Jacques De Molay
"The Assassins are far older than Masyaf, my friend. Their anarchic delusions are virulent as the plague, and less easily eradicated. We will not prevail this night. But if you make haste, we may yet save our Order." ―De Molay to his advisor, 1307.
The 701st anniversary of the death of the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques De Molay, is upon us. 701 years ago, the man who led the Templars to the apex of their power as the last public Grand Master of the Order.
He was born between 1245 and 1250 in Molay, Haute-Saône. In 1265, de Molay was inducted into the Templar Order in Beaune. After the fall of Acre, the Order met in Cyprus in September 1291. On 20 April 1292, de Molay was elected Grand Master, leading the Templars to the height of their power. Around this time, he possessed the Shroud of Eden, which later wound up in the possession a fellow French Templar, Geoffroy de Charny.
De Molay wrote the Codex Pater Intellectus. With the Templars already serving as an economic power through banking, he envisioned in the Codex that the Templars should control humanity through the middle class and capitalism, rather than through the aristocracy and monarchy.
Even as the Order entered a Golden Age, Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V, strongly influenced by the French Assassins and their Mentor Guillaume de Nogaret, plotted to destroy the Templars.
With Philip already deeply in debt to the Order, he charged the Templars with heresy, blasphemy and the worship of a deity called Baphomet, a symbol often associated with the real-life conspiracy theory of the Illuminati.
Jacques De Molay might have been a great leader to the Order of the Knights Templar, but that wasn’t the only remarkable story to tell about him. Jacques De Molay was born a Sage, another reincarnation of Aita, a First Civilization member and the late husband of First Civ. member, Juno.
A future reincarnation of Juno. He is the first known Grand Templar Master who is also a Sage at the same time, the second being François-Thomas Germain, who experienced visions of the First Civilization, which he initially thought to be a descent into insanity.
However, upon the discovery of the Codex Pater Intellectus in a vault beneath the Parisian Temple, he realized the truth behind his visions of the First Civilization and his origins as a Sage.
Through the readings of de Molay, Germain established a connection between him and the legendary Grand Master, and was determined to shape the destiny of the human race in the way envisioned by de Molay. He believed that by stripping the aristocracy of power and giving it to the middle class, he would create a society which could be easily controlled by the Templars.
The beliefs and Ideologies of de Molay have greatly influenced Germain and he grew more appreciative of his persona and when King Louis XVI was beheaded on the guillotine, Germain proclaimed that Jacques de Molay had been avenged. A recurring real life Templar legend states that during the execution, a French Freemason either dipped his hand in the king's blood or held the king's head and yelled "Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged!" During the Reign of Terror, Germain secluded himself within the Temple, which was heavily guarded with no weak points. While there, Germain began praying to Jacques de Molay. His men could then hear thunder from within the Temple.
Jacques De Molay might have been a great leader to the Order of the Knights Templar, but that wasn’t the only remarkable story to tell about him. Jacques De Molay was born a Sage, another reincarnation of Aita, a First Civilization member and the late husband of First Civ. member, Juno.
A future reincarnation of Juno. He is the first known Grand Templar Master who is also a Sage at the same time, the second being François-Thomas Germain, who experienced visions of the First Civilization, which he initially thought to be a descent into insanity. However, upon the discovery of the Codex Pater Intellects (which was written by Jacques De Molay, himself) in a vault beneath the Parisian Temple, he realized the truth behind his visions of the First Civilization and his origins as a Sage.
While the advisor was able to hide the Codex and Sword, de Molay was arrested, and the former was assassinated by de Carneillon before he could rescue the Grand Master. As a result of the raids, nearly every Templar in France was arrested. In 1312, the Templar Order was officially dissolved by Pope Clement, and all of its assets were gifted to the Knights Hospitalier. Following his arrest, de Molay was imprisoned and tortured by de Nogaret, Philippe de Marigny and William of Paris, and was forced to confess to heresy.
As their Grand Master, de Molay understood that the Templars could no longer survive in a public image, and decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. Before his inevitable death, he sent nine of his most trusted men - who possessed "knowledge of the Ancients" - out into the world to continue his work. The Templars would fade from public awareness, and secretly influence leaders.
On 18 March 1314, de Molay allowed himself to be burned at the stake. As he burned to death, he cursed Philip to the "thirteenth generation of [his] blood". By allowing himself to be executed, de Molay saved the lives of his remaining brethren, and made their enemies believe that the Order had died along with him.
In the late 18th century, Jacques' descendant, Anne de Molay murdered two of the descendants of his interrogators. She failed to murder the third, which resulted in the Assassin Arno Dorian handing her over to the the police. De Molay was later commemorated in 1937 by the Templar Order's new public front, Abstergo Industries.
There, an image of him was displayed prominently in the room accessible only to members of the Order's Inner Sanctum. In 2001, researchers at the Vatican Secret Archives uncovered a parchment written in 1308 by Pope Clement which absolved de Molay of all charges.
