Many authors and researchers have reached the inevitable conclusion that there is something of great importance buried in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château. Should such an item exist it is likely to be of a religious nature as we are clearly dealing with a secret linked to the local priesthood. At this point we must err on the side of caution. There are plenty of ideas about what might be buried there, but with the exception of Ben Hammott’s questionable discoveries (see page 183) little or no actual finds have come to light.
On the ground an unspoken battle for religious artefacts is taking place. On the one side, the Vatican has a history of gathering anything relating to the Bible and the saints, including relics, alternative scripture and occult material. In the late 1990s a Vatican-funded team of Italian archaeologists used ground radar to survey the church at Rennes-le-Château. The Israeli secret service, MOSSAD, has also taken an interest in Rennes-le-Château, and have been quite openly exploring the area and questioning local inhabitants. Author David Wood recounts how he was approached to survey the area for an individual who, when challenged, claimed to be working on behalf of MOSSAD. I have also encountered a modern Templar order looking to recover something from the area. Local residents are reluctant to speak of the mystery but some are known to have used metal detectors, bulldozers and even dynamite in their own ongoing searches.
Having located if not the temple itself, then the idea that such a temple exists, we are faced with the issue of what it might contain. This may seem simple, but any location of real importance may have become a repository for more than one item of veneration. Relics bring with them all manner of issues and often have notoriously suspect origins. This chapter is intended to explore relics in their many contexts.
The word relic comes from the Latin reliquiae which means ‘remains’ and was already in use long before Christianity adopted it in its modern sense. The Catholic Encyclopaedia describes a relic as ‘some object, notably part of the body or clothes, remaining as a memorial of a departed saint’.
During the Middle Ages, when pilgrimage became a huge industry, priests would beg, borrow, buy or steal anything that could genuinely be – or at least passed off as – a holy relic for their church. Priests petitioned Rome to disturb and desecrate the tombs of the holy fathers for body parts. Where possible, Rome delivered.
An early Christian example of a relic is to be found in a letter written c156CE by the inhabitants of Smyrna, describing the death of St Polycarp:
‘We took up his bones, which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place, where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, and to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom.’
There is a morbid fascination for the remains of the dead. It is as if collecting and owning these objects somehow puts us in a direct relationship with the source. I suspect that the veneration of relics is a primitive instinct, like the keeping of mementoes and trophies from dead animals as tokens of power. Even with regard to saints, it is clear in some cases that the objects as much as the individual were being venerated, creating a kind of idolatrous ‘cult of the dead’.
For over a thousand years pilgrimage has drawn the devout to behold in awe some fairly gruesome remains. For example, the 800-year-old tongue of St Anthony of Padua, who was renowned for his eloquence, is kept in a jar that is often kissed by the pilgrims who line up to see it. If the jar were removed one wonders if they would kiss the shrivelled tongue instead.
There are other approaches to venerating relics. They may be seen as simply representative of the saint, divorced from any supernatural power themselves.
Some are given a symbolic meaning, such as St Clare of Montefalco’s (1268–1308) three gallstones, which are said to represent the Holy Trinity. However, the majority of relics are regularly credited with divine or indeed frankly magical qualities. At shrines where long lines form and the afflicted petition for a cure, there is an assumption that the relic possesses some power that is in some way transferable to the visitor.
As the veneration of relics became more prevalent, there was a matching growth in their supposed powers to heal and revive. In Europe, stories circulated of miracles experienced by those lucky enough to come into contact with relics. In some cases, as when St Helena (see below) identified the ‘True Cross’, a dead or dying person was used to prove the authenticity of the relic. Contact with relics was believed to be a source of healing and has remained so ever since.
‘The blind and cripples are restored to health, the dead recalled to life, and demons expelled from the bodies of men.’
The Roman Catechism (1566)
The veneration of relics is not limited to the bodies and body parts of saints. A variety of objects from the Bible have also attracted attention over the years. The remains of Noah’s Ark, for example, are claimed by some to be visible on Mount Ararat in present-day Turkey.
Naturally, items said to be linked directly to Jesus enjoy special recognition and popularity. For example, among his reputed garments is the ‘Holy Coat of Trier’ which, when first put on display in the 16th century, attracted 100,000 pilgrims in 15 days. It would seem from the list of items currently treated as ‘authentic’ that everywhere Jesus went, his followers removed anything he touched for later veneration.
The first surge of interest in Christian relics began with St Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. At the age of almost 80, and almost 300 years after the death of Jesus, she travelled to the Holy Land with the aim of discovering sites and artefacts from Jesus’ life. She was shown a tomb and told that it contained, among other items, the cross of the Crucifixion. She then took it upon herself to have this cross broken into three pieces and distributed across the Roman Empire. Fragments would later be enclosed in small gold crosses to be worn around the neck – a fashion that endures to this day in the wearing of crucifixes.
Aside from obvious issues of authenticating the relics, St Helena’s location of the tomb does not fit well with the description in the gospels. It is highly likely that she was looking on the wrong hill. But before anyone could question the authenticity of the discovery, the race to secure the relics of the saints had begun in earnest.
Seven centuries after St Helena claimed to have found the tomb of Jesus, an identical collection of relics was discovered during the Crusades. Amalric I, one of the Crusader kings of Jerusalem (1162–74), wrote of the Crusader finds in the Holy Land:
‘The relics included the most precious evidence of the Passion of Our Lord, namely the cross, nails, lance, sponge, reed, crown of thorns, shroud and the sandals.’
If the last item on that list seems familiar it is probably due to it being parodied in Monty Python’s film The Life of Brian. Added to these, the following items exist in various churches across Europe, all of which are considered authentic relics by many within the Church:
• The Swaddling Cloth of the Infant Christ.
• Christ’s Seamless Garments.
• The Holy Stairs which Christ climbed to Pilate’s office.
• The Scourging Post on which Christ was whipped.
• The Crown of Thorns (a remnant of which remains in Notre Dame, Paris).
• The Holy Sponge from which Christ drank (also broken up and distributed to various churches).
• The Holy Lance that pierced Christ’s side (a few examples).
If the unlikelihood of any of these items being genuine may seem glaringly obvious, there are even more bizarre relics in the form of breastmilk from the Virgin Mary and no fewer than 14 foreskins of Christ, three of which are thought to be in the Vatican.
Tasked with protecting pilgrims in the Holy Land, the original nine Templar knights set up camp on the Temple Mount and spent eight years excavating it. While seemingly misguided in the short term, this act may have had a long-term positive effect for pilgrims, in that it potentially produced relics that could be relocated to relatively safer sites in Western Europe and therefore save many of the faithful the long and arduous journey. When the Holy Land eventually fell back into the hands of Muslim rulers, Christians in the West perhaps took some comfort from having access to what they believed were authentic biblical finds.
The Order of the Knights Templar could well have removed items from their excavations of the Temple Mount and other sacred sites. Stories come down to us of how the Templars were in possession of many sacred relics that they had discovered during the Crusades, such as yet another True Cross. (By this time, it has been remarked, there were already enough True Crosses and Crucifixion nails in existence to build a small wooden church.)
The notion that the Templars discovered the True Cross over a thousand years after the event seems very unlikely, as do the various stories of the relic’s demise. My favourite account is that the Templar cross was buried by a Templar soldier who feared it would be lost to the opposing army in an impending battle. Later the victorious soldier was unable to remember exactly where he had buried the relic and after three days gave up trying.
What is beyond doubt is that the excavations of the Templars did take place, so perhaps they did find something. According to Nic Haywood,
‘of the Temple of Jerusalem [discoveries], part was hidden at Rennes-le-Château, part was located at Toulouse but later melted down and dispersed. The rest is in the Vatican under the control of the Italian Priory of Sion members.’
With the landscape around Rennes-le-Château modified to represent the Temple of Solomon (see Chapter 11) it is likely that the Templars would have placed any finds from the ancient Temple in this area.
The original Temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and rebuilt around 80 years later after the return of the Judean exiles. This Second Temple was sacked and desecrated by the Greek kings of Syria. According to the biblical First Book of the Maccabees, the Temple’s ‘hidden treasures’ were taken (Maccabees 1.21.3). Some of the treasure was also used as bribes to fend off threatening foreign armies.
Under Herod the Great, Roman client king of Judea (37–4 BCE), the Second Temple was renovated in a magnificent ‘Herodian-Classical’ style. The rebuilt Second Temple was the one that Jesus knew.
The Second Temple was sacked and demolished in 70CE during the First Jewish War by the Roman general Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian. A great menorah is known to be among the loot taken back to Rome, where it is depicted on the triumphal arch of Titus. There were originally ten menorahs in the Temple, seven-branched solid gold candelabra estimated to be at least four feet (1.2m) high. The menorahs were said to be based upon an original that stood in the Tabernacle of the Hebrews in the wilderness after Moses led them from Egypt. The menorah is a symbol of Judaism and at least one Jewish leader has asked the Vatican to return the Temple menorah. But there is no confirmation that the object, if it still exists at all, remains in Rome.
It may have been taken by the Visigoths who plundered Rome in 410CE and are thought to have subsequently headed for Spain and southwest France, possibly near Rennes-le-Château. This raises the possibility of the Temple menorah being in the vicinity, although it does not bode well for the survival of other items from the Temple.
Nic Haywood had mentioned the menorah on a number of occasions as being part of the Temple furnishings that had originated in the Temple of Jerusalem and were later secreted in the Languedoc by the Templars. With sufficient gold, a new menorah could have been produced as part of an attempt to build a New Jerusalem. But there had definitely been an ancient Temple menorah in Rome, and the Visigoths had looted Rome before moving into the region; furthermore, the Templars themselves had excavated the Temple Mount. It becomes increasingly possible, therefore, that the Templars acquired an original Temple menorah at some point in their history.
There are claims of other relics having been found near Rennes-le-Château.
During the making of the Bloodline documentary, co-producer Bruce Burgess joined researcher Ben Hammott on his quest to locate a wooden chest based on a series of clues buried in glass bottles. He recovered the chest and found it to contain items including an ointment jar, a stone cup and some Templar coins. The cup and jar were authenticated as being contemporary with the time of Jesus by archaeologist Dr Gabriel Barkay of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. The cup, we are told by Sion, is possibly the one used at the wedding of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. But why anyone would keep a piece of wedding crockery is questionable because at the time they would have had no idea that this wedding would one day become a heretical secret.
The inclusion of Templar coins is also suspicious in that it is the equivalent of keeping loose change in a chest with a priceless antique. These were not valuable coins in their day so may have been a later addition. But I think the chest is contrived in order to link together two periods in history and for the latter to give credibility to the former.
Sion had hinted at such a possibility many months prior to the discovery. When we reported that one of its members had been seen in the area they voiced concern not that the member would be ‘removing objects,’ but at ‘what they may be leaving there for you to find’. I decided that Sion was not being entirely honest about what they knew. Nic Haywood’s response:
‘The points that you make are entirely valid. There is a difficulty here, and you’re correct about the concerns re [name of Sion member removed by author] and the likelihood of him placing objects in the area.’
The purpose of the chest is to reignite the Rennes-le-Château debate and bring attention back to the mysteries that Sion seeks to publicize. In spite of this, Sion continued to maintain that the cup is the actual wedding chalice of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It is impossible to say for sure that the items are not real, but their authenticity remains unproven. However, this does not detract from their value as representative of the original items – the Cross in any church is an example of the symbolic power at work here.
Perhaps the most famous relic from the life of Jesus is the Holy Grail. Stripped of its mystical properties and removed from the Arthurian romances, the Holy Grail is simply the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. There are a number of contenders for this relic, including the Chalice of Antioch, which resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and was found in Syria in 1910. The Cup of Valencia, on display in Valencia cathedral, Spain, is said to have been passed down by the early popes. There is also the Marian Chalice, which comes to us courtesy of St Helena and was believed to have been the one used by Mary Magdalene to collect Christ’s blood. There are various other ‘Grails’ in existence.
The idea, proposed by some researchers, that the ‘Grail’ is not a physical object but a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus, seems both an opportunity and an obstacle. The bloodline might be one facet of the Grail story, but if this becomes its entirety I suspect that something is lost.
In symbolism the Grail takes on a very different nature. The archetypal symbol appears in therapy sessions as the unconscious image of the mother. Its shape is a vessel for holding and nurturing, endlessly nourishing like a mother to her newborn baby. This shows how the object has transcended function to become imbued with meaning. I have taken part in psychology groups where candidates from different religious and cultural backgrounds have meditated on the idea of the ‘feminine’ and almost all have arrived at the image of a cup. The Grail is the feminine receptacle, healing and making whole, representing understanding, whereas the sword/spear is male and cleaving, the act of separation signifying wisdom and the ability to break apart and examine.
In Grail legends, the Grail as feminine aspect is lost to the world and must be recovered and restored. In the Arthurian Grail romances it is often described as accompanying a spear or sword during displays and rituals (Parzival and so on). This illustrates how the balance of masculine and feminine must be maintained, and the spear and the Grail are the perfect archetypal images of this relationship.
The return of the Grail is sometimes heralded by the arrival of an apparition often referred to as ‘the Lady of the Cup’. Others in the vicinity who witness the apparition mistake the figure for the Virgin Mary, but often she is interpreted as Mary Magdalene. This is the emancipated woman but also the feminine aspect of manhood that must be rediscovered.
In many ways, documents are more important than relics. They occupy a slightly different position than standard relics in that they have the potential to carry information down the ages. In theological terms discoveries of ancient documents have the potential to undermine accepted religious texts if, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, they pre-date the gospels or, like the Nag Hammadi Library of Gnostic texts, they have escaped editing or censorship over the centuries. Biblical scholars believe that three of the New Testament gospel accounts of Jesus may draw upon a now lost earlier source known as ‘Q’ (from German Quelle, ‘source’), a collection of Jesus’ sayings perhaps taken down verbatim by an early follower. Should a complete manuscript of ‘Q’ ever be discovered (or revealed) it has the potential to completely transform our understanding of the life of Jesus. Some scholars think that Q, if it physically existed (as opposed to being an oral collection) may have been very similar in form to the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
Like many of the documents related to the Rennes-le-Château mystery, those that appear in the Bloodline film could be entirely recent in their creation but, as in the case of the Le Serpent Rouge, they may still hold vital information. It is believed that Father Saunière also found documents at Rennes-le-Château, early versions of the fabricated parchments in circulation today. Until Saunière’s discoveries are revealed we can assume they contained genealogies and alternatives to accepted doctrines, or perhaps a map leading to a hidden location. Of course genealogies, like any other document, can be contrived.
A recurring idea in this mystery is that Mary Magdalene is buried near Rennes-le-Château. Sion has referred to a ‘body’ being present a number of times. The problem with the body just being that of Mary is that this changes nothing. There is also a ‘body of Mary Magdalene’ at Vézelay in Burgundy and another at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in SE France. The latter was not discovered until 1279 and so is unlikely to be genuine, in any case, its existence has had no noticeable impact on Christianity.
For there to be any real impact on Christianity, the body at Rennes-le-Château would have to be that of Jesus. Nothing else justifies the amount of mystique and religious interest that the area attracts.
As we discovered in the chapters on pilgrimage and Le Serpent Rouge, Sion maintains that a body of great importance is buried in the region. Along with the pilgrim’s badge depicting the head of Jesus, this statement would indicate that the intended destination of medieval alchemical pilgrims was a body they believed to be none other than that of Jesus Christ.
The likelihood of Jesus having ascended to Heaven, as the New Testament recounts, will be covered in a later chapter, but a recurring theme of the Rennes-le-Château mystery is that the body of Jesus might be somewhere in the vicinity. If this is true, then we are searching for what would be the most important and most controversial relic to exist in Christendom.
Imagine for one moment that the relic of relics – the corpse of Jesus – was discovered. Would it be instantly recognizable, an uncorrupted body, charismatic even in death? What strange worship would grow up around it? Would the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations clamour for Christ’s body, claiming right of ownership? Or would they continue to deny its existence? Would they loot the tomb of Jesus and scatter its contents to fill the collection plates of churches, cathedrals or, God forbid, museums?
But like all relics, any finds would require a lot of supporting material that could be verified to establish any degree of credibility. This brings us to the core of the entire problem of relics: authenticity.
Even the merest consideration of relics throws up a number of issues. It seems to me to be disrespectful for a corpse to be dug up, dismembered and scattered. For example, St Luke’s reputed body is in the basilica of St Justina in Padua while his head is thought to be in the Vatican. It difficult to believe that this desecration is what Luke would have wanted (assuming the corpse in question is actually his).
Even today relics are much sought after. On eBay ‘an old relic of the True Cross’ recently sold for $1,100. This is frowned upon by some Christians and an organization called the International Crusade for Holy Relics is attempting to have the online trafficking of relics banned.
But this traffic is nothing new. As early as the end of the fourth century, St Augustine denounced impostors who dressed as monks and made a profit by the sale of spurious relics. Any thriving business is prone to unscrupulous traders and in the relics trade forgery and misidentification were rife. As Bart Brewer comments in his book Pilgrimage from Rome:
‘Even Martin Luther wondered how there could be 26 apostles buried in Germany, when they were only 12 in the entire Bible. … It is clear that most “relics” are frauds.’
One amusing anecdote relates how, during the Middle Ages, a travelling monk once encountered a merchant who offered to sell him the skull of John the Baptist. The monk was dumbfounded. Hadn’t he just seen the skull of St John in a church during a recent visit to France? ‘That was the skull of St John when he was a child,’ explained the merchant. ‘This is his skull when he was an adult.’
By the Middle Ages it had become fashionable for churches to contain at least a part of a saint. This would guarantee them a flow of pilgrims and thus a steady income, so they seem to have been happy to accept anything as authentic.
The Catholic Church made various attempts to combat the proliferation of spurious artefacts and in the 16th century the Council of Trent decreed:
‘No new miracles are to be acknowledged or new relics recognized unless the bishop of the diocese has taken cognizance and approved thereof.’
In recent years science has supplied us with perhaps a better way of testing relics in the form of radiocarbon dating. For example, a recent radiocarbon dating of the remains of St Luke in Padua found that the body belonged to a person who died 150 years after the time of Luke. Even allowing for the margin of error involved in radiocarbon dating the body is unlikely to be the real thing. The Church itself has profound misgivings on the actual authenticity of many relics, as the Catholic Encyclopaedia states:
‘It remains true that many of the more ancient relics duly exhibited for veneration in the great sanctuaries of Christendom or even at Rome itself must now be pronounced to be either certainly spurious or open to grave suspicion.’
There are ethical considerations as well. The saints were often committed to poverty and chastity, surrendering their wealth to the poor during their lifetimes, only for the Catholic Church to enshrine their remains in gold-and jewel-encrusted reliquaries and to display them for the purpose of eliciting donations from the poor believers whom the saints had tried to help.
A case in point would be St Elizabeth, a Hungarian princess who gave away all her possessions and wealth to the poor and was reduced literally to living in a pigsty. She refused to wear her crown in compassion for Jesus’ suffering the Crown of Thorns and she devoted her life to helping the poor and the sick. Years after her death she was canonized. Her tomb was ransacked and her body dismembered for use by the Church. A gold shrine was built for her body and her skull was put on display with a gold crown placed upon it.
In many cases it may be that the authenticity of the relic is no longer an issue. Should any item be venerated for centuries, such as the famous “Turin Shroud” (recently revealed by radiocarbon dating to be medieval), it may take on a certain power as a symbolic trigger to inspire devotion and to change consciousness. To touch something that one believes in strongly enough can have the same effect as touching the real thing.
In spite of all the evidence against the majority of relics, some are undoubtedly authentic, some have been treated with the utmost respect, and some, no doubt, have been kept hidden from the world. This brings us back to the idea of the temple in the landscape around Rennes-le-Château and the possible treasures that lie within.
In the case of Ben Hammott’s chest and Gérard Thome’s parchments, they may not be authentically ancient but could be considered legitimate from their intended effect. It should be noted that they have been made public in a manner that can easily be dismissed by the staunchly religious, who may find their implications unacceptable. If Sion is behind this, we are witnessing an elaborate game of ‘show-and-tell’ between them and the Vatican. It would be simple enough for Sion to publish the original parchments and to present conclusive evidence, but things are moving at a certain pace. This pace is a point of contention, with the Catholic branch of Sion wishing to prolong the status quo indefinitely while other members see the current world situation as an opportunity to move matters forward.
As these relics come into circulation the Vatican cannot help but recognize them and understand the subtle goading that is taking place. The question is: where is this leading?
In the first instance I think that there will be further discoveries, with more relics emerging and perhaps the ultimate relic: the body of Jesus or at least Mary Magdalene. Sion has often spoken of the ‘body’ as the trump card in the game that they are playing with the Vatican.
Sion informed us that there are heretical clergy within the Catholic Church who would ‘down tools’ should the actual body of Christ come to light and the ‘great lie’ be overturned. The others, faced with the truth, would have no choice but to concede and adjust their theology accordingly.
This would lay the groundwork for a more important shift away from the dogma of the Church and back to a more personal experience of spirituality. There is evidence that this is happening naturally, as seen in the current upsurge of alternative spiritual practices. But ultimately, it needs to be directed towards gnosis – the direct relationship between an individual and God. There may be enough fragments of the ‘True Cross’ to build a real bridge, but no amount can build a bridge to the divine.
So now we must take the next logical step and explore the importance of redressing the balance. The physical search for Mary Magdalene’s body is mirrored by the search for an understanding of what she means to us. The blood that cries from the ground can no longer be ignored and we are inevitably drawn toward the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This and many other ideas surrounding the mystery throw into question what we know about the life of Jesus and of Mary Magdalene. But it is not for the sake of Christianity that we rake this soil, but for the sake of the search for truth.