ostle of fraternal love, whom he had instituted Sovereign
Pontiff and Patriarch....

Here we have the whole Cabalistic legend of a secret doctrine descending
from Moses, of Christ as an Egyptian initiate and founder of a secret
order--a theory, of course, absolutely destructive of belief in His
divinity. The legend of the _Ordre du Temple_ goes on to say:

Up to about the year 1118 (i.e. the year the Order of the Temple
was founded) the mysteries and the hierarchic Order of the
initiation of Egypt, transmitted to the Jews by Moses, then to the
Christians by J.C., were religiously preserved by the successors of
St. John the Apostle. These mysteries and initiations, regenerated
by the evangelical initiation (or baptism), were a sacred trust
which the simplicity of the primitive and unchanging morality of
the _Brothers of the East_ had preserved from all adulteration....

The Christians, persecuted by the infidels, appreciating the
courage and piety of these brave crusaders, who, with the sword in
one hand and the cross in the other, flew to the defence of the
holy places, and, above all, doing striking justice to the virtues
and the ardent charity of Hugues de Payens, held it their duty to
confide to hands so pure the treasures of knowledge acquired
throughout so many centuries, sanctified by the cross, the dogma
and the morality of the Man-God. Hugues was invested with the
Apostolic Patriarchal power and placed in the legitimate order of
the successors of St. John the apostle or the evangelist.

Such is the origin of the foundation of the Order of the Temple and
of the fusion in this Order of the different kinds of initiation of
the Christians of the East designated under the title of Primitive
Christians or Johannites.

It will be seen at once that all this story is subtly subversive of true
Christianity, and that the appellation of Christians applied to the
Johannites is an imposture. Indeed Fabre Palaprat, Grand Master of the
_Ordre du Temple_ in 1804, who in his book on the Templars repeats the
story contained in the _Levitikon and the Manuel des Chevaliers du
Temple_, whilst making the same profession of "primitive Christian"
doctrines descending from St. John through Theoclet and Hugues de Payens
to the Order over which he presides, goes on to say that the secret
doctrine of the Templars "was essen