Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (important books to read .txt) 📗

third place, wecan't put down Chartres as the fourth, because obviously the Planhas to involve all the centers of Europe. Besides, we're leavingthe mystical trail to work out a political trail. The patternappears to be a sine wave, so we should go to the north of Germany.¡¥Beyond the water,' that is, beyond the Rhine, there's a city¡Xnota church¡Xof Our Lady. Near Danzig, there's a city of theVirgin¡Xin other words, Marienburg."

"Why meet atMarienburg?"

"Because it was the seatof the Teutonic Knights! Relations between the Templars and theTeutonics hadn't been poisoned like those between the Templars andthe Hospitalers, who had waited like vultures for the suppressionof the Temple in order to seize its wealth. The Teutonics werecreated in Palestine by German emperors as a counterbalance to theTemplars, but they were soon called north to stem the invasion ofPrussian barbarians. They succeeded so well that in the space oftwo centuries they became a state that spread out over all theBaltic lands. They moved between Poland, Lithuania, and Livonia.They founded KQnigsberg. They were defeated only once, byAlek-sandr Nevski in Estonia. About the time the Templars werearrested in Paris, the Teutonics established the capital of theirrealm at Marienburg. If there was any spiritual-knighthood plan ofworld conquest, the Templars and the Teutonics had divided thespheres of influence between them."

"You know what?" Belbosaid. "I'm with you. Now the fifth group. Where are thesePopelicans?"

"I don't know," Isaid.

"You disappoint me,Casaubon. Maybe we should ask Abu-lafia."

"No. Abulafia can onlyconnect facts, not create them. The Popelicans are a fact, not aconnection, and facts are the province of Sam Spade. Give me a fewdays."

"I'll give you twoweeks," Belbo said. "If, within two weeks, you don't hand thePopelicans over to me, you'll buy me a bottle of twelve-year-oldBallantine's."

Beyond my means. A weeklater I delivered the Popelicans to my greedy partners.

"It's all clear. Nowfollow me, because we must go back to the fourth century, toByzantium, when various movements of Manichean inspiration havealready spread throughout the Mediterranean. We begin with theArchontics, founded in Armenia by Peter of Capharbarucha¡Xand youhave to admit that's a pretty grand name. Anti-Semitic, theArchontics identify the Devil with Sabaoth, the god of the Jews,who lives in the seventh heaven. To reach the Great Mother of Lightin the eighth heaven, it is necessary to reject both Sabaoth andbaptism. All right?"

"Consider themrejected," Belbo said.

"But the Archontics arestill nice kids at heart. In the fifth century the Massalians comealong, and actually they survive until the eleventh century, inThrace. The Massalians are not dualists but monarchians, and theyhave dealings with the infernal powers, and in fact some texts callthem Borborites, from borboros, filth, because of the unspeakablethings they do."

"What do theydo?"

"The usual unspeakablethings. Men and women hold in the palm of their hand, and raise toheaven, their own ignominy, namely, sperm or menstruum, then eatit, calling it the Body of Christ. And if by chance a woman is madepregnant, at the opportune moment they stick a hand into her womb,pull out the embryo, throw it into a mortar, mix in some honey andpepper, and gobble it up."

"How revolting, honeyand pepper!" Diotallevi said.

"So those are theMassalians, also known as Stratiotics and Phibionites, orBarbelites, who are made up of Nasseans and Phemionites. But forother fathers of the church, the Barbelites were latter-dayGnostics, therefore dualists, who worshiped the Great MotherBarbelo, and their initiates in turn called the Borborites Hylics,or Children of Matter, as distinct from the Psychics, who werealready a step up, and the Pneumatics, who were the truly elect,the Rotary Club of the whole business. But maybe the Stratioticswere only the Hylics of the Mithraists."

"Sounds a bit confused,"Belbo said.

"Naturally. None ofthese people left records. The only things we know about them cometo us from the gossip of their enemies. But no matter. I'm justtrying to show you what a mess the Middle East was at the time. Andto set the stage for the Paulicians. These are the followers of acertain Paul, joined by some iconoclasts expelled from Albania.From the eighth century on, the Paulicians grow rapidly, the sectbecomes a community, the community a force, a political power, andthe emperors of Byzantium, beginning to get worried, send theimperial armies against them. The Paulicians extend as far as theconfines of the Arab world; they spread toward the Euphrates, andnorthward as far as the Black Sea. They establish colonies more orless everywhere, and we find them as late as the seventeenthcentury, when they are converted by the Jesuits, and somecommunities still exist today in the Balkans or thereabouts. Now,what do the Paulicians believe in? In God, One and Three, exceptthat the Demiurge defiantly created the world, with the unfortunateresults visible to all. The Paulicians reject the Old Testament,refuse the sacraments, despise the Cross, and don't honor theVirgin, because Christ was incarnated directly in heaven and passedthrough Mary as through a pipe. The Bogo-mils, who are partlyderived from them, say that Christ went in one ear of Mary and cameout the other, without her even noticing. The Paulicians are alsoaccused of worshiping the sun and the Devil and of mixingchildren's blood in their bread and the Eucharisticwine."

"Like everybodyelse."

"Those were the dayswhen, for a heretic, going to Mass was a torment. Might as wellbecome Moslem. Anyway, that's the sort of people they were. And I'mtelling you about them because, when the dualist heretics spreadthrough Italy and Provence, they are called¡Xto indicate thatthey're like the Paulicians¡XPopelicans, Publicans, Populicans, whogallice etiam dicuntur ab aliquis popelicant!"

"So there theyare."

"Yes, finally. ThePaulicians continue into the ninth century, driving the Byzantineemperors crazy until Emperor Basil vows that if he gets his handson their leader, Chrysocheir, who invaded the church of Saint Johnof God at Ephesus and watered his horse at the holy-waterfonts..."

"A familiar nastyhabit," Belbo said.

"...he'll shoot threearrows into his head. He sends the imperial army after Chrysocheir;they capture him, cut off his head, send it to the emperor, whoplaces it on a table¡Xor a trumeau, on a little porphyrycolumn¡Xand shoots three arrows, wham wham wham, into it, probablyan arrow for each eye and the third for the mouth."

"Nice folks," Diotallevisaid.

"They didn't do it to bemean," Belbo said. "It