Архитектура Аудит Военная наука Иностранные языки Медицина Металлургия Метрология Образование Политология Производство Психология Стандартизация Технологии |
Tau/Tough carvings on Roslyn Chapel interior. Bottom: Cabalah image of triangle with tetragram-
maton inscribed within, in Roslyn Chapel Museum. Both photographs by Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman.
trade throughout the world, including images of a kangaroo, pineapple, maize, tobacco and other wonders.
Of course, by the time the Templars arrived, additional Jewish immigrants had already made their way to Scotland. Recall that in 1290 C.E., King Edward I had ordered all Jews to leave England, causing many to flee across the border to Scotland and overseas to France and the Low Countries. Others went underground in England and became Crypto-Jews. It is likely that the subsequent expulsion and proscription of Jews in the French kingdom (1306) caused families with hidden Jewish roots to become even more secretive, if they remained, or else to flee in advance of exposure, as occurred in Nazi Germany. The important Jewish community in Nor- mandy, still an English possession and not yet part of France, must have been in a particularly stressful position. At this point, many English and French Jews doubtless joined relatives already in Scotland. The emigres could not fail to have included those schooled in the mystical strain of Judaism known as the Cabala, which had been flourishing in Narbonne since the 1100s. As Jews were harried from one country to the next, Scotland emerged as one of the few safe-havens. Thus, by the early 1300s, Templars, Jews and Muslims had likely all sought refuge in Scotland.
Templars, Cabala and Judaism
Before discussing the Cabala, let us turn to additional testimony concerning the his- toric reality of the Jews in Scotland. The current claimant to the throne of Scotland and holder of the title of Prince of Albany, Michael Stewart, has written extensively about Stuart genealogy and early Scottish history. He discusses the close ties between certain members of the Catholic hierarchy, specifically St. Bernard, the Templars and the Scot- tish Celtic Church (p. 32):
St. Bernard [a Cistercian monk] had been appointed Patron and Protector of the Knights Templars at the French “Council of Troyes” in 1128. At that time, he had drawn up the Order’s Constitution and had since translated the Sacred Geometry of the [Jewish] masons who built King Solomon’s Jerusalem Temple.... Also in 1128, Saint Bernard’s cousin, Hughes de Payens, founder and Grand Master of the Templars, met with King David I in Scotland, and the Order established a seat on the South Esk.... Both David and his sister mere mari- tally attached to the Flemish House of Boulogne, so there were direct family ties between David, Hugues de Payens, and the Crusader Kings of Jerusalem....
[The Templars’] Jerusalem excavations had... led to other important discoveries, including some ancient documentation which enabled them to challenge certain Roman Church doc- trines and New Testament interpretation.... Their documentary discoveries were substantial, including numerous books from the East, many of which had been salvaged from the burned library of Alexandria [Egypt], There were ancient Essene works predating Jesus Christ and volumes from Arabian and Greek philosophers, all of which were destined to be condemned by the Church. There were also countless works concerning numerology, geometry, architec- ture and music, along with manuscripts pertaining to metals and alloys. In all, the Templars returned to Europe with the combined knowledge of thousands of years of study.
Thus, by the early 1 100s a substantial amount of Middle Eastern knowledge, learn- ing and mysticism had been transferred to Scotland. It was little surprise, then, that the Knights Templar, Jews, and Muslims would have chosen to cooperate in seeking refuge in Scotland, once they were exiled from Christian countries. Stewart (p. 33) also writes:
Scotland was the perfect haven for the Knights Templar of Jerusalem. The Stewart kings, the Setons, and the Sinclairs were all hereditary Knights Templar, and Scottish Rite Freemasonry was later created as a sub-structure of the organization. The hereditary right of the Stewarts came by virtue of Robert the Bruce having granted the Knights asylum in Scotland. The Sin- clairs gained their privilege because they had afforded half the Templar Fleet safe anchorage at Orkney, and the Setons had given valuable financial assistance during the Order’s hour of need.
Stewart also traces the origins of the St. Clair/Sinclair family from France to Scot- land, specifically mentioning their role in the Templar Order (p. 102):
One of Scotland’s most prominent families of the early Stewart era was the old Norman fam- ily of St. Clair, who had arrived in the 11th century, sometime before the Norman Conquest of England. In 1057, they had received the Barony of Roslin, south of Edinburgh, from Mal- colm III Canmore.... William Sinclair, [St. Clair] Earl of Caithness and Grand Admiral of Scotland, was appointed Hereditary Patron and Protector of the Scottish Masons by King James in 1441....
The masons of William Sinclair were not the speculative freemasons that we know today, but operative stonemasons privy to the Sacred Geometry held by the Knights Templar. Because of this, William was enabled to build the now famous Rosslyn Chapel; the overall work, with its abundance of intricate carvings, was begun in about 1446. In 1475 a Charter ... was ratified, and Rosslyn became known as “Lodge Number One” in Edinburgh. The magnificent Chapel — still used by Knights Templar of the Scottish Grand Priory, and by the Scottish Episcopal Church — stands above the Esk Valley, near the original Templar center at Ballantradoch (House of the Warrior).
Stewart (p. 117) continues:
In respect of the Masonic patronage granted to Sir William Sinclair in 1475, ... there were trade and craft Guilds in Scotland at that time.... King James III had granted numerous Charters in Edinburgh that year, as did his successors thereafter:
Date Guild Chartered 1475
Weavers, Cordwainers (leatherworkers and shoemakers), Wrights (artificers and metalworkers), Masons (stone- workers and builders), Bowyers (bow-makers), Glaziers, Upholsterers, Painters, Slaters, Sievewrights (sieve- and basket-makers), Coopers (barrel-makers)
James III 1483 Hammermen (blacksmiths, goldsmiths, saddlers, cutlers and armourers), Fleshers (butchers)
James III 1500 Wakers (clothiers and millers)
James IV 1505 Surgeons, Barbers
James IV 1530 Bakers, Bonnet-makers
James V 1581 Goldsmiths (separated from Hammermen)
James VI 1586 Skinners
James VI 1635 Post Office
Charles I 1640 Dyers (incorporated with Bonnet-makers)
Charles I 1672 Hatters (incorporated with Wakers)
Charles II 1681 Merchant Company
From the ranks of the newly created, operative Guilds, the Knights Templars selected certain members who were keen to extend their minds to matters of science, geometry, history and philosophy, as detailed in the ancient manuscripts which the original Order had brought out of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.... Scotland became a beacon of enlightenment. The new brotherhood of “Free” Masons supported their less fortunate neighbours, and their respec- tive Guilds set money aside for the poorer members of society, thereby beginning the estab- lishment of charitable organizations in Britain. 9 King James VI became a speculative Freemason at the Lodge of Perth and Scone in 1601, and on becoming James I of England two years later, he introduced the concept south of the Border.
Stewart further reports that the Scottish Guilds were given access to the Templar banking system, which enabled them to construct and maintain their international trade network. Aberdeen, with its very broad-based trade channels, founded Freemason Guilds on the French model in 1361, according to Stewart (p. 117-118):
[Further, ] quite apart from the Guilds, the Knights also received lay-people into their allied confraternities and, for a small annual subscription of a few pence, men and women alike were afforded numerous privileges by way of personal and family support in times of need. This was, in fact, the beginning of the insurance and life assurance industry, and it is the reason why so many of today’s leading British underwriting institutions emanated from Scotland.
The Cabala
We will close this chapter with a section designed to segue between what has been presented about the Templars and what will be covered in chapter 9, on Aberdeen and northeast Scotland. This has to do with a branch of Judaism termed the Cabala. The Cabala originated in the Holy Land around 70 C.E. and incorporated Judaic religious ideas together with geometric principles developed much earlier, very likely at the time of the building of the pyramids of Egypt. The same architectural and mathematical prin- ciples were applied to the construction of the Temple of Solomon in Israel.
As we shall see, the theorems behind both the pyramids and the First Temple are based on the discovery of pi, phi, a number of Pythagorean theorems, and other geo- metric principles emanating from Eastern learning. They are not magical or mystical, per se. Yet, to the human minds capable of grasping them, they must have seemed God- given and divinely- inspired. Their perfection, symmetry and consistency would have produced awe and amazement among those gifted enough to comprehend and use them. This same set of mathematical principles also had enormous pragmatic utility in fields as diverse as astronomy, architecture, navigation and land measurement. Because of the precious intellectual capital they represented, these- geometric theorems were closely guarded, shared only among a select group of Middle Eastern cognoscenti.
The Templars embraced this body of knowledge eagerly, more particularly since it had been the subject of earlier philosophical, scientific and religious speculation in Greece, Rome and Moorish Spain, and it became one of the spoils of conquest when they seized control of the ancient civilizations of the East. In medieval Palestine, the principles had been combined with a mystical numerical system which assigned each letter in the Hebrew alphabet to a number or digit. By recasting Torah texts as numerical sequences, the Jews created elaborate mathematical metaphors that were used to give additional levels of meaning and correspondences to their sacred scripture. In the Diaspora after 100 c.E., these notions were elaborated and embroidered in Cabalistic centers of learning, first in Provence in southern France, then in Spain, and by the 1500s, cycling back to the Holy Land and other Levantine centers such as Alexandria, Istanbul and Salonica.
As Benbassa (1999, p. 38) notes, the spread of Cabalistic doctrines occurred within the larger context of the cross-translation of important philosophical and scientific trea- tises in the Mediterranean area:
The [French-Jewish] Kimhi and Ibn Tibbon families distinguished themselves in the domain of translation. In the one, Joseph Kimhi (1105-70) and his son David ( 1 160? — 1 235), and in the other, Judah ibn Tibbon (1120-90) and his son Samuel (1150-1230), translated the great classics of Judeo-Arabic thought from Arabic into Hebrew, including the works of Saadya Gaon (882-942), Ibn Gabiron (10201-1057? ), Judah Halevi (before 1075-1141), and Bahya ibn Pakuda (second half of the eleventh century).... They also devoted themselves to the translation of Greek and Arabic scientific works, particularly in medicine. The texts of the Muslim physician, philosopher, and mystic Avicenna (980-1037) and, especially, of the philosopher Averroes (1126-98) were translated from Arabic into Hebrew. 10 Spanish Jews trained in their homeland in Arabic astronomy brought it with them to Provence; some invented astronomical instruments, others translated works from Latin.... Samuel ibn Tib- bon produced a translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed (1200) that appeared before the author’s death in 1204.... Indeed, Provence was also the homeland of Levi ben Gershom, commonly known as Gersonides (1288-1344).... At once a philosopher and the- ologian, commentator on Averroes and biblical exegete, talmudist, mathematician and logi- cian, he was also the inventor of an astronomical instrument....
Provence, land of philosophy, was also a land of mysticism. It is there that the Sefer-ha- Bahir (Book of Brightness), the first document of theosophic kabbalism, was compiled on the basis of oriental sources between 1150 and 1200.... Abrah ben Isaac, president of the rab- binical court of Narbonne (d. 1180), and especially Isaac the Blind ( 1 160? — 1235) — grandson of Abraham ben Isaac... developed a contemplative mysticism. Born in Provence and along the coast of Languedoc, the kabbalah was rapidly transplanted to Catalonia, which main- tained close political and cultural ties with these regions.
The earliest known mention of the Cabala comes from the first century of the Com- mon Era, in Judea. Here, four of the classical texts were written: (1) Heikalot Books, (2) Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation), (3) the Zohar (Book of Splendor), and (4) the Bahir (Book of Brilliance) (Bernstein 1984). The Heikalot Books are based on the biblical Book of Ezekial, which uses the Throne of Glory and the Heavenly Chariot (Merkabah) as cen- tral symbolic devices. The Book of Ezekial and the Book of Genesis both were popular religious texts within Judea from 538 b.c.e. to 70 C.E., that is, during the Second Temple period. Commonly, the wheels of the heavenly chariot are drawn to incorporate the Pythagorean theorem; metaphorically, this means that mathematical wisdom could raise mankind to a perfected state (Bernstein 1984).
The Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation) is the oldest non-Biblical treatise of Judaism, having been written down in the second century (Bernstein 1984). This book develops the theme of the ten Sephiroth or primordial numbers and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Some of its main images are the ladder of wisdom, with each step lead- ing to a higher level of knowledge, and the tree of life, which combines aspects of the ladder going upward from Earth to Heaven with the additional symbolism of “above ground tree, below ground roots, ” or, “As Above, So Below.” 11 The tree metaphor posits that activities on Earth are reflections of actions in Heaven. An important theme through-
Tau
Sign of the cross
out is the perfectibility of the world through human endeavor, often expressed in Judaic tradition as Tikkun Olam (“perfecting the universe”).
The Zohar (Book of Splendor) is a collection of many different writings on various religious topics. Possibly authored by Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai (160 c.E.), it is the most influential of the Cabalistic writings. It was first published in its entirety by Rabbi Moses de Leon of Guadalajara, Spain, around 1290 C.E. (Bernstein 1984). Rabbi Simeon was known as “the Sacred Light, ” and we see this name carried forward to the Saint Clair/ Sin- clair /Sanctus Clarus family of France and Scotland. Further, we will find in Aberdeen many persons having the surname of Norrie/Noory/Nory/Norris, which is Arabic for “light” or “illumination.” The Zohar proposes that the Torah is actually a series of numer- ical codes that reveal a much deeper level of divine meaning than the “surface” letters, words and stories.
The Bahir (Book of Brilliance) was also produced in the early Talmudic period (ca. 100 C.E.) and almost lost as a text, only to reappear in Provence, France, during the 1200s. The Bahir introduces metaphors of reincarnation and the masculine-feminine nature of God. The Jewish scholar most closely associated with the tradition of the Bahir is Rabbi |
Последнее изменение этой страницы: 2019-05-04; Просмотров: 242; Нарушение авторского права страницы