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HIEROGAMY & THE MARRIED MESSIAH
(Web Edition)
By
James Wesley Stivers
© Copyright, 2006
CHAPTER TWO
THE
MARRIED JESUS AMONG THE HERETICS
The Question of Sources
The question of a married Jesus is not new
to our time. Traces of discussion can be found in the earliest writings of the
Church and even in the text of the Bible itself. We find comments made by
Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, both Christian leaders from the 2nd
Century who denied His sexuality. And then on the other hand, in the Jewish
Talmud we find references (usually derogatory) affirming His sexuality. In the
Scriptures, the Jews imply that He was a fornicator based upon His casual and
frequent association with women (Luke
The idea that Jesus was married has never
been formally declared a heresy, nor has it ever been treated like a heresy
until the times when priests were banned from marriage. Thus, it can be argued
that the treatment of this question by the historic Church has generally
followed its views of sex and marriage, which has changed over the course of time.
The interpretation of the life of Jesus conformed itself to the necessities of
Church dogma and the interests of the state - specifically Roman - rather than
to provide an objective account of Christ as a historical figure. This
assertion will be further supported as we proceed through the records.
During the middle of the 2nd
Century, the supremacy of the
During the confusion which followed this
catastrophe, there emerged different sects of Christianity. Among the Gentiles,
there were the traditional Pauline Christians who attempted to distance
themselves from their Jewish roots in order to avoid antagonizing the Romans.
These Christians relied upon a continuity of apostolic
succession for authenticity: the idea that the leadership of the
various churches was to perpetuate spiritual authority by ordaining successors
whose predecessors were in contact and commended by the various apostolic
missionaries which founded their churches during the 1st Century.
Then, there were the various
"heresies" of many stripes and persuasions which were lumped together
under the label of "Gnostic" (gnosis,
Greek for knowledge): the belief in a continuing revelation, either
through mystical experiences or through the discovery of secret doctrines
contained in the writings and teachings of the Apostles. The Gnostics attracted
certain brilliant and gifted individuals who saw, quite clearly, the
shortcomings of the traditional church. Some of them were once prominent men in
the Church, such as Valentinus (who almost became the
bishop of
As for the
There was a weak remnant of the
It is important to understand the
development of the New Testament Canon of Scripture. During the time of our
Lord's ministry, there were records kept of His teachings and activities, very likely
by Matthew (also known as Levi), who was a scribe and tax collector before
becoming Christ's disciple. Later, these records would be preserved under the
care of the bishop of the
Church scholars generally assume that Justin
Martyr - our earliest Christian apologist - relied upon the Gospel of the
Hebrews as his source. Justin quotes texts which are either not found in any of
our current Gospels, or he uses a different phraseology which indicates another
source.[1]
Justin does not demonstrate any knowledge of our current Gospels which strongly
suggests that the Four Gospels were still in development. The Four Gospels were
written in Greek; the Gospel of the Hebrews was written in Aramaic. Our Lord
taught in Aramaic and the first Church operated in the Aramaic-speaking world.
While the educated, including our Lord, were well-versed in Greek, it was
considered a profane language and would not have been the language of discourse
in the
Later, the Gospel of the Hebrews influenced
the final form of the Gospels. For example, our modern translation committees
tell us that the story of "The Woman Caught in Adultery" in John
Unfortunately, not everything in this Gospel
has been supplied. We know as much from Papias, whose
works on the personal lives of Jesus and the Apostles were conveniently
"lost". And we know this from Justin's works (and others also, such
as Clement), which contain texts not found in our current Gospels.[7] (Figure 1)
Thus, we are challenged to take the same
approach as the disciples did in proving the Resurrection: they relied upon the
Prophets. While the disciples were witnesses of Christ's Resurrection, they did
not expect their hearers to believe them based upon the strength of their
witness alone. How could they? Anyone can make-up fairy tales. Instead, they
turned to the Law and the Prophets to prove that Jesus was both Lord and
Christ. We will do the same in proving a married Jesus. For, as our Lord said,
"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead" (Luke
When it comes to the matter of a married
Jesus, there is a certain smugness among the deniers: "Where is it in the
Gospels? If it is true, show me in the Gospels, and I will believe it. Surely,
something as important as this would have been recorded." While it will be
demonstrated later that the fact of our Lord's marriage is hidden in plain
sight in the Gospels, it would do us well to remember that not everything Jesus
taught and did has been recorded:
And many
other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through
his name.
- John 20:30-31
And
there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be
written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the
books that should be written.
- John 21:25
Clearly, the central mission of Jesus Christ
is to save the world. Spiritual understanding which produces eternal life is
the principal purpose of the Gospels. To give us a narrative of His daily life
did not fit into the economy of records. Still, the Scriptures are not
altogether silent on this question.
The Witness of the Ebionites
In the somewhat garbled accounts that have
come down to us, the Ebionites might be described
best by Eusebius:
The
ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites,
because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ. For they considered
him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior
virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their
opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the
ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a
corresponding life.
There
were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name, but avoided the
strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was
born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they
also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed, being God, Word, and Wisdom,
they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like
them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law.
These
men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the
apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law; and they used only the
so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews and made small account of the rest.
The Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews they observed just like
them, but at the same time, like us, they celebrated the Lord's days as a
memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour.
Wherefore,
in consequence of such a course they received the name of Ebionites,
which signified the poverty of their understanding. For this is the name by
which a poor man is called among the Hebrews.[8]
The most pronounced distinction which
offended the orthodox leaders of the Church was the denial by the Ebionites of Christ's supernatural origins. Theologically,
the view of the Ebionites has been called "Adoptionism": the belief that Jesus was an ordinary
man until the Christ spirit - or the Divine Logos - descended upon Him at His
baptism, at which time He became the Messiah, the begotten Son of God. It must
be remembered that the Christ of the Creeds was not the required confession of
the New Testament Church. Jesus was the Messiah and Savior of Israel. God
raised Him from the dead to reign from His Throne in Heaven. That was the only
baptismal confession required of converts in those early days (Romans 10:9-10).
There was no requirement to believe He was born of a Virgin or that He
pre-existed as the eternal God.
However, it is clear from the above account
and confirmed by others (e.g. Origen), that there was
a sect of Ebionites which did believe in Christ's
Virgin Birth. Epiphanius[9] distinguishes them with a
different name: that of the "Nazoraeans."
In his Panarion,
he devotes chapter 29 to a discussion of the Nazoraeans
and identifies them as Davidic Jews, including the family of Jesus, who
embraced Him as their Messiah.[10] James, the brother of Jesus, was
among them, and presumably, all of his successors to the Episcopal office of
the
This is a slippery area, as the events of
the Nicene Council demonstrate, because the Creed insists upon language not
used in the Scriptures to define Christ's nature.[11] What further complicates the
matter is simply that the language of the Creed is in Greek, the profane
language, and not Hebrew, which was the language of doctrine for the
Certainly, the later Nazoraeans
would follow the Ebionites and the Arians to say that
Christ had no Divine nature, but became as the angels of Heaven, or was created
as an angel at His conception. As for James and the
Other "Hebraisms" of the Ebionites further offended the later defenders of
orthodoxy. Their devotion to the law was one. Another was their rejection of
the moral superiority of virginity in defiance of the Church's drift toward
celibacy. Epiphanius says,
At
present they strictly forbid virginity and continence, as is true of the other
sects like theirs. . . (30.6)
They
force the young people to marry even before they reach maturity . . . They
allow not just one marriage, but if anyone wants a divorce from his first
marriage, and to contract another, they allow it - they do not hesitate to
permit anything - up to a second and third and seventh marriage. (30.18.2-3)
This view corresponds with the general
opinion of the Jews - and of Jewish Christians - during those times. Among the
faithful, the Creation Mandate to "be fruitful and multiply" was
taken seriously. That command was considered mankind's primary directive as
God's vicegerents upon the earth. We will visit this question again in the next
chapter, but it is useful to cite the apocryphal "Gospel of the Nativity
of Mary" in which a Scripture is quoted as saying, "Cursed is every
one who has not begot a male or a female in Israel." This was certainly the Ebionite
view, in which case, we are faced with this important conclusion: the Ebionites would never
have followed someone as the Messiah who had not fathered children.
As we shall see in a later chapter on eunuchs and the sins of uncleanness,
there was no distinction between celibacy and homosexuality in the Hebrew mind.
A fatherless Messiah would have been considered a wicked Messiah in the ethical
system of the Old Testament. To think that a celibate Jesus ever could have
obtained a following among the Jews is as ludicrous as the idea that modern
Jews would be willing to vote for Hitler in the next German election.
Modern Ebionism in
Mormonism
It ought to be mentioned, briefly, that the
idea of a married Jesus is not a novel idea to Mormons. Various Mormon leaders
- from the time of Joseph Smith to today - have expressed the belief that Jesus
was married and fathered children. Their emphasis on fecundity as morally
preferable to virginity is similar to the Ebionites.
Mormons have been ascribed other teachings
similar to the Ebionites. Epiphanius
explains how Christ and Satan stand with equal footing before God in Ebionite doctrine:
They
teach, as I said, that there are two who are appointed by God, one of them
Christ and the other the devil. They say that Christ has been allotted the
future age, but to the devil has been entrusted the present one, by the decree
of the Almighty according to the request of each of them. (30.16.2)
The Mormons, likewise, have been alleged to
believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers, although involved in an antagonistic
rivalry.
Like some Mormons, the Ebionites
also believed that Jesus and Adam were the same person:[13]
For some
of them say that he is from above, but created before everything, being a
spirit and above angels and lord of all, and is called Christ, and has been
allotted the world there. He comes here when he wants, as when he came in Adam,
and when, putting on the body, he appeared to the patriarchs. . . he came also
in the final days, put on Adam's own body, appeared to men, was crucified,
rose, and ascended. (30.3)
This view would be considered heretical by
traditional Christians. However, as an Ebionite
opinion, it is unfair to accuse the Mormon prophets of just "making things
up." It cannot be known whether
there was an intentional alignment of Mormon thinking with the Ebionites, but there has been, certainly, an Ebionite "flavor" to their teachings.[14]
Mormon proofs of a married Jesus will be
included in our survey in the next chapter.
The Jews: Christ as Fornicator
As was indicated at the beginning of this
chapter, Jesus was criticized by Jewish leaders for His commerce with
"low-life" individuals. We know that Jesus came to save sinners, not
to call the righteous. Like the Good Shepherd, He leaves the ninety-nine sheep
to search for the one lost one. Notwithstanding His worthy motives, He still
earned a reputation for sexual immorality.[15]
Mormon advocate, Ogden Kraut, claims that
Christ's polygamy earned Him this stained reputation. He cites an obscure Roman
physician from the 1st Century, Aurelious
Cornelius Celsus, to support his view:
The
grand reason why the Gentiles and philosophers of his school persecuted Jesus
Christ was because he had so many wives; there were Elizabeth and Mary and a
host of others that followed him.[16]
This is a startling claim from an allegedly
early source. Although it begs for clarification and verification, this author
has not been able to find it. But there
is a hint of a polygamous Jesus in The
Apocalypse of James,[17] a writing
from the Nag Hammadi discovery, where James the Just
is quoted as saying to Jesus:
Yet
another thing I ask of you: who are the seven gune [wives or women] who have been your disciples? And behold, all women
bless you.
The Gnostics & Christ’s Companion
The idea of a married Jesus is not really a Gnostic
doctrine because marriage in the Gnostic traditions is viewed as a bestial
custom. Feminists make a mistake to think that they find an ally in Gnosticism.
According to the Gnostics, the material world is either the creation of an evil
god or a creation made by a weak god that has spun out of control. They believe
that the spirit world is the purer existence and that the material world is the
world from which our spirits must escape to find eternal life. Since marriage,
sex, and childbirth are all a part of this world of matter and women are the
matrix of that existence (the word "mother" comes from the word
"matter"), women must be redeemed from womanhood and become
"male" in order to find salvation. This is said in a number of places
in the Gnostic writings.[18]
Of course, feminism is Gnostic and because
it has followed a Gnostic path it has had the effect of making women masculine
in our modern society. Feminism has been destroying the feminine principle
rather than vindicating it.
But not all Gnostic writings are truly
Gnostic. Much of the Nag Hammadi library is
identified by its translators as "Jewish Christian," rather than
Gnostic (see Robinson's Introduction). Because the collection has been labeled
"Gnostic" by scholars - and indeed, the majority of its contents are
Gnostic texts - it has been assumed that the entire collection is Gnostic. To
the contrary, I would argue that a number of these documents reflect an Ebionite tradition as much as they do a Gnostic one.
The idea of an eternal feminine principle in
the Godhead is an Ebionite, as well as a Gnostic
doctrine. The goddess Sophia (Wisdom) figures prominently in these texts - as
she does in the Septuagint. In this respect we see the Greek translation of a
very Hebrew concept: the Hokhmah - the Spirit of Wisdom, which is
always feminine, as the Shekinah - the Holy Spirit
which dwells among the children of God.
In the clearly Gnostic documents, such as
the Pistis Sophia, we find Mary Magdalene
presented, not only as the eminent disciple, exceeding even Peter, but we find
the Lord suggesting that she will be exalted as a representative of the Church
as the Bride of Christ and further deified as the eternal Sophia. While the
Christian leaders of the 2nd Century declared such views heretical
(Simon Magus, who is viewed as a proto-Gnostic from Apostolic times, deified
his courtesan, Helena) the Church did retain Mary as a personification of the
Church (e.g. Hippolytus). Although a chaste
relationship, it was a spousal one, nonetheless.
The early Fathers claimed that some Gnostics
were indifferent to the things of the flesh and used that as an excuse for
sexual license. Under the garb of sex magic - the use of sex to obtain
spiritual energy and not pleasure - they were accused of designing rituals for
these bestial practices. But we do not see this in the Nag Hammadi
texts. We do see, however, strong hints of a phallic Jesus and a sexual
relationship with Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel
of Philip, which I think is more an Ebionite
than a Gnostic document; Mary is described as our Lord's "companion"
and consort:
There
were three who always walked with the lord: Mary his mother and her sister and
Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and
his companion were each a Mary.[19]
In another
place, the physical affection between Jesus and Mary is recounted:
As for
Sophia [Wisdom] who is called "the barren", she is the
mother [of the] angels. And the companion of the [Lord, she is the
mother of the Christians and is] Mary
Magdalene. [He loved] her
more than [all] the disciples [and used to] kiss her [often] on her [. . .
lips]. (63)[20]
The
disciples are offended that He is neglecting them because of these amorous
pursuits:
The rest
of the disciples . . . They said to him, "Why do you love her more than
all of us?"[21]
These texts, I think, represent more of an Ebionite tradition than a Gnostic one. For it presents
Jesus as a man of the flesh, a condition which the Gnostics found repugnant, as
did the Church in later years.
Neo-pagans: Christ the Pagan Spouse
Dissatisfied with the Gnostic paradigm, many
feminists have moved beyond it to greener pastures - pun intended - in a
revival of the nature religions of ancient times. Wicca, Earth worship, and the
goddess have become the motifs of their new faith and world view. This movement
has moved in a more positive direction toward an affirmation of nature, the
physical world and the integrity of the feminine principle.
Within this new paradigm, we find a Christ
transformed into an Israelite king following the pattern of the apostates of
the Old Testament: the kings who worshipped the various deities of their
Canaanite neighbors and “did evil in the sight of the LORD.” Contrary to the
Jesus we find in the Gospels, with this perspective, He and his priestess wife,
Mary Magdalene, are secret apostates from the Law of Moses.
We introduced this thesis in the last
chapter in our reference to the novel, The
Moon Under Her Feet by Clysta Kinstler. But a more serious advocate can be found in the
books of Margaret Starbird, a Roman Catholic convert
to a bowdlerized version of Grail theology. Her books, more than any other
during the past decade (as the success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code
illustrates), have pushed the agenda of redefining Christianity as a pagan
religion: first in exalting Mary Magdalene to the status of the spouse of
Christ (The Woman With the Alabaster Jar,
1993), and then to that of a mediatrix and co-deity (The Goddess in the Gospels, 1998).[22] While her contribution to the question
of a married Jesus will be explored in the next chapter, her central argument,
as it relates to the figure of a pagan Christ, ought to be addressed here.
In her first book, The Woman With the Alabaster Jar, she
asserts that Mary Magdalene performed a pagan ritual when she anointed Jesus
with the perfumed ointment just days before His arrest and crucifixion. Drawing
upon examples from antiquity of the hieros
gamos in which the priestesses of goddess
cults would inaugurate rulers by a ceremony of ritual sex in anticipation of
their immolation to appease the gods of fertility, she argues that Mary
Magdalene was a member of such a cult and that the anointing of Bethany fits
this profile. Marshaling a wide array of circumstantial evidence - from the
bride/bridegroom analogies in the Bible and suggestive epithets, such as
"the shepherd" and "the lamb of God" which parallel various
pagan myths of the ancient Near East, then on to the hieros gamos
in the Song of Solomon along with the cryptic metaphors sometimes used by the
Early Fathers (e.g. the Agape Feast) and the heretical cults of the Middle Ages
which were massacred by Papal crusaders for teaching that the Magdalene was
Christ's concubine - she lays out a convincing case for her thesis, if, and only if, we are willing to
believe, in addition to all of this, that the Gospel records have a hidden
message of a Christ with inverted values from the ones which are openly
declared in the sacred texts. This is always a tenuous premise. History as a discipline loses definition and
credibility if we must assume that the writings which have been handed down to
us – such as Julius Caesar’s war journals – contain coded messages which
contradict their open meaning. This is Gnostic to the core and typical of
secret societies which teach one set of doctrines for the higher initiates and
an opposite set of doctrines for the lower initiates. Starbird
has not proven that the Gospel records have an opposite meaning in their
esoteric messages.
The relationship between Christianity and
paganism is a troubling issue for many people who want to believe that the
message of Jesus was something new and wonderful. Skeptics have weakened the
faith of many because they have been able to find the sayings and works of
Jesus in the records of pre-Christian religions. The discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls was disconcerting to scholars for this very reason, for it proved that
the Qumran Community was in many respects a proto-Christian sect, suggesting
that Jesus may have borrowed many of His ideas from them to start His own
religion.
But even Jesus Himself declared that His
teachings and mission were a fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (Matthew
5:17). He affirmed that there was nothing new in what He said or did. We should
not think that the value of Christianity lies in the fact that it is in some
sense original.
Indeed, it was argued by the fathers -
Ignatius being among them - that Christianity was the first and only religion
of mankind, even predating Judaism.[23] The antiquity of pagan mythology
does not disprove our thesis. For the doctrines of mankind's condition and the
coming Savior were taught orally by righteous men from generation to generation
until Moses. It was even written in the stars: hence, the Wise Men of the
Christmas story. It should not surprise us that the story of Christ would be
written in advance in the mythologies of the ancients.
The early Christian apologists, such as
Justin Martyr, complained that the heathen borrowed and twisted the concepts
they found in the Old Testament. Relating one example, he says:
For when they tell that Bacchus, son of
Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter's] intercourse with Semele,
and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being
torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and
when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil]
has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by
Moses?
- Dialogue with Trypho[24]
The Jews see Christianity as pagan idolatry.
The idea of exalting a man to godhood and then worshipping him has always been
problematic for the Jews. In this, we see that the Gentiles were more ready
than the Jews to receive a Divine Savior, as the Apostle Paul discovered on
several occasions in the Acts of the Apostles. Their mythologies had already
taught them the Incarnation: the idea of a god becoming a man to save the
world. The Jews had no doctrinal basis for this idea. Their Messiah was to be a
national warrior-king who would liberate them from the corruption of pagan laws
and religions. To carry the day, Christians had only to convince the Gentile
world that Jesus Christ was more divine than Caesar: that there was a
discontinuity in being between the Creator and the creation. It was a
metaphysical debate to delineate the difference between the big God - the
Creator of the universe - and the little gods who were themselves creatures of
the earth. Caesar could never become the savior that Jesus was simply because
he could never be the god that Jesus was. As for the Jews, they had to be
reached through a different method: through a doctrine of atonement which
satisfied Divine justice. They had to be persuaded that the blood of
sacrificial animals and even the blood of a righteous man - including their
precious messiah - could never be efficacious in cleansing them from the guilt
of sin. Only God Himself could be the sacrificial lamb. The doctrine of public
justice requires the Incarnation. Once this is understood, we can see how all
the religions of mankind are perfected in the message of Gospel, and why
Christianity sometimes looks like a pagan religion, and then at other times, it
looks like pure Judaism.
The reason why Christians can never say that
Mary Magdalene is a goddess is the same reason why they will never say the
Virgin Mary is a goddess. The entire Christian world is united on this
question. While the Catholics will teach that it is appropriate for Mary to
receive prayers and veneration, they will never say that she is God in the same
sense that Jesus is. Jesus is the Incarnation of the Divine Logos, the Second
Person of the Trinity. There is no woman who is an incarnation of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a divine indwelling that has been reserved for all
believers. The most that any Christian can say of Mary Magdalene is what has
been said by some of the Fathers already: that
she was the embodiment of the Church. But that is a radical
doctrine by itself. A proper understanding of that doctrine is revolutionary
enough. We do not need to follow the craze to exalt Mary to some kind of
co-deity with Jesus.
As for Starbird's
thesis that the anointing at Bethany represented a ritual initiation into the hieros gamos,
we should not allow our judgment to be clouded by the speculation that
Christianity is simply a continuation of these ancient pagan religions. When do
the mundane become idolatry? The Apostle Paul explained to his Gentile converts
that eating meat sold by the pagan temple was no different than eating meat
sold on the street or at the Jewish temple (Romans 14; 1 Corinthians 8). It was
just meat and if it was sanctified with a Christian blessing, it could be eaten
lawfully to satisfy one’s hunger. Many pagan rituals are based upon mundane
events in a person's life - such as eating, drinking, sleeping, copulating,
etc. - and dramatizing them with incantations to a deity. Did Mary offer any
invocations or incantations when she washed the feet of her Lord? There is no
record that she did, and had she done so, the entire weight of the Gospel
record tells us that she would have been roundly condemned by Jesus Himself -
the One who refused the idolatrous temptations of Satan in the wilderness (Matthew
4).
It is true, as any good Bible commentary
will point out, that an alabaster jar of spikenard would have been saved by
daughters among the wealthy for their wedding day. In John Thomas'
authoritative study of the history of footwashing, it appears that a custom
existed in ancient times, as a prelude to sexual relations, for women to wash
their husband's feet to confirm their submission and love.[25] This fact is important to the
question of a married Jesus and will be explored in a later chapter. But used
in this sense, the practice has no cultic implications.
In
the Gospel accounts, Mary washes His feet, weeping, and anoints both His feet
and His head with the costly perfume, which according to the indignant
Iscariot, could have fed many among the poor. Was this a pagan rite, a
consecration of the god-king for sacrifice or just a grieving concubine who
knew her master was about to die?
The
final answer all depends upon the interpretation of Jesus' words, "Leave
her alone, she hath done what she could. For my burial hath she done
this."[26] There is an anomaly here which is
passed-over by traditional commentators. In what sense was an anointing
necessary to prepare a body for burial before
it was even dead? We know that this could not have been a part of
the customary burial preparations, because Joseph of Arimathea (with the help
of Nicodemus), the primary figure who removed Jesus from the Cross and laid Him
in his private tomb, wrapped the body in herbs and spices. Furthermore, on the
day of the Resurrection, the women, including Mary Magdalene, came to the tomb
to finish what they had started. Why would she return to do this, when at the
anointing of Bethany, she had already "done what she could"? Are we
not compelled to look elsewhere for a better explanation of what Jesus meant?
We are justified to ponder whether
it had any symbolic or typological significance. But we have no reference for
such a custom of a deathbed anointing in the Old Testament. We have the
anointing of kings and priests. They were anointed with sacred oil at their
inaugurations.[27] Mary did not have this sacred
oil. She used spikenard.
In the sacrificial system of the Old
Testament, there were various meal offerings which were waved by the priest as
a “memorial” before the Lord. These meal offerings (also called
"peace" or "thanksgiving" offerings) were anointed with
oil.[28] One might justly connect them with the Last Supper, in which the Lord
offers the unleavened bread of the Passover as a symbol of His broken body.
Like the priestly sacrifices, it was set forth as a “memorial.” So was Mary's
anointing.[29] We might be tempted to say that
Christ - the Bread of Life - was anointed by Mary. But we must stop short of
this conclusion; for these offerings were not sin offerings. It was forbidden
to use oil with sin offerings (Leviticus 5:11).[30] This point is important. We might
be able to see the Eucharist - the great Thanksgiving - as a memorial after the
fact, and not as a sin offering. Mary's
anointing of Jesus, however, would have violated the Old Testament types if she
was confusing the meal offerings with the sin offerings. Our Lord's mission was
to become an offering for sin (Hebrews 9:22-28). It would have been forbidden to anoint the sin offering.
Facing the fact that Mary's actions
would have violated Old Testament types if they were to be interpreted as some
kind of priestly or sacerdotal ritual, we must look to another possibility: the custom of anointing the sick for their
recovery, including the recovery from leprosy (Leviticus 14:18; James
5:14). Since Jesus was not sick, we might, at first, dismiss this proposition,
as well. However, he was sick in spirit with increasing sorrow, even with a
spiritual leprosy as He prepared to bear the sins of the world. In ancient
times, the anointing of the head by a fragrant oil was used to bring joy and
pleasure (Psalm 23:5; Hebrews 1:9; Matthew 6:17). It was the opposite action
one would take when mourning (2 Samuel 14:2). We might view Mary's actions as
merely a means of comforting Jesus: "She hath done what she could."
She knew He was facing a life threatening crisis. Like any other loving wife,
she sought to encourage Him and to demonstrate her highest esteem for Him with
the most precious item in her possession. But more than that, she may have been
anointing Him in anticipation of the battle for the Resurrection. Mary and
Martha both confessed their faith in His lordship, even over death, when He
raised their brother Lazarus in John 11, just days before this episode. Could
Jesus defy His own death and raise Himself from the grave? That was to become
His greatest test. While her weeping at the first footwashing may have been
over grief and mourning for sin (Luke 7), may not Mary's weeping at the Bethany
anointing have been from the overwhelming emotion and the trembling
anticipation of knowing that Jesus was now face-to-face with His destiny?[31]
Although Jesus memorialized it after
the fact, this author does not believe that Mary Magdalene used the anointing
at Bethany as a ritual with any religious significance - pagan or otherwise. We
have no examples of an anointing in anticipation of someone's death and burial
in the Scriptures. Allowing for the fact that there were similar rituals among
the pagans, it does not explain why Jesus would have allowed her to perform
such a rite which would have disqualified Him as the sin offering of Israel. In
all other respects, Jesus was careful to fulfill Old Testament types. Why would
He be so careless at this critical moment?
The Esotericists: Christ as Antichrist
Another source for knowledge among
the Gnostics was the claimed ability to decipher secret messages in the
Biblical texts, either through the use of the numerical values of words or the
ability to translate figures of speech. We know that such messages exist in the
Scriptures. The number of the Beast in the book of Revelation - 666 - is
supposed to tell us who the Antichrist is (of which there are still as many
varied opinions as there are commentators). We also know that some terms were
used in the place of others to veil the identity of certain individuals or
places. Jerusalem was sometimes referred to as "Sodom" (Revelation
11:8) and Rome was the whorish "Babylon" (Revelation 17:18).
While there are certain Biblical
texts which invite these kinds of interpretations, the Gnostics used this
method of interpretation for all of the texts. With the introduction of the
Dead Sea Scrolls, some modern scholars are beginning to interpret the Gospels
as if they were written as coded messages. Margaret Starbird
is one such interpreter. She relies upon David Fideler
and John Michell, for example, to work out the
numerical value of "and his number is 666" which comes to 2368, the
same sum as the Greek letters for the name "Jesus Christ".[32]
She uses this kind of logic to argue that the high Christology of the
Creeds is a form of idolatry condemned in the book of Revelation. In other
words, she argues that the Christian Jesus is the Antichrist!
She also uses the same method,
called the gematria,
to argue that Mary Magdalene is the "goddess in the Gospels":
But
in the case of Mary Magdalene, the gematria of the
epithet "the Magdalene" must also be added to her name. In the
instances when her name would be Mariam,
the addition of the epithet "the Magdalene" . . . meaning "the
elevated," "great", or "tower" - leads to a gematria of 345. Because of the colel
of +1 (and this case +2) that can be added to or subtracted from any number
without altering its symbolic significance, the name of this special intimate
of Jesus is very closely associated with the "eternal feminine" - the
virgin or wisdom goddess whose symbolic number is seven - for 343 is 7³, the
epitome of seven. This number also links the Magdalene with the Greek goddess
Pallas Athene, who was also associated with seven by
the gematria of her name: for Pallas . . . equals 342
by gematria, and the gematria
for Athene . . . is 76 (plus the colel
+1 = 77). The distinctive gematria of 345 may be one
reason Gnostic Christians, who were accused of using "numbers
theology", associated Mary Magdalene with the Sophia - Holy Wisdom - in so
many of their sacred texts.[33]
One is left to ponder why a doctrine so important in Gnostic theology would be
trusted to eccentric mathematicians. But that was the nature of the exclusivity
of the Gnostic system: only the initiates who were smart enough to figure out
such a convoluted system were worthy of eternal life. The rest were too dumb to
be trusted with truth. Their destiny was to die like the beasts of the earth;
for that was all they were.
Laurence Gardner, a popular esotericist and historian
from Britain, also relies upon cryptography, only he uses Barbara Thiering's method allegedly discovered in the Dead Sea
Scrolls. While it is obvious that the writers of the Scrolls used code to avoid
detection by the Romans (for example, the Romans are called the "Kittim"), to say that all of their writings were
written in code is to overstate the case, for the simple reason that no one had
the leisure to benefit from such an elaborate system that these interpreters
envision. While it is possible to believe that "Kittim"
referred to the Romans in some documents, might it not refer to its original nomenclature
in other documents: the ancient Philistines? This is for the same reason that
sometimes when the Bible uses the word "Babylon"; it is actually referring to the ancient city
of Babylon. When Thiering borrows this method and
applies it to the Scriptures, are we to believe that every time the term
"the Word of God" (i.e. the Logos
of God) is used in the New Testament that it is referring to Jesus Christ?
Thus, in 2 Timothy 2:9 when it says "the Word of God is not bound",
are we to interpret that to mean, as Gardner does, that Jesus Christ has been
released from jail?[34]
This method leads to other absurdities. Thiering
believes that the events of the Gospels never happened. All the stories,
parables, and miracles occurred as metaphorical descriptions of the ritual
movements of Qumranian adepts who maneuvered
themselves on a human-sized chess board set up at the Dead Sea encampment. She
even believes that the Crucifixion and Resurrection were staged rituals that
occurred at Qumran and not at Jerusalem.[35] If she is correct, no historical
record can be trusted, Biblical or otherwise.
Gardner uses this method to teach
that Joseph of Arimathea was really James the Just, the brother of Jesus. He
offers no explanation as to why we must believe that James - as the real Joseph
- would be the one who brought Christianity to Britain, when the Acts of the
Apostles and all other historical records available tell us that he was the
leader of the Jerusalem Church and was martyred in Jerusalem.
Gardner's books are the European
counterpart of Starbird's in America. As a historian,
he is much more carefully documented than Starbird,
who, frustratingly, writes to a more popular audience and does not rely upon
cold, historical facts to prove her case.
She does not believe that the case can be proved one way or the other.
Instead, using a purely existential method, she argues from synchronicities.
As a genealogist, Gardner uses an objective
research method which can be tested. His
bibliographies are impressive and useful. However, he is a mystic, also, and
shares a similar cosmology with Zachariah Sitchin,
which discounts the Biblical account of origins and argues for a UFO-type
"pan spermia": that we are the offspring of
extra-terrestrial beings who are colonizing space. Like a true Gnostic, Gardner
sees the House of David with a Cainite origin, which,
of course, makes Jesus a Cainite - a descendant of
Cain. As if our heads aren't spinning enough already, Gardner further argues
the case for the ingestion of menstrual blood as the wine of the gods which
brought psychic powers and longevity to the ancient god-kings. Thus in true
Gnostic form, he completely inverts the values of the Bible which forbids the
eating of blood. The good guys of the Old Testament become the bad guys - or at
least some of them do - and the bad guys, like Cain, become the good guys. It
should not be forgotten that James, the brother of Jesus and the first bishop
of the Church, likewise forbade the eating of blood in the first Jerusalem
Council (Acts 15). Gardner is defying all standard historical sources,
including the witness from the Jamesian Church which he claims to embrace, to
promote his view of the past.
What relevance does this have to the question
of a married Jesus? We must look honestly at the motives of its proponents.
There are many heretics and antichristians who find a married Jesus convenient
to their cause. It tends to discredit the quest of serious scholars who want to
know if the historical record supports the proposition of a married Jesus.
It might also engender sympathy for why the
Church so zealously opposes it. But we must temper that sympathy with another
consideration: do Church leaders oppose it because it is heretical in the sense
that it undermines the teachings of the Bible? Or do they oppose it because it
undermines their power to
control Biblical interpretation? Are we
confronting two kinds of heresy here: the heretics on the outside and the
heretics on the inside of the Church?
To help answer such questions, we
should turn next to the academics. Without an attachment to the Church or a
heretical agenda, perhaps the curious historian will prove to be a more
trustworthy guide.
* * *
Who do men say that I am?
(Matthew
16:16)
Proceed to Chapter Three
[1]For
example, at our Lord's baptism, Justin introduces an element of the story not
found in the other Gospels; namely, that "a fire was kindled" when He
stepped into the Jordan River to be baptized (Dialogue with Trypho, § 88). The
works of Justin Martyr can be found in the collection of volumes called The Ante-Nicene Fathers, (hereafter
sometimes abbreviated as ANF) volume
one (Roberts & Donaldson, Hendrickson Publishers, 1994)
[2] The Septuagint, the Old Testament text in Greek, was not used by the faithful in Palestine.
[3] Relying on Papias who was an apostolic source for Irenaeus, Eusebius
(the 4th Century, Church historian) writes: "Mark, having
become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he
remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or
deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But
afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions
to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular
narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing
some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not
to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the
statements. [This is what is related by Papias
regarding Mark; but with regard to Matthew he has made the following
statements]: Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew
language, and each one interpreted them as best he could." -
"Fragments of Papias", Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, p.
154-155.
[4] Quoting Papias again: "And he also gives another story of a woman,
who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is to be found in the
Gospel according to the Hebrews" Ibid,
p. 155. Eusebius alleges that Papias'
records contained "other things from unwritten tradition, amongst these some strange parables and instructions
of the Saviour, and some other things of a fabulous
nature." Eusebius betrays his theological biases, for he cites the
Millenarian doctrine, a view popular among pre-Nicene leaders, as one of those
"fabulous things." This
statement suggests an esoteric tradition.
[5]Jerome’s Commentaries on Micah: “And whoever gives credence to the gospel circulating under the title “Gospel of the Hebrews”, which we recently translated . . .” (The Complete Gospels, Robert J. Miller, ed., p. 432)
[6]These committees
do a disservice in their disrespect for the Texts received by Church Tradition.
For Tradition takes into account the full witness of the Fathers who gave us
the Gospels in the first place. It does not carve the texts like a cadaver on a
laboratory table.
[7]There has
been some confusion between the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of
Matthew, which was also written in Hebrew. I refer the reader to the footnoted
commentaries in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical
History, in The Nicene &
Post Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, p.
159 for a full treatment of this question. In summary, what appears to have
happened is that the original "Gospel of the Hebrews" was written by
Matthew. It was later abridged to become our current Gospel of Matthew, as
indicated by the missing story provided later by John's Gospel. What became the
Gospel of the Hebrews in later centuries was itself an abridged edition of the
original Gospel of the Hebrews retained by the Jerusalem Church. The later
editions, as says Epiphanius, were "not complete,
but spurious and mutilated" which reflected the increasingly sectarian and
heretical views of the Ebionites. It should be added
that Epiphanius identifies the "Diatessaron of Tatian" as
"the Gospel According to the Hebrews." If that is true, then the Diatessaron precedes the Four Gospels. "Diatessaron" is a harmony of the Gospels. Tatian was a Syrian and a pupil of Justin Martyr, but later
is alleged to have become heretical.
[8]Nicene
& Post Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, p. 159-160
[9] See Appendix B for a brief explanation and defense for the prominent Christian leaders relied upon in this book.
[10]Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, The Panarion, trans. Philip Amidon, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England (1990)
[11] homoousios. Eusebius, "We are well aware
that the Bishops and writers of ancient times when discussing the theology of
the Father and the Son never used the word homoousios." (as quoted by Hugh Nibley, The World and
the Prophets, Volume 3, p. 47)