“And he is there, dead” Part 3: Who is there, dead?

 

Model clues – 1

The bible tells us that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. This is where the original gospel of Marc ends, but other gospels create an epilogue. After the Sabbath, his body is found to be missing. Over the next few centuries, the emerging Church states He was resurrected. It is the core of Christianity and everyone knows this. Except, it seems, Saunière. A lot has been written about Saunière’s model, including the key fact that it shows locations identified as “Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea” and “Tomb of Christ”. Some of the critics have argued that the model is nothing more than a “learning aid” and hence should not receive such major attention than it has received in the past decade. The mind boggles that someone should suggest that someone made learning aids for Christian teachings, getting the most central message of Christianity wrong: for Christianity, there is but one tomb!
But from a purely “logical” and Jewish perspective, the model is nevertheless correct. Jewish burials at the time of Jesus were carried out in two distinct stages: a primary and a second burial. First, the body was washed and anointed with oils and spices and wrapped in a burial shroud. It was then placed on a stone shelf or in a niche known as a loculus, carved into the bedrock wall of the tomb. The body was allowed to decompose and desiccate for as long as a year. When mostly only bones were left, the remains were gathered and placed into an ossuary or “bone box”, usually carved from limestone, set amidst the rest of the bone boxes of other family members. Most often, the location of the loculus was inside the same tomb as where the ossuary was located.

Exceptional circumstances

Jesus’ death – if indeed he died at the cross – occurred at an inconvenient time: hours before the Sabbath. The entire trial is obviously a staged event, with judges being called in the middle of the night to give hasty verdicts. Every observer has noted that the trial had no real validity and was engineered to convict Jesus. After what experts believe to be a period of about six hours on the cross, Jesus dies. Still, the bones of his legs are not broken; merely his side is pierced to check he is indeed dead. But as it is merely hours before the Sabbath, something out of the ordinary needs to happen.
His body is therefore temporarily placed in a nearby tomb “in a garden”, where it will remain throughout the Sabbath. On the Sunday morning, people find the stone of the tomb rolled away, which in essence merely suggests that Jesus could have been taken by someone to his permanent tomb – archaeologists assume that Jesus’ family tomb was in Galilee. As to the location where the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was located: this is presently the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The enigma of Joseph of Arimathea

It is stated that the tomb in which Jesus was placed was that of Joseph of Arimathea. He is, like Mary Magdalene, a character who appears only in the last few days of Jesus’ life – it seems.
Joseph offers his tomb; but, more importantly, he also claims the body of Jesus from Pilate. Though it is little known, then, as today, to claim a body for burial, you had to be a member of the family. Though the Bible makes it appears as if Joseph is merely a follower of Jesus, according to the Talmud, Joseph was the younger brother of the father of the Virgin Mary, i.e. Mary’s uncle and Jesus’ great-uncle. And it is this family relationship that would allow him to touch the body of a dead person, conform to Jewish law. It would also allow Pilate to release Jesus’ body to him. Finally, we note that Joseph is also a member of the Sanhedrin, the group of Jewish leaders that confirm Jesus’ guilt. It is said that Joseph did not vote. Whereas Christians have seen this as evidence that he was a Christian and could not vote against his leader, in fact, Joseph was asked to condemn a member of his family. No-one would have held it against him if he could not cast his vote. Furthermore, the verdict of the Sanhedrin was merely the rubberstamping of a puppet regime controlled by the Roman occupiers.

A deadly scenario

The scenario – if Jesus would not have resurrected – is therefore that he dies on the cross, Joseph reclaims his body and hastily buries him in a local tomb – which may not necessarily be his own, but which he may have been able to secure for a few days. Following the Sabbath, his family would remove him from this tomb and place him in the family tomb. Intriguingly, that scenario – two tombs – is exactly what Saunière’s model shows. (It is clear that the location of the two tombs would be further apart then shown on the model, for if this were the landscape of Jerusalem, there is no need to place Jesus in the Arimathean tomb, as his final resting place was “just around the corner”.)

The message

We note that Saunière speaks of an “original state” and indicates as such on the legend of the model. We note that the presence of two tombs would indeed conform to the original state. Furthermore, biblical archaeologists, who do not adhere to the Christian doctrine that Jesus resurrected, also “believe” that Jesus’ real tomb is to be found somewhere – as mentioned, most of them locate it in Galilee and there are many old and medieval legends that state where “a” tomb of Jesus is located. So if Saunière did not believe in the resurrection, he would believe in “two tombs”.

On the model, Saunière used mirror images to convey his message: the depicted landscape is the mirror of a section of Perillos. Should we apply such mirroring to other messages of the model too? When he says “original state”, should we read “final state”? Are the two locations on the model the “final state” of the Passion? In this scenario, one could argue that the Tomb of Christ does indeed identify the final location of where the dead body of Jesus “finally” ended up, after being removed from the Tomb of Arimathea… and that this location is in Perillos.
Professor David Flusser was once asked to comment on the location of the tomb of the historical Jesus: “Many years ago a man from the BBC came to me and he asked me if the Dea Sea Scrolls will harm Christianity. I said to him that nothing can harm Christianity. The only thing which could be dangerous to Christianity would be to find a tomb with the sarcophagus or ossuary of Jesus – still containing his bones. And then I said I surely hope that it will not be found in the territory of the State of Israel.”

Model Clues – 2

There is an alternative reading. For this, we need to “know” that Saunière was sponsored by La Sanch. The confraternity of La Sanch was a group of lays and “priests of the dead”, who prepared the dead for their execution. Furthermore, they would ask the gathered crowd at the execution for money, which would be used to bury the convicted criminal.
There are several parallels with what happened to Jesus… and the role of Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus was convicted and hence died as a criminal. No preparations, it seems, were made for his sudden death and it falls onto Joseph to hastily provide a burial place. That “care” for the dead Jesus was practiced by La Sanch for the convicted criminals in and near Perpignan. We should therefore ask ourselves an important question: does La Sanch identify itself with Joseph of Arimathea?
If so, it should be seen as an intriguing clue. Perhaps we should therefore read the model within this framework and wonder whether there is a link between it and La Sanch… and whether the locations on the model may be of relevance to the fraternity. When we note that the original order was created by Vincent Ferrer, in close liaison with the lords of Perillos, this possibility should definitely not come as a surprise.

King Jesus

Let us also remember what Courtade has to write down about the site: he does not claim it is the “Tomb of Christ”, but instead merely gives it its proper legal status, that of a “royal tomb”.
Christians are aware that Jesus claimed to be a “King of the Jews”; it is what the Romans charged him with: the Romans had zero tolerance for anyone claiming to be the next guerrilla leader who would lead the Jews towards freedom. Jesus was not the first, nor the last, and all suffered similar fates.
But professor James Tabor, in “The Jesus Dynasty”, claims that Jesus was indeed the firstborn son of a royal family – a descendant of King David of ancient Israel, who proclaimed he was the “King of the Jews”. As such, Jesus had a legitimate claim to the throne; he was not the sole contender, but nevertheless a contender. There are references in the bible, such as Luke 1:32, which speak of Jesus who would “sit on the throne of his father David”. He states that “rather than being the founder of a church, Jesus was claimant to a throne.” For Tabor, the apostles were members of his council of advisors (a shadow government) and the reference to “messiah” and “Christ” comes from a sacred ritual in which oil was poured on the head of a chosen individual to officially confirm him as either priest or king. The first Jewish Messiah was Aaron and there were many messiahs after – Jesus was once again not alone.

Model clues – 3

So far, we have read the clues on the model literally. We know that they lead to logical conclusion and the possibility that the Tomb of Christ is just that. All we know is that Saunière was passing on the location of “something important”, a location he alone seemed to know. But we do not know whether we should read the indications on the model literally, or whether they are merely part of a smokescreen. In fact, had it not been for Courtade labelling the location a “royal tomb” too, we could have easily concluded Saunière was merely using the story of the Passion as a smokescreen to pass on the location of something completely different.
Though Courtade brings us some confirmation, until the site is archaeologically excavated, we will not know its contents. So we need to look at all potential clues and see whether they lead somewhere. We note that the label reads “Tomb of Christ” – not “Jesus Christ”. As such, it is “merely” the Tomb of a Messiah, someone who was anointed, a king or pretender to the throne. This still means it is a royal tomb, as Courtade has marked down; but it does not mean by default it is the tomb of Jesus Christ.
In this reading, the tomb could therefore hold the body or remains of “an anointed royal” – which brings us dangerously close to the mythology of the Priory of Sion, who were looking for a “lost royal”. As we saw in a previous part, we could also read the inscription as the “Tomb of Anointment”, in which case the location would be part of a tradition of “king making”, perhaps conform to the Egyptian coronation rite.

Finally, we need to note that in the Rosicrucian tradition, there was a well-known usage of “finding a tomb”. Rosicrucian tradition was based on the discovery of Christian Rosenkreutz. Pamphlets about the Rosicrucian movement appeared in the early 17th century, mainly spreading from Germany outwards. The movement used the phrase of “discovering a tomb” as parlance for saying someone had opened a new Rosicrucian lodge. Thus, when Saunière states he “found a tomb”, which he seems to impart on the model, it could mean – if he was a Rosicrucian – that he founded a new Rosicrucian lodge. We note that at present, there is no evidence Saunière was a Rosicrucian, but we equally note that he could very well have been familiar with Rosicrucian traditions and may have used their parlance to convey his message to whoever he was passing on his knowledge of this specific location.

The Kingdom of God

Though we cannot be firm on the specific nature of the tomb or its potential occupant(s), it is clear that all “clues” fall in the same category: they are all related to royal tombs, as well as tombs for “king making” – which in the Egyptian tradition was seen as a gateway into another dimension, to include Ramon de Perillos’ conclusion about what was lurking on his territory. Death, of course, is a gateway to another world. We note that organisations such as the Priory of Sion and others have been suspected of having used synarchic methodologies to establish a theocracy, over a United Europe. Such theocracy is also present in the bible: it is the “Kingdom of God” and it is what Jesus was intent on establishing. This was not some “spiritual kingdom”, but the fulfilment of a Jewish agenda.

Tabor and many others have argued that Jesus joined the “Messianic movement” of John the Baptist. The latter preached that people should repent of their sins and be “baptised” or immersed in water for the remission of their sins. They would thus become “People of the Way”.
There are several intriguing parallels which we need to note here. First, “Way” was the pseudonym used by Plantard. Furthermore, Picknett & Prince have noted that he used imagery for the Priory that is closely linked with John the Baptist. For example, he stated that the Grand Navigators of the Priory – their leaders – were also known as “John”. That means that Plantard not only saw himself as a “John”, but also as “the Way”, which makes it quite logical to assume that he did indeed see himself as “a” John the Baptist – and for whom was he preparing his way? Rather than believe that Plantard saw himself as a descendant of the Merovingian kings, perhaps he was preparing the way for someone else to make such a claim?

A second parallel is of course with La Sanch, specifically the mission of Vincent Ferrer, their founder, who like John the Baptist preached to the people of Europe, asking them to repent, so that a “new age” could come.
Ferrer is often seen as an apocalyptical preacher, for he preached the end of time – but this should be seen as the end of “a” time. “Turn from your sins, for the Kingdom of God is near – the judgment is at hand.” Like John and Jesus, he hoped that a world without sin was imminent, marking the arrival of the “Kingdom of God” – which is nothing more or less than a theocracy, in which we would all live according to divine principles, coming from God, rather than from a series of politicians or judges making them up themselves.
To place this within Jesus’ timeframe: God promised to David that his “throne” would last forever and that only those of his “seed” could occupy it as rulers over the nations of Israel. This promise was seen as an unbreakable covenant – just like Courtade noted that nothing could change the status of the piece of property – nothing, of course, except a French Revolution.
For many believers and scholars, it is seen as being at the core of Jewish religion – as well as at Jesus’ mission. We can only wonder whether since the first century AD, others have built on this imagery and may still harbour ambitions for such a theocracy. As mentioned, several researchers of the Priory of Sion believe it had indeed such political ambitions. We can only wonder whether this agenda was merely active in the 1950s and 1960s, when this campaign emerged, or whether it is still alive – and planning…

Filip Coppens