By FRANCES D'EMILIO,AP
VATICAN CITY (AP) - It's not the Holy Grail, but for fans of "The Da Vinci Code" and its tantalizing story line about the Knights Templar, it could be the next best thing.
Ignored for centuries, documents about the heresy trial of the ancient Christian order discovered in the Vatican 's secret archives are being published in a limited edition - with an $8,377 price tag.
They include a 14th-century parchment showing that Pope Clement V initially absolved the Templar leaders of heresy, though he did find them guilty of immorality and planned to reform the order, according to the Vatican archives Web site.
But pressured by King Philip IV of France, Clement later reversed his decision and suppressed the order in 1312.
Only 799 copies of the 300-page volume, "Processus Contra Templarios," - Latin for "Trial against the Templars" - are for sale, said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives. Each will cost $8,377, the publisher said Friday.
An 800th copy will go to Pope Benedict XVI , said Barbara Frale, the researcher who found the long-overlooked parchment tucked away in the archives in 2001.
The Knights Templar, which ultimately disappeared because of the heresy scandal, recently captivated the imagination of readers of the best-seller "The Da Vinci Code," which linked the order to the legend of the Holy Grail.
The new Vatican work reproduces the entire documentation of the papal hearings convened after Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 on charges of heresy and immorality.
The military order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118 in Jerusalem to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade.
As their military might increased, the Templars also grew in wealth, acquiring property throughout Europe and running a primitive banking system. After they left the Middle East with the collapse of the Crusader kingdoms, their power and secretive ways aroused the fear of European rulers and sparked accusations of corruption and blasphemy.
Historians believe Philip owed debts to the Templars and used the accusations to arrest their leaders and extract, under torture, confessions of heresy in order to seize the order's riches.
The publishing house said the new book includes the "Parchment of Chinon," a 1308 decision by Clement to save the Templars and their order.
Frale said the three-foot-wide document probably had been ignored because a catalog entry in 1628 was "too vague."
"Unfortunately, there was an archiving error, an error in how the document was described," she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her home in Viterbo, north of Rome. "More than an error, it was a little sketchy."
The parchment, in remarkably good condition considering its 700 years, apparently had last been consulted at the start of the 20th century, Frale said, surmising that its significance must not have been realized then.
Frale said she was intrigued by the 1628 entry because, while it apparently referred to some minor matter, it noted that three top cardinals, including Pope Clement's right-hand man, Berenger Fredol, had made a long journey to interrogate someone.
"Going on with my research, it turned out that in reality it was an inquest of very great importance," she said.
Fredol "had gone to question the Great Master and other heads of the Templars who had been segregated, practically kidnapped, by the king of France and shut up in secret in his castle in Chinon on the Loire."
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Templars, was burned at the stake in 1314 along with his aides.
The surviving monks fled. Some were absorbed by other orders, and over the centuries, various groups have claimed to be descended from the Templars.
As for Clement, he "was a hostage in French territory" on the eve of what historians would call the Avignon period of popes, Frale said.
She said the parchment reveals the cardinals reached the conclusion the Templars were guilty of abuses but not "a real and true heresy."
"There were a lot of faults in the order - abuses, violence ... a lot of sins, but not heresy," she said.
These included forcing new recruits to "reject Christ in words and spit on the cross," in imitation of the violence suffered by knights when captured by Muslims, Frale said. New members were kicked and punched if they refused to undergo this kind of hazing, she added.
Philip had "confiscated all the wealth of the order, which he used to pay his debts," said Frale, who has written three books about the Templars. "Had the (order) survived, it's clear that Philip ... would have had to give back all" the wealth.
"But the king of France had already spent it," she said.
Pope Joan
In a medieval mystery of the Catholic Church lies evidence of a woman pope, with clues buried in ancient parchment, artwork and writings, even in tarot cards and a bizarre chair once used in a Vatican ritual.
Was there a Pope Joan -- a woman with nerve enough to disguise herself as a man and serve as pope for more than two years in the ninth century? It is one of the world's oldest mysteries. Her story first appeared in histories written by medieval monks, but today the Catholic Church dismisses it.
he legendary female pontiff who supposedly reigned, under the title of John VIII, for slightly more than 25 months, from 855 to 858, between the pontificates of Leo IV (847–855) and Benedict III (855–858). It has subsequently been proved that a gap of only a few weeks fell between Leo and Benedict..
One of the earliest extant sources for the Joan legend is the De septem donis Spiritu Sancti (“The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit”) by the 13th-century French Dominican Stephen of Bourbon, who dated Joan's election c. 1100. In this account the nameless pontiff was a clever scribe who became a papal notary and later was elected pope; pregnant at the time of her election, she gave birth during the procession to the Lateran, whereupon she was dragged out of Rome and stoned to death.
The story was widely spread during the later 13th century, mostly by friars and primarily by means of interpolations made in many manuscripts of the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum (“The Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors”) by the 13th-century Polish Dominican Martin of Troppau. Support for the version that she died in childbirth and was buried on the spot was derived from the fact that in later years papal processions used to avoid a particular street, allegedly where the disgraceful event had occurred. The name Joan was not finally adopted until the 14th century; other names commonly given were Agnes or Gilberta.
According to later legend, particularly by Martin (who dated her election in 855 and who specifically named her Johannes Angelicus), Joan was an Englishwoman; but her birthplace was given as the German city of Mainz—an apparent inconsistency that some writers reconciled by explaining that her parents migrated to that city. She supposedly fell in love with an English Benedictine monk and, dressing as a man, accompanied him to Athens. Having acquired great learning, she moved to Rome, where she became cardinal and pope. From the 13th century the story appears in literature, including the works of the Benedictine chronicler Ranulf Higden and the Italian humanists Giovanni Boccaccio and Petrarch.
In the 15th century, Joan's existence was regarded as fact, even by the Council of Constance in 1415. During the 16th and 17th centuries the story was used for Protestant polemics. Such scholars as Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (afterward Pope Pius II) and Cardinal Caesar Baronius regarded the story as unfounded; but it was the Calvinist David Blondel who made the first determined attempt to destroy the myth in his Éclaircissement familier de la question: Si une femme a été assise au siège papal de Rome (1647; “Familiar Enlightenment of the Question: Whether a Woman Had Been Seated on the Papal Throne in Rome”). According to one theory, the fable grew from widespread gossip concerning the influence wielded by the 10th-century Roman woman senator Marozia and her mother Theodora of the powerful house of Theophylact.
"Ninety percent of me thinks there was a Pope Joan," says Mary Malone, a
former nun who wrote a history of women and Christianity.
Donna Cross, a novelist who spent seven years researching the time period, says the historical evidence is there. "I would say it's the weight of evidence -- over 500 chronicle accounts of her existence."
Escaping a Brutal Life
Life was often short and brutal for women living in A.D. 800.
"No woman would have been allowed to appear on the streets in public," says Malone. "That named you as a prostitute immediately. Women were confined to their homes."
In the town of Mainz, Germany, where it is thought the girl who might have became Pope Joan grew up, most people lived in mud huts. The average life span was only 30 or 40 years.
But English missionaries were bringing Christianity to Germany, and they created a monastery called Fulda, which became a center of education, books and conversation for travelers -- but it was only for boys.
In his "History of Emperors and Popes," a monk named Martin Polonus who was a close adviser to the pope wrote about a young woman from Mainz who learned Greek and Latin and became "proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge."
Cross and other historians say a girl studying at the monastery would have no choice but to disguise herself as a boy. But how was it possible to keep the secret?
"First of all, you might want to remember that clerical robes are very body-disguising," says Cross. "Also, in the ninth century, personal hygiene was nonexistent. Nobody bathed. They washed their hands, their face, their feet, but they didn't bathe."
Also, clergy members were required to be clean shaven, and malnutrition made most men and women physically gaunt.
Polonus wrote that this woman was "led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers." Then, according to the 500 accounts, the woman made her way to Rome.
In the ninth century, Rome and the Vatican were nothing like today's solemn and civilized center of culture and faith. Then the center of the Christian faith was home to bawdy monks, scheming cardinals, cross-dressing saints, intrigue, melodrama, corruption and violence.
"Popes ... killed each other off, hammered each other to death," says Mary Malone, the former nun. "There were 12-year-old popes ... we have knowledge of a 5-year-old archbishop. ... It was a very odd time in history."
That also means it would have been a time of opportunity for someone with ambition and nerve. The chronicles say that's how Joan, known as John Anglicus, or English John, became secretary to a curia, a cardinal, and then, as Polonus writes, "the choice of all for pope" in the year A.D. 855.
Clues in Art
If you travel to Italy and ask questions about Pope Joan, many people will direct you toward the clues embedded in art, literature and architecture.
The Renaissance poet Giovanni Boccaccio, best known for writing "The Decameron," also wrote a book on "100 Famous Women." No. 51 is Pope Joan.
Rare book dealers in Rome pull ancient tarot cards from their shelves. The card for hidden knowledge is "La Papessa" -- the Female Pope.
Travel north to Siena to the Duomo, where inside the cathedral is a gallery of terra-cotta busts depicting 170 popes, in no particular order. In the 17th century, Cardinal Baronuis, the Vatican librarian, wrote that one of the faces was a female -- Joan the Female Pope.
Baronius also wrote that the pope at the time decreed that the statue be destroyed, but some say the local archbishop didn't want a good statue go to waste.
"The statue was transformed," believes Cross. "I mean, literally, it was scraped off, her name and written on top of Pope Zachary."
At the Basilica in St. Peter's Square are carvings by Bernini, one of the most famous artists of the 17th century. Among the carvings are eight images of a woman wearing a papal crown, and the images seem to tell the story of a woman giving birth and a baby being born.
Medieval manuscripts tell a similar tale: Two-and-a-half years into her reign, Pope Joan was in the midst of a papal procession, a three-mile trip to the Church of the Lateran in Rome, when suddenly at a crossroads, she felt sharp pains in her stomach.
She was having contractions, the stories say. The unthinkable happened -- the pope was having a baby.
"And then, shock and horror," says Malone. "And then the story gets very confused, because some of the records say she was killed and her child was killed right on the spot. Other records say she was sent to a convent and that her son grew up and later became bishop of Ostia."
Stories vary -- some say the crowd stoned her to death, others say she was dragged from the tail of a horse -- but in most accounts, Pope Joan perished that day.
In the decades that followed, the intersection was called the Vicus Papissa -- the Street of the Female Pope -- and for more than 100 years, popes would take a detour to avoid the shameful intersection.
Polonus writes: "The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street ... because of the abhorrence of the event."
Or Just an Urban Legend?
The modern Catholic Church and many scholars dismiss the story of Pope Joan as a sort of Dark Ages urban legend.
Valerie Hotchkiss, a professor of medieval studies at Southern Methodist University in Texas, says that the story of Pope Joan was actually added to Martin Polonus' manuscript after he died.
"So he didn't write it, but it was put in very soon after his death, like around 1280 to 1290," says Hotchkiss. "And everyone picks it up from Martin Polonus."
Medieval monks were like copy machines, say some scholars, simply replicating mistakes into the historical record.
"And they're picking it up from each other and changing it and embellishing it," Hotchkiss says.
Monsignor Charles Burns, the former head of the Vatican secret archives, says the story intrigued people in the Middle Ages just as it intrigues people today. "This was almost like an Agatha Christie," he says, referring to the classic mystery writer.
Burns says there is no evidence and no documentation in the secret archives that Pope Joan existed, no relic of Pope John Anglicus anywhere.
And disbelievers can explain away the other clues. The Bernini sculptures were modeled after the niece of the pope; the Vicus Papissa was named for a woman who lived in the area.
Powerful, Dangerous Women
Yet even those who laugh at the story of the female pope agree that the story opens a window on the history of women and sex in the Catholic Church. Women were at one time a potent and threatening force in the medieval church.
Many scholars say there were many women martyrs in that era, women who were tortured for their religious beliefs. And there were women who became saints while cross-dressing as monks.
St. Eugenia, for example, became a monk while disguised as a boy, and was so convincing she was brought to court on charges of fathering a local woman's child. She finally proved her innocence only by baring her breasts in public.
"There are over 30 saints' lives in which women dress as men for a variety of reasons, and with a variety of outcomes," says Hotchkiss, who has written about these "transvestite nuns."
Perhaps most threatening to the church were two groups of women known as beguines and mystics, who claimed they could bypass the church hierarchy and communicate directly with God.
"And they really terrified the church because they went around saying things like 'My real name is God,'" says Malone. "And so mysticism, then, gave these women ... an access to God that was parallel to the church."
These powerful women could have inspired a so-called crackdown by the church after A.D. 1000, consolidating its ranks and reaffirming the rules on celibacy among its priests, a requirement that's still controversial today.
One school of thought says the story of Pope Joan was invented as a cautionary tale. The lesson to women: Don't even think about reaching for power or you will end up like her -- exposed and humiliated.
Another school argues that it was the fear of female power that led the church to essentially expunge Pope Joan from history.
But how do historians explain the enormous purple marble chair on which popes once sat as they were crowned. The chair has a strange opening, something like a toilet seat, reportedly used to check "testiculos habet" -- or whether the pope had testicles.
David Dawson Vasquez, the director of Catholic University of America's Rome program, says that the Vatican was just using the most impressive chair it had.
"Because it's elaborate, it's purple. It was the most expensive marble of Roman times, and so it was only used for the emperor," Vasquez says. "The hole is there because it was used by the imperial Romans, perhaps as a toilet, perhaps as a birthing chair. It doesn't matter if there's a hole there, because you can still sit there and be crowned."
Others say it was a symbol of the pope giving birth to the mother church. Either way, newly minted Protestants in the 1500s had a field day making fun of the chair, and so it was hidden from view.
And so the last relic in the tale of Pope Joan is withdrawn. But Pope Joan lives on in some other place, in the shadows of a Dark Ages legend that is terrifying to some and inspiring to others.
From the Britannica's Second Edition, 1780
JOAN (Pope), called by Platina John VIII. is said to have held the holy
see between Leo IV. who died in 855, and Benedict III. who died in 858.
Marianus Scotus says, she sat two years five months and four days.
Numberless have been the controversies, fables, and conjectures, relating
to this pope. It is said that a German girl, pretending to be a man, went
to Athens, where she made great progress in the sciences; and afterward
came to Rome in the same habit. As she had a quick genius, and spoke with
a good grace in the public disputations and lectures, her great learning
was admired, and every one loved her extremely; so that after the death of
Leo, she was chosen pope, and performed all offices as such. Whilst she
was in possession of this high dignity, she was got with child; and as she
was going in a solemn procession to the Lateran church, she was delivered
of that child, between the Coliseum and St Clement's church, in a most
public street, before a crowd of people, and died on the spot, in 857. By
way of embellishing this story, may be added the precaution reported to
have been afterward taken to avoid such another accident. After the
election of a pope, he was placed on a chair with an open seat, called the
groping chair, when a deacon came most devoutly behind and satisfied
himself of the pontiff's sex by feeling. This precaution, however, has
been long deemed unnecessary, because the cardinals now always get
bastards enough to establish their virility before they arrive at the
pontificate.
Thirty years later the Britannica's article hadn't been changed much,
except for its somewhat softer concluding sentence:
Myth is the subjective truth in human knowledge. If we disregard myth, we disregard ourselves.
People often think of myth as a story, however, myth is much more then just a story. Myths coincided originally with nature knowledge transmitted by story telling in an oral tradition. Mythos literally means “the telling”.
From the beginnings of Western culture, myth has presented a problem of meaning and interpretation, and a history of controversy has accumulated about both the value and the status of mythology. Myth is a complex cultural phenomenon that can be approached from a number of viewpoints. In general, myth is a narrative that describes and portrays in symbolic language the origin of the basic elements and assumptions of a culture. Mythic narrative relates, for example, how the world began, how humans and animals were created, and how certain customs, gestures, or forms of human activities originated. Almost all cultures possess or at one time possessed and lived in terms of myths.
Myth has many functions. One function of mythology is to waken and maintain in the individual a sense of wonder and participation in the mystery of the universe. Another function of myth is to fill the cosmological image with mystical import, another is validating and maintaining whatever moral system and manner of life-customs may be peculiar to a culture. A myth is not just a legend or fairytale, a myth is a sacred story. It may explain the origin of the universe and of life, or it may express its culture's value. Myths concern the powers which control the world and the relationship between those powers and human beings. Although myths are religious in their origin and function, they may also be the earliest form of history, science, or philosophy. Also, modern scientific theories are often based on myths of their own. A myth is a special kind of story which tries to interpret some aspect of the world around us. They are usually strongly structured and their meaning is only discerned by thoughtful analysis. Sometimes they are public dreams which, like private dreams, emerge from the unconscious mind. Indeed, they often reveal the archetypes of the collective unconscious. They are symbolic and metaphorical. They orient people to the metaphysical dimension, explain the origins and nature of the cosmos, validate social issues, and, on the psychological plane, address themselves to the innermost depths of the psyche. Some of them are explanatory, being prescientific attempts to interpret the natural world.
Myths attempt to explore the nature of consciousness and the story of the self and the image of one’s life. Myths help in choosing the meaning of one’s life and in realizing the totality of the self. Often a myth is the story of the original choice and of conducting individuals in harmony through the passages of human life. Myth is mystical, cosmological, social and educational. And in that sense, science which is the descendent of that mythic world still attempts to understand the nature of the cosmos, and explain the implications of that knowledge to society and to the individual. Myths differ from fairy tales in that they refer to a time that is different from ordinary time. The time sequence of myth is extraordinary-an "other" time-the time before the conventional world came into being. Because myths refer to an extraordinary time and place and to gods and other supernatural beings and processes, they have usually been seen as aspects of religion. Because of the all-encompassing nature of myth, however, it can illuminate many aspects of individual and cultural life. Usually the most important myth in a culture, one that becomes the exemplary model for all other myths, is the cosmological myth. It relates how the entire world came into being. In some narratives, as in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the creation of the world proceeds from nothing. Egyptian, Australian, Greek, and Mayan myths also speak of creation from nothing. In most cases the deity in these myths is all-powerful. The deity may remain at the forefront and become the center of religious life, as with the Hebrews, or may withdraw and become a distant or peripheral deity, as in the myths of the Australian aborigines, Greeks, and Mayans. Other myths describe creation as an emergence from the lower worlds. Among the Navajo and Hopi, for example, creation is the result of a progression upward from lower worlds, and the emergence from the last world is the final progression into the world of humanity. A motif of several myths is the act of sacrifice. In the Babylonian myth Tiamat's sacrificed body is the earth, and in the Hindu myth that is recounted in the Rig-Veda, the entire world is the result of a sacrifice by the gods.
The fairy tale hero and the mythical lady in the dreams of the middle ages... Parallels Tristan & Iseult, The Holy Grail, and the Fisher King.
"My lords, if you would hear a high tale of love and death, here is that of Trisan and Queen Iseult; how to their full joy, but to their sorrow also, the loved each other," It was with these words that the traveling poets of the Middle Ages would call together the lords and ladies to hear a wondrous story, the story of the Knight Tristan and his fatal love for Queen Iseult.
Iseult is the "heroine of one of the most famous love-stories in literature, perhaps the first to portray a mutual passion that is a law unto itself, overriding all others and not condemned for that."* Iseult's lover is, of course, Tristan, who is sent to Ireland to bring her to King Mark to be married. Iseult's maid accompanies Tristan and Iseult on the voyage back to Cornwall, and brings a magic potion of love for the bridal couple. Tristan and Iseult drink the potion by accident and are doomed to perpetual love. She marries King Mark, but cannot help but love Tristan. Mark never quite knows what is happening, while Iseult is cunning in getting her love. Tristan, in a state of exile, eventually marries Iseult of the White Hands because he is drawn to her name and her looks. He never consummates the marriage because of his fidelity to the original Iseult. Later when he is ill, he sends a messenger to bring his beloved Iseult to him to heal him, but she comes to late (either because of a storm, or because Iseult of the White Hands lies). The story is ultimately "furtive and tragic."
While in exile from Cornwall, Sir Tristan marries Iseult of the White Hands because she shares his beloved's name. He never consummates the marriage because of his love for the 'true' Iseult. She naturally resents this deficiency, and ultimately brings about Tristan's death. When Tristan falls ill he sends for the true Iseult hoping that she can cure him. If Iseult agreeas to come, the returning ship's sails will be white; if she declines, they will be back. Knowing this and seeing white sails, Tristan's wife lies to him and says the sails are black. He dies of grief before his beloved Iseult returns to him. Iseult of the White Hands regrets her actions after seeing the great love that the two bore for each other.
Our hearts are telling us the truth; there really is something missing! Since time immemorial, men and women have loved one another . ( desperately, madly, sweetly, with unbridled, dangerous passion, with the compassion of their kind hearts, to the depth of their souls. Love knows no bounds. There is no country, province, or people to which it has ever been irrelevant; and, whenever you fall in love, you join the company of lovers of all times in living out one of life's greatest themes. What you feel when you fall in love is universal. However ordinary or simple your own love may appear to be, to your heart and soul it is a grand love. Like David and Bathsheba or Romeo and Juliet, your love, too, is an experience of wonder and ecstatic belonging that will draw you into life's most tragic and beautiful moments. Through love you become part of a sacred tradition, that great lineage of all those who have plighted their troth, promised their hearts to one another, chosen to live and die for love, and known that love was the only thing worth living for. We need love.
With each person who passes through our lives, we have a connection. Somewhere beyond time in the realm of the Spirit we have made a commitment to that souls to share in our life's journey and soul forging work, a kind of commitment to the evolution or transformation of us as individuals and also to us in conjunction with the whole of our common destiny and communion. Every souls we meet affects us and none of us live only to ourselves or die only to ourselves.
Love is God. The two Marys stand at the gateway of death and life, and to return woman her soul through the ressurrection of the Goddess is the path returning to Eden and victory over the dragon for us all. God is Love and the balance of faith and works is resolved in Love; the wedding of our King and Queen.
I had no idea where this journey would lead. In my study of evidence from history, art, literature, psychology, and mythology,the Lost Spirit and Bride gradually revealed herself and everywhere I found traces of the lost feminine and the imbalance; Stealing Beauty.
The work of enlightenment is partly to make conscious and whole the divided and conflicting parts of ourselves, to experience a gesalt or awakening, and wake to the eternal unity that underlies all things. To awaken to the unity of the self is the great goal, the Pearl of Great Price, the object of our deepest longings. It is this possibility that is manifest by the masculaine/feminine nature of our eros and psyche.
the ancient Jews believed that Jehova and His Matronit, the Shekhina practiced the great Union of matrimony (or sexual union) at midnight daily in the temple at Jerusalem. The devout Jew might say, in prayer to Jaweh, "I do this to honor you and your Matronit," when he made love to his wife. Any misconceptions or sinful practices on earth drove a wedge between the Divine couple and kept them apart, creating more imbalance on the earth and especially among the children of Wisdom, human beings. Sex, rightly and legally used, is not a sinful thing--in fact it is a holy thing-invented by God, who found it "good" and commanded that it be practiced. That is why every Rabbi must be married~and why Jesus in all probibility was a married man. Children were married early and the marriages were arranged by their parents. Scriptures tells us that Jesus was subject to His parents and obedient in every way-why would this have been an exception? So, this Hebrew belief could be summed up as: the more we abuse our sexuality and the estate of marriage, the more imbalance we bring into the world at a large because our actions drive a wedge between the Mother/Father aspects of Creator God.
If you find the wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to healing, and it is in our healing that we come to truly know ourselves, our expanses and falls. Romantic love, if we truly undertake the task of understanding it, becomes such a path to higher conciousness. If we free ourselves form atuomatic assumptions and expectations we will not only find a new awareness of our relationships but also of ourselves and God.
Hosea's wife is a metaphor for Israel and Hosea, which means Saviour, is God. The tale is allegorical. So, Yehouah addresses himself, I hear some Christian critics saying. Does God address His son, Jesus? He does! But God is Jesus, isn't he? Together in the Trinity? Yes? Then God addresses himself all the way through the gospels. Yes? When people today start to speak to themselves, we think they are going Doolalli. But we all get old, surely gods have less excuse. Anyway, for Christians the identity of Hosea and God allows him to give a command that they consider unnacceptable from God to a faithful servant—to marry an unfaithful woman. Within the bounds of Judaeo-Christian mythology, however, the command in the allegory is acceptable because God is only commanding himself to marry Israel. He did, and Israel was unfaithful. For those who are puzzled that God commands a good man to do something he would find distressing, the allegorical explanation makes sense of it. Often it is impossible to know whose voice is speaking, Hosea's or Yehouah's. It is both or either, because they are the same. Proof is that in Hosea 13:4, God declares: "There is no saviour beside me." The passage explains that Hosea (Saviour) is simply God personified. The passage cannot be real history because according to the Law (Numbers 5) adultery was forbidden and an adulterous woman was punished by stoning. In Hosea 3:1 the prophet was told to love Gomer, the adultress, so God is commanding Hosea to break the Law of Moses, if Hosea is mortal. Only God could break his own rules. He had underatken to love the adulterous nation Israel. The marriage contract is the analogy of God's covenant with Israel. A covenant is a contract. Hosea's children are just as allegorical as the rest of the characters. Jezreel was a famous city associated with Jezebel and the worship of the goddess, Astarte, but it also puns on Israel and represents the nation, as a home of its kings. God calls the first child Jezreel and the author identifies it as a son, but later it changes sex and becomes a her. If Jezreel stands for Israel as God's offspring then it too should be female and we have an example of the patriarchal editor's blue pen. The other children have strange negative names Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi, meaning Not-Pitied or Not-Loved and Not My People. Indeed, properly translated, Yehouah also is given a negative name as part of the same system of threats. In Hosea 1:9 the translation is not "I am not your God" but "To you, I am Not-Yehouah". Plainly, these negatives are simply warnings to the nation. The offspring of their promiscuity with foreign gods will be rejection by Yehouah. Later, however, he promises that they could become Loved and My people, effectively, if Israel gives up her passions.
For both men and women, to look honestly at romantic love is a heroic journey. It forces us not only to look at the the beauty and potential in romantic love but also at the contridictions and illusions we carry around inside of us at an unconscious level. Heroic journeys always lead through dark valleys and difficult confontations. Yet, if we realize that life has been beautifully designed, we will come to know the light of the Spirit, and we will begin to live in peace.
In the light of the Spirit, we see that we are all playing out roles that are the fulfillment of an exquisite and all encompassing plan. To recognize this is to step out of conflict into grace.
Both experience and the Bible show that adults need companionship and sexual pleasure, and that "two are better than one" in daily life and in the mission of the church. Christian churches need to define healthy biblical adulthood and take steps to bring singles to that state. The Church must abandon its campaign to make singleness and marriage morally equivalent. Singleness is an outcome related to both individual and collective choices, while celibacy is a rare God-given gift. Scripture only exempts from marriage those who (a) have the actual gift of celibacy (the removal of the need for sex) and (b) a special calling from God to accomplish a task that won't accommodate family life (I Cor. 7; Matt. 19). The Church behaves as though every Christian single is uniquely equipped to weather protracted singlehood by the mere fact they have Jesus. Saying that all Christian singles have the gift of celibacy doesn't make those who are suffering unwanted singleness feel better. It also doesn't admonish those who should be held accountable for being chronically single and causing someone else to forfeit marriage. Blurring the distinction between singleness and celibacy has grave consequences. For one thing, the natural inclination of a young man to be irresponsible is validated when he has the church's permission to put off establishing a permanent home. Similarly, in the guise of compassion, churches often counsel young women to ignore the costs of protracted singlehood and to focus instead on Christian activities or missionary work. Such women forgo legitimate sexual relations and the physical and spiritual protections of a husband, experience waning fertility, and may miss out on having biological children of their own. This garners only resentment, not more Christian servants. Delaying marriage forces many Christian singles into the abstinence marathon, against which every cell in their bodies revolts. Struggling to endure this suspended, unnatural and unbiblical state for a protracted amount of time, many fail to keep their purity. Giving singles "Biblical twelve steps" to manage sexual desire and find more satisfaction in Jesus won't work, because we're spurning God's blueprint for mankind.
In the Jewish faith the bloodline of the woman determines the preistly aspect, Mary was probably from a family going back to Levi as was Mary his mother. The blood line of Jesus's earthly father was Davidic- therefore Jesus was both of the royal lineages and was actually King and High priest to Israel - hence King of the Jew - taken seriously by Rome. Jesus and Mary are thought to HAVE had a daughter and they lived in the South of France - taken there by Jesus's cousin Joseph of Aramethea. There are some historic references in the church archives there alluding to that fact - but alot of these were hidden or destroyed by the Romans who were interested in keeping the bloodline out of history and keeping the power in the emerging church of Rome.
Magdalene and Jesus were married: She bore his daughter, Catharyn, around whom a religion (Cathars) sprung up in southern Europe after Magdalene fled to there after the Diaspora began some years following Pentecost. Magdalene was the scribe of the anonymous New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, which no man would have read if it was known a woman had scribed it. The Cathars eventually were killed or exiled by European Christian nations loyal to the Vatican. SECRET ARCHIVES OF THE VATICAN -
these writings were left full of evidence that was not perceived as a problem at the time, but gives the educated, objective reader nearly 400 years later a great deal of material to compare with other findings and points of view also surviving that period.
It is interesting to note the manner with which certain historical events are dealt with. Of the Merovingian demise she writes simply "The Merovingian line was biologically played out." Yet, the letter does exist shows the Church of Rome condoning the murder of Dagobert ll. In dealing with the various "heresies" she chooses rather than the shameful Albigensian Crusade 400 years earlier - a monastery turned sex cult in around 1640. She also in doing this was not able to conceal that sexual activity among the clergy and nuns was rampant. Yet the morsel of fact that drops from the Vatican's' own Secret Archives is contained in this particular cult's proported justification; The Canon Pandolfi Ricasoli de, Baroni della Trappola, confessor of the convent, and of Lady Faustina Mainardi, the abbess, and three others all claimed that sex between members of the clergy was justified because "Such acts had been practiced even by Christ the Lord, with the Magdalene, and also the Beati who are in heaven."
There are many fascinating exposures in this book, but the primary one we focus upon in this section regards Mary Magdalene and evidence of her union through marriage with Jesus and their family. We think, along with the evidence above and particularly the Black Forest paintings that give evidence to the knowledge of the general clergy in the Church of the Magdalene's presence in Europe after 44CE and this and other knowledges were present in Europe and among the clergy. It seems such knowledge was common in earlier days of the Church and Christianity in general.
It is important for the modern appraiser to recall that Rome and its influnce was contained by the Alps to other regions in the north. Also that since the Magdalene had landed in Provence on the other side of the Alps that she and Joseph of Arimathea had a chance to spread their own system of religious view before the Greek and Roman versions arrived. It is also why the Celtic Church had such a differing view from the Roman Church. This is also illustrated very well in Ambrosini's book. The view we are led to illustrates a Church that over hundreds of years as it discovered important contradictions in it's own information, suppressed it. In fact, the entire epoch of the control of literature, the vigorous Pan-European suppression of contraray beliefs by use of murder, torture and violence as well as heavy handed psychological efforts in order to control the minds of Europeans for the benefit of the Church depended on just that much violence in order to cause an eventual forgetfulness of one time common knowledge and proliferate evidence. It is no surprise that the Albigensian Crusade against the "Cathar Heretics" occured within the region that the Magdalene influenced by her presence. (And also where the Jewish dominated Kingdom of Septimania had existed).
Establishing the humanity of Jesus and his family is central in the journey towards a sobering of the West after two thousand years of lies and distortions. The modern contentions between the three main Western religions (we include Islam as one of the three since it arose in the same region and has its history with the west rather than its later incursions into the Eastern World. Our view is that it is our own responsibility to cleanse ourselves of the kind of lies that have caused our part of the tragedy in history. There is no doubt that the other groups need to do this as well.
The craving for a religious reverence of womanhood remained even in the age of asceticism, and found its satisfaction in the worship of the Theotoktos, the mother of God, which is a literal translation of ancient pagan terms, especially the Egyptian neter mut, but in addition the idea of the Saviour's bride though considerably neglected was never entirely forgotten. In the imagination of the people, though rarely ever of the clergy, it remained in a hazy atmosphere of mysticism and finally took a definite shape toward the tenth century by imputing to Jesus a mystical bride who was called Catharine, the "pure one," to indicate that she was an ideal of virginity. The notion of any true wedlock relation was necessarily excluded according to the prevalent asceticism of Church doctrines and so in this fairytale atmosphere the legend of a spiritual marriage of Christ assumed a more and more definite shape.
The idea of the mystic marriage of Catharine has never found friends among Protestants, and after the rise of the Reformation it became almost disregarded even in the Roman Catholic Church, but it has given us a number of charming and most beautiful pictures which are and will remain cherished by all lovers of art, not excepting Protestants
In the Renaissance it was a favorite subject of the greatest artists such as Murillo, Correggio, Veronese and many others. One old picture by Memling is preserved in St. John's Hospital at Bruges, and a similar one painted from the same models but in a different setting, may be seen the Louvre.
poetical sentiment that is frequently absent in the cold and unimaginative rationalism of the Reformation. Unquestionably St. Catharine has been selected as the bride of Christ on account of her name, for the idea of the bridal relation between the Saviour and the saved soul is not so unusual as it might appear to a later born generation, whose interest in fantastic
imagery has considerably waned. Not only is the Church regarded as the bride of Christ, but every nun as well, and in the history of Israel the relation of God to his people is conceived under the same allegory. The analogy between the nun's vow and the marriage of a bride is obvious in many details of the ritual, and the same interpretation was not absent in pagan antiquity where, for instance, the vestal virgins were regarded as matrons and wore six braids, the characteristic hair dress of brides and married women.
There are quite a number of saints that bear the name Catharine, but the bride of Christ was originally St. Catharine of Alexandria. Among other saints of the same name the best known is St. Catharine of Siena, and since the people of Siena did not want to stay behind the Alexaridrians, they too claimed for their saint the honor of a mystic marriage with Christ which has been duly represented in the pictures of the saint's life.
The popularity of St. Catharine is proved by the frequent occurrence of the name and also by the belief that she belongs to the most powerful intercessors with God. It will be remembered that Jeanne d'Arc believed that she was especially supported by the Virgin Mary, the Archangel Michael and the two saints Margaret and Catharine. Jeanne d'Arc is reported as having obtained the miraculous sword which she used in battle from St. Catharine's chapel at Fierbois, after receiving a divine revelation that it was hidden there.
LIST OF PAINTINGS
THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHARINE. From the illumined text of Mielot's Vie de Ste. Catherine, as revised and modernized by M. Sepet.
"And thou art entered with Angels into His garden."
MARRIAGE OF THE CATHARINES. By Borgognone, d. c. 1524. (National Gallery, London.) The infant Christ holds a ring in each hand and while placing one on the finger of Catharine of Alexandria extends the other ring towards the nun, Catharine of Siena.
In the "Common Office for a Virgin and Martyr," the First Responsory reads as follows in the English version of the Roman Catholic Breviary:
"Come, Bride of Christ, and take the everlasting crown, which the Lord hath prepared for thee, even for thee who for the love of Him hast shed thy blood, and art entered with angels into His Garden.
"Come, O My chosen one, and I will establish My throne in thee, for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty.
ST. CATHARINE OF SIENA. By Lorenzo da San Severino (latter half of the 15th cent.) On the nimbus around the head of the kneeling St. Catharine are the words "Santa Katrina de Sene." Other saints in the picture are Dominic, Augustine, and Demetrius of Spoleto.
THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHARINE. By Fra Bartolommeo, 1475-1517. (Louvre.)
Because of the nun's habit this can only be Catharine of Siena.
By Hans Memling, d. 1494. (Louvre.) St. Barbara is represented with a book, and in the background are Cecilia, Agnes and other saints.
One of the most important insights in the myth for women is the degree to which most men unconsciously search for the lost femmine.
It was to most religious people of his time that Jesus spoke his strongest warnings about a loss of heart. The external religious props we try to maintain do not recognize God's voice communing with us when he calls us to the sacred romance he has set within us.
Having a literary figure of Woman-Wisdom can reinforce the idea that women are wise; having a beloved Zion teaches that women are lovable. Similarly, the later Jewish images of the Sabbath Queen-Bride and the Torah are positive female images that can raise women's prestige and reinforce women's self esteem. Even the image of the Virgin Mary, which male culture specifically declared to be unlike other women, has often been experienced as a positive image by Catholic women. Nevertheless, despite the obvious appeal of these images to women, when union with them is described as marriage, women are often minimized in the symbolic relationship.
This diverse global body will be widely recognized as a prophetic light and driving force for an inclusive Christian spirituality which celebrates the integration of spirituality and human sexuality."...
The truth of the gospel is intended to free us to love God and others with our whole heart. As a vocation to holiness, marriage is meant to prepare men and women for heaven. But in order for it to be adequate heaven preparation, the model must accurately image the divine prototype. The sacramentality of marriage, then, consists in the manifesting of the eternal mystery of God in a "sign" that serves not only to proclaim that mystery, but also to accomplish it in the spouses
"Above all else,gaurd your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23
Something wonderful woos us; something fearful stalks us. Hope assure us of loves and lovers; of mystery to be pursued and adventure. In our hearts the longing for a Sacred romance; in us a longing to be in a relationship of heroic proportions.
It is the center of our spiritual journey; any religion that ignores it is only a set of propositions to be memorized. It is a romance couched in mystery and set deeply within us; it cannot be categorized into propositional truths or fully known.
Existence has a story shape to it; We live in story. Western culture rejected mystery and trancendence. Without an Author it did not take long to lose the story. The central belief of our times is that there is no story.
Children intuite the true story in the fairy tales. There are wicked stepmothers and fairy godmothers. There are heros and heroines. There is a quest and there are hearts at stake.
The haunting we sense is God calliing us to a Sacred Romance; a wedding that a king has prepared for his son. Our hearts require that the Sacred Romance be true and that is precisely what the Scriptures tell us.
Everyone is of great significance to God; Those who believe in God are drawn to the center of the stage in a drama of cosmic proportion. We are all of the body of Christ and we all partake of his passion , his suffering, his crucifiction, and we all take part in his ressurection, joy, and glory; We all take part in his longing for a bride and also in his marriage. Could it be that God's glory and our welfare are part of the same story? If only we understood God's heart more clearly.
We long for intimacy because we are made in the image of perfect intimacy; The meaning of communion. Once upon a time there was Father, Son, (Mother & Spouse) Holy Spirit, heart and home; The home we have been longing for all our life.
"The morning stars sang together and all the angels of God shouted for joy" Job 38:7
God creates man and woman and sets them in Paradise.
There is one sage; no, two, one saint; no, two: who along with his
spiritual sister, yes, two, if anyone knows about Paradise, surely they
do. He is known to the world as St. Francis, she St. Clare. Now Francis
was no schoolman, nor a writing poet. the only way to ascertain his
theology is to read his life, a life rich in song and meaning. His life
is the embodiment of the Lords command, "Go into all the world, and
preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15)
He turned his back on wealth to embrace poverty, and in this he realized
his aspiration of communion with both God and nature. He embraced
childlike simplicity with great joy and radiance of love toward all;
both man and beast. Many miracles are reported to have filled his life;
and most particularly concerning an almost supernatural relation to the
natural world. So much so, that he was reported to have tamed wolves.
Two years before his death there occurred the most famous event in his
life. He received the Stigmata; as he prayed on the Monte della Verna,
he had a vision and was afflicted with the wounds of the Crucifixion,
from which he suffered the rest of his life. The objective reality of
these wounds is so well testified that the most critical of modern
scholars accept it. It was in 1212 that St. Clare began to follow St.
Francis, and the Poor Clares; the second order of St. Francis, was
established. St. Clare is best remembered for the fact that she fought
valiantly for the preservation of her order. St. Clare, also, turned her
back on wealth to embrace poverty and living charity. St. Clare and her
community had neither stocking, shoes, sandals nor any other covering on
their feet; they slept on the ground, observed perpetual abstinence from
meat, and never spoke but when they were obliged by necessity and
charity. St. Francis wished that his order should never possess any
rents, or other property, even in common; subsisting on daily
contributions, and St. Clare possessed this spirit in perfection. The
ideal of Lady Poverty first pledged by Francis; accepted by woman, by
Clare, multiplied the strength and rendered the beauty of the message
universal. Francis and Clare were born into the time of the minstrels
and troubadours; and without a doubt they both were inclined to a
romantic mettle. In their vision, sacred knighthood and the sword of the
Spirit; replaced the chivalry of men: heavenly sacrifice assumed the
place of courtly hospitality. And love as love, its sweet meldiousness ,
its lofty impulse, its passionate drive, survived.
The object of their devotion was the Creator and their treasured joy the
precious gift of the creation. This can be seen in two legends
concerning them. The first; was on the road to Bavagna. As Francis
walked he was filled with ecstatic joy and able to see the beauty of all
things, the delicate splendor of every flower and blade of grass, and to
sense the tender love of the Father who had created it all. And suddenly
he grew aware of the oneness pervading all things through the oneness of
their common Creator, and his soul overflowed with a feeling of
brotherhood with all created things. A sensation of love overcame him,
stronger than any he had ever sensed before. Love for earth and cloud,
for blade and leaf, everything under the sun. And he sang a song of
praise and of thanksgiving for his life. And he began to speak to the
birds of the marvelous love of the creator; and they heard. For they
gathered around him, and overcoming their natural fears they were
attentive to him. And when he was silent, the birds raised their voice
in praise of God to prove that they had heard it. And it was two of his
companions that witnessed this. Shortly thereafter, Francis reached the
town of Alviano And he stood in the market square to speak to the
people.
And the towns people heard that he was there and came in large numbers
to hear him; and it was toward nightfall. And a great multitude of
swallows circled around the market square; which resounded with their
unceasing song. Yet upon a word from Francis they alighted and where
silent. Only when Francis had finished and all the people sang a song of
jubilation and praise, then did the swallows also. All the inhabitants
of Alviano, who had gathered in the market square witnessed this.
A second legend tells of the time that Fancis invited Clare to eat with
him at the Portiuncula. And while they were eating, Fancis began to talk
Clare so beautifully about the love of God, that both of them and all
their companions were inflamed with ecstatic adore. The towns people of
Assisi saw that the sky over the Portiuncula was glowing red as though
the chapel and the entire grove were on fire. They came running, yet
found only Francis in conversation with Clare. The sky had participated
in Francis’ and Clare’s saintly love within, and of, God.
Certainly, a miracle, by it’s very definition, is no ascertainable
historical event, and the most beautiful legend is no factual account
exempt from all possible doubt. Yet one thing is an uncontested fact;
the historical repercussions which the sermon to the birds and the
miracle of the swallows had, the revolution they brought about in art
and the decisive change they initiated in the social structure of the
Middle Ages. St. Francis’ miracle of the birds marks the beginning of a
new epoch in the cultural history of the Occident. The representation of
the living and moving human figure, the portrayal of nature in Art,
which were to lead at a later time to the great paintings of the
Renaissance, had their beginnings in the artistic portrayal and
representation of the legend of the birds. The endeavor to translate
Francis’ saintly activities into color and form led to the
representation of scenes filled with movement and life. Medieval piety
before the time of St. Francis had lost itself in speculations. Its life
came dangerously close to being paralyzed in theological sophistry.
Through Fancis "windows were opened and the view was cleared into the
open country, out into nature." The original joy and beauty of the
Christian way of life, which seemed forgotten for a thousand years, came
to the fore again through Francis’ example. For the divinity of nature
was revealed in the life of our Lord also. The story of Jesus’ life on
earth begins really in that sphere. The animals in the stabe had been
the first witnesses of His birth. The time of Christ’s mission was spent
without house or home; and as he walked place to place, he always spoke
of nature in his parables. He spoke of the lilies, which excelled in
beauty, surpassing the works of men (Matt 6:29). He spoke of the birds
which the Father feeds (Matt 6:26). He spoke of not a single sparrow
being forgotten before God (Luke 12:6). He spoke of the sky, the wind,
the birds, fishes, foxes; he spoke of the planting and the harvest, of
the olive tree and the mutard seed. He spoke of the shepherds love for
his flock, and also of one lost sheep. He told his disciples to preach
the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). Throughout the Middle Ages
art and poetry knew only of Christ the Savior. The overwhelming
significance of this fact left little room for the man Jesus, in his
humanity.
Jesus the wanderer and lover of nature, was overshadowed by the
impression of Christ, the Redeemer of man and son of God. His human
poverty was lost sight of in the presence of his divine nobility and his
cheerfulness in the mighty drama of his Passion. Only love is wide and
rich enough to enable men to follow Christ in all the facets of the
example he set. Francis received Christ in a spirit of love. Through
Fancis’ imitation of Christ, the thoughts, emotions, and deeds of a
human being had become the vessels of revitalized Christian Spirit; and
in it all of nature. The inspiration afforded by Francis’ words and by
his whole personality didn’t only influence the imagination of poets and
artists; its luminescence affected also the great masses of ordinary men
and women and changed their habits of thought, their emotions and deeds,
so fundamentally that a far reaching transformation of the social
structure of the Middle Ages resulted from it. It was the natural
spontaneity and simple beauty of his disposition which assured him the
enthusiasm of individuals as of the masses. He was not a pantheist
philosopher in whose thought all of creation merged with his own self.
Such philosophical reveries would not have been received by the common
folk; they would not have been moved by them. But that a saintly man
should speak to a flower, a bird, or a person, addressing them all as
brothers and sisters; that he did not conceive of his ultimate identity
with the abstract ideas of flowers, birds, and persons, but was moved by
a sensation of compassionate love for all life and every creature. This
spontaneity and genuineness, which is found only in love and exuberance,
were understood by all, for they affected them in the depths of their
hearts.
Perhaps the best way to know the Heart of St. Francis is through his
poetic song known as "The praises of the Creatures"
Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, To Thee be praise and glory,
honor and blessing: Only to Thee, most high, do they belong, and no man
is great enough to speak of Thee.
Be praised, my Lord, with all Thy creatures, And most of all for
Monsignor Brother Sun, Who makes the day for us, and the light. Fair is
he, and radiant, and very splendid: A semblance, Lord most high, of
Thee.
Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Moon and all the Stars. In heaven Thou
hast made them, precious, bright and fair.
Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Wind And for air and cloud and every
weather By which Thou givest sustenance to all Thy creatures.
Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Fire By whom Thou dost light up the
night. Beautiful is he, and joyous, robust, and strong.
Be praised, my Lord, for our mother, Sister Earth Who doth support and
keep us, and produce for us Her varied fruits and colored flowers and
grass.
Oh, praise and bless my Lord, and thankful be, And serve Him all, with
great humility.
It is with this song of praise of the Creator and his creation, that
Francis the troubadour of God, flared up with enthusiasm when he crossed
the valley of the shadow of death.
Love was the essence of Fancis’ and Clare’s life. They lived it in all
they did and proclaimed it in all their words. It gave them power beyond
the most powerful popes; devotion beyond the devoutest monks; wisdom
beyond the most learned doctors.
It made them most cheerful among the cheerful.
Francis and Clare are in the depths of every human soul; anyone who has
ever considered holiness possible in a human being. In their poverty and
tenderness they revealed the reality of the dream; of going beyond the
limits imposed by unbelief, beyond the limits of fear. To a reality in
which one should indeed tame wolves, and truly speak to the fishes and
the swallows.
Themes You Will Find At SpiritBride.. Spiritual Mystique, Gardens and Sanctuaries, Weddings and Honeymoons, Wellness and Solutions, The Philo Sophia, angels, Christian, Goddess, Jesus, groom, married, bride, divine, holy spirit, Mary Magdalene, female, women, wedding, Sophia, Mother Mary, woman's, Bible, hagia, study, love, spirit, rosaries, recipes, spice, tea, herbs, wine making supplies, roses, oils, scents, salts, learning, holiday, planner, glassware, kitchenware, software, weddings, faith, soul, happiness, tao, quan, kaun, yin, bodhisattva, fairies, princess, fey, faery, faeries, plant spirits, country, living, herbal, lifestyle, herb gardening, bird houses, crafts, silver, semi precious stones, jewelry, art, music, messages, blog, posts, ministry, hope, zen, "
TOP SEARCH ENGINES
* HOME * Google * Yahoo! * MSN Search * AOL Search * AllTheWeb * AltaVista * AskJeeves * MetaCrawler * Lycos