The Knights Templar & The Circular Number Nine

The Knights Templar

There is a legend about the Order of the Knights Templar and the number nine. Guillaume de Tyre (c.1130-1185), who wrote some 50 years after the events he relates, says that for nine years there were only nine knights, and no new candidates were accepted ["Cumique iam annis noven in eo fuissent proposito, non nisi novem errant"]. This is not true (unless the order was founded earlier than we believe), evidently a few new members were admitted. This occurrence of nine, however, whether true or not, has been repeated again and again, and has become an established part of Templar legend.

Some scholars have suggested that nine was chosen because it is circular, which - according to number symbolism – would make it "incorruptible." I will show you here why that is unlikely. If number nine really played a role for the first Templars, it is very improbable that it was because of its circularity.

Let's first see what circularity means.

Circular Numbers

The number 9 has special properties.

If you add the digits of a number that is divisible by 9, the sum will be divisible by 9 too. Example: 63 => 6+3=9, or 16023870 => 1+6+0+2+3+8+7+0=27, which is divisible by 9.

If you get a sum that contains more than one digit, you can repeat the procedure, 2+7=9, and then you will always get 9 in the end.

It is more general than that:

A number is divisible by 9 if, and only if, the sum of its digits is divisible by 9.

Or say it like this: for every multiple of 9, the sum of its digits is divisible by 9.

This property is called circularity; 9 is a circular number. In number magic, it is sometimes referred to as pure, or incorruptible. This, I claim, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of circularity. This property has no legitimate place at all in number magic.

As I will soon explain, the circularity of 9 is a relatively new addition to number magic. It was not known by the Pythagoreans during Antiquity, and there is a perfectly good reason for that: they had no number 9!

Let us assume that we use Roman numerals. Three plus four equals seven (III+IV=VIII) just as we are used to; and three times four equals twelve (IIIxIV=XII). Addition and multiplication work in the same way as we are used to, no matter how we express the numbers. That is to say, addition and multiplication are operations with numbers. In the same way, seventeen is a prime number; however you express it, because the property of being a prime is a property of numbers. That applies for many other operations and properties as well.

But what would circularity be if we use Roman numerals? IX times IX is LXXXI. There is no meaning in an expression like "the sum of the digits of the result." There are no digits. Circularity is not a property of numbers, but of the way we organise or represent numbers. Using so-called Arabic numerals and the decimal system, nine (then written 9) becomes circular.

Are there other circular numbers?

Yes, indeed, they are infinitely many. In the decimal system there is the numbers 3 and 9, but provided we use a positional system, we can make any number circular by choosing a suitable base.

In the decimal system 10 is the base, 9 is circular.

In the binary system 2 is the base, 1 is circular.

If we choose 5 as the base, 4 is circular.

The last digit in a positional system is always circular. You can make any whole positive number, n, circular by creating a positional system with the base n+1.

Arabic numerals, including the zero, and the decimal system came to Europe during the Middle Ages. The Greeks of Antiquity did not know them; they had no 9 (although they had a number nine) and they cannot have known about the circularity of 9.

Number magic is based on the assumption of an intimate relationship between numbers and the structure of reality. To be meaningful in such a context, properties of numbers must be based on numbers as such, not on circumstantially created relative qualities. That number 9 is circular is not, or should not be, relevant for number magic. When it is, it must be seen as a result of a misunderstanding of the involved concepts.

Back to the Templars

As we have seen, nine becomes circular when we use Arabic numerals and the decimal system. Even if scholars at the time of the Templars started to learn about the system from the Arabs, it was not established in southern Europe until later. So, while Arabic numerals, the decimal system and the circularity of 9 can - in theory - have been known to Guillaume de Tyre, it is not likely to have been his (or his source's) motive to elaborate on 9 as a symbol. Even less so when the Order of the Temple was founded, half a century before Guillaume's writing.

Originally there happened to be nine knights, but they were hardly nine for such a long time. That Guillaume (or someone he got it from) "invented" a story including the number nine is likely, and that they based it on number magic or symbolism is probable too; it was a living part of the culture of their time. There is no reason to involve circularity, however, for millennia nine had been magic in its own right. The Sumerians held it as a number of perfection and completeness, and in subsequent cultures it was often seen as an extension of three (three times three), the number of divinity. The Muses of Antiquity were nine; in Christianity, nine is the order of angels.

Read my whole series of articles about the Knights Templar. I list the articles here, in the best order for reading; it is not the order in which they were published.

1. The Order of the Temple - The Knights Templar

2. The Mysteries of the Knights Templar

3. Symbols of the Knights Templar & Templars in Fiction: Literature and Film

4. The Knights Templar & The Circular Number Nine

Related articles:

Two tricks based on the circularity of 9

The Number 666 & The Essence of the Beast

(This article is based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo and in my e-book “Numericon”, 2019.)

Copyright © 2008, 2019, 2021 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.

Here you can find my articles about History, and here are my articles about the Knights Templar.

Interested in history, legends and myths, join my community History, Myths, Legends & Mysteries (be45).

You find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic, here.