The Phoenician Code

by Karim El Koussa

  Mr. Gibson inhaled the last puff from his cigarette, nodded, and testified evenly, “Truth be told, in one of the earliest Freemasonic texts, known as the Old Charges, we find a document called the Regius document. It declares that the original Heroes were not King Solomon and his Temple in Jerusalem, but rather, King Nimrod and his Tower in Babel.”

  That was another surprise for Paul, and Mr. Gibson conveyed the reality of it with a hint of irony. In fact, every historian and theologian knows the allegory behind the story of Nimrod and his Tower in the Old Testament, and doesn’t bother wondering why the story is found in the Hebraic Bible in the first place. At any rate, the Old Testament narrates that King Nimrod ordered his people to build the Tower exceptionally high, assuming that he could shoot God with an arrow! As a response, God knocked him and his followers down, so hard; that everyone started to talk in a different language the others could not understand.

  Shooting God with an arrow… Israel… striving against El and against his son, Emmanuel! Paul thought.

  “Anyway!” Mr. Gibson said, “The many secret societies of the Babylonian Brotherhood succeeded in circulating many cover-up stories, in order to delude the world they wished to control. Secrecy and manipulated propaganda were at the core of the modus operandi of the Brotherhood. Logically—in order to divide and rule—devious creativity became a must in the administration of the world’s conflicts, creating a New World Order. The Brotherhood invented countless tales on many different yet related issues, often orchestrated to contradict each other. In their aim to rule the world effortlessly, sensitive topics like religion, history, economics, and politics turned into schisms, under their exploitation.”

  On their way back to the wooden cottage, a few minutes later, Paul told Mr. Gibson that the information he had received, regarding freemasonic secrets, was extremely beneficial to him, and that the time had truly come for him to know about the Pharisees.

  “Aha…” Mr. Gibson uttered, “You never miss a beat, do you? So resolute is your mind.” He smiled. “You will find the answer to your quest in Washington D.C., Home of the Supreme Council.”

  .42.

  Antonine Order, Jerusalem

  Sunday, November 28, 07:32 PM

  En route to the House of Priests, where Padre Joseph waited in his office, Maya thought about the quick meeting she’d had with Paul for half an hour at the Beirut International Airport, where they’d had coffee, and a little chat. She still wondered, though, why a meeting with the Padre was of urgent necessity, and why now. What’s going on? she thought, as she moved a strand of her long light-brown hair behind her ear. Paul had been very discreet, and that perplexed her. Her silken face showed a strange expression of anxiety.

  With his jovial disposition, Padre Joseph welcomed Maya in his office on Friday, November 26th. The clock on the wall marked 10:14 AM. Sitting behind his large brown desk, the Padre seemed excited about the news he was about to tell his guest, as he dropped his eyeglasses on the desk. This motion often predicted something of great importance the Padre had in mind. Maya thought he looked a bit anxious.

  “Paul contacted me almost a week ago,” the Padre started. “He informed me about a collection of antique Torahs that had been stolen from Iraq and taken to Israel—prior to the war in 2003—and a few others to the US, afterwards. The Iraqi government has, so far, failed to convince US officials to return the Jewish-Iraqi documents.” He paused for a thought then added, “The American-Jewish lobby has been putting much pressure on US officials, questioning them to find out if they are going to be returned to Iraq, and expressing their deep concern for the safety of the Torah scrolls. They believe this may cause an irrevocable loss of Jewish history, and hence, they proclaim that the documents should instead be returned to Israel.”

  “Aha…” Maya said, in even greater perplexity than before.

  “Paul believes they are trying by any-and-all means to hide secretive parts of their historical and religious truth away from Academics and people. It’s highly likely that they are afraid of being exposed, if the truth is ever revealed…” the Padre conveyed, as he procured a pack of cigarettes from his drawer, and lit his first one of the today.

  “And you Padre, what do you think about that?” Maya managed to ask.

  “I’m in complete accord with Paul,” the Padre said with a grin, and smoked his cigarette. “Do you know why we asked for your presence here so urgently?” he asked.

  “No idea at all,” she replied with a twist of the head. “Isn’t it because of the vital information you just revealed?” she asked in surprise.

  “Yes, of course,” answered the Padre, “We have a mission for you,” he added in a worried tone that Maya felt again.

  “A new mission?” she wondered, her attentive eyes showed astonishment. “What to do now and where to go? I thought we decided to keep a low profile, ever since the Professor, Dr. Hamid Saab was found strangled.” She looked at him, “I remember your words clearly, concerning the safety of the team: ‘Stay away from the eyes of the Big Brother,’ you told us.”

  Padre Joseph looked out through the window, and then straight into Maya’s eyes. “Of course, dear Maya, and I still tell you the same thing now, but, to be honest, we can’t think of anyone else, trustful enough, to do this particular job,” he explained.

  A moment passed in which Maya tried to assimilate, in silence, the importance of the faith that had been posited on her. “What is the job, Padre?”

  “Very well,” he said, eyes still focused on her. “You have to go to Israel,” he spoke with firmness, and the worried tone that she had felt before in his voice had completely vanished. “I have arranged everything for you.”

  “Israel!” Maya snapped out, an instant later, just realizing where her destination would be. A shudder ran through her spine, and with a trembling voice, she asked, “Is it that vital, to jeopardize the life I’m enjoying?”

  The Padre nodded. “You’ll be safe,” he assured her. “Your mission is to gather anything of importance you might find about the collection of antique Torahs the Israeli government is trying to hide.”

  “But… I… I can’t go to Israel,” she sputtered, realizing the difficulties such a trip held for a Lebanese, her thoughts lingered in bafflement.

  “You will travel as a Nun,” the Padre replied with a smile. “Don’t worry; I have everything arranged, as I told you.”

  “When shall I leave?” Maya asked, her voice shaky, perhaps still weighing the pressure Padre Joseph had put on her.

  “In a couple of days… this coming Sunday,” he replied. “Sister Nada will come along with you on your trip to Amman, and then into the Israeli territories, where she will welcome you inside the Antonine Convent at the Old City of Jerusalem.”

  On the day of the Sun, Sunday the 28th of November, as Maya arrived in Israel, disguised as a Nun, at eventide, Paul was still in Lebanon, New Jersey, a guest at Mr. Gibson’s wooden cottage by the lake. His trip to Washington D.C. was already scheduled for Wednesday, December 1st.

  It was noon in New Jersey, and Mr. Gibson had just finished preparing some delicious beefsteaks for his visitor on his final day there. He served red wine, which was well suited for such a meal. A luscious aroma filled the room, as they slowly began eating.

  The few details of freemasonry that Mr. Gibson had communicated to Paul during his five-day stay were of great significance to the Historian’s quest on the Brotherhood. The answers he sought with regard to the Pharisees would have to wait until he got to the Home of the Supreme Council in Washington. Looking at Mr. Gibson now, he was reminded of something odd he had learned about the Brotherhood back in Gebel. It still bothered him.

  “What’s the story on Mary Magdalene and Jesus?” he asked Mr. Gibson.

  “Oh… that story,” Mr. Gibson replied at once. “It is one of the many stories the Templars have spread around the world,” he stated. “Claiming Mary Magdalene to be the sexual Initiator of Jesus, and the goddess/priestess that ha
d bestowed wisdom upon him, it’s total nonsense, of course. Their tale went as far as stating that Jesus Christ took the particular role of Messiah and savior from John the Baptist, the true priest of ‘Sophia’—the feminine principal of divinity—symbolized by Mary Magdalene!” he halted for a moment. “Mentioning that now, brought back some thoughts, concerning the Johannite sect of the East!” he then added.

  “The Mandaeans!” Paul guessed aloud. He had made the connection very well, and he seemed to recall having read about them and their great influence on the Templars from a famous story presented by the freemasons.

  “Right,” Mr. Gibson agreed with a smile. “However, there is a fine distinction, and we’ll come to that in a bit. At any rate, this peculiar tale reported that a certain enigmatical man by the name of Theoclet(es) appeared in Jerusalem, to Initiate Hughes de Payens—one of the nine founding brothers of the Templars—into the mysteries. Theoclet was the Grand-Pontiff of the Order of the Temple, a high priest of the Johannite sect, who ascribed to St. John the Baptist the foundation of their Secret Church. The Johannite Pontiff, assuming the title of anointed, claimed having achieved other pontifical powers too, directly from St. John the Baptist. He, therefore, taught Hughes a discipline—different from that of the Catholic Church—and revealed to him a dissimilar version of the history of Jesus and the early Christians!” he paused taking a sip of wine. Paul waited.

  “The tale said,” he continued, “That Christ was not the true prophet but an unfaithful brother—a usurper of John the Baptist—the ‘true and only’ Patron. They averred, based on the Nazarene codex, that Jesus or Joshua was a bastardized son of Panthera or Pandera—a roman soldier, and Myriam—a virgin—originally betrothed to a young man by the name of Yohanan!”

  “Oh… not again!” Paul snapped aloud. “This is yet another parallel story to the Talmudic Sepher-Toledoth-Yeshu!” he commented in disgust.

  “Exactly!” Mr. Gibson replied with the same disgusted feeling. “They even alleged that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene believed sexual relationships were at the highest point of spiritual awareness, leading to a sublime realization of the Great Mystery; the Great Work of Alchemy!” he explained. “Therefore, Jesus Christ—accused of being a bastard, a false prophet, and a sorcerer powered by Beelzebub—would surely need the baptism from John to wash away all those sinful attributes.”

  “What a hateful and ridiculous story!” Paul fussed in indignation. “But, did the sect really exist? I mean… who were they?” he asked.

  Mr. Gibson put down his fork and knife slowly on the plate, before he answered, “Whether or not the Johannite Pontiff truly existed and was the true instigator of that sick story, it still parallels the teachings of Solomon Ben Isaac himself. Do you know who he was?” he asked Paul, looking directly into his eyes.

  “Rashi, right?”

  “Correct. I only wanted to make sure you were focusing on the teachings of the Fraternity,” Mr. Gibson said, smiling.

  “Of course I am,” Paul grinned back.

  “Great. I am pleased that you are,” he said. “Many different theories have come about, concerning the Mandaeans,” he added, “The one I’m about to tell you now is the closest one to reality. Listen...”

  The narration continued…

  History tells that in the seventeenth century, the Jesuits discovered, in Iraq, a group of people who called themselves St. John Christians. They lived between the two rivers in the Al-Khaur area, watered by both the Euphrates and the Tigris. Nowadays, they still exist in smaller numbers in Basra, southern Iraq (Babylon) and along the land of Karun and Harran, southwest Iran (Persia). They asserted that their religion had emerged with the Egyptians, settling in Tura d’Madai, a mountainous region that had formed their first habitat. In truth, their religion had nothing to do with the Egyptian’s. The name Mandaiia, or Mandaeans, could well have originated from the word Manda, and meant Gnosis; hence, the Mandeans are dualist Gnostics. They speak a dialect of Aramaic, very close to Hebrew. The Arabs and Muslims have identified them as the people of the book, labeled them Sabiya or Sabians, and protected them as such.

  Their principal sacred books are known as the Ginza (Treasure), the Sidra Yahya (the John-Book), and the Haran Gawaita (the history of the sect), and date back a few centuries AD. Their religious ideas and sacred books present a mixture of Babylonian, Judaism, Persian concepts of dualism, and Gnosticism. The influence of these religious doctrines on this group is definite. The Babylonians venerated the goddess Ishtar, whereas the Mandaeans cited the same prayers to a similar goddess by the name of Libat, known as Venus; she is the Mary Magdalene of the Templars-Freemasons. Additionally, many of their tales illustrate a link between Jerusalem and the region of the Euphrates. Their texts include various fragments of the Old Testament and many Talmudic ideas. They considered Adam and Hawa—the Kabalistic Yod-Heva or Yahweh—as their parents; and hence, celibacy would be a sin against the image of their parents. The Sidra Yahya could also imply the Sidra Yahwh, the Yahweh Book! Mandaeans—like the non-Christian dualist Gnostics of the Samaritan Simonians (from Simon Magus), the Dositheans (from Dositheus), the Manicheans (from Mani), and a few others—believed in a creation based on Dualism and in a Dualist Law on Earth.

  The concept of Dualism held the same level of importance to such groups as it does to the Persians, the Babylonians, and the Hebrews. Monotheism does not appear in the texts or in the sacred pages of those groups. Although the rites of the Mandaeans focused on Baptism, it is extremely inappropriate to name them Johannites. They, in fact, declared they’re not, when they considered John as just one of their few great leaders, and said that they had existed long before him.

  “To claim that John was married to a woman called Anhar is but a cheap attempt to alter the Truth, and discredit his vow of Chastity and consecration to God, as a good Nazarene, or Nazorean,” Mr. Gibson elucidated. “The Mandaeans were not Nazorean in any way, shape, or form, as some have tried—and are still trying—to claim. They cannot be called Christians either, simply because they do not believe in Jesus Christ. Their views on Jesus are very similar to what the Talmud declares, and match the stance of the Jews towards Jesus in the New Testament. They deem him a liar, a deceiver and an evil sorcerer!” he stopped for a long sip of wine.

  The silence in the dining room was so absolute that Paul could hear his host swallowing. Mr. Gibson dried his mouth with a white napkin, and took up the narrative that held Paul in reverence.

  At any rate, at the time of the Templars, the Mandaeans were not living in Palestine. They related having migrated to Iraq, as early as the first century AD. History reveals that after the death of John, and even before that, many of his disciples joined Jesus. However, very few of them, mostly Judeans, refused to follow Jesus; they left at once. They are best described as the Babylonian-Judaic people, an offshoot of those who had crossed the river from Babylon (modern day Iraq) to Palestine. Their Baptism, or better said, their frequent submersion in the waters of the rivers of Iraq is, for them, an important act of remembrance of this historical river crossing and to the allegorical baptism, in which they had changed their names from Babylonians to Hebrews.

  At the early beginnings of Christianity, they adopted the baptism of John, as a cover-up to survive amidst the New Faith. They also endorsed and adopted the ways and means of the sect of the Asayas of Galilee, where John and Jesus were prominent members. The Asayas, healers, wore white outfits, prayed on Sundays—which were their holy days—and performed ritual handshakes as a sign of the power of the hand in the healing process. Even though the Mandaeans succeeded in imitating the Asayas in their ways, their strategy to survive went amiss. After the semi-destruction of the Temple of Herod in 70 AD by Titus, and the downfall of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans, they left Palestine with their dreams vanishing in the mists of time. The Temple of Herod represented for them a symbolic reminder of the one Zoro-Babel had intended to build in Jerusalem after the crossing. With the Temple destroyed, they w
ere left with no other choice but to cross back the river to Babel.

  “In fact, the true adepts of John are the Knights of St. John,” Mr. Gibson added. “They were born in 1080 AD with Brother Gerard, and came to be known as the Order of the Knights Hospitaller. The name changed later into the Knights of Rhodes, and today, the Knights of Malta. They deem St. John the Baptist as the most important prophet of the mission of Jesus, and are strongly related to the Vatican, the same way Jesus and John are related to each other in the New Testament, as we read in Luke 7:26-28,” he paused for the last sip of his wine.

  “At any rate, and contrary to what phony secret societies have claimed, neither John the Baptist nor Jesus Christ had anything to do with any sexual Initiation by Mary Magdalene. In fact, they both lived ascetic and celibate lives. Jesus Christ never fell in love with any particular woman, for his Love was spiritual and universal to all, men and women alike, since he perceived the whole existence as Unitas.” He paused in contemplation, and Paul could’ve sworn he saw a great light in his eyes, so majestic that it sparkled like stars in the sky. “Neither one was a Jew, they were Nazarenes or Nazoreans—a name held by the ascetic Ashayan branch of Galilee. I believe you know that already, Paul,” he said, as he looked at his alert guest, sharing with him the elixir of this superb wine and the flavorful beefsteak at the table. “The word Nazar indicates a person chosen to Keep the Word, who would later be elected to be the son of man—son of God. In the Judaic tradition, however, celibacy was deemed, and still is, dreadful and sinful!”

  Keepers of the Word… Paul repeated the words a few times before he said, “Well, that would be an additional evidence that Jesus was not a Jew. A Rabbi must marry, but Jesus lived a celibate life for he was a Nazar—an elected Son of God!”

  “That is absolutely correct,” he replied, smiling. “The Asayas—the Healers who lived at Mt. Carmel—were somewhat Pythagoreans in their way of life, thus, perfectly relating to the Great White Fraternity; the Phoenician-Egyptian Monotheistic Fraternity of Hermes. Like the Pythagoreans, the Ashayas—probably influenced by Buddhist missionaries—shared their goods, prayed at sunrise, practiced silence, wore white-linen tunics, and kept the mysteries. The Nazoreans, like the Therapeuts in the desert of Egypt, lived like hermits within a secluded group, similar to the Pythagoreans.”