To acquire wealth and influence, to intrigue on the basis of these and at need fight for the establishment of Johannite dogma—such were the means and end proposed by the initiated brethren. “Observe,” they argued to themselves, “the papacy and rival monarchies engaged in the work of haggling, selling one another, falling into corruption and to-morrow perhaps destroying one another. All this indicates heritage for the Temple; a little while, and the nations will demand sovereigns and pontiffs from among us; we shall be the equilibrium of the universe, arbiters and masters of the world.” The Templars had two doctrines; one was concealed and reserved to the leaders, being that of Johannism;[200] the other was public, being Roman Catholic doctrine. They deceived in this manner the enemies that they hoped to supplant. The Johannism of the adepts was the Kabalah of the Gnostics, but it degenerated speedily into a mystic pantheism carried even to idolatry of Nature and hatred of all revealed dogma. For their better success, and in order to secure partisans, they fostered the regrets of every fallen worship and the hopes of every new cultus, promising to all liberty of conscience and a new orthodoxy which should be the synthesis of all persecuted beliefs. They went even so far as to recognise the pantheistic symbolism of the grand masters of Black Magic, and the better to isolate themselves from obedience to a religion by which they were condemned beforehand, they rendered divine honours to the monstrous idol Baphomet,[201] even as of old the dissenting tribes had adored the Golden Calf of Dan and Bethel. Certain monuments of recent discovery and certain precious documents belonging to the thirteenth century offer abundant proof of all that is advanced here. Other evidences are concealed in the annals and beneath the symbols of Occult Masonry.