The Island of Avalon has been associated with the tor at Glastonbury because the monks at the medieval abbey exaggerated the previous association with Joseph of Arimathea to attract pilgrims. The myth that Glastonbury tor is somehow connected or even synonymous with the Island of Avalon is probably down to a man called Henry Blois, better known as Master Blihis, who was an abbot at Glastonbury abbey.
The author has deciphered the meaning behind the riddle known as Melkin's prophecy, upon which the mythical status of Glastonbury is founded. It is due to the fragment of Melkin's prophecy that Glastonbury polemicists, recognizing its antiquity, desperately contrived an association with Joseph of Arimathea's burial site and that of King Arthur.
This was possible due to everyone's ignorance in the middle ages of the location of Avalon. The subtle translocation of the isle of Avalon can be witnessed in the evolving interpolation of the prophecy by Glastonbury chroniclers keen to promote the connection with the uncle of Jesus. The 'Vaus d'Avaron' of French Grail literature is described in the story line in some Grail romances as pertaining to a region of valleys south of Dartmoor and the island of Avalon fits the description of Burgh Island. The genuine historical Avalon had beaches; it was tidal and had ships that visited it...... unlike Glastonbury or its environs.
The monks riddle which he left for posterity, when deciphered, clearly indicates with pinpoint geometrical accuracy, the whereabouts of the resting place of King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea in the Island of Avalon. This is evidently not at Glastonbury.
The strange thing is that the geometric puzzle left by Melkin describes directions that are derived from the Saint Michael line of churches which runs across southern England.
For the skeptic, the fact that a 'bifurcated line' mentioned in Melkin's prophecy (Joseph lies on a bifurcated line), is the Saint Michael line..... causes many to assume there could be no link between the two. Most researchers have assumed the directions are local and relative to the old church at Glastonbury Abbey. This is all part of the interpolation purposely propagated by the Glastonbury establishment's chroniclers, in an attempt to be accounted the resting place of such an illustrious person.
The churches and chapels, built upon an ancient line of earthworks that demarcate the St. Michael line has been put there by design. When interlinked with other St. Michael churches (not on the Michael line), these Michaeline chapels act as markers on a map, leading to the lost island of Avalon. They clearly show that the chapels have be built as a devise to coincide with the precise instructional data provided by the prophecy of Melkin.
This site will show how this huge display of geometrical precision across the British landscape was understood and known to exist as late as late the 1300’s.
The accuracy of the geometry confirms that in antiquity, the presence of the St. Michael line was known about by Melkin in the sixth century..... long before the churches and chapels dedicated to the prince of the heavenly host were built. The array of churches dedicated to the archangel were built upon this ancient line of earthworks to point out to posterity the location of the tomb of Jesus by the ‘illuminati’ of the Templar order with the dual intent...... to mark the spot where they buried their treasure.
This hitherto hidden location is called the Island of Avalon and Melkin visited this island nowadays is known as Burgh Island. It becomes apparent that Melkin was present at the death of Britain’s famous King Arthur and he states who and what he saw in the Tomb.
In the tomb, Melkin found arcane information from the Temple in Jerusalem which had been brought to England by Joseph of Arimathea. This information, with an account of the Holy Family's arrival with Mary Magdalene, was written in a book composed by Melkin. This book gave account of the time from the arrival of these early Christians through a bloodline of 'Grail Keepers'...... up until the time of King Arthur.
The book became known as 'The Grail book', which found its way to France, Evidence points to Melkin who may well have established an early hermitage on Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy.
'The book of the Grail', through the troubadour family of the counts of Pitou and Aquitaine, gave rise to the wide array of Grail stories propagated through the medieval courts of France. A close family connection to Eleanor of Aquitaine in the person of Henry Blois (or as many knew him 'Monseigneur Blois'), became the 'Master Blohis' who was Abbot of Glastonbury. He was the first to expound from the French Grail literature by compiling the 'Perlesvaus', but he also was aware of the English traditions of the prophecy of Melkin which existed at Glastonbury and was aware of other manuscripts written by Melkin that became the source of Welsh Arthurian literature.
Henry of Blois however never knew the location of Avalon, but it was him who left the clue regarding Joseph of Arimathea being 'carefully hidden' at Montacute. This essential confirmational clue, not mentioned in the original prophecy, eventually came into the possession of Father William Good. It confirms Melkin's directions to the Island of Avalon and also endorses the proposition that the Michaeline chapels were constructed upon an older network of prominent earth mounds.
Unfortunately many researchers have denied the existence of alignment in the design of these ancient earthworks which became known as Ley lines. The mention of a Ley line for the majority of researchers has led to the refusal to accept the obvious parallels with the Michaeline structures and the denial of any association with the precision of Melkin's geometry. In fact some professed archaeologists refuse the existence of the ancient alignment of Avebury, Glastonbury tor, Burrow Mump and the Hurlers (to give but a few), simply because it is called a 'Ley line' and they don't understand the reasons behind the alignment.
‘And did those feet’, a book by Michael Goldsworthy, clearly shows that the body of Jesus is in fact buried with Joseph of Arimathea within this newly determined Avalon island in Devon. The Island used to be known as the fabled Island of Ictis by classical Greek and Latin chroniclers. However the Island contains within it an ancient tin vault. This hewn out tin storage deposit, which was used by the 'emporium' tin trading island of Ictis..... became the tomb for Jesus, Joseph and a collection of British nobles from antiquity . It had originally been used to store tin ingots when the Island of Ictis monopolised the trade of tin through the Phoenicians to the ancient world.
The confirmation of the whereabouts of this tomb is given by precise geometrical instructions upon the British landscape. These directions left in the obtuse Latin puzzle by the monk Melkin, (once deciphered), lead us to the grave site. The islands position is verified by the clue given to the Jesuit priest, Father Good, who lived in the sixteenth century. He deposited this vital corroborative clue concerning the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea in the English college in Rome.
Father Good however, was unaware of the significance of the clue he was given concerning how Joseph of Arimathea was 'Carefully hidden' in Montacute. However, someone else knew of the island's location and how its location was determined by these St. Michael dedicated sites. Since the time that the Templars visited the island with three treasure ships, to bury their treasure some one or some organisation has tried to hide the evidence that was rigourously guarded and passed to posterity by William Good. The reason for this seems to be that should we not have decoded Melkin's instructions..... the island might have been discovered sooner by the geometry which pertains to the Michaeline structures alone i.e both Burgh Island and Montecute both being prominent hill top features like the other St. Michael sites.
The three copies of 'Maihew's Trophea' have all had this information concerning Montacute removed. Were it not for a copy that existed in a private collection..... the chapel that existed atop St. Michael's hill would not have been known to act as a corroborative marker within the array of Michaeline chapels. These act as geometric points, that, when joined up in straight lines, confirm the angle and measurement that points to the Island and the tomb indicated by Melkin as the burial Island of Joseph of Arimathea.
The Templars in the middle ages were aware of the location of this tomb and deposited their treasure in the same sepulchre on Christmas day 1307. They were also aware of the instructional data within Melkin's prophecy. Thus the Templars were responsible for re-defining the line that Melkin had referred to by the re-dedication of church sites.
The line of St. Michael churches built upon an ancient alignment that includes Glastonbury was probably instigated by the Megalithic builders of Avebury. What function this line had is at the moment unanswered, but the fact that St. Michael's hill at Montacute is similar to both the prominent hilltop sites of Glastonbury and Burrow Mump would indicate by its subsequent dedication to St.Michael that it, (before Melkin's geometry was known), could have been part of this alignment from the early Megalith culture of Britain.
However, the Templars removed one item from the old hewn out vault within the island, which, because science has been unable to explain its formation..... has been classed as a fake. This artifact mentioned in the Gospels and throughout Grail literature has now become known as the Turin Shroud.
The Turin Shroud is described perfectly in Melkin's Latin puzzle once the solution is unravelled.
'Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta': Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.
It must not be forgotten by the pedant that Melkin had purposely constructed an obtuse riddle which needed to be unraveled. It is for this reason the Glastonbury establishment found it easy to convince the gullible that the old church at the abbey and some superfluous line (that was supposedly indicated by a bronze plaque on a pillar), was relevant to the resting place of Joseph.
This fairly precise description of the shroud was given six hundred years before the shroud supposedly first appeared at Lirey in France. This was just fifty years after the Templar's visit to Burgh Island....... so how could it be a fake?!!! This artifact, described to exist in the tomb with Joseph can be derived from Melkin’s description as 'duo fassula.' This was due to misinterpretation encouraged at Glastonbury and so the arbitrary understanding of two jugs, later became synonymous with the Holy Grail.
This misconception occurred mostly by ignorance of the intended meaning of the puzzle. Thus the two vessels which were misunderstood to contain the blood and sweat of Jesus, became synonymous with the object of the Holy Grail. This misleading interpretation has transpired by the subtle twists of the prophecy's interpretation at Glastonbury by polemicists and of course the intended subtlety of Melkin...... designing his prophecy as a riddle to be decoded.
The reader will learn on this site, that the Holy Grail is in fact something inestimably more valuable and these pages set out to explain what the Grail is and how the Grail stories came about.
The body of Jesus, around which the Turin Shroud was once wrapped, remained in the tin vault, steeped in Cedar oil. It is by being submerged in the oil that the image on the Turin Shroud was formed over a period of six hundred years. The image formation was caused by the interaction of Aneorobic detritus and Brownian motion within the oil as the shroud enveloped the body of Jesus.
Judging by Melkin’s description of the shroud and the fact that the whole cloth is covered with a yellow varnish like encrustation, left over from the evaporated oil, the shroud was most probably removed from the body around 5- 600AD by Melkin. The dried out cloth which had managed to transfer the faintest facial imprint to the back side image as it dried….. was then later removed from the Isle of Avalon by the Templars.
The Turin Shroud was essentially formed within what became known as the Grail Arc which is the tin lined coffin of Jesus. This is the box Joseph of Arimathea used to transport the body of Jesus to England that was filled with embalming fluid and from which it is said the ancient British kings were anointed. Both the shroud and the coffin are mentioned in the Grail Stories in numerous subliminal references with many references to the sweet smelling Cedar oil. This Grail ark or coffin brought to England by Joseph was not (for obvious reasons) mentioned specifically in the Grail romances, but is subliminally indicated as the tomb of an unidentified person. Eventually Joseph was laid to rest within the same Sepulchre.
The reason this Island which used to be called Ictis was chosen to house what is the holiest relic of all..... is because it was not widely known about in the ancient world and its location was kept secret from the Romans. It was rumoured to exist through a report by one of the first Greek explorers to Britain named Pytheas.
Devon and Cornwall have a history in the tin industry and it was from this island that tin was traded with Joseph of Arimathea.... who, Cornish tradition has always maintained, was a tin merchant and was accompanied on his trading missions by Jesus.
Diodorus Siculus gives us a clear description of this same island which Pytheas had named Ictis or 'Fish Island' due to the vast quantities of pilchards caught off the Island. Through Pytheas’ account of what he encountered at the tin trading island, Diodorus relates that ‘large quantities of tin’ were taken over to the island in carts across the sand bar at low tide.
The proposition that Joseph of Arimathea owned this island as 'Ictis' came under pressure from Roman hegemony, becomes plausible when we consider he was sometimes known as the Fisher king and could have recieved this name as owner of the island called Fish Island. Also when we consider the discrepancies of the Gospel accounts of a hewn out tomb owned by Joseph in which no one had been previously laid....... the Grail stories may in fact be giving a more precise rendition of accounts of a voyage related by Rabanus. The four Gospel writers are seen to be rationalising a virgin birth with a father called Joseph who disappears from the gopel accounts while at the same time relating that Joseph (of Arimathea) has taken possesion of the body of Jesus. The proposition that after the crucifixion a rumour started, that Jesus was to be buried in a hewed out tomb owned by Joseph might explain each gospel writers conflicting evidence. Nowhere in the Gospels is a singular event given account of with such variance by the four Gospel writers. the main conflicting points are about the discovery of the body. Our proposition is that it was brought back to England to an unused tin storage vault by Joseph of Arimathea (his real father).
These pages uncover an ancient Biblical link to the Devon and Cornish peninsula through a bloodline from the first born of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Israel, called Zarah. It is from Judah’s heritage a line of Kings emanated in the South West of England known as the kings of Sarras which culminated with the famous King Arthur.
This does seem fantastic, but when the reader views the evidence related on this web site, one will find that King Arthur, Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea are waiting to be unearthed on the Island today called Burgh Island. If this is not enough for the conspiracy theorist or the skeptic...... there is also the Templar treasure secreted in the tomb.
'And Did those feet, ' a book which answers Blake’s question posited in his famous anthem 'Jerusalem', traces these events. The book pulls together a wide source of detail, linking the most powerful people in Europe such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, the earliest traceable owner of the ‘Book of the Grail’, written by Melkin.
Furthermore, which seems to stretch credulity even further, a sound position may be maintained that Leonardo Da Vinci visited this island in the last three years of his life. He left clues within four paintings, which show the geographical and geological features of the Island. He also let the world know by his picture puzzle (rebus) in the Windsor Library, that he was showing us a great mystery.
Da Vinci even went as far as to say he would show where it is, in his two paintings of the Yarnwinder. The two Yarnwinder paintings known to have been by Leonardo’s hand, when merged together, show the Island of Avalon at the mouth of the river Avon below Dartmoor in geographical perspective.
Finally if the Grail quester is in any doubt as to whether a tomb exists on this island, we can see compelling evidence in the story of the Perlesvaus.
The Perlesvaux is a compilation of an early oral tradition and is derived from some of the earliest troubadours. It is from these men that the romances emanated. We can still hear the topographical detail attached to the storylines in this Grail literature that show that the Island of Avalon is synonymous with Burgh Island and the Isle of Avalon is not located at Glastonbury.
The implication and ramifications of the unearthing of this tomb will have consequences across the world. In fact this is why this ancient extract known as Melkin's prophecy which is found replicated in John of Glastonbury’s Cronica is thought to be a prophecy. Not only does Melkin leave geometrical datum which leads us to the tomb, but he unequivocally and specifically states that the discovery of the tomb will have worldwide ramifications.
This King Arthur website is not specifically about King Arthur, but includes the role of the fraudulent unearthing at Glastonbury of King Arthur’s remains. This one act has played a significant role in distorting the historical truths related by the Grail literature and our understanding of these events. This faked dis-interment of King Arthur has warped the understanding of how these events originally transpired so that the Grail stories are considered to relate no historical fact. These pages that follow uncover the relationship between the unveiling of Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury and how it has prevented the discovery of the bodies of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea.
It is also a very strange irony that while the world looked on at the Olympic ceremony, the Island of Avalon ( as modern perception has understood) was imitated as Glastonbury tor. At the same time Blake's Anthem entitled 'Jerusalem’ was brought into popular consciousness as it was sung at the opening ceremony and seen by millions across the Globe. The Irony being that even today the question is still asked 'Did the feet of Jesus walk upon England's green and pleasant land'.
The reason the information on this site and the conclusions drawn, concerning the discovery of this tomb, have yet to be uncovered, are twofold. The first is that the proprietors of the hotel on the Island known as Burgh Island have refused any permission to uncover the entrance after many requests from various people. The conspiracy theorist would think back to the disappearance of the pages in Maihew’s Trophea and ponder....... that if someone in the sixteenth century was actively intent upon obscuring the unveiling of the tomb site…….. are there still those today who wish to prevent the tomb’s opening. However, sadly, the answer is probably a lot more mundane.
The second reason and more importantly is that scholars, researchers and archaeologists have all assumed Melkin and his prophecy to be a thirteenth century fraud and are unwilling to retract pronouncements made not only about Melkin, but a whole swathe of literature falsely rationalised upon propaganda initiated at Glastonbury in the Middle ages.
However, the prophecy, which specifically speaks of Joseph of Arimathea finding his rest in the Island of Avalon….. would have to be a very well thought out fraud which shoots in the foot the supposed promulgator who designed it to benefit Glastonbury. Especially since the instructions within it, accurately located an Island so well described in the Grail Stories at which the Fisher king (otherwise known as Joseph of Arimathea) was said to be buried.
It is these Romances that actually tell the story of Joseph of Arimathea’s arrival in Britain and were written by the same man who concerns himself with the same island and personages (Jesus and Joseph) in his British prophecy . One must then have to ask...... if the prophecy were invented for use to convince pilgrims of the presence of the gravesite of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury...... why then does every pertinent instructional detail, geometrically pin point an Island in Devon. Surely even the skeptics or the sedentary academic would see this as a coincidence too far especially when not one of the 104 knights or 144,000 saints have been unearthed to date.
Melkins directions are so clear once the riddle is decoded. The subject of Melkin’s puzzle is the Island of Avalon....... the object is the whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb and the consequences of it being found.
There are so few instructional directions within this short prophecy that if it were a thirteenth century invention it would be extraordinary that every one of the clues lend additional information which geometrically locates Burgh Island. Previously, not one commentator has given a valid reason for the essential clues: ‘bifurcated line’,’ 104 miles’, ‘13 degrees,’ and ‘sperula’ for Avebury.
If these numerical and objective clues such as a 'spherical' Avebury stone circle (circular) and 'line' (made up of St. Michael churches) did not match the 104 mile distance and the angle of 'bifurcation' was not 13 degrees...... we might be able to go along with convention and assume the Grail stories were misguided in their description of the location of Avalon. This of course would make little sense, as we have explained the reasons for Glastonbury usurping the name Avalon.
Melkin hints that we look for a line to bifurcate. The most obvious line is the Michael Line in southern England. He also intones, (once the riddle is understood as Melkin intended it), when the line is found…within a circle (sperula), which is Avebury......... one needs to measure 104 Nautical miles at 13 degrees to the (Michael) line and one has located Avalon.
This is where he indicates we will find Joseph and the Holy Grail and is the sole purpose of his riddle.
Many have pondered as to why or how Melkin is able to give distances in nautical miles, but he does refer to them as miles 'milibus'. The fact that he could understand this nautical mile measurement has prevented many researchers accepting the 104 as a precise measurement,(even since the riddle has been decoded) and have maintained that the number must be relevant only in the context of a 13th century fraud. How does this number of 104 or the number13 mentioned in the prophecy help a supposed fraudulent monk. Surely if the prophecy were indeed a fraud, he would have stated 'saints' not milibus. However, Melkin who was real and transferring a message to decode in the future says in a subtle way 13 degrees.
Melkin has set out his code and if the reader is not able to decode this part of the riddle, one is not going to obtain the direction of 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line through Montacute to Burgh Island along the Joseph line. Melkin plays on the original use of the word ‘sperulis’, from which we derived sphere, which at the beginning of the prophecy related to the stone circle of Avebury. Melkin then refers back to ‘sperulis’ by using the word “aforementioned” (the normal meaning of 'supradictis') trying to convince the reader that the two words ‘sperulis’ and ‘sperulatis’ have one and the same meaning. However his use of the word for the second time has not the same sense as in circle or sphere, but rather in its composition, being comprised of degrees. Melkin surely meant ‘sperulatis’ as a diminutive form and of the symbol for degrees i.e. 13°……. the symbol being a small circle °. Funnily enough the word supradictis is meant to be split in 'supra ad ictis' which confirms the tomb is 'up high in Ictis'
Many assume the ancients were ignorant of basic mapping and Navigational skills but this is obviously inaccurate and is attested to by the Phoenician voyages to Britain. Even Pytheas in 350 BC knew of the necessary breakdown of 60 nautical miles into 1 degree as an immutable and unchangeable law calibrated by the confines of the circumference of the globe.
This conclusion that the ancients recognised 60 nautical miles as 1 degree is easily drawn if we split the globe into the four quadrants of 90 degrees giving the 360 degrees encompassed in a circular line of Latitude or Longitude. By what other means could Pytheas measure the declination of the sun. Don’t forget there are chroniclers that attest that Melkin was not only a geometer, but an astronomer also, who was interested in Comets.
Island of Avalon, coveting the pagans in death, above all others (places) in the world for their entombment there, it is before the circle(sperula) that predicts prophesy (Avebury) and in the future will be adorned by those that give praise to the highest. The father’s pearl, (Jesus) virtuous through the new wine, the noblest of pagans, sleeps 104 miles from it (Avebury), by whom he received interment by the sea from Joseph named from Arimathea, and has taken his eternal rest there, and he lies on a line that is two forked between that and a meridian, in an angle on a coastal Tor, in a crater, that was already prepared and above is where one prays which one can go at the extremity of the verge, high up in Ictis is the place they abide to the south at thirteen degrees.
Insula auallonis auida funere paganorum, pre ceteris in orbe ad sepulturam eorum omnium sperulis propheciae vaticinantibus decorata, & in futurum ornata erit altissimum laudantibus. Abbadare, potens in Saphat, paganorum nobilissimus, cum centum et quatuor milibus domiicionem ibi accepit. Inter quos ioseph de marmore, ab Armathia nomine, cepit sompnum perpetuum; Et iacet in linea bifurcata iuxta meridianum angulum oratori, cratibus praeparatis, super potentem adorandam virginem, supradictis sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim. Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta. Cum reperietur ejus sarcofagum, integrum illibatum in futuris videbitur, & erit apertum toto orbi terrarium. Ex tunc aqua, nec ros coeli insulam nobilissimam habitantibus poterit deficere. Per multum tempus ante diem Judioialem in iosaphat erunt aperta haec, & viventibus declarata.
How the prophecy has been variously translated in the past completely misunderstanding the geometric references
‘The Isle of Avalon, greedy for the death of pagans, more than all others in the world, for their entombment, decorated beyond all others by portentous spheres of prophecy, and in the future, adorned shall it be, by them that praise the most high. Abbadare, mighty in judgement, noblest of pagans, has fallen asleep there with 104,000 others (or 104 knights), among these, Joseph of Arimathea has found perpetual sleep in a marble tomb, and he lies on a two forked line, next to the southern angle of an oratory, where the wattle is prepared above the mighty maiden and in the place of the 13 spheres.
For Joseph has with him in his sarcophagus two white and silver vessels, filled with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus and when his sarcophagus is uncovered, it will be seen whole and undisturbed, and will be opened to the whole world.
Thenceforth those who dwell in that noble isle, will lack neither water nor the dew of heaven. For a long while before the day of judgment (ludioialem) in Josaphat, open shall these things be and declared to the living’.
If you do not wish to commit to reading the whole exposé you will find the breakdown of the instructional part of Melkin’s prophecy enlightening.......... confirming the geometry shown above.
For a fuller explanation of how the Knights templar hid their treasure on an island and built the churches along an existing neolithic energy line known as the St.michael ley line, go to
The Grail Stories confirm what Melkin informs us that the
body of Jesus is in Avalon but it is the Templars role in the removal of the
Turin Shroud that explains it lack of provenance.
On October
12th 1307, three Templar treasure ships were moored in La Rochelle harbour, the
next day they had vanished. Most of the mystique concerning the Templars today
stem from the fact that they occupied the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and are
rumoured to have retrieved from it, ‘The Ark of the Covenant’ and other Temple
treasures such as the Menorah. The Holy Grail quickly became associated with
the Templars, even in the twelfth century, Evalak’s shield becoming the Templar
emblem as the red cross. One of the first Grail romances, ‘Le Conte du Graal’, was written around 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes. Perhaps twenty years later Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach's version of the tale, refers to
knights called ‘Templeisen’ or in the French ‘Les Templiere’ who were guarding the Grail Kingdom.
It becomes clearer that the Templars or a secretive hierarchy embodied within
the order, possessed arcane knowledge, and were responsible for emanating the
Grail stories and the Templars with connections such as Eleanor of Aqitaine
becoming interwoven in the romances as a form of flattery by the troubadours as
the romances proliferated.
The relics of
the Templars and what others thought were their religious beliefs played a
large part in their downfall, but the main reason for their demise was that
other institutions were after their wealth and envious of their power. At the
Templar inquisition, instigated by the King of France, they were accused of
heresy, sodomy and worshipping bearded heads, Baphomet (a Muslim Gnosis), and other
such strange practices, which may have been invented by their accusers to give
weight to charges of heresy. The
Templars were in possession of certain relics from the Temple in Jerusalem
which seem to have been re-discovered at the second crusade because of
information supplied by Joseph which ended up with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The
head of John the Baptist could have been preserved from King Herod’s days and also kept secreted beneath the
Temple. Herod’s daughter Herodias had danced for his guests and demanded John’s
head. This could
have been retrieved and secreted in the Temple by those who realised John’s
role in the Divine plan, (a plan which had been related by the prophets). John’s head would have been regarded as
sacred and therefore preserved for veneration and then subsequently re-found in
the same cache as the Temple treasure.
The Templars
main claim to a sacred religious relic was to possess a piece of the original
cross from Cavalry but as we have seen already, these were so prolific that a
piece existed in Montacute. In all the
considerable documentation involving the trials of the Templars, nothing has
been found concerning the Grail, so even though the stories were propagated by
the Templar organisation, the concept of the Grail, as something that Joseph
had brought to Britain was in the public domain and was slowly shaped into an
object by association with Melkin’s misunderstood description.
It seems highly likely that the likes of
Walter Map and Chrétien de Troyes, and other ‘trouvere’
before them, were shown an ancient text written in Latin and it would appear
that a French copy might have been made of the whole Grail book. If this was
the case, it would certainly account for the gross misunderstanding of the
essence of the Grail if the initial translator made substantial errors. However
if this was the case, it co-existed with the Latin book that contained arcane
information in Hebrew brought to Britain by Joseph. The troubadours were either asked or paid
to write stories that alluded to historical fact in allegorical prose; this
being initially instigated it would seem, at Eleanor’s or her father’s court.
With this gradual proliferation, the characters, some, as we have seen from the
crusade period, got mixed in with early accounts from a Cornish royal line that
traced its heritage back to Joseph and Jesus.
Even
the objects within the Grail stories are so interrelated and undergo
transformations that it is hard to establish what was in Melkin’s book. Joseph, Nicodemus and Vespasian were mixed
together with Arthur from the Saxon period. People who historically lived
hundreds of years apart are intertwined in tales with objects from the
crucifixion. The Grail itself,
objectivised from this text, refers directly to the gradual degrees, the
‘Graal’ of the enlightenment of man and this is alluded to as being part of the
quest. Jesus’ role in these events plays
a major part in the enlightenment of man and the story involving his relics
being brought by Joseph to England has resulted in varying perspectives and
degrees of allegory. The different Grail writers alluded to a greater or lesser
degree, certain passages or sections taken from Melkin’s original book of the
Grail.
This is as we have seen in regard to Camelot,
the name which was derived from a Hebrew pilgrimage, eventually
transposing itself into a beautiful
city. We know that Tintagel was Arthur’s base in Cornwall and there is no
mythical city that has disappeared since the six hundreds. We can see the same
with Excalibur derived from the Aramaic ‘quali’ meaning ‘forged’ (from which we
derive the modern word ‘calibre’), rendering ‘forged long ago’, being
interchangeable as Solomon’s sword (the implement threatened on the disputed
baby), iconized as judgement. This
judgement was a part of the original story related by Melkin in the book of the
Grail regarding the ‘gradual’ enlightenment of man. Coincidentally Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s ‘Historia’ also states that Avalon is
where Arthur’s sword Caliburn (Excalibur) was ‘forged’.
Briefly, we should look at an alliterative
poem said to be written about A.D. 1330-50 regarding Joseph which contains much
of what the Grail book alluded to, but which seems to have been passed over in
some part by other Grail writers who concentrated upon Arthurian knightly
escapades, rather than, for us, the most important facts about what it was,
that Joseph actually brought with him. Although it is not part of the endeavour
to investigate the various perspectives which constitute the Grail romances,
this particular romance, which can be related to other similar source material
such as the ‘The Lyfe of Joseph’ or ‘De Sancto Joseph Abarimathia’, specifically
derived from or seemingly condensed, the same early source as Mr Furnivalls
‘Seynt Graal’, a prose version from a manuscript in the British Museum. This
will show us how Melkin was able to speak of his ‘double folded grave cloth’,
as described in his prophecy and the provenance and method of fabrication of
the Turin Shroud.
This ‘Alliterative poem’ which seems to have a very early source from its lack of embellishment, is from a unique copy in the Vernon Manuscript at Oxford and by its content, shows it is of a much older date than is supposed by experts and it must have been taken from a much earlier version. The subject of the story portrays the adventures of Joseph of Arimathea at the court of Evalak, king of Sarras, with the episode of king Evalak's shield in part, included. The story of Evalak’s shield is related to Galahad by ‘the White Knight’, in the Romance of the ‘Quest of the Saint Graal’, and from there it was inserted by Malory in his ‘Morte d’Arthur’. The object of the poet was to make known and translate much of the legend of Joseph which had come from the Book of the Grail and we can only guess at what the original French extract might have selected to omit from the original Grail book. This poem provides evidence of a very early source because of its non-corruption of essential information that was initially related by the original Grail book. A break down of the story follows closely that which we have already quoted from John of Glastonbury and relates that:
After Jesus’s entombment, Joseph of Arimathea was seized by the Jews, and imprisoned in a dungeon, without a window, where he remained for forty-two years, till released by Vespasian. This seems unlikely if Jesus was approximately 35 when he died and Joseph, being his uncle, would have been about 25 years older. This would have made Joseph approximately 102 years old before his arrival in Britain. This as we will show shortly, is relating information about the essence of the grades or degrees of the Graal which the author of the poem is including as part of the story, which also correlates with the prophet Daniel’s three and a half years. The forty two years have been extrapolated from the Latin Grail text which is alluding allegorically to the forty two months (and may indeed have had the word ‘months’) as mentioned in the book of Revelation, which also correlates with the three and a half days mentioned in Revelation and as seen in Daniel 9:27 ‘And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week……giving the same time period of the Three and a half days’ but this will be explained when we deal with Biblical Time.
After his release, Joseph then tells Vespasian that the time of his imprisonment seemed but three days, which also confirms that the writer is innocently divulging occult information that was in the original text but has omitted the half day because of not understanding its significance.
The text then goes on to say that Joseph, having just been baptized himself, then proceeds to baptize Vespasian and fifty others, after which Vespasian wreaks vengeance on the Jews who had imprisoned Joseph.
In obedience to a divine voice, Joseph, with his wife, his son Josephes and a company of fifty people, (possibly the same as Rabanus’s group before disembarking the women in France), left Jerusalem, and arrived at Sarras, taking with him the Holy Graal, containing Christ's blood which is carried inside an ark or box. In other Grail stories the group are said to arrive on Josaphes shirt which is surely the inclusion of a mistranslation of the original word meaning cloth, vestment, or covering in reference to the doubled over grave cloth or ‘duo fassula’.
Let us assume for the moment, that Sarras is the Belerion of Pytheas and Belerion is named after the God Bel by Zarah’s offspring. Sarras where Zara’s offspring migrated to, has an anciently renowned Island within its confines where the thing called the Grail is kept. This Island in Sarras, in translation gets confused by the original French Grail writer; and is termed ’The Island of Sarras’ because most certainly Melkin knew that the Grail remained on an Island.
The Island of Sarras may, alternatively have
been named and noted by Melkin because of its connection with Zara or Zerah in
his Latin book of the Grail which turned up in France. This seems unlikely as
the ‘valleys of Avaron in the West’ (Devon) is spoken of by Robert de Boron and
it would even appear that the Grail writer thought that the Island of Sarras is
in Egypt. We do have a line of Kings of the most important biblical heritage
who has a name that a French translator or early troubadour would pronounce as
‘sarra’ and later be written as Sarras.
However, the mention of Egypt (or the coming out of it) is purely as we
shall see, one of the degrees to spiritual enlightenment foretold by the
Biblical prophets along with Babylon, where coincidentally Tholomer came
from. The complete mix-up of information
by the Grail writers is astounding when Melkin relating in spiritual terms
about Tholomer who is synonymous with Ptolemy king of the Egyptians, becomes
King of Babylon. But as we shall cover in detail later both the coming out of
Eygypt and Returing from Babylon are spiritual stages to pass through as Grades
to enlightenment and have entered the story as extaneaous detail taken out of
context from the original Grail book.
However this unravels the appearance of an
Island from French sources, having the name Zara (translating as Sarras), which
coincidentally just happens to be where the Grail is, just the same as it is
said to be in the Island of Avalon with Joseph. So this Island mentioned by
Robert de Boron as having Joseph's family bringing the Grail to it, the ‘vaus
d'Avaron’, the valleys of Avaron in the west (Devon being the county of Vales),
may have been named as ‘Avalon’ also in the first translation from Melkin’s
Grail book. This however leads us back
to the same conundrum of scribal changes at Glastonbury. Did Glastonbury change ‘Avaron’ to ‘Avalon’
to match the ‘aval’ etymology of Somerset and apples.
The
concentration on certain details by the early Grail writers was purely an
individual choice. Some writers, as in the ‘Alliterative poem’ we are looking
at, concentrated on his personal interest of battle description while others
might choose to pick just one word, as we have seen with Camelot and embellish
that word until its origins were unrecognisable. The Grail writers did not
understood that Melkin had used biblical metaphorical language as part of the
Grail material which in essnce recounts the spiritual stages of man.This can be
readily confirmed by reading the biblical Prophets when one transliterates from
an historical into an individual context. This is the reason we have the
inclusion of the kings of Egypt and Babylon in the Grail stories which
originally reconfirmed their parts played in the heightening of man’s
Consciousness. This was before the Grail
writers created a complete ‘salad’ of what was a coherent account that could
have been substantiated by an understanding of the Biblical Prophets.
Joseph tried to convert Evalak, the king of Sarras, whose kingdom was synonymous with the Kingdom of Belerion, Dumnonia or Devon and Cornwall. Joseph, at the same time declared the doctrine of the Trinity to the king. This doctrine was the essence of the occult information which Joseph had brought with him and related to the three spiritual stages or progressions of Mankind toward enlightenment; the ‘coming out of Egypt’, the ‘return from Babylon’ and the ‘Period of peace’ which were continually reiterated from every perspective by the biblical prophets. The king of Sarras provided for the wants of Joseph's company, but has his doubts about the truth of the doctrine. The following night, the king was converted by two visions.
In the first he saw three stems growing from one trunk and appearing to coalesce into one perhaps emblematic of the Trinity but could also be construed as the coalescing of the three Abrahamic Religions as a vision of the future as this is in effect the outcome of finding the Grail. In the second vision the King saw a child pass through a solid wall without any injury to the wall and the Grail writer interjected that it was an emblem of Christ's spotless Incarnation. However what is more likely is that it was part of the occult account of spiritual progression through the ‘degrees’ without injury to the soul. The child being synonymous with man giving birth i.e the son of man derived from the fusion of soul and spirit, the birth of Gnosis.
Josaphes, the son of Joseph, also saw a vision when he peered into the Grail-Ark. He beheld Christ upon the cross and five angels with the instruments of the Passion; with eleven more angels appearing afterwards, whilst Christ seemed to descend from the cross, and to stand beside an altar, upon the one end of which were the Lance and Three Nails, and upon the other the Dish with the Blood (the Holy Grail).
This is where the account gets interesting if we understand that the French writer was constructing a plot from Melkin’s elusive or incomprehensible occult information, while remembering that Melkin’s account is constructed from an eye witness account.
Let us assume that the Grail ark or box as it was described was in fact a coffin type container that contained the corpse of Jesus wrapped in the grave cloth which was submerged in Cedar oil, possibly mixed with other essential oils such as Juniper. This is not too far to stretch considering Jesus is the Grail and the Grail in every account holds or contains something related to him. In the sealed coffin was the lance, three nails and possibly an unlikely ‘sealed chalice’ and more likely a Eucharistic cup. This would be the five items enumerated, not as the story relates, that there were five angels, while the number eleven would be a reference to his disciples woven into the story. The Whangers who have carried out many experiments on flower imprints on the Turin Shroud, discovered faint images of other objects on the shroud, including a nail, a hammer, a broom (probably mistaken for the spear, a piece of rope and a round wreath of thorns, the marks of which can be seen on Jesus’ forehead, a reed, and a sponge. The reed and the sponge are witnessed by Mark 15:36 ‘One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a reed, and offered it to Jesus to drink’. It is also noted that in the Elucidation of the High history of the Grail that we came across earlier, the spear was kept with the body, an oversight by the Gospel accounts that seems to concur with the evidence found by the Whangers that it remained with the body but also lends credence to an eyesight account of the contents of the Grail Ark if substituted for the words Holy Sepulchre. ’but rather honoured the body the most he might, rather laid it along in the Holy Sepulchre and kept safe the lance whereof He was smitten in the side’.
The oil with which Josaphes was consecrated was kept in the Grail-ark, and afterwards the poem says that it was used at the consecration of all the kings of Britain down to Uther-pendragon. This same Ark which Joseph and Josephes are said to ‘retreat to and Pray over’ on several occasions in the poem and in which was seen the body of Christ, even being described as ‘just as he was at the time of his entombment’. The original grave cloth from Jerusalem was wrapped over Jesus in this oil soaked Grail Ark and his body was said to be wrapped in ‘a clothe called Sendony’, which one would assume is a corruption of the old French ‘cedre’ for Cedar from ‘Cedra’ or ‘cedrinus’ giving ‘of cedar’ and as Pliny has for Cedrus….anointed with the juice or oil of a cedar tree and so preserves from rotteness. Coincidentally the word ‘sindon’ from the Greek σινδών is precisely the word chosen in the Gospel of Mark to describe the burial cloth of Jesus and today the term ‘sindonology’ is used to refer to the formal study of the Shroud. In Fact the The Orvieto Worldwide Conference labeled
"Sindone 2000", discussions about the Shroud are referring to the same bit of cloth mentioned in the Grail story brought to England by Joseph of Arimathaea, but until now it has not been connected to the cloth that was attested to by Melkin as seen at Jesus’ tomb at Avalon
Let us
take a short digression here to try to correlate all this extraneous
information. Cedar oil is difficult
to extract and some Egyptologists have argued that Pliny was mistaken when he
wrote, in the 1st century AD, about "cedar juice" being employed as
an embalming method by Egyptians. Recent
discoveries support the writings of Pliny the Elder (AD23-79), who we came
across earlier, described the method of how the precious oil was extracted by
putting cedar wood in a chamber heated from outside, but can simply be
understood as distillation. “The first
liquid that exudes flows like water down a pipe; in Syria this is called
‘cedar-juice’, and it is so strong that in Egypt it is used for embalming the
bodies of the dead".
Herodotus, five centuries earlier,
had also written a similar description of a liquid cedar for preserving flesh. Recently at
Germany's Tuebingen University they carried out tests separating embalming
material by ‘gas chromatography’, found near a 3500-year-old mummy called
‘Saankh-kare’, unearthed at a site in Deir al-Behari in Egypt. Among these chemicals were sequiterpenoids and guaiacols which are
organic compounds found in tar and oil from conifers such as cedar. These compounds constitute a colourless aromatic oil and will be found to exist among the poly-saccharides
found in the threads of the Turin Shroud. Scientists tend to confirm a theory
when they have a theory with which to match their data, but it has long been
known that Cedar oil was used as an embalming fluid. One can see the waviness
of the suspended cloth in computer imaging but the scientific examiners were
mainly steered in the context of how they reviewed their results by the Gospel
account of a dry burial.
Certainly the Egyptians
would have rubbed the precious cedar resin on the body and into the body
cavities as part of the embalming process to act as an insecticide and
antimicrobial in a dry burial. Joseph
however was wealthy and could obtain enough of this very expensive oil to
submerge the body of Jesus. The cedar
oil spoken of by Herodotus and Pliny is called ‘Cedri
Succus’, Cedrium similar to the name of the cloth in the alliterative poem.
The potent essential oils found in the many
unguents used in the mummification process contained myrrh, attar of roses,
cedar and sandalwood and were effective anti-aerobic bacterial agents, and are
mostly responsible for the preserved state of the mummies around today.
Many Egyptologists thought the key ingredient
in embalming was juniper oil, but recently with improved scientific analysis it
has been proved to be, cedar oil instead. The remarkable properties of cedar
wood to resist decay, was valued by the Egyptians. They even used it to build
their temples, chests, coffins, idols and boats, in addition using the precious
cedar oil in embalming and numerous cosmetic preparations.
Solomon's temple was even built entirely of Lebanese cedar from the Lebanese cedar forests but alas, they were cut and eventually depleted because of the demand for their wood. It should not be forgotten that Joseph would have been well acquainted with this oil, travelling from Tyre and Sidon in Lebanon on his mercantile trips to Britain.
Getting back to our Alliterative poem, the story then continues that Christ ordains Joseph a bishop, and bids him go to Evalak's palace. The kings chamberlain who was appointed by King Evalak to dispute with Joseph, was miraculously struck dumb, whilst at the same time his eyes flew out of his head. This part of the poem seeming to relate that, at Evalak’s disbelief at the new and foreign religious account, he then employed an orator or sophist to counteract the Gnostic revelation brought by Joseph and while in debate, the orator was struck blind and dumb.
Evalak then repaired to a temple of idols, hoping to secure the chamberlain's recovery, but the idols were powerless. Soon after, a messenger arrived to tell Evalak that his land has been invaded by Tholomer, king of Babylon, whereupon Evalak prepares for war. This section in particular is relating like the prophets had done, the connection between disbelief and denial and the invasion of the Babylonian army upon Jerusalem. This again will become clear when we cover the subject of Time and the prophets.
Before he set out, Joseph and Josaphes have a private audience with Evalak, wherein Joseph tells the king that he is acquainted with all his previous history. (This again is the book of the Grail recounting that Joseph told the descendants of Judah in Sarras of their historical connection to the Davidic line). After this, Josaphe gave Evalak a shield with a red cross upon it, telling him to pray to Christ in the hour of peril. The essence of this passage being that Jesus becomes (or is synonymous with) the eventual shield, as explained in the Grail book as the third ‘degree’ of Gnosis.
In the first encounter, Tholomer's men were successful, but lost their tents. Evalak then collected more men, and was joined by his wife's brother, Seraphe, with five hundred men. This last passage and the following section is directly bound up with the occult meaning of the Grail as Man’s spiritual progression and attainment in Biblical Time which, if elucidated here, will cause further digression but briefly; the five hundred years (men) is an interpolation representative from the Jews return from Babylon to the coming of Jesus.
In the next battle, King Evalak and Duke Seraphe performed wonders, but at last Seraphe was wounded sorely, and Evalak made prisoner. As Evalak was being led to death, he remembered Josaphe's advice; he uncovers the shield with the red cross, and prays to Christ. An angel came to the rescue, in the outward form of a ‘White Knight’, who slayed Tholomer, healed Seraphe, mounted Evalak upon Tholomer's horse, and helps him to achieve a complete victory; after which he vanished. This is again relating occult information regarding the degrees to peace defeating the Babylonians through belief in Jesus (the shield) until the individual in his spiritual endeavour inherits the king of Babylon’s horse (the power of the king).
The Sceptic will be faltering here, but this account is the nearest we will get to what Melkin was relating as an account of the divine plan and this will become clearer as we progress.
If we consider that Joseph, after his initiation had understood this story of the Divine plan set in ‘Time’, then recorded this, with different references in a volume that must have been in a mixture of Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew. Then Melkin, transcribing all this occult or Gnostic information in addition to the historical Arthurian and genealogical material, conglomerates this evidence into the Latin Book of the Grail. From this, by various means, we arrive at our French sources effectively making the very early sources third hand accounts at best, which underwent at least two translations which covered a change in language over a period of a thousand years. It is no wonder that the account has come down to us in a garbled and corrupted form.
Meanwhile, Joseph had an interview with Evalak's queen, who was at heart a Christian, and whose early history was also related. This again is riddled with gnostic meaning concerning the relationship of Christianity to the Grail account of Zerah.
Evalak returned home, and was baptized, having been named Mordreins (back from the dead). Seraphe was also baptized, with the name of Naciens (reborn). Joseph further baptized five thousand of Evalak's subjects, and abided at Sarras, meanwhile Josaphes and Naciens set out upon a missionary journey whilst the Holy Grail was left at Sarras- (the island of Avalon) in the charge of two of Joseph's company. Again it is not by accident that this entire account concerning Joseph has happened in the five thousandth year of the seven thousand total of Biblical Time, showing again the poems and the original Grail book’s occult relationship to what the prophets relate in Biblical time.
The poem ceased here, with a brief reference to the subsequent imprisonment of Joseph by the king of North Wales and his future release from captivity by Mordreins (Evalak).
Galahad, Joseph's youngest son, was (according to the French)
the ‘ancestor of the famous men who so increased the
renown of Britain’. However in this poem, our translator seems to think that
Galahad, was the son of Lancelot and Elaine.
Now if Lancelot is, as we have mentioned earlier, an elaborated name for
Jesus; is Elaine a compound version of Magd’elaine? Is ‘Mag’, or the ancient
French root of ‘Mage’ (meaning chief or principal) of European derivative.
Apart from being a general root for words that relate to ‘great’, with French
and English etymological roots, it could also be corresponding to or a compound
of some Aramaic or Hebraic word such as ‘Magdiy'el’ meaning preciousness of
God, or Migdal-'El, tower
of God; Migdal-El.
The name Mary however, can have so many
etymological roots but it does seem to have been a popular appellation at the
time of Jesus and could have been so popular due to its meaning of female
aspiration to beauty. Originally the name
Mary is based on its derivation from the Egyptian mer or mar,
to love and Miriam Moses’ sister is the only person in the old Testament with
this name and as Moses was named by Pharaoh’s daughter, Miriam would seem to
have an Egyptian origin as Aaron her brother also has no etymological roots in
Hebrew. Maryam with the Hebrew divine name Yam
or Yahweh denotes
"one loving Yahweh" or "one beloved by Yahweh". Mariam and Maria are the later forms of the
Hebrew miryam. The only
reason for mentioning this is the oddness of having the popular name Mary and
the English or French appellation of Elaine or Helen as a compound of her name.
We shall investigate when we cover the appellation of Tombelaine or Tumbelena
(the Tomb of Elaine) as pertaining to The island of Avallon, how it was
transferred as relating to Mont-saint- Michel in France.
We now know that
Avallon contains the body of Jesus and that Mary Magdaleine, if she accompanied
Joseph with Jesus’ body to England, would not only know of the location, but
would wish to be buried in the same place. Hence this place became known as
‘Mons Tumba’ the mount of the tomb but then through some strange quirks became
associated with a different St. Michael shrine that of Mont St. Michel. The
French tradition has Mary being originally buried in Aix en Provence and her
relics to have been later removed to Vézelay. It does not take but a cursory
read of the ‘The Little Book of Vézelay about the relics and translation of the
Blessed Mary Magdalene’ to realise that the Glastonbury story of Arthur’s
discovery and reburial is mirrored in this overly elaborate and contrived
account with the same purposes of attracting pilgrims as a motive.
Let us return
back to our investigation to the Templars after many digressions. The Crusades
were undertaken by European states and also by British King's, ostensibly to
recapture the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem, from the non-Christian
Mohammedan’s. Each endeavour was being
carried out with a clear conscience and religious fervour in the name of
Christendom and political gain. The first Crusade took place in 1095 and the
ninth Crusade ended in 1272 and in this same period of 200 years, the Templar
institution was being continually empowered by knightly deeds for Christendom
and having consolidated much power across Europe, the organisation outwardly
came to an end on Friday the 13th 1307. As we have witnessed in the
construction of the St. Michael churches, the power, wealth and knowledge
amassed and wielded by them during this period was still to be seen in full
operation, manipulating events on a grand scale.
It appears
that The Templars or the brains behind the organisation were responsible for
the release of a body of information that perpetuated a theme based largely
upon legends of Joseph having transported a relic of Jesus to Britain. With embellishment this account became
anachronistically and inextricably connected with accounts of the early
Dumnonian Kings and these accounts were all consolidated by Melkin. A body of evidence showed that Joseph of
Arimathea had come with Jesus’s relics to what was still the residue of the
kingdom of Belerion, with the royal line of Kings having genetical ties to
Judah. This body of evidence in the Book
of the Grail included an account similar to the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel
of Nicodemus. It seems likely that this
Nicodemus account, which existed separately in Britain and probably derived
from crossover material which Melkin had written that remained in Britain, was
largely responsible for the Joseph tradition in Britain before the advent of
the Grail stories. Melkin’s Manuscripts were transcribed incorporating this
knowledge and accounts of events up to and including the time of King Arthur in
around 550-650 A.D. It would seem then that both Bale and Pitts were wrong
about Melkin ‘flourishing before Merlin’, (if Merlin were a contemporary of Arthur),
otherwise he would not have been able to write his ‘De Regis Arthurii mensa
rotunda’ and the book of the Grail and more importantly, be able to relate the whereabouts of Arthur’s
resting place.
As the Saxons
and the original Britains intermingled, the Celtic Welsh, (like the of Celts of
Dumnonia), overtime began to ascribe Arthur’s deeds to themselves, and the
corruption of these accounts were based sympathetically on the common Celtic
struggles against the Saxon foreigners and thus gradually they usurped Arthur’s
Dumnonian heritage. This was simply achieved by association with the same
struggle, eventually leading to Arthur's Welsh backdrop. These ancient associations through common
struggle that glorified illustrious Celtic heritage were more proliferated
through the Welsh monastic system, which was
less prevalent in Dumnonia.
William of Malmesbury was responsible for propagating this tradition,
while at the same time, paying little attention to and thus diminishing the
Joseph and Nicodemus traditions. However these traditions were mainly kept
alive in the monastic system at Glastonbury, separate from any link with the
Arthurian tradition until it became useful to do so. These Welsh traditions were further established
and embellished by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
However, the Arthurian material, the original Joseph accounts, inclusive
of the Nicodemus traditions, genealogical and occult material in the Book of
the Grail, made its way over to France, after the Saxon invasion, and became
the source of the Grail romances.
It is this
relationship between a royal line established in Southern England and the
Davidic line, which will be part of our further investigation. Joseph is
central to this relationship, the one who brings the connection of Jesus and
the Davidic line, conjoined with the fulfilment of the prophets, which will
cause a new spiritual awakening. Joseph
will be ultimately responsible for guarding the proofs of Jesus’s suffering by
the evidence provided on the Turin Shroud. He is already responsible for the
preservation over a two thousand year period of the arcane knowledge, which
will agree with the Prophets (once they are generally understood in terms of
Biblical time), which, if Melkin had not reiterated, would have been lost.
Finally he will be responsible for the awakening of mankind as predicted by
Melkin by acting as a Harbinger and a marker of Appointed Time in a Divine Plan
that will change the world religions forever.
All four gospel writers confirm that Joseph of Arimathea claimed the
body of Jesus after his death and buried him in a tomb owned by Joseph. The
accounts of Luke 23:50-56, Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47 and John 19:38-42,
are bearing witness to his burial. Paul also in 1 Corinthians 15:4 writes that
he (Jesus) was buried, but without the contrived eschatology there would have
to be a body. Joseph was a wealthy man of standing but
during Jesus’ life he became converted and was secretly a disciple of Jesus.
Joseph not only witnessed his words and deeds in Jerusalem but had probably
spent many hours with his nephew on ocean passages hearing his enlightened
views on the prophets. As soon as he heard the news of Jesus' death, he
"went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus."
Mark15:43. Pilate who was reassured by a
centurion that Jesus was dead, allowed Joseph's request before the Sabbath
came, to remove and bury Jesus. Joseph
immediately purchased fine linen, Mark 15:46 and proceeded to take the body of
Jesus down from the cross. “So
Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen,
and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the
entrance of the tomb”. At the tomb, assisted by Nicodemus, Joseph
took the body and wrapped it in the fine linen and applied myrrh and aloes
these being substances which Nicodemus had brought, according to John 19:39.
Myrr is a gum but also an essential oil like cedar. Jesus' body was then conveyed to the tomb
that had been prepared for Joseph's own body, a man-made cave hewn from rock. Apart
from the polemically motivated variations of the burial account related in the
gospels that were provided to substantiate differing accounts of the gospel
writers, we are left with the core theme that Joseph took charge of Jesus’s
body. Eventually, through conflicting reports and the disappearance of Jesus’s
body; we remain without a corpse and only three ways to explain this dilemma.
The following are the three main scenarios which have been postulated to
rationalise the dilemma.
1) Jesus’s, body and spirit were resurrected
into Heaven leaving behind his grave cloth and the residue of ointments that
were applied. At a later date, he
appeared spiritually not bodily, but this would of necessity negate the account
of doubting Thomas. Jesus then appears to the disciples during his resurrection
appearances. This scenario would concur
with the Gospel accounts and confirm the Pauline theology and apologist account
of the Resurrection and Ascension. It would however negate any suggestion that
Joseph brought the body of Jesus to England. It would also prove the Turin
Shroud to be a fake and we shall discuss how it was formed shortly.
2) A
second scenario is that Jesus was given a sedative in the sponge passed to him
while on the cross and appeared to be dead.
This would go some way to explain the eye witness account of positive
blood pressure upon entry of Longinus’s Lance but would run contrary to
evidence found on the Turin Shroud that shows this was a post Mortem
wound. He was then laid in a tomb
possibly in the hope of resuscitation but Joseph was unable to revive him after
the unexpected lancing. Joseph then
prepared his body with ointments, and secreted it for transportation to Britain
with or without the help of Nicodemus or even the accompaniment of others
mentioned by Rabanus.
3) A third scenario posited is that Jesus
survived the ordeal of the cross, was revived and nursed back to health,
appeared to Thomas and the rest of the disciples as the resurrection accounts
attest and then left without the knowledge of Mary Magdalene, his mother and
Salome. When his body is unveiled showing evidence that concurs with the
markings found on the Shroud, this third scenario will obviously be negated.
These scenarios or a mixture of them have
over the years tried to rationalise or answer some of the discrepancies found
within the Gospel accounts, however we are now aware that Melkin’s ‘Duo
Fassula’ is in fact the Turin Shroud and thus we are certain that Jesus’s body
wrapped in this shroud was brought to Britain.
The subtext within the Grail romances, which
themselves, as we have discussed, are probably derived from original eye
witness accounts in England, are now substantiated by Melkin’s description of
the ‘duo fassula’ which he must have witnessed at the burial of Arthur. He also
must have left it there not knowing that later it would be removed because he
actually states that the tomb would be untouched at its unveiling. He could not
know that the one artefact that he states is in the tomb would be removed by a
Templar.
Regardless of this new revelation, the Grail stories perpetuate a
contiguous theme, of an arrival or at least burial of a Jesus relic at an
island subsequent to Jesus’s crucifixion, while at the same time having a connection
with Joseph of Arimathea resulting in the blood line of Kings and knights
related to Arthur.
The Grail
sometimes described as an Ark or Box containing oil from the earliest
unembellished accounts seems to account for a preserved corpse arriving in
Britain. Although we are told the spices were Aloe and Myrr this could have
been an attempt at early resuscitation or acted as an interim preservative
concoction enabling Joseph to embark on his journey to obtain the amount of
embalming oil to fill what was to be called the Grail ark. This may be the
confusion of the Grail writer’s account of Sarras being in Egypt if indeed it
was in Egypt that Joseph had to bypass to obtain the oil. This seems unlikely
as the Cedar oil would have more probably been manufactured in Lebanon and the
Egyptian confusion being derived from the Prophets understanding of a Spiritual
coming out of Egypt. The Grail stories indirect suggestion of an Egyptian
connection stemming from the occult information in the Grail material providing
insight by Biblical reference to the stages of spiritual enlightenment, as we
touched on earlier. This occult meaning of Egypt is witnessed in the passage in
Revelation 11:8 ‘And their dead bodies shall lie in the
street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where
also our Lord was crucified’. This is in fact a reference to the two
witnesses. (Jesus being one, the other being St. Michael), which speaks
directly of spiritual Egypt which, as we will get to, is part of the
understanding pertaining to the ‘Gradatim’ or degrees to spiritual
enlightenment that is bound up in ‘Biblical Time’. So let us not dwell on the
Egyptian connection to Sarras for the moment and let’s look at the evidence for
the Turin Shroud being synonymous with the ‘duo fassula’ that Melkin says was
in the same tomb as Joseph.
Since Jesus's
body has never been retrieved and the fundamental creed of Christian faith is
substantiated by the fact that his body has never been recovered, it would not
be expedient of Melkin to report before the ‘appointed time’, that the body of
Jesus existed or that the evidence of his crucifiction existed on an imprinted
grave cloth. Not wishing to be accused
of heresy, but safe in the Gnostic knowledge he had obtained (supposedly by
angel but more likely by a visit to the island to bury Arthur), Melkin chose to
obscure the fact that Jesus’s body was buried in Britain but made sure that we
knew the cloth that provided the proof of who he was, rested in the Grave with
them both. So we have the one man who knew of the cloth’s existence providing a
clue in his prophecy and also leaving behind evidence of its existence in the
book of the Grail.
During the
body’s voyage from Jerusalem with Joseph to the Isle of Avalon it would have
been covered with a cloth, the same cloth which was reported in the Gospels,
while the body lay in the Grail ark or box. This highlights the polemic
specifically centred on the cloth from the gospels and the different accounts
surrounding it. For the wounds to be so clearly defined in blood and the
outline on the Turin Shroud to be formed, it surely must show that the cloth
spoken of by the gospel writers never remained in the tomb in Jerusalem but
remained wrapped around the abused and suffered corpse of Jesus for a very long
time while being submerged in oil.
Controversy
has certainly surrounded the Shroud due to the carbon dating system used to
test its age. This piece of cloth, known as the Shroud of
Turin, is one of the most important Christian relics in the world. It depicts a
full-scale imprint of the body of a crucified man evidencing within the image
the scars and wounds that are recorded in the accounts of Jesus’ death. The importance of the burial cloth should not be
underestimated since the cloth is mentioned several times in the gospels. Apart
from Melkin’s testimony and that of the gospel writers, not only did a burial
cloth exist but it plays an important role as each of the gospels describes the
body of Jesus being wrapped in this linen cloth after having been recovered by
Joseph from the cross. The shroud as seen today depicts all the right features
that concur with the crucifixion account of Jesus down to the minutest details.
In fact the surest way to know that the Shroud is in fact the burial cloth of
Jesus and was formed over a long period of time in the oil of the Grail Ark is
to look at the 3-d imaging from many experts. All of them show quite plainly by
the cloth having been partly suspended in oil, the ripple effect in the 3-d
imaging on the visage of Jesus.
The Shroud of Turin was first heard of in 1357 when it was displayed in a church in Lirey, France. It was allegedly discovered in the vaults of a property
belonging to Geoffrey de Charny a Templar who died at the Battle of
Poitiers in 1356. He and his wife Jeanne de Vergy are supposedly the first
recorded owners of the Turin Shroud. It is often cause for confusion
that a Geoffroi De Charney was burned at the stake with Jack de
Molay the final Grand Master of the Templars in 1314. This later Geoffroi De Charny was said to have
participated in a failed crusade under Humbert II of Viennois in the late 1340s
and is known to have visited the British isles twice around 1350. In 1453 a Margaret de Charney
supposedly the Templars granddaughter, deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy and in 1578 the shroud was transferred to Turin.
The Turin Shroud measures 4.4 by 1.1 m. It
bears the faint front and back, feet to head and head to feet imprint of a
naked man. It could not fit the description of a doubled swaddling cloth
described by Melkin more accurately. The image depicts the nail wounds of the
crucifixion of Jesus as described in the New Testament accounts. The shroud was stored in a silver chest in a
chapel in Chambery, France and in 1532 a fire raged through the chapel. Part of the chest melted and droplets of
molten silver burned through the shroud. Luckily most of the damage did not
interfere with the outline of the figure, but left a symmetric pattern due to
the way it was folded in the chest. Later the burn holes were patched.
The image on the shroud
is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color.
The negative image was first seen in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of
an amateur photographer, named Secondo Pia, who was permitted to photograph it
while it was on show in the Turin Cathedral. When
Pia developed his negative, he expected to see an image on the negative
that was more faint or ghost-like in appearance than the original positive
image of the photographed sepia coloured cloth, the
image becoming positive only when the light values are reversed in a
photographic negative. The light areas observed normally appeared
as dark, and the dark as light and the negative image of the Shroud appeared as
a well-defined picture of a crucified man laid to rest.
Since
the actual image on the Shroud was ghostly to begin with and hard to make out,
Pia was initially shocked at the result in his developing pan when the image
became crystal clear. What he had done in effect was to create a positive image
that originally had been formulated in negative. An incredible artistic feat for
a forger but then one must ask, ”why fabricate something that is barely
recognisable and none can know of its artistic craft or beauty until the advent
of Photography”? Many experts still think that the shroud is an elaborate hoax
and that position is simply based upon a logical set of blinkers. For most, the
lateral evidence of being formed in a liquid is precluded by association with
the shrouds gospel associations with the tomb in Jerusalem. Even for the
sceptical examiner bent upon proving the shroud a hoax, there is no precedent
of such an artwork being formed in a liquid.
In 1978 a detailed examination was
carried out by a team of American scientists (S.T.U.R.P).
They found no evidence of forgery and were baffled but could not give a
definitive answer as to how the image was formed or even any propositions. Many ensuing scientific enquiries have
followed all with inconclusive results as to the genuineness of the shroud as
pertaining directly to Jesus. The Shroud accurately represents an
abundance of three-dimensional information. When modern image analysis
began in 1974, the image of the shroud was found to contain an impressive
amount of accurate three-dimensional spatial information.
At the
advent of Pia’s photograph, no longer was there a ghost like image and lack of
definition between light and dark areas but instead, Pia witnessed a picture
that was so lifelike that it could not have been a painting, but more akin to
an actual photograph. The image on the Shroud originally created or formed in
negative, led researchers to think that the shroud was composed as if one would
normally construct an artistic image, except in reverse. With the evidence of
the Grail stories and the fact that we now know Jesus’s body was submerged in
oil, it is plain to see how residue from the Cedar oil itself left an overall
residue on the cloth as it evaporated and is responsible for its sepia quality. This in conjunction with build up from
anaerobic micro-organisms impregnate the cloth internally forming a denser
build up where the body was touching the cloth and restricting free movement.
This is precisely how the negative image was formed. The Turin Shroud has been examined with visible and ultraviolet
spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry,
thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser-microprobe Raman analyses,
and micro-chemical testing but interestingly enough not one scientist has
posited that the image was formed by particle movement in liquid. There has
never been evidence of pigments (paint, dye or stains) as some have claimed,
nor has there been evidence of an artist's intent found anywhere on the Shroud
of Turin.
With an ordinary optical microscope, it can
be seen that most of the thread fibres have extraneous deposits that cover
their surface. These coatings may be composed of micro-organisms (bacteria and
fungi) and non-cellular heterogeneous materials. It would seem that the
colouring that formed the image is mostly organic in nature and was deposited
as exo-polymers by the evaporated cedar oil and by bacteria that invaded the
textile fibres over time by being in solution for a minimum of six hundred
years and probably some of these fibres were later affected by Fungi as it was
removed from the body and put aside in the tomb.
The reason for giving this date when the ‘doubled fasciola’ might have been removed from Jesus’ body, is due to Melkin’s description of the Shroud. Unless it was unwrapped from Jesus’s body, he would not know that there was an outline beneath the body and this resinous coating must have had time to dry before smudging occurred. It would seem that Melkin could have been responsible for removing it and leaving it folded in the vault still covered in oil as it steadily evaporated. This would explain the slight imprint of the face on the rear side of the shroud as it would have been folded as it was when covering the body. The first fold evident in the middle and as the resinous oil evaporated, the imprint from the microbial detritus opposite, left a faint impression. This imprint would of course be more pronounced if the first fold that doubled the cloth was eventually placed at the bottom of the rest of the folded shroud. This would have meant that this area would have remained soaked longer being underneath, as over the years the oil gradually evaporated and dried this bottom layer was soaked and weighted giving rise to the faint facial imprint. There is also reason for Melkin removing the shroud as it was noted that the nose and knee area show signs of dirt and this might have been caused by the gradual evaporation from the Grail ark over the six centuries while dust from the tin vault gradually soiled the exposed protruding areas. Alternatively though,these two areas could have protruded at times above the surface of the oil where there may have been floating debris initially.
The Shroud has been expertly reviewed by many
scientists and since 1988 have produced
carbon 14 results that conclude the shroud to be from the fourteenth century,
but they have not taken into account the microbial residue that pervades much
of the textile structure and how it got there. It is these bacterial
infestations that form part of the superficial coatings and it is the density
of deposit that actually define the image.
It is not only scientists but archaeologists
and scholars, who are naturally
sceptical about any relic purporting to be older than they can establish
without an historical footprint. In
medieval Europe, fake relics abounded, but none that can defy
modern science and withstand such scrutiny as the shroud has undergone.
Scientists have been struggling with how the image on the Shroud was formed,
and how old the linen cloth is, for the past forty years. It would appear that
their answers depend more on the prejudices of the scientists than they do on
the scientific data itself, if the mode of manufacture is factored into the
resulting conclusions.
The official statement from the Shroud of Turin Research
Project (SRuRP) at the end of their extensive analysis says: "We can conclude for now that
the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It
is not the product of an artist. The
bloodstains are composed of haemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum
albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery
and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of
scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains
unsolved."
Well those futuristic scientists
stated that the cloth is medieval because they could not isolate a fibril of
the shroud without impregnation of microbial carbon deposits that gives an
erroneous C14 date for the cloth.
The Turin Shroud is not the product of an artist and exhibits no apparent brush
strokes, and it exhibits no evidence of layering which shows that the image was
formed as part of one process. In recent tests on samples, they found
micro-colonial black Fungi and Bacteria. Some of these formed filamentous
structures that surrounded the fibres, or pervaded their internal structure.
the individual fibres of the cloth are surrounded by a bioplastic coating and
this bioplastic coating will have been formed from ‘terpenes’ that constitute the resinous cedar oil.
It is significant to note that the biopolymer
coating can in certain samples make up the most substantial portion of the
fibril being tested and if a liquid medium had been considered this would have
provided a good starting point from which to conduct scientific analysis. The
pervasiveness of a now evaporated fine oil that has formed into a resinous film
over and through the fibrils is the cause for the Shrouds opaque colour. The
oils capacity when as a liquid, to transfer micro-bacterial material to the
core of the flax sample would assuredly alter any Carbon 14 data, even with the
most rigorous cleaning process. The cleaning process used by radiocarbon labs
was duplicated by one lot of experts even increasing the strength of the
regular cleaning solution. This process had absolutely no effect on the
bio-polymeric coating but instead dissolved some of the flax cellulose which
goes to show the resilience of this resinous residue and how the cloth itself
cannot be accurately dated by this method . This resulted in less C14 being
obtained from the shroud itself and even more from the contaminating
bio-plastic varnish, thus not really measuring the age of the cloth. The
particles of residual bacteria that were suspended in the solution has been the
cause of the darkened colouration that forms the outline image as it settled in
place and became part of the bio-plastic varnish as it encrusted with differing
quantities of residue that forms the shading of the image.
The anaerobic bacteria deposits in the
coating obtained some of their sustenance from carbon dioxide and they would
have introduced additional carbon 14 to the cloth giving an erroneous date for
the fibrils. Science needs to prove
conclusively the C.14 date of the cloth alone without contamination to prove
the Shroud is 2000 years old. After all unless one can isolate a pure fibril
one is not going to get a accurate Carbon 14 result for that fibril. As all
fibrils are contaminated with the plastic residue from the oil which also have
locked in microbial residue one can dismiss the C. 14 results as indeterminate
for the cloths date.
The main stumbling block to any scientific
analysis is a preconception and since the Shroud has no history as a religious
relic prior to 1357AD this might have a bearing on the results that have been
produced so far. How the tests are conducted or how the results might be viewed
are always more conclusive given a viable explanation. The results of Shroud
testing would of course be more accurate if a credible theory were put forward
to which the results could be married. As we now know the provenance of the
shroud and the fact that it was submerged in oil in a dark sarcophagus for at
least 600 years, and possibly rested in there until December the 25th
1307 before it saw daylight; we can be sure the next analysis will be more
circumspect.
If one was still to believe that the Shroud
had not come from the vault on Burgh Island and the negative image of Jesus had
not been formed over time in a solution; it would take an incredibly adept
artist to create the shroud with the amount of scrutiny that has been afforded
to it. Apart from the fact that the Shroud has no historical footprint before
1350, the other main reason put forward for it being a fake is that some critics say that one cannot drape a
three-dimensional object with a piece of cloth and get the same proportions.
This is fairly obvious but the shroud does not present us with a wrapped image,
but the image is shaded to give three dimensional representation. The hair each
side of the face is exactly as one would expect of a cloth gently suspended in
oil over the top of the body. It gives the correct representation on the
reverse as representive of a back and legs where parts of the body do not touch
the cloth. The main contention is that
the 7-8” as measured from ear to ear across the face becoming 11-12” as
measured on cloth wrapped around the face from ear to ear. Apart from the hair
of which the volume was of an unknown quantity, the three dimensional quality
is given by shading and the argument that the shroud if it were genuine, could only have been formed as a wrapped
cloth is erroneous. This argument
assumes it was touching all parts of the body which we know it was not, as it
was formed in a fluid while being suspended.
The clever way that the shroud is said to have
been formed by chemical reaction by a ‘camera obscura’ would leave chemical
residue which is not detected. This is quite a ridiculous theory as the image
is made up from the coloration of particles that have been encrusted in dried
cedar oil residue and this encapsulated the blood particles beneath this outer
layer of the fibril. A difficult result to match from a ‘camera obscura’
method! The fact that Leonardo da Vinci is implicated as the fraudster is also
quite preposterous as he was not born when it was first shown and not even he
would think about incorporating pollen grains from the dead sea area and
including the imprint of flowers. What needs to be understood about Leonardo is
he detested religion and those that peddled it but he understood Jesus’
divinity and this is exemplified in his paintings, but he would not deign to
forge such a sacred object. The forger theory still persists based upon the
dates of the C.14 results but it is this date parameter of 1260-1390 given by
science that has forced this conclusion.
A
forger would have to have knowledge to paint the bloodstains before applying
the image material because at the microscopic level, the cedar residue and
anaerobic micro-bacterial residue that it leaves, cover the blood stains in the
fibres. The obvious reason for this is that the blood soaked into the shroud by
capillary action before the microbial deposit and encrustation of the resin
occurred. Research has shown
that there is no underlying image present under the blood spots and the blood
shows under UV light a serum-separation which is visible as a halo. This is comprised of a serum retraction ring
of albumin around the solid parts of the blood and this is typical for
post-mortem blood. This halo is not
visible with the naked eye and this reaction was not known until recently, so a
forger would have had to use a dead body.
A hoaxer would have to have an amazing talent to give the three dimensional effect and also have the ability to think in negative. The Shroud was obviously formed in the Grail Ark by the laying down of detritus entrapped in the fibres of the shroud as it was suspended in Cedar oil. The Shrouds suspension as it settled over the face can clearly be seen on a ‘V.P 8 Analizer’ computer image. Not only would our clever artist be painting this image with some unknown micro-bacterial medium using an unknown technique, he would have to stand back 20 or 30 feet away to check his work in order to construct the ghost like image that is barely perceptible in the positive on the ivory coloured cloth. Not only would he have to overcome working at a distance if working in the conventional artistic approach but he would have to match anatomically both sides exactly. Those who contest that the body is not anatomically correct should understand the the body of Jesus underwent the most horrendous abuse that would have caused swelling. Who except Melkin had ever stated that Jesus’ shroud was doubled over his head in one piece, because to fabricate this match is difficult without a body, but the forger would have to know of Melkin’s description. This basically would need a crucified victim to carry out the plot and would seem a bit excessive for a one off hoax and if this were the intention why construct it in barely perceptible negative and on a ‘doubled fasciola’, if no-one else knew of this description.
Not only would this supposed artistic genius have to have
forensic knowledge of blood flow patterns to match blood flow from the wrists
at 65° from vertical, which concurs with the crucifixion position of the arms,
but we would have to accept that our
artistic forger is a pathologist and took into account the lesser secondary
smaller blood flow angle that would have been created as Jesus tried to pull
himself up to alleviate his breathing difficulty.
Someone who is able to reconstruct the
position of the arms in such a way as to place them where they would have to
account for gravity and direction of the blood flow that are seen on the
shroud, would have to have a genuine crucified victim. Our forger would also have to
show the blood flows with genuine group AB blood confirmed by the presence of porphyrins, bile pigments and serum
albumin. This is obviously
a ludicrous assumption as an artistic endeavour, as the artist would have had
to deny forensic science the ability to uncover his method, which is why no
artistic method has been found. Realistically if Melkin is the only person who
has mentioned this doubled cloth and no-one has ever understood his meaning of
‘Duo fassula’, would it not be simpler to do a one sided image if one was just
aiming at artistic intent. Basically, it would be pointless to match an unknown
description of a doubled shroud and therefore this adds credibility to the
Shroud as genuine. The Shroud is quite
simply not a fake but the real burial cloth of Jesus and not some medieval custom Crucifixion for the sake of a hoax. How
could a hoaxer know to match Melkin’s description of something that actually existed and was recorded in an
obscure British puzzle.
For the sceptic,
the Shroud will remain a fake until science can confirm our proposed method of
manufacture and then undoubtedly the concurring carbon 14 results will follow.
The proof that it is the genuine death shroud of Jesus will only come when its
previously unknown history is established at the unveiling of the tomb.
How could any artist have the foresight to
duplicate abrasion marks on the knee and compression marks on the shoulders to
coincide with the carrying of the cross to Cavalry. Did he really go into such
‘minutae’ to overcome 21st century scrutiny, to consider duping any
investigator into thinking that the man portrayed had carried a heavy weight
following the scourging? From the image
on the Shroud we can see signs of beating about the face, swelling
under the eye and clumps of his beard having been ripped from Jesus’ face,
which shows incredible attention to detail for any medieval forger.
In all medieval
representations of Jesus on the cross, the nails go through the hands, yet in
the Shroud they go through the wrists which concurs with modern archaeological
findings of crucified victims from that area, during that Roman period. Even if
the fraudulent artist did not have his own crucified victim, he would even have
to possess knowledge that Jesus’s thumbs needed to rotate inwards, because the
nail had passed through the Median nerve and because of this there is what
seems to be a thumb shadow on the shroud that has led some investigators to
think that the image must convey some x-ray qualities.This just shows that
there was no detritus in solution where the thumb under the palm was
resting. There is too much detail for
the supposed artist to consider without being uncovered if this were in anyway
a fraudulent endeavour. The
chance of an artist not only creating but matching an anatomically correct
outline of a man on a shroud with no uncovered artistic method is too
improbable under modern scientific scrutiny. The fact that the same piece of
cloth is said to have existed by Melkin in the Dark ages with the body of that
same man that science dictates that it pretends to portray and was witnessed to
be in a tomb that no-one knew existed, seems more than a little coincidental.
The many scientists will concur that this is the shroud when the body that
formed the image is unveiled and matches anatomically, but not to have one
scientist propose that it was formed in a liquid seems astounding for the most
investigated article on earth. How else could one get the fibrils covered with
the encrusted residue to give the overall sepia colouration.
There
has been considerable speculation that the image of the Shroud was somehow
painted because of traces of Iron oxide used in many artistic pigments, but
there seems to be no correlation between
concentrations of iron oxide particles and the varying densities of the image
and would more likely be explained by the oxidisation of the spearhead or
crucifixion nails that may have been enclosed within the Grail Ark. What really
negated the pigment theory was that during scientific chemical analysis, it was
discovered that unlike artist’s pigment which contains iron oxide often mixed
with nickel, cobalt and manganese, the iron oxide examined on the shroud was
nearly pure and widespread over the samples as opposed to being more
concentrated on the image. This tends to indicate it was dispersed while in
solution from metallic objects within the Grail Ark.
Again if this were a fake, the supposed artist
seems to have had amazing palynological knowledge to match plant spores and microscopic pollen, but to incorporate not only flowers into the
shroud that are only indigenous to the region of the Dead Sea, seems too full
of foresight to stay ahead of scientific analysis. The flowers that were placed
into the Grail Ark by those closest to Jesus that have left their imprint on
the shroud, seems to be a bold move by the artistic hoaxer straying from the
orthodox script of the Gospel accounts.
Zygophyllum
dumosum Boiss, one identified plant imprint on the shroud grows only in
Israel, Jordan, and Sinai; its appearance helps to definitively limit the
shroud’s place of origin as these flowers would have been placed in the Grail
ark before the oil and before the Ark was sealed before starting its journey
westward. Pollen grains from Gundelia
tournefortii also found on the
Shroud particularly found in the arid areas of Syria, Palestine and Jordan seem conclusively to
evidence its area of origin and this locale was surely not known for its
scientifically verifiable fabrication of religious relics.
Faint
imprints of indigenous flowers were found around the head area on the cloth and
were placed over Jesus’ body by Mary Magdalene and others that loved him and
had witnessed his cruel murder. The shroud is a physical record of the most
heinous travesty of Justice and those that loved him were not going to witness
any further abuse of this innocent man and so removed the body from Jerusalem.
The
Flowers remained within the oil to eventually leave their imprint and
microscopic pollen grains found embedded in the cloth were from plants endemic
to regions around the Dead Sea. Many of the air-born pollen grains would have
been deposited before the oil was added to the Ark. Is it unlikely that a
forger would know that this could all be scientifically discovered 700 years
after the supposed hoax. The shroud contains pollen grains from 58
species of plants, 17 indigenous to Europe where the artefact has been for 7
centuries since Geoffrey De Charney removed the Shroud from the vault. The
majority are indigenous plants to the Holy land some exclusively, to the area
of the Dead Sea, including, Artemisia herba-alba, Onosma syriacum and
Nyoscyamus aureus but when pollen is found from the plants indigenous to Devon
that we can see in figure 40,37 and 34 that blossom around June when the Grail
ark was probably delivered, then the sceptic will have his proof of the
provenance of the Shroud.
Our
artistic genius painted an anatomically and photographically precise human
image in photographic negative and all of this, centuries before the science of
photography was developed and just to complicate the issue decided to portray
both sides anatomically perfect. He then would have had to use micro bacterial
deposits with the correct quantities to create the
shading
in the appropriate areas in a medium combined with a poly-saccharide caramel to
express himself.
The Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus and
with all findings from modern three dimensional computer analyses,
biochemistry, medicine, forensic pathology, anatomy and botany, a potential
fabricator had to know enough of the effects of crucifixion on the body to
avoid detection by all the efforts of modern science. One can scarcely imagine
in the early 1300’s an artist who would contemplate waiting until the advent of
photography before the full effect of his artistic brilliance would be
discovered as this would be modesty in the extreme.
The artistic fabricator also took chances
supposedly painting Jesus as a nude. Medieval paintings never depict a nude
Jesus as it was accounted sacrilegious and even today, the image of a totally
naked Christ would be unacceptable to the very market the supposed fraud is
aiming at. On the other hand, a nude body of Jesus conforms to genuine Roman
crucifixions as archaeological evidence has shown.
Our
Genius fraudster would have to know that Gundelia
tournefortii blooms in Israel from
February to May around Jerusalem to coincide with these being present at Easter
time when the plants were placed on the Shroud just before Jesus’ Grail Ark was
transported toward the port of embarkation in Tyre or Sidon. Easter, when Jesus is recorded to have been murdered is a moveable feast
day, and the date of Easter is the first
Sunday after the full moon i.e. the Paschal Full Moon, following the northern
hemisphere's vernal equinox. This is
thought to be on March 21 even though the equinox occurs, astronomically on
March 20 in most years and the "Full Moon" is not necessarily the astronomically
correct date. So the date of Easter
differs a whole cycle between March 22 and April 25. Therefore, the brilliance of our fictitious
artist would need to be acquainted with the blooming dates for the 30 species
he has included to incorporate into the Shroud, in total contradiction to the
gospel writers account in which Myrr was said to have been applied to Jesus.
Any
medieval artist would have placed the nail marks on the hands if he were
fabricating an image of the crucified Jesus just to agree with popular
portrayal. This placement of the nail in the wrist depicted on the Shroud goes
against medieval artistic convention, as the nails were depicted by every other
artist as piercing the hands. Instead the Shroud represents the actual practical
position where the nails must be inserted in order for a body to hang on a
cross without ripping through the fingers. One wrist bears a large round wound
from the piercing spike, the other wrist wound being covered
by the top hand but we can assume that the lower one is identical. There is a sign of a wound
consistent with an upward gouge in the side penetrating into the thoracic
cavity. This Medieval forger’s ability
to follow the Gospel account is unrelenting as he also supposedly imitates
small punctures around the forehead and scalp from the crown of thorns and
scores of linear wounds from a Roman ‘flagrum’ on the torso and legs. Also there is the evidence on the Shroud of
swelling around the face from severe beatings and large puncture wounds in the
feet as if pierced by a single large spike.
What a sacrifice to knowingly endure such atrocities for the sake of
mankind! Jesus knew the profound meaning
of the Paschal lamb that would ensure the Jews ‘Coming out of Egypt’.
Evidently, it is more fantastic to think that
the Shroud could be a fake than to accept that it is the genuine grave cloth
from Jesus’s body. If one does come to
this conclusion, it is interesting to note however, how accurately the Gospel
accounts of events endured at the passion of Jesus, coincide with wounds that
have left their imprint on the Shroud.
One can really see how brutal the treatment of Jesus was and all because
he had understood the Law and the purport of the prophets more perfectly than
the religious leaders of that time. One
can barely contemplate St. Paul pursuing Jesus’ followers and being a part of
the same atrocities, all in the name of religion. What a miraculous conversion he had, but the
sad outcome of which was another religion due to contrived eschatology. Formalized religion must cease, but the
prophets must be understood in the correct context before the Abrahamic
religions no longer find offensive the true purport of the Divine plan. In the future, will witnesses be allowed to
be treated with such brutality, as the priest class of religious teachers
condoned such violence to Jesus? –The chief priests, self-professed leaders
from all the dead religions, which prevent their adherent’s entrance to Heaven
and from perceiving the truth behind the divine plan, which is plainly set
forth by the prophets.
The Turin shroud is the
‘duo fassula’ from a genuine burial casket containing cedar oil which contained
hundreds of flowers, mostly leaving their
impression in the vicinity of the Jesus’s head. These must have left their
imprint as they rested on the shroud as they were gently suspended in oil over
the centuries. It seems probable that Brownian motion might have had an effect
within the oil in distributing the organic detritus that makes up the shading
of the image. Where the shroud made contact with the skin or hair of Jesus
there was more deposit over the long time span as the detritus was restricted. The image on the
Shroud varies inversely with the shroud-to-body-distance as it floated in
solution i.e. the image density or ‘pixilation’ corresponds
to a mathematical gradient directly relative to distance between the body and
the cloth, which highlights that the Shroud covered an actual body during the time of image
formation. The darker the image
in the original, the closer this part of the shroud was to the body, the
darkest parts actually touching. The
lighter the image the further away these parts of the body were from the Shroud
and thus less chance of entrapment and build up. This gives the impression that
the Shroud is in a way pixelated by shading with a relationship of darkness the
closer it is to the body. So we
can see also, that the case is strong for micro-bacterial anaerobic activity
that ranged free, suspended in solution and thus depositing itself more heavily
where the cloth was inhibited by contact and received a larger residue build up
by a combination of two forces within the solution, Brownian motion and
microbial movement.
The
proposed time period of six hundred years for the formulation of the image is
only a considered guess based upon Melkin’s assertion of the shroud being
folded amongst other factors such as the faint facial imprint on the rear, but
the reference to folding(pleta), could be just a re-iteration or clearer
definition of the ‘doubled’. If we have
fully understood that Melkin’s meaning was that it had been removed and the
shroud was set aside from the body and folded before he exited the tomb this would
of course allow the drying and caramelising of the oil before being removed by
the Templars.
It
would appear then that microscopic residue from the anaerobic activity worked
in conjunction with Brownian motion. This process in effect deposited more material
in the spaces unimpeded by the skin and hair of Jesus, thus rendering a near
perfect negative image.
This
became fainter but fixed once removed from the box during the solidification of
the varnish like residue as the oil slowly evaporated. The whole shroud is a sepia coloured cloth
with a faint imprint which was brought to life during the advent of
photography, producing the perfect positive image of the man who changed the
world. The fact that the Shroud was
covered in oil that impregnated every fibre, certainly explains the cloths
imprint surviving through the centuries, as under normal circumstances the flax
would have rotted over a two thousand year period.
It is not difficult to
say that, despite the seemingly definitive tests making out the shroud to be a
fraud purely on the basis of date; the status of the Shroud of Turin is as
muddy as before because of the erroneous scientific results. It is not so much that the results are wrong
however, but given the information about the preceding 1300 years until it was
displayed, allowances could be made for the Carbon 14 measurement and new tests
devised.
The Shroud cloth is woven in a
three-to-one herringbone twill, composed of flax fibrils, which in its day was a quality piece of cloth
and could have been woven to the length specifically for the purpose it was
used for. The cloth appears to be of a pre 12th Century weave and the manufacture indicates a
Middle East origin. The two outline views front and back are
aligned along the mid-plane of the body and are oriented in opposite
directions, consistent with a doubled all in one grave cloth and the image
formation as we have proposed. The front
and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth and evidence
the cloth was once draped over the body of Jesus as seen below.
Since
the Shroud is made of materials which were once living plants, radiocarbon
dating should be accurate, but of all the theories used to explain the excess
carbon 14 in this ancient relic, none take into account living micro-organisms,
such as anaerobic bacteria which were present on the shroud for at least six
hundred years during its undisturbed spell in the solution of Cedar oil. As
these micro-organisms lived and multiplied leaving behind their detritus, they
would have incorporated new carbon into themselves, and into their organic
wastes which would assuredly alter the accuracy of any Carbon 14 results. One
could posit that during seaborne transportation, agitation in part was
responsible for the distribution of the image, but this would not give the
erroneous C14 results we are witnessing left by their residue. The unlikelihood
of anaerobic Fungi also existing in solution would seem to indicate that these
filaments pervaded the cloth after it was taken out of solution and left folded
within the tomb.
The outermost
fibres of the cloth are coated with a layer of starch fractions and various
saccharides from the resin oil. Widely spread throughout the cloth, the coating
has turned into a caramel-like substance, thus forming the medium and fixing
agent for the image’s shading particles while acting as a ‘fixant’ for the
enduring image. Where there is no encapsulated darkening that forms the images, there is an otherwise clear starch and
polysaccharide coating on most of the shroud’s fibres and the varnish like film
is precisely what one would expect from evaporated and dried resinous cedar
oil. Spectral and chemical analysis reveal that
the ‘chromophores’ of the Shroud of Turin's images are complex, conjugated carbon
bonds which do support the assertion that they have been deposited by a mixture
of evaporated resinous oil mixed with micro-bacterial detritus. The final
confirmation that the formation of the image was indeed constituted in solution
is shown by computer analysis that picks up the wave of the shroud as it was
suspended in the liquid.
Before 1988, the Shroud had already undergone
several forensic tests made by many experts in the field, each finding,
supported the belief that this cloth was approximately 2000 years old, and that
it originated from Israel. It seems that science has been steered by the fact
that the Shroud not having a documented history appears suspect. A sacred relic
pertaining to a such a specific event in global history appearing 1300 years
after it was first recorded has tainted its credibility purely for the lack of
its known provenance. We should look to Melkin for the confirmation that he saw
this same object circa 600AD.
Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba
& argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta: Joseph
has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with
the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.
It is hard to
get more precise than this description by Melkin especially since he is the man
who gives account of how these events unfolded. This by itself confirms that
the ‘duo fassula’ is not the Grail of popular conception but now focuses our
attention on the other things that the Grail has had associated with it. The
original Graal was commensurate with a ‘processional’ in which it appeared
while the Grail questor was at meat, which was indicative of a three stage
progression over time. Grades or Degrees as the name suggests are stages of
spiritual progression and indicate a level of attainment. It is only by careful
understanding of the purport of the prophets that one can realise the
correlation of what is meant by Melkin’s elucidation in the Grail book. Lastly
a quest, journey, or both, is the stamp or essence of the Grail and on an
individual basis is the life saga of all mortals, but for mankind as a whole
the Grail is the work of God that can be witnessed within the parameters of
‘Biblical Time’ which is elevating consciousness through the divine spark or
Holy Spirit. All of these attributes of the Grail have been incorporated in the
Romances but their substance has been somewhat misconstrued. The Grail
Quest has become the spiritual search of the soul for divine union, set in a
context of Knightly pursuits of chastity, virtue, and prayer, but as we now
know the Grail itself, in the person of Jesus, has been transposed through
misunderstanding to a physical object to be searched for.
So we now can remove ourselves from a quest to
find an objective tangible Grail, to the discovery of a more valuable
possession that exists or comes to fruition out of Time and to which the real
purport of the Grail alludes and which is born witness to by the Prophets. This
is in effect a concept of potential to be understood and this is the essence of
the Grail, something that can never be attained by conscious will but by the
Spirit of God. Something that cannot be found, but only attained through
heightened consciousness and the understanding that this consciousness is being
elevated within the confines of a divine plan, over a pre-determined time span
that we shall call ‘Biblical Time’.
When the
Shroud was definitively removed from Joseph’s tomb is unclear but if our
assertion that the ‘duo fassula’ is the shroud, why would Melkin state that he
expected it to be found in what was to be an ‘undisturbed’ grave, if he is
responsible for taking it to France
along with the Book of the Grail. The only reason for postulating such a proposition
is because there is a possible instance where we hear of the shroud prior to
its first accepted appearance but the evidence is not strong. From all the
evidence produced here, Melkin appears to have removed the Shroud and folded it
leaving it to slowly dry in the sepulchre chamber. By his own account he
believed the chamber would not be opened until the appointed time in ‘Biblical
Time’ and did not know the Templar’s were going to deposit their treasure in
the tomb and remove the Shroud. To have mentioned it in his prophecy indicates
that he knew what impact the shroud would have on the world, acting as a proof
of Jesus’ sacrifice and suffering, but he never contemplated it would be
separated from the Grail Ark which established it as the genuine shroud
referred to in the Gospels. It is very probable that when Melkin saw the Shroud
the image (the positive of a negative formation) was much clearer before it
dried.
Now we know that the Grail writers have
allegorised a body of knowledge in their own imaginative ways, it could also
shed light on the strange reference to Josephes and other’s crossing the
channel on a shirt (which is a strange concept) and should be understood as
another example of a reference to a mistranslation or the sense being
misconstrued and in this example the shroud or cloth from the original becomes
a shirt in the Romance. This actually epitomises the random allegorization that
was perpetrated by the Romancers. This would be no surprise, as we have already
witnessed greater mutations from the original form in other aspects of the
Romances. But this particular piece of information could indicate that the
Grail Ark was in fact transported up through France as some accounts have it
and then the fifty (said to accompany the Grail), then went to the Island of
Sarras, to the final resting place of the Graal.
At the inquisition of the the Knights
Templar, Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who joined the Templar order in
1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place
to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a
long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and he was then
instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times. Had the Templar illuminate, who possessed the
manuscripts recording early British history, also had in their possession the
Shroud removed from Jesus’s body at the death of King Arthur at his burial in
Avalon? If so this puts an earlier date
than 1307 for the opening of the tomb and the extraction of the Shroud from it,
but we will cover this shortly. The Knights
Templar had been accused of worshipping idols, in particular a “bearded figure”
which some reported as a bearded head but was this object they had secretly
venerated, the Shroud which of course depicts a bearded Jesus.
The old tin vault first being used as a tomb seems to have occurred at the burial of Jesus and subsequently by those who buried Joseph. It is also related that some or all of the Kings from this early royal line up to Arthur are also buried there. ‘Galahad dies at Sarras, says Hardyng, but sends Percival with his heart to Arthur, praying the king to bury the heart beside king Evalak and duke Seraphe, who were buried beside Joseph ( in the chapel of Our Lady at Glastonbury)’. The last bracketed phrase is an afterthought being an affirmation and interpolation of an earlier record. Finally, Melkin must have witnessed Arthur’s burial to have related that the ‘duo fassula’ was buried in the same place as Joseph. So it is only Sabbatier and the The Pray Codex (The Hungarian Pray Manuscript) a collection of medieval manuscripts, that offer any prior knowledge of the shroud before the 1350’s, so it is not clear when or if it were De Charney who removed it.
The Pray Codex is an old handwritten Hungarian text dating to between 1192-1195 showing a similar picture of repose to Jesus’ imprinted on the Turin shroud, but no further evidence or likeness except an exaggerated artistic impression of the twill pattern which could be considered striking but vastly exaggerated and any likeness completely coincidental.
This of course could be just coincidental and does not in any way prove a connection with the shroud and even if it did it might just indicate that the Templars deposited the Ark of the covenant in the Tomb before 1195AD as we hear only rumours of the Ark’s removal and nothing in any Templar documentation. The Pray codex is only given such credence as representative of the shroud based upon three similarities. The repose of the body is the first, the burn marks or ‘poker holes’ in the real shroud that appear to be in an ‘L’ shape and the pattern of four holes represented here in an upside down ‘L’, and lastly the supposed representation of the ‘Herringbone Twill’ cloth that comprises the Shroud. It would seem that the poker holes are just decoration by the artist, the same feature found on what looks to be the belt of the Angel and its wing, but also found above the chest of the female administering saint. The top scene is quite simply Joseph and Nicodemus preparing the body and the second is the three women witnessing the whit cloth left in the the tomb,both as representative of Gopel accounts. There is no mention in the codex of the image being representant of the shroud and the supposed pattern of the weave of the cloth has been deemed a more important feature by the artist than representing the image of Jesus on the cloth which is slightly redundant if the picture were genuinely portraying a knowledge of the Shroud. The fact that Jesus is having lotions applied like the Gospel account seems to indicate that coincidentally the way the body is laid out is similar to the shroud but the real intent is to show the body receiving attention after having been removed from the cross as the gospel accounts convey.
One would think that if one were in some way trying to recreate the image portrayed on the shroud as something the artist had witnessed, it is a most striking feature that the beard is not included. Would it not strike anyone coming across the shroud that Jesus wore a beard rather than leave out the feature. In the image of the Shroud of Turin, the right palm is over the base of the left hand, while in the Pray codex, the arms intersect above the wrists. If one were trying to depict the 14 feet long Shroud, significantly larger than the small shroud depicted here in the codex, one would at least portray that an image existed on the Shroud. It seems that the main reason for considering the similarities of the Pray Codex was to confute the dating provided by the C14 results of 1260–1390 AD and establish the Shroud existed at an earlier date. The similarities are only due to the fact that they convey differing portrayals of an historic event about the same person through different mediums.
The last time the Tomb seems to have been opened is on December 25th 1307, seven years before the death of De Charney or fifty years before the Shroud was first displayed in 1357. It seems unlikely that the Shroud was in continental Europe until just prior to its first showing, and why would Melkin say the cloth is with Joseph if he had removed it to France.
It is surely not
by coincidence, that the same Templar society that built the St. Michael
churches had knowledge of the Grail, physical proof of the Turin Shroud and
knowledge of the whereabouts of the Island of Avalon. This surely would be the perfect place in
which to deposit their treasure.
Finding an empty tomb in Jerusalem by itself
does not prove a resurrection. However the fact that the tomb in which Joseph
had put Jesus was empty, is essential to the resurrection’s truthfulness for
fundamentalists. If anybody would have been able to produce Jesus’ body, any
resurrection claims would be voided and Christianity would not be founded on
the tenets it possesses today. So here
we are presented with two options; Jesus survived the ordeal of the cross and
carried out his appearances which would explain Thomas seeing the two holes in
Jesus’s hands and Luke having
Jesus say "behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and
see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have," Or, the resurrection accounts are inaccurate
and there was, no resurrection and if there was an appearance, it must have
been a spiritual appearance rather than Luke or Thomas’s witness. This form of
appearance is well attested by St. Paul’s conversion from persecutor to
advocator and is evidence of Jesus enduring as the Spiritual leader of Judah’s
heritage as attested to by the Prophets.
If one is not a
fundamentalist then Jesus’s resurrection is just as important, yet it must be
understood in a way that the prophets speak of it and in the sense that the
Grail Book recounts as Jesus being part of the ‘Divine Plan’. Jesus was resurrected that all men that
believe in him might also be resurrected, this is a spiritual resurrection not
a bodily one because his earthly body did not undergo an Elijah like flight
into Heaven. If it had, how could the
shroud have been created?
It is Jesus’s bodily
resurrection that provides validation of his incarnation for the primitive and
fundamental Christian mind and for St. Paul.
The entire Christian faith rests upon the centrality of the resurrection
of Jesus and the hope for a life after death as St.Paul confirms here: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ,
we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from
the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”.
St. Paul, who can probably be accounted one of the greatest man who ever
lived, was assuredly converted to a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, spoken of
by the Prophets. Apart from Jesus’
sacrifice, Christianity’s evolvement and perpetuation is largely due to his
effort. Having no other substance upon
which to base his resurrection accounts except those given by the Gospel
writers his eschatology becomes somewhat rationalized on the assumption that
the Body of Jesus ascended to heaven.
The resurrection occurs in this life on earth as stated by Jesus - in the
spiritual sense while in the body and this conception is attested to throughout
the Prophets. This spiritual resurrection would not occur had it not been for
the sacrifice of Jesus and this resurrection is part of the individual’s life
and the Judaic heritage which extenuates to all the offspring of Abraham,
iconic as the first man to have Faith.
Otherwise why would there be the reassurance of the second death having
no power and is faith all that man can establish. Is not Faith the precursor to
the certain knowledge of God? Faith is
only called for until proof can be established by a higher consciousness-
‘credo ut intelligam’. Paul spoke of how the state of consciousness existed in
his ‘Times’ from Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, Or more correctly as St. Paul saw it,
Now faith is being
sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. But due to Man’s consciousness existing
and being formulated in Time, we now find that resurrection is no longer
confined to Faith but now becomes a proof.
How could Jesus be crucified in Egypt? Egypt in this sense is identified as one of
the degrees of spiritual attainment spoken of by the Grail book and throughout
the prophets, as spiritual attainment mirrors Biblical history. If one does not achieve belief that Jesus
lived and died as part of a Divine plan and was the Saviour who came to help
every individual, then there is no further Spiritual progression, hence the
first death. If Jesus had not come,
those who fell asleep would not be reawakened during their lifetime in the
flesh as this is the essence of his coming, that life (a spiritually awakened
soul) may continue after the death of the flesh; for had he not come, those who
died in the Law since his coming, would not be resurrected.
Those who do believe but fall away,
undergo the ‘troublous times’ spoken of by the Prophets which is a period after
the spiritual fall of Jerusalem and a seven year period of spiritual
purification. If they are purified by
compliance to the Law, they then accomplish the equivalent of the return from
Captivity in Babylon. This can only
become clear with a good grasp of the biblical prophets as being applicable
spiritually today and an understanding of Biblical Time which we shall cover
shortly. Due to Pharisaic theology interpreting the resurrection as an expected physical bodily fufilment
based upon prophetical metaphorical language, we can understand the necessity
of the creation of a resurrection scenario to marry with misunderstood
prophetical prognostications such as Isaiah 26:19 But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who
dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the
morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. And Ezekiel 37:5 ‘This is what the
Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make
breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you
and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.
Then you will know that I am the Lord.’
However in these pages the referencing of the Prophets regarding the
resurrection is too lengthy an enterprise to undertake, but as regarding the
placement in Time of the unveiling of the tomb, we should endeavour to
elucidate this small part of the Divine Plan understood by the Prophets as it
pertains to the ‘elevation of the consciousness of Mankind’.
Theological issues aside; the
scenario mentioned above that Jesus appeared in the spirit to the apostles and
Gospel writers recorded sightings of an Angelic or Spiritual form of Jesus is
but one explanation. More probable is
that the Gospel writers polemicised his appearance to add credibility to his
resurrection trying to marry together what the prophets had predicted, with
what Jesus had also told his disciples, and their current view of what should
happen to fulfill those expectations.
This would of course, have been made simpler if the body of Jesus had
disappeared up to heaven and was not seen again.
When Joseph removed Jesus body from Jerusalem,
only the closest of those who travelled with him knew the truth while the
resurrection account filled the void. This rationalisation was essentially
understood by the compilers of the ‘Q’
source and the Gospel apologies and this was then subsequently elaborated
upon. Thanks to Melkin’s appellation of
‘Abbadare’ as a pseudonym for Jesus, no-one has suspected that the corpse of
Jesus existed in Britain except the illuminate from the Templars, who it would
seem, learned of the tomb’s whereabouts from the Grail book. This would of course mean that Joseph had
removed the body as we have posited and as the Grail book maintains, to remain
in a casket of oil which now lies in the Island of Avalon with Joseph.
The strange thing about the Gospels
is their ability to be so factual and to record faithfully some events, yet at
other times provide completely garbled and contradictory accounts to
rationalize the void left by a Messiah and no body to revere. This is also
witnessed on the relationship of the Magdalene and marriage issue along with
the missing husband of the Virgin Mary. It is not the object of this enquiry to
cause any offence to the faithful but the Virgin birth of the prophets is a
reality and the virgin birth of Jesus was not. Hence we have total obfuscation
about Joseph, Jesus’ father (which could of course be Joseph of Arimathea),
based upon Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give
you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and
will call him Immanuel. Essentially the Messiah had to be the product of a Virgin otherwise for
the fundamental understanding Jesus could not be the Messiah if concieved
naturally. Yet interestingly enough his geneaology is traced through Joseph
which is pointless without input. The virgin birth of a son can only be
understood in Spiritual terms and what the language of the Prophets refers is the
birth of the spirit within man.The prophets words can be undertood to apply to
spiritual growth as well as speaking the truth relevant in Time.
Not unlike the Grail stories in many respects,
(but more so like the stories about Arthur that emanated from Glastonbury), the
Gospels are unable to obscure the truth behind the polemicism and
rationalisations. One such garbled and
contradictory account is the burial of Jesus in Jerusalem where none of the
Gospel writers concur, but elaborate on ‘Q’.
Is the cloth, much like the ‘Wattled’ church, overstated in the
contradictory accounts of the Gospel writers. The two salient facts that Jesus
was buried by Joseph in a tomb he owned and with a white cloth, seem to
indicate a story built upon slight detail and then dovetailed to match the
perceived eschatology. Could this burial
information and the fact that it was a hewed out tomb in which no other person
had been laid, be mixed with the rumoured echo that Jesus was to buried in a
tomb hewed out. Was this tomb spoken of
hewed out by Dumnonian miners and is situated elsewhere, but still owned by
Joseph? Is the real story that, some
close to Jesus, saw Jesus in the Shroud, heard he was to be buried in a hewed
out tomb owned by Joseph and then he was never seen again? Someone close to Jesus will have placed the
flowers in the Grail Ark and this most probably, was Mary Magdalene. She would not want his body to undergoe any
further abuse and might even be responsible in part for the rumour starting
that Jesus was in Joseph’s tomb. It
could be that this information never actually became public knowledge, because
all those who witnessed Jesus in the
shroud and were close to him went to England.
If so then these small details would certainly give the compilers of ‘Q’
and the Gospel writers, cause to stretch, embellish and bring to life, the only
information that was passed onto them, i.e. the matter of fact information
concerning a white cloth and a hewed out burial chamber belonging to Joseph.
The various differing accounts, guards outside the tomb etc, can only be seen
as an attempt to explain the unexplainable with attempted eye witness accounts
that all contradict each other, used individually as a devise by each Gospel
writer to substantiate his version of events.
Whether Jesus appeared
after the crucifixion or not, has no relevance to his sanctity as he was spoken
of by the prophets and he fulfilled the very purpose for which he had come
which he himself bears witness to. This
was to give life or resurrect those Israelites who had come out of Egypt
(historically but spiritually emblematic) and who had become spiritually dead
by their ignoring or denial of compliance to the law. If Jesus had not come his voice and message would
not have changed the world. There is absolutely no question that Jesus is the
Messiah but it is unneccesary to account for events to fit what the Prophets
predicted but rather to understand the context of the Prophets predictions.
The tombs discovery will in effect negate the
fundamentalism of the bodily resurrection for Christians and realign the
Abrahamic religions firstly to a new and cohesive understanding of the Prophets
and latterly on a global scale by inclusion of the other faith religions.
Ultimately there is only one God and this will be understood by the record left
behind by the Prophets, that foretell of spiritual elevation as the work of God
especially when that record is percieved as a fundamental truth and becomes
understood as having transpired as a Divine Plan set in pre-cognitive Time.
In effect Jesus’ mission
was to bring all Israelites (an inclusive term) spiritually ‘out of Egypt’
which is equatable with an individual’s first knowledge of God; the Law having
been not so much imperfect, but primarily a precursor, in bringing mankind to
enlightenment.
This was because of no failing in the Law, but
down to the hardness of Man’s heart as part of the process toward Gnosis. Jesus was to be the spiritual redeemer of
mankind and he was to come forth at a appointed time. One could contradict this way of
understanding and say that the law was not received until after coming out of
Egypt. However the answer lies in the
foreshadowing that takes place in Biblical Time and will be understood once the
concept of Biblical Time is commonly accepted.
This foreshadowing, as we shall eventually see, is part of pre-cognition
in a divine plan that has been set in Time so that Man can comprehend God’s
work; the goal of which is aimed at ‘Gradually’ elevating mankind to full
consciousness. This is the proof of
which St. Paul thought we could only know by Faith but two thousand years ago
man’s level of consciousness was not ready to accept or indeed understand such
truths. Thus the practise of religion has perpetuated the knowledge of God until
Man became eligible through elevated consciousness to accept that his spiritual
nature has been nutured from a Divine Spark implanted in Adam 6000 years ago.
How may man reach Gnosis or self-awareness
when the only orientation he has is time, yet he has no concept of it except
measurement. Jesus was to challenge the
world view of ‘ignorance’ with the two basic precepts that encapsulated the law
and the Prophets; treat others as you would hope to be treated by them and have
knowledge and love of God. Up until around 36 AD, no one had so succinctly
defined the point and the lot of mankind.
When
Jerusalem was delivered from the Mohammedan’s initially, the bulk of the
Crusaders returned back to Europe.
During the reign of Baldwin the second patriarch of Jerusalem in 1118,
Hugues de Payens and another eight knights vowed to defend Jerusalem as a
Christian kingdom and to protect the routes into Jerusalem taken by
pilgrims. Baldwin was grateful of their
avowed assistance and gave the Knights a place in his Palace adjoining the
Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. From
then on they were known as the ‘Pauvres Chevaliers du Temple’ and poor they
were in those days, relying on alms charitably handed out by pilgrims on the way
to Jerusalem. In its period of growth
and evolution as an organised body, the Templar’s power and renown was
inextricably connected to the church and European imperialism. Hugues de Payens
journeyed to the West to curry favour with the Church and to obtain recruits from the sons
of the landed aristocracy of Europe. The
Templar dress at this stage was not uniform until after the Council of Troy in
1128 where they adopted the Red Cross of the Cistercian order of St. Benedict
which just happened to be the same emblem as upon Evalak’s shield. With the Pope's blessing of the Templar
order, recruits were found from the sons of nobility throughout Europe pooling
much of Europe's wealth into one organisation.
In the future these extensive financial resources would fund a large
number of architectural projects across Europe and the Holy Land.
The Templar
organisation became the guardian of arcane knowledge, having direct links to
the great cathedral builders of the age and before that, drawing knowledge from
the monastic tradition, who had built the Abbeys since 500 AD. Eventually the
Templars knowledge provided for an offshoot that became the Freemasons,
incorporating knowledge from the pyramid builders, and the builders of
Solomon's Temple and the architects of the Ley system. From the 1600’s they incorporated Templar
symbols and rituals evidencing the intermingling and consolidation of various
organisations as part of the York Rite.
The Knights Templar grew very rapidly across Europe within its 200 year
fruition, empowered by religious fervour with the dreams of young nobility
pursuing knightly endeavours, gaining renown for martial prowess.
The Pope
added to their meteoric rise in stature by ensuring them protection throughout
Europe and exempting them from all taxes and jurisdiction both secular and
episcopal. One wonders what it was that the Tempars had, which qualified them
for a Papal ‘Carte-Blanche’, if it were not a piece of information that would
crush the church and the basis upon which it was founded.
The Templars were a force to be reckoned with
and the red cross they wore was a symbol of martyrdom and assured any young
knight who fought for the organisation a place in heaven, creating a cult of
fearlessness on the battlefield. The
knights of the Templar order were forbidden to surrender unless the Templar
standard had fallen. The Templars wealth
and the overall education of their adherent’s, accompanied by their fervour
proved them to be elitist and allowed for top-quality armour, excellent horses
and exemplary training, making them the largest non-national force in Europe to
be reckoned with. The order grew in
power, as every member who joined willingly handed over all their wealth and
goods, the adherents avowing chastity, piety and obedience to the order and
from one or more of the orders subjects,
information concerning the temple mount and the British Tomb, fell into
the hands of the Illuminate that formed the core of the order.
The founder Hugues de Payens circa 1118, was officially their leader as Grand Master
and the last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay who was made to confess under
torture to heresy and then later retracted and died defiant facing Notre Dame
Cathedral. As the ‘Chinon Parchment’ was found in the Vatican
archives in 2001,
having been filed in the wrong place in the 17th century; it
revealed records of the trial of the Templars and related that Pope Clement
absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before finally disbanding the
Order in 1312. Why, one wonders, after
such a witch-hunt and no convictions were the King of France and the Pope so
intent on ridding themselves of the knights Templar order?
In the 200
years of Templar power domination, their wealth which was kept in its temples in London and Paris, especially in the latter years in
which the organisation existed was lusted after by the church and the King of
France. Kings and princes and private
persons banked their wealth with the Templar order, while in Paris, even the royal treasure was kept in the Temple. The Order of Hospitallers, a less material organisation, established much the same
time as the Templars, started to assert their authority across Europe by
interfering with the Templars’ material business empire. In the end, both
organisations’ eventual defeated by the Crusader nemesis Saladin in Jerusalem,
impaired much of their power.
Eventually, after the rounding up and disbanding of the Templars in
Europe and at the death of the Grand Master Jack de Molay ,the remaining
non-compliant Templars around Europe were arrested and tried under the Papal
investigation or put to death for their compliance and admissions to heresy.
None were convicted and most who remained alive then joined other military
orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or were pensioned off.
By Papal
decree, the evident residue of the Templars wealth was transferred to the Order of Hospitallers, thus concluding the final disbanding of the Templar
order by the Papal See, mainly instigated and steered by the King of
France. The Vatican today admits that
the final persecution of the Knights Templar was unjustified. It also admits
that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its rule. The Vatican standpoint today in retrospect
and self-absolution is that, Pope Clement was pressurised into commissioning
his witch-hunt, by the Templar’s increasing worldliness and banking profligacy
and succumbed to the huge influential power wielded by King Philip IV over the
Papal See.
No accurate
record exists as to the Templar membership, but it is estimated that at the
Order's peak there were between 15,000 and 20,000 Templars. Many of these having pooled the wealth of
their estates into which they had been born, which created what probably could
be termed the world's first multinational conglomerate and probably, had it not
been disbanded, would have led to an eventual Republic of Europe.
The rivalry
between the military orders had compounded their downfall and the Pope’s
solution was to consolidate them all.
This consolidation had been proposed twice by Pope Nicholas IV trying to avoid the crisis that eventually ensued. Never in fact had the question of the Crusaders been more eagerly addressed than after their fall. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, the Pope issued a papal bull, which officially
dissolved the Order, and merged it with the knights Hospitaller after the
king’s hope of finding a wealth of gold along with the relics recovered from
the temple of Solomon had not been realised.
However, the
main blame for the disbandment of the Templar order should remain with King
Philip IV, who was deeply in debt to the Templars, and set up the inquisitors,
taking the position that he had heard certain unsubstantiated revelations
concerning their heresy and acts of sodomy.
He contrived to send secret orders throughout France to arrest all the Templars on the same day, which was
designated as the 13 October, 1307. King
Philip made it appear that the orders had come from the Vatican, for breaches
in religious piety and the Templars rumoured devotion to non-Christian idols,
amounting to heresy. Of course, with the
severity of the torture which existed at that time many of those captured
admitted to things that were certainly not true of the Order. The long talks
about amalgamation between the two orders of The Knights Templar and the
Knights Hospitaller in effect had taken place at the dissolution of the
Templars but both the King and the Pope through their own devious imaginations
had missed their prize. The King did not
manage to steal their rumoured treasure and the Pope did not stop the residue
of the Templars leaving behind clues to posterity, so that they might be led to
the only object that could remove power from the church. The King and the Pope
may have assumed control vicariously through the Knights Hospitaller and gained
control over much of the business empire, inheriting a banking empire which
held letters of credit from the nobility, but the true essence that empowered
the Templar order had escaped them.
The Knights Templar had a strong presence in La Rochelle from
before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who exempted them from duties. La Rochelle was a Templar base on the
Atlantic Ocean and from there carried out their business with Britain. It is
not even certain that the Templars owned their own fleet or alternatively hired
ships from traders as they needed them, but there is a legend that some Templars used
the port of La Rochelle to escape from France with the fleet of 18 ships which had brought Jacques de Molay from Cyprus to
La Rochelle much earlier in the year of 1307. This rumour seems to have come
from the port records that record Jack de Molays return from Cyprus but in the
intervening months it is likely that most of the ships had been employed
elsewhere. Eighteen ship loads of treasure transported across France from Paris
to La Rochelle under duress seems unlikely. Three ships possibly, but eighteen
would risk losing too much and that volume of treasure is surely exaggerated,
but where there is rumour of treasure, there is usually a grain of truth. The
ships reportedly left laden with treasure just before the issue of the warrant
for the arrest of the Order in October 1307,
On hearing of
King Philip's plan to arrest all Templars on Friday October the 13th,
most of the Templar wealth amassed from European estates and conquests and the
choice valuables that were stored in the Temple in Paris, had been assembled
into three ships that lay on the West coast of France in la Rochelle. On October 12th 1307 the ships left La Rochelle
and were never seen again.
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