Templar Edification

'Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry' by John J. Robinson In the book Born in Blood The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson, the Knights Templar didn't directly become Freemasons, but their legacy shaped the craft through a wild and violent chain of events. The Templars, founded in 1119, were warrior-monks protecting Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem. By the 1300s, they were controlling vast wealth from banking and trade. King Philip IV of France, drowning in debt to them, saw a chance to seize their assets. In 1307, he convinced Pope Clement V to accuse the Templars of heresy - spitting on the cross, worshipping idols, even sodomy. Grand Master Jacques de Molay was and many other Templars were arrested Friday October 13th, 1307 and he was burned at the stake March 18th, 1314, and the order was crushed. The book argues many Templars survived the purge, going underground to avoid execution. He claims they fled to places like Scotland, blending into local...

My high-school curriculum did not require Latin in order to graduate—I’m not quite so old as that—but I am old enough that it offered Latin as an elective. To be honest, it was an easy A, especially as I’d already taken a few semesters of Spanish, itself a Latin derivative. With its low level of stress and heavy dosage of Roman history, Latin class soon became a favorite of mine. We even took a bus-trip to Broadway, in order to see A Funny Things Happened on the Way to the Forum, which tickles me to this day. I try to watch the DVD on every Saturnalia. This youthful dalliance with the Classics continued into my undergraduate matriculation [the formal process of enrolling and admittance as a student at college or university], where I signed up for further Latin courses, a minor focusing on Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, and even a few graduate-level Imperial Roman history classes. I met one of my best friends there; upon graduation, we were invited to join an international ...