The Secret History of Freemasonry

The Crusades and the Templars 79

them on this point by trying to establish cooperative relations between
Easterners and Westerners united in the desire for universal peace.
Despite the considerable influence of the Arab world, however,
there are no grounds for concluding that the Templar Order underwent
a secret Islamization, even if only relatively, as some are prone to think.
Quite a few of the more subtle aspects of Christianity that were not
deemed suspect or condemnable before the Council of Trent became so
afterward. Free thinking was not considered heresy during the Middle
Ages, as can be shown by the fortunate Raymond Lulle. He spent time
with Muslims, was influenced considerably by the Sufis, and sought,
naturally outside of dogmas, to bring Muslims and Christians closer
together. The Templars did the same. Among all the Crusaders they
were the ones, writes Gerard de Nerval in Les Illumines, who tried to
realize the broadest alliance between Eastern ideas and those of Roman
Christianity.

The name the "Militia of Christ and the Temple of Solomon" that

the Templars assumed immediately after the creation of their

Order was evocative not only to Christians. While it recalled the

Holy Sepulcher, it also recalled to Jews and Muslims the Temple of

Solomon (Wisdom), which was furthermore reproduced on the

seal of the grand master. A sacred sanctuary, it spoke simultane-

ously to the sons of Shem, Cham, and Japhet.^34

So the reason for the condemnation of the Templars is not to be
sought in a heretical deviation. In fact they were never condemned by
the pope—who was satisfied with simply dissolving the Order—but by
the temporal authority. Philip the Fair could not take action against the
Templars, a sovereign and independent religious order, without a con-
demnation or dissolution of the Order by the Holy See. Dissolution was
forthcoming from Rome in payment of a debt of gratitude owed the
king of France. The action Philip the Fair took against the Templars had
nothing to do with the struggle against heresy, a pretext, at any rate,
that no one believed. Nor can the trial of the Templars be explained
simply by the greed of the king. It certainly seems that the destruction
of the Order in France was justified by reasons of national politics. It