Iacobus (18 page)

I let my eyes wander over the dry walls of the Chapel of Eunate. I was thirsty, so I took a long drink from my gourd and Jonas did the same.

“Within that triple enclosure where today stands the mosque known as Qubbat al-Sakkra, or Dome of the Rock, which curiously (as it is not a feature of Islamic architecture), also has three concentric enclosures. What’s more, its structure, and this is even more inexplicable, is octagonal. Right next to it, also within what seems as if it was the perimeter of the temple, is the small Mosque of Al-Aqsa which the Templars used as a monastic residence, as you already know. So they converted the Al-Aqsa into housing and the Qubbat al-Sakkra into a church …, into their church. There are numerous Templar citadels and fortresses in the Holy Land as well as in Europe that have the Solomonic structure of a tripe enclosure, and countless buildings, churches and chapels, like this Chapel of Eunate, that reproduce the strange octagonal shape of Qubbat al-Sakkra, the Dome of the Rock.”

“So the shape of this small Christian chapel, lost in the middle of the lands of Navarre, is due to a Muslim mosque thousands of miles away from here?”

“Absolutely.”

He seemed amazed.

“And what happened to the Temple of Solomon?”

“From the time that the people of Israel knew that Nebuchadnezzar was preparing to attack, the Ark of the Covenant and the gold was hidden in a safe place, so as the Babylonian king could not take the treasures he was expecting to back to his land. In actual fact, as a way of compensation, he took the Jews as his slaves but that’s another story. Centuries later, when the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, the temple was rebuilt, although more simply but the Ark, the Tables of the Law and the riches were never seen again. And it has remained that way up until today. What do you think?”

“I find it strange,” he muttered broodingly. “Just like I find it strange that the Knights of the Temple adopted the name of the Temple of Solomon, their first place of residence. Is not it a bit absurd?”

“The Knights of the Temple were not called as such, their real name was the Poor Knights of Christ but everyone knew them as the Knights of the Temple, or the Templars. However, you are quite right to be interested in that point. It is certainly related to what we were talking about. In 1118, a noble Frenchman, Hugues of Payns, presented himself before King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, and requested permission to defend, with the help of eight French and Flemish knights, the pilgrims from the West who traveled there to visit the Holy Places. It was a generous offer which answered an urgent need that the King had, so he gladly accepted. The nine knights requested only one thing in exchange: to be able to build their home on the land previously occupied by the Temple of Solomon.”

“That was the first and only thing they requested upon arriving in Jerusalem?”

“It certainly was. Don’t you find it a bit strange?”

“Of course! But I don’t understand what all the fuss was about. To be able to call themselves Knights of the Temple or Templars?”

“But don’t you get it, Jonas? Despite their offer to the King of Jerusalem to guard the roads and defend the pilgrims, as soon as they obtained the ancient temple, the nine knights locked themselves inside for nine years, without going out onto the battlefield, without confronting even one of the infidels and without defending a single traveler, exclusively devoting themselves, so the story goes, to prayer and meditation. Think, Jonas, nine knights locked inside the Temple of Solomon for nine years, without recruiting servants and without letting anyone enter or leave without their consent. Isn’t that strange? After that time, six of the nine Templars returned to France to get approval of their statute from the Council of Troyes.”

“Do you mean that when the Templars reached Jerusalem they already had a secret objective in mind?”

“The Templars were looking for something special when they arrived in the Holy Land, there’s no doubt about it. Maybe you need to hear a bit more. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, founder and first Abbot of Clairvaux, Doctor Ecclesiae and promoter of the Cistercians, whom you have no doubt heard of because of his fame in the Church,” Jonas shook his head and I sighed in resignation, “was in charge of translating and studying the Hebrew scriptures in Jerusalem and later the occupation of the city during the first Crusade. Years later he published a controversial text, De laude novae militiae, in which he raised the need for soldier monks who would defend the faith by the sword which was a completely new concept at that time. St. Bernard was the uncle of one of the eight knights who accompanied Hugues of Payns, who was also a personal friend of his. So the idea to found the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ was, without a doubt, St. Bernard’s. Now you have all the information you need to reach a logical conclusion on your own.”

“O.K …..” he hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Come on, quick! Think!”

“St. Bernard found something in those Hebrew documents, something that he wanted which is why he sent the nine knights to Jerusalem. Now I get it!” he suddenly exclaimed, elated. “What you’re trying to tell me is that the Ark of the Covenant and the Tables of the Law must have been hidden in a secret location in the Temple of Solomon, and that those documents that Bernard translated said exactly where to find them. That’s why he sent the knights.”

“If the documents had clearly signaled the location of where to find the Ark with the Tables, the knights wouldn’t have needed nine whole years to find them, would they?”

“That’s true. O.K., so the documents only hinted at where they could be, in some part of the Temple, without specifying the exact location.”

“That makes more sense. Although it is also possible that they found them and that, given the importance and sacredness of what they had discovered, the first Templars spent those nine years devoted to what they said they had been doing, to praying and meditating.”

“And if people knew about this, like you do, why didn’t anyone take the Ark away from them? Is it because the Church didn’t demand it?”

“Because the Templars always denied it, and if anyone denies something with sufficient strength and perseverance, it is impossible to refute it if you don’t have any proof, and there never was any proof. Suspicions, yes, many. But proof, none.”

A sudden flashback came to me of that night (that now seems so long ago) when Evrard, during the deliriousness of death in the dungeons of the old Templar fortress in Marais, shouted out orders to evacuate Al-Asqa and to save the Ark of the Covenant.

“And you think, sire, that in this Templar chapel,” asked Jonas, pointing to Eunate, “we will find something related to all that?”

“Related to all that, I’m not so sure, Jonas,” I said standing up with the help of my staff. “Of all the Templar secrets, and there are many, the secret of the Ark is the most impregnable of all. But I am pretty sure that we will find the first clues to the hiding places of the rest of the Templar treasure which was hidden along the Camino before its dissolution as an Order.”

“But what about the Ark?” he insisted stubbornly.

“The centuries will take care of revealing the evidence.”

“But we won’t get to see it then!” he protested as we approached the church.

“That’s the problem of not being immortal: We miss the future.”

We entered the chapel through one of the two openings of the exterior cloister and circling its ambulatory which was also octagonal like the church, I began to discover unmistakable signs of the initiatory traditions. On one of the capitals I could see the statue of a crucified Jesus without the cross, surrounded by fourteen apostles, on another, opposing solar lions, on others, satanic faces with vines growing out of their mouths, forming labyrinths or spirals, on the ends of which, or in the center, was always the figure of a pineapple, a symbolic representation of fertility and immortality. Nothing there gave me any new information. If I had been a pilgrim, and nothing but a pilgrim, I probably would have enjoyed contemplating those images, meditating about them, trying to decipher them and applying their conclusions to my own life; but my life and my son’s life were in danger and I didn’t have any time to lose.

“Look, sire.” Jonas had stopped in front of one of the double columns and was carefully looking at the top of it. “This is the only normal representation I have found in this strange cloister.”

I walked over and looked at the capital. On one side was the scene in which the blind Bartimaeus sitting at the side of the road called loudly to Jesus, Son of Joseph, begging him for the miracle of sight. On the other was the resurrection of Lazarus, when the tomb slab was pushed to the side and Jesus ordered his friend to come out, to the amazement of those present. Both Bartimaeus and Jesus had tiny stone tablets under their feet with laconic messages: Fili David miserere mei, on the blind man’s tablet, and Ego sum lux, on Jesus’ tablet. Well, I told myself, at least something is something.

Having finished the ambulatory of the cloister, we went inside the chapel through the north door. In a long frieze facing the arches, the entire secret initiation program was exposed to the eyes of anyone passing by. I was not surprised at all since it could be very difficult to interpret the immutable mysteries without the help of a master but someone had succeeded, after having gone a long way in the study of mystic Knowledge. Fortunately, the narrative of the frieze used cryptic symbols — wise words always need interpreters —, so that only a few of us, the initiates, could read what it said and others could read it if their spirit encouraged them to do so. I gathered that somehow the Camino de Santiago, the Path of the Milky Way, was set out to assist these special beings who were capable of self-initiation. A terrible task, yes, but not impossible.

“What do all of those statues mean?”

“What statues?”

“Those heads leaning on each other, for example.”

“That’s the rational transmission of Knowledge that I told you about earlier. It’s the first stage of the initiation.”

“And those chimeras and sirens with dragon tails?”

“Man’s pain and fear of the dangers of the unknown.”

“And why do the monsters have a flower on their stomachs?”

“Because losing one’s fear frees man and makes him capable of reaching the truth.”

“Why is that hooded figure holding a child?”

“Because the child has just been reborn after dying.”

“And that naked woman with a snake wrapped around her?”

“That, Jonas, is the Mother Goddess of the world, the Magna Mater, the Earth. Remember that I told you about her before.”

“And what is a Pagan goddess doing in a Christian temple?”

“All the temples in the world are consecrated to a single deity, whatever they may call it.”

“And what is a goddess doing with a snake?”

“The Snake is the symbol of Knowledge. I also told you about that before.”

“There’s just one thing that I don’t understand. How could the child have been reborn after dying?”

“That, Jonas, is something I will explain to you some other time,” I said, drying the sweat from my face with the sleeve of my robe. He asked so many questions! “Now I want to find out where that staircase over there leads to.”

On the south side of the chapel a half-open door exposed a spiral staircase. We still hadn’t seen anyone since reaching the surrounding areas of Eunate, so I didn’t think it was a bad idea to go up there and find out where it went. I wasn’t disappointed when we reached a small lantern that allowed us to look over a beautiful landscape: The vast and silent fields that surrounded Eunate were below us.

“This must be where the lookout stays, like at Ponç de Riba,” said the boy.

“What lookout? There isn’t anybody in these parts.”

“Somebody has to keep a look out in case the Moors come!”

“I wouldn’t say that it isn’t possible,” I agreed, “but this lantern is for something more than keeping guard. Haven’t you noticed the splendid, heavenly view that can be enjoyed from up here? On a fine summer’s night, I bet you can touch the sky with your hands. This small area is definitely used as an observatory to study the stars.”

“And who is going to study the stars if there isn’t anyone here?”

“You can be sure that someone comes here every now and again to look at the sky, at night or during the solstices and equinoxes, and not just then; there are times during the year when reading the constellations is vitally important. A place as great as this must be visited very frequently by astrologers.”

“And is Puente la Reina our next destination?” asked Jonas wearily.

Youth has so little patience and is very much influenced by hunger. Not even the most valuable lessons can compete with young, empty stomachs.

“Correct. We will eat there today, at some inn or at the home of a merciful Good Samaritan.”

Quatuor vie sunt que ad Sanctum Jacobum tendentes, in unum ad Pontem Regine, in horis Yspanie, coadunantur …
(21)
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There are four roads to Santiago which, in Puente la Reina, Spanish land join to become one, said Aymeric Picaud in the Codex Calixtinus. And very right he was, as up to then we had been pretty much traveling alone — we had barely come across two or three groups of pilgrims or an elusive penitent —, and in Puente la Reina we noticed that most people purging their sins made an effort to follow the sacred itinerary. I myself was marveling at the generosity we had been shown and the food we had been given by the peasants, farmers and monks of the places we had passed through but nothing was comparable to the joy and prodigality with which since Obanos the people of Navarre had welcomed us in those parts. The words of Picaud struck me as being so false!: ‘The people of Navarre are barbarous, different from everyone else in their habits and nature, full of evil, they are black, vile-looking, damned, wicked, treacherous, disloyal, lecherous, drunken, aggressive, fierce and savage, ruthless and reprobate, wicked and merciless, cruel and quarrelsome, devoid of any virtue, and know every vice and iniquity, wickedness on a par with the Getae
(22)
and the Saracens, and frontal enemies of our elegant nation. For a single coin, a Navarre or a Basque will polish off a Frenchmen in whatever way they can’. However, very few times in my life had I seen so many satisfied people gathered in the same city or a city as devoted and given to a single goal: caring for the pilgrims.