Mormons, Temples, And Masonry

For an interesting study on this subject see Mormons, Temples, And Masonry.

The Knights Templars are a very interesting subject...full of mystery and intrigue. What is known is that the original eight Knights were related or were intermarried, and they stayed in the Holy Land long after the First Crusade was over. They were given the Al-Aqsa Mosque as their quarters which was located on the Jerusalem Temple Mound on the South East corner above the famous 'Solomon's Stable.' This stable was described as being large enough to hold more than 2000 horses or 1500 camels.

The southern wall of the Temple Mount and Solomon's stables

 Legend has it that Hugues de Payens, the first Grand-Master of the Templars, and Godfrey de Saint-Omer, one of the other original Knights were so poor that between the two of them they had only one horse, and this gave rise to the famous image on the seal of the Templars, of two men riding a single horse.

Another legend tells how the Knights excavated under the Temple mound for years looking for a fabulous treasure hidden there by the temple priests before it was destroyed in the year 70 AD when Jerusalem was under siege. These same legends claim they eventually found this treasure and in the process became wealthy beyond measure. When the news of the first finds were relayed back to Europe, Count Fulk d'Anjou sped with all haste to Jerusalem where he took the oath of allegiance to the new Order becoming the ninth Knight. Count Fulk d'Anjou was not only the Count of Anjou and a Templar but also later became King of Jerusalem.

Among some of their fabulous finds it was reported there were 21 temple scrolls that were taken back to France and Godfrey de Saint-Omer took them to an elderly scholar, Lambert de St Omer to translate...."whom was instructed not to make any copies - when found out [he did], he was killed."  Some of these translated copies now resides in the library of Ghent University and there are also many illustrations included, 115 colored drawings are in the Lambert of St. Omer, Liber Floridus collection. Also see, Lambert of St. Omer, Liber Floridus. Some of the titles in this collection also suggest a connection to the early Christians....such as "The evangelist St John on Patmos ..." and one shows James as the pillars of the New Jerusalem. Some are of the belief that some of the original teachings of Jesus and James along with the rituals of the Jerusalem Church were also buried under Herod's Temple and found as part of the temple treasure in 1118 when the Templars dug them up.

The famous copper scroll found among the Dead Sea Scroll was a treasure scroll revealing where temple treasure had been buried before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Others have used this scroll to check out the many different locations and the items listed on it.  But at the Jerusalem location mentioned on the Copper Scroll there was evidence of "others" who had been there excavating and their artifacts dating to the time of the Knights Templars were were the only items found thus far but no treasure. (For more information on the Dead Sea Copper Scroll see the website and videos on the Copper Scroll Project at Qumram at the bottom of this post. Not all the locations or the Jerusalem Temple location are mentioned on this site but it is still a fascinating look at the Cooper Scroll.)

The legend of the Templar's treasure claims that the 21 temple scrolls were found that had many interesting subjects contained on them, and a reasonable consensus is emerging that they contained ancient esoteric temple teachings, "scriptural scrolls, treatises on sacred geometry, and details of certain knowledge, art and science and the hidden wisdom of the ancient initiates of the Judaic/Egyptian tradition" - all connected to the ancient temple rites and the hidden teachings of Jesus. When the Knight Templars were later persecuted, their treasure and riches they had amassed since the time of the First Crusade, were secreted away before it was confiscated and their leaders were imprisoned and executed with the remaining members going underground. It is believed that the knowledge gleaned from these scrolls, a form of temple rites, eventually found its way into Freemasonry which came on the scenes much later in European history.

Also See:
Timeline: Crusades and FreeMasonry
The Knights Templar Chronology

Some believe that the Templar treasure was taken to Scotland for safe keeping and passed into the care of the St Clair family of Rosslyn. When the Templars were destroyed in 1307 a sizeable remnant fled to Scotland and became firmly established at Rosslyn, where the St Clair's became hereditary Grand Masters. In 1446 William St Clair almost lost the scrolls in a fire at the castle and so he decided to build a permanent home for them and built a copy of Herod's Temple which is now known as Rosslyn Chapel. The ground plan of the chapel is an exact copy of the ground plan of Herod's Temple, which was not known to archaeologists until the Wilson expedition of 1890. Above ground the building is a copy of the Heavenly Jerusalem shown in Lambert's copy of one of the scrolls. Sir William founded Freemasonry to preserve the secrets of the hiding of these scrolls and to carry the clues for their eventual recovery. He hid these clues within the verbal ritual he developed for Freemasonry from the rituals the Templars had learned from the Jewish temple scrolls and the writings of Jesus and James.

We have every reason to believe that the scrolls are still buried where Sir William put them and many continue to support an archaeological excavation to recover them . In tracing the history of the scrolls it has been deduced by some of the possible contents from the effects they have had on the development of society.

Possible Contents of the Scrolls:
1. The growth of science stems directly from the instruction to better know God's work by studying the hidden mysteries of nature and science. This led to the founding of the Royal Society by Freemasons.

2. The development of democracy via Magna Carta, the Declaration of Arbroath, the founding of Parliament and the writing of the American Constitution all stemmed from the type of organizations developed by the Templars and improved by their successors the Freemasons, using the knowledge of the teachings of the scrolls about equality in the sight of God.

3. The encouragement towards self improvement, by building within oneself a spiritual Temple to the glory of God, and the encouragement of charitable support for the needy is the basis of the teaching of Ma'at which has characterized the transmission of these secrets from Seqeuenre Tao via the Line of David to Jesus and James and finally to the Templars/Freemasons.

4.Sacred geometry, this knowledge was used to begin the extensive building of many of the Medieval European Cathedrals.

The history of the Rex Deus families in Israel keeps surfacing throughout this history...before Christ and on down through European history, the crusades, the families involved, European royalty and their connection to the royal Davidic line and their role in much of this intriguing drama.
See:
The Copper Scroll Project Site