The Knights Templar were championed by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux – a founding member of the Cistercian order of monks. But a fellow Cistercian – Isaac of Stella – clashed with Bernard. He thought the Templars were the creation of the devil.
We might imagine that everybody in the Roman Catholic church in the year 1118 thought that setting up the Knights Templar was a good idea. But this was far from the truth. While Bernard wrote in support of the Templars, rival Cistercian abbot Isaac of Stella preached against them, viewing them as a “new monstrosity”.
Bernard was a prominent figure in the Cistercian order and a strong advocate for the Knights Templar, writing De laude novae militiae (In praise of the New Knighthood). But Isaac was horrified by this new concept of fighting for Christ with a sword and shield. Where did it say in the New Testament that Christianity was to be spread by force of arms?
He said, sarcastically, that the whole notion of the Templars must come from a Fifth Gospel not known to most Christians – most likely a work inspired by Satan. He could find nothing in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to justify a militaristic approach to Christian preaching. This is what he wrote looking back on the foundation of the Templars:
Similarly and at about the same time, a new and monstrous breed of military order emerged, whose rule—someone wittily described it as stemming from a fifth gospel—would force, with spears and clubs, unbelievers to embrace the Faith, while considering it right to despoil and devoutly kill those who do not have the name of Christian.
All of this violence, Isaac of Stella claimed, would just rebound on the church in the longer term:
And those of their order who are killed while at such pillaging they regard as martyrs for Christ. Surely it is obvious that these people give every excuse for anti-Christian cruelty to the champion of wickedness. How could they put before such a one the gentleness and patience of Christ and the pattern of his preaching? Why should the adversary not gladly do what he finds is done with a good conscience? Why should he not say, Do to the church as the church has done?
The real significance of these writings from Isaac of Stella is that they evidence ongoing opposition to the Templars from the very start of their existence. It was this kind of argument that would only grow as the Templars became richer and more powerful – culminating in their spectacular downfall in 1307.
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