tially contrary to the canons of the
Church of Rome and that it is principally to this fact that one must
attribute the persecution of which history has preserved the memory."[192]
The belief of the Primitive Christians, and consequently that the
Templars, with regard to the miracles of Christ is that He "did or may
have done extraordinary or miraculous things," and that since "God can
do things incomprehensible to human intelligence," the Primitive Church
venerates "all the acts of Christ as they are described in the Gospel,
whether it considers them as acts of human science or whether as acts of
divine power."[193] Belief in the divinity of Christ is thus left an
open question, and the same attitude is maintained towards the
Resurrection, of which the story is omitted in the Gospel of St. John
possessed by the Order. Fabre Palaprat further admits that the gravest
accusations brought against the Templars were founded on facts which he
attempts to explain away in the following manner:

The Templars having in 1307 carefully abstracted all the
manuscripts composing the secret archives of the Order from the
search made by authority, and these authentic manuscripts having
been preciously preserved since that period, we have to-day the
certainty that the Knights endured a great number of religious and
moral trials before reaching the different degrees of initiation:
thus, for example, the recipient might receive the injunction under
pain of death to trample on the crucifix or to worship an idol, but
if he yielded to the terror which they sought to inspire in him he
was declared unworthy of being admitted to the higher grades of the
Order. One can imagine in this way how beings, too feeble or too
immoral to endure the trials of initiation, may have accused the
Templars of giving themselves up to infamous practices and of
having superstitious beliefs.

It is certainly not surprising that an Order which gave such injunctions
as these, for whatever purpose, should have become the object of
suspicion.

Eliphas Levi, who, like Ragon, accepts the statements of the _Ordre du
Temple_ concerning the "Johannite" origin of the Templars' secret
doctrine, is, however, not deceived by these professions of
Christianity, and boldly asserts that the Sovereign Pontiff Theoclet
initiated Hugues de Payens "into the mysteries and hopes of his
pretended Church, he lured him b