The slow climb along the 24 steps of the stair had been accompanied by the useful words of Mr. Jackson who said, “What you need to see here is the work attributed to Mr. Albert Pike, the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council 33° of the Scottish Rite.”
“Albert Pike?” asked Paul, and, still in confusion, added, “How can this help me know who the Pharisees were?”
“It’s in his work,” was Mr. Jackson’s reply. “Let me first brief you on who he was. Mr. Pike became a Freemason in 1850 at the age of forty-one. Engrossed in Freemasonic law, he greatly contributed to its Jurisprudence. Undoubtedly, Freemasonic Philosophy and Symbolism significantly inspired him, and led him to learn ancient alphabets and languages; some of them were Hebrew and Sanskrit. A very smart man, Pike soon began translating and commenting on the ancient writings he laid hands on.” Mr. Jackson paused on the first landing, before he continued his narration, “Pike made a thorough re-writing of the rituals and ceremonies of the Craft, after an in-depth study of the fragmented writings he found. The notable studies he made helped him become Confederate General and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Order in 1859, and later on, in 1871, he wrote his famous book, ‘Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry’.” Mr. Jackson halted for a thought then added, “Meant only for the brothers within the Craft, Pike described in scrupulous detail the 33 ranks of Scottish Freemasonry; the tales, teachings, and rituals connected to each rank, along with other lodge descriptions. He died in 1891, while still holding office. In 1944, his remains were moved from Oak Hill Cemetery to a restricted crypt here, in the House of the Temple, and this was certified by an Act of Congress.” Mr. Jackson gave Paul a solemn look, and nodded in indication of just how powerful Pike had been. It was not a simple matter for mortal remains to receive such an authorization from the Congress... or was it Freemasonry that controlled Congress?
“Anyway, his published works and unpublished manuscripts, his personal notes and letters, and a few other belongings are conserved and exhibited in a dedicated Chamber,” Mr. Jackson informed as they walked inside. “Let’s pay him a visit.”
***
A few days earlier, in Israel, Sister Nada—informed of Maya’s secret mission by Padre Joseph—had introduced her to the Israeli Archaeologist by the name of Dr. Achiram Fröhlich. She had told her that if there were anything important the Padre needed for her to find, it would have to be done through the assistance of Dr. Fröhlich, known for his scientific integrity. In fact, the Archaeologist had been working for many years now all over Israel, in search of scientific proof that would match the tales narrated in the Old Testament. To his disappointment, he had found none.
At his bureau in Jerusalem, Dr. Fröhlich made a particular exception, and welcomed Sister Maya one early Sunday morning, December 5th. Of course, he had no clue as to her true profession, an Archeologist.
“So, Dr. Fröhlich, if I may,” Maya intervened, after he had expressed his aggravation, concerning his work. “What do you think? Do you truly believe this lack of scientific evidence will jeopardize the faith in the Old Testament?”
“I’m a man of science, and don’t much care about matters of faith,” Dr. Fröhlich replied. “I’m afraid, however, that this lack of archaeological data will more than likely uncover the myths behind the historical narrations.”
“Praise the Lord,” Maya said softly. “Sister Nada informed me about a collection of antique Torahs that has entered Israel through Iraq, prior to and after the war in 2003,” she gazed at him. “I was told that some of them, which had been stolen after the war, had entered the US, and I heard that the Iraqi Government had failed, so far, to convince US officials to return them to Iraq.” She paused for a thought, or maybe just to weigh his reaction. He had none. She continued, “The Church knows that the Jewish-American lobby has been pressing US officials, and questioning them about the safety of the Torah scrolls, should they be returned to the Iraqis. They think this may cause an invaluable loss of Jewish history, and so, the best solution would be to bring the scrolls here, to Israel.”
“Aha…” Dr. Fröhlich said; his face in greater confusion than his reaction had been when he had told her about the shortage of archaeological proofs.
“What do these scrolls contain, anyway?” she asked with apparent curiosity. “Do they support the historical and religious Old Testament tales?” she asked in a soft, caring tone that showed special interest in the matter, which Dr. Fröhlich found authentic.
The Archaeologist grabbed a pack of cigarettes from his drawer, and lit one, his eyes focused on Sister Maya. “I feel I should be honest with you,” he began, “I knew about the scrolls, but haven’t had the chance to look at them. It was strictly forbidden for me to examine them.” He took a deep breath. “You know, I honor my profession dearly, and don’t allow myself to compromise knowledge and scientific findings on account of my national identity.” He slowly took a drag from his cigarette. “Pro-Israel Scholars are very much aware of my opinion on the matter, and know very well I’m not a log of wood they can easily break,” he looked out the window for a few moments.
“Anyway,” he resumed, “The basic History of the Biblical Israel is naught but a bunch of fabricated tales, based on ancient Iraqi history. It’s a fact no one can deny, and well…” he paused, uncertain if he should reveal what was in his mind to a total stranger, but—with a rebellious attitude that seemed to say: what-the-hell, which Maya read in his eyes—he seemed to finally make up his mind. “There is a strong connection between the Parsees and Biblical Israel,” he confided.
“The Parsees!” Maya exclaimed, totally surprised.
Dr. Fröhlich remained silent. He just looked at his watch. It was almost 11:16 AM. Time to leave the office and join the family, Maya thought. She understood his feelings, and without further ado, she thanked him for his time, and excused herself to leave. He stopped her at once, and with a hesitant look on his face, handed her a red package. “This is for you, Sister,” he declared. “Confidential! Keep it in a safe place.”
She smiled, nodded, and left the office. In fact, from the information he had revealed, Maya had grasped that the situation for Israeli history was critical. Everything could succumb, she thought on her way to the Antonine Convent in the Old City.
Her slow walk along the narrow crowded alleys gave her the feeling that she was being followed. She kept turning her head back as she walked, trying to disprove what her instincts kept telling her to be true. She could not distinguish anyone particularly suspicious at the moment, and so, she continued walking a bit more leisurely.
As she was approaching the Wailing Wall Square, her instincts took over, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in alert of considerable danger. She turned her head left then right, and noticed two men in black suits, scrutinizing her with wary eyes. Her heart began to beat faster. A large dose of adrenaline rushed into her bloodstream, as she paced the ground with quicker steps. They followed her…
With fear invading her soul, Maya started to run across the tight alleys until, perhaps ten minutes later, she neared the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, where sounds of prayers reverberated all through the place. Without wasting a second, she took a step inside, before they could catch up with her, and joined the dedicated Christian Community attending church for Sunday mass.
Sitting on the wooden bench, relaxed now, her heartbeats back to normal, she breathed deeply, and heaved a sigh of relief. I’m safe, she thought. “Praise the Lord,” she mumbled underneath her breath.
Moments later, countless thoughts began to shuffle through her mind, as she wondered why the two men in black had pursued her. Was it because she’d had a meeting with the maverick Archaeologist? Had she been under their surveillance ever since she had set foot in Israel? Or… was it because she left the Archaeologist’s office with a red package in her hands?
“What’s inside?” she muttered in marvel.
Her Archaeologist’s inquis
itive mind couldn’t wait any longer. She had to open the red package right now. She untied the ribbon, and opened the file. It had a couple of introductory pages, a development plot, and few pictures of an ancient cave-like church in ruins, taken by Dr. Fröhlich’s team. Built in the first century AD, it was perhaps the first Christian church in the area. It had been completely erased by Israeli troops, who had constructed a highway over it, this, undoubtedly done for political and religious reasons. Not far from the ruins, on the Northeastern foot of Mt. Carmel, the file showed pictures of a cave related to the Asayas, with a caption underneath that said:
This is the true Bet-Lahem, House of Bread.
It is the genuine spot where the Christian Master has been born.
This is the real Church of Nativity.
To her sudden shock, Maya swiftly closed the file on her lap. She couldn’t believe the words she had just read. Impossible! she thought to herself. Although acquainted with Padre Joseph’s thesis on the matter—from his revelatory book, the Messiah was born in Lebanon, not in Judea, published in 1999—she found this theory very hard to accept, as easily as the Padre had suggested. And right now she couldn’t conceive of the idea that an Israeli Archaeologist would reveal the same mind-blowing discovery. He is truly professional, she marveled at the idea, and valued his scientific integrity.
The meticulous work Dr. Fröhlich presented, in the classified file, revealed with unequivocal proof that the Galilean Bet-Lahem, situated almost 6 km away from Nazareth, was the true cradle of Jesus Christ. From the Archaeological point of view, there were no traces of habitation in the Judean Bethlehem at the time of Jesus Christ. In fact, Bethlehem of Judea had been founded at a later period, in the fourth century AD, under the reign of Constantine—the Roman Emperor who built a basilica in this location, to support the claim decreed by the Church Authority and approved by his mother Helena. Truth be told, the place where the Church alleged Jesus was born had been a public cemetery for ages; hence, there would be no historical logic to what the Church claimed, for it couldn’t have been for Jesus Christ, or for any other person, to be delivered in a cemetery. Dr. Fröhlich added that the authors of the New Testament had substituted the true Bet-Lahem with the Judean Bethlehem, because people believed the Messiah would come from the house of David.
Maya smiled at the important information Dr. Fröhlich had given her. The trip back to Lebanon should be carefully prepared, and judiciously carried out, so that the material could be delivered to Padre Joseph, forthwith, as additional evidence for his great theory. “Not a theory anymore,” she mumbled under her breath. “It’s a fact,” she gently whispered in the air at the same time the bells started to toll. The mass at the alleged Church of Nativity had ended. The time to pray in the true cradle of the Prince of Peace had to wait yet.
Accompanied by the Sisters, she walked outside.
.45.
The Crypt underground
Sunday, December 5, 05:26 PM
It was going on five in the afternoon, Washington time, when Paul trailed the firm footsteps of Mr. Jackson into the House of the Temple. Once inside, something came rushing back into Paul’s mind—a concept that had stayed with him during his first meeting with Mr. Jackson.
“I’ve been thinking about the freemasonic symbol of the Compass, representing the male—Adam or Yod, with opened legs—uniting with the female—Heva or Eve, with widely open legs—symbolizing the Square, and the letter ‘G’ decked in the middle,” Paul said with eyes fixed on the icon hanging on the walls. “You have explained that it is an incomplete mirror to the Star of David or Seal of Solomon, the interlaced dual triangles forming the six-pointed star.” He paused for a moment, gazing at Mr. Jackson, “Then you said: veiled in allegory, and illustrated by symbols, the seal of Solomon shall only be completed with the final execution of the Temple!” He stopped walking, before he asked, “What did you mean by that?”
Mr. Jackson stopped walking too, and turned to face Paul. “Where do you see the Seal of Solomon, other than here?” he asked.
Paul seemed confused by the question, trying to concentrate, so he could remember where else the Seal had been extolled, other than by mirroring the freemasonic icon. A few moments passed, before it dawned on him like a thunderbolt. “The Israeli flag. Right?” he answered, and asked.
“Right,” answered Mr. Jackson with a grin. “The Seal of Solomon is clearly shown at the centre of the Israeli flag, between two horizontal blue stripes that certainly represent the two rivers.”
“The two Rivers!” Paul exclaimed.
“Of course.” Mr. Jackson confirmed, as he looked at a framed picture of a bearded man with long hair in all his grandeur. “This is Mr. Albert Pike, the Grand Commander,” he said, turning a quick glance at Paul, “And this door, here, leads to the chamber dedicated to him, where his work is being displayed for all freemasons to admire, and others to watch,” he clarified. “However,” he lowered his voice a bit, “The answer to your questions lies not here, but with his remains in the classified crypt underneath this chamber.”
A moment, long as eternity, stretched before Paul, as Mr. Jackson led the way inside the chamber.
“But… how do we get into the crypt?” Paul asked in a whisper. His voice echoed in Mr. Jackson’s ears.
“I have the code to the secret door,” he whispered back to Paul.
As Mr. Jackson had informed, the chamber contained Albert Pike’s published works, his unpublished manuscripts, notes, letters, tokens, portraits, and other belongings. Paul was in awe at the variety and number of subjects Mr. Pike had undertaken during his life.
“A very interesting man,” he announced, with a quick look at Mr. Jackson, and a glance combined with a grin at a couple of people there, visiting. They smiled back at him. One of them, more of a sociable creature than the others, approached Paul, perhaps in an attempt to initiate a conversation, but Mr. Jackson was quick enough to strategically come between them, and began talking. Paul didn’t understand his awkward behavior at once, yet he soon realized that Mr. Jackson had done that to prevent Paul from being unable to answer to any freemasonic idioms or signals the man might have used.
Like Mr. Gibson—a former Freemason at the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, who left the Craft, and joined the Society of Keepers at a later stage in his life—Mr. Jackson seemed likely to have once been a Freemason, as well. In fact, how could he have known the code to the secret door that lead to the underground crypt, had he not at some point been one, an important one, at that, unless there had been a snitch who had told him about it. Mr. Jackson sounded at least as knowledgeable as Mr. Gibson, if not more, on the secrets of Freemasonry. More adventurous too, Paul realized.
Half an hour later, when the last visitors had ended their tour of the chamber, Mr. Jackson didn’t waste another moment. He shut the door steadily behind them, and walked directly to a door that lay cleverly hidden behind the life-size portrait of Mr. Pike. A blue plaque with numbers and letters, in the form of the Seal of Solomon, became visible on the wall. With fervor, Mr. Jackson typed a certain combination of numbers, followed by another combination of letters.
From behind them, in the chamber of the House of the Temple, something cracked with an odd sound that brought Paul to the present moment. He immediately veered in the direction of the sound, and saw that underneath a few bizarre shapes and freemasonic inscriptions, which had not been there before, a flat black-and-white stone—carved with the serious face of the Grand Commander, Albert Pike—was opening slowly from the middle.
“Hurry,” ordered Mr. Jackson, instantly.
Stunned by the mysterious turn of events, Paul followed Mr. Jackson without questions through the chamber, and towards the opened door.
“We have 18 seconds, before the door shuts again,” he said.
Paul abided. The door instantly closed behind them. Darkness invaded them for a few seconds, before the few lanterns—hanging on both sides of the wall, of what looked to be a rounded stairway heading
underground—were automatically ignited.
They toddled down the stairway for perhaps a minute or two, until they finally reached the crypt, where the remains of Mr. Pike had been preserved in a royal Sarcophagus.
“At last,” Paul muttered under his breath, approaching the Sarcophagus. What is the secret this man has been keeping? Paul thought, before Mr. Jackson pointed out at a red book, preserved in a locked glass container, placed on an altar-like table between two pillars, and positioned ahead of the Sarcophagus.
Paul watched it in bafflement. “What’s this?” he finally managed to ask.
“This is the book that will perhaps answer all of your questions,” Mr. Jackson wisely replied.
Paul came nearer, and looked through the solid glass. The book had no title, no author’s name, nothing. It was just a thick red book, posed on an iron stand inside the glass urn. “How do we access it without breaking the glass?” he asked.
“No need to break it,” Mr. Jackson answered resolutely, as he picked up a necklace he held around his neck, inside his shirt. It had a golden key. Paul watched, as the man with the elegant white Stetson hat inserted it inside the lock that opened the lid. With a broad smile on his face, Mr. Jackson got hold of the book.
A moment of trepidation ran its course for Paul, as the enigmatic man began to turn the pages. What the two men hadn’t known was that, the moment they had opened the lid of the glass box, a red light had begun to flash in the surveillance screening room, situated on the third floor of the House of the Temple.
“Aha… here it is,” Mr. Jackson uttered, pointing his finger at one of the paragraphs that read, “‘Let it be known to fellow brothers of the Craft that the Religious sacerdotal body of the Jews, known as the Pharisees, have taken their name from the Parsees,’” he was prevented from quoting any further by Paul’s interruption.
“The Parsees!” he snapped aloud, as he seemed to recall the secret teachings given by the Keepers, in the Fortress of Gebel, instructing him of the great link that had existed between King Cyrus II and the Aebirou-al-naher— the Chaldean-Babylonian-Hebrew priests and families—who crossed the river towards the Land of Canaan. Yet, Paul had never thought about that. Entirely in shock, he had failed to make the connection, before now, of the similarity between both names: Pharisees and Parsees. “I just can’t believe it’s that obvious!” he stated.
The Phoenician Code Page 39
