I'm writing this in response to the comments on the last blog between Pegasus and myself. My friend Pegasus could best be described as a multi-faith kabbalist scholar and mystic, and so this essay is dedicated to him. I'm also considering sending this to another friend, Revd. Phil Edwards, who is a relatively high-ranking CoE minister and head of a local university's multi-faith chaplaincy - because I'd value his opinions.
Please note that I'm not a biblical scholar, I'm a Pagan who knows his mythology, so I may get some things wrong. If I do, please tell me. I welcome correction.
Hell, if nothing else it makes a change from all the sex-obsessed stuff I've been writing lately!
Warning!
In the highly unlikely event that this blog is being read by a fundamentalist Christian who believes that every word in the Bible is literal truth - stop reading now! You are going to find the rest of this essay very offensive indeed. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Where I'm Coming From
The chance of finding a Pagan who was brought up that way, and especially one of my sort of age, is rare. Most of us were brought up either Christian or secular, and adopted Paganism when we eventually found it. In my own case my parents were not religious, but I was sent to church Infant and Junior schools. I would probably have been sent to secular schools, but there weren't any - so I was brainwashed! (I don't use that term lightly)
Later, and in common with other young Pagans, I rejected the church outright. The problem with doing this is that Jesus tends to get rejected along with it, and a study of Jesus reads like a text-book version of the life of a Solar Hero or Corn God. It's a pattern which repeats with variations all over Europe, the Middle East and probably the rest of the world.
I still reject the authority of the church, but throwing Jesus out with it brings to mind visions of babies and bathwater!
The Life of Jesus
There are two Jesuses (if that's the correct plural). The first is a Jewish human being, political activist and preacher born sometime around 4AD, the son of a carpenter and his wife. The second is the mythological Jesus whose story is told in the Bible.
Are they not one and the same? Well, sort of! The two blend, one into the other and back again.
We must remember that what we read in the Bible is not a diary. The earliest gospel (Mark) was written around 70AD, roughly 40 years after Jesus' death and immediately after a civil war in Palestine. Memories change and writings are alterable. Even the writings we have aren't complete. There were many "gospels" rejected by the early church and others only recently discovered
Early Christianity was promulgated by Paul of Tarsus. I don't know his reasons for doing so, but what he put forward seems tailor-made to appeal to the Pagan peoples he encountered by virtue of the similarities between his own hero and the pre-existent local gods. It was even common at the time (as often happens in India nowadays) for people to accept Jesus alongside their own gods because he fitted in so well!
Suspicious? So am I. It does seem awfully convenient that the one-and-only-God's one-and-only-Son should be so similar to, say Adonis, Hercules, Balder, Lugh, Dionysos, Cú Chulainn, Krishna and a great deal of others.
The salient points of Jesus' life, which we'll look at in more detail can be broken up as follows:
- Miraculous Birth (and relative unimportance of a human father)
- Miraculous Childhood Feats
- Period of Withdrawal (Initiation)
- Ministry: A Life of Miraculous Acts
- Betrayal and Sacrificial Death
- Resurrection
The Miraculous Birth
Jesus was special even before he was born. Paternally he was of the House of David, ie. Jewish royalty (Luke 3:23-31). That's a fascinating claim considering Jewish birth is passed through the maternal line.
The most well-known story, of course, is the virgin birth. The story states that Mary was visited by God in the guise of a spirit who impregnated her. She then gave birth to the infant Jesus without ever having had sexual relations with her husband. There are arguments that "virgin" meant an unmarried woman - one who had never subjugated herself to a man. These are interesting but, as we'll see, unnecessary. The miraculous birth by non-human paternity is necessary and very, very important. So is the early threat to his life by Herod
It should also be noted that Jesus had to be born at Bethlehem, which translates as House of Bread. In other words a centre of the worship of a Corn God.
Okay, let's compare:
Dionysos is the child of a human woman, Semele and the God, Zeus. His half-brother Hercules also has a human mother Alcmene. Lleu Llaw Gyffes has no known father, his mother produces him "by accident" when proving her maidenhood. Merlin is the child of a human woman and a "demon", while King Arthur's conception is brought about by an act of magic which also indirectly causes the death of his father. Adonis/Tammuz has a birth shrouded in mystery, his mother is turned into a myrrh tree, but who his father is is anybody's guess.
The story of Osiris is long and complicated but one could boil it down to the idea that he becomes his own father - the ultimate in magical rebirth!
Most of these characters are royal in descent, particularly on the human side and definitely divine on the paternal side. Their "human" fathers, where they exist at all, take little part in their upbringing. Lleu is brought up by his uncle Gwydion; Dionysos spends his childhood with the Hyades and his granny, Rhea. The youthful Merlin is the "child with no father" and in turn brings up the young Arthur. The lack of a father figure goes right back to ancient, matriarchal (and unprovable except by extrapolation) tribal society where paternity is highly uncertain. The most important male role-model in a young boy's life was usually his uncle. This pattern was kept as a tradition amongst Celtic peoples right up into Roman times and beyond.
They were often hidden away as children to protect them from a specific danger. In the case of Dionysos, his stepmother, Hera is the one after him. The same goes for Hercules. The baby Adonis is hidden in a box for his own protection, as is Lleu (and a few others were too - qv. Perseus)
Miraculous Childhood Feats
Only one gospel features an early childhood feat for Jesus. Luke 2 tells us about his being found teaching in the temple at the age of 12. It's surprising that only one gospel mentions it, but not surprising that it is mentioned. The proof of divinity by means of a miraculous act is an important part of the overall pattern.
The child Merlin divines two underground dragons which are preventing a castle being built and, almost coincidentally, predicts a major war. Hercules strangles snakes while in his cradle and Dionysos shape-shifts to avoid the Titans who are going to dismember him. Lleu learns all the perfections of humanity to become Llaw Gyffes (a long story!) and the Irish hero Cú Chulainn fights and kills a vicious guard dog with his bare hands.
Period of Withdrawal (Initiation)
Between the birth of Jesus and his 30th year, except the one event mention in Luke, there is no record. Many people have theorised about what he did during these missing years, without any real result. The mythological pattern works well though.
Most of our Corn Gods and Solar Heroes have some kind of missing period which they spend learning, training or coming to terms with the reality of their own existence as demi-gods. Merlin famously becomes insane and lives in the forest among the animals. Dionysos disappears to Phrygia to be trained by Rhea. Arthur's upbringing by Merlin is as much a period of training as any other and Cú Chulainn's training in the arts of love and war by Scatha are in the same vein.
Adonis spends his youth hidden by Persephone, the Goddess of Death, who doesn't want to give him back to the world.
The moment of Jesus' initiation is obviously his baptism by John, after which he spends a period of purification before starting his ministry.
This pattern reverberates through Arthur's pulling the sword from the stone (as Siegfried does from the branstock) and his drawing together of his court, Lleu's finally being given a name and arms by his mother and the beginning of his kingship and with Dionysos, who is struck with madness by Hera but cured by Rhea who sends him out on his own ministry.
Ministry: A Life of Miraculous Acts.
The miracles of Jesus are too many to name in any detail here. Most people know about turning water into wine, driving out demons and raising the dead. Miraculous behaviour is definitely not restricted to Jesus, though.
Hercules has his 12 labours, Merlin has his multiple acts of magic, Dionysos has his ministry of the vine which covers umpteen different myths and a great deal of land! Krishna picks up mountains and Cú Chulainn defends Ulster
Betrayal and Sacrificial Death
By far the most significant points of a Corn God or Solar Hero's story are his birth and his death. His death usually contains three significant aspects: it is unnatural, it is entered into fatalistically and it is brought about by a betrayal.
The story of Jesus has these points well covered via Judas and the crucifixion, even though the Koran and a few others, insist on Jesus' survival. That's a consideration for another time, but it can be said that to be accepted (ie. fit the pattern) Jesus had to be betrayed and sacrificed.
King Arthur is betrayed by his son/nephew Mordred to his death, although he is also earlier betrayed by his wife, Guinevere and best friend, Lancelot. I could go on about the merging and splitting of the myth but we'll be getting off the point.
Merlin is betrayed by Nimue but doesn't die, he's imprisoned forever instead. Adonis is betrayed by Aphrodite in favour of Ares who kills him in the form of a boar. Dionysos is torn to pieces at a very young age by his stepmother's cohorts, but stuck back together later, like Osiris.
Cú Chulainn kills his brother/lover Ferdiad at the behest of Queen Maedbh, interestingly reversing the pattern, although he is later killed by Lugaid after being forced to break a taboo by an old woman.
My favourite version is of Lleu Llaw Gyffes who is betrayed by his lover, Blodeuedd into giving away the secret of how he can be killed. This she gives to her lover, Gronw Pebr, who kills him according to the given formula. For a biblical scholar, it's a bit like the Samson and Delilah story.
It's unusual, but not unknown, for a male to be the betrayer in any of the myths, but the killer is always male and can be seen to represent the "dark twin" of the hero. Arthur has Mordred, Lleu has Gronw Pebr, Jesus has Pilate.
There is a Norse god of light, Baldur who fits the pattern very precisely. His name is Baldur, he is betrayed by his Cousin Loki - in the form of a giantess - and is killed by his brother, the blind god of darkness, Hod.
Finally - Resurrection
After three days Jesus rises again, appears some important people and then ascends to heaven. Funnily enough, he's not the only one, although usually the Solar Hero is promised to rise again rather than actually doing it.
Merlin isn't dead, he's trapped (symbolically dead) awaiting release and King Arthur is taken to Avalon on the point of death in order to return when the country needs him. Baldur will be reborn to begin the world anew after the Ragnarok.
Other heroes don't have a specifically promised rebirth, but their story begins again every Winter Solstice - the traditional birthday of all Solar Heroes.
To conclude:
The tangling of the historical Jesus and the mythological, Solar Hero/Corn God pattern is inextricable, and so it should be. The church's denial of all that came before was a simple claim to political power by means of propaganda and Jesus' Pagan origins were deliberately forgotten. It's easier to control the minds and hearts of the masses if your god is the only one rather than one of many.
The question now remains whether the Pagans can accept Jesus as a demi-god (rather than a threat) equal to Krishna, Merlin, Lleu Llaw Gyffes and a great deal of others I've not mentioned? Similarly, will modern Christians be able to accept that Jesus is not alone, but is one among many as the earliest followers believed.
It's quite common for Pagans to follow one or two patron Gods (no prizes for guessing who does that!) whilst acknowledging all the others. Is it possible for anyone else?
Love,
Seán
25 comments:
Bravo! A fantastic post, I would say your best so far! I have read a lot of the various associations and similarities you have mentioned before in other places, but not so cohesively put together.
If you really want to explore the miraculous childhood feats I highly recommend Thomas’ Gospel Of The Infancy Of Jesus Christ. It is here that Jesus is depicted actually killing a boy and causing an entire village to go blind. Far fetched it may seem but supported by the Gospel of Philip from Nag Hammadi. If the various gnostic gospels and other supporting texts are to be believed then his first miracles were occuring at 5 and not 12 as is so widely documented.
A further theory that has had a lot of debate, even with my theology tutors, is the possibility of the young Jesus having spent time with his uncle in apprenticeship aboard his ship, sailing the mediterannean and also possibly going to Britain trading tin. Again many could scoff at the notion, but Cornwall is the only place in the world where statues depicting the teenage Jesus can be found.
Again, cracking post :D
Phenomenal post! I agree with every point. You can go further - bringing in Isis as the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Krishna as another Incarnation of the Word etc etc etc. You can bring in the Shaoshyant of Zoroastrianism (the original Messiah) as well as Mithras etc etc. The whole point of the Christian Mysteries is that they recast all that came before in one enormous, overarching, unifying narrative which located Royalty of the Soul in everyone.
You can even cite Paul himself who, in Colossians and Corinthians talks about a 'hidden wisdom' (for 'hidden' read 'occult') which existed before Creation but which was kept from the majority until Christ's coming:
"...whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God: Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is the Christ in you, the hope of glory..."
COLOSSIANS 1:24-27
and
"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory."
CORINTHIANS 2:7-8
I think you put it really well in talking about the tension between accepting Christ as Pagan and seeing him as a threat. This is the tragedy of history. Christianity was supposed to bring everyone together but because of its early history of persecution at the hands of just about everyone its Elders ended up perpetuating a myth of its lack of indebtedness to anyone. Thus it denied its roots and actively suppressed them. But, I maintain, without an understanding of its roots its meaning cannot be truly understood. Nevertheless, you will find both Augustine and Origen saying that what Christianity represented existed before Christ's appearance but received its most syncretic and unifying expression through him...
But because of Christianity's suppression of Paganism a completely understandable schism and state of mutual hostility has arisen between the two. Its exactly the same with the mutual antagonism between Christianity and Judaism even though, I would maintain, the esoteric doctrines of Kabbalah are inherent in the Christ story (Essenic Judaism is perhaps the key here as the Essenes were said to be Pythagorean and Kabbalah influenced. Indeed there is a famous Essene mentioned in the history books called Menachem the Essene who Kabbalist tradition identifies as a source of much of their wisdom)...
Without a synthesis, we can't be complete. Christ is absolutely 100% a Corn/Solar Hero, hence the parables of the sower of seed and his self-description as 'the Light of the World'. Even Christmas is a Light Festival, not as is usually said, Saturnalia but the Roman Festival of Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun... And if you look at the transformation of Greek Art from the Olympians to Christ you will see them simply adapt Apollo for JC...
There's no way Christianity's roots couldn't be Pagan, just as they couldn't have been Judaic. As I've said elsewhere, we need to stop seeing religions and spiritualities as separate entities and start looking at them as part of one whole continuous flow - which is what they always were. An enormous influence on the development of Christianity was, for instance, Alexandria, the Hellenic centre of learning located in the heart of Egypt where all human culture in the known world met. It was near here, in Heliopolis, the centre of monotheistic Ra worship, that the Holy Family were said to have rested. Hence 'out of Egyot have I brought my son'... Equally, there were more Jews in Alexandria during Christ's time than were in Israel, not to mention Zoroastrians (referenced in Matthew as the Wise Men of the East, the Magi), followers of the Egyptian Mystery Schools and even Buddhists and Hindus...
For some reason, though, it was through Israel that the Christ Revelation came and it was the Christian Narrative/Myth which unified all these traditions. So its unlikely there wasn't SOMETHING in it... Doubtless the transformation of the Christ story from the Gospel of the Hebrews used by the Ebionites (St Matthew without the opening Chapters) into the cosmic Gospel of John (or Mary) involved the collision of the Christ story with a host of other cultures and, doubtless, the increasing Divinity of Christ came about through non-Jewish influences...
Fascinating stuff...
One day, I hope, we will find a synthesis and Christ will be restored as the Solar Hero for all mankind (or at least the West) he was supposed to be. For that to happen, Christianity must embrace its Pagan roots and Paganism must embrace its role in the Christian Story...
Great work, Sean. And thanks for the dedication! Nice try at defining me but in the end, its all down to the White Robe!
BTW the tin trading story is connected to Glastonbury. The tin trading uncle is Joseph of Arimathea, who is said to have brought the young Jesus to the area on his travels. Hence Blake's question 'And did those feet in ancient times walk among England's mountains green.'...
Another theory is that Christ trained in India, largely down to scrolls allegedly found in a monastery in Kashmir or somesuch place describing his time there.
Personally, I prefer to go with the hints in the Bible itself, which suggest Egypt and Israel as the source of Christ's spirituality. Given Egypt's role as a spiritual centre with links to the oldest civilisations in the West this makes a lot of sense to me, as do the enormous similarities between what we know about the Essenes and Christ's teachings.
An even more interesting thesis I have found recently is that Christ was seeking a return to the practises of the First Temple and not the Second, which was regarded as corrupt by many Jews, being the result of the efforts of Roman puppet Herod. This might link JC to the Essenes again as they withdrew from mainstream society because they believed Judaism had become polluted by non-Jewish influences. The Essenes were hostile to the Sadducees and the Pharisees who they felt had perverted the purity of their Faith... Sounds familiar!
Nevertheless it seems odd that the Essenes are never mentioned in the Gospels or even much in the history books, unless the Christians, once again, didn't want to acknowledge their debt... Again, this makes sense, as Paul was expelled from the original followers of Jesus, the Ebionites, who saw him as a heretic for seeking to convert Gentiles. If the Ebionites emerged from the Essenes after Christ and Paul didn't like them, no wonder they were written out...
And Horus was raised in exile with his mother Isis and a surrogate father in the Egyptian delta, after Set tried to kill him as a baby. He was born as the star Sirius rose above his birthplace. But he actually flies up to it and merges with it, not even JC pulled that one off!
Of the miracles I thought Dionysos' water into wine one on Jan 6 (old xmas) was a crowd puller.
According to Iamblichus the Egyptians had a hieroglyph of legs walking on water, which meant 'impossible'
Some bits of the Sermon on the Mount are found in Egyptian writing too.
The Holy Sepulchre, JC's alleged deathplace was built over a temple to Venus on a hill with a cave under it.
His ressurection is pure Osiris.
His descent into hell to save souls is very Dionysos / Orpheus.
His ascent is a bit like the Horus trick described earlier, but in an Elijah endtail type way.
I think one could easily reduce the myths to Osiris-Horus and Dionysos, within a Semitic Baal cult context, the rest being just archetypal parallels.
Which would make sense as only places like Jerusalem had anything like what became Judaism, the countriside was riddled with paganism, with the south very Egyptianised and the north around Galilee very very Hellenised...
The only thing I'd disagree with would be that it involved a Sun cult, I think that was a Roman distortion, Horus may have been solar (and had parallels to other solar gods) but Osiris was Chthonic, and Dionysos can't be tied down as a mere Apollonian Solar figure. Moreover it was also a Goddess cult from early on, with the Virgin Mary the heaven queen and the Magadelene the underworld queen, hence her presence at the resurrection.
All facinating stuff. Thanks,
Steve
The idea that Paul invented Christianinity is traditional, his account certainly contains Kabbalism,
and is the earliest written account we have.
BUT he may have been drawing on other older material, such as of the hypothetical Nazerenes, and there's also Jewish Christianity (and possibly even Greek Gnostic Christianity) of around the same period that is different to his view.
Of the Gospels, only Luke is particularly Pauline, Matthew is more Jewish, and Mark is said to have more Egyptian elements, with John the oddest one having a lot of Greek Mysticism. While at the same time they tell the same story.
For me it's as if there was a battle going on and a synthesis was made of the strands under Pauline guidance, as they were the pro Establishment. Some might say Paul was hijacking the movement, certainly there's evidence some more anti-Establishment disciples thought so.
Its hard to tell which strand was the oldest, scholars have different views, but I'd say the pagan version was older than all, so its academic.
There are Jewish tales of a magician called Joshua, whose mother was called Mariam. And interestingly he was a Jewish mystic who went pagan. His beliefs seemingly Canaanite-Egyptian. But he existed in BC times and was long dead by the 'Christian period' when the Dionysian stuff first appears.
A Hellenic rewriting of an old tale?
I suspect original Christianity had many layers of evolution. But its all speculative really as we dont have enough evidence.
Steve
I'd also argue for a third level the pagan Sol Invictus cult of Rome which created Original Roman bCatholicism by using Pauline Christianity as a mask. This is where the patriarchal solar bias comes from I suggest.
Bloody Romans......
Steve
I knew this one would spark a lot of a comments - good stuff im loving reading it all!
Just to add Sean - you might want to look more cloesly at what is known as the Pelagius controversy. During the 4th century Augustine was in hot debate with a former bad and converted monk Pelagius on the nature of grace. Amongst that heated discussion over the many years this went on many other issues where raised which are worth analysis. Augustine is very much responsible for the groundwork of much of the latter Christian practice which veers very heavily away from the more gnostic teachings of JC. If Pelagius had prevailed there is no mpossibility that the Christianity we know now would simply not exist. Argued hotly, I have always taken the position that Augustine is responsible for turning Christianity into a thing of fear, corruption and power. He took peoples faith and essentially told they have to earn Gods grace and that it is not given to everyone whereas Pelagius found this a ridiculous notion and said we were all born with Gods Grace - but what we do with it defines who we are.
Sorry, not a bad and converted monk - that was supposed to a bard and converted monk. LOL!
Awesome post!
Regarding Daniel's comment, The Gospel of Philip is one of four books forbidden by the Romans to be included in the bible. The Gnostics did include these books which gives their view of Christianity (or Gnostic Christianity) a completely different view from what Orthodox Christians believe.
I've often felt that some of the 'mantras' ascribed to Jesus, and I'm thinking particularly of 'do unto others as you would be done by' here, as well as 'love thy neighbour as thyself' are highly "pagan" in outlook.
'Modern' Christianity of course bears little resemblance to the teachings of Christ, IMO. Certainly I have found little compelling evidence for many of the behavioural modifiers espoused by 'religious leaders' (I'm thinking particularly of Catholicism, with the Pope and his dictats re contraception, homosexuality etc) and attributed to 'God'. Your use of the word 'brainwashing' is, I feel, a very accurate reflection of what occurs - children are indoctrinated into this from birth, and even if they lose their 'faith' there is a fair chance that the behavioural patterns which they were taught by that faith will still have a hold over them long into adulthood - the classic example being the guilt felt by lapsed Catholics whenever they 'commit a sin'.
A very intriguing piece Sean, which once again demonstrates the remarkable similarities of the various diety figures in differing cultures.
"Lawyer Girl"
Daniel
I agree with you 500% about Augustine's bad influence on Christianity. He made a religion about unconditional love into a conditional one and came up with the ridiculous notion of Original Sin which, he believed, was transmitted through semen during lovemaking (!!!). So it was Augustine who really cemented the idea of sexuality as ultimate sin and all humanity as inheriting the Sin of Adam largely, it emerges, out of a mistranslation by Jerome in the Vulgate which suggested that all mankind fell with Adam.
Significantly, though, it was only the Roman Church which ran with Augustine and Original Sin. The Greeks were having none of it. In fact, in discussing Christianity, its worth remembering that we are talking about the Western Churches - ie Catholicism and its offspring, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism etc all of whom inherited but modified all the negative stuff Rome had set up. The Greeks kept to a much more Mystical, Light-orientated Panentheistic approach AND they kept the doctrine of THEOSIS, which believes that mankind's ultimate destiny is to become Divine (something which got you a date with the Stake in the West after about 1200).
Pelagius, BTW, was a Brit, did you know that? Makes you proud, doesn't it?
:-)
Re Paul inventing Christianity - well, true and not true. Paul was at the fountainhead of what later became Christianity as we know it. It was he who brought it to the Gentiles and tirelessly proselytised across the known world. But we don't know how many of Paul's Epistles are actually written by Paul, nor do we know how doctored they are. Moreover, all we have of him are his Epistles, which were written for place he could NOT be. We have no idea what his preaching in person was about!
Theories abound about his allegiance. Elaine Pagels thought he was much closer to the Gnostics than we think but that the Church edited him to make him fit with them (actually Greek Orthodox Christianity has a lot of similarities with Gnosticism). He clearly had connections with all sorts of different movements and had access to 'hidden wisdom'... Who knows? What is clear is that he was clearly a major figure as everyone wanted to claim lineage from him. The Gnostic Bishop Valentinus claimed him as one of his own as did the non-Gnostic Churches. Whoever claimed Pauline descent clearly felt they wielded authority drawn from the highest source.
Amusingly, its thought that the actual heir to Christ was not Paul or even Peter by James the Just which, according to the Gospel of Thomas, was the one 'for whom heaven and earth were made'.
Re all the references to pre-Christian narratives in Egypt etc... All are bang on... But I would maintain that the whole point of Christianity was that it recast all of this in human terms accessible to all. As I mentioned before, the Egyptian Mysteries of Horus, Isis, Osiris etc were all available as legends to most but only to the Royal Family and Priesthoods in any more profound way. Indeed, the Incarnation of Horus as each Pharoah was a way of legitimising and deifying the Royal Leader. Aristocratic Egyptians hoped for resurrection through Osiris but the bulk of the Egyptians were little more than slaves.
Christianity's initial appeal was to the underclass. It was anti-establishment and offered the power to be Sons of God/ to 'be like him' (cf John) to every human being, regardless of gender, class or race (cf Paul 'there is no Jew or Gentile etc... you are all one in Jesus Christ'). Moreover, it placed Love between human beings as the primary energy of God. This was all new. Moreover, the whole involvement of ordinary humans in the Godhead from Mary conceiving through the Holy Spirit to Mary Magdelene communing with Angels, meant that the notion of the Divinity Within was true for everyone. Its worth remembering that the Nativity story includes three shepherds as well as Three Wise Men. In keeping with a revolutionary, egalitarian faith, this was as it should have been.
Moreover, when it burst upon the scene, the Religious world was in a bit of a crisis. The Eleusinian Mysteries had been cancelled and reinstated and had lost its original purity through Roman intervention, Egypt had been Hellenised and then Romanised, with the Mysteries also not being at their best. In Greece, the old Gods were increasingly not being revered with the best minds - Plato, Socrates etc - all believing in Monotheism and Reincarnation. Even in Israel there were divisions between Saduccees, Pharisees and Essenes and those who worshipped in the Second Temple and those who hankered after the ways of the First...
Early Christianity picked up and ran with all of these, transforming them into a unified (and unifying) syncretic narrative which clearly appealed to a vast amount of people. Its biggest competitor was Mithras which it clearly absorbed and transcended - probably because Mithraism was a highly masculine cult with an enormous military following (thus women were excluded) AND because the Messiah figure was still a God, while Christ was both Man AND God (thus the Divine Within won out)...
What became of Christianity is another story. How it was turned from a revolutionary faith to a reactionary one, from one belonging to the underdog to one of the establishment we all know. How having embraced women it rejected them, how it began as a Heaven-directed religion to a Hell-obsessed one, a religion of Love to a religion of Hate and Fear, a religion of Liberation to a religion of Oppression - all these we know... Its appalling...
Eric Fromm is very interesting on the Original Sin front in terms of this process. He shows brilliantly how, in adopting Original Sin, the Church reversed the whole point of Christ so as to paralyse the population. In a nutshell, they made everyone responsible for Christs' Crucixion where the whole point of it was to remove the stain of sin (indeed, one could even say completely erase the whole concept!). Thus Christ died for our sins so WE OWE HIM - ergo do what the Pope says! With Original Sin Augustine and the Church made everyone born AFTER Christ's death responsible for the Crufixion retroactively! Thus the crippling psychological guilt of 2000 years we are trying to shed. Brilliant move by the Church! No danger of insurrection from a population feeling guilty for their sinfulness and in need of Priestly help...
I sometimes think that it is fitting that Rome has Christ suffering on the Cross as its symbol. They've kept him there for 2000 years, not allowing him to come down, be healed, be resurrected. As an archetype its paralysing and destructive and has held us up spiritually for millenia, in the main part because it stops the Christ narrative mid-way. Thus we can't proceed to the end point which is Resurrection and Ascenscion for everyone.
The Cathars said that ' one should smash a crucifix as a father would smash the gallows upon which his son was hung'. They spotted the sadism inherent in it and deplored its celebration of torture, pain and misery. Wierdly, they shared that view with Bill Hicks, who also pointed out how using the instrument of Christ's death as a central image was not a great way of greeting the Messiah on the Second Coming!
>The question now remains whether the Pagans can accept Jesus as a demi-god (rather than a threat) equal to Krishna, Merlin, Lleu Llaw Gyffes and a great deal of others I've not mentioned? Similarly, will modern Christians be able to accept that Jesus is not alone, but is one among many as the earliest followers believed.
It's quite common for Pagans to follow one or two patron Gods (no prizes for guessing who does that!) whilst acknowledging all the others. Is it possible for anyone else?<
Here's an inspirational passage from Simone Weil's LETTER TO A PRIEST on this subject (Weil was a secular Jew who became obsessed with Christ but could not bring herself to join the Church because of its racism, fascism & denigration of other cultures:
"Every time that a man has, with a pure heart, called upon Osiris, Dionysus, Krishna, Buddha, the Tao etc, the Son of God has answered him by sending the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has acted upon his soul, not by inciting him to abandon his religious tradition, but by bestowing upon him light - and in the best of cases the fullness of light - in the heart of that same religious tradition."
I heartily recommend this piece of work, ISBN 0415267676. It unites everything we are talking about here in an incredibly powerful form, managing to be a defence of Christ and an attack on Christianity at the same time...
Hi Pegasus
I think something the Church needs to address if it ever to recover some semblance of truth within itself is to stop it's internal worries and fear over the debate of Christology, or the origin of Christ. For some reason they are too scared to actually see him as a man and feel the need to perpetuate him as a divinity. I have suspicion that this is part of the reason that the image of him being crucified has remained such an overused icon - it help's to keep peoples disassociation of him from being an actual man.
Persoanlly I do see him as a demi-god in the sense of man elevated to divinity. He has been through the many cycles of his life and "chose" to go through one more cycle before "ascension" or transmigration into the otherworld.
To quote wikipedia for the concept of a bodhisattva
"it mainly refers to a being that compassionately refrains from entering nirvana in order to save others."
All of this is suggestive of Jesus originally as a man, which undermines the Church concept of Jesus purely as divine. Any discerning reader of Christendoms patristic period quickly realises that all of what we call Christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus and all to do with the quite twisted opinions of men of power at the time. The original priests, the founding fathers refused to take anything literally and felt the need to interpret, and in so doing corrupted the core of Christianity. Augustine with his original sin worked to ensure the subjugation of the masses which then allowed all those who followed to interpret and tweak the faith without the questioning of the masses who by now were living in fear of not being let in because of Gods genetic curse.
When all else fails, when no matter the approach the stubborness of inbuilt Christianity is the wall that you face, seek to remind those who should know that in Genesis 3:22
"Then the Lord God said "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"
The Gods are many, as are those such as Jesus. The patristic founding fathers thought there was great need to remove and subjugate this idea as much as possible, and succeeded for the most part. I fear Christianity is beyond repair and the only hope for it is the next cycle of death and rebirth of the solar hero.
A great post, Daniel. I agree with pretty much everything you say.
And I should point out that I hope me posts about Christ & Christianity are not in any way suggesting that I think they are great and we should all be Christians now. What I AM saying is that we need to look at the points of Light within almost every tradition, however enfeebled or corrupt they may be now. Christianity, like Islam and Judaism, are now, in my view, religions if not of the past, at best in decline and shadows of their former selves. What I respond to is the vitality of their Mystical Traditions which have essentially been dead or suppressed for 300-700 years but which are undergoing a revival, largely among non-followers of the religion now.
I said earlier that when Christianity burst on the scene the pre-Christian world was in crisis spiritually. The same was with Islam's arrival - the Arabic world was in a mess spiritually with no revelation of its own to compare with Judaism & Christianity. Similarly Sikhism grew out of problems within Islam and Hinduism. Basically all major leaps forward in human Consciousness come out of the ashes of what came before. Everything moves in cycles. We have spoken about how the Mysteris of Paganism fed into Christianity, well whatever is to come next will emerge out of the Mysteries of all the religions, their core, and perhaps feed into something new.
So I believe that Christianity in its ORGANISED form is as dead as you say, certainly in the West. People in the Middle Ages were saying that the Church was dead spiritually so there's no reason to suspect its any better now. The Church survived, not because of its spiritual beauty but because of its material power and its ability to exploit the psyches and inner minds of its followers in the way you describe... But the texts still remained and so the Spirit could still be accessed in some way.
For me, it would be a great mistake though to dismiss the last 2000 years of Christianity, Judaism and Islam as some sort of massive wrong turn or disaster. The history and politics of these religions are there for all to see. Terrible things have happened but also extraordinary things. Ultimately their function has been served - they have helped shape a new Consciousness which we take for granted now. They answered an immense psychic and spiritual need in their day but, like everything, their energy has faded, atrophied and is now not helpful. But to dismiss them is an immense error as you would have to say that the whole experience of the Western World in terms of Spiritual Expression has been worthless and that can't be the case. Fascinatingly, the very values we use to attack Christianity, for instance, are the values Christ taught - tolerance, love, respect for human beings, non-judgmentalism, recognising the humanity of other cultures, forgiveness, an end to legalist religion etc. Similarly, and I realise that this is going to be controvertial, our appreciation of other cultures and indeed pre-Christian cultures is, whether we like it or not, dependent upon and filtered through the change in Consciousness Christianity has brought about. Therefore, in my admittedly personal view, we can't go back to Paganism as a culture because any Paganism we have now would inevitably be informed by everything else that has happened since 33AD. But we CAN release all that was positive and special about Paganism so as to create a more holistic, rounded and positive vision of our modern understanding of things. I'm now battening down the hatches for the inevitable storm but what I am talking about is SYNTHESIS... Understanding of what all cultures have had to offer and where all have been lacking so that we might find something better than all of them.
I would totally agree with your analysis of Christ in terms of the concept of the Boddhisatva and, if you look into the idea of Melchizedek, there is strong evidence that the early Christians thought the same way - ie that Christ was the final Incarnation of a great Mystical Teacher come to help us an idea which, again, has been suppressed. Interestingly, just as in Buddhism everyone has the potential to become a Buddha, in early Christianity everyone had the potential to become a Christ. This is overt in the Gospel of Philip and, in fact, its also overt in John's writings, the Epistles of Paul and Peter and, essentially, the Gospels as a whole. If we understood that Christ came to make us all Christs and unite us with the Father we might have something infinitely more progressive on our hands. But that's too individualistic and egalitarian for any authorities... So its been blocked. As you say, by Divinising Christ the Western Churches have put him utterly out of our reach. There is Christ and there is everything that is not Christ, and we are included in that, so according to the Roman and Protestant Churches, we are pretty much lower than the low. But the whole point of the Incarnation and everything Christ went through was to UNITE us to God and each other. And to be fair, until the 14thC that is what most Christian Mystics said...
But we have to remember that the Divinising of Christ was a Western Phenomena, not an Eastern. In the Orthodox Church, the whole meaning of the Christ story is his absolute Humanity AND his absolute Divinity, thus showing how we all may become 'Divinised', having the same Cosmic Potential as Christ. In the East, this is known as Theosis and is utterly central. In the West, such an idea was denounced as blasphemy in the Middle Ages, as figures like Meister Eckhardt found to their cost, even though the Gospel of John is full of it. That there should be any connection between human nature and Christ is disgusting to many Western Christians, but it is actually the whole point.
Organised Christianity has made itself a dinosaur and, until the Sophia returns to balance out everything that is missing (something inherent in Judaism and Christian eschatology but deeply ignored), we won't be able to move on. Nor, for me, is replacing a Patriarchal Religion with a return to a Matriarchal religion a solution to our problems. Like all of us, we ultimately have to leave the influence of our parents and grow to adulthood. Psychically, what I am hoping for is a 'religion' which unites the Male and the Female into One - a religion of the Lovers rather than the Father and Mother, perhaps. And perhaps we no longer will have to think of it as a religion with Gods to worship, having finally found the truth that the God is within us. This isn't about playing God, but recognising the spiritual divinity within. Crucially, it would depend upon mutuality and balance. We would finally escape a situation in which Male or Female would need to to subordinate the other, which is just another renewal of conflict. All Mystical Traditions speak of an end to Dualism as the key to liberation. A spirituality with the archetype of the Lovers at its centre rather than the Father or the Mother would go some way towards that, in my view. This is why the Gnostic Christians are so interesting in their identification of the Sophia as the szyzygy of Christ. This is much more than the notion that the Sophia is Christ's Bride. It actually means that the Sophia IS Christ. If we could imagine an entity which is simultaneously Male AND Female but can move between both, then think what we would achieve... Its what the Divine Marriage is actually all about...
So I don't disagree that Christianity is dead as an organised faith or a repository of Truth. The sooner we see it as a mythic structure with deep psychic resonances like every other culture the sooner we may be able to release what is life-giving in it... The common denominator of all spiritual cultures is US. This is why revival of interest in things like pre-Christian culture and other culture is so important. We stand at a unique moment in history in which we have access to every single major spiritual tradition we have ever had and know more about the origins of all of them than before. That has NEVER happened before. Once they all start talking to each other, once we let go of anything being the Absolute Truth and we recognise them all as being an unbroken flow of human thought, something absolutely extraordinary could occur...
That's my hope, anyway, which is why these discussions are so important! Let's keep going!
Two more things...
Firstly, apologies for the appalling spelling and grammar in that last Comment. I was on a roll and it was kind of stream of consciousness! I hope, though, that my essential point came across!
Secondly, in saying 'until the Sophia returns', I was speaking mythically. The Sophia is hidden in the Gospels, as I hope to show on my own Blog at some point, but the Sophia as the Female Christ is a crucial archetype for me in terms of Christianity. Its the only way it can become whole within its own terms of reference. But the idea of the Sophia has, again, been suppressed. And in saying the Sophia IS Christ, I also mean that Christ IS the Sophia (indeed he is described as such in one of Paul's Epistles). They are one and the same. As I say, if one can get one's head around what that means, you would have achieved the Divine Marriage we are all talking about.
The brilliance of all the tripartite imagery of Mysticism is that it reflects the division between the Left and Right Hemispheres of the brain. Physiologically speaking, the two Hemispheres are barely connected except by a few ganglions. By all intents and purposes, they are separate and divided, like Adam and Eve or Shiva and Shakti. We don't honestly know what would happen if they were properly connected - we would probably unlock unheard of potentials within our psyches...
Its not suprising that the two hemispheres are often referred to as Male and Female. And this is my point. Gender is actually an illusion and the most basic way of keeping us apart and making us think we are separate. But biology and mystical traditions tell us that, at base, we are all male/female, whether in terms of talking about DNA and chromosomes or in terms of talking about Consciousness or the Soul. Mentally speaking the mind is neither male nor female, although certain biological elements which gender can make more latent mean we can access these different energies in different ways.
Potentially speaking, though, we could be so much more if we could not be deceived by gender. This is not to say we should ignore it. Gender is also a source of immense and wonderful delight (sex for instance, and love), but fear and incomprehension of the opposite sex has been a plague upon us for millenia.
Almost all traditions say that once humanity was androgyne. You find it as far afield as Kabbalah and Plato and even Buddhism... I for one would regret the loss of knowing women as a man but I long for the day when we focus more on the similarities than on the differences and perhaps see the differences as complimentary rather than conflicting...
This is why I find the archetype of the Sophia and Christ as one as so important. Try meditating on it. You will find interesting things happen... And in fact it IS implicit in the New Testament, as the Holy Spirit is the product of the Sophia AND of Christ... As both are equated as the Word which was the agency of Creation.
It IS an archetype. Christ and Sophia, Siva and Shakti, Sol and Luna, Isis and Osiris, Binah & Chokmah, Yin and Yang - they are all expressions of the same thing... Sean's metaphor of language is so apt here. We need to stop looking at the trees and take in the splendour of the forest...
I just want to add that I don't mean to attack anyone's deepest held beliefs here. This is only my POV...!
Hope you all understand! Its just such a stimulating discussion!
Indeed it is, I will be sure to stop by your blog also and take a look :o)
Daniel
You may be interested in
The Gospel According to Judas co-written by Jeffrey Archer (yes, THAT Jeffrey Archer). I heard a review of it on Radio 4 and it sounded very thought-provoking.
I can't think of a funnier title for a book than "THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS, co-written by Jeffrey Archer"! What would Judas say in interview?:
"Yeah, I really enjoyed working with Jeffrey. He really gave me some big insights into how I could express myself. We would sit up until all hours knocking ideas back and forth and then suddenly Jeff would go, 'Hey, Jude! What about this?' or 'I've got a great idea for that moment' and you know, he would almost always be right. Brilliant. A great guy. Gonna be my friend for life I think. He really UNDERSTANDS what its like to be unfairly accused of something. Its been great to have a chance to put the record straight!"
That was just a joke. I didn't mean to seem rude! I heard about the Gospel when it came out. I'll give it a check. Thanks, Womble...
Hi Sean, cheers for the message...you planning on seeing Amanda play in October then, I take it?
I'm right around the corner from New Aeon Books, you should let me know next time you guys are up to anything interesting! (The upcoming Moot bash looks like fun...)
Anyway, nice to meet you too - long live the Punk Cabaret indeed! - and apologies for this not being in response to the post above; I'll certailny have a read of that when I get a moment later on.
A few additional thoughts:
I used to like the Cathars and Pelagius and co - and still do on some points - but got turned off by their ascetic elements. For me true spirituality is pantheistic and hedonistic, and about perfecting the physical world rather than escaping from it. The latter always felt like rats leaving a sinking ship to me :))
The point about Christianity being egalitarian I partly take onboard but so was the Dionysian Mysteries long before that. These were open to both sexes of all social classes, including slaves, who were treated as equal during the rites.
Even 'foreigners' were allowed in, which was a big thing for the Greeks. The more radical manifestations of the Dionysos cult (along with Syrian Goddess cults ) were also responsible for slave revolts against Rome. Sparticus being the obvious devotee of Dionysos in this respect. For which hundreds were crucified on mass (nothing unique about the Nazarenes death really, if he existed).
Both these reasons caused me to shift to Dionysianism, particularly after I concluded that Jesus as a human probably never existed (personal opinion) :)
In addition Dionysos for me, as the origin of both the Christ archetype and the Devil archetype reunites them, reintegrates the 'shadow' and heals psychological splits, allowing the reintegration of Man into Nature....
Steve Ash
Steve
I think all of what you say is perfectly valid. My POV isn't coming from a position of commitment to a particular faith, rather I am trying to take a historical overview. I think what is interesting about the ACTUAL Christ archetype as opposed to what has been made of him by the Churches is that the Revelation is deliberately incomplete. By the time Christ has died and been Resurrected he has set something in motion. The world hasn't been 'Saved' as the Church says. What has happened is the possibility of it being 'Saved' has begun. But this process of the being 'Saved' isn't about waiting until after we've all died but is meant to be the gradual transformation of everyone into 'Children of God' - ie Theosis or Divinisation. In its original form this meant to be Holistic in nature (ie uniting everything). The word Holy is etymologically linked to the words Holistic and Wholeness, while the word Saviour is derived from the Greek Soter meaning 'Healer'. Christ was meant to make us all Whole, not divide us between Body and Spirit. Indeed, the NT explicitly says that Christ and the Holy Spirit are within everything, so the vision is meant to be Pantheistic, or rather Panentheistic, the first part of the Trinity being Transcendent, the second Transcendent and Immanent and the third Immanent.
Thus its actually the Church and probably Paul who have made the schism between this world and the next, the body and the soul such an agonising feature of Christianity. Its far from what it was supposed to be. Equally, I find it amazing how pivotal the Devil and Hell have become in Christianity, considering they hardly get mentioned at all in the NT. Matthew has references to Hell, but this would not have been the Eternal Damnation of the Church as the Jews don't believe in that. Similarly Satan is mentioned hardly at all in the Gospels except in a small way in reference to Judas and as the Tempter. Paul and the Apostles pretty much never refer to them ever. Question is, why on earth did the human race chose to run with this awful idea of Hell and the Devil? Very odd...
My view is that its up to each of us to decide which God we do, or do not want to worship, believe in etc. All I was trying to point out was that as an archetype/spiritual myth the Christ story has been farther reaching than any other, most likely BECAUSE it embodied the Dionysian, Osirian, Mithraic, Zoroastrian myths etc within it. This is my point. If Christ could be seen as all these other Incarnations AND something more the whole image of JC would change. The story of turning water into wine is pure Dionysus. The parables of the seeds of corn dying to be reborn are pure Demeter... If we could understand Christianity as encompassing these instead of excluding them we might have a whole new vision!
The Cathars are interesting... and very complex. I think one has to try and see the world from their POV/Cosmology. In their minds they were in touch with/in tune with the Light Realms, so it wasn't so much running from something as running towards something. The point with Catharism was not waiting for the next world but experiencing the next world in THIS one. And in fact Catharism has much in common with the Dionysian Myth of the ashes of Dionysus being mixed with a Titan leading to the Soul constantly being incarnated into this world until it can find purity and be released. So the Cathars and Dionysus are connected too!
If you're interested, I've just posted a lengthy thing about the Cathars on my own Blog. Take a look (he said humbly!). There are interesting parallels between the Cathars and the Druids...
http://templeofpegasus.blogspot.com/search/label/Cathars
I'm interested that there is no discussion of Prometheus in these exchanges. Isn't there a similar link between Prometheus, Dionysus & Christ?
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