Even a nuclear damp squib could cause horrific damage especially in a populated area. It would spread so much radioactive contamination that it could be worse than an atomic blast.

Who Lies Sleeping?

Was Mary Israel, Bride of God? 2

The Wedding at Cana
Holy Insemination
Persian Marriage

Abstract

In Jewish tradition, the bridegroom is God and the bride or the children of the bridechamber are the children of Israel. God and Israel are betrothed or married. Essenes did not permit divorce at all, so God could not divorce his bride, Israel. Yet pious Jews despaired that Judaea was ruled by Rome, a Satanic power, and so the bride was unfaithful and unfit for marriage. God was staying away from the Bridal Chamber—the Holy of Holies of the temple. When Jesus called the Jews, “this adulterous generation”, he was not accusing them all of committing adultery, but was using the hierogamos metaphor to declare Israel unfit for God. The bride had been illegally taken by another, Rome, and Jesus and the Nazarenes wanted to recover the virtue of Israel by liberating Jerusalem. Then the marriage could go ahead, and the gates of the kingdom would open.

The Wedding at Cana

The Bridgroom in these analogies was God and the Bride was Israel, the land and the people. The Christians—derived from the Essenes, who considered themselves the only pure Israel, and so called themselves Israel as if they were all of it—called themselves Israel, even though they were not ethnicly or religiously Jews. Israel, they said, meant the people of God, and, after Christ, the people of God were Christians. The Essenes also considered themselves as a living temple, having rejected the built temple in Jerusalem as polluted. They called themselves the Yahad or congregation, and sure enough, the Christians did just the same, the congregation being called a church. So it was that the sacred nuptials of God and His people were transferred by Christians from the Jews to the Church, the body of Christ!

The other change Christians made was to alter the Bridegroom from God to Christ. The Essenes, if not Jews in general, must have had a ceremonial marriage of God to Israel, the marriage supper of which was the messianic meal of bread and new wine. Jesus, as part of his investiture ceremony as Nasi of the Essenes, played the role of God in this ritual hierogamos of Yehouah and Israel. It was the wedding at Cana, the marriage recorded in John 2:1-11 as the miracle of changing water into wine.

In the older ceremonials of the New Year celebrations and the hierogamos, the king played God and the queen played goddess, but the king was God’s son or messiah. This is clear in Psalms 45. In John 3:25-29, John the Baptist is made to refer to himself as the “friend of the bridegroom”. Since John was prophesying the same event as Jesus, the coming of the kingdom, he must have meant God when he spoke of the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom in Jewish marriages was the equivalent of the best man in modern marriages. He, and the friend of the bride, the chief bridesmaid, as we would say, made the arrangements for the happy day. The female counterpart of John has been suppressed, when all this was written down around a hundred years later, with the infant church demanding its own rattles, as has the hierogamos that accompanied it.

The bride or the friend of the bride was played by Mary, as the miracle makes clear. She is in charge of the water, that miraculously becomes wine when blessed. Christians identified Jesus as the mythical messiah of the Jews, and the bridegroom, having played that role as leader. So, John’s statement was applied to Christ instead of God, as it was originally meant. It is no coincidence that this latest of the four gospels dispenses with the messianic secret of the synoptics, and declares Jesus the messiah from the outset.

In the gospel, the wine runs out and Jesus replenishes it by the miracle of making wine from water. The amount of wine which Jesus makes is 120 gallons, allowing a bottle each for 720 guests—a huge and drunken wedding by any standards. If, however, each person had a token glass of wine, the number of guests it would supply is 4320, an interesting match with the attendance at the mass feedings, where no wine is actually mentioned because they are depicted as miracles not the mass Eucharists which they were. Each of the Elect are spiritually fed with a morsal of bread and a cup of the new wine, water converted to “wine” only ritually because Essenes did not drink wine. The miracle recorded is simply the ceremony of blessing the water to make it ritual wine.

The references to marriage in Hosea imply precisely such divine nuptuals albeit allegorized as the prophet’s own. Hosea and Isaiah both mean salvation as does Jesus, and at root they all are the same as the word Essene, so the sectaries, who considered themselves the redeemers of Israel, held them in particular esteem.

All gospel references to weddings are references to the kingdom to come when God as the bridegroom unites with Israel as the bride. God, not Jesus, is the bridegroom. The change was effected to puff the Christians’ new god, making the Son into God, but might have had some basis if Jesus played the part of God or Hosea in this ritualised drama.

Mary orders the “servants” to do whatever Jesus orders, though they are both supposed to have been guests. The word translated as “servants” is actually the Greek word which has given us the church ranking of deacon, an office inherited by the church from the Essenes. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the same word is translated as “deacon” or even “deaconess”. These were not servants but ministers of the Essene church instructed by Mary to begin their duties. Plainly, Mary had an important ritual part to play in this ceremony, but Jesus was frosty to her.

No pious Jew—let alone a supposed divine Jew—would be rude to his real mother. The dialogue was simply not that of a real mother and son. Jesus calls his “mother” “woman”—being far from polite if Mary really were his mother, but acceptable if she were not. The male celibates of Qumran regarded women as temptresses. Heretics even before the time of Augustine deduced that Mary was not Jesus’s mother from this very passage.

Mary would have been the bride, as Israel, which is why she could command Jesus to provide the wine. The tradition that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, the illegitimacy of Jesus and Mary as a virgin all arise from the role of Mary as the unfaithful but Virgin Israel. In Hosea, Israel is an unfaithful wife but Yehouah affirms in the passage quoted above, “I will betroth thee unto me for ever”.

In John, Nathaniel of Cana calls Jesus king of Israel with no more ado, showing that he was a rebel—not “of Cana” but one of the Canaim. It is a lesser version of the reinterpreting of Nazarene as of “Nazareth”. Indeed, “Magdalene” is the same. The ruins of Magadan were renamed Magdala by Christians because there was no place called Magdala that Mary Magdalene could have come from. Mary will have been called Magdala really because she was a “Migdal”, a “watchtower”, the Essenes being known as “Watchers for the kingdom”)

John deliberately and boldly gives Jesus as Christ many of god’s own titles—the Sower, the Fisher, the Light of the World, the King, the Judge, and so on—and has him saying “I am” this and “I am” that, where “I am” is properly the name of God, not an assertion of Jesus about himself. John has openly made the one into the other, something that Jesus himself, as an Essene ranked on piety, humility and service, could never have done. It was a Christian blasphemy.

The Bridegroom was another of these titles, but pious Jews despaired that Judaea was ruled by Rome, a power they considered as Satan, and so the bride was adulterous and unfaithful, and unfit for marriage. God was staying away from the Bridal Chamber—the Holy of Holies of the temple. When Jesus calls the Jews, this adulterous generation, he is not saying they were committing adultery everywhere, but was using the metaphor of the hierogamos to declare Israel unfit for God. You cannot expect Christians to understand anything in context. They prefer simple explanations and for this reason have had a big thing against sexual peccadilloes ever since the beginning of the whole mix up.

The New Testamant nuptial references are many. The kingdom of heaven was likened to a king making a marriage feast for his son. Christians have added the “for his son”. The hierogamos, as has been noted above, was between God and Israel, not His son and Israel, although someone, doubtless a son of God, as all senior people, like kings and priests were, acted the role of Yehouah in the sacred drama that provided the ceremony. The king is God, and the son of God is the human elected to play the role. The outcome of the marriage was the gifts that the guests enjoyed, the benefits of the kingdom of God that followed. So, the hiwerogamos was an important political statement in the circumstances. It declared Judah/Israel as being the bride of God, not of the Romans. It was an act of defiance. The parable of the ten virgins is another expression of the hierogamos of Psalms 45.

Persian Marriage

Perhaps it is a slight digression, but justified by the closeness of many Essene customs to Persian ones, to look at the customs of a Persian—in this case a Parsi—marriage to get a possible feel of the ceremony that had occurred. Parallels with the customs of other countries at the time and of Judaism and Christian Churches are also noted.

Ahuramazda declared in Yasna 53.5 that each of the parties to the contract should clothe the other with righteousness. Righteousness is much valued in Persian religion, just as it is in the Jewish scriptures.

Persian marriage, like that of ancient Rome and Greece, had to be celebrated but in the presence of an assembly witnessing the event. Drums and fifes played at marriage gatherings to announce the occasion to the people of the village.

The assembly that gathers is the assembly of the “queenly bride”, and the bridegroom is considered the “husband king” or the “loving king”—“var-raja”—the word “var” meaning love as well as husband. In antiquity, the custom of crowning the marrying couple was common. The priests of the ancient Greeks put crowns on the heads of bridegrooms and, in Athens, the friends of the bride carried a crown for her too. In Egypt, the bride put on a crown. A Jewish couple had to walk under a canopy resembling a crown, symbolic of the tent that they entered to consumate their marriage. Early Christians kept a crown in a church for weddings.

The bridegroom is dressed in a loose white dress flowing with folds. White is the symbol of purity, innocence and faithfulness and the priests always wear white and a white turban. The marriage ribbon knots of the Romans were white. The upper garment of the bride is also a loose folded dress. In many societies a loose flowing dress is necessary for solemn and state occasions. In court, churches and universities, gowns and robes are universally worn. The folds of such dresses carry the idea of mystery, modesty, respect and rank. In western society, women still wear such a dress.

The bridegroom takes his seat on the right hand of the bride. Beside the bridegroom and the bride are two trays of rice on stands. Rice is the symbol of plenty and prosperity, and so it is sprinkled over the marrying couple while reciting the benediction. Jews threw grains of barley before the marrying couple to denote a numerous progeny and this will surely have been true here.

On the stands two candles burn. A servant holds in one hand a censer with a burning fire and in another frankincense. Fire is a symbol of purity and plenty for Persians. For the ancient Greeks, fire and water were also symbols of purification but the bridegroom held them while welcoming his bride into his house. The Roman bridegroom also held them before his bride to stand for the necessities of life. The burning candles also remind us of ancient Greek “bridal torches” kindled from her family’s hearth and carried by the bride’s mother in the marriage procession.

The bride and the bridegroom have each a marriage witness. The Jews also had two witnesses and Christians have two.

The bride and the bridegroom sit opposite each other, separated by a curtain held between them by two attendants so that they cannot see each other and they join hands with the curtain held over their hands. After the hand-fastening ceremony, it is released signifying that what separated the couple had been removed. The couple then move to sit side by side united in matrimony. The Russians of the Orthodox Church had the self-same ritual. A curtain of crimson taffeta held by two young men parted the couple to prevent them from stealing glances. Similarly, the Jewish bride put on a veil to prevent her face from being seen by the bridegroom, but it was removed when they were united in marriage. In early Christians marriage, the couple knelt with four clergymen holding over their hands a cerecloth, afterwards removed.

While the bride and bridegroom were separated by the curtain, two priests passed round the chairs of both a piece of cloth to encircle them, symbolizing unity. The ends of the cloth were tied together with the recital of a prayer signifying the tying of the marriage knot. The custom of tying marriage knots among the Persians was an ancient custom.

Then the senior priest placed the right hand of one in the right hand of the other and fastened them with the recital of the same prayer. He put a twine round their hands seven times. The Greeks had a ceremony of hand-fastening to ratifying a marriage. Roman priests similarly bound the handsof the couple with wool. In Assyria, the father of the bridegroom fastened the hands of the couple with a woollen thread.

After fastening the hands, the thread was passed round the pair seven times with several recitals of the sacred prayer. It was then passed seven times round the marriage knot of cloth described above. A single thread can be easily broken but seven threads, twisted into one, cannot easily be broken. The ceremony therefore signified a permanent binding together. Seven was a sacred number among the ancient Persians. They had seven archangels, corresponding to the seven spirits of God, seven heavens and seven Keshwars or regions. In some Jewish marriages, the bride walks seven times round the groom before the wedding and seven benedictions are recited. Seven was a sacred number to Essenes and early Christians too (cf Rev 5:6; Zech 4:10; Tobit 12:15).

At the close of the ritual of hand-fastening, of tying the marriage knot, and of encircling the couple, the servant who holds fire in a vase places some frankincense on it and the couple throw the rice over one another with their free hands. The assembly clap enthusuastically to show its approval and goodwill for the union.

The ceremony concludes with two priests giving blessings, enquiring three times of the couple if they agree to the procedings and concluding with a joint exhortation. In the Orthodox Church the priest declares the marriage three times and many Christians proclaim the marriage banns three times.

J J Modi who described this ceremony made no mention of wine or water, though one or the other was an important element in the Essene ritual.

Holy Insemination

The temple acted as an annual sun dial, with the insemination of the Land being the central calendrical date it gave. The indication of the New Year came from the orientation of the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple with respect to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of “Olives” is a mis-reading of El Elyon, God the Most High. “Elaion” is the Greek for “olives”, and in Hellenistic times, the Elyon was misunderstood to be Elaion. The recesses of the temple were meant to be the womb of the Land, Israel, personified as a woman, and the people who lived on it. Colletively, Yehouah was betrothed to them, and the marriage ceremony was enacted each year at the time when the sun rose over the Mount of Olives, representing the Most High God, and His holy rays illuminated the darkest chamber of the temple—the Holy Place. It was seen as an act of sacred penetration.

It happened around 1 Tishri, which is Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year, roughly the autumnal equinox in September. In ancient times, it might have been a few weeks earlier, because the temple was not oriented exactly eastwards, but a little north of east. The sun was in Virgo, and would have risen just as the Virgin’s sheaf of barleycorn, or her infant, the bright Star, Spica, would have been expected. The Virgin had given birth to the sun of the New Year, the rising of the god of vegetation from death, and the first rains which were due at that very time, suggesting the abundance to be expected. The happy union will have been announced with the blowing of the Shofar and the festivities began.

The New Year was brought by the Persian Shahanshahs in the late fifth century when they operated with Babylon as their capital city. So, it is based on the Babylonian ceremonies in which Tiamat, the chaos monster, was defeated by Marduk before he created the world. Jonah (Ea) was swallowed by the whale, the sea monster that stood for chaos, and remained swallowed for three days. This three days is the period a soul, in Persian theology remained with the dead body before it departed—before the dead person gave up the ghost! So, these three days symbolize death.

It is, of course, the period the sun seems to hover near to death in its struggle against permanent decline at the winter solstice from December 21 to December 24, before it is reborn. Jonah is the winter sun, the sun that brought the rains. Jonah is Ea, Iah or Yahu, the Canaanite and Babylonian water god, Capricorn, the fish tailed goat. Ea (Greek, Oannes) is the sun in Aquarius, Jonah or John the baptist. Capricorn and Aquarius are the constellations of the rains and storms, the sun that almost dies but recovers to save His people. Matthew and Luke make Jesus the type of Jonah, although Jesus was not dead long enough for his soul to have departed. In fact, Jesus and John the Baptist were titles of the Essene Nasi who acted the part of the salvific god by sprinkling salvific water on the repentent people.

Other legendary heroes, usually sun gods, had the same experience of a three day symbolic death. Hercules sprang fully armed into the jaws of Neptune’s monster—into the “jaws of Hades”—to save Hesione, the daughter of the Trojan king. After three days, he emerged from the dead creature, having butchered the monster internally, and took the hand of the maiden. Perseus similarly saves, Andromeda. These maids are the virginal earth of the new season, and the chaos monster is evidently responsible for the death of vegetation and the fertilising good sun. It is the scorching hot sun of the hot season.

Then, ten more days of chaos were celebrated. These were the equivalent of the Roman Saturnalia, and the much later twelve days of Christmas, when order was inverted, and chaos reigned before the creation ceremony, and the hierogamos itself which was the object of the Festival of Booths (Succoth ). The makeshift booths were marital tents for those who wanted to emulate the divine Bridegroom and His Bride and to encourage the land to be fertile.

Naturally, the sun would rise such as to illuminate the inner chamber again at the vernal equinox, or a little later, but the symbolism now must have been the descent of the winter sun, the fertilising sun, into Hades for the duration of the summer when the land was scorched. The sun rose then in Aries which is the Ram in the modern zodiac but was the Lamb in the Persian one, seemingly killing it just as it was about to rise, and pious Jews celebrated the Passover, the death of the lifegiving sun by sacrificing a lamb, and eating a ritual meal of bread and lamb, the Seder.

Virgo and Aries are not opposing each other in the zodiac which is why the orientation of the temple was not east-west but a little to the north. It split the year unevenly because the growing season was longer than the dry season.

Page Tags: Jesus, Israel, Israel as a Woman, Bride of God, Bridegroom, History, Mary, Fasting, Persian Marriage, Bridegroom and Fasting, Divorce, Dead Girl, Menstrual Woman, Mysteries of Mary, Bride, God, Marriage

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.