Dark Matter

“Their Lordships would hardly have dared to condemn you as a Protestant,” said Newton. “Not with all the feeling against Catholics there is in the country now. And yet I must also tell you I believe you are justly convicted. For you would have murdered so many that England would have been held in much opprobrium, as France was after the Huguenots were massacred. And I am firmly of the belief that such an atrocity would have given King Lewis an excuse to break the peace we have just made. But that you should be punished for the sins of your betters, as well as for your own, seems to me especially unjust. Christ asks only that we follow the example of his life, and not the meaning of his death.”

At which I uttered some remark to the effect that the rich had fine scented gloves with which to hide their dirty hands. Which was a remark directed at Newton as much as Their Lordships in Government.

“And yet I am rich, too,” said the Sergeant.

“Rich?” said I. “How so?”

“What else do you call a man who knows where the treasure of the Templars might be found?”

“You know where the treasure is?” said I, much excited by this news.

“I do. And I will tell you where it is to be found, if you can you get me out of here.”

“I think I can do very little for you,” said Newton. “Not even for the treasure of the Templars. But I shall plead for your life before the Lords Justices. I shall tell them that I do not think it right that you should be punished while others who did counsel you in this matter do go free. Not for any treasure, though. But because I believe you to be less culpable than several others.”

“That’s all I ask, sir. Why, then I’ll tell you about the secret, sir. For there I take you upon your word. If you say you will do something, I know you will do it. That is your reputation in here, and in the Tower. But mostly I will tell you about the treasure because you are of my own religious persuasion and have no faith in the Trinity, and believe that the Father is greater than the son. For the proof of that, why, sir, that’s the treasure I speak of.”

“I would give much to see that proved to my own satisfaction,” said Newton. “True knowledge is the greatest treasure of all.”

Of this I was less than sure; had I not been happier when I myself was ignorant?

“But what is this secret and how did you come by it?” asked Newton.

Sergeant Rohan took a swig from the bottle of gin I had brought him out of charity.

“Bless you for this, lad,” he said. “Well, sir, to cut a long story short, following the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, Count Hugh of Champagne, the patron of the Cistercian Order, went to Jerusalem and ordered his vassal Hugh of Payns to found the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Jesus Christ on the Temple Mount, this being the site of the Temple of Solomon that was rebuilt by Herod, and destroyed again by the Romans. Prior to this, it was said that the Cistercians sought the help of Greek scholars to translate certain texts found after the capture of Jerusalem that spoke of a buried treasure beneath the Temple Mount. And that the Poor Fellow Soldiers that became the Templars were ordered to look for this treasure.

“There have been many stories about what that treasure amounted to. Some have said it was the treasure of King Solomon that was Sheba’s tribute. Others that it was the Holy Grail. Some believed they found the embalmed head of Jesus Christ. But it was none of these. Neither was it the Ark of the Covenant, the lance that pierced Christ’s side, nor the blood line of Jesus Christ.

“It was the texts themselves that were the treasure, for these were nothing less than the original Greek texts of the lost Gnostic Christian texts, including those gospels that were regarded as heretical by the Apostle Paul, and which were later suppressed by the early Church, for these books prove that Christ was only a man, that he did not rise from the dead, and that the established Christian dogma is a blasphemy of the truth and evil teaching. That is why the Templars were accused of heresy and blasphemy: for possession of these forbidden books of the New Testament. And for translating them from Greek into Latin. That is the book of the devil they were accused of possessing. That is why they were persecuted throughout Europe and burned at the stake.”

Newton looked thunderstruck, as if he had discarded darkness and clothed himself in light.

“That is the treasure,” Sergeant Rohan continued triumphantly. “That is what the kings of Christendom tried so earnestly to find: the Templars’ book. And that is why we hate the established Roman Catholic Church, for it is the Romans who have suppressed this truth for a thousand years. Many Huguenots were descended from Templars. And therefore we have a double reason to hate Papists, for they have persecuted us twice.”

“But what other gospels can there be?” I asked.