Can you please help me get a book from Amazon...

[Eisho]

Originally Posted by bomb #21

Actually ...



... I ½-watched a docu-thingy on these guys just the other week.

"Trial Of The Knights Templar", UK Channel 5. 45 mins, 4-point-something out of 5 stars, average from 44 voters. It's billed as "Series 1, Episode 1" -- don't ask me if there's been or ever will be a series/episode 2.

For all I know it's a load of old pony ( ). You mentioned "absolution", it states they were tried twice; by papa himself (?"Himself"?) the second time. Here's one sentence transcribed for ya.

"The Pope absolved the Templars, because he believed they were commiting heretical acts as a test of endurance before facing real Muslim heresies in the Holy Land."

This is deduced from the text of some supposedly "recently found having been lost for 700 years, thanks to various things including Napoleon" document.

I dunno if you can even see this link, let alone get it to play. If not ... it says it's available another 29 days. You're the other side of the world, but sometimes I have to get up at 5 AM -- Windows Messenger Live Remote Assistance (e.g.) might work (I've successfully operated PCs in Australasia from my front room before).

HTH

Yes, the heretical acts (spitting on the cross and denying Christ) were the ones de Molay admitted to and he stated that this was to prepare the Order members for psychological torture if they were captured in the Holy Land. The document is the Chinon manuscript and it was found in the Vatican archives.

Whether this is actually true or not is a different matter. It was in the interests of the Papacy to spare the Templars and he (de Molay) only disclosed this a couple of years or so later after his arrest in a private meeting with 3 cardinals.

This is what makes everything so interesting...

There are indications that at an even earlier date a previous Pope was aware that something was going on. The thing is that Acre fell in 1291 and after that any chances for another crusade dwindled. So there is also the timing of the arrests to consider. They came a decade+ after that when the Templars were basically no longer needed.

It is important to distinguish between committing heresy and being found guilty of heresy. Contrary to popular impressions the Inquisition (for the most part) were genuinely interested in helping people 'save their souls' and it was not a simple and automatic case that if you were accused of heresy one day you would be burned alive the next. At this moment in time my impression is that the Templars did commit heretical acts but that these did not deserve a punishment of burning.

Cheers,

Eisho

[7th_Labyrinth]

Eisho....the book came in today....will send out tomorrow.

[Eisho]

Originally Posted by 7th_Labyrinth

Eisho....the book came in today....will send out tomorrow.

VERY COOL!!!!!
Thanks a lot for all your help. I'm really looking forward to getting it (can't believe I'm saying that about a book... )

Cheers,

Eisho

[7th_Labyrinth]

Originally Posted by Eisho

VERY COOL!!!!!
Thanks a lot for all your help. I'm really looking forward to getting it (can't believe I'm saying that about a book... )

Cheers,

Eisho

You're most welcome! It was all my pleasure!

[dotty]

Originally Posted by 7th_Labyrinth

You're most welcome! It was all my pleasure!

that was most kind of you and should be applauded

[Eisho]

With regard to the Templar / Freemason 'connection', this is what I have found...

In the 1730s a Scottish man named Andrew Michael Ramsay devised a story linking Freemasonry to the crusading knights (not specifically the Templars). It was (supposedly) in this period and in the Holy Land that the secret signs were devised to make identification between builders / warriors easier.

During the 1760s Freemason Lodges in German added on the myth that the Templars, while occupying the Temple of Solomon, received esoteric knowledge...and since that time the myth has been expanded on.

One of the contentions made in Holy Blood Holy Grail (and adoped by Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code) develops this German Freemason myth and presents it as a fact that the Templars excavated under the Temple of Solomon and there found some great treasure. It is not yet clear to me if any excavations were actually done...the only reference I can find is that digging was carried out NEXT TO the Temple of Solomon, but this excavation was to serve as the foundation for a new church. In other words, there doesn't appear to have been a treasure hunt of any kind either under the Temple of Solomon or near it.

Cheers,

Eisho