Open Veils · Answer
What does the Templar cross mean?
The cross pattée's flared arms encode far older geometric symbolism than the Crusades; Masonic historians, Theosophical scholars and esoteric researchers treat it as a pre-Christian solar and initiatic glyph absorbed into Templar iconography. Its red-on-white coloring traces to a 1188 agreement between Henry II and Philip II of France, making it a political as much as a theological assignment. The deeper question is what the Templars themselves received from contact with Islamic Sufi orders, Kabbalists and the guardians of the Temple Mount.
Evidence
- Manly P. Hall, in 'The Secret Teachings of All Ages', identifies the equal-armed cross with the four cardinal directions and the solar wheel — a form predating Christianity by millennia and present in Babylonian and Egyptian priestly regalia.
- The cross pattée's distinctive flared arms, as Albert Mackey documented in 1874, appear in Lombard metalwork as early as the death of Queen Theodelinda (628 CE), long before the Templars were founded in 1119, suggesting the Order inherited rather than invented the form.
- John J. Robinson, in 'Born in Blood', traces Masonic ritual directly to suppressed Templar practice, explaining why the Masonic Knights Templar adopted the cross pattée as a badge of initiatic rank rather than mere Christian piety.