Temple and Contemplation brings together for the first ... - ImagoMundi

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
each year for the knights of the Grail. 188 The entire Johannine corpus, both
Gospel and Revelation (to say nothing of the Acts of John), forms the
framework of the Ecclesia Johannis or Church of the Paraclete: the vision of
the celestial Temple, the Nova Hierosolyma, the Temple "of many mansions",
as it continued to be envisioned by a Christianity whose nature
was templar and knightly—in other words, esoteric and Johannine. In the
perspective of the Paraclete, the three Abrahamic faiths can come together
in the same city-temple. We have attempted to explain this elsewhere, 189
and it is indicated by the persistence of the hierophanies of the Imago
Templi. This brings us to the reply to the fourth question raised above.
5. Christian esotericism and the Templar tradition. At this stage of our enquiry
we are faced with a decision regarding the process whereby eschatological
Christianity became Christianity within History. Was it because of the
delay of the Parousia, that is to say, because the awaited Parousia did not
take place, that people ceased to expect it and began to make history, to be
in History? Or was it because it ceased to be awaited that the Parousia was
delayed indefinitely and in the end has not taken place at all?
Here the phenomenologist effects a "Copernican" reversal of the question
that confronts historians with regard to the transition from eschatological
Christianity to historical Christianity—a transition that decided the fate
of official Christianity for two millenia. For to go from "subtle time" to
"opaque time" was to succumb to the temptation of History. The time of
prophets and of prophetic visions was not within the time of History. The
Copernican reversal of the question is made necessary by the existential
phenomenology of the Imago Templi that we are attempting to elucidate.
Faced with a Church which had become a historical power and a society
in the time of this world, the longing for the Temple is a longing for the
"place" where, during the liturgical mystery and at "the meeting-place of
the two seas", eschatology was realized in the present—a present which is
not the limit of past and future in historical time, but the nunc of an eternal
Presence. This "realized eschatology" was the restoration of Paradise, the
restoration of the human condition to its celestial status. The longing
188 The Quest of the Holy Grail, ed. Beguin & Bonnefoy, trans. P. M. Matarasso
(Penguin Books, 1971), pp. 43 ff.
189 Cf. my study 'L'Idee du Paraclet en philosophic iranienne', op. cit., and En Islam
iranien, op. cit., vol. IV, pp. 393 ff, 410-430.
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THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
found and finds a response in "Christian esotericism", because this esotericism
is unable to conform to the norms of official ecclesiology, to accept
that "all is finished", and hence cannot accept the norms of sociological
religion. And it is in its broadest sense—that is to say, as implying some
link or other with the recurrence of the Imago Templi—that one must grasp
the recurrences of the word "templars". 190
The Community of Qumran felt itself to be the new Temple, felt itself to
be involved, alongside the angelic powers that were invisibly present in its
midst, in the fight of the sons of Light against the sons of Darkness. This
aspect of the Community makes it a perfect example of "Templar knighthood".
A previous example had been furnished by the companions of
Zerubbabel when building the second Temple: they also confronted the
demonic counter-powers. An affinity has rightly been shown to exist
between the ethic of Qumran and that of Zoroastrian knighthood. Ormazd
could not defend the ramparts of the city of Light without the help of the
Fravartis. The ethic of battle is the same in both cases: it does not consist
in waiting for an eschatological event that will take place later, on some
distant day. The battle fought by the beings of Light is eschatology itself
in the process of being accomplished. This is the connection between
eschatology "in the present" and the ethic of knighthood, and hence the
connection between eschatology "in the present", in the process of being
accomplished, and the Ezekelian vision of the celestial Temple: the defenders
of the holy City are defending an Imago Templi that embraces both
the celestial and the earthly Temples, and connects heaven with earth. In
this way, we do not deviate from our initial hermeneutic (see above,
section II), according to which the destruction of the Temple signified our
entry into this world, and its rebuilding signified our departure from exile,
our return to the original world whence we came.
Thus, an indissoluble connection is established between the Imago Templi
and a Templar knighthood in its multiple forms. The Imago Templi
polarized the Western esoteric tradition, and this is also why the image of
the Temple knighthood—of the Order of the Temple—remains indissolubly
linked to the concept of initiatic knighthood.
The "history" of it must therefore be the antidote to—the antithesis or
190 As serving to designate, in a broad sense, all those whom the tradition of the Imago
Templi sees as the predecessors or the successors of the knights of the Temple—all
those, that is to say, who in some sense are bound to the service of the Temple.
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