SHORT HISTORY OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA and their Cross

¨     Thomas 62:

Jesus said, "I disclose my mysteries to those who are worthy of my mysteries.

Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing".

The geometrical origin of the Malta Cross plays an important role in this article. For this reason it is important to write something about its recent history and of course the involvement of the knights of the crusades.

The Malta Cross gets its name from the Knights of St. John (named after St. John the Baptist), also called Knights of the Hospital of Jerusalem or simply Hospitallers, who adopted this cross and made it their coat of armor. It is thanks to this famous knightly order that the cross acquired its fame. The true origin of the cross goes back much further in history. It was already used by early Christians but goes back way into Hellenistic times as a geometrical design.

The order of St. John of the Hospital in Jerusalem has most likely been founded in the beginning of the 12th century. It was a military monastic brotherhood of nobleman, that originally had the task to protect and take care of sick and wounded pilgrims to Jerusalem. Very soon the military aspects of the order started to outweigh the hospital task and the Knights of St. John, together with the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem became the most important representatives of the ideology of the crusades.     

The original Malta Cross, white on a red field in time of war
 and white on a black field in times of peace.

After about two hundred very intensive years in Palestine the situation for both knightly orders changed drastically. After the fall of Acre in 1291, the last stronghold of the Franks in Palestine got lost and both Templars and Knights of St. John had to retreat to Cyprus. Unsatisfied with the limitations of their new refuge, in 1306, the knights of St. John managed the obtain a new headquarter on the nearby island of Rhodes, while the Templars remained on Cyprus. Under the leadership of their rather immoral Grandmaster Foulques de Villaret and through the help of the Pope and King Phillip the Fair of France, the Knights of St. John managed to conquer the entire island of Rhodes in 1309.

The despotic Foulques de Villaret,
 first Grandmaster of the Knights of St. John on the isle of Rhodes
 (Italian artist impression from the 1930th).

At the same time that turned out so favorable for the Knights of St. John, destiny turned against the Templars in the cruelest way possible. At the instigation of the same king Phillip the Fair and the same pope Clement V that had helped the Knights of St. John conquer the island of Rhodes, the Templars we arrested, charged with wild accusations and cruelly prosecuted. After a lengthy trial during which several knights confessed after horrible torture, the order of the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem was officially suppressed on the 22th of March 1312 by the pope Clement in his papal bull "Vox in Excelso". On the 2nd of May of that same year he came with the bull "Ad Providam" in which the Templars fortune became in possession of the Knights of St. John.

Once again it is remarkable how the Knights of St. John were favored by the same people that contributed to the extinction of the rival Templar order. The enormous fortune and possessions of the Templars passed into the hands of the Knights of Rhodes, even though it was of course Phillip the Fair that made sure to confiscate the largest part of the Temple treasure.

The fact that the Knights of St. John might not have had an all to pleasant role in the destruction of the Temple order has never been investigated enough. A fact is that Foulques de Villaret, Grandmaster of the order of St. John was a despotic and ruthless man that kept such an exuberant life stile that he was actually thrown out of his office by his fellow knights, who appointed a new Grandmaster and tried to arrest Villaret. De Villaret managed to escape and seek refuge in the nearby fortress of Lindos. Even this time, pope Clement came to rescue. In 1319 the conflict was resolved by appointing a new Grandmaster.

The years that followed were very advantageous for the Knights. The city of Rhodes was fortified into a majestic stronghold from which the knights controlled the entire Mediterranean. Only 213 years later, after a lengthy occupation, the fortress fell in the hands of the Turkish conqueror Sulaiman. The knights were however allowed to retreat and established themselves (in 1530, with permission of Charles V) on the formerly Spanish Isle of Malta. It is thanks to this island that the knights got their current name, because regardless of the fact that Napoleon conquered the island in 1797, the knights kept on existing. In 1830 they established themselves at Rome and abolished their military character. At this moment, the order still runs several hospitals in Germany, France, Belgium, England and Italy.

The very old history of the famous order has made that the Malta Cross has become the basic form of almost all civil and military decorations. Only the republic of France has a rather peculiar variation on the Malta design. The French cross of honor has five "Maltese" arms instead of the regular four. Most probably this strange variation became necessary because Napoleon had made himself very unpopular with both the Pope as the Knights of Malta. Napoleon had a very difficult relationship with the Vatican, which he deprived of various treasures and besides this, the entire documentations of the Templar trial. Considering Napoleons sympathy for the knights Templar it is not unthinkable that the carried a silent grudge against the knights of St. John.

   
The Grandseal and coat of amour cross of the Templars; red on a white field. Less know than the Malta Cross was the "Croix Patté" of the Templars. The founder of the "Red Cross" Henry Dunant, was also a fervent Templar mystic. The name of his by now world famous organization, was directly taken from the Templars cross.

The most famous symbol of the Templars is however their Grandseal, the SIGILLUM MILITIUM XRISTI. Two knights on one horse as sign of their vow to poverty. In a later century, the prosecutors of Philip the Fair connected the two knights with alleged homosexuality.

Through the centuries the sudden abolishment subsequent destruction of the famous Templar order has been a subject of many, often rather mysterious discussions. The popular opinion connects the abolished order of the Templars with Oriental esoteric secret knowledge. In most cases the order is supposedly involved in the later freemason lodges and other occult societies that claim their existence through various mysterious initiation rituals.

It is surprising how nobody seems to have ever been interested in the role that the Knights of St John played in the elimination of the order of the Temple. The fact that their Grandmaster in that period was an immoral and extremely shrewd person is commonly known, even as the fact the the order of St. John never assisted the Templars against the many wild accusations during their trial. Enriched with the Templar treasure and many freshly recruited ex-Templar knights, the order of St. John commenced its period of greatest power and wealth. The palace of the Grandmaster on Rhodes could measure its court with the most important royals of Europe. For two centuries, Rhodes was the hub from which all commercial traffic in the entire Mediterranean area was controlled. As last outpost of the West, the heavily guarded port of Rhodes was the place par excellence where Oriental and Western culture met.   

The knights of St. John were all but culturally undeveloped. Their Grandmaster Fernandez Heredia (grandmaster from 1379 to 1382) was regarded was of the most erudite persons of early renaissance. Heredia studied the classical writers and translated amongst others the Vitae of Plutarchus in his mother language Aragon. Other Grandmasters kept culture on a high standard as well. Many classical texts, usually originating from the Middle East, were studied and translated by them.

Stupidity has always been an important quality of mankind, how else can anyone explain that the rather shabby Templars, which cultural merits should be measured in the amounts of alcohol that they were supposed to swallow, would be associated with the most important mystical secrets knowledge of the Orient, leading to hundreds of years of esoteric speculations whether the alleged Templar secret would be the Holy Grail or some other great secret related to Christian religion. Several bestselling novels have been based on this theme and just about every "secret" society claims its inheritance from the Templars.

Whatever could have been this important secret brought back from the Middle East, that was so important that it had to lead to the destruction of their order? Logic is completely missing in this case!

The only reasonable explanation for the Templars' cult status is that the way their organization came to an end is of Biblical proportions by itself. The way they were betrayed by a complotting King of France and his alleged marionette Pope Clement, subsequently put on trial and falsely accused, tortured and brought to death has strong resemblances to the Passion of Jesus. And just like Jesus arose from death, we probably subconsciously extrapolate an analogous scenario for the Order of the Temple

If one really wants to insist on this alleged enormous "crusade-age" secret, why did nobody ever think of the knights of St. John? It is so much more obvious that it would have been them instead of their insolent Temple brothers that had the most opportunities to get into contact with the highly developed Arabian culture. The brothers of St. John were traditionally a hospital order. Taking care of the sick and wounded was their first task. As such it is logical that they had a generic interest in medicine as a whole. This also provides an explanation for their general interest in the rich Arabian scientific culture, which at that moment was  still to be discovered in Europe.

The Arabs possessed large libraries with many translations of classical works that were still unknown in the West. In this way, the Hospitallers most surely came into contact with Pythagoreans teachings, which  after all made health (Hygiena), the motto of their school. The fact that Orphic mysticism has had a strong influence on Christian religion has been mentioned before. Imagine the knights of the Hospital gaining knowledge and proof of even further reaching Classical influence on Christian religion. In that case the mediaeval Church, which already suffered heavily because of the widespread heretic influences all over Europe, would have been seriously threatened by this knowledge.

This article has extensively discussed the geometric origin of the Malta Cross, a geometrical symbol that unites the earthly and heavenly person of Jesus. Besides the hidden symbolism of their cross, the knights might have stumbled into other information such as the resurrection numbers that are discussed in this article. It was in exactly that period, during his long permanence in the Middle East, that the Pisan scholar Leonardo Fibonacci acquired his knowledge about the mathematical progression that was later named after him.

Considering the unusual amount of help that they obtained from the two biggest enemies of the Templars, the pope and Phillip the Fair, it is far from unlikely that the Knights of St. John discovered knowledge that was very dangerous for the church. Should they have possessed such knowledge it is obvious that they used it as a threat against the church in order to obtain enormous favors at the cost of their Temple brothers.

Is it not much more likely that between two concurrent knightly orders, the Knights of St. John were the ones that most likely brought back the biggest religious secrets from the Orient. Times were very difficult for the knightly orders after their forced retreat from Palestine. Heavy losses had been inflicted to both Templars and Knights of St. John. What difficulty would an unscrupulous man like Foulques de Villaret have had to threaten pope Clement with the revelation of some highly undesired knowledge regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus?

The motive for the total destruction of the order of the Temple has always remained a mystery. It is a fact that Phillip the Fair of France has not played a positive role in the conspiracy against the Templars. Getting control over the Templars treasure was most likely the first objective of his actions against the knights. The role that pope Clement has played remains however a mystery. Was he really no more that a marionette of the French king? In that case it is a mystery why he entrusted the Templars treasure to the Knights of St. John. Why not give it all to the king or confiscate it himself? Everything makes it evident that pope Clement was afraid of something and acted likewise.

Considering the fact that up to now no Christian mystery seemed to be possible without some involvement of the Knights Templar, an alternative interpretation of the historic facts needed to be presented.