Galcerandus de Teus, who stated that the form of absolution in the Order was: "I pray God that He may pardon your sins as He pardoned St. Mary Magdalene and the thief on the cross"; but the witness went on to explain:
By the thief of which the head of the Chapter speaks, is meant, according to our statutes, that Jesus or Christ who was crucified by the Jews because he was not God, and yet he said he was God and the King of the Jews, which was an outrage to the true God who is in Heaven. When Jesus, a few moments before his death, had his side pierced by the lance of Longinus, he repented of having called himself God and King of the Jews and he asked pardon of the true God; then the true God pardoned him. It is thus that we apply to the crucified Christ these words: "as God pardoned the thief on the cross."<sup></sup>
Raynouard, who quotes this deposition, stigmatizes it as "singular and extravagant"; M. Matter agrees that it is doubtless extravagant, but that "it merits attention. There was a whole system there, which was not the invention of Galcerant." Eliphas Lévi provides the clue to that system and to the reason why Christ was described as a thief, by indicating the Cabalistic legend wherein He was described as having stolen the sacred Name from the Holy of Holies. Elsewhere he explains that the Johannites "made themselves out to