We are still dealing with a prostitute,
Mary Magdalene. Why is she so important to the Christian story?
When we discover her importance, we shall understand why she embarrasses
the old theology so much. Remember that she anoints Jesus and
thereby confers upon him the status of Christ. This is a ritual
of profound significance. It is a "kingmaking". When
she is criticized for using such an expensive ointment, Jesus
upholds her authority, at John 12:7,8. But that still does not
explain why a woman is anointing Jesus and why he allows her to
do so. After all that was not Jewish custom at the time.
Jesus and Mary Magdalene take
part in the IeroV
GamoV
(Ieros Gamos), the Sacred Wedding. The old theology carefully
avoids this issue because it is a pagan practice of the era that
we are dealing with. At this time in Palestine, a man is made
a legitimate king if he has sexual union with the High Priestess.
He can only receive his full divine power through the authority
of the High Priestess. Without her, his claim to kingship is invalid.
The embarrassment of the Church is obvious. We too feel embarrassed,
because we have no concept of sacred sexuality. This is not about
physical sex, personal gratification or eroticism. It is the belief
that in the sacred marriage, the man and woman become as gods
and experience the divine. Thus the High Priestess acting as a
channel for the divine blesses the king and confers authority
upon him. The Sacred Wedding is the ultimate expression of temple
prostitution. The body of the Priestess is a metaphor for the
gateway to the gods.
Note carefully that in this belief
system, a man needs a woman to approach the gods, but a woman
does not need a man. She is in touch with the divine automatically.
Hence in the Quest for the Holy Grail, it said that although men
must search for the Grail, women already have it.
But we have not yet finished with
Mary Magdalene. In her day, the mystery schools of Osiris, Tammuz,
Dionysios, and Attis, had a rite that required the symbolic death
of the god, played by a priest. After three days, the Priestess
in the role of the goddess revives the god. During the ritual
she says, "They have removed my lord and I do not know where
to find him." Why is this relevant to the theology that we
are developing? Read John 20:2 where Mary Magdalene says:
They have taken away the Lord
out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
And again at 20:13 Mary Magdalene
tells the angels:
They have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid him.
Do you still doubt the importance
of Mary Magdalene? Clearly she is fulfilling the role of the High
Priestess. That is why she acts with authority and bestows the
status of Christ on Jesus; and that is why he allows her to do
so in defiance of Jewish custom. But there is more.
There is a modern view that the
Wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11) refers obliquely to the actual marriage
of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Obviously, this is speculation but
it makes sense in the context of the Sacred Wedding. What happens
in Cana? Jesus and his disciples are "called" to the
wedding. There he participates by turning water into wine. In
the parable of that era, water symbolizes the human body and wine
symbolizes the spirit, both as vehicles of consciousness. By changing
water into wine, Jesus transforms consciousness from biological
to spiritual. And what is a wedding? It is the lawful union, according
to kosmic law, of our male and female natures. What about the
soul? The diagram below makes the point clear. It is a process
of integration that places the soul as a vehicle of consciousness,
in its correct place.
Have we finished with Mary now?
Not quite. Remember we are dealing with the path that connects
Goodness with First Principle. This is the path of pain and sorrow.
Upon this path is the non-sphere of Knowledge. The gnostic myths
tell us that as an Aeon, Sofia desired to conceive
but did so without the concurrence of the masculine principle,
that is the masculine did not know her. Refer
to Genesis 4:1 and recall that Adam knew Eve and she conceived
and gave birth. Sofia did not act this way. She gave birth
without the masculine and hence this was a "virgin"
birth. What was born? The Demiourgos (Demiurge), the creator
god who in turn created the kosmos, a kosmos without Knowledge
and therefore in need of redemption and a Redeemer. However Sofia
is above the Demiurge and he has no power over her. That is why
we can look to her for healing and salvation. We need redemption
and salvation. We need a Redeemer and through her personification
as the Virgin Mary, we have Him.
Mother
Now at last, we can consider the
virgin birth of Jesus. It is clear from Matthew 1:25, that Joseph
did not have sexual relations with Mary before she gave birth
to her son. We have already seen that the Greek word parthenos
means "virgin". We cannot avoid the issue.
If we look at the Tree of Life,
we are dealing with the letter F
(fi) and the element Air. It is the path connecting Glory
and First Principle. It is very appropriate as the third feminine
step because First Principle contains the pattern of order and
Glory is the pattern of salvation made manifest. Why else is Jesus
born? He is the Redeemer made manifest, who will lead us to salvation.
The Tree is itself a pattern of order and as we move along it,
we see how it is consistent with the theology we are developing.
It is easy enough to understand
Mary the mother of Jesus as the personification of the creative
aspect of Sofia. However this still does not explain the
virgin birth in terms we can comprehend. The path we are considering
has attributed to it the letter F
(fi). This is the first letter of the Greek word F
w V
(fos) which means "light". This word is used in six
different ways in the New Testament, but the meaning that is significant
for understanding the Virgin Birth is in John 8:12, where Jesus
says, Egw eimi to fwV tou kosmou ("I
am the light of the world"). We then compare that with John
ch 1 v 3-5,
All things were made by him; and
without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended
it not.
The key to the Virgin Birth is
the "light" that emanates from the masculine aspect
that is within the "life" of the First Principle. The
"darkness" is the feminine aspect of the First Principle.
To make the point clearer, the Tao is the differentiated
unity of the "light" masculine Yang and the "dark"
feminine Yin. Just as the Tao simply "is"
according to Chinese philosophy, in that manner the First Principle
is "self-originate" in the gnostic myth. Thus the true
nature of the Virgin Birth lies in the self-originated nature
of the First Principle. At the end, we see the Virgin Birth as
a deep mystery that can only be understood when we have travelled
all the paths on the Tree of Life, with the aid of the 12 spiritual
disciplines.
The fundamental point is this:
The Mother is Sofia giving birth to the Redeemer.
*******
Let us review the first three
steps on the feminine journey by seeing them in the context of
whole of that journey.
The first step from Greatness
to Goodness leads directly into the second step from Goodness
to First Principle. So the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene follow
in sequence. The third step from Glory to First Principle is Mary
the Mother. With the fourth step, we shall see Mary as the Widow
and finally with her Assumption, Mary will be seen as the personification
of Sofia.
