In 1118 nine crusading knights, then in the East—among whom was Geoffrey de Saint-Omer and Hugh de Payens—dedicated themselves to religion, placing their vows in the hands of the patriarch of Constantinople, which seat had always been hostile, secretly or openly, to that of Rome since the days of Photius. The avowed object of the Templars was to protect Christians on pilgrimage to the holy places; their concealed end was to rebuild the Temple of Solomon on the model foreshewn by Ezekiel. Such a restoration, predicted formally by Judaising mystics of the first Christian centuries, had become the secret dream of the Eastern patriarchs. So rebuilt and consecrated to the Catholic worship, the Temple of Solomon would have been in effect the metropolis of the universe. East would prevail over West and the patriarchs of Constantinople would seize the papacy.[196] To explain the name of Templars adopted by this military Order, historians assume that Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, gave them a house in the vicinity of the Temple of Solomon. But they are guilty of a serious anachronism, since at that period the edifice in question had not only ceased to exist, and not only was there no stone of Zerubbabel’s Second Temple left upon another, but it would have been difficult to indicate the site on which they stood. It is to be concluded that the House allotted to the Templars by Baldwin was not situated in the vicinity of Solomon’s Temple but of that place on which these secret and armed missionaries of the Eastern patriarch designed to rebuild it. The Templars took for their scriptural models the military Masons of Zerubbabel, who worked with sword in one hand and trowel in the other.[197] Hence sword and trowel became their insignia when at a later period, as we shall see, they concealed themselves under the name of Masonic Brothers. The trowel of the Templars is fourfold; the triangular blades are disposed in the form of a cross, constituting a Kabalistic pantacle known as the Cross of the East.[198] The inmost thought of Hugh de Payens, in establishing his Order, was not precisely to serve the ambition of the patriarchs of Constantinople. At that period there was a sect of Christian Johannites in the East who claimed to be alone initiated into the inner mysteries of the Saviour’s religion; they claimed also to know the true history of Jesus Christ. Adopting some part of the Jewish traditions and Talmudic accounts, they regarded the facts in the gospels as allegories, of which St. John had the key. The proof was his saying that if all things done by Jesus were recorded, “I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” They held that such a statement would be ridiculous exaggeration unless it referred to allegory and legend, which can be varied and prolonged to infinity. As to the actual historical facts, the Johannites recounted what follows.