After Beaujeu, the Order has never ceased to exist, not for a moment, and after Aumont we find an uninterrupted sequence of Grand Masters of the Order down to our own time, and if the name and seat of the true Grand Master and the true Seneschals who rule the Order and guide its sublime labors remain a mystery today, an impenetrable secret known only to the truly enlightened, it is because the hour of the Order has not struck and the time is not ripe . . .
—Manuscript of 1760, in G. A. Schiffmann, Die Entstehung der Rittergrade in der Freimauerei um die Mitte des XVIII Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, Zechel, 1882, pp. 178-190
This was our first, remote contact with the Plan. I could easily be somewhere else now if I hadn't been in Belbo's office that day. I could be—who knows?—selling sesame seeds in Samarkand, or editing a series of books in Braille, or heading the first National Bank of Franz Josef Land. Counterfactual conditionals are always true, because the premise is false. But I was there that day, so now I am where I am.
The colonel handed us the page with a flourish. I still have it here among my papers, in a little plastic folder. Printed on that thermal-paper photocopies used in those days, it is more yellowed and faded now. Actually there were two texts on the page: the first, densely written, took up half the space; the second was divided into fragments of verses . . .
The first text was a kind of demoniacal litany, a parody of a Semitic language:
Kuabris Defrabax Rexulon Ukkazaal Ukzaab Urpaefel Taculbain Habrak Hacoruin Maquafel Tebrain Hmcatuin Rokasor Himesor Argaabil Kaquaan Docrabax Reisaz Reisabrax Decaiquan Oiquaquil Zaitabor Qaxaop Dugraq Xaelobran Disaeda Magisuan Raitak Huidal Uscolda Arabaom Zipreus Mecrim Cosmae Duquifas Rocarbis.
“Not exactly clear,” Belbo remarked.
“No, it isn't,” the colonel agreed slyly. “And I might have spent my life trying to make sense of it, if one day, almost by chance, I hadn't found a book about Trithemius on a bookstall and noticed one of his coded messages: ‘Pamersiel Oshurmy Delmuson Thafloyn . . .' I had uncovered a clue, and I pursued it relentlessly. I knew nothing at all about Trithemius, but in Paris I found an edition of his Steganographia, hoc est ars per occultam scripturam animi sui voluntatem absentibus aperiendi certa, published in Frankfurt in 1606. The art of using secret writing in order to bare your soul to distant persons. A fascinating man, this Trithemius. A Benedictine abbot of Spannheim, late fifteenth-early sixteenth centuries, a scholar who knew Hebrew and Chaldean, Oriental languages like Tartar. He corresponded with theologians, cabalists, alchemists, most certainly with the great Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim and perhaps with Paracelsus . . . Trithemius masked his revelations about secret writings behind magical smoke screens. For instance, he recommended sending coded messages like the one you're looking at now. The recipient was then supposed to call upon angels like Pamersiel, Padiel, Dorothiel, and so on, to help him decipher the real message. But many of his examples are actually military dispatches, and his book—dedicated to Philip, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria—represents one of the first serious studies of cryptography.”
“Correct me if I'm wrong,” I said, “but didn't you say that Trithemius lived at least a hundred years after the manuscript we're talking about was written?”
“Trithemius was associated with a Sodalitas Celtica that was concerned with philosophy, astrology, Pythagorean mathematics. You see the connection? The Templars were an order whose initiates were also inspired by the wisdom of the ancient Celts; that has been widely demonstrated. Somehow Trithemius also learned the cryptographic systems used by the Templars.”
“Amazing,” Belbo said. “And the transcription of the secret message? What does it say?”
“All in good time, gentlemen. Trithemius presents forty major and ten minor cryptosystems. Here I was lucky—either that or the Templars of Provins simply didn't make any great effort, since they were sure nobody would ever crack their code. I tried the first of the forty major systems and assumed that only the first letter of each word counted.”
Belbo asked to see the page and glanced over it. “You still get nonsense: kdruuuth . . .”
“Naturally,” the colonel said condescendingly. “The Templars may not have made a great effort, but they weren't altogether lazy either. This first sequence of letters is itself a coded message, and I wondered whether the second series of ten minor coding systems might not give an answer. For this second series, you see, Trithemius used some wheels. Here is the wheel for the first system.”
He took another photocopy from his file, drew his chair up to the desk, and, asking us to pay careful attention, touched the letters with his closed fountain pen.
“It's the simplest possible system. Consider only the outer circle. To code something, you replace each letter of your original message with the letter that precedes it: for A you write Z, for B you write A, and so on. Child's play for a secret agent nowadays, but back then it was considered witchcraft. To decode, of course, you go in the opposite direction, replacing each letter of the coded message with the letter that follows it. I tried it, and I was lucky again; it worked the very first time. Here's what it says.” He recited: “‘Les 36 inuisibles separez en six bandes.' That is: the thirty-six invisibles divided into six groups.”
“Which means what?”
“Apparently nothing, at first glance. It's a kind of headline announcing the establishment of a group. It was written in secret language for ritualistic reasons. Our Templars, satisfied that they were putting their message in an inviolable inner sanctum, were content to use their fourteenth-century French. But let's look at the second text.”
a la . . . Saint Jean
36 p charrete de fein
6 . . . entiers avec saiel
p . . . les blancs mantiax
r . . . s . . . chevaliers de Pruins pour la . . . j . nc.
6 foil 6 en 6 places
chascune foil 20 a . . . 720 a . . .
iceste est l'ordonation
al donjon it premiers
it li secunz joste iceus qui . . . pans
it al refuge
it a Nostre Dame de l'altre pan de l'iau
it a l'ostel des popelicans
it a la pierre
3 foiz 6 avant la feste . . . to Grant Pute.
“This is the decoded message?” Belbo asked, disappointed and amused.
“Obviously the dots in Ingolf's transcription stand for words that were illegible. Perhaps the parchment was damaged in places. But I've made a final transcription and translation, based on surmises that are, if I do say so myself, unassailable. I've restored the text to its ancient splendor—as the saying goes.”
With a magician's gesture, he flipped over the photocopy and showed us his notes, printed in capitals.
THE (NIGHT OF) SAINT JOHN
36 (YEARS) P(OST) HAY WAIN
6 (MESSAGES) INTACT WITH SEAL
F(OR THE KNIGHTS WITH) THE WHITE CLOAKS [TEMPLARS]
R(ELAP)S(I) OF PROVINS FOR (VAIN)JANCE [REVENGE]
6 TIMES 6 IN SIX PLACES
EACH TIME 20 Y(EARS MAKES) 120 Y(EARS)
THIS IS THE PLAN
THE FIRST GO TO THE CASTLE
IT(ERUM) [AGAIN AFTER 120 YEARS] THE SECOND JOIN THOSE
(OF THE) BREAD AGAIN TO THE REFUGE AGAIN TO OUR LADY BEYOND THE RIVER
AGAIN TO THE HOSTEL OF THE POPELICANS
AGAIN TO THE STONE
3 TIMES 6 [666] BEFORE THE FEAST (OF THE) GREAT WHORE.
“Clear as mud,” Belbo said.
“Of course, it still needs interpretation. But Ingolf surely must have done that, as I have. If you know the history of the order, it's less obscure than it seems.”
A pause. He asked for a glass of water and went over the text with us again, word by word.
“Now then. The night of Saint John's Eve, thirty-six years after the hay wain. The Templars charged with keeping the order alive escaped capture in September 1307 in a hay wain. At that time the year was calculated from Easter to Easter. So 1307 would end at what we would consider Easter of 1308. Count thirty-six years after Easter 1308 and you arrive at Easter 1344. The message was placed in the crypt inside a precious case, as a seal, a kind of deed attesting to some event that took place there on Saint John's Eve after the establishment of the secret order. In other words, on June 23, 1344.”
“Why 1344?”
“I believe that between 1307 and 1344 the secret order was reorganized in preparation for the project proclaimed in the parchment. They had to wait till the dust had settled, till links could be forged again among Templars in five or six countries. Now if the Templars waited thirty-six years—not thirty-five or thirty-seven—clearly it was because the number 36 had mystical properties for them, as the coded message confirms. The sum of the digits of thirty-six is nine, and I don't have to remind you of the profound significance of this number.”
“Am I disturbing you?” It was Diotallevi, who had slipped in behind us, on padded feet like a Templar of Provins.
“Right up your alley,” Belbo said. He introduced him to the colonel, who didn't seem particularly disturbed. On the contrary, he was happy to have a larger, and keen, audience. He continued his exegesis, Diotallevi salivating at those numerological delicacies. Pure gematria.
“We come now to the seals: six things intact with seals. Ingolf had found a case closed with a seal. For whom was this case sealed? For the White Cloaks, for the Templars. Next comes an r, several missing letters, and an s. I read it as ‘relapsi.' Why? Because, as we all know, relapsi were confessed defendants who later retracted, and relapsi played a crucial role in the trial of the Templars. The Templars of Provins bore their identity as relapsi proudly. They were the ones who disassociated themselves from that wicked farce of a trial. So the message refers to the knights of Provins, relapsi, who are preparing—what? The few letters we have suggest ‘vainjance,' revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“Gentlemen! The whole Templar mystique, from the trial on, was focused on the plan to avenge Jacques de Molay. I don't think much of the Masonic rite—a mere bourgeois caricature of Templar knighthood—but nevertheless it's a reflection, however pale, of Templar practices. And one of the degrees of Scottish Masonry was kadosch knight, the knight of revenge.”
“All right, the Templars were preparing for revenge. What next?”
“How much time would it take to carry out the plan of revenge? In the coded message there is mention of six knights appearing six times in six places; thirty-six divided into six groups. Then it says ‘Each time twenty.' What follows is unclear, but in Ingolf's transcription it looks like an a, for ‘ans,' or years. Every twenty years, I conclude; six times or one hundred and twenty years in all. Later on in the message we find a list of six places, or six tasks to be performed. There is mention of an ‘ordonation,' a plan, project, or procedure to be followed. And it says the first group must go to a donjon or castle while the second goes somewhere else, and so on down to the sixth. Then the document tells us there should be another six documents, still sealed, scattered in different places. It is obvious to me that the seals are supposed to be opened in sequence, at intervals of a hundred and twenty years.”
“But what does twenty years each time mean?” Diotallevi asked.
“These knights of revenge are to carry out missions in particular places every hundred and twenty years. It's a kind of relay race. Clearly, six Templars set out on that night in 1344, each one going to one of the six places included in the plan. But the keeper of the first seal surely can't remain alive for a hundred and twenty years. Instead, each keeper of each seal is to hold his post for twenty years and then pass the command on to a successor. Twenty years seems a reasonable term. There would be six keepers per seal, each one serving twenty years. When the hundred and twenty years had gone by, the last keeper of the seal could read an instruction, for example, and then pass it on to the chief keeper of the second seal. That's why the verbs in the message are in the plural: the first are to go here, the second there. Each location is, so to speak, under surveillance for a hundred and twenty years by six knights who serve terms of twenty years each. If you add it up, you'll see that there are five spaces of one hundred and twenty years between the first location and the sixth. Five times one hundred and twenty is six hundred. Add six hundred to 1344 and you get 1944. Which, by the way, is confirmed in the last line. Perfectly clear.”
“Clear how?”
“The last line says, ‘Three times six before the feast (of the) Great Whore.' This is another numerological game, because the digits of 1944 add up to eighteen. Eighteen is three times six. This further miraculous numerical coincidence suggested another, very subtle, enigma to the Templars. The year 1944 is the terminal date of the plan. But with a view to another target: the year 2000! The Templars believed that the second millennium would see the advent of their Jerusalem, an earthly Jerusalem, the Anti-Jerusalem. They were persecuted as heretics, and in their hatred of the Church they came to identify with the Antichrist. They knew that throughout the occult tradition 666 was the number of the Beast, and the six hundred and sixty-sixth year was the year of the Beast. Well, 666, the Year of the Beast, is the year 2000, when the Templars' revenge will triumph. The Anti-Jerusalem is the New Babylon, and this is why 1944 is the year of the triumph of La Grande Pute, the great whore of Babylon mentioned in the Apocalypse. The reference to 666 was a provocation, a bit of bravado from those fighting men. A gesture of defiance from outsiders, as they would be called today. Great story, don't you think?”
His eyes were moist as he looked at us, and so were his lips and mustache. He stroked his briefcase.
“All right,” Belbo said. “Let's assume that the message outlines the timing of a plan. But what plan?”
“Now you're asking too much. If I knew that, I wouldn't need to cast this bait. But one thing I do know. Somewhere along the line something went wrong, and the plan was not carried out. Otherwise, if I may say so, we'd know it. And I can understand the reason: 1944 wasn't an easy year. Back in 1344, the Templars had no way of predicting a disruptive world war.”
“Excuse me for butting in,” Diotallevi said, “but if I understood correctly, when the first seal is opened, the succession of keepers of that seal doesn't end; it lives on until the breaking of the last seal, when all the representatives of the order are to be present. In every century, then—or, strictly speaking, every hundred and twenty years—there would always be six keepers for each place, or thirty-six in all.”
“Right,” Ardenti said.
“Thirty-six knights for each of the six places makes two hundred and sixteen, the digits of which add up to nine. And since there are six centuries, we can multiply two hundred and sixteen by six, which gives us one thousand two hundred and ninety-six, whose digits add up to eighteen, or three times six, or 666.”
Diotallevi would perhaps have gone on to a numerological reconstruction of the history of the world if Belbo hadn't stopped him with one of those looks mothers give children when they are acting up. But the colonel immediately recognized Diotallevi as an enlightened mind.
“Splendid, Professor. It's a revelation! By the way, did you know that nine was the number of the knights who founded the Temple in Jerusalem?”
“And the Great Name of God, as expressed in the Tetragrammaton,” Diotallevi said, “has seventy-two letters—and seven plus two makes nine. But that's not all, if you'll allow me. The Pythagorean tradition, which cabala preserves—or perhaps inspired—notes that the sum of the odd numbers from one to seven is sixteen, and the sum of the even numbers from two to eight is twenty, and twenty plus sixteen makes thirty-six.”
“My God, Professor!” The colonel was beside himself. “I knew it, I knew it! You've given me the courage to go on. Now I know that I'm close to the truth.”
Had Diotallevi turned arithmetic into a religion, or religion into arithmetic? Perhaps both. Or maybe he was just an atheist flirting with the rapture of some superior heaven. He could have become a fanatic of roulette (and that would have been better); instead, he thought of himself as an unbelieving rabbi.
I don't remember exactly how it happened, but Belbo intervened and broke the spell with his Piedmont-style good sense. More lines of the message remained for the colonel to interpret, and we were all eager to hear. It was now six o'clock. Six P. M., I thought: eighteen hours.
“All right,” Belbo said. “Thirty-six per century; step by step the knights prepare to converge on the Stone. But what is this Stone?”
“Really, gentlemen! The Stone is, of course, the Grail.”
Excerpt From:
Foucault's Pendulum
By Umberto Eco
