Few would doubt that the Witching Hour is the time for magic. And oh how important magic was in the early days of Christianity…Primitive Christianity…a time brimming with significantly different concepts and ideas about what it meant to be a person of faith. I think it would be somewhat, perhaps, illuminating to take a quick look at some of the magical elements of Christianity, and then delve into where a Magic Christianity…or a tradition of Christian Magic, is ultimately derived.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Mark 5: 25-34. Jesus’s robe becomes magical…and almost like a holy relic, touching it will heal you. And as such, Jesus does not know the identity of the person who touched his robe. It would appear that Matthew was uncomfortable with the basic story…
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
Matthew 9: 20-22. Of course, Matthew has not recorded that Jesus did not know who touched his robe, and had to ask around, and only knew in the end because the woman came forward.
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
Luke 8: 43-48. Luke has remained consistent with the version found in Mark…retaining the subject of the magic robe. And this cloth-based magical item is probably what gave to other cloth-based magical items, which I will discuss shortly. But!
St. Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, who, according to legend, influenced her son on the question of the legality of Christianity. But she was also the First Pilgrim and First Relic Collector in Christendom. Constantine sent her to the Holy Land to not only identify specific places mentioned in the Bible, but also to find as many relics as she could, and bring them back. First and foremost, she just so happened to find the True Cross, i.e. the specific cross upon which Christ was crucified. But she found something else…
…Yes! Jesus’s magical robe. However, it is best known for being seamless, and as such, was highly prized…
When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
“Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said,
“They divided my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.”
So this is what the soldiers did.
John 19: 23-24. It is currently in Trier, Germany. And its authenticity was confirmed by no less than…
…Theresa Neumann and her One Woman Horror Show. As is often case, rival places have rival relics…
…there is another Magic Robe in Argenteuil, France. The story goes that the Irene, Empress of the Byzantine empire, gave it to Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor. On the far right, finding myself unable to resist, I include a picture of a reliquary of Charlemagne that supposedly contains his skull. According to the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox church…
…the Chilton of the Lord purchased by Rabbi Elias from a soldier present at the crucifixion. He brought it back to Georgia, and, unfortunately, it was sent to Moscow, of all places.
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”
He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Mark 8: 22-25. Normally, Jesus simply touches a blind person to restore their sight, without spitting. The really odd thing is that Jesus failed to restore the man’s sight in full the first time. It took a second time for Jesus to get it right.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
John 9: 1-7. Here, he not only uses spittle-mud to put on the man’s eyes, the miracle is not complete until the man goes and bathes in the Pool of Siloam. Now for the really strange miracle…
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him. After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue.
Mark 7: 31-33. So I would say that there were magicians in the very early years of Christianity, and some of their accounts made it into the gospels. In Islam, Muhammad also used spit to perform miracles, including mixing his saliva with dirt to heal a sick man, and combining saliva and water in a cup and pouring it over the head of an ill man.
A poor man who was blind, and another who was lame, came both together before him, when he was seated on the tribunal, imploring him to heal them, and saying that they were admonished in a dream by the god Serapis to seek his aid, who assured them that he would restore sight to the one by anointing his eyes with his spittle, and give strength to the leg of the other, if he vouchsafed but to touch it with his heel. At first he could scarcely believe that the thing would any how succeed, and therefore hesitated to venture on making the experiment. At length, however, by the advice of his friends, he made the attempt publicly, in the presence of the assembled multitudes, and it was crowned with success in both cases.
C. Suetonius Tranquillus, VII: Divus Vespasianus. Yes, the emperor Vespasian healed a blind man by spitting on his eyes. But! Vespasian had other interest in other bodily fluids! He is the inventor of the public pay-toilet. When his son Titus told his father that his charging people to use the toilets was objectionable, Vespasian held out a gold coin and declared…pecunia non olet…money doesn’t stink. Obviously, bodily fluids were rather significant in Christianity. There is, of course, the…Milk of Mary…Maria Lactans, shown in portrayals of Mary nursing Baby Jesus, where her breast is exposed…
…Lactating Mary! Eventually, the leaders of the church decided they didn’t like this image. And if John is given supreme importance because Mary supposedly adopted him…
…Saint Bernard claimed that he had a vision in which he saw Mary breast-feeding Jesus. As the baby pulled away, a stream of Mary’s breast milk squirted out of her breast and hit him in the mouth. Or she’s just a good shot. So yes, Bernard claims that the Virgin Mary breastfed him, giving him a better claim to be Mary’s son than the one proffered by the Johnnites.
Ah, yes…the Church of the Milk, just outside Bethlehem. According to legend, Mary hid in the grotto before going down to Egypt. Some of her breastmilk dripped onto the rocks, making them turn white. If you scrape off some of the white dust, you have the breastmilk of the Virgin Mary, so everyone in the world could be breastfed by the Mother of God if they so desire.
Had the virgin been a cow her whole life she could never have produced such a quantity.
That’s what John Calvin thought, at any rate.
And thinking about all this, one is tempting to conclude that it is udderly ridiculous.
Whenever you hear sodomy mentioned, each and every one of you spit on the ground and clean your mouth out as well. If they don't want to change their ways by any other means, maybe they will change when they're made fools of. Spit hard! Maybe the water of your spit will extinguish their fire.
Or so said…
…St. Bernardine of Siena…so spitting can actually help save people’s souls. I would be remiss to conclude this discussion without showing a truly disturbing holy relic…
…the Holy Prepuce…a term that attempts to steer one away from a more down-to-earth term…the Holy Foreskin of Jesus. The truly odd thing about this is that there were some 18 foreskins of Jesus in Medieval Europe. The most well-known foreskin was given to…
…the Goofiest Looking Pope in History, also known as Leo III. Charlamagne gave it to Leo as part of the bribe…sorry…gift…he had to pay to be recognized as Holy Roman Emperor. Where did he get it? An angel gave it to him. But the weird can always get weirder…
And the time of circumcision, that is, the eighth day, being at hand, the child was to be circumcised according to the law. Wherefore they circumcised Him in the cave. And the old Hebrew woman took the piece of skin; but some say that she took the navel-string, and put it in a jar of old oil of nard. And she had a son, a dealer in unguents, and she gave it to him, saying: Don’t sell this! Even if someone offered 300 denarii for it! And this is the jar which Mary the sinner bought and poured upon the head and feet of our Lord Jesus Christ, which thereafter she wiped with the hair of her head.
The Arabic Gospel. And this makes the matter rather difficult to fathom…
While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.
Matthew 26:6.
A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
Luke 7:37.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair.
John 12:1. I bet he would have been surprised if he knew!
On January 1 each year (which, until 1969, was observed by Catholics as the Feast of the Circumcision) the relic was carried in procession through the town with great ceremony. Then in 1983 it mysteriously vanished, reportedly stolen from the local priest’s bedroom, where he is said to have kept it in a shoebox in his wardrobe.
So a priest kept the Holy Foreskin in a shoebox in his bedroom? Why keep spit, breastmilk, and foreskins when you can…
…keep the whole corpse and prop it up in a chair? Now that’s magic! Saint Catherine? Ah, yes…the gift that keeps on giving! In a mystical vision, Catherine claimed that she married Jesus. And he gave her a wedding ring…made from his own foreskin!
Still, that pales in comparison to the claim made by…
…a nun named Agnes Blannbekin, who claimed she actually swallowed the foreskin. Some people just aren’t cut out for celibacy.
This is a 1st century bowl, found during an excavation of underwater ruins at the harbor of Alexandria, with the words…by Christ the Magician, engraved upon it. The term…goes…in ancient Greek indicates a worker of miracles. The “Jesus Bowl” brings to mind the once popular…
…incantation bowls, a fascinating element of ancient Judaism.
This is a gold-glass Medallion showing Christ working miracles with what appears to be a wand. The Jesus Wand is found regularly in early Christian art…
A magic amulet from the 5th or 6th century was found that reads: Oror Phor, Eloi Adonai, Iao Sabaoth, Michael, Jesus Christ, help us and this house. Talk about hedging your bets! In reality, magic, miracles, incantations, etc., mean nothing in and of themselves. It all depends on where the magic is coming from. And now for a real miracle….
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Now that is a miracle. No spitting, no magic garments, and…no touching. Jesus’s true miracles are accomplished in the same way God created the universe…he simply spoke.
Among the first Christian magicians were…
…sorry, I meant…
…sorry again…I meant to say…
…Simon Magus and his sect, known to history as the Simonians. The term…magus…is the same term used of the magi in the Gospel of the Young Jesus. Sometimes Simon is called…Simon the Sorcerer. Ok, that’s a somewhat loaded term, but if it is applied to Simon, then it should be applied to the Three Magi as well. Personally, I would prefer to be called…not a sorceress, but rather…a wizard. No, a female wizard is a…witch, talk about a loaded term!
Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying-on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
Acts 8: 9-23. Simon has been treated unfairly since his lifetime. Modern English translations of the Bible reinforce the hypocrisy…
Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.
NIV.
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.
But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city…
NKJV. The Three Magi are allowed to be magi, but Simon has to be a sorcerer.
Looking back at the quote from Acts, the Philip in question is not the Apostle Philip…he is Philip the Evangelist, and the only figure in the New Testament to hold this title. He is a somewhat obscure figure, but I think he may have been an associate of…
…St. Stephen, on the left. Philip is most known for converting an Ethiopian eunuch, and for his four daughters, all of whom were prophetesses. St. Stephen is best known as the first Christian martyr, and was a bad memory for the Apostle Paul…
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Acts 7: 54-60. Paul may have been the driving force behind the cold-blooded murder of Stephen. Now it’s important not to confuse our Stephen with…
…Pope Stephen VI, who so hated his predecessor, Pope Formosus, that he had him dug up from his grave, then put him on trial, producing a nauseating event known as the…
…Cadaver Synod. So is Stephen VI the Vicar of Christ? It’s rather convenient to ignore the awful things in your closet!
Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.
Acts 8: 4-8. Following the death of Stephen, Philip left for Samaria, possibly fearing that his connection with Stephen could lead to his own death.
Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
It is interesting that in many stories about Simon’s miracles…and Philip was a miracle-worker himself, there are few indications that Simon’s magical deeds were viewed as fake. But in most sources, Simon’s magical deeds were real…just done by the power of Satan. Still, some believe that Simon, in the Book of the Acts of Peter and Paul, is actually the Apostle Paul, and reflects a clash between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Although this is interesting seeing how Paul fell out with the two Jewish Christian titans of the time…James and Peter, it is not convincing. Church writers claimed that Simon was the first heretic…author of the first known heresy, with Gnosticism owing its existence to him. This is due to the fact that the group called…Simonians…existed from a very early period, and were not supporters of Peterite Christianity. Throughout the sources, Peter and his followers are pitted against Simon and his followers, which I understand to indicate that in Rome, there was an early power struggle between the two, and that what is said about Simon is Peterite propaganda. Yes, the winners write the history.
And thirdly, that even after the ascension of the Christ into heaven the daemons cast before themselves (as a shield) certain men who said that they were gods, who were not only not expelled by you, but even thought worthy of honors; a certain Samaritan, Simon, who came from a village called Gitta; who in the reign of Claudius Caesar wrought magic wonders by the art of the daemons who possessed him, and was considered a god in your imperial city of Rome, and as a god was honored with a statue by you, which statue was erected in the river Tiber, between the two bridges, with the following inscription in Roman: "Simoni Deo Sancto." And nearly all the Samaritans, but few among the rest of the nations, confess him to be the first god and worship him. And they speak of a certain Helen, who went around with him at that time, and who had formerly prostituted herself, but was made by him his first Thought.
Justin Martyr, Apologia I:26. Simoni Deo Sancto translates as…Simon, the Holy God. It is likely that the statue in question was…
…the statue wrongly considered to be Simon (Claudius at the far right)…this is really Semo Sancus, the object of a very ancient Roman cult. Theodoretus states that Claudius dedicated a bronze pillar to Simon. The Acts of Peter claim that the statue in question was erected to honor Simon by a senator named Marcellus, who was originally an adherent of Simon, but later defected to Peter’s group. It is not totally clear whether Claudius distinguished between Jews and Christians, but he did order the banishment of the Jews from Rome. However, Simon and his group had become separate from Judaism and Primitive Christianity…or the miracle-working of the group was enough to distinguish them from the latter, and thus found a place in Rome. It seems that Simon and his sect were previously ousted from Judea and Samaria, for which the Acts of Peter credit the Guy with the Keys to the Kingdom.
Irenaeus states that Simon had…driven the Samaritans out of their wits by his magical powers. He also claims that Simon did not believe in God, but that, among the Jews, he was the Son of God, and among the Samaritans he was seen as descended from God the Father, and he was the Holy Spirit everywhere else. Just as Montanus had his Priscilla, Simon had his Helen…a prostitute he purchased, married, and cast in the role of the First Thought of his Mind, and the Mother of All. He created angels and archangels by her power. She did this by leaping out of his side, suggesting the stab wound made in the side of Christ during the crucifixion, from which blood and water gushed out. She not only made angels and archangels, but she also made the world. She was then captured by Angels and Powers to hide the fact that they were created by her. And so she was imprisoned in Helen’s body. But not just in the hooker’s body…but also…
…Helen of Troy. Simon’s Helen transmigrated from body to body, finally ending up in a prostitute’s body…and by a strange coincidence, the one Simon bought. In order to guarantee salvation to men, Simon descended to earth in the form of a male. Salvation from the lamentable shape of the world, caused by Powers, Principalities, and Angels, would come to those that accepted him by the time he dissolved the world. Irenaeus also states that, according to Simon, good works were not needed because they were the means by which the Angels enslaved men. There were priests in the sect who were given to committing evil deeds, including magic, exorcisms, incantations, love potions, spells, the use of familiars and dream-senders. The sect was accused of worshipping a statue of Simon in the form of Jupiter, and a statue of Helen, in the form of Minerva. It should also be noted that the Pseudo-Clementine literature states that the woman associated with Simon was named Luna, that she wasn’t a prostitute, and had been one of the disciples of John the Baptist. Perhaps the smearing of Simon’s reputation when he became the head of the sect of John the Baptist, meant smearing Luna’s reputation as well.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, I: xxiii, 1-4.
Now when Niceta and I once asked him to explain to us how these things could be effected by magic art, and what was the nature of that thing, Simon began thus to explain it to us as his associates. I have,' said he, made the soul of a boy, unsullied and violently slain, and invoked by unutterable adjurations, to assist me; and by it all is done that I command.' But,' said I, is it possible for a soul to do these things?' He answered: I would have you know this, that the soul of man holds the next place after God, when once it is set free from the darkness of his body. And immediately it acquires prescience: wherefore it is invoked for necromancy.
Psuedo-Clementine Literature II: XIII.
Necromancy, the magical practice of speaking with the dead, can take different forms. One such form is that followed by a Thessalian necromancer, or witch, named Erictho…
The witch Erictho had scorned these wicked rites and practices of an accursed race, as still insufficient, and had turned her vile arts to rites unknown. It was a crime to her to shelter her evil head under a roof by a city hearth. Dear to the deities of Erebus, she dwelt in deserted tombs, and haunted the graves from which ghosts had been expelled.
Erictho makes use of the remains of corpses…charred bones, the ashes of children, marrow from bones, eyeballs, nails from the hands of the crucified, blood, fetuses, hair, and tongues. Lucan’s Erictho is a grotesque character who embodies all the dark rituals that the witches of Thessaly were believed to practice. Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius was the son of Pompey the Great, the primary figure who opposed Julius Caesar. In 48 B.C., Pompey lost to Caesar’s forces at the Battle of Pharsalus. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was killed by the Egyptian king Ptolemy XIII. Desiring to know the outcome of the battle before it was fought, Pompey’s son made a baffling decision to not consult the respected sources of prophecy, instead preferring to consult with the dreaded Erictho…who told him that she would need a corpse which, in accordance with her dark magical arts, would be made to speak…
And since there is a wealth of recent slaughter, the simplest way is to steal a corpse from the Thessalian field; the lips of a fresh cadaver, still warm, will speak loud, not some dismal shade, limbs withered from the sun, gibbering vaguely in our ears.
So she spoke: then, night doubly darkened by her art, her shadowy head veiled in vile mist, she strayed among the scattered corpses of dead men denied burial. The wolves at once fled, the vultures sheathed their talons, and unsated took flight, as the witch picked out her prophet, prodding the innermost organs deathly cold seeking a corpse, its pair of lungs firm and un-wounded whose rigid sacs might still possess power of utterance.
If she had tried to raise up a whole army on that plain, to fight once more, the laws of Erebus would have rested in abeyance, a host brought from Stygian Avernus by her monstrous powers would have warred again.
Animating dead soldiers is interesting…
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
Ezekiel 37: 1-10. So the ability to raise an army from the dead has a very clear parallel in the Bible.
Finally, she chose a cadaver thrusting a hook through a noose tied around its neck, then dragging the wretched corpse, doomed to live again, along over rocks, through scree, to her lair under a high cliff of that cavernous mountain, which cruel Erictho had destined for her rites.
The fact that Erictho practices her rites in a cave is important. In the Roman world, the Sibyl was an important as the most significant oracular prophetess. She lived in Cumae, and was called the Cumaean Sibyl…
…and she practiced her prophetic arts in a cave. So Erictho is the antithesis of the noble Sibyl, and the fact that Sextus chose to consult such a dreadful witch as Erictho spells doom in the upcoming battle.
For though the Thessalian witch has power over the fates, it is uncertain whether she questions the dead souls by drawing them to her, or descending to them.
Then she began by filling fresh wounds in the breast of that corpse with warm blood, washing the innards clean of gore pouring into them moon-born poison. In this was mingled all that Nature wrongly bears; the spume of rabid dogs, a lynx’s innards, a foul hyena’s hump, and the marrow of a snake-fed stag.
To which she added commonly-known baneful weeds, and leaves steeped with unspeakable spells, and herbs her own deadly mouth had spat upon at birth, with all the venom she herself had given to the world.
Next she began a Thessalian spell, in accents that penetrated Tartarus.
She lashed the inert corpse with a live serpent, and through the clefts where the earth had been split by her spells she growled like a dog at the shades below and shattering the silence of their realm
Instantly the clotted blood grew warm, heating the livid wounds, coursing through veins and extremities of the limbs. The vital organs, stirred, thrilled in the cold flesh; and a new life stealing through the numbed innards contested with death. Each limb quivered, sinews strained, and the dead man rose, not limb by limb, but bounding up, swiftly, and at once standing erect. His mouth gaped wide, his eyes opened, not with the aspect of one living as yet, but already half-alive.
Then she cast a spell that gave the shade power to know all that she asked. The sad flesh spoke, its tears flowing.
Sextus, take consolation in this: the dead look to welcome your father and his house to a place of peace, keeping a bright region of their realm for them. Let no short-lived victory trouble you: cometh the hour that makes all generals equal. Oh, you proud ones, with your high hearts, hasten to die, then descend from so pitiful a grave to trample on the ghosts of the deified Romans.
So ending his prophecy, he stood there sorrowful with silent face, ready to die again. Herbs and magic spells were once more needed before the cadaver could fall, since death having exerted all its power once, could not reclaim that spirit itself. Then the witch built a tall pyre of wood; and the dead man approached the fire. Erictho left him to stretch out on the burning pile, allowing him to die at last.
Sometimes, the practice of necromancy had help place a king on the throne. Assyrian king…Esarhaddon
…Esarhaddon had numerous sons. Who would be his heir? The two frontrunners were Ashurbanipal (right) and Shamash-shum-ukin (center). The possibility of civil war, which did eventually break out, led Esarhaddon to decide that one these sons would be king of Babylonia, and the other would be king of Assyria, with the latter being the more important title. Esarhaddon decided that Ashurbanipal would be the next king of Assyria. Esarhaddon’s wife Esharra-hammath had died very recently. The court had its own asipu…a physician and practitioner of magic, by the name of Adad-shuma-usur. He told the king that the ghost of his deceased wife had told him that Ashurbanipal should be confirmed as successor. This no doubt should be linked to the practice of necromancy.
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus must consult the deceased, as well as blind, prophet Tiresias. To do this, he performs a ritual that the nymph Circe imparted to him…
Do as I say now. Dig a trench of about a forearm’s depth and length and around it pour libations out to all the dead— first with milk and honey, and then with mellow wine, then water third and last, and sprinkle glistening barley over it all, and vow again and again to all the dead, to the drifting, listless spirits of their ghosts, that once you return to Ithaca you will slaughter a barren heifer in your halls, the best you have, and load a pyre with treasures—and to Tiresias, alone, apart, you will offer a sleek black ram, the pride of all your herds. And once your prayers have invoked the nations of the dead in their dim glory, slaughter a ram and black ewe, turning both their heads toward Erebus, but turn your head away, looking toward the Ocean River. Suddenly then the countless shades of the dead and gone will surge around you there. But order your men at once to flay the sheep that lie before you, killed by your ruthless blade, and burn them both, and then say prayers to the gods, to the almighty god of death and dread Persephone. But you—draw your sharp sword from beside your hip, sit down on alert there, and never let the ghosts of the shambling, shiftless dead come near that blood till you have questioned Tiresias yourself.
Odyssey, Book 10.
The Talmud offers fascinating, and sometimes hilarious information about necromancy, particularly in Sanhedrin 65b.
The Gemara answers: One who directs inquiries to the dead employs a different method to contact the dead, as it is taught in a baraita: “Or directs inquiries to the dead”; this is one who starves himself and goes and sleeps overnight in a graveyard so that a spirit of impurity should settle upon him, and he can listen to what the dead are saying.
The Sages taught: A necromancer is one who causes the voice of the dead to be heard speaking from between his joints or from his armpit.
Cool! The voice of the dead come from the necromancer’s armpit!
What, does the dead person not speak from the grave on his own? The Gemara answers: No, this is not so, as the dead person rises by sorcery and sits between the joints of the necromancer and speaks.
The Sages taught: The category of a necromancer includes both one who raises the dead with his zekhur, which is a form of sorcery, and one who inquires about the future from a skull [begulgolet]. What is the difference between this type of necromancer and that type of necromancer? When one raises the dead with his semen, the dead does not rise in its usual manner, but appears upside-down, and it does not rise on Shabbat. By contrast, when one inquires about the future from a skull, the dead rises in its usual manner, and it rises [oleh] even on Shabbat.
Semen? Rashi’s comment is particularly fascinating…
The witched screamed loudly. For she saw him ascending not in the usual manner. Radak suggests that the moment the woman saw the manner in which Samuel came up, she realized that the man who had come to her was Saul, and that is why she screamed of those who ascend [through the אוֹב medium], for when one conjures up the dead, they ascend with their feet upward, while this one was ascending with his head upward, in honor of Saul.
If a regular person tries to summon up the dead the feet would come first, however if a king comes to call the dead, the head comes first. This is how the witch of Endor knew it was Saul because the head of Samuel came first.
He puts the bone of a bird in his mouth, brings ketoret, and does other things until a feather falls and begins speaking the future in the Baal Yidoni's mouth.
So when you raise the dead in necromancy, the ghost comes up feet first! Skulls are important.
He takes a skull of the person who died, brings ketoret from it, and uses it to know the future until it sounds like a voice is coming from the Baal Ov's underarm.
And the magic properties of skulls is seen in the heretic-magician found in the Jerusalem Talmud 7:13:
Rabbi Henena ben Rabbi Hananiah said…I was walking in Sepphoris, and I saw a magician take a skull and throw it up into the air, and when it came down, it had turned into a calf.
The Bible speaks of teriphim…statues or idols of some type.
And Laban had gone to shear his flock; and Rahel stole the images. For they had slain a man, a firstborn, and had cut off his head; they salted it with salt and balsams, and wrote incantations on a plate of gold, and put it under his tongue, and set it up in the wall, and it spake with them; and unto such their father bowed himself.
Targum Jonathan: Genesis 31: 19. Is it just me, or does Necromancy seem to be rather morbid? Leaving magical semen aside, now we can take a severed head, salt it, rub balsam on it, write magical incantations on a plate of gold and put it under the tongue, hang it on the wall, and talk to it. Something similar is said about a rabbi known as Hananel, in the family chronicle of Ahimaaz ben Paltiel. Hananel could bring dead men back to life for a period of time by sticking a piece of parchment with the name of God under its tongue, or sewn into the flesh of the right arm. The removal of the name causes the body to become lifeless. The idea of sewing the name of God in your flesh is, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, is said of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu.
This image shows the different types of teraphim. The head marked G is the head of a first born son attached to a wall, with a gold plate under the tongue.
Plastered human…
…skulls, very ancient in origin (9,000-6,000 BC) have been found at the site of Jericho. Some of these skulls were painted, with shells inserted into the eye sockets. Although it isn’t certain, the use of the skulls for necromantic practices is a workable hypothesis. A description of preparing a skull for necromancy attributed to Heliodoros states…
Take an old human skull, wash it in pure water for three nights, wrap it in a clean piece of cloth, go to a meeting of three roads, and write these names on its forehead: Mpouak, Sariak, Loutzēpher. Then, take a rib from a hanged man, make a hoop with it, place the skin of a black cat inside the hoop, put the skull over the skin and recite these words:
'I conjure you names that are written on the skull's forehead, show me and tell me the truth regarding whatever question I may ask.'
Then, leave the skull and go in peace. And when the roosters start crowing, come back and take it. You must keep it secret from everybody. When you want to ask it, fast for three days; do not taste even bread and water. Ask it during night, and it will answer anything you want.'
The name…Loutzepher would appear to be…Lucifer. Now for the story of the Prodigy Skull…
…once upon a time there was a learned Jewish man in Prague, was who also a rich merchant. He had a child prodigy who studied under Maharal. But then he is kidnapped, and locked up in a tower. Because he loves to study, he is given a large assortment of books. However, he finds a skull (or mummified head), which promptly begins speaking to him and…indeed…passes on a warning. He relates that he was also a prodigy child…well, had been. A group of gentiles would kidnap a prodigy Jewish boy, kill him, and by placing magical incantations under the tongue, they can speak with the head, asking questions that the head must answer accurately. A new head was obtained every 80 years. The head told the boy that he must flee through the window. But this would avail him nothing lest he took the head with him. Why? The boy’s kidnappers would simply ask the head how the boy escaped, and he must needs answer truthfully and, indeed, help them find the boy. All victims were first born males, kidnapped at the age of 13 years and one day, and then beheaded. The head advised the boy to flee on the night of his thirteenth birthday, just before he was 13 years old and one day, and the head would help him fly away. The head’s price? A proper Jewish burial. The boy’s famous teacher…Maharal, prayed earnestly until God revealed that the prodigy child had been kidnapped. He declared a fast in Prague, complete with the reading of Psalms and the blowing of the shofar. Suddenly, the boy flew into the synagogue through a window. He promptly recounted his interesting story. The night before his escape, he had a dream in which his grandfather appeared, and told him to hold onto his belt so they could fly away. He then flew out the tower window holding onto the skull, which now could no longer talk. Finding the magical incantations under the tongue, Maharal tore them up, making it impossible for the Christian magicians to obtain another talking head. The promised Jewish burial was held shortly thereafter.
In this image, the talking head is on the left. And now we come to the best of all necromancy stories, and one that proves conclusively that the ability to talk with the dead at the very least, as well as summoning the dead to one’s presence, is actually possible. Odysseus sought the guidance of the blind prophet Tiresias. This has a fascinating parallel to a story from the Old Testament.
Samuel anointed Saul, son of Kish, as Israel’s first king. The people whined and whined about having a king, so God gave them one. Unfortunately, Saul turned out to be a disappointment as far as the commands of God are concerned…
Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one Yahweh sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. This is what Yahweh the Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels, and donkeys.’”
1 Samuel 15: 1-3. However…
Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt. He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.
1 Samuel 15: 7-9. And…
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship Yahweh.”
But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of Yahweh, so Yahweh has rejected you as king over Israel!”
1 Samuel 15: 24-26. The result?
Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And Yahweh regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
1 Samuel 15:35…Samuel kills the Amalekite king Agag himself. I will not dwell on the disturbing aspects of this story, such as murdering all the Amalekite babies and the bizarre idea that God would declare Saul king, someone who would go on to shortly be a king that God would find disappointing. Why choose Saul, then? The story suggests that God is unable to see the future outcome of His decisions, something that is also found in the Gospel of the Young Jesus in Matthew. I would suggest that this story was concocted as way to justify the fact that David, and not Saul’s son, would ultimately go on to sit on the throne. Hence…no Saulite dynasty, and so if Israel rejected the family of Saul, and chose David instead, then Saul had to be discredited. True, Saul did not follow Yahweh’s plan of extermination. But what about David? He would arrange the death of Uriah the Hittite, which was motivated simply by the fact that David lusted after his wife. However, Saul would not be able to claim Samuel as his source of prophecy anymore. But there is an interesting twist to this story…
In those days the Philistines gathered their troops for war in order to fight Israel.
1 Samuel 28:1.
Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had lamented over him and had buried him in Ramah, his hometown. In the meantime Saul had removed the mediums and magicians from the land.
The Hebrew for necromancer is…
That’s pretty straightforward. Except this word usually means…wine skin, a sort of leather bottle for holding wine. Saul, being desperate, finds an underground necromancer who managed to escape the purges. The plural form of the word is feminine, indicating that a necromancer in ancient Israel was often a woman.
Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a necromancer, so I may go and inquire of her.”
“There is one in Endor,” they said.
So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. “Consult a spirit for me,” he said, “and bring up for me the one I name.”
But the woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the necromancers and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?”
Saul swore to her by Yahweh, “As surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this.”
Then the woman asked, “Whom shall I bring up for you?”
“Bring up Samuel,” he said.
When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, “Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!”
The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid. What do you see?”
The woman said, “I see a ghostly figure coming up out of the earth.”
That’s the NIV version. This is the NKJV version…
So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, "Please conduct a seance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you."
Then the woman said to him, "Look, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the spiritists from the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?"
And Saul swore to her by Yahweh, saying, "As Yahweh lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing."
Then the woman said, "Whom shall I bring up for you?" And he said, "Bring up Samuel for me."
When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman spoke to Saul, saying, "Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!"
And the king said to her, "Do not be afraid. What did you see?" And the woman said to Saul, "I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth."
The King James version:
Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel.
The King James version as far as verse 13 is concerned, is better than other English translations. The problem is what the necromancer saw first. The word used is…
…Elohim. This title is used throughout the Old Testament. It is usually plural, with the specific ending indicating more than two (dual). So the King James version is the better translation…gods. The meaning of the word in this story is problematic. No version that I have found states that…I saw God coming out of the earth. The issue of the being summoned from the earth is singular…Samuel’s ghost, but the word…Elohim, is plural. The Septuagint…
… gods
The Vulgate uses the word…
Deos (God)
The use of the word…Elohim is problematic in the extreme. The ghost of Samuel appears to be Elohim. I think the idea is that Samuel’s ghost has the appearance of God in that both are spirit-beings. A closer examination of the spirit-being is that it is an old man, whom Saul recognizes as Samuel. It may also be the case that the dead somehow became divine, i.e. undergoing an apotheosis, similar to Roman beliefs. But what is she?
Literally…she the mistress of the ob. Greek:
…ventriloquist. But not in the modern sense. This is gastromancy, which involves interpreting sounds that seem to come from the stomach. The ancient Greeks believed that the sounds that come from the stomach are voices of the dead, which can be interpreted if one has the skill. This would eventually become gazing into a bowl of water, then crystal-ball gazing. But the connection between body parts and necromancy were noted above, where references to the necromancer’s arm-pit was the voice of the dead.
So Samuel appears, but speaks to the necromancer via her stomach, stomach-sounds that she translates into words.
The Vulgate also states that she was a…mulierem habentem pythonem…a Pythoness is a woman who practices magic, such as the Pythia…the prophetess at the temple of Apollo in Delphi…
…it appears that Pythia could also speak with the dead by breaking wind. So the wineskin is basically an ancient whoopie cushion…squeeze it and interpret the funny sounds it makes. This would indicate that it was not the ghost of Samuel who was speaking…the words were those of the Bottle-squeezer. Farting is embarrassing, yet fart sounds are funny…
Meet the Yanomami tribe. They actually greet each other by farting. And meet the…
…Innu tribe. They actually had a Fart God…Matshishkapeu. And just like the witch of Endor could read strange sounds by squeezing the air out of a wineskin, the Innu believe that he speaks to them through the release of flatulence. Then one had to interpret what the utterance means.
Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet titled…Fart Proudly.
It is universally well known, That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind. That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it.
But flatulence shouldn’t be retained because it can actually kill you…
That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.
He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate.
What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his Bowels!
Franklin believed that man should find a way to alter the odor of flatulence…
Who knows but that a little Powder of Lime (or some other thing equivalent) taken in our Food, or perhaps a Glass of Limewater drank at Dinner, may have the same Effect on the Air produc’d in and issuing from our Bowels?
Ben wasn’t alone. Charles James Fox, a member of the British House of Commons, advocated for research on flatulence, or as I will say…Fartology.
I take it, there are five or six different species of farts, and which are perfectly distinct from each other, both in weight and smell..
First: the full-toned fart
Second: the double fart
Third: the soft, fizzing fart
Fourth: the wet fart
Fifth: the sullen, wind-bound fart
Species One: a pretty vigorous exertion of one’s farting faculties, good and full toned.
Species Two: will soon entertain you with the double fart in rapid successions
Species Three: let a person of a relaxed constitution eat about nine dozen boiled onions, and drink three quarts of strong, thick, new ale, and he will soon entertain you with plenty of soft-fizzing farts
Species Four: stuff yourself with pies, custards, and prunes, and soon you will require immediate washing.
Ladies produce this species of fart better than gentlemen.
Species Five: this is the most uncomfortable, unhealthy, and troublesome of all farts. It comes slowly forth, with a painful sensation and sudden rumbling, like pent-up air in a volcano, which sometimes produces earthquakes and horrible shaking of the earth. This species of fart has a habit of mournfully MURMURING at long and stated intervals.
Ladies, please! And Charles James Fox suggested a little fartological engineering, calling for the invention of…
…an air pump with a proper receiver, so contrived as not to hurt the patient’s backside.
But not just a pump, what if you could see farts?
The curious investigator, if he uses the best glasses, may see the whole working operations of a fart, and even perceive its shape and color. Glass bee-hives have been long invented…why not farting glasses also?
Yes, fart pumps and fart-glasses…ah, the age of science. Religion?
When Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, and when they were doomed to till the earth for their disobedience, then, it is highly probable, they began to fart.
Odd, I missed that when I read Genesis. But don’t worry! The art of passing gas goes all the way back to the most ancient of ancestors. And it is note worthy that farting can win battles. A Greek soldier was farting…
…so loudly, and so often, that the Persians, thinking the Grecian army was in motion, and their artillery coming up, were, at once, seized with a general panic, and retreated in such confusion, that numbers of them drowned.
But the Grecians have ever been handed down to posterity as the most renowned farters. They even had killing farts, which the modern have no idea of. It must have been an extraordinary compound of refined and subtle air, something like lightning, which could instantly kill.
Fart away then, my brethren, and let farting be common among you! Vie with each other in producing Species 1…the sonorous, full-toned and loud fart. Fart Loud! Nevermore be restrained by example, age, rank, or sex. For it is natural and laudable, wholesale and laughable, humorous and comfortable!
The strange can always get stranger. Meet…
…Joseph Pujol, known by his stage name…Le Petomane. He was a professional farter, who could fart at will, and headlined at the Moulin Rouge.
Some of the highlights of his stage act involved sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms, as well as playing “O Sole Mio” and "La Marseillaise on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus. He could also blow out a candle from several yards away. His audience included Edward, Prince of Wales; King Leopold II of Belgium; and Sigmund Freud.
You can not only save your life, kill people, or win battles with your flatulence, you can even get rich entertaining psychologists and the crowned-heads of Europe. Medieval manuscripts saw nothing wrong with farting…
And of course, if farts murmur, as Charles James Fox believed, provide utterances from bizarre gods as the Innu believe, and can even make renditions of our favorite songs, then I suppose gastromancy can be an important ritual a little lower down. How strange it is that necromancy and farting can be so linked together. I encourage you ask your necromancer how she intends to proceed…I recommend the stomach wineskin. Next time I talk to Simon Magus, I will ask him for a Species 5, Flatulence Prophecy.
The Haters-of-Simon accused the sect of promoting what we would call…Free Love…though Simon had to purchase his, leading to gross and licentious behavior. I don’t find these claims convincing. It was an old tradition, stretching back to the early Roman Republic, to attack one’s opponents by accusing them of weird sexual practices. Accusation of homosexual activity, apparently true, was directed at the followers of Carpocrates, who obtained a copy of the Secret Gospel of Mark, and claimed that there was a story in that Gospel that suggested that Jesus was a homosexual…a proposal far more reaching than the claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Epiphanius accused the Borborites of stomach-churning sexual practices that no doubt far exceeded the truth, including the use of menstrual blood and semen in an Unholy Eucharist. I find the claims made against this group to be wholly unconvincing given the fact that they highly revered the Self-Generating Virgin Mother Barbelo, who I will discuss later. The group was centered around the person of Mary Magdalene the Great Hairdresser, and Epiphanius refers to several, unfortunately lost, books based around Mary Magdalene. It is possible that a kernel of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene originates from this group, and they may have been followers of the Greatest Apostle. The allegations of way-over-the-top horrific sexual practices are, as I believe, nothing more than an attempt to thoroughly disgrace the role of Mary Magdalene in the early church…accusing her of being a prostitute and a demon-possessed woman, neither of which is true. The Johnnites even took away her role in attempting to anoint the deceased body of Christ in the tomb, turning that over to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. They had a rather large number of scriptures including Noira; the Gospel of Eve; The Gospel of Perfection; The Gospel of Philip; The Questions of Mary; The Greater Questions of Mary; The Lesser Questions of Mary; The Birth of Mary Magdalene; and the Apocalypse of Adam, which I have cited many times, and which includes a collection of stories about the birth of Christ, among which are virgin birth myths. Epiphanius wrote…
For in the so-called 'Greater Questions of Mary'—there are also 'Lesser' ones forged by them—they claim that he reveals it to her after taking her aside on the mountain, praying, producing a woman from his side, beginning to have sex with her, and then partaking of his emission, if you please, to show that 'Thus we must do, that we may live.
This sounds strangely like the claim that Simon brought forth Helen from his side, with a clear sexual component in that Helen was a prostitute…a false claim often made against Mary Magdalene. Without further confirmation, I believe that Epiphanius is making this, and other, claims to twist, distort, and vulgarize not only the Borborites…but Mary Magdalene as well. Epiphanius can be a good source, but much of what he claims are distortions, or out-right lies. The introduction to the Gospel of Mary Magdalene asserts that Mary was closer to Christ than the other disciples, and had been taught secret things by him that the other disciples didn’t know.
We’re more familiar with the use of familiars in the context of medieval witchcraft…
And you just gotta love the claim that the Simonians could mix…
…love potions…note the familiar spirit in the center picture. Aphrodiastics are not sorcery, especially if you take…
During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”
But she said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?”
“Very well,” Rachel said, “he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night.
…Genesis 30: 14-16 into account.
…Reuben’s such a good boy. A whole mythology grew up around Mandrakes, primarily because people thought the roots looked like human beings…when you pulled them out of the ground they, supposedly, shriek. The image on the far right shows that Medieval people grew other forms of aphrodisiacs as well.
According to Tertullianus, the money Simon used when attempting to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter was used to purchase Helen…whom he called the lost sheep.
(Tertullianus, De Praescriptione Haerecticorum, 46). Clearly the money Simon attempted to give to Peter is based on Judas Iscariot receiving money from those who arrested Christ. Yet, the word…
…simony…became the name for the buying of ecclesiastic offices.
My position is that Simon Magus was a convert to Christianity, hailed from Samaria, had connections to Philip the Evangelist, continued to practice magic, developed gnostic theories, was assisted by a former prostitute, attracted a large following, and ultimately clashed with the followers of Peter for dominance in Rome.
However, Simon was also identified as an enemy of Paul. When the Jews of Rome heard that Paul was headed their way, they convinced Nero to ban Paul from Italy and to issue a death sentence against him. Some over-zealous Paul-haters mistook a ship captain named Dioscorus for Paul, mainly because the two men were both bald, and they killed the captain by mistake. Nero was then sent the poor man’s head, and it was declared that Paul was dead. Simon must have been quite the magician…
And they believed Simon, amazed at his miracles…he made a bronze serpent move by itself, and stone statues to laugh and run about, and he could run and suddenly be raised into the air.
The Acts of Peter and Paul. I suppose Simon could have gone to the Olympics as a pole-vaulter. The reference to the serpent-trick is fascinating, given the references I’ve made to the Roman writer Lucian who wrote a scathing attack against Alexander of Abonoteichus for making…
…a strange version of Glycon, based on a much older snake-god similar to Nehushtan found in the bible, that could move around and even speak. The body was indeed a snake, but the human-like head was not…
Then, too, they had long ago prepared and fitted up a serpent’s head of linen, which had something of a human look, was all painted up, and appeared very lifelike. It would open and close its mouth by means of horsehairs, and a forked black tongue like a snake’s, also controlled by horsehairs, would dart out.
So half-snake, and half-puppet. Clearly this was a gimmick. Heron of Alexandria invented all manner of robotic devices such as…
… singing birds, a statue of Hercules that would pound on the head of a dragon, and blacksmith robots who pounded on molten metal. And yet more…
…mechanical figures who could pour libations onto an altar…an archer shooting a snake. Watch out, Glycon! This pales in comparison to…
…the great bronze titan Talos…humanity’s first fully-functioning robot.
The accusation made against Simon Magus that he was a sorcerer because he could make statues do weird things is in one sense…odd…and in other sense…hypocritical, looking at it as a whole. One most readily thinks of…
…Maximus of Ephesus (died 370 A.D.), a Neoplatonist and magician from a rich family, who would go on to support the post-Christian emperor known to history as Julian the Apostate, or Julian the Pagan. It was purported that Maximus used magic to animate a statue of the Thrice-Goddess Hecate. He made the statue smile, laugh, and caused the torches she holds to suddenly come ablaze. And no one could forget…
…Pygmalion and his beloved Galatae. He was a legendary king of Cyprus, who fancied himself a sculptor. According to Ovid, he came to loathe women, and decided on a celibate life. Having finished a statue that he called Galatae, he soon fell in love with it. During the festival of Aphrodite he secretly wished for a bride who would be just like Galatae. Aphrodite granted his request, and when he returned home, the statue of Galatae came to life.
A similar thing happens in…The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare. When Leontes, King of Sicily, came to believe that his wife, Hermione, had been unfaithful, she was imprisoned. Eventually, Hermione dies after hearing about the death of her son Mamillus. Leontes came to rue his actions. Upon visiting the country house of Paulina, and seeing a statue of Hermione, he broke down in guilt over how he had treated her.
And then…Statue Hermonie came to life! And it is worth mentioning, an amazing stage-actress named…
…Mary Anderson. I can still remember meeting her after her 1883 performance as Parthenia in Ingomar the Barbarian. That said, she played such a good statue that she…
…was cast in the roles of Hermione and Galatea . Practice makes perfect! And any woman who would build a private chapel in her own attic, complete with stained-glass windows, is a gal after my own heart. Still, magic statues go both ways…
….the tragic Niobe. After boasting about having fourteen children, she angered the goddess Leto, who only had two. So all of Niobe’s children were killed by the gods. She was so broken-hearted that she wept endlessly until she turned into a statue…
On the right is Niobe’s Weeping Rock on Mt. Sipylus, Turkey.
But we all know that the story of the…
…Golden Calf, made by Aaron when the Israelites demanded an image of the god who led them out of Egypt. But there is an ancient Jewish tradition that says it was actually a man named Micah who made it, and that it could dance. Another tradition states that the arch-angel and sometimes demon Samael, who is discussed elsewhere in this essay, actually spoke from the mouth of the idol. Pope Leo XIII…
…claims to have overheard an argument between Jesus and Satan at the altar in his personal Vatican chapel. A talking altar?
Of course, magic statues are no strangers to Christianity…
…on the left, Our Lady of Lakita weeping tears. On the right, Our Lady of the Rosary Center, Reading Ohio.
On the left…Our Lady of Somewhere in Mexico, a title I coined to be added to the litany. On the right is Our Lady of Guadalupe who, in a fascinating variation, weeps olive oil. It isn’t just statues that weep…
The painting on the left is from Musetesti, Romania; the painting on the right is from Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lady the Joy of All Who Sorrow, Philadelphia, shows St. Anne, Mary’s mother, weeping. But Mary and Anne aren’t the only members of the Holy Family who weep…
And for some strange reason…
…Jesus sweats fragrant oils. But why weep tears and olive oil, or sweat scented oil, when you can…
…weep blood…lots and lots of blood. And, of course, you can also sweat blood…
And Mary is certainly not alone…
Yes, downright creepy.
Mary weeps blood, and the supposed tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem weeps blood.
A three-hundred year old statue of Christ, upon examination, was found to have human teeth. And Simon Magus was not alone in animating statues…
A statue of Christ opens and closes his eyes in a Cathedral in Saltillo, Mexico.
Two instances, one a statue and the other a large altar crucifix, of Christ moving his head.
This roadside statue of Our Lady of Grace in Cork, Ireland was seen moving around. Sometimes statues, particularly heavy ones, can walk, with a little help…
…especially on Easter Island. And if you were…
…you could bring the stones of Stonehenge from the Giants’ Dance at Mount Killarus, Ireland. Giants are interesting, particularly one near and dear to us…
The Prophet said, "Allah created Adam, making him 60 cubits tall.”
Sahih al-Bukhari 55:543. This would make Adam 90 feet tall. And so…
On the left…this is said to be the footprint of Adam’s first step on earth. On the right is a reconstruction of a garment for Adam if he really were 90 feet tall. Jewish tradition also holds that Adam was gigantic until he and Eve messed up in the Garden of Eden, shrinking to normal size after being kicked out of Eden.
But what if you could make your own animated statue, speaking metaphorically? Galatea was a statue that became a woman, but you might be able to skip the statue-phase. If you were…
…Victor Frankenstein…you could sew a living giant from a lot of…dead body parts. Actually, Frankenstein tells the story of the fear of science held by people of the 19th century, with Victor representing the transition point between alchemy and New Science. In the novel, Victor references a few famous alchemists whose work he had studied, and came to reject. But not entirely. One of these alchemists went by the name of…
…Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus. What Frankenstein actually creates is better referred to as New Alchemy, or maybe Paracelsusian Science. Why? Because he came up with the notion of a Homunclus…meaning…Little Human…in Latin. He believed that you could make a homunculus, and he claimed that he had done so.
It was believed that humans began as tiny miniatures found in sperm. According Preformationism, it is simply a matter, biologically, of the miniature growing to full-size. This also relied on the tenants of Spermitism, which held that sperm contained a miniature, and that it grew into the form an infant in the womb. So Victor Frankenstein takes from Paracelsus a key fundamental belief…one could create a human being in one’s laboratory, without going through the hassles of human sexual reproduction…he simply changed the base materials. It is important to note that in its earliest stages, a homunculus could be made out of clay. And that leads to the greatest of the greatest living statues, speaking symbolically…
Yes…the Jewish golem! Victor Frankenstein created a Human Creature from dead body-parts. Paracelsus made Little Humans out of sperm. With the golem, there are no human, animal, or spermal materials…all you need is clay, although some sources state that the clay must…virginal earth…meaning…untilled. The golem is a living clay statue that can easily be destroyed. In 1808, Jakob Grimm wrote a brief article on the subject of the golem…
The Polish Jews, after speaking certain prayers and observing fast days, made the figure of a man out of clay or loam, and when they speak the miracle-working Schemhamphoras over it, the figure comes alive. It is true that he cannot speak, but he understands reasonably well what anyone says to him and commands him to do. They call him Golem and use him as a servant to do all sorts of housework, but he may never leave the house alone. On his forehead is written Aemaeth (Truth; God). However, he increases in size daily and easily becomes larger and stronger than all his housemates, regardless of how small he was at first. Therefore, fearing him, they rub out the first letter, so that nothing remains but Maeth (he is dead), whereupon he collapses and is dissolved again into clay.
Personally, I think that a Clay Thing that cleans the house is a very cool idea. So I have Darla and Pretty Penny trying to make one in the backyard. I did that partly because of the terrible mess they made when attempting to follow Victor Frankenstein’s experiments. They also failed to make a homunculus in my alchemical laboratory I built in the basement, though they did manage to blow it up. Of course, another alchemist mentioned by Mary Shelly is also significant…Albertus Magnus, who is credited with creating all manner of gadgets. The coolest one is a life-size, mechanical humanoid female robot. She could clean the house, serve guests at dinner, and even go to the store. That would leave you free to do alchemical stuff. Unfortunately, Thomas Aquinas believed it to be the devil’s work, so he smashed it to bits. And! If you drop the “n” out of Magnus, you get…Magus! Albert Magus! A friend for Simon! Now that’s cool.
Grimm says that the Hebrew word…
…emeth…is written on the golem’s forehead. This word does not mean…God. But it does…truth. If you want to deconstruct your golem and turn him back into a pile of clay, then you…
…cross off the first letter, making…
…the word…meth, meaning…dead…death. And so the do-it-yourself golem becomes clay yet again. Still, other words can be written on its forehead, such as…
…golem. Grimm discusses the potential problems with a golem…
But once, out of carelessness, someone allowed his Golem to become so tall that he could no longer reach his forehead. Then, out of fear, the master ordered the servant to take off his boots, thinking that he would bend down and that then the master could reach his forehead. This is what happened, and the first letter was successfully erased, but the whole load of clay fell on the Jew and crushed him.
The word golem derives from a word that appears only once in the Old Testament…Psalm 139:16, where it appears to denote…raw material…or…shapeless matter. Another way to make a golem was to make your little clay man, and then use a magic wand, tracing a circle in the ground around it, as you speak the incantations. To destroy the golem, you trace the circle backwards. Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra (1089-1164 A.D)…
…supposedly made a golem that could speak, and it promptly warned the rabbi to stop trying to do the work of God, lest His wrath come upon him. Great, a smart-alecky golem! The incantations were a long series of combinations of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, including letters from the name YHWH, that were to be found in the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), no doubt the ultimate golem-making-manual. It no longer exists, so one must glean its contents from the work of commentators, such as Judah ben Barzilai, who used it to produce a manual by which to make golems…
Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah ben Kalonymous (1176-1238 AD), known as Eleazar of Worms and Eleazer the Perfume Maker, a nickname derived from the name of his book…the Book of the Perfumer…and I must say that I would prefer a perfume book written by Rabbi Eleazar to a bread-box or medicine-chest written by Epiphanius any day. The Perfume Maker had, himself, made his own golem. Rabbi Samuel ben Kalonymus of Speyer made a golem that he took on his travels for companionship…watch out for Thomas Aquinas! It served him, though it couldn’t speak. An early golem account appears in Sanhedrin 65b, which says that a golem can be destroyed on command…
Indeed, Rava created a man, a golem, using forces of sanctity. He sent his creation to Rabbi Zeira, who spoke to the golem, but it would not reply. Rabbi Zeira said to it: You were created by one of the members of the group, one of the Sages. Return to your dust.
But golems can have feelings too! In the 1915 film…The Golem…an antiques dealer finds a clay statue, a golem, that had been brought to life hundreds of years ago. He reanimates it, intending it to be his servant. But it falls in love with his daughter, and seeing that she did not love him, he flew into a rage and went on a killing spree. The most significant cultural expression of the golem is the 1920 German film…Der Golem.
In the story, Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, fearing the fate of the Jews in Prague after an order for their expulsion becomes known to him, creates a golem and animated it. This was done by invoking Astaroth to speak the word that would bring the golem to life. This word is written on a piece of paper, put in an amulet, and inserted into the golem’s chest. At first it was a domestic servant. But then it was used to impress the Holy Roman Emperor, and it saved the palace, initially doomed by the appearance of the Wandering Jew, by propping up the falling ceiling. Though the Jews of Prague are safe, Astaroth decides to turn the golem against its maker. It goes on a rampage, until Loew is able to drive out Astaroth. Leaving the city, it meets a little girl who removes the amulet, causing the death of the golem.
…but here’s one that you will recognize…
Yes…the Frankenstein Monster and the little girl from the 1931 film Frankenstein.
Of course, one must admit that the whole concept of a golem is derived from the creation of Adam. He was a clay figure in the ground until God breathed spirit into him. The Narrative of Luke calls Adam the son of God, and we know that he had no human mother. But was Adam born of a virgin? Perhaps he was, symbolically speaking. According to Jewish tradition, golems are to be made from untilled earth…called virgin earth. Why? Because Adam was. So in a very odd way, Adam was born of a virgin, metaphorically at any rate. But in reality, the making of humans out of clay and breathing life into them is paralleled elsewhere…
The ancient Greek Titan Prometheus made a man out of clay, and Athena breathed life into it, although the image suggests that it was the second try that met with success, the first one falling to the ground and breaking.
…the Egyptian creator god Khnum makes babies out of clay, and puts them in their mothers’ wombs.
In Sumeria, Enki and Ninmah create the first man out of clay and name him Adamu (Adam), also known as Adapa.
But with all this said, as impressive as a homunculus, a rotting corpse-man, and a golem are, Simon Magus outdoes them all. And in outdoing, he makes a fundamental mistake…
Once upon a time, I, by my power, turning air into water, and water again into blood, and solidifying it into flesh, formed a new human creature--a boy--and produced a much nobler work than God the Creator. For He created a man from the earth, but I from air--a far more difficult matter; and again I unmade him and restored him to air.
Pseudo-Clementine Literature Book II:15. An alchemist’s dream, to be sure. But Simon Magus claims to have outdone God Himself, and that simply won’t do.
So it’s rather an odd thing that Simon Magus should have accusations of sorcery made against him for magic statue tricks…or so Darla tells me.
I suppose it’s time to return to Rome, where Peter and Simon sought to outdo one another in performing miracles, with supporters of Simon saying that Peter was simply doing the same things Simon did. But Simon could do some pretty cool things…
..so that the matter came even to the ears of Nero the Caesar, and he gave order to bring Simon the Magian before him. And he, coming in, stood before him, and began suddenly to assume different forms, so that on a sudden he became a child, and then an old man, and at other times a young man.
So it would appear that Christian magic included the art of shapeshifting.
Nero said: Do you mean me to believe that Simon does not know these things, who brought himself back from the dead and presented himself on the third day after he had been beheaded, and who has done whatever he said he would do?
Nero had originally beheaded Simon, but he was able to bring himself back to life. Actually, this was a trick, whereby he sought to get Nero to believe he was a god. So he asked the emperor to have him beheaded in a dark room. He was able to make a ram look like himself, and it was the ram which was decapitated. Simon re-appeared three days later. This isn’t shapeshifting, it’s more like illusionism.
Then Simon, enraged that he was not able to tell the secret of the apostle, cried out, saying: Let great dogs come forth, and eat him up before Caesar. And suddenly there appeared great dogs, and they rushed at Peter.
This is probably an example of the art of conjuring. The most impressive trick, and the one that led to his downfall, was flying…
It would seem that he was actually able to do it…for a few minutes. The ability to fly is not sorcery…
Saints Joseph of Cupertino; Francis of Assisi; St. Alphonsus Ligouri; St. Mary of the Crucified Jesus; St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross and…
St. Sally. But the greatest is…
…the jet-propelled flight of the Blessed Ranieri! However, upon the prayers of Peter, God put an end to Simon’s flight over the emperor Nero…
You might say that Simon had a great fall. The ending of the Acts of Peter and Paul witnessed the death of four men…
…Simon and Paul, and…
Peter and Nero. It is a touch unfair. The contest involving Simon on the one hand, and Peter and Paul on the other, was actually won by the two apostles…but Nero ordered them executed anyway. Following Peter’s death at the hands of Nero…
Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. Do your best to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers and sisters.
…2 Timothy 4: 19-21…Linus became the Bishop of Rome. Simon, having crashed to the ground, was dead. Peter and Paul were dead. Then Nero died. In reality, Gaius Julius Vindex, governor of Gaul rebelled, but was put down. Among the army, support was building for Galba, Governor of Spain. Nero would commit suicide, or have one of his freedmen help him do it, leaving Galba to return to Rome as emperor. However, the empress, Nero’s last wife, Sporus, survived. Following the death of his wife Poppaea Sabina in 65 A.D., Nero found a slave-boy who looked just like her….named Sporus. He was castrated, dressed like Sabina, and was married to Nero, becoming empress of Rome. Following Nero’s death, he was married to Nymphidius Sabinus, and then Otho. He committed suicide when Vitellius murdered Otho, and, in turn, Vespasian assassinated Vitellius.
Vindex, Galba, Otho. And…
…Vitellius, Vespasian, and Pope Linus.
Galba would be assassinated by an old friend of Nero’s named Otho, who was killed by Vitellius, who was killed by Vespasian. The biographical information provided about Nero in the Acts of Peter and Paul is manifestly wrong, and appears to be based on the stories about Pontius Pilate. Simon’s favor at Nero’s court is probably based on…
Now a certain Samaritan, Simon, who came from a village called Gitta; who in the reign of Claudius Caesar wrought magic wonders by the art of the daemons who possessed him, and was considered a god in your imperial city of Rome, and as a god was honored with a statue by you, which statue was erected in the river Tiber, between the two bridges, with the following inscription in Roman: "Simoni Deo Sancto." And nearly all the Samaritans, but few among the rest of the nations, confess him to be the first god and worship him. And they speak of a certain Helen, who went round with him at that time, and who had formerly prostituted herself, but was made by him his first Thought.
Justin Martyr, Apologia 1:26. Nero was the adopted son and successor of Claudius.
…the statue wrongly considered to be Simon (shown earlier)…this is really Semo Sancus, the object of a very ancient Roman cult. Theodoretus states that Claudius (far right) dedicated a bronze pillar to Simon. The Acts of Peter state that it was a senator named Marcellus. Earlier I referenced the claim that Simon was able to summon two dogs. In the Acts of Peter, it is the latter who performs a dog-miracle…
Ye shall now see a great and marvelous miracle. And Peter seeing a great dog bound with a strong chain, went to him and let him loose, and then the dog spoke a man's voice and said to Peter: What do you want me to do, O servant of the unspeakable and living God? Peter said to him: Go into Marcellus’s house and tell, making sure that his followers hear you: Peter says to you, “Come out, it is because of you that I came to Rome, you wicked man and deceiver of simple souls. And immediately the dog ran and entered the house, rushing into the midst of the people who were with Simon, and then he lifted up his forefeet and said in a loud voice: O Simon, Peter the servant of Christ is standing at the door, and he said what Peter told him to say. When Simon heard it, and beheld the incredible sight, he lost the words wherewith he was deceiving them that stood by, and all of them were amazed.
Peter also did another Simon-like trick…
Peter sent a woman to Simon. Peter told her to take her seven-month old infant with her. “Go quickly, and you will find a man who is hostile to me. But! You don’t have to say a thing, because the infant shall do the speaking as if he were a grown man. So the woman did as Peter instructed. Finding Simon, the infant said to him…You are shunned by God and men…You destroy the truth and are the root of all corruption! Eternal punishment will be your punishment.
Peter performed another magic trick…
And Peter turned around and saw a sardine hanging in a window, and took it and said to the people: Now if you see make this fish alive and able to swin, will you believe what I preach to you. All those present said they would. There just so happened to be a bath for swimming nearby, and he threw the sardine into it. Peter said, “In your name, Lord Jesus Christ, make this sardine able to swim so that these people will be believers.” And the sardine came back to life and swam around in the bath.
Now, Peter, I hope you paid the owner of that sardine what it was worth…it might have been the owner’s lunch. Simon was also a very good thief…
But believe me, men and brethren, I drove this Simon out of Judaea where he did many evils things with his magical charms. Now there was a woman named Eubula, who was quite wealth, owning a lot of gold and valuable pearls. One night, Simon and two others snuck into Eubula’s house, and stole her gold and pearls. No one in the house saw them because Simon cast a spell on them. Then he disappeared.
Yes! Why steal a sardine when you can steal gold and pearls! The Acts of Peter has indicate that Simon could heal cripples…but it lasted only a little while. The same is true of the blind, and he could make the dead and move around.
Then Simon went to the head of the dead man, named Nicostratus, and he stooped down and thrice said…get up! Raise thyself). And he showed the people that he Nicostratus lifted his head and moved it, opened his eyes, and bowed himself a little unto Simon.
So Simon could perform miraculous healing and even raise people from the dead, it just didn’t last very long. When he fell during his flight he broke his leg in three places. Then he was drive out of the city…
But Simon, badly hurt, found some people to carry him on a stretcher to Aricia, and he lived there a short time. Then he was brought to Terracina to live with a man named Castor, who had also been banned from Rome on charges of sorcery. Two physicians attempted to heal Simon’s wounds, but the incisions they made ended up killing him. So Simon the angel of Satan came to his end.
The Angel of Satan? That’s a bit over the top, don’t you think?
There can be no doubt, based on the amount of invective hurled at Simon Magus, that he was a very important figure in first century Christianity. But it may be that so much time was spent vilifying him because a potentially tremendous problem may have risen in the time of Jesus and the apostles. There is yet another tradition about Simon Magus…
Simon was the son of Antonius and Rachael, a Samaritan of Gittha, a village six schoeni from the city of Caesarea (H.I. xxii), called a village of the Gettones (R. II. vii). It was at Alexandria that Simon perfected his studies in magic, being an adherent of John, a Hemero-baptist, through whom he came to deal with religious doctrines.
John was the forerunner of Jesus, according to the method of combination or coupling. Whereas Jesus had twelve disciples, as the Sun, John, the Moon, had thirty, the number of days in a lunation, or more correctly twenty-nine and a half, one of his disciples being a woman called Helen, and a woman being reckoned as half a man in the perfect number of the Triacontad, or Plerôma of the Aeons (H.I. xxiii; R. II. viii). In the Recognitions the name of Helen is given as Luna in the Latin translation of Rufinus.
Of all John's disciples, Simon was the favorite, but on the death of his master, he was absent in Alexandria, and so Dositheus, a co-disciple, was chosen head of the school.
Simon, on his return, acquiesced in the choice, but his superior knowledge could not long remain under a bushel. One day Dositheus, becoming enraged, struck at Simon with his staff; but the staff passed through Simon's body like smoke, and Dositheus, struck with amazement, yielded the leadership to Simon and became his disciple, and shortly afterwards died (H.I. xxiv; R. II. xiii).
Here, Simon is said to have had the following magic powers: dig through mountains, walk through rocks, jump from a mountain and land safely, walk through fire, break prison chains, open doors telepathically, change his face, have two faces, make trees grow suddenly, turn into a sheep or a goat or a serpent, make a beard grow on a prepubescent boy, create gold, make and remake kings, order a sickle to reap on its own, turning stones into bread, melting iron, making statues appear at a banquet, making dishes suddenly appear on the dinner table, making specters appear in the market place, making statues move, and cause the souls of the dead to walk before him. He used the soul of a dead boy to increase his powers, and kept him in his bedroom. He even was able to change the face of St. Clement’s father Faustinianus into his own.
Disciples of John the Baptist continued after the death of Christ…
While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions and came to Ephesus. He found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
“No,” they told him, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
“Then what baptism were you baptized with?” he asked them.
“With John’s baptism,” they replied.
Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in the One who would come after him, that is, in Jesus.”
When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in other languages and to prophesy. Now there were about 12 men in all.
Acts 19:1. I believe that those behind the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John were in competition with the followers of John the Baptist.
After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
Matthew 11: 1-9.
John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’”
At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
After John’s messengers left, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
Luke 7: 18-26. This is not found in Mark. I can’t believe that John the Baptist suddenly found himself doubting that Jesus was the messiah. However, the kernel underlying this is the fact that the disciples of John the Baptist weren’t sure about Jesus, and thus they wanted to double-check the matter. If these doubts didn’t exist, then Paul couldn’t meet the twelve disciples of John in the Book of Acts. In the Gospel of John, the Baptist is portrayed as almost equal to Christ.
After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. (This was before John was put in prison.) An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
John 3: 22-26. Redactors of the Gospel of John, perhaps becoming aware of the problem of putting John and Jesus on an equal setting, added the following…
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
John 4:1. I find it likely that it is only the second half of the verse was entered by a redactor…
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John (although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but rather his disciples).
The parentheses denote the gloss. But John the Baptist was also associated with Samaria, where one will find…
…the ruins of the church of John the Baptist. The tradition say that John was beheaded at this location. As concerns his head, I have referenced numerous times that Joanna, wife of a Herodian official and granddaughter of Theophilus, is credited with finding the head of John the Baptist and giving it a proper burial. And it is fascinating that when the Templars were being set-up by Philip of France and the Inquisition, one possible determination about Baphomet was that it was the head of John the Baptist…
The bottom right image is Templar. Being an absolute lover of relics, I feel it necessary to show…
…the finger, right arm, and right hand of the Great Baptist.
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans).
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4: 1-15. That’s a long quote, but it connects the Baptist Movement with Samaria and the water imagery found in the Gospel of John. It would seem possible that John the Baptist’s disciples moved to Samaria, possibly taking his head with them. And the issue for early Christianity is that Simon Magus and Dositheus were associated with the followers of John the Baptist, seeing that both were labelled as heretics in first century Christianity, and Philip the Evangelist may also been a follower of John. But the quote from Acts would seem to suggest that those who still identified themselves as disciples of John the Baptist did not become Christianized until twelve of them met Paul, and Simon Magus met Philip the Evangelist. It may be the case that the followers of John did not develop beliefs that would be considered gnostic until after Simon Magus took over the group. Nonetheless, Mandcan tradition insists that John was a gnostic…for what that’s worth. What Simon Magus shows is that within early Christianity, there were two movements…a purist movement (Peter), and a…miracle-working movement (Simon). The clash between the two was turned into a direct clash between the Apostle Peter and Simon. Peter won, and rather than acknowledge the followers of John the Baptist to be a different form of Christianity than Apostolic Christianity, they vilified and excommunicated them. Still, Simonians lived on. Following the death of Simon, Menander, described as a gnostic magician, took over the sect. Another student of Simon, Saturninus of Antioch formed another group. The Gnostic magicians Basilides and Cerdo followed Menander. Cerdo did not intend on forming a sect apart from the Roman church, and he lived in Rome as a prominent member of the church until his ouster. Interestingly, it was suggested by Pseudo-Tertullian that, like Marcion, Cerdo used the Gospel of Luke, described as mutilated. This jives with the attacks on Marcion, whose Gospel of Luke did not include the Narrative of Luke. But, sources may indicate that Cerdo pre-dated Marcion. His time in Rome coincided with the appearance of another gnostic…Valentinus. Ambrose of Milan, Origen’s patron, had originally been a Valentinian. For a time, Cerdo repented of his gnostic views and was re-admitted to the church by…
Pope Hyginus (left). He later returned to his own, gnostic views…a heretic twice! And a man after my own heart. Although Marcion is believed to have been a pupil of Cerdo, the middle picture shows Marcion with the Apostle John. And, of course, someone took it upon themselves to play the Epiphanius by scratching off Marcion’s visage from the picture shown above...a true act of defacing. Basilides claimed that he himself was a pupil of Glaucus, identified as a disciple of Peter…no doubt making him a colleague of Mark. In an interesting twist, Marcion only recognized the Apostle Paul as a disciple of Christ, rejecting Peter’s claim. The Ebionites (above, right) reject Paul as a disciple of Christ, recognizing only Peter. I think there’s much to recommend the view of Marcion over that of the Ebionites. In a previous essay I argued that it wasn’t Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus…it was Peter. Hence…Marcion. I would also agree with Cerdo and Marcion that the original Luke did not include the Narrative of Luke…Epiphanius’s claimed that Cerdo and Marcion removed the prologue, and that the Ebionites removed the Gospel of the Young Jesus from Matthew. Epiphanius’s claims are absurd…what else would you expect from the Seller of Stale Bread, Snake-Oil Medicaments, and Destroyer of Holy Things?
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke did not originally include their prologues, but were added later. Basilides, whose beliefs are full of Gnostic mumbo-jumbo, offered a puzzling view of the crucifixion of Christ…it wasn’t Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified…it was…
…Simon of Cyrene.
We know him as the man forced to carry the cross of Christ in the canonical gospels, which are undoubtedly right. But Basilides claimed that Jesus changed forms with Simon, who was then crucified in Christ’s stead. These passion-play-shenanigans remind one of the strange opinion of…
…Kark Friedrich Bahrdt, who claimed that Luke, the physician, gave Jesus drugs to keep him on the verge of death, and then resuscitated him in the tomb.
The Basilideans are known to have used hidden secret names as part of magical practices, and although controversial, some have closely associated them with…
Abrasax was the archon of the 365 heavens, with principalaties, powers, and angels, themselves produced by Sophia and Dynamis (Unbegotten Father, then Nous, then Logos, then Phrenesis), creating each heaven until you get to 365. Epiphanius and other church writers claimed that Abrasax was a pagan god. Abrasax images with slogans were carved into gems and other media, and were most likely used in magic ceremonies. What’s particularly interesting is that Abrasax, in its snake-form, looks a lot like Glycon…
The two snakes of Abrasax are particulary interesting in that this occurs also with…
The words engraved on the gems are of various kinds, but some are recognizable as Biblical names of God, along with known and unknown angelic beings:
Iao, Eloai, Adonai, Sabaoth, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Onoel, Ananoel, Raphael, Japlael, and many others. So…
Iao = Yahweh
Eloai = Elohim
Adonai = Adonai
Sabaoth = army, used in the Old Testament as…Yahweh Sabaoth…Yahweh, God of Armies
Michael = Michael
Gabriel = Gabriel
Uriel = Uriel
Onoel, Ananoel, Japlael (?)
Raphael = Raphael
And perhaps even more apropos is the fact that the magical word…abracadabra…is believed to be derived from the name Abrasax. The Savior likewise has a secret, hidden name…Caulacau. The Gospel of Basilides is lost, but church writers who condemned it, and the movement as a whole, have left behind citations of it.
The subject of Christian magic can go on and on. What is the difference between a miracle and magic? It would seem that, for many of the things he did, it was accepted that Simon Magus did actually do them. In reality, the only difference is what divine entity, or force of nature, is providing the power to do it. Miracles are done by the power of the True God, and magic is performed by the power of the devil, leading to the designation…Angel of Satan…directed at Simon. But, based on the date, I think it would be incumbent on me to briefly discuss…
…the Mandylion…meaning…towel. The above pictures show two holy clothes, with adjustments to more clearly get an idea of the face looks like. There is also another holy towel…
…the Veil of Veronica.
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
Mark 5: 25-34.
And a certain woman named Veronica, said, “I was afflicted with an issue of blood twelve years, and I touched the hem of his garments, and presently the issue of my blood stopped.”
Gospel of Nicodemus V:26. Later tradition states that Veronica was on the road which Christ and Simon of Cyrene were carrying the cross. Veronica gave Jesus her veil to wipe off the sweat and blood on his face. Then she discovered that the face of Christ had been imprinted on her veil.
None of these should be confused with the…
The Sudarium of Oviedo, located in Spain. It is claimed that this is the cloth wrapped around Jesus’s head in the tomb…
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.
John 20: 3-7, which also informs us that John could run faster than Peter. Nor should the Mandylion be confused with the ever popular…
…indestructible Shroud of Turin, which may have been the burial shroud of the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar…Jacques de Molay. And I can’t resist! The strange head referred to as Baphomet, in the highly unreliable testimony obtained under torture at the hands of the Inquisition, was said by one witness to be the head of…
…Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Knights Templar. I’ve written extensively about the real Baphomet on this website, but the Templars were fanatical collectors of relics, with a particular interest in heads and skulls, so I suppose they might have had a few Templar-Head-Relics around!
King Abgar V, ruler of the kingdom of Osroene, with the capital city located at Edessa. So now we meet the first Christian ruler in history…and he’s not Constantine. He came to power in 4 B.C., very close to the time Jesus of Nazareth was born. Standing next to him is Thaddeus of Edessa, said to be one of the 70 disciples sent out by Christ to spread his message. On the right is St. Jude, also referred to as Jude Thaddeus. Jude is listed as one of the 12 disciples, but Matthew 10:3 and Mark 3:18 do not have Jude in the list, but some manuscripts of Matthew 10:3 refer to Lebbaeus, called Thaddeus. The name Judas Thaddeus is not convincing, and I think that the men reckoned as one of the 12 men of Christ’s inner circle simply changed over time. But Jude almost always wears the face of Christ hanging around his neck. A common tradition holds that the Jude listed as the writer of the Epistle of Jude, the Apostle Jude, are not only the same person, but these two same persons are also the Jude, brother of Christ. Traditions like this are usually the result of exercises of Arbitrary Simplicity, if I may make so bold as to coin yet another term. The truth of the matter is that name Judah, or Judas, was a very common name for Jewish males at this time in history, as is the name Miriam, or Mary, was probably the most common name for Jewish females at this time. There is nothing factual about this, and it creates the image of the brother of Christ as being the one who bore the Sacred Face. The problem with the name Judah can be illustrated in the man named Judah who went by the name of Justus I. Upon the death of Simeon, son of Clopas, and cousin of Christ, Judah assumed the position of Bishop of Jerusalem, and went by the name of Justus of Jerusalem, his Jewish name being Judah. Is this Judah the brother of Christ? The temptation to link him to the Offshoots of the Holy Family resulted in the claim that he was the son of James, full-blood brother of Jesus, making him Jesus’s nephew. Arbitrary Simplicity can be applied to anyone…
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Luke 19: 1-10. Now it just so happens that upon the death of Justus I (Judah), a man named Zacchaeus became Bishop of Jerusalem. Was that Jesus’s Zacchaeus? I feel a new tradition coming on.
Actually, Jesus himself, in the main tradition, didn’t write the write the letter himself…he dictated it to the scribe who appeared with Abgar’s letter. Nonetheless, Eusebius states that the letters were real, kept in an archive in Edessa, and that he himself actually saw them. However, copies appear to have been made, as indicated by a female Christian pilgrim who visited the Holy Land sometime between 381 A.D. and 386 A.D.
Egeria wrote an account of her pilgrimage, in which she states that she read the letters in Edessa, and that they were longer than those she had seen in Europe.
Abgar Uchama the Toparch to Jesus, who has appeared as a gracious savior in the region of Jerusalem – greeting.
I have heard about you and the cures which you perform without drugs or herbs. If the report is true, you make the blind see again and the lame walk about; you cleanse lepers, expel unclean spirits and demons, cure those suffering from chronic and painful diseases, and raise the dead. When I heard all of this about you, I concluded that one of two things must be true – either you are God and came down from heaven to do these things, or you are God’s son doing them. Accordingly I am writing to you to come to me, whatever the inconvenience, and cure the disorder from which I suffer. I may add that I understand the Jews are treating you with contempt and desire to injure you; my city is very small, but highly esteemed, adequate for both of us.
So Abgar was ill, and having heard about Jesus and his miracles, Abgar invited him to come to Edessa.
Happy are you who believed me without having seen me! For it is written of me that those who have seen me will not believe in me, and that those who have not seen me will believe and live. As to your request that I should come to you, I must complete all that I was sent to do here, and on completing it must at once be taken up to the One who sent me. When I have been taken up I will send you one of my disciples to cure your disorder and bring life to you and those with you.
Yes, Jesus is simply too busy to make a trip to Edessa. However, Christ tells him that after his death, i.e. April 3, 33 A.D. According to the tradition, the Apostle Thomas, apparently too busy to go Edessa, sent Thaddeus, who became known as Addai, Thaddeus of Edessa. Thaddeus healed Abgar by the laying on of hands, and then founded the Christian church in Edessa though later tradition claims that Thomas went to Edessa, and his tomb is located there. As expected, the burial place of Thomas was disputed, there being different places claimed to be the tomb of the apostle…
…the relics held in Ortona, Italy. And the rather disconcerting tomb in Chennai, India…
Thomas’s relics were highly sought after, particularly his skull…
…the one on the left is held in Patmos, and the one on the right is held at Navestock, Essex, England. Ortona holds something quite gruesome…
…the skeleton of St. Thomas. But! What about the Mandylion? Well according to the legend, the name of Abgar’s emissary was Ananias (also called Hannan), who was also an artist. And so when he brought the letter to Jesus, he convinced Jesus to sit for a portrait. This painting was brought back to Edessa. When the people of Osroene reverted to paganism, the Bishop of Edessa hid the painting behind a wall that was covered in tile. Magically, the face on the painting was suddenly found to have leached on the surface of the tile…producing a second copy. Later, the painting gave way to a cloth with Jesus’s face on it. Finally, the story was changed to state that the painter, because of the bright light that Jesus gave off, was unable to paint him. Not wanting to the painter back home empty handed, Jesus picked up a cloth rubbed it on his face, with the likeness of his face appearing on the cloth.
And it in a most bizarre twist, it may be that another copy of the Mandylion was kept in Bethel, which was destroyed by the Baker of Heretical Bread…
Moreover, I have heard that certain persons have this grievance against me: When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there to join you in celebrating the Collect, after the use of the Church, I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ’s church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort—opposed as they are to our religion—shall not be hung up in any church of Christ. A man of your uprightness should be careful to remove an occasion of offence unworthy alike of the Church of Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge. Beware of Palladius of Galatia—a man once dear to me, but who now sorely needs God's pity—for he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen; and see to it that he does not seduce any of those who are entrusted to your keeping into the perverse ways of his erroneous doctrine. I pray that you may fare well in the Lord.
So yes, Epiphanius admitted to destroying a curtain that may have had the face of Christ emblazoned upon it. The letter was sent to John II, Bishop of Jerusalem, and how fitting it is that Epiphanius can’t resist taking a parting shot at Origen, the man whose very existence haunted him to his death.