniere. The Templars, an order of knights,
had a passion for sacred knowledge – borrowing principles of sacred
geometry from the Arabs, gnostic ideas from the Cathars, etc. etc. They
venerated the two Johns – the Baptist and the Evangelist. Now why were
they suppressed by Rome and forced to go underground? Perhaps they’d
uncovered something which would rock the very foundations of
Christianity.

There’s a deep dark 2000-year-old secret hiding here somewhere. The
authors call it ‘The Great European Heresy’ – – the extreme veneration,
even the covert worship, of Mary Magdalene and of John the Baptist.

So we come to the main thesis: the ‘unimaginable possibility’ . ‘that
Jesus and his mission may have been very different from the one taught
by the Church.’ The bombshell: ‘There is evidence that the Magdalene was
Jesus’ wife – or at least, his lover’. But wait a minute: how is the Son
of God related to such figures as Diana the Huntress and the Egyptian
goddess of love and magic, Isis? Why are there so many parallels between
the life of Jesus and the story of Osiris? Ah, ‘Jesus and the Magdalene
were living out the story of Osiris’ death and resurrection.’ And
crucifixion made perfect sense – ‘for the cross was already an ancient
Osiran symbol.’ ‘ Jesus was playing the role of a Dying God who was
resurrected thanks to the intervention – magical or otherwise – of his
“goddess”, his sexual and spiritual partner, Mary Magdalene.’

This theory has to be reinforced, of course, by accepting Gnostic works
as at least equally worthy our attention to the four Gospels. And ‘not
only do these suppressed books tend to stress the importance of Mary
Magdalene. they also present a religion that had its roots – unlike that
of the New Testament books – in Egyptian theology’. Mary Magdalene was
purportedly a priestess of the Isis cult, in “true” Christianity; John
the Baptist was an Isian devotee carrying on a missionary crusade in
Palestine. One of his followers, who came to be known as Jesus Christ,
betrayed his master, rising to prominence after John’s death.

Summary: ‘Christianity was not the religion founded by the unique Son of
God who died for all our sins: it was the worship of Isis and Osiris
repackaged. However, it rapidly became a personality cult, centred on
Jesus.’ And, in the south of France, far away from the Church’s police,
some of John the Baptist’s followers kept his memory as the ‘true
Messiah’ alive. And, note this: ‘they still exist today’ !!!

Oh, and what about the Rosicrucians, the Masons, the Priory of Sion and
the Templars? These groups apparently once had strong connections but
now the only reminders of their common origins are symbolic ceremonies
in Masonic/Rosicrucian rituals. There are still modern groups calling
themselves: Templars: for example Scotland’s Rosslyn castle, seat of the
noble Sinclair family descended from the French St. Clairs has some
ancient connections with them. And the Turin Shroud? It’s ‘a
five-hundred-year-old photograph of none other than Leonardo da Vinci’.
But you can ferret out those mysteries yourself with the help of Alta
Vista (if you have nothing better to do).

Templar devotees, of course, argue with many of the author’s hypotheses
and hunches. Some, for example, wish they’d tracked the Cathars back to
the Nestorians and Manichaeans, which, for them, explains the link with
Jesus a bit more directly.

I remember reading Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not A Christian when a
student, and being astonished that he, a respected logician, would light
on the least plausible explanations for various issues that arise in
reading the Gospels, and build arguments on these theories as if they
were proven facts. My impression is that Picknett and Prince have done
the same: as one reviewer on Amazon.com says: ‘many of the authors’
theories are based on fragments of information and some fairly wide
leaps in logic, and are therefore highly conjectural.’ Exactly.

They are certainly theological amateurs. No respected biblical scholar
quotes almost exclusively from the King James Version any more. The
adjective is ‘Johannine’, not ‘Johannite’. The two most commonly cited
‘respected scholars’ – Hugh Schonfield and A.N.Wilson – are definitely
outside the mainstream! The maverick Barbara Thiering and Jesus Seminar
scholar John Dominic Crossan (each mentioned once, I think), may be
closer. E.P. Sanders (also I think mentioned just once) is more highly
respected. And the name of a mainstream biblical scholar of a generation
ago – C.H. Dodd – is misspelt (‘Dodds’) several times (though they got
it right in the bibliography).

No justification (except convenience in terms of their theory) is given
for ‘the balance of probability [resting] in favour of the Gnostic
Gospels having just as much claim on our respect as those in the New
Testament’. As for the statement ‘There is no Christian concept of sex
for joy only’ (p.207) – if the words ‘medieval/white/male/celibate
Catholic’ were substituted for ‘Christian’ they would have been nearer
the mark. If you want another view to ‘the books of the New Testament
are a very unreliable source of information’ (p. 309) go to a Christian
bookshop and buy Professor F.F. Bruce’s ‘The New Testament Documents –
Are They Reliable?’

A study of the way in which the New Testament and Gnostic literature
portray Mary Magdalene is quite fascinating. There are seven Marys in
the New Testament, unless two or more are identical. Mary Magdalene is
mentioned first in each listing of Jesus’ female disciples, so she may
have been the leader of that group. She is certainly the key witness to
Jesus’ death and resurrection in all four Gospels. In some of the
apocryphal Gospels she is described as an apostle (e.g. The Gospel of
Philip) and rivals Peter in terms of receiving revelations from the
risen Christ to pass on to the other apostles. The respected Anchor
Bible Dictionary (vol. 4, pp. 580-581) notes: ‘In the late 3d-century
Gospel of Philip, Mary is called the companion of the Lord and described
as one who always walked with him. She is portrayed as one whom Christ
loved more than the other disciples and as one who was frequently kissed
by Christ. The developments of the portrait of Mary Magdalene depicted
in gnostic literature are rooted in the tradition, attested in the
canonical gospels, that the risen Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene
and other women from Galilee. Many proponents of a revisionist version
of early Christian history suggest that the role of Mary Magdalene was
diminished in canonical literature because of the patriarchialism of the
early Church structures. The competition between Mary and Peter reflects
the tension between heterodox Christianity and apostolic orthodoxy.’
Fascinating. A footnote to this: none of the reference works I consulted
mention any legends about Mary migrating to France.

Well, you don’t have to be an expert on the Gnostic gospels or off-beat
medieval underground groups to be suspicious about this book. The views
of writers who do not submit their findings to a rigorous peer review
process ought to be treated with severe agnosticism. I did a three-hour
literature search on this book and could only find no serious reviews of
it. So if you’re an orthodox Christian you don’t have much to fear in
terms of the integrity of the biblical sources.

[1]. See, e.g. http://www.littlevenice.com/templar/templar.htm and
http://www.rosslyn.com/templar/templar.htm).

Rowland Croucher

April 1999