Replies to post #20519 on Jesus__Man, God, Alien

[wall_rus]

There's no definitive answer, so your guess is as good as mine but......here's another clue......

For the first nine years of their existence, they appear to have achieved little. They did not recruit any new members. They lived in poverty. But it was during this period that they excavated under the foundations of the Temple.

At the end of nine years, Hugh de Payens went to Rome to have his order established and recognised, and from that time on, the Knights Templar became very rich, very suddenly. They established castles and temples all over Europe and Great Britain. They deposited their wealth in various centres, so that they became the bankers of Europe, establishing a system of promissory notes which predates the modern system of bank cheques. They financed kingdoms. They also did business with the Moslems, and became proficient in Arabic language and customs.