Free Temple of The Grail by Adriana Koulias Page A

meadows of faith and comprehension. A faith that is enlightened
by knowledge. Peter denied Christ and was absolved.’
    ‘Peter was absolved, but Judas atones
in hell for his sins!’ the old man cried. ‘Man should seek to know God! He
should not seek knowledge of the world!’
    It was at this point that I realised
my master had manipulated the entire conversation in order to investigate the
mysterious author of the note and I admonished myself for having thought ill of
his intentions.
    ‘God is knowledge, venerable brother,
by definition, and he did indeed create the world as we are told in Genesis,’
Andre said finally, almost a little heated now.
    ‘Yes, preceptor,’ Rainiero joined in,
‘but knowledge of God and knowledge of the world are not the same thing! One
must shun the world and its iniquity and live only for revelation, in
contemplation of holy scripture.’
    My master smiled a terrible smile,
close to a leer. ‘Then, by God! you have much in common with my Jewish friend,
for he believes the same thing.’
    We had come around full circle.
    The inquisitor, full of malice, held
his breath until his lips were almost blue. ‘Jews are fomenters of dissent,
responsible for infecting Christian heresies – which are in any case
multifarious – with the devil of cabbala . And if that were not a
most heinous sin, they allow their adulterations to land in the curious hands
of Christians who eagerly consume their demonic formulas!’
    ‘Formulas?’ my master inquired,
raising a thick brow.
    ‘Everyone knows them, preceptor . . .
the mystical meanings of mystical acts; numbers that are diabolically
numerical; letters that are more meaningful than words, and words that have no
meaning unless read backwards. Points and strokes, ciphers, acrostics and the
unholy symbolic interpretation of biblical texts! Necromancia, astrologia,
alchemia!’
    When he finished, there was a hush,
the other members of the legation looked down at their hands or their plates,
shifting in their seats in an embarrassed fashion.
    ‘Your erudition is remarkable,
Rainiero!’ my master remarked. ‘You must have spent many moments studying these
things!’
    ‘You know being a man of war,’ he
answered caustically, ‘that one cannot fight an unknown enemy. One must rather
study an adversary’s every move, every thought . . . even if doing so
constitutes a perpetual affront to one’s mildness and tranquillity of soul.’ He
then raised his face, and rolled his eyes in a heavenly direction. ‘Often I am
haunted! Haunted by those things that have come into my hands through the power
afforded me! The most terrible works! The most heinous depravities! And yet I
have forced myself to become familiar with the errors of the Devil, lest his
falsehoods be mistaken for truths. I say, blessed is the man who is ignorant,
blessed is he whose soul is protected from the weakness of his intellect!’   
    My master considered this for a
moment. ‘But your grace the evil one does not merely work, as you know, through
primary causes, that is, in a writer’s thoughts, but also through secondary
causes, namely, in the disposition of the reader.’
    The bishop filled his mouth with
food, letting the juices run down the corners of his mouth. ‘That is also true,’
he confirmed and tore into the carcass of a bird.
    The inquisitor huffed. ‘You Templars
are strange creatures. I have no liking for monks of your sort, I divine that
you are doomed to die on the pyre for your heretic sympathies, and that to lead
you to such an end would be a task most honoured!’
    There followed a stunned silence at
this open threat. My master smiled so calmly that I felt a terrible sense of
foreboding, for I feared he might at any moment lose his temper.
    ‘We all live in a permanent
state of fragility, inquisitor, and the only immutable truth is that truth is
capricious, and perpetuity uncertain. One thing, however, has remained constant
throughout the eons of time, and I