The Fall of Saint Peter's

It begins with a single ominous crack which appears high overhead in the arched roof. For a few moments all is still, and it seems as if nothing further will happen, and that this negligible damage will be confined to nothing that a plasterer could not fix. But these few silent moments are the calm before the storm. Another snaking crack appears, and another, as the monolithic building is hastily evacuated. Then with a noise like gunshots most of the roof gives way, sliding in a welter of dust and crumbling masonry to the cold marble floor below…

The Fall of Saint Peter's

Supposing that there was an institution whose influence was as wide as the world. Supposing that, to achieve that influence and to consolidate its dominance on the stage of history, this institution had slaughtered [1]millions. Supposing that to further silence any dissenting voices, it had initiated a [2]body drawn from its own ranks which imprisoned and tortured both men, women and children, and that this body had continued its practices, not for months, nor even for years, but for long centuries. And supposing that those within its hierarchy had been, and continue to be, responsible through sexual abuse for ruining thousands of the young lives of those entrusted to its care, and that these perpetrators enjoy the [3]tacit protection of the very hierarchy to which they themselves belong. Now suppose that this institution presumes to found itself upon the rock of religious moral values, and continues to flourish even today.

“Though the mills of God grind slowly;

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting,

With exactness grinds he all.” 

…wrote Henry Wordsworth Longfellow in his poem Retribution. My above painting is not so much a fanciful prophesy as what I see as a future inevitability. But the painting is also a metaphor, an image of justice come home, and in that sense is real enough. And if the Sistine Chapel with its iconic writhing frescoes of plodding scriptural literalism is destroyed along with it, then you will see a smile on my face.

Hawkwood 

Notes:

[1] The Record of History: Do not think to protest that this is an exaggeration. This total collectively includes Gnostics, Cathars (Cathar mortality at the hands of Papal forces accounts for one million deaths alone), Waldensians, Manichaeans, Paulicians, Templars and those of any denominational faith or any individuals which the Papal office perceived as a threat to its own power base. There can be no denying what already has happened, what already is a part of recorded history.

[2] The Inquisition: Originally founded in the 12th-century and run by the Dominican brotherhood, the Inquisition (left), which was little more than repressed sexual sadism and pseudo-pious sanctimony masquerading as a watchdog of the faith, persisted in one form or another up until as late as the 18th-century, making any belief which it decided was a heresy punishable by death - and at times even beyond death, with the Inquisition even exhuming the bodies of the accused and putting the corpses on trial: a grim legal ploy which allowed the assets of their surviving family to be seized by the Church authorities. The Inquisition as an institutionalized Church body survives even today under the pretentiously-titled Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. As Voltaire dryly observed, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

[3] Targets for Excommunication: Archbishop Desmond Tutu has stated that tacit inaction in the presence of injustice is to participate actively in that injustice. Were the Papal office to assert its moral authority (assuming that it has any) and vigorously excommunicate the offending pedophile priests, it would send a clear message to others. It does not do so, being content in many such cases merely to shuffle the offenders from diocese to diocese, which only relocates the crime and offers potential new victims to the perpetrators. Rather, it targets for excommunication such individuals as Father Roy Bourgeois (right), who already had devoted over four decades of his life to his church. Father Bourgeois’ unforgivable offence? Proposing the ordination of women as priests.

How Saint Peter's was built: It is worth noting that the building of Saint Peter's was originally paid for by the sale of indulgences: the corrupt buying-off of worldly sins by individuals making payments to priests and others in the Church hierarchy. Source: The Role of Indulgences in the Building of New Saint Peter’s Basilica (2011): Ginny Justice, Master of Liberal Studies thesis, Rollins College.

Stop Press: Today's news carries the announcement that, having been fast-tracked with near-breakneck haste to sainthood, John Paul II (left) is due to be canonized on 27th of this month. This is the man who during his papacy refused to sign a document formally pardoning Giordano Bruno, and who also during the same term of office wrote an apostolic letter denying women the right to hold any positions of rank within the Church hierarchy: a judgement which the letter concludes is to be 'definitively held'. In other words: forever.


Note added April 28, 2014: Now that the event mentioned in my stop press has taken place, I'll add that the Church body named in note [2] above as being the contemporary equivalent of the Inquisition was run during John Paul II's term of office by... yes... Cardinal Ratzinger, who succeeded him as Pope Benedict XVI. 

Lilith: Spirit of the Night

She is a demon. She is a monster, a wraith, a vampire. She is everything you fear when the sun dips down below the horizon and your world slides into darkness. Both scorned and feared by men, her name is Lilith, the spirit of the night.

Lilith: Spirit of the Night

This is the way in which Lilith has traditionally been portrayed in folklore, and it is an image which endures into popular culture even today. Goth, metal and post-rock bands continue to get mileage out of referencing her in lyrics, and she has reached our own age via the Romantics of the 19th- and early 20th-centuries, who were happy-enough to turn her into an alluring Victorian femme fatale. At times her identity has been blended with that of Lamia, that other predatory being of legend, half serpent, half female. But how did this legend begin?

One of the most intriguing aspects of the Book of Genesis is that, in just its first two chapters, it relates two separate and conflicting accounts of the creation of the first humans. Chapter Two is the familiar version of God forming Eve from a rib of the comatose Adam. But in the previous chapter the first couple, who now remain unnamed, are created at the same time, and from the same prima materia. It might at first seem like a minor adjustment to this story, for such stories already were an inherited oral tradition, and must have varied with subsequent retellings. But this difference has impacted folklore, and spawned a legend.

This Babylonian relief carving of a winged and bird-footed female is a reminder that Hebrew texts were influenced by the lands of Hebrew exile. In Babylonian beliefs lilitu were a class of female demons.

Later Jewish folklore names the nameless woman in Chapter One (which also is the first chapter in the Jewish Torah) as Lilith, the first wife of Adam. Since Lilith is created in the same moment as Adam, she is not, as Eve was, formed from a part of Adam’s flesh. Eve, who was Woman, already was a second-generation product. Lilith contrastingly is an autonomous being, and as such is in every way Adam’s equal. Adam expects his new mate to be subservient, also in her sexual role. Lilith has other ideas, and protests mightily both to God and to Adam that she also has rights and expectations. Having scorned both man and deity, Lilith storms off into the night. Unlike Eve, Lilith is not ejected from Eden. Instead she keeps the power to herself, and leaves of her own volition.

Two Victorian lamias (left, by John William Waterhouse, and right, by Herbert Draper) both draped in the shed skins of their serpent selves.

In her wanderings and in legend, Lilith becomes a creature of the darkness associated with vampires, monsters and night spirits: associations which have endured into contemporary popular culture. But whatever she has become since, in folklore she originally was Adam’s equal partner – a state of affairs about which both God and Adam apparently had regretful second thoughts. The all-too-masculine deity did not make that mistake twice, and with the feisty and assertive Lilith out of the picture, Eve was created to be subservient to the man.

This serpent-entwined version of Lilith by John Collier would seem to be little more than an excuse for some exotic Victorian titillation.

Lilith’s punishment for doing nothing more than assert her equal gender rights was to be transformed in folklore into a predator of the darkness. It seems that what men feel threatened by, what invokes male insecurity, is not so much a woman’s sexuality, as a woman’s sexual autonomy. What also seems to be underscored by Lilith’s story is another simple but stark reality: that although we might not know the identities of the writers of these ancient texts of scripture and folklore, their pro-male story lines are in themselves enough to persuade us that they were written by men.

Hawkwood

Sources:

Lilith: Spirit of the Night painted for this post by Hawkwood for the © David Bergen Studio, All Rights Reserved. For those interested in the sources of such things: the geomantic symbols which are painted on the body of my model are those meaning 'great good fortune' - a visual statement which I feel in itself redresses in some small measure the gender injustice of these pro-male stories which have become so entrenched in our culture, whether or not we are 'believers'.

Babylonian carving: British Museum, London. The blue on the manes of the two beasts is the original surviving pigment with which this carving was painted. Lamia, by John William Waterhouse, 1909 (collection untraced). Lamia, by Herbert Draper, 1910 (collection untraced). Lilith, by John Collier, 1892, in the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport, England.

What The Fire Said

An Arrow already in Flight

From our distant past to mysterious futures, from sirens of the seas to contemporary sorcery: the silence of abandoned cities, echoes of ancient myths, prophesies and oracles – and even my own portrayal of Dracula - can all be found on my new weblog What The Fire Said, the online portal which features my own art and writing. For those interested, the site also includes articles on the techniques which I use to create my art. You are welcome to visit, and if you enjoy what you see, you are of course always welcome to become a follower and return to view the new work which I shall be adding.
Hawkwood

whathefiresaid.blogspot.com

A Fragment of Love

Please read the following short passage of church doctrine, and see if you find it sympathetic:

“It does not exist in a fixed form, but only by the mutual agreement of persons. It has no members except for those who feel that they belong to it. It has no rivals because it does not nourish the spirit of competition. It has no ambition because it only wishes to serve. It does not have any national boundaries because love does not act in this way. It does not close itself off, as it tries to enrich all groups and religions. It respects all the great teachers of all times who revealed the truth of love. All who belong to it practice the truth of love with their whole being. He who belongs to it knows that.

“It does not try to teach others but only tries to be, and by being, to give. It lives in the knowledge that the whole earth is a living being and that we are part of it. It knows that the time of the last return has arrived; the way of self-surrender, in free will to return to unity. It does not make itself known by loud words, but works in the free domain of being. It salutes all those who have enlightened the path of love and gave their lives for it. It does not create any ranks in its midst and no elevation of anybody, because the one is no greater than the other. It does not promise reward, neither in this nor in another life, yet only the joy of being in that love.

“Its members recognise each other by their behaviour, their way of being, by the look in their eyes and by no other external act than to embrace each other in a brotherly and sisterly way. They know neither fear nor shame and their witness will always be truthful in good as in bad times. The church of love has no secret, has neither mystery nor initiation except for the deep knowledge of the power of love, as the world must change, if we as persons wish it so; but only if first we change ourselves. All those who feel that they belong to it do indeed belong. They belong to the church of love.”

************

Perhaps you agree with me that you would have to be a hard soul indeed not to find this declaration sympathetic. Indeed, in its intentions it sounds remarkably contemporary, and we recognize in it the holistic views of our own world. It is certainly compassionate and tolerant of the views and beliefs of others in a ‘live and let live’ way. It displays humility, taking a stance more of service to others than showing any worldly ambitions of its own. Can you belong to this church of love? Of course you can, in your heart and in your being, if you find its declaration sympathetic. But there is no church as such: there is no building which you can enter and join the congregation. And there is no doctrine to follow, other than what you have read above. But who are its members? Perhaps more to the point: where are they?

What you have read above is one of the few surviving fragments of Cathar writing, and it dates, not from our own times, but from the middle of the 12th-century – the year 1148, to be exact. That Cathar beliefs, more by default than by design, sidelined the authority of the Papal offices proved to be their undoing. The Pope, alarmed at this perceived threat to his [1]power, and concerned by the ever-growing popularity of the Cathars, instigated the Christian-against-Christian [2]Albigensian Crusade.

Over half a century some one million Cathars and their regional Catholic sympathisers were slaughtered. Since strict Cathars were non-combative, most of the so-called military campaigns against them were of the siege-and-massacre type. Those not put to the sword by the Papal crusaders were rounded up and burned alive. And when the military campaign exhausted itself, the Papal Inquisition run by the Dominican order was established to take care of the rest. Whole areas of the Cathar heartlands in the Languedoc region of the south of France were emptied of their populations, and their lands and property were handed over to the Papal offices.

This is why the Cathar church no longer exists: it was exterminated by the will of the Papacy. What survives are these few scraps of Cathar doctrine to tell us how their faith expressed itself: fragments of love for their fellows and tolerance for the beliefs of others. The rest has long blown away on the winds of history, scattered with the ashes of the victims into the still air above the Languedoc.

Hawkwood  

Notes:

[1] I have previously made the point on this blog that there is no such thing as ‘orthodox’ (implying 'correct' or 'right') in religious belief, since all beliefs have their own value. What exists in reality is a power base which allows one to call one’s beliefs ‘orthodox’, and from that power base to then brand other beliefs as ‘heretical’, ‘false’, ‘evil’ – or just plain wrong.

[2] For an account of the Papal campaign and its aftermath please see my post A Dark Crusade. In that post I undertook to write a future post about Cathar beliefs. Allowing the Cathars to express themselves in their own words seemed to be a way to do that. Thanks to Emma for providing me with the Cathar text for this post.

The replica Cathar cross pendant is in my collection.

Odyssey and Exodus: the Long Journey Home

Homer’s heroic tale The Odyssey recounts the adventures of the brave and sharp-witted Odysseus as he voyages home from the Trojan War to his native island of Ithaca across ‘the wine-dark sea’. Some of the incidents in the story have become so familiar that you might know of them even if you have not read the narrative.

During his protracted ten years-long journey, Odysseus must face the alluring but deadly song of the sirens, is forced to confront the sorceress Circe who turns his crew into swine, must  [1]outwit the one-eyed rock-hurling giant cyclops [2]Polyphemus, and at one stage even journeys down to the very Underworld. In another episode, the travelling hero and his crew are cast onto an enchanted isle where they must face a powerful sorcerer who demonstrates his powers by turning his magician’s staff into a writhing snake. Or does he?

Well, you might recognise all of the above incidents as being from The Odyssey – except the last. To have encountered this particular ‘sorcerer’ Odysseus would have had to journey to Egypt and another culture. And Homer would have had to have written, not The Odyssey, but the Book of Exodus, in which Moses’ brother [3]Aaron demonstrates the powers of his Deity to the Pharaoh by turning his staff into a serpent. If (as I have just done) we give this scriptural incident a non-scriptural setting, we have no hesitation in recognizing it as a fantasy element in an adventure story. Not for a moment would we seriously consider that it actually happened.

So why is it that we can be entertained by (but do not for a moment seriously believe in) the spell-casting of the bewitching Circe and the sirens and other supernatural and fantasy elements in Homer, while (if we are believers) we uncritically accept the veracity of such supernatural scriptural incidents as the parting of the Red Sea, the [4]burning bush, and even a [5]talking donkey. All these incidents in scripture (and others like them) clearly defy the natural order. They are as fantastic as the crew-devouring sea monster Scylla, whom brave Odysseus also encounters. In short: what makes the scriptural sea monster [6]Leviathan so fundamentally different from the Homeric sea monster Scylla?

The simple answer is of course: context. As soon as something crosses that crucial line into scripture, different rules apply. Faith, not entertainment, is what willingly suspends our disbelief. Faith, for reasons which I’m writing this blog to try and figure out, makes a rational mind accept irrational things. And context is the simple answer, yes. But if we dig a little deeper, the apparent gap between the scriptural and the secular proves not to be as wide as we might have thought. Homer’s first book, The Iliad, covers the events of the Trojan War which, like Odysseus’ voyage home, lasted ten long years, and almost ended in a grinding [7]stalemate.

The first two books of the Bible (and of the Torah) are Genesis and Exodus. The two Homeric books are The Iliad and The Odyssey. The author of the first two is traditionally Moses, although ‘Moses’ turns out to be as elusive an historical figure as Homer himself. Both of these sources originally belonged to a Bronze Age oral tradition, and were passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation before finally being committed to writing in the Iron Age – hundreds of years after the events which they relate, which purportedly took place in the Late Bronze Age: historical novels of a sort, if you will.

If we extract suitable tag words from The Iliad we might choose: transgression, forced detention and exile (of Helen of Troy, who is rightfully Helen, queen of Sparta). If we do the same for Genesis we might have: transgression, forced expulsion and exile (of Eve from Eden). Doing the same for The Odyssey we could choose: long voyage home, full of trials. And for Exodus: long journey home, full of trials.

The pattern is clear. But is the pattern more than coincidence? That the ancient Mystery Schools of Greece and Egypt had contact with each other can be established readily enough. Sacred proportions used by both cultures can be found both in the [8]Great Pyramid and in the Parthenon. But did these teachings find their way into scripture? The very [9]name of Moses (who traditionally was an initiate of the Egyptian temple mysteries) is Egyptian, and various of our earliest surviving Biblical texts are in Ancient Greek. The teachings of the Mystery Schools of Pythagoras can even now be found in [10]scripture – and these extant examples are only those which slipped between the fingers of those church fathers who were all too eager to expunge them.

One way in which these Mystery Schools sought to instruct was to use a [11]female character to represent the soul, and to follow that soul’s journey from the innocence of a heavenly ‘home’ through transgression into the incarnation (represented by some sort of exile or incarceration) of a material earthly existence (that is: a human life) to an eventual return (a homecoming) to a heavenly state once that life is over. All of human existence was – and is – bound up in these stories, and even those who did not know of their deeper meanings would still feel the powerful tug of their true intentions. Many hundreds of years later they still do – which is why these timeless stories continue to speak to us.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] Although possessing great physical strength, Odysseus tends to use his cunning and sharp wits to win through in these encounters: attributes which clearly appealed to Homer’s audience.

[2] The historian Robin Lane Fox has persuasively suggested that Homer’s cyclops could have been based upon the folk memory of a Mediterranean volcanic eruption. The description of a one-eyed giant (the huge volcanic crater) hurling rocks at shipping (the ejected lava bombs and pumice) certainly seems to fit the job description.

[3] Exodus 7:10. In a secular context this episode would read as a typical duel between two sorcerers to see who commands the most power. 

[4] Please see my post The Burning Bush.

[5] Numbers 22:28. Even for those who read their Bible it sometimes comes as a surprise that it contains a story with a talking donkey. For me the most charming aspect of this story is the way in which, when his own donkey suddenly begins to talk to him, not only is Balaam totally unphased, but he engages the animal in conversation as if it's the most normal thing in the world. The inevitable secular comparison is the talking donkey in the animated film franchise Shrek (right). With the latter, we happily suspend disbelief in the name of entertainment. With the former, we seem equally happy to suspend it in the name of faith.

[6] Job 41:1-34 contains a stirring and detailed description of the monster. Isaiah 27:1 chronicles its destruction by the Lord’s ‘sore and great and strong sword’.

[7] If you read The Iliad expecting to thrill to the episode of the wooden horse, you’ll be disappointed. Contrary to what Hollywood might have led you to believe, the famed wooden horse does not appear in The Iliad, but in the later writings of the Roman poet Virgil, although Homer briefly mentions it in The Odyssey.

[8 and 10] Please see my post Vesica Piscis: The Tale of a Fish.

[9] Please see my post The Amarna Heresies.

[11] Please see my post Eve’s Story. The story of Sophia (‘Wisdom’) is another example.

Sources:

Homer: The Iliad, translated by E.V. Rieu. Penguin Classics.

Homer: The Odyssey, translated by E.V. Rieu. Penguin Classics. 

Homer: The Odyssey, translated by T.E. Lawrence. Wordsworth Classics.

Robin Lane Fox: Travelling Heroes: Greeks and their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer. Allen Lane/Penguin.

Zondervan King James Study Bible.

The Paintings:

David Bergen: The Siren, 21st-century. So often the sirens are portrayed as winsome damsels, although it is not their physical beauty but their song which lures sailors to their deaths. When I read in Homer that the sirens' isle is strewn with the bones and decaying corpses of their victims then I knew that the way to go with my own siren was dark, dangerous and very predatory.

J.M.W. Turner: Odysseus Deriding Polyphemus, 19th-century. This master of light wisely reduces the rock-hurling giant to a half-glimpsed figure wreathed in clouds and mist. The sun’s gold on the water, the billowing sails… the artist might not have snagged it with the historical accuracy of the Greek ships, but when art gets this good who really cares?

J.W. Waterhouse: Circe offering the Cup to Odysseus, 19th-century. The sorceress is here comfortably transformed into the quintessential Victorian femme fatale. Behind her the large circular mirror allows us to glimpse what we cannot see directly: cunning Odysseus who will succeed in turning the powerful sorceress into his ally. 

Gustave Doré: Leviathan, 19th-century. Inset: a 5th-century b.c.e. Greek carving of Scylla. These two writhing sea monsters, the one scriptural, the other Homeric, bring us to the threshold of what it is that divides a Biblical monster from a mythic one. Since both are equally fantastic, it falls to the faith of the individual to untangle any difference – if indeed one exists.

Herbert Draper: Odysseus and the Sirens, 19th-century. The ears of his crew having been stopped with beeswax, Odysseus struggles to free himself from his willing bonds to leap overboard and follow the sirens’ irresistible call. But the ropes hold, and he becomes the only man to have heard the sirens and live, although perhaps always to hear them forever echo in his dreams.

David Roberts: The Israelites leaving Egypt, 19th-century. The beginning of the Exodus and the journey through the wilderness to the land promised by God. Roberts had a thorough grounding in architecture, visiting and painting many of the ruins in Egypt and the Levant, from Karnak to Petra. It shows. This single painting has inspired more than one Biblical film epic.

W-A. Bouguereau: Homer and his Guide, 20th-century. Age accepting the guiding hand of youth. That Homer was blind is a tradition as impossible to establish as his actual appearance. What we do know is that the lyre slung across his back would have been used to accompany the recitations of his epic verse, with the performance seamlessly blending the sacred and the secular.

PLEASE NOTE: I have produced the timeline here with some misgivings: the dating of these events is so contentious that sources can at times wildly disagree. It nevertheless seemed worthwhile to make the attempt, because producing such a graphic is a way of underscoring the centuries-long gaps between the recording of the events and when those events were supposed to have taken place. Archaeology has established the existence of Troy, but the siege of Troy as described by Homer hovers between history and possible fiction. Even with the best of intentions, virtually no evidence for the Exodus exists outside of scripture, and even dating it remains as speculative as the pharaoh whom scripture leaves unnamed, and whose identity otherwise would provide us with a time frame for the event. 

Coming of Age in Sparta

How do we learn about our own past? If we are interested enough, we can read books, or attend lectures and study courses, or – as I have just done – watch documentaries. This particular documentary was long – an hour and a half of detailed information about society in ancient Sparta by the History Channel. The program explained the way in which this society was structured around the arduous military training known as the agoge which each Spartan male must undergo to become the ultimate product of this Ancient Greek city-state: the peerless invincible warrior.

Having sat through the whole documentary, had I not known better I would have considered that I had received a fair grounding in the things of central importance to this ancient society of two and a half millennia ago. As it was, I sat bewildered and bemused, wondering how it was possible that a documentary which purported to be an examination of Spartan society could manage to go the whole ninety minutes without once mentioning what I already knew to be the central tenet of that society: that homosexuality was not merely encouraged – it was mandatory.

And the warrior training was not some month-long boot camp. At the tender age of seven a boy was taken away from his family home and sent to the [1]agoge, where he remained until he was thirty. In that time he was required to have a full relationship with his older mentor. The conditioning was so complete that although he was allowed back home for his wedding night, his Spartan [2]bride (presumably to ease the trauma of this first intimate encounter with female flesh) dressed as a man, and the encounter took place in a darkened room. The couple would thereafter see each other once every few months: Sparta must endure, after all, and new warriors needed to be begotten.

If you have seen the film 300 about the [3]battle of Thermopylae, in which a token force of three hundred Spartans stand against an overwhelming invading force of several hundred thousand Persians, you might now see all those rippling six-pack abs dripping with testosterone so prominently on display in the film in a slightly new light. Although an early sequence depicted the agoge, the film did not once mention this central aspect of Spartan society either. To be supplied with all the nitty-gritty details of how Spartan society really functioned, you will need to watch another documentary by the historian Bettany Hughes, aired by Britain’s Channel 4, and even longer than the History Channel’s offering.

What are we to conclude from this discreet manipulating of history? I find myself hesitating to do so, but it’s hard to ignore the simple fact that both 300 and the History Channel are American produced and financed, while Bettany Hughes’ scholarly and engaging account is as British as they come. Do American studio bosses with an eye on possible adverse financial consequences nervously shy away from including such material, however historically factual? Apparently so.

This conscious selecting of facts, of deliberately omitting material which you find either distasteful or discomforting, or weakening to a case which you wish to make, is known as ‘cherry picking’. It happens, not just in the occasional [4]documentary, but in many spheres of human activity. It certainly happens in [5]religious belief, and even at times in the [6]sciences. That all those strapping heroes who withstood the [7]Persian onslaught at Thermopylae turn out to be gay is apparently not a detail that the studio bosses in Hollywood (and at the History Channel) were prepared to digest, and history was cherry picked. Indeed, 300 appears to go out of its way to reassure us that those tough-guy Spartans were as straight as the long spears which were their principal weapons of choice.

But however strange Spartan society might seem to our own standards and values, surely it hardly matters. We might examine the methods Spartans employed to produce their much-feared warrior class, and we might find them distasteful and even shocking. But paradoxically they seem to have worked, for Spartans were indeed the most feared and formidable warriors in all of Ancient Greece – and even now we all of us owe them a profound debt for being so. It is sobering indeed to reflect that, had Persia defeated Greece at that time – and that so very nearly [8]happened – the fragile new social idea which the Greeks were then experimenting with would have been snuffed out. They called it ‘democracy’.

Hawkwood

On a small hillock at Thermopylae where the last Spartans fell is a memorial stone. The present stone replaces the one in antiquity found at the same spot, and repeats the preserved words of the original – one of the most famous epigraphs ever written:

Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε

κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,

that here obedient to their laws we lie.”

The poignancy of the wording is in the implication that the Spartans must rely on a stranger to bring news of the outcome of the conflict to their homes, for none are left alive to bear the news themselves. And the ‘laws’ are the Spartans’ warrior code: to offer their lives, if that is what is required of them.

Notes:

[1] The training process of turning a boy into a Spartan warrior was so ruthlessly brutal that young lives could be – and were – lost before their training was concluded.

[2] Intriguingly, Spartan women enjoyed a degree of power and autonomy unknown in the other city-states of Ancient Greece. In contrast, Athenian women enjoyed (or endured) a gender-restricted status akin to women in today’s strictly Islamic states. This also accounts for why Hollywood depictions of Helen of Troy as a wafting young thing fall so short of the mark. Helen was in reality a feisty queen of Sparta.

[3] To the film’s credit, and in spite of the inclusion of some flamboyant fantasy elements, much of what was depicted on the screen was historically accurate, even to some of the actual dialogue which history has recorded and preserved. This includes the celebrated exchange between the Persian and Spartan emissaries: Persian: “Our arrows will blacken the sun...”  Spartan: “Then we will fight in the shade!” Stirring stuff indeed.

[4] Not just the History Channel documentary mentioned here has been cherry picked. A few years ago there were cries of outrage here in the Netherlands when it was discovered that the Dutch Christian Evangelical network was airing David Attenborough’s commendable Life of Mammals series with all specific references to evolution discreetly edited out.

[5] Please see the opening paragraph of my post Frontier Justice in the Promised Land for specific examples of this.

[6] When this is discovered in science – perhaps a scientist has loaded lab results to favour a specific outcome – such adverse publicity can destroy a scientist’s credibility and curtail a career without the need for further punitive action.

[7] A Tale of Two Cities: The eventual Greek victory was as much due to the brilliant strategy of Themistocles’ command of the Greek naval forces against those of the Persian fleet at the Straits of Salamis as to the heroic sacrifice of the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae under the command of Leonidas. And although the invading Persians razed the Athenian Acropolis to the ground, it was rebuilt a generation later by the will of the politically adroit Pericles. Guarded by stone gryphons (below), the ruins of Persepolis, the once-glorious capital of the Persian Empire, are now a World Heritage Site. 

When in his turn Alexander the Great reached Persepolis on his eastward trail of conquest, he exacted retribution for the destruction of the Acropolis: his troops reduced the mighty Persian capital to smoldering ruins, and cultural treasures and manuscripts of incalculable price were lost to the flames. Persia apparently possessed no Pericles, and, unlike the Acropolis, Persepolis is a ruin still. Some seven centuries later the Parthenon (below) on the Acropolis was again sacked, this time by Christians eager to destroy this most important shrine to the goddess Athena. The Parthenon, even as a ruin, is still regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of architecture ever built, and probably has influenced Western architecture more than any other single building. Take a walk around such cities as London and Washington D.C. if you want to see how far the influence of this pagan temple has reached.

[8] If you would like to read an exceptional you-are-there account of the Battle of Thermopylae, with both its build-up and aftermath, I can recommend no better title than Tom Holland’s vivid Persian Fire. This title also recounts the fragile birth of Western democracy in Athens and the vanquishing of the Persian Empire, the most powerful force in the world at that time. Typically for this author, this title offers sobering reminders that even the mightiest of world powers eventually fade from the stage of history, and the survival of our most treasured social institutions at times turns on mere chance.

Sources:

The History Channel documentary is: This is Sparta!

Bettany Hughes’ documentary is: The Spartans.

Images for this post are from 300, directed by Zack Snyder from the graphic novel by Frank Miller. Released by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. Maps by Hawkwood for the David Bergen Studio © All Rights Reserved.

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

This month is traditionally the time in which the [1]‘wise men from the east’ brought their gifts to the new-born [2]Jesus. Scripture is low on specifics about them: any details beyond the above brief phrase – that they were kings, that there were three of them and what their names were – are all details added by later hands, but not mentioned in scripture.

The third eye - follow the star.

The assumption that these ‘wise men’ were a trio originated with the 2nd-3rd-century theologian Origen, who took his lead from the number of gifts mentioned. And it is here that the Gospel, so vague about these distinguished visitors up till now, suddenly becomes very specific. Each gift is carefully named in turn, as if there should be no mistake to the record. The gifts were gold, frankincense and myrrh. When scripture glosses over apparently otherwise-important circumstances, and then appears to become suddenly specific on [3]details, we can take it as a signal that something beyond the surface text is being conveyed: an extra layer of knowledge which more receptive minds would recognise and know how to access. Such specific details are, as it were, knowledge travelling in disguise. 

'Wise men from the east'.

I remember learning in Sunday School that these three gifts were ‘very precious’. Well, I knew that gold was valuable, and I took it on trust that the other two things with the strange names must therefore also have great value as well. And although the scriptural term ‘wise men’ is brief, it still tells us something about these men: that they were not just ‘wise’ in the sense of ‘being wise’, but in the sense of being men of knowledge. That is: knowledge of those things that in the Ancient World seamlessly blended art and science – astronomy, astrology, alchemy and the healing arts. And they were from ‘the east’ – the traditional lands (Persia, India, and other trade route countries) where these subjects were studied and practiced. Later tradition strengthened this idea by referring to these men as ‘magi’, from which comes the term ‘magic’, not in the sense of mere stage illusion, but in its original sense of practicing these ‘secret arts’.

Medieval stargazers. Astronomy and astrology were for centuries interchangeable subjects.

So we have three specifically-named gifts bestowed by ‘men of knowledge’ – men who would have known very well the true nature of what they were giving. All three gifts were certainly valuable commodities in the currency of the time. Gold still is, and there has been recent speculation about the possible healing properties of the other two. Gold is still so prized that it is a marketable currency which never tarnishes – literally and figuratively. The other two are resins obtained from two different trees. But the ‘gold’ given as a gift by the magi could have been more precious even than the gold of jewellery and bullion…

Gold in purported white powder and original nugget form.

Gold has long been associated with kings. It is the metal of royalty, and is found in every crown worthy of the name from the Ancient World onwards. We might infer that the magis’ gift of this metal was a recognition of the infant’s status as ‘king of kings’, and leave it at that. But supposing that this particular ‘gold’ was even more special? Supposing that this magis’ gift was pure alchemical gold? This mysterious substance apparently does exist. Under specific conditions gold is transformed – transmuted – into a different ‘monatomic’ structure, when it becomes a fine white powder. This remarkable alchemical powder, which apparently could extend life, promote good health, and even alter time and states of visibility, was known to the Dynastic Egyptians, and was ingested by the Pharaoh (and only by the Pharaoh) to prolong life. Even in Renaissance times and later it was believed that possession of alchemical gold would prolong life – even confer bodily immortality. Was this the true gift of the magi – an alchemical gold that would confer immortality and even miraculous changes of state? Even symbolically, the idea of this most precious form of gold as a gift now gathers a real power.

The resin and plant of frankincense.

Frankincense is a resin extruded by the Boswellia sacra tree. It has associations with the hormone melatonin manufactured by the pineal gland in the brain – a gland long associated with the ‘third eye’ of consciousness-expanding experiences and enlightenment. For this reason frankincense has been associated with the priesthood, with the ceremonies of an inner sanctum, whether that place is the inner shrine of a temple or within the individual initiate. Knowing this about the frankincense resin allows us to see this second gift of the magi in a very different light from the mere ‘precious’ gift of my Sunday School days. Frankincense was ‘precious’ for a good reason – and that reason lay beyond its material value of the time.

The resin and plant of myrrh.

Myrrh is also a resin, this time from the thorny Commifora myrrha tree. This particular resin has soporific properties, and for this reason is associated with a [4]death-like state – even with death itself. It has been found among the wrappings of Egyptian mummies, and its use in the mummification process is indicative of its associations with an apparent death – apparent, because the state was believed to be only the appearance of death. For how could death be real when the rich afterlife awaited? In many cultures and beliefs, death is merely the door to the other side: a necessary bridge that needs to be crossed. And that bridge was represented by the resin myrrh. This third gift of the magi, this ‘shamanic death’, was therefore indicative of death as a state that, however seemingly-powerful, nevertheless could be transcended.

In this detail from the painting, the artist - perhaps intuitively - has chosen to show a jewel embedded in the magi's forehead in the position of the third eye. 

In these specifically-named [5]three gifts we have the symbolic – perhaps even the actual – qualities of a priestly ‘kingship’ beyond mere earthly royalty, and mystical, symbolic death. For in resurrection even death is transcended, and true and glorious immortality awaits. The gifts of the magi together suggest a biography of their recipient’s life to come, even up to the crucifixion and beyond. Intriguingly, after their mention in this single verse in Matthew, these three extraordinary gifts then disappear completely from scripture. What became of them? Perhaps their symbolic use had now been served. And if actual, then their practical use would be applied in the infant’s life to come.

Hawkwood

Notes:

[1] Matthew 2:1-11. Contrary to tradition, the ‘wise men’ did not visit the infant at his place of birth, but some considerable time (weeks or even months) later at his ‘house’ (annotation on page 1354 to Matthew 2:11 in the Zondervan King James Study Bible).

[2] Jesus’ place of birth was not a ‘stable’, there was no census at that time held by the Roman authorities, there was no ‘inn’, and there certainly was no ‘massacre of the innocents’. The personal agendas of the original unknown writers of the Gospel texts (supplying the apparent fulfilment of Hebraic prophesies) together with accreted folklore growing around mistranslations of the original text has entrenched itself into a tradition which comprises the elements of the Nativity tableau as we know it today.

[3] Another classic example of this scriptural ‘knowledge travelling in disguise’ is in the 153 fishes of John 21:10-11, discussed in my post Vesica Piscis: The Tale of a Fish. Disguising such Gnostic teachings as details in stories became a way of slipping them under the radar of those who sought to eradicate such teachings from scriptural texts, and thus a way of preserving such knowledge.

[4] The symbolism of myrrh is particularly telling: the tree’s large thorns echo the crown of thorns of Jesus’ crucifixion, and the myrrh resin is harvested by deliberately ‘wounding’ the tree. A stake is driven into the tree deeper than bark level, which forces the tree to ‘bleed’ its precious resin.

[5] If you remain unconvinced by the symbolism which I describe here, then consider the words of the famous American carol We three Kings of Orient Are, written in 1857 by Rev. John Henry Hopkins. The relevant verses (sung in turn by each ‘king’ and then in chorus) are:

Born a King on Bethlehem's plain

Gold I bring to crown Him again

King forever, ceasing never

Over us all to reign

Frankincense to offer have I

Incense owns a Deity nigh

Prayer and praising, all men raising

Worship Him, God most high

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

Breathes of life of gathering gloom

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb

Glorious now behold Him arise

King and God and Sacrifice

Alleluia, Alleluia

Earth to heav'n replies

Sources:

Laurence Gardner: Genesis of the Grail Kings. Bantam Press, 1999. The idea for this post comes from a brief paragraph in chapter 13 of this title. While I might not always agree with this author’s conclusions, his collating of information and his insights into such material have been exemplary, and his researches in this field have become his legacy. Those wishing to know more about monatomic gold (a.k.a. white powder gold, the philosopher’s stone, manna, among other terms) can find much information in this and the author’s other title Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark, Element Books, 2003.

The 19th-century painting is The Star of Bethlehem, by Edward Burne-Jones. It was the largest watercolour painted at that time - a remarkable accomplishment of technique in an unforgiving medium which allows little latitude for correction or alteration. The artist has here followed the traditional Nativity interpretation, folkloric rather than scriptural, of the 'kings' visiting the infant in a stable. But the created scene is of such verve that in this case passionate belief counts for more than scriptural accuracy.