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HIEROGAMY & THE MARRIED MESSIAH
(Web Edition)
By
James Wesley Stivers
© Copyright, 2006
CHAPTER ONE
THE
MARRIED JESUS IN POPULAR LITERATURE
The Motives of Friend and Foe
As with any proposition, the motives and
biases of its proponents must be examined along with its message. This author
does not pretend to have no biases of his own, but the honest seeker of truth
will recognize his biases, admit them in the proposition and will compensate
for them.
There is a growing body of literature in
support of the proposition of a married Jesus. Some of it is literary fiction,
some of it is speculative history, and some of it is spiritual mysticism. Some
of the literature is written by well-educated individuals; some of it is not.
The authors undoubtedly differ in their motives. Perhaps some are purely
mercenary in their motivation: they are out to make a buck. But for most of
them, there is an underlying sense of adventure in discovering a
"secret" which serves their iconoclasm. A few of them have caught a
wonderful vision for the world.
What they all have in common is their
audience: a growing segment of the population that is discontented with the Christianity
as propounded by classical theologians. For that audience, there is first a
fascination and then a personal identification with a sexual Jesus. This
motivation deserves closer examination and an explanation.
Unlike any other time of human history, we
live in a time of plenty. People are usually well-fed and well-clothed. Even
our poor people are rich in amenities compared to our ancestors of just a
hundred years ago.
Yet, in spite of that, people in our culture
are not happy. They are unhappy with their jobs, with their spouses, where they
live, and so on. People move a lot. They break-up a lot. What is going on here?
I don't think our unhappiness comes from a
"spoiled brat" mentality, although some social commentators think so.
I think it grows from the fact that human nature is first a spiritual nature
before being a physical one. Having enough isn't really enough. As our Lord
said, "Man shall not live by bread alone." There is a spiritual side
to our existence.
For example, while an animal eats when it is
hungry, it does not understand or relate to the idea of feasting: the joy
associated with the process of preparing food and eating it with others.
Humankind thinks about the meaning of
all of our bodily needs and functions. It thinks about why they were made. It
wants to connect with the Being that made them. That's why we have sacraments.
Sacraments help us connect with the Creator who made water (baptism), food
(Eucharist), and - dare I say it - sex ( ? ).
Is it possible that we find here the reason
why the idea of a married Jesus so captivates our generation? We are trying to
re-sacramentalize sex and the idea of a Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus just
isn't enough.
Human beings need symbols that inspire them,
Divine symbols. When it comes to romance, marriage and sex, where do we find
them in Christianity? Where do we find the symbols to lift our souls and help
us to stay the course? There are none. There are plenty of human symbols (e.g.
Abraham and Sarah, Ruth and Boaz, Solomon and the Shulamite), but there are no
Divine symbols.
The wagging fingers point to Christ and the
Church. Somehow, we are supposed to believe this Pauline metaphor sets the
standard for emulation. How inspiring can a fictional entity called "the
Church" be for anyone? Who or what is "the Church"? The Church
is not a person; it is a collective body of people - male and female. It's like
a club. You cannot have romance, marriage and sex with a club. It is nothing
anyone can relate to, certainly not when you are alone on a cold, rainy night.[1]
Many people want a Jesus who loved a woman.
That is why you have the rock musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." That
is why novels like The Da Vinci Code
become New York Times Best Sellers.
That is also why certain reactionary
elements in the Church were abhorred with Nikos Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ. Many
have forgotten the public outcry against the movie version of that novel. There
was picketing, boycotting, and even bombings against the cinemas which showed
the film. Not having seen the movie, this author too condemned it. After seeing
it, I felt betrayed by the leadership of the Church. They had misrepresented
the movie and its message in a shameful display of bigotry. Since the readers of this book may have been
influenced by that bigotry, a brief review of the film might be in good order.
The Last Temptation of
Christ
The movie begins as a typical R-rated movie,
with Mary Magdalene, as a prostitute, servicing a long line of Bedouin
customers. Jesus is at the end of the line, but unlike the false
representations made by some of the movie's detractors, He does not have sexual
relations with her. Instead He apologizes to her for not fulfilling the vows of
their betrothal. In this way, we are told that Mary and Jesus were engaged to
be married and because of His dereliction in fulfilling His promise, she became
a harlot to spite Him.
The story continues in presenting Jesus as a
member of the Essene tradition and "discovering" His mission. It does
not follow the Gospel accounts, and that is a reasonable point of contention
for Christians. However, in presenting a truly human Jesus the movie is more
accurate than many of our Gospel films which present Him with a plastic humanity.
The movie ends with Jesus on the Cross
facing the Last Temptation. The Last Temptation was not sex, as some have
charged. The Last Temptation was the desire to give up His messianic mission to
live a normal life. He falls into a swoon and dreams of marriage and fatherhood
- first, to Mary Magdalene, who tragically dies, and then to Mary and Martha of
Bethany. He resists the temptation, awakens, and finishes the Crucifixion.
And that's it. Other than the discomfort of
His suggested bigamy (which was not uncommon for the Jews of that time), we are
left to ponder why traditional Christians are so offended with the movie and
why the idea of a married Jesus arouses such anger? I think it is this: in
Christian theology Jesus is supposed to be married to the Church. If Jesus were
married to someone else prior to the Church, then there would be a Bride with
precedence over the Church and, thus,
the Church could be looked upon as a rival, even false, bride. Do we not find
the truth of this in the audience of the new literature? The people who are
most interested in a married Jesus are people who are disenchanted with the
Church. They are turning away from Churchianity and are searching for a more
authentic faith. The new literature strikes a dagger into the heart of
Christian dogma; for it declares that the
Church is not the Bride of Christ. The Bride speaks for her husband. If the Church is not the Bride, then the
Church has no authority to speak for Christ. It does not have the "keys of
the kingdom" and thus, all of its claims and pretensions come crashing
down.
Few see these implications, even few of its
authors. Perhaps the leadership in the
We have been here before. We are revisiting
the phenomenon of the Grail legends from the late Middle Ages.
Grail Theology[2]
The legends of the Holy Grail center around
medieval heroes on a quest to recover the lost relic of the Cup of the Last
Supper. Believing that its recovery will bring a supernatural healing to a
stricken land, the Grail heroes hazard their lives and overcome sundry foes
preventing them from success in their quest. Their adventures make for
interesting reading, and the reader is often tempted to become so engrossed in
the story that one loses sight of their goal. But there are guardians along the
way, usually feminine, who encourage the Grail heroes and keep them focused on
their mission.
In the eyes of the
Why would any one want to find the Holy
Grail, the Cup of the First Communion? Did not every worshipper have access to
the Holy Grail in the blessed Cup of the Mass? At every Mass, the believer – or
the priest in his stead - supposedly had the opportunity to partake of the very
blood and body of his Lord. Why should
he feel a need to find this "Holy Grail"?
The Grail romances were a cleverly devised
attack on the validity of the Catholic Eucharist. Christendom centered its life
and worship around the altar, not the Scriptures. And at the center of the
altar were the Host and the Cup where the Atonement was recapitulated,
somewhere, at every hour of every day. It was founded upon the belief that the
priest had the power to transform ordinary bread and wine into the very blood
and body of Jesus Christ. The Grail romances implicitly denied that belief.
To attack the Catholic Eucharist was to
attack its apostolic succession. The idea that Christian civilization had
exhausted itself and needed to return to its roots suggested the failure of
that succession. The Grail romances, thus, became the literary wedge which
pried away the death-grip which the established Church had upon the medieval
mind. It suggested that a new Church could be founded upon the archaeological
recovery of the original "Cup of the Covenant."
During the late medieval period, circulation
of the Grail stories reached its peak in
In the Original Manuscripts
Most Protestant denominations have
historically taught that the Bible - the Canon of Sacred Scripture - is the
inspired Word of God. Most have at some time taught that the Word of God is
infallible, the only source of Divine and inerrant truth on Earth. In recent
years most denominations have backed away from that dogma, finding their new
position somewhere in the fuzzy notion that the Bible "contains the Word
of God", but that not every word is divinely inspired (which words are
inspired and which ones are not becomes anyone's guess).
Conservative denominations still hold to the
doctrine of inerrancy, but their leaders have hedged the point in a different
way. You will hear them claim Biblical inerrancy, but only in the original manuscripts. They will no
longer claim that any translation or version of the Bible is infallible.
It may not at first seem obvious, but if you
stop to consider, the Protestant world is in the same position that the
Medieval Church was in when the Grail stories first took the Continent by
storm. The priesthood of the Catholic Church was admitted to be corrupted. Like
the proverbial corruption of the carbon copy of a carbon copy of a carbon copy,
apostolic succession had become diminished and powerless in the eyes of
thinking Christians. There was an intense desire to return to the
"original" sources to revive the faith. This spiritual yearning led
to experiments with heretical rituals, mysticism, the Crusades, and the quest
for relics.
In modern Protestantism, the quest has been
turned in a different direction: the search for older and better manuscripts of
the Scriptures. The hope is ever out there that someday the archaeologist's
spade will turn up the originals - but until then, let it not be forgotten, the Protestant churches do not have the very,
inspired, and inerrant Word of God. By their own admission,
since they cannot produce the Bible in its original manuscripts, they have
corrupted copies of the Word of God, not the very Word of God itself. And by so
doing, they have denied to themselves a basis of authority to speak
prophetically to any issue.
It is not enough to claim to have the "virtual Word of God." What does
that mean? Anyone who knows the difference between "virtual" sex and
real sex should be able to figure-out that the Protestant claim to
"virtual" inerrancy is the same delusion as the Catholic claim to
apostolic succession. Just like the Grail threat to the Catholic Church to
produce a priesthood which possessed the "original" Cup and Blood of Christ,
how are we to know that the discovery of an older manuscript will not differ
from our current texts enough to change Protestant doctrine? The turmoil
surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls is only a sign of things to come.[3]
The Alternative Priesthood
The Grail romances claim that there exists
in the world an alternative priesthood based upon a sacred lineage. The
"Fisher King" or the "Grail King", as it is in some
versions, is depicted as a royal personage, yet a king to be distinguished from
the current ruler of the realm. The romances are generally set in the time of
King Arthur. He is the ruler of the realm; yet the Fisher King is also a ruler
in distinction from Arthur. In some sense, Arthur's authority is dependent upon
the Fisher King; for it is the Fisher King who is in possession of the Holy
Grail.
The Grail castle is an ethereal, mysterious
place, which can disappear from ordinary human vision. In this we find the
Celtic belief of parallel worlds or dimensions which are connected with each
other in some fundamental way: either through ritual unification or
angelic-type emissaries. Thus, we might find that the Grail Castle can be
interpreted as a spiritual counter-part of Camelot and the Fisher King of
Arthur.
The Fisher King is wounded in the private
parts. He cannot be healed by the Church's Eucharist. The Eucharist sustains
him, but it does not heal him. He cannot be healed until someone else who
shares his lineage is worthy to become his successor and possess the Holy
Grail.[4]
In this we can sense Arthur's dilemma. His
was a crisis of succession. But it was more than a crisis of kingship. It was a
crisis of federal headship. In the Grail romances the ancient view of the king
as priest and sacrifice still lingers. This priesthood is one patterned after
the Melchisedecal priesthood of the Davidic Covenant which was confirmed in
Jesus Christ. Melchisedec was a father to his people and became a father to
Abraham (Genesis 14; Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7). This spiritual connection is why
in the Grail stories the realm is afflicted with its king and why the land is
turning into a haunt of ruin, unless the king can find a worthy successor. The
weal of the realm depends upon the integrity of its king-priest.
In Grail theology the priest of the
established Church can never be a federal head of the people, because he is not
organically connected to the people. Nor does he share in a sacred lineage, a
lineage which organically connects him to the Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7). He
claims an apostolic succession, which is valid in terms of service, but not
headship. He cannot represent the people because he is not one with the people.
Holy Blood, Holy Grail[5]
What the old Grail literature does not
unequivocally state is that there was another Bride of Christ other than the
Church. The message is avoided except in strong metaphor. It refers to a sacred
lineage but avoids connecting it directly to Jesus. It makes Joseph of
Arimathea its source, who was ostensibly a kinsman of the Virgin Mary.
That is what is different about the Grail
literature of today from the literature of the medieval period: the origin of
the sacred lineage is openly stated to be Jesus Himself.
Credit must go to three British authors -
Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln - who co-authored a book in
1983 entitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail. It
astonished the world and became a bestseller. In 1986 they published a sequel, The Messianic Legacy.
In these two books the authors set out to
revise the accepted history of Christian origins. Central to their thesis is
the allegation that Jesus Christ was part of an international conspiracy of
Davidic Jews attempting to restore the Throne of David in Jerusalem. He was the
heir-apparent. When their plot failed, he was killed (or simply disappeared)
and a new religion was concocted around his legend, which eventually became
Christianity. He was married to Mary Magdalene who bore him children to
continue the dynasty. The failed revolt caused her to flee with the children to
the Jewish communities of southern Gaul (France). A few centuries later, the
authors allege, a descendant married into Frankish royalty, which became the
Merovingian dynasty. The authors claim that the history of Europe is the story
of the families of nobility descended from these Merovingians (e.g. the
Hapsburgs), their rule over the Holy Roman Empire, their meddling in world
affairs, and their quest for political supremacy.
Today, they are said to be working through a
secret society known as the Priory of Sion, which was founded by one of their
own, a knight who made himself King of Jerusalem during the Crusades. The
Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, and other secret societies are supposed to be a
part of this historic effort toward world government.
They find proof for their assertion of a
Jesus origin of this lineage in the legends of the Holy Grail:
In many
of the earlier manuscripts the Grail is called the Sangraal; and even in the
later version by Malory it is called the Sangreal. It is likely that some such
form - Sangraal or Sangreal - was in fact the original one. It is also likely
that that one word was subsequently broken in the wrong place. In other words,
"San graal" or "San greal" may not have been intended to
divide into San Graal" or "San Greal" but into "Sang
Raal" or "Sang Real". Or to employ the modern spelling, Sang
Royal: Royal blood.[6]
They refer,
of course, to the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ.[7]
Many Grail scholars dismiss this assertion.
But the storylines of the Grail legends themselves speak of a sacred lineage.
So whether "San Greal" ought to be "Sang Real" need not
stand alone, considering that the larger message of the Grail romances supports
the idea of a mysterious and holy bloodline. The burden of proof lies with
those who do not believe that such a lineage could have been founded by Jesus
Christ. Within the Christian context, who else would have had sufficient
legitimacy?
The Pagan Christ
A burgeoning class of feminist writers has
seized upon the idea of a married Jesus to revive the image of Mary Magdalene,
His assumed lover, as a feminist figure. As in the Gnostic Gospels, she is
juxtaposed with Peter who is never short of chauvinistic contempt for her, and
in their rivalry, we see the origin of the two branches of Christianity: the
Church, with Peter as its head, and the Bride, with Mary Magdalene as the
Daughter of Zion. From this dichotomy, these feminist writers assert that
Christianity was hijacked by a misogynist leadership in the Church which
displaced the purer faith of Mary, the Johannine Community and the esoteric
church.
These writers find much affinity with pagan
myths. In her novel, The Moon Under Her
Feet, Clysta Kinstler presents Mary Magdalene as a High Priestess
in the religion of Isis. But her fiction is an attempt at "what if" kind
of historical revisionism. Maintaining that the old fertility cults of the
Canaanites never lost their hold on the people of Israel, the story is set in
Jerusalem at the time of Jesus with the Temple of Yahweh doubling as a temple
for goddess religion.
This was not without precedent in Israelite
history. Kinstler provides this reference in her Notes:
Dr.
Raphael Patai, in his carefully documented works "Man and Temple" and
"The Hebrew Goddess", shows that out of the 360 years that Solomon's
temple-complex lasted at Jerusalem, the matriarchal Canaanite goddess Ashera,
who represented the old farming population of Israel, had been worshipped there
for 240 as Jehovah's bride and sister with her wooden image publicly displayed.
The tribe of Ahser had originally been named in her honor. Dr. Patai points out
that when Elijah slaughtered the 400 priests on Mount Carmel he left the
priests of Ashera unmolested; Baal was then Jehovah's rival male deity and
therefore like Molech, Milcom, Chemosh (1 Kings 11:7) and all other male gods,
had to be suppressed.[8]
It is likely that the "Hieros
Gamos" - sacred marriage - was known to the Israelites, since it was so
popular in the nations surrounding Israel. Kinstler quotes the eminent
Sumerologist, S. N. Kramer, to describe it as it was in ancient Sumer:
The most
significant rite of the New Year was the Hieros Gamos, or holy marriage between
the king, who represented the god Dumuzi, and one of the priestesses, who
represented the goddess Inanna . . . The idea arose that the king of Sumer, no
matter who he was or from what city he originated, must become the husband of
the life-giving goddess of love, that is, Inanna of Erech . . . The kings of
Sumer are known as the "beloved husbands" of Inanna throughout the Sumerian
documents from the time of Enmerkar (about 2600 B.C.) down to the post-Sumerian
days, since they seem to have been mystically identified with Dumuzi.[9]
Curiously, Israel's New Year began at the
time of the Feast of Tabernacles - the harvest festival - when they were
encouraged to rejoice with strong drink (Deuteronomy 14:26). It is likely that
the festivities included dancing and lovemaking, as well.
It must be remembered that Abram of Ur lived
in this culture and Moses was well-versed in "all the wisdom of the
Egyptians" (Acts 7:22). Significant portions of the Song of Solomon appear
to be drawn directly from the "Hymns of Invocation" sung by priests
and priestesses in the temples of Isis. Harold Bayley identifies thirteen
parallels in The Lost Language of Symbolism
where these are found (I am interjecting with the Authorized
Version):
Song of
Solomon 1:3,
"Because of the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment
poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee . . ."
Invocation
of Osiris,
"Hail thou, sweet scented one! There is unguent for the hair at thy
coming. . ."
Song
4:10, "How
fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!"
Invocation, "Come to the one who loveth
thee. . . Come to thy sister, come to thy spouse."
Song
4:11, "The
smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon."
Invocation, "The odor of thy limbs is
like the smell of Punt."[10]
One must remember that brother-sister incest
is forbidden in the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 18:9). This form of incest was
endorsed in Egypt and even required of the Pharaohs. Considering that Solomon's
principal wife was the daughter of Pharaoh (1 Kings 3:1), an Egyptian source of
the Song of Songs seems probable.
In Egyptian mythology, we have Isis, the
goddess of fertility, who is the sister-bride of Osiris the Shepherd (who is
later killed and dismembered) and gives birth to a son, Horus. The rite of
circumcision is thought by some to be a symbolic memorial of his emasculation.
In some variations of the myth, the son of the goddess becomes king by an
anointing from the goddess and consummated in an incestuous union which is, in
turn, followed by a sacrificial death of the king. He is killed to atone for
the land and restore the annual cycle of fertility. This king is resurrected
(or reincarnated) to repeat the cycle again.
The similarities with the Christian story
are painfully obvious. In fact the Catholic exaltation of the Virgin Mary and
the celebration of Christ's birth on December 25th, the birthday of Horus, was
long a complaint of some Protestant Reformers as a compromise with Isiac
religion. Indeed in the larger context, Christianity's sacrificial death and
resurrection of a god-king is a theme which finds more syncretistic affinity
with the ancient fertility cults than with Judaism. In it we have the voluntary
death, the descent into hell (netherworld), the weeping goddess at the tomb,
and the eating of the sacrifice in a cannibalistic Eucharist to obtain eternal
life.[11] Even the rite of baptism was practiced by the Isis religion (the Nile
River was considered sacred) before it was introduced to the Jews by John the
Baptist.
In Kinstler's tale Jesus dies as a pagan
human sacrifice to save the nation from Roman anger and Mary flees to live
anonymously in Gaul.
While we cannot simply dismiss these pagan
roots of Christianity, the question which might be properly offered is
"What kind of paganism are we talking about?" Are we talking about
the pre-revelation, natural religion of the Biblical patriarchs who worshipped
the true God and followed customs commended by that true God in their
conscience? Or are we talking about the degenerate paganism roundly condemned
by Paul in Romans 1 - who turned themselves over to idolatry and death? Is true
Christianity a mere continuation of Canaanite religion as these feminist
interpreters enthusiastically claim? Or is it a special revelation correcting
the false turn that mankind has made in its understanding of the Deity?
We shall explore these questions in the next
chapter.
* *
*
Jehovah-Jirah!
(“The Lord will provide”)
Proceed to Chapter Two
[1]According to Christian dogma, we stand before God on Judgment Day as individuals and families, not as church groups. There is no sentient being called “the Church.” It is a metaphor and nothing more.
[2]The
following material on the Holy Grail comes from this author’s publication, The Cambrian Pesher, available on the Internet at:
www.grailchurch.org.
[3]Traditional scholars tell us that the Scrolls have not affected in any material way our current translations. They are whistling past a graveyard. It took the Professor and Semitic scholar, Robert Eisenman, joined by the editorial staff of Biblical Archaeology, to put the translator’s committee to public shame for its forty-year cover-up. The Scrolls were finally released in 1991.
[4] The vital importance of the king’s eunuch condition will become clear in Chapter Four. It is remedied, according to Grail theology, through the special rite of footwashing.
[5] The material in this section is drawn from the author’s work, Biblical Midwifery. See Bibliography.
[6]Holy Blood, Holy Grail, p. 306
[7]Referred to by ancient historians with the Greek term, “Desposyni.”
[8]Clysta Kinstler: The Moon Under Her Feet, (HarperCollins, 1989) p. 308
[9] Ibid., p. 306
[10]The Lost Language of Symbolism, vol. 1, p. 169-170
[11]Compare with Christ’s strange invitation to His disciples in John 6:32-71.