Did the Knights Templar join a sect that venerated John the Baptist? Did they become gnostics – a form of heresy condemned by the Roman Catholic church? Were mysteries dating back to Ancient Egypt transmitted through the Templars to other “heretics” across Europe?
Below is a helpful video from myself and a text guide to help you understand this fiendishly complicated theory.
FIND OUT MORE: Discover more about John the Baptist and the Templars
If you’re a mainstream historian, this is eye-roll time. The Knights Templar were, as a respected historian once put it to me, “boring Catholics”. But to many other commentators and writers, the knights imbibed a theology that relegated Jesus to a secondary position to John the Baptist. Watch this video for a quick summary of the theory.
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John the Baptist meets Jesus – happy encounter?
The story of Christ’s meeting with John the Baptist in the gospels is a curious episode. John appears to be in charge of an already existing apocalyptic sect and is busy baptising new members. Jesus suddenly shows up unannounced. We’re then told that John instantly acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah and agrees to “decrease” while Jesus increases in stature.
Some scholars maintain that Jesus didn’t take over John’s sect but developed his own distinct set of followers – entirely independent. But if Jesus was the Messiah, why wouldn’t he have absorbed John’s followers? Why would that sect have continued to follow John?
Having baptised Jesus, John the Baptist is imprisoned by the Jewish ruler of Galilee and Perea, Herod Antipas for criticising his marriage to Herodias, a woman previously married to his half-brother. From his prison cell, John sent disciples to find out whether Jesus truly was the Messiah. Why did he need further assurances?
When John baptised Jesus, the heavens opened and the holy spirit flew down as a dove, and a voice boomed from the sky saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”. And this wasn’t sufficient proof for John? Christian scholars have countered that John was just making doubly sure. So, they insist, there was no nagging doubt in John’s mind.
To quell any uncertainty over John’s recognition of the supremacy of Jesus we have the bizarre story of the foetal John recognising the foetal Jesus when their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, pregnant at the same time, met each other. Foetal John reportedly leaped for joy in his mother’s womb. Is this an attempt to backdate John’s acknowledgement of Jesus as Messiah right back to the very start of his existence – because there was uncertainty?
“Baptists” and Christians
So, what happened to all those people baptised by John the Baptist before Jesus showed up? In the Book of Acts, it’s intimated that they needed to be re-baptised into Christianity. It seems that for many years after the big encounter between Jesus and John, the latter’s followers were part of a “Johannite” cult that existed quite separately from the Christians. Did they worship John the Baptist as the Messiah? Many scholars think not. But there is compelling evidence that some people did believe John was the chosen one.
A cult venerating John the Baptist persisted in the Middle East. In Iraq and south-west Iran, the Mandaeans (or Sabians) continue to the present day, venerating John the Baptist as a prophet and adhering to a form of gnosticism. Their name comes from the Aramaic terms “manda” and “mandayye”, both meaning “having knowledge”.
They believe in the deliverance of the soul at a cosmological day of judgment and the soul’s ascent to the Light World. Mandaeans have unique rituals and practices, including baptism in running water, which is seen as a manifestation of God. They have a distinct cosmology and believe in the existence of both a light world and a world of darkness.
John the Baptist and the Templar connection
Ok, deep dive into an esoteric theory about the Templars becoming Johannites. The origin for this story is the 19th century mystic, Madame Blavatsky. In a work titled Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky asserted that the Templars had no connection to modern Freemasonry. Instead, they were always about restoring “primitive secret worship”.
The true version of the story of Jesus – from a Johannite perspective – was imparted to the first Templar grand master, Hugh de Payens, by a man called Theocletes who was “Grand Pontiff of the Order of the Temple”, a Johannite cult. The Templars, Blavatsky believed, were never a Roman Catholic order but a Johannite cult. They regarded John the Baptist as their patron and mixed this belief with ingredients from the Jewish Kabbala, alchemy, astrology and magic.
Blavatsky is not taken seriously by mainstream historians, especially as her source of information came from supernatural enlightened beings she dubbed the “masters” or “Mahatmas”. She also used telekinesis and clairvoyance. But her ideas have seeped into many books on the Templars cementing this link between John the Baptist and the Knights Templar.
If you would like to know more about the Knights Templar, then get your hands on a copy of my book: The Knights Templar – History & Mystery. Published by Pen & Sword and available on Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and WHSmith. Don’t miss out on your copy!
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