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