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

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
details and variants of the different versions of what seems to be, basically,
one and the same tradition. What this tradition tells us is that the builderknights
are engaged in the same task as the builders of the first and second
Temples. It testifies to the continuity of the endeavours that converge in
the vision of the final Temple, the supra-natural Temple "on the high
mountain" of Ezekiel's vision. It is for this reason that the building and
rebuilding of the Temple postulate a continuing series of builders, who
succeed each other not by means of archival transmission but through
their common will. It is by virtue of this common will that they are the
spontaneous heirs of each other and share the same secrets. This corresponds
exactly to the idea of the continuing line of gnosis (silsilat al-'irfan)
in the esotericism of Shiism, Ismailism, the Ishraq, and Sufism, as well as
to the idea which is the very secret of prophetology. 195 The continuity is
determined by heavenly inspiration, which brings together what is constantly
being dispersed by the vicissitudes of this world.
When these versions of the same tradition were put into written form—
a tradition which is neither "history" nor "myth" nor "romance", in the
sense assumed by these words in the dilemma by which historicism is
imprisoned—nothing was yet known about the Essene Community of
Qumran, although the Essenes themselves were known. What Templar
tradition claims is precisely the heritage of the Essenes and, through them,
of the Judaeo-Christian gnosis of the Church of James. This claim thereby
implies that something is yet to come, that "all is not finished". We
referred earlier to the Messianic perspective that dominates both the
primitive Judaeo-Christian community and the entire body of Jewish
gnosis. The messengers of this future possess differing qualifications,
sometimes as hermits, sometimes as knights (as hermits and knights play
the key roles in our own Grail cycle).
In this way, the Traditio Templi in itself presupposes a tradition of
Templar chivalry, of a spiritual and initiatic knighthood. Because the
continuity of this tradition does not arise from an immanent historical
causality, it can be expressed only in symbols. Those who transmit it are
raised to the rank of symbolical personages, and the events whose protagonists
they are assume the status of parables. There is an episode which
would seem to situate us ab origine symboli, reported by the fifth-century
195 Cf. En Islam iranien, op. cit., vol. IV, index s.v. Komayl ibn Ziyad (ses entretiens
avec le Ier Imam), hierarchie, Sohravardi.
344
THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
Philostorgius, who was both a historian and an ardent defender of the
Arian theological tradition. 196 The episode lies within the context of the
abortive attempts to rebuild materially the Temple of Jerusalem. Some
workmen descend, by means of a long rope, to the bottom of a well. They
discover that rising out of the water is a column, and that on the column is
placed a book wrapped in a linen cloth. The workmen take the book up,
and on examination it turns out to be a copy of the Gospel of John. 197 It
would be impossible to find a more concise and arresting symbol to
express the link that connects the Temple of Solomon to Johannism in
general, down to the Johannine temple of the Nova Hierosolyma. The
expression of this continuity was the task of the transmitters, those known
now as the Knights of the Morning and of Palestine, now as the Brothers
of the Thebaid, now as the Sons of the Valley, and so on. Their intervention
is sometimes direct and sometimes through intermediaries, because their
true dwelling-place, like that of the esoteric hierarchies in Shiism and
Sufism, is not a country that we can locate on our maps.
Very briefly, we will outline the versions of this Templar tradition a
parte ante, previous, that is to say, to the Order of the knights of the
Temple. According to this tradition, the latter are not the founders but the
preservers, during an auspicious period (in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries), of an uninterrupted Templarism.
A. One version 198 introduces the "canons of the Holy Sepulchre",
established in Jerusalem after the conquest of the Holy Land by the
Crusaders. These canons were the depositaries of the secret knowledge of
196 Philostorgius (died after 425 A.D.) had composed a work on ecclesiastical history in
ten books, seen from the Arian point of view. Unfortunately, only fragments of it
survive. His Arianism brought him into close relationship with Judaeo-Christian
theology. Cf. E. Preuschen, 'Philostorgius', in Realencyklopddie fur prot. Theologie und
Kirche, vol. 15, pp. 365 ff.
197 Cf. Arthur Edward Waite, Emblematic Freemasonry and the Evolution of its Deeper Issues
(London, 1925), p. 107 (abbrev. Emblematic).
198 This version occurs in a manuscript discovered at Strasbourg in the last century
and dating from 1760. Cf. Rene le Forestier, La Franc-maconnerie templiere et occultiste
aux XVIIIe-XIXe siecles, published by Antoine Faivre with addenda and index
(Paris, 1970), p. 68. This manuscript is valuable for the immense amount of
material that it brings into play. Unfortunately, as the spirit of the author is firmly
closed to any phenomenology of the events of the imaginal world, the implementation
is faulty. His mocking and self-important tone makes painful reading of this
work, which should be re-written. A. Faivre in his preface has rightly emphasized
what needs emphasizing with regard to the events that took place "in illo tempore"
(Mircea Eliade). Unfortunately, there are people who will always be incapable of
understanding.
345