1
Temple, Tabernacles and the 4
Marias
1.Holy wedlock
Pherecydes Syros (6th cent. B.C.) is the first
pre-Socratic Greek promoting a theory about
the archê in the cosmogonic process. His
book began with the following:” Zas and
Chronos was always existent together with
Chthoníê…” (Diogenes Laertius I,119). On
the 3rd day of their wedding feast Zas gave
Chthoniê (=”earth”) a large and beautifully
decorated piece of cloth “with pictures of Ge
(earth) and Ogenos (ocean) and the houses of
Ogenos” as a wedding gift (acc. to a Greek
Papyrus1). Zas (Zanta by Damascios, De
principiis 124bis) is the Cilician god,
Sandan2. This beautifully decorated piece of
cloth (Greek: pharos) must be the carpet of
herbs and flowers covering the earth in spring
and the calming of the sea after the fierce
gales of the winter months. A similar “pharos
of many colors” “on the winged oak” is also
mentioned in a quotation from the books of
Pherecydes by Isidor, the Gnostic (ap.
Clement Alex. Strom. VI, 53,5). The “oak tree
with wings” is the famous tree, acc. to a
Tyrian tradition, Nonnus, Dionysiaca XL
467ff., growing in “the navel of the rock” on
the Paradise-island (on coins from Tyre called
“ambrosian rocks”) swimming in the sea and
with an eagle flying in the top, but brought to
stabilitas loci by sacrificing the eagle to Zeus
and Poseidon. This small sidelong look to
All our information about Pherecydes is collected in
Geoffrey S. Kirk/J.E. Raven/ M. Schofield, Die
vorsokratischen Philosophen, Dt. Übers. Karlheinz
Hülser, 2001, ch. 1.6 (B).
2
Pherecydes has taken his wisdom from ”the secret
books of the Phoenicians”, Suda: Pherecydes.
1
Phoenician religious tradition gives us an
important theme: spring is seen as a god’s
revitalizing the earth seen as a female in a
holy wedding feast and making the navel of
the earth firm after a period of instability.
Breathtaking in beauty Aseneth lives secluded
in a tower (the world mountain or world
pillar). Joseph enters her father’s court on a
quadriga as ”the sun of heaven”. The
morning star on “the eight day” (the Sunday)
heralds the advent of an angel giving her the
name “City of Refuge3”, “you shall be like a
walled mother-city” for converts, 16,16 (in
Christoph Burchard ed., Joseph und Aseneth,
20034) and feeds her with a honeycomb,
which he says, is “bread of life, cup of
immortality and ointment of incorruptibility”.
This is obviously referring to Judeo-Christian
baptismal initiation as an initiation into
Paradise with unction and eucharist as the
Bread of Life and a drink from the River of
Life as already seen by M.R. James5. Aseneth
3
A similar holy wedlock on top of the tower of
Babylon between a god coming from above in a
quadriga and a girl, who has to be “native”, i.e.,
representing the country, is hinted at in Herodotus,
Hist. 1.bok: 179… “On the top, along the edges of the
wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber
facing one another, leaving between them room for a
four-horse chariot to turn….182. They also declare- but
I for my part do not credit it- that the god comes down
in person into this chamber, and sleeps upon the
couch.”
4
Danish translation in Tre jødiske legender, Josef og
Asenat. Jobs Testamente. Abrahams Testamente, Indl.
& overs. Karin Friis Plum, 2009, pp. 11-72. See also
Dieter Sänger, Antikes Judentum und die Mysterien,
1980.
5
“Le Livre de la Prière d’Aséneth” in P. Battifol (ed.)
Studia Patristica, 1889,I, p. 37. See also Margarete
Berger, Brot des Lebens, Kelch des Unsterblichkeit und
Salbe der Unvergänglichkeit, 2014. Praying towards
2
takes off her black and dirty garment and puts
on a “wedding-garment, the old and first,
from former time” (Adam’s garment of glory
regained in baptism6). She is painted with the
features of the Jewish-Christian Sophia
(“wisdom”), cf. Rev 12, where the “Woman”
has on her head a crown with 12 stars, acc. to
Gilles Quispel the 12 signs of the Zodiac7.
Quispel also mentions the Acts of Thomas
ch.6 where a similar female figure is praised
the east is early Christian costume, 11, 15+19, not
Jewish. 16,14 quotes John 6,48-50. Joseph is “like the
firstborn son of God”, 23,10.
Cf. J. Rendel Harris, The Doctrine of Immortality in
the Odes of Solomon, 1909, reprinted 2004, about the
importance of this motif in the Odes of Solomon.
Behind the doctrine of salvation both in the Odes and
the Gospel of Thomas is the idea that Adam before the
fall was not naked, but clothed in Glory and Light acc.
to his status as the “image of God”. The clothing of
hide given by God to Adam and Eve after the fall was
the skin and flesh we all now have as a cover over our
soul/inner man. In baptism/salvation man is reinstated
in this body of primordial Glory. Also in the letters of
Paul this body of Glory seems to be of great
importance. It is probably already foreshadowed in the
alba baptismalis as stressed by Charles Gieschen:
“Sacramental theology in the Book of Revelation.”
Concordia Theological Quaterly, vol. 67:2, April 2003,
pp.149-74, especially pp. 159-62. See also Gieschen:
“Baptismal Praxis and Mystical Experience in the
Book of Revelation”, in Paradise Now, ed. April
DeConick, 2006, pp. 341-54.
With the help of the Holy Spirit this transformation to
Glory has already begun here on earth, 2.Cor 3,18 &
5,5; 1.Cor 15,45. Original sin meant the loss of this
divine Glory, Rom 3,23. In 1.Cor 15,42-49 the body of
Glory is linked to the heavenly Adam. Jean Daniélou,
The Bible and the Liturgy, University of Notre Dame
Press, 1956, has pointed out with a wealth of
quotations from the early church fathers (Cyril of
Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodore of Mopsuestia)
how the entrance into the baptistery was seen as a
reentrance into paradise, the nakedness as similar to
Adam being naked in Paradise without feeling shame,
the putting off of the old haircloth as putting off the
“garments of flesh” and then being reinvested with
Adam’s glory, pp. 21f.; 32f.; 35-40;43; 50-53.
7
The Secret Book of Revelation,1979, p.76.
6
in song: her garment is like the fragrant
flowers of spring, she is surrounded by seven
groomsmen (the seven planets), and she has
12 attendants (the 12 signs of the zodiac).
This female figure is also creator spiritus, the
creative spirit of God, who gives birth to
cosmos and pervades everything as a kind of
world soul. Aseneth is also attended by 7
maidens who are called “pillars”, the seven
pillars of Wisdom, and she is “pictured in a
remarkably goddess-like position encircled by
the bees of heaven”8.
Behind the transformation of Aseneth from a
sobbing, dirty, lost beauty dressed in black to
the splendid bride of the sun hero, Joseph, is
old Jewish folk-lore celebrating the coming of
spring and the holy wedlock between the
black Shulamite (representing the winterbarren earth and “the daughters of Jerusalem”,
“the daughter of Zion”) and Solomon, the sun
hero surrounded by 60 heroes protecting him
against his main enemy, darkness, and
surrounded by the strong scent of Paradise
(nard), Cant 3,6-8. Canticles was read during
the spring festival, the feast of the unleavened
breads. Aseneth’s transformation is described
with the following words: “From today your
flesh will flourish like the flowers of life
from the ground of the most High, and your
bones will grow strong like the cedars of the
Paradise” 16,16. Joseph has prayed: “Renew
her by your Spirit and recreate her by your
hidden hand and give her new life by your
life”, 8,11. The same transformation is hinted
at in the famous tale about Amor and Psyche,
where Psyche has to go down to Persephone
8
Edith McEwan Humphray, The Ladies and the
City,1995, p. 50, who also mentions that bees were
associated with the goddesses Isis and Neith.
3
and bring up a cream for the renewal of
Venus, who has grown old and worn down. In
a vase-painting from Tarentum her son,
Amor, is seen ascending from the beauty box
of the women going out into the gardens9 to
honor and unite with the god of nature and
spring and love.
The booths of branches erected during the
feast of Tabernacles is part of the back-tonature and a back-to-primordial-time-andParadise symbolism. Hammurabi is said to
have cloaked in greenery the gigunu of Ai, the
wife of the sun god. The gigunu10 was closely
associated with the temple tower, the
Ziqqurat, the world mountain. It is acc. to
E.O. James11 the Babylonian counterpart of
the booths of Tabernacles and the Jewish
wedding canopy. The annual renewal of
nature by a sacred marriage in the hut
symbolizing unity with nature has obviously
moved from early spring to autumn, perhaps
because a main purpose of the ritual was to
secure life-giving water12, cf. the waterlibations over the high towering top of the
altar of holocaust symbolizing the world
mountain and the mystic call, ani-wehu (while
9
See my E-book The Origin of our Belief in God. I, ch.
23, www.erik.langkjer.dk. E.Langlotz, Aphrodite in der
Garten,1954, t. 2,6.
10
In the Quran gannat, pl. ginanun is term. techn. for
the Paradise-gardens acc. to Geo Widengren, The King
and the Tree of Life,UUÅ 1951,4, pp. 10n3 & 59n1.
See also Widengren, Religionsphänomenologie,1969,
p. 242, who tries to prove a continuity from Sumer all
the way up to the bridal chamber in the Syrian church
and the gnana of the Mandaeans.
11
Christian Myth and Ritual,1973, pp. 29f.
12
The close connection between rain, hieros gamos
and the feast of Tabernacles is stressed by Widengren,
Sakrales Königtum im Alten Testament und im
Judentum, 1955, p.112n76.
circling the altar)13, referring to a unity of
love between God and the caller. In the
sunrise at the second morning after the nightly
dance with torches in the Courtyard of the
Women, the King of Glory (or the angel with
his name) would come and take up his abode
in the Holy of Holies. The bridal chamber as
the highest part of the sacramental rite
referred to in the Gospel of Philip is this unity
with the angel from God, more or less
identical with one’s guardian angel.
In The Shepherd of Hermas Hermas has a
vision of an old woman, the church. In his
next vision she has grown younger, and in the
third vision she is young and all dressed in
white and “adorned as coming from a bridal
chamber” 4.vis. 2,1. She is identical with a
high tower, 3.vis. 3,3, built over the streams
of the underworld (This is referring to the
oriental belief that the temple of God is built
on the primordial rock, the world mountain
over the primordial sea). Like Aseneth she is
renewed, and Hermas becomes united with
his guardian angel, 5.vis., both sitting on his
bed! The angel sent to Aseneth is also seated
on Aseneth’s bed, 15,14. Cf. that the Holy
Spirit is the sýzygos of the Christian, Tatian,
Mishnah Succah IV,5. ”I and He” means that God
identifies with Israel. By comparing this formula with
similar Gnostic ones, the Swedish rabbi G. Klein, Den
första kristna Katekesen, 1908, pp.59-64 has proved
that it has to be understood as expressing mystic
identity. Klein also thinks that this temple ritual is
behind the words of Jesus: “believe that the Father is in
me and I in him” and John 17,26; ibd. pp. 66f., cf. how
the Gospel of John 12,13 turns the triumphant Entry of
Jesus into the temple of Jerusalem into a Succoth
procession carrying the lulab.
13
4
Or. 15,114. Also in the Acts of Thomas Jesus
as the twin-“brother” of Thomas (and his
look-a-like) sits down on the bed in the bridechamber of the newly converted princess
while her father and groom are asked to sit on
chairs, chap. 11.
Ezra has a vision of a mourning and sobbing
woman, with dust in her hair and her garment
torn, 4.Ezra 4th vision. But suddenly, like a
lightening, her face is lit up, and she is
transformed into a city, the rebuilt Jerusalem.
Certainly, we are here dealing with an old
symbol, the daughter of Zion, the symbol of
the beloved city and its inhabitants. There is
even in 4. Ezra a bridal chamber: the woman
is mourning over her only begotten son, who
died at the very moment he stepped into the
bridal chamber.
The sacred wedlock is a union of love
between the young active solar aspect of God
and his people, and every wedding feast is an
image in time and space of the great
hierogamy and takes its holiness and
legitimacy from it.
2. The mountain in the centre
In his important article, ”Jésus et les païens”,
Bengt Sundkler15 has tried to find the central
idea by which it is possible to understand the
acts of Jesus during his last stay in Jerusalem.
Why is it so important for Jesus to finish his
mission in Jerusalem? Acc. to the worldview
of the Old Testament, Jerusalem was situated
at the centre of the world, and Sundkler
makes use of the research of Sigmund
Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien II,1922, acc. to
which Yhwh in a solemn procession would
reenter his temple on New Year’s Day, Ps
24,47, and take possession of his kingdom
over gods and men and cosmos. By this
entrance the world is recreated, the heathen
gods annihilated, and the gentile nations will
make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to pay
homage to and bring their gifts to the true
God and his chosen people, Ps 76,12; 96,7f.
What is happening at the centre, “the navel”
of the world, transforms the whole organism.
The foundation rock of the temple, the
“corner stone”, is the birthplace of the whole
world: “It is where they are born. And those
who sing and those who dance call out: All
my sources are in you”, Ps 87,6. By Abraham
and his descendants all the nations of the
world shall be blessed, cf. Dan 7,14: when the
Son of Man is given the universal kingdom,
all nations shall serve him. Jerusalem is at the
centre of the nations, Hez 5,5. The mountain
of Zion is the joy of the whole world, and “the
city of the Great King”, Ps 48,3. In front of
the arc is situated the “foundation stone”
(eben shetiyyah) of the whole world. To
understand the importance of this idea of the
CENTRE one has to consider that the idea of
a world-navel (Greek: omphalós) is
widespread in the ancient cultures16. This idea
Greece, India, Babylon, Arabia, see Wilhelm H.
Roscher, Omphalos, Abh.-Sächs. Ges. der Wissensch.,
29, 1913, repr. 1974 (together with Der
Omphalosgedanke bei verschied. Völkern, 1918). A.J.
Wensinck, The Ideas of the Western Semites
concerning the Navel of the Earth, VKAWA N.R. 19,2,
1916, also www.dwc.knaw.nl. Philip S. Alexander:
"Jerusalem as the Omphalos of the World: On the
16
The sýzygos-motif in early Christianity and
Valentinian Gnosticism, see Heinrich Schlier, Der
Brief an die Epheser, 6th Aufl. 1968, pp. 268-76.
15
Arbeiten und Mitteilungen aus dem
neutestamentlichen Seminar zu Uppsala
herausgegeben von Anton Fridrichsen VI, 1937, pp.138, esp. 25-33.
14
5
of the central mountain is often combined
with the idea of the Tree of Life and the Well
of Life. In early Jewish Christianity the cross
is not only seen as the Tree of Life, but also
as the cosmic centre of the four directions17.
On the last day of Tabernacles, the libations
over the high Altar of Holocausts were the
main cultic act, a cultic symbol of the rain, the
Water of Life from the Paradise-river, Gihon
(this fountain was the main source for
Siloam), watering the world mountain, i.e. the
whole world. Jesus is referring to this act in
his words about “streams of living water”,
John 7,37f., cf. Sirach 24, Zech 14,8ff.
The huts of Tabernacles indicate that the core
of the festival is an old notion of holy
wedlock between Shulamite, who symbolizes
the earth, “I am black, but comely”, cf. the
“woman” in Rev 12 attacked by the opposite
of “Living Water”, the chaotic water stream,
but helped by the earth. Cf. how the goddess
Chthonie (“earth”) is given a dress, i.e.
clothed with flowers and vegetation by Zas.
In Greek the holy wedlock is hinted at in
Demeter (“mother earth”) having intercourse
with Jasion (“healer”) on the newly plowed
field, cf. that Jesus is writing “in the earth” to
save the “woman”, John 8,6.
This release of “The Water of Life” is
obviously a central theme in the gospel of
John and in Revelations: In Jesus’ first
encounter with the “woman”, his answer,
when asked to provide wine is: “My hour has
not yet come” John 2,4, but this hour comes
in his moment of death, 19,34 with the
solemn testimony v.35. And it is finally
consummated in the “Stream of Life and
Healing”, Rev 22,1f.+17, pouring out from
the throne of God and the Lamb, but Rev 4,6
and 15,2 still being in the immobile state of
crystal or ice. The salvation is painted with
symbols taken from the cultic realization of
the kingdom of God, the feast of Tabernacles,
cf. the lulab, the palm-branches held by the
saved.
In the article “Salvanda et Pastor Bonus”18 I
have tried to show how in the Gospel of John,
Jesus is confronted with a row of women,
often addressed rather laconically as
“woman”. First his mother, Mary, then the
Samaritan woman with dubious morals, the
woman caught in adultery (perhaps a later
addition to the gospel but fitting well into the
row of females), Mary from Bethany,
probably identical with the sinner-woman
mentioned by Luke, and Mary from Magdala
delivered from being possessed by 7 demons.
A similar row of females confronts us in Rev.:
the mother, the harlot, the bride. The dubious
moral of Shulamite is hinted at in Canticles.
And she is awesome like “armies under
banner”. She is the Jewish version of the Near
Eastern goddess of love and war. This Jewish
version is also behind Miryai in the Mandaen
texts, cf. the words of Anosh, the Gnostic
version of the “Son of Man”: “I was a medical
3. The 4th Maria
History of a Geographical Concept." Judaism 46,2,
1997, pp. 147-58.
17
“This (light)cross, then, is that which joined all
things unto itself… being one, streamed forth into all
things”, Acts of John 99.
On www.academia.edu. & in Dialogue in Action,
Essays in honour of Johannes Aagaard, ed by Lars
Thunberg, Moti Lal Pandit, C.V. Fogh-Hansen,1988,
pp. 85-111.
18
6
doctor to Miryai” Ginza R, Lidzbarski,
p.341,21-25. Like Demeter by Jasion, the
goddess earth is “healed”. By the River of
Life, Rev 22,2, stands the “Tree of Life” with
leaves giving “healing to the nations”. Cf.
Hez 47: the stream coming out from beneath
the temple wall and giving new life and
healing (v.12) to the world.
In the Book of John Miryai presents herself as
the Tree of Life: “I am Miryai, a cluster of
grapes, a tree standing at the estuary of
Euphrates. The leaves of the tree are jewels,
the fruits of the tree are pearls”,
Johannesbuch, Lidzbarski’s trans. ch. 35,
p.129. The fragrance from the tree is
spreading all over the world. Then a white
eagle comes “to heal Miryai”. Just like the
cherub-winged creatures nursing the Tree of
Life on the stone slabs dug out from the
Assyrian palaces, this eagle brings a bucket
with water and gives water to the vines
standing at the estuary, and they find
“healing” and grow into double size (ch. 35,
p.132). There is also an indication of a holy
wedlock between Miryai and the eagle: “Er
umschlang sie in kräftiger Umschlingung,
streckte sie hin und legte sie auf den Thron”
(35, p.138). That the eagle is the “bird of
ecstasy and apotheosis” is seen from the last
sentence in the long chapter about Miryai:
“Ich und du wollen uns emporwinden und
siegrich emporsteigen zum Orte des Lebens"
(ibd.).
4. Weeping and seeking.
The Danish prof. Flemming Hvidberg has
written the important book, Graad og Latter i
det Gamle Testamente,1938 (English ed.:
Weeping and Laughter in the Old Testament,
1962) where he draws attention to a Tammuzlike ritual, the weeping for the dying
vegetation hinted at in the OT. He stresses
that Yahweh was never in the eyes of the
prophets a dying and rising God. Mal 2,13:
“covering the altar of Yahweh with tears”,
and Hos 10,5-8: “His people mourn over him
(the calf in Bethel), and his priests shout with
joy over him – over his glory (kabod), for it
has left him”, seem to be most critical to this
feature of folk-religion also hinted at in Ps
126,4-6. Certainly, Yahweh cannot die, and
making a calf-like picture of him and paying
homage to such a lifeless piece of metal is
certainly not allowed in the Mosaic faith. But
the word kabod is closely connected to the
theophany in the temple and even before. The
theophany is a coming in kabod from the
desert and Mt. Sinai, and exactly such a
coming from the desert is described in Cant as
the coming of the sun hero Solomon, which
acts like the Lord of Paradise and renewed
nature after the cold winter. He is more than a
human king, he is the young active, loving
aspect of God19 just like the angel of epiphany
Pirjo Lapinkivi: “The Sumerian Sacred Marriage and
its Aftermath in Later Sources” in Sacred Marriages,
ed. by Marrti Nissinen & Risto Uro,2008, pp.7-42 and
M. Nissinen: “Song of Songs and Sacred Marriage”,
ibd. pp.173-218 rehabilitate the traditional Christian
way of reading Canticles as a poem about the love
between God and humans. Going all the way back to
Sumerian times there has been a tradition for
employing the sexual metaphor as an expression of the
close union of love between divine and human. Love is
the ideal type of relationship, ibd. p. 218. The splendid
book of Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy,
1956, pp.191-207 contains a lucid exposition of how
the baptismal initiation for Cyril of Jerusalem and
Ambrose of Milan culminates with the entrance into
the marriage-chamber, the hall of the eucharistic
19
7
coming to the temple in the dawning sunshine
at the second morning of Tabernacles, being
the “light of the world”20. The glory who has
“left him” is the situation where darkness
rules, the night of chaos attacking the vigilant
cult community waiting for the “healing
dawn”, Mal 3,20. Acc. to the old seasonal
rituals ”healing” and “life” will be granted the
cult community after 2-3 days of terror, Hos
6,1-2. Then Yahweh will come with the lifegiving rain as surely as the dawning of the
sun, 6,3. This “healing” is also called “turning
the destiny of the people”, 6,11-7,1. And the
“breaking forth of my (God’s) justice like
light” 6,5. But Yahweh has withdrawn his
presence waiting for his people to do penance
and “seek” their lost God, “seek his
countenance” (stands for the theophany) 5,15;
3,5; cf. the “seeking” and the “coming to the
temple” in Mal 3,1f. That all these term.
techn. are part of the great holy wedlock
between God and his people is clear from Hos
3,1ff.
banquet with Cant incorporated in the liturgy. Acc. to
these fathers the whole initiation is prefigured in
Canticles.
20
“The Christian lenten and resurrection festivals are
in this wise by no means merely a "rehash" of
Babylonian ideas. This would be misunderstanding the
divine will as carried out in history. No, no, not a
"rehash", but the very culmination and "fulfillment" of
the wisdom of ages past are the Christian lenten and
resurrection festivals. The "truth" which the Sumerians
dimly recognized while still groping in the dark
receives by the death and resurrection of Christ its true
light, explanation, seal, approval and spiritual
significance. Christ and the Christian religion not only
is, but must and, I am sure, will be recognized, more
and more, to be what we are told it is: the pleroma, (i.e.
“fullness”)”, Hugo Radau, Sumerian Hymns and
Prayers to God Du-muzi, Temple Library of Nippur,
1913, Preface, p. VIII.
The weeping is turned into “jubilation” for the
“daughter of Zion” when the lost beloved one,
“the hero that brings salvation”, returns to
Zion, Zeph 3,15-17; Zech 9,9. Cf. Ps 30,8:
“You hid your face”, v.9: “Yahweh, come to
my rescue”. v.6: “in the evening weeping ..in
the morning there is jubilation”; v.3: “you
healed me”; v.10: “you changed my mourning
into dance…and clothed me in joy”.
The weeping and the seeking of the lost God
culminate in his triumphant returning from
the realm of death and his victorious entrance
into the temple. This “seeking”21 is hinted at
Cant 3,2 & 5,6 & 6,1; Marc 16,6, John 20,15
(hinting at both weeping22 and seeking). Cant
1,12: “My nard spreads sweet smell while the
king is dining”, is hinted at John 12,3: the
nard filling the whole house with its smell.
Cant 2,8+9: hinnéh zæh, ”look here”, cf.
“come and see”, John 1,39+46, and Cant 2,10:
“My beloved spoke and said to me…my fair
one, come”. “He stands at our wall…peering
through the lattice…the fig ripens her fruit”,
2,9+1323, cf. John 1,48: Jesus saw Nathanael
under the fig tree. The beginning of the public
teaching of Jesus, John 1,35-51, is painted as
cosmic springtime.
The ritual “seeking” and “finding” of Osiris is
mocked by Firmicus Mat. Ch.2,3+9.
22
Weeping for the beloved, John 11,33-36. Tammuz is
called “the beloved”, G. Witzel: “Tammuz-Liturgien
und Verwandtes”, Analecta Orientalia 10, 1935, p.
324,38. Shulamite is seeking her “beloved”, Cant 5,210.
23
That the Gospel of John is “a meditation over Jesus”
inspired by Cant. is proved by Rune Söderlund:
“Brudmystik hos kärlekens Apostel”, Pilgrim, no.4,
1996, pp. 28- 35.
21
8
5. Glory and Life in the Gospel of John.
John & the baptismal movement in the Jordan
Valley.
In some of my former works24 I have tried to
prove the importance of the temple-theology
and especially the belief in the temple as an
icon of the Garden of Eden with the Tree of
Life, the Well of Life, the Creatures of Life
(hayyot) and the foundation stone of the
creation. The temple on Mt. Zion was also the
place where God was “seen” in “glory”. Time
was structured with the help from the holy
numbers 7 and 7 times 7 and the epiphany,
the coming of God to his temple, would
happen either after a ritual period of 49 days
or at Tabernacles when the sun was rising
directly in the East.
In the Gospel of John the key to the
“ascending and descending” of the Son of
Man is not an early Gnostic myth, but the
belief in the Great Angel of epiphany bearing
God’s name, being the Morphê of God, Deus
Revelatus, the Word, the Glory of God, Ez
1,26-8 seen as something “looking like a
man”, “looking like a son of man”, Dan 7,13.
The epiphany is the epiphany of Life and
Light from the Garden of Eden, John 1,4: In
him was Life and Light. It is the “coming” of
the Lord (= his Angel) to his temple: Mal
3,1f., where the “coming” is mentioned 3
times and repeated, Mal 3,5, cf. the coming of
John the Baptist, John 1,7, and the coming of
Jesus, 1,9+11. 1,14: “tabernacled among us”,
“glory and fullness” cf. the epiphany Is 6,3;
“fullness of the whole earth is his glory” cf.
John 1,16: “his fullness”.
My E-book: Yhwh and his Temple, 365 pages, can be
ordered for free on my mail-address: erik@langkjer.dk
24
In the Mandaean religion the highest god is
LIFE residing at the “Place/House of Life”
together with “The Vine”, “The Tree in the
Lightworld”25. Centre in the Mandaean
religion is baptism in “Living Water”
followed by eating pitha (“Bread of Life”)
and drinking mambuha (“Water of Life”). So
it seems that the Gospel of John and Rev 22
have their Life- and Paradise-symbols from
the baptismal movement inaugurated by John
the Baptist (cf. Rev 1,17: Jesus as “the Living
One”), and John the Baptist has his baptism
from the temple theology and the initiation
rituals for a priest (cf. Rev 1,6: Christian
believers as “priests before God”)26.
Jon Olav Ryen, The Tree in the Lightworld, 2006.
With E. Schweizer and R. Bultmann Ryen argues that
the Mandaean “vine” could “first and foremost” be
characterized as a “Tree of Life”, p. 310. In Ethel
Drower, The Canonical Prayerbook,1959, p.7 it is
called “the Vine which is all life and the great Tree
which is all healings”. In the esoteric texts only meant
for the priests the Great First Wellspring and Datepalm
play a prominent role. In Epistula Apostolorum (2nd
cent.) ch.42 baptism is called “the baptism of life”.
26
The short note given in John 4,1, that Jesus was
baptizing even more than the Baptist could very well
be authentic tradition as stressed by Klaus Berger, Im
Anfang war Johannes,1997, p.152. Later it was not the
task of the bishop to stand in the water and baptize, cf.
John 4,2. This was performed by a deacon or a
presbýteros. The bishop would finish the ritual by
hugging and kissing the neóphytoi and laying his hands
on their heads for blessing, and exactly that is what
Jesus does with the children brought to him, Marc
10,16. Adolf Schlatter has shown that John the
Evangelist forms his Greek sentences after the pattern
of his Aramaic mother tongue, Sprache und Heimat des
vierten Evangelisten, 1902, now in Johannes und sein
Evangelium, ed. Karl Heinrich Rengstorf, 1973, pp. 28201. The majority of the incidents told in John are
located to Jerusalem (Bethany), so it seems reasonable
to assume that the beloved disciple was a citizen of this
city and eyewitness to these incidents, and he even
seems to be a friend of the high priest. But for the
traditions located in Galilee Philip from Bethsaida is
the eyewitness, acc. to Eusebius V,24,2 living close to
25
9
But this is even more obvious when we turn
to the Odes of Solomon27. As proved by Eric
Segelberg28 and J.H. Bernard29 they have to
be seen as a reflection of early Christian
baptismal practice. Here, just as in the Gospel
of John, “eternal life”, or simply “LIFE”, is
the main gift of our Saviour. Jesus is called
“He that lives”, Ode VIII,2230, and it is said
about the Christians that “they lived by the
Water of Life for ever”, VI,18. “Sicknesses
fled far from my body”, XVIII,3, cf. Rev
22,2. “I drank and was inebriated with the
living water that does not die”, XI,7. “they
who were planted in thy land… those who
have a place in thy Paradise” XI,18. “And
there has gone up deathless life in the Lord’s
John and Ephesus. The Gospel of John is very much
focused on “the presence of God in Jesus”, and this
motif overshadows any other teaching and could very
well be an old and very authentic tradition, the
intensive impression felt by an eyewitness, Berger, p.
302. John as an eyewitness, see Richard Bauckham,
The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, 2007.
27
Acc. to J.H. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon,
1973, the odes are composed around 100 A.C. The
Garden of Eden also plays a role in the Qumran psalms
of praise, the Hodayot: “A garden…. A planting of
(then 3 different sorts of trees are mentioned) in unity
(jahad) to your Glory (kabod), trees of life by a well of
mystery (raz)” 1 QH XVI,5f. Holy Spirits with fiery
weapons guard this “well of life” XVI,12. By it grows
“a planting of truth”, and “the seal (hotam) of its
mystery is not known” XVI,11. The Tree of Life is a
hybrid, the mystic unity of different species, but here 3
sorts standing together. Like the cherub, Ez 28,12, this
planting is a hotam, the perfect pattern or blueprint for
ordinary trees: The Garden of Eden is the world of
perfect patterns of beauty.
28
“Evangelium Veritatis – a confirmation homily and
its relation to the Odes of Solomon”, in Orientalia
Suecana, VIII, 1959, pp. 3-42.
29
J.H. Bernard, The Odes of Solomon, 1912.
30
The translation is Bernard’s, but compared with
Michael Lattke, Odes of Solomon, Hermeneia, 2009.
The counting of verses is from the last-mentioned.
land”, XV,10. “Come into his Paradise and
make thee a garland from its tree”, XX,7.
“and the end of their corruption was Life”,
XXIV,8. “Immortal life embraced and kissed
me”, XXVIII,6. “Come forth, ye that have
been afflicted…and take to you immortal
life”, XXXI,6f. “Believe and live and be
saved”, XXXIV,6. Milk is often seen as one
of the 4 paradise-rivers, and dew can be
identified with the water of life, just as wine
is seen as the “juice of life”. “And the dew of
the Lord gave me milk and I grew”, XXXV,5.
In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus is called “the
living Jesus” and it says: “Whoever finds the
interpretation of these teachings will not taste
death”, log 1. Log.4 speaks about “the place
of Life”, cf. log.19: “to you belong 5 trees in
Paradise”.
Johannes Lindblom has shown how often the
gift of salvation brought to earth by Jesus is
defined as LIFE in the Gospel of John and the
Letters of John. “Life” often stands “absolute”
without further indications of content or
duration31. The purpose of Christ’s coming to
earth is that he who believes may have
“eternal life”, 3,16. “That they may have Life
and have in abundance”, 10,10. He is the
“Bread of Life”, 6,35. He is the LIFE, 11,25
& 14,6. They shall have “eternal life in him”
3,15. He is the giver of “living water” 4,10,
gushing forth in the inner man to “eternal
life” 4,14. “Life” existed in the beginning as
something heavenly, divine, but now revealed
by the coming of Christ, 1.John 1,1f. “Das
johanneische Leben hat seine eigentliche Ort
Das ewige Leben, Über die Entstehung der
religiösen Lebensidee im Neuen Testament, 1914, p.
213.
31
10
nicht in der Menschenwelt, sondern in der
göttlichen Welt, und zwar als ein Besitz der
göttlichen Personen”.32 The Father is the great
owner of Life kat’ exochên, 5,26, but has
given it to his Son, that he may give it to man,
5,40. Therefore he is called “the Living
Father”, 6,57. The “eternal life” coming from
God is in the Son, 1.John 5,10. “Bread of life
giving eternal life” is spoken of, as is the
“true vine” and the ”book of Life” and the
“Tree of Life”, Rev 2,7.
God is only possible in and through Christ33.
Note that the vision of Christ as one “looking
like a son of man” is identical with the vision
of the “white-haired” Ancient of Days, Rev
1,14, and identified with the 7-fold perfect
mystical light, the mystical unity of opposites
(first and last, death and life, 1,17f.) and the
unity of present, past and future, 1,8. Of
course John would never question that Ez 1
and Is 6 were real visions of divine glory,
John 12,41.
Most important is that Jesus during
Tabernacles stands forward as the light of the
world 8,12 and as the spender of “streams of
living water”, 7,37-39, and the constant use of
the word doksa, “glory”, the old technical
term for the cultic theophany, in the Gospel of
John realized in the elevation of Jesus onto
the cross. “Seeing God” plays an important
role 3.John 11; 1.John 3,6. This vision of God
is given to the apostles in seeing Christ, John
14,9; 1.John 4,14. Like the “one looking like
a man”, being the revelation of “the image of
God’s Glory”, Ez 1,26+28, Jesus is the visible
side of God. The divine Glory “is seen” by
the apostles, 1,14, in his miracles, 2,11, and in
his elevation to the cross, and continues to
dwell among his believers, 17,9. It is common
to stress that the Gospel of John was written
against some early Jewish mysticism and the
belief in an ascension to heaven to see the
Merkabah-throne, 3,13. This is totally wrong:
In 1,51 the apostles are promised the vision of
an open heaven, and in Rev 4 John himself
has the Merkabah-vision. John 3,13 has to be
understood as stressing that mystic vision of
That the Gospel of John has to be interpreted
in close connection with the baptismal
movement surviving as Mandaean gnosis and
the Elcasaites is also seen in the prominent
role given to baptism. “Being born again from
above” and “by God” not by man and “flesh”
is most important, 1,12f.; 3,3-5; 1.John 3,9+
4,7 +5,1-4. “Diese göttliche Geburt ist der
Kernpunkt der ganzen johanneischen
Frömmigkeit…dadurch wird der Mensch
göttlichen Wesens teilhaftig”34. This baptism
is also a baptism with the Holy Ghost
symbolized by an unction 1.John 2,20 and a
signing on the forehead with the sign of
God’s name35, the four-letter name YHWH,
the cross, the unity of four direction.
32
Ibd, p. 219.
6. The theophany of “He that cometh”
The tantric vision by raising the fiery serpent power
of the goddess through seven heads or chakras is
perhaps mocked by the vision of the woman sitting on
a red 7-headed dragon.
34
Lindblom, p. 227. Baptism was absolutely the central
act in the rituals and life of the ancient church in the 3 rd
cent., see Georg Kretschmar, Die Geschichte des
Taufgottesdienstes in der alten Kirche, Sonderdruck
aus Leiturgia, 1964 (1966) p.5.
35
See the articles of Gieschen mentioned note 6.
33
11
Hugo Odeberg36 has drawn my attention to
the role the expression “He that cometh”
plays in the preaching of John: “Are you he
that cometh or must we wait for another?”
Matt 11,3. “Among you is standing one you
do not know, he who comes after me”, John
1,26. “He who comes after me has been
before me, because he was my first”, John
1,15.
This title is taken from Ps 118,26: “Blessed be
he that cometh in the name of the Lord”. Now
this Psalm was used at the celebration of
Tabernacles in the temple court. “He that
cometh” is the Lord or the Angel of His
presence coming in Glory to his temple in the
cultic epiphany in the sunrise on the 2nd
morning of Tabernacles: “His Glory in the
East… a deliverer is coming to Zion”, Is
59,19f. and Luke 1,78f. Cf. “When he (the
Son of Man) comes in his Glory” Matt 25,31.
“Your King comes to you” Matt 21,5. Cf.
“The true light…was coming to the world”
John 1,9. “As light have I come to the world”,
12,46 & 3,19. (It is exactly during
Tabernacles that Jesus stands forward,
claiming that he is the “Light of the world”
8,12.)
This cultic epiphany, this coming of Christ, in
the early church is seen realized in the
Eucharist with the Maranatha-prayer (“Come
Lord!”) and the quotation from Ps 118:
“Blessed be he that cometh” (Apost. Const.
VII, 26). But also in the coming of the Spirit,
John 14,23: “We will come to him and make
us an abode by him”. Cf. in the Old
Testament the coming of the Lord to take up
his abode on Zion. Certainly this is the
36
Herren kommer, 1962, pp.11f.
background for the expression “coming to the
world” and not the descent of the Gnostic
messenger.
In Mishna Sukkah, ch.V it says about a ceremony
performed at sunrise the 2nd morning of Tabernacles:
“Pious and distinguished men danced before the people
with lighted flambeaux in their hands, and sang hymns
and lauds before them; and the Levites accompanied
them with harps, psalteries, cymbals, and numberless
musical instruments. On the 15 steps which led into the
women's court, corresponding with the fifteen songs of
degrees, stood the Levites, with their musical
instruments, and sang. At the upper gate which leads
down from the court of the Israelites to the court of the
women stood two priests, with trumpets in their hands.
When the cock first crowed they blew a blast, a long
note, and a blast. This they repeated when they reached
the 10th step, and again (the 3rd time) when they got
into the court. They went on, blowing their trumpets as
they went, until they reached the gate that leads out to
the east. When they reached that gate they turned
westward, with their faces towards the Temple, and
said: Our ancestors, who were in this place, turned their
backs on the Temple of the Lord, and their faces
towards the east; for they worshipped the sun towards
the east; but we lift our eyes towards Yah.” (trans.
Jewish Virtual Library). During this ceremony men and
women were kept apart because the mixing had former
resulted in levity. This nightly dance must somehow be
closely related to the wheeling dance described by
Philo in De vit cont. (see below) resulting in the men’s
choir mixing with the womens’s and at sunrise
standing turned to the sun.
In the theophany on the second morning of Tabernacles
God would reconquer cosmic kingship. His coming to
his temple through the primordial “Gates of
Righteousness” (the mythological gate of the sunrise)
as the King of Glory meant judgment and therefore
blessing and curse. This temple-ritual has left many
traces in early Christian literature: Matt 25: Theophany
in Glory with enthronement, v31, judgement, v32-33,
blessing, v34, curse, v41. 1.Cor 15,24: Curse and
Maranatha-prayer. Rev 22,12-15: Theophany, v12-13,
blessing, v14, curse, v15. Cf. 1.Enoch 1,3-5,6:
Theophany with the “light of God”, 1,3+1,8,
judgement, v7+9, blessing, v.8, curse, 5,5-6. A ritual
12
with blessing and curse was celebrated every year by
the Qumran-sect at Pentecost, 1 QS II,1-22. Originally
the coming of God to the navel of the earth meant the
revitalizing of the centre. This is still very easily seen
in Mos. Apoc. 22: Michael blows the trumpet: “Behold
God is coming to Paradise to judge us”, v4. Angels are
singing his praise, v5. By his coming the trees come
into leaf and God is enthroned by the Tree of Life, v6.
The turning of the time and destiny of the
world is the main purpose of the old New
Year’s festival closely followed by Yom
Kippur and Tabernacles. The various
“motives” coming forth from the idea of recreation, which was essential for this festival,
are “fulfilled” in the acts of Jesus. He cleanses
the temple (rebuilt from the hearts of his
disciples) with his blood making it ready for
the theophany, Acts 2. He is the light of the
world, and in him God’s glory is seen. He is
the bridegroom, makes his entrance through
the gate in a procession with lulab, and is the
provider of Living Water. He is the divine
presence37, the King of Glory, coming to take
up his abode among men, in the spiritual
temple of the church: “For the word became
flesh and tabernacled among us”, John 1,14.
“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for
behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst,
declares the Lord”, Zech 2,14. “Glory”
(Hebrew: kabod) and pleroma,“fullness”
(Hebrew melo’,Is 6,3) are the ancient terms
used about the temple theophany, now
realized in Jesus, John 1,14; 17,4. Jesus is
purifying the temple and is himself the new
temple, 2,13ff.
Jörg Frey: “God’s dwelling on earth:’ShekhinaTheology’ in Revelation 21 and in the Gospel of John.”
John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed.
Catrin Williams & Christopher Rowland, 2013, pp.79103.
37
7. Bread of Life, Chalice of Immortality,
Unction from the Tree of Life.
In the novel, ”Joseph and Aseneth”, Joseph is
at first very reluctant towards accepting the
female beauty Aseneth, because it does not
suit “a God-fearing man”, who praises the
“Living God” and “eats the blessed bread of
Life and drinks the blessed chalice of
immortality and anoints himself with the
blessed unction of imperishableness”, to kiss
a heathen woman, 8,5 (in Christoph Burchard
ed., Joseph und Aseneth, 2003). There is
nothing in this novel that could not be
understood on an early Jewish-Christian
background38. The angel visiting Aseneth is
the human icon of God, looking like “a man”,
Ez 1,26-8, with hands and feet looking like
glowing metal, Rev 1,15. He is “in every way
looking like Joseph”, i.e., he is the perfect
heavenly image, a motif quite common in
early Jewish Christianity. (The heavenly twin
of the apostle Judas-Thomas is Christ - and
his look-a-like, acc. to the Acts of Thomas. Cf.
the angelic shepherd coming to Hermas in
The Shepherd of Hermas). The triple blessing
of chalice, bread and unction39 is also known
from the Coptic version of Didache 9. The
tradition about John the Baptist and his
conflict with the Jewish priests, M.
Joseph arrives on the 8th day, 9,5. Aseneth praying in
the posture of adoration well-known from the
catacombs and towards the east, 11,19.
39
After initiation the Ophite Gnostic had to repeat: “I
have been anointed with white unction from the Tree of
Life”, Lidzbarski, p. 5n.3. Aphraates (280?-345) says
obviously in a baptismal context: “the light of
understanding dawned and there sprouted the fruit of
the splendid olive tree, wherein is the sign of the
sacrament of life”, Patrologia Syriaca II, col. 9. Trans.
by E.J. Duncan, Baptism in the Demonstations of
Aphraates, the Persian Sage, 1945, p.110.
38
13
Lidzbarski, Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer,
1915 ch.18-33, belongs acc. to Viggo Schou
Pedersen40 to the oldest layers of the Mandaic
religion41. Acc. to ch. 19, Lidzbarski’s trans.
p.83f. John has been given the garment of
Adam, the “Man” (cf. the anthropos-motif by
”Überlieferungen über Johannes den Taüfer”, in Der
Mandäismus, 1982, ed. Geo Widengren, pp. 206-26.
41
It seems to me that Eric Segelberg comes very close
to the truth when he writes: the Mandaeans adhered to
a Christian-Gnostic group, the Christian elements of
which over the centuries were more and more
dechristianized although the structure of the rites
largely preserved early Christian or Christian-Gnostic
tradition (“Mandaean – Jewish – Christian”, in Eric
Segelberg, Gnostica – Mandaica – Liturgica, 1990,
p.144). There are many points of similarity with the
Gnostic sect, the Naasenes: The mystery of the
heavenly Adam, in Naasene texts called Adamas, in
Mandaean Adakas, Mariamne, by the Mandaeans
called Miryai, and the role of “the Great Jordan” and
“the 7” (planets). But there are also differences: The
Naasene cult of the snake is very far from Mandaean
morals. About the creation of a heavenly body of glory
for the deceased during the masiqta, the mass for the
deceased, it says in the secret scroll The Thousand and
Twelve Questions, ed. E.S. Drower,1960: “The first
Semen was thus glorified, and a force created more
sublime than any of the forces which develop from it,
for it is the marrow of the bone, it is that which was
formed before all (other) mysteries. And then seven
other (mysteries) follow: - bone, flesh, sinews, veins,
skin and hair… Thus was the living maqra (gelatinous
living matter) created in bones.” (transl. by Drower, pp.
232f.). Cf.. from a Naasene text quoted Hippolytos,
V,7,25: “So they say about the semen of the ousia, that
it is the cause of everything coming into existence.”
Semen is “archegóneus” for all things, 7,21. The
Naasene veneration for the phallus has its parallel in
the Mandaean praise to the “male organ” of
macr’anthropos “in its strength and imperial majesty”,
“for it is a great mystery to those…who erect it in
purity” (The Thousand.., p.166).
40
Paul, Rom 5 and 1.Kor 15), a garment also
given by the “First Life” to 3 other prophets
and ch. 26, p. 95 called “clothes of the 8 (the
Gnostic ogdoás)”, “garment of the Life”. He
has to leave his “most lacking house” (his
earthly body of flesh) in the desert. At first
the Jewish high priest Elizar says that he
wants to be baptized with John’s baptism and
“take his Pitha (“Bread of Life”) and drink
his Mambuha (“Water of Life”), and together
with John ascend to the Place of Light”,
ch.18, Lidzbarski, p. 82. John was originally
“in the house of my icon” “without any defect
and flaw”, ch. 24, p. 91.
9. The high god as the giver of Life Juice
The high god in Ugarit is called “El the bull”,
Tr-´il, and his dwelling is “at the source of
the rivers, amid the spring of the two oceans”.
A close parallel to the Ugarit god Tr-´il is the
god Tauriel in Mandaean texts: Mara
dRabbuta creates 444 Skinas to the right and
366 to his left, and over the right side as
watchman, Azazel, and over the left, Taurel
uthra, Ginza, Lidzbarski, p.144,16-27. Like
the Ugaritic El he is closely connected to the
life-giving water and the juice-filled
vegetation, the vine. The black waters of the
underground in the earth are not tasty and
Ptahil, the creator of the material world, tries
every possible means to make it tasteful, but
when Taurel-uthra draws a thin rill of
heavenly water and lets it fall into the water
of this world, the water becomes drinkable,
267,1-4. Cf. ”Tauriel uthra drew down to
earth (those waters) come and come; come
and cease not”, Drower, Canonical
Prayerbook, no. 381, p. 308. Taurel is also
called “the vine resting in Jordan” and seen
by the soul when it leaves the body and starts
14
its ascension, Ginza, p. 326,19. Praised is
“Yushamin who resteth upon the treasures of
waters and upon the mighty wellsprings of
light….” And “Tauriel, the being who resteth
by the pastures of the water. When a fragment
of the little finger of his right hand fell there
was consternation on earth”, Canonical
Prayerbook, no.77, p.86. Yu “of the heavens”
is a Syrian God Jeu/Jw in Ugarit called Yam,
“Sea”. The fragment of the little finger could
be hinting at a myth known from the Ugarit
texts about El being castrated by Baal, and
“something falls to the earth”, Ulf Oldenburg,
The Conflict between El and Ba’al in
Cana’anite Religion, 1969, p.125. But this
understanding of the Ugarit text KTU 1,1 V
line 12 has been heavily criticized, and it is
perhaps safer to say that it is Yam who will be
“attacked in his loins”. God’s dwelling is at
the source of the life-giving river, Ez 47, Zech
14,8: “water of life”, in Dan 7,10 turned into
“a river of fire coming forth from the throne”,
cf. the sea of crystal before God’s throne in
Rev. In 1.En. 71,5f. God’s place as the
coincidentia oppositorum 42 (ice in union with
fire, 1.En 14) is changed into “crystal stones”
surrounded by a circle of fire. The episode
with the dangerous vision of water hinted at
in some texts about the “descent” to the
Merkabah-throne43 is polemic against this
important Judeo- Christian motif, the stream
of life descending from the throne.
9. The bridal chamber
Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion,
Stagbooks,1979, pp. 419-23.
43
Christopher Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion:
The dangerous Vision of Water, 2002 (with another
explanation).
In the Odes of Solomon we find an early
Christ-mysticism as a mysticism of love like
the love of the groom for his bride. Like the
bridal chamber known in Syrian baptismal
theology it is obviously inspired by Canticles
and some motifs from the feast of
Tabernacles. Melito of Sardes addresses the
baptismal candidates as “brides” and
“bridegrooms”. In his Sermons on the
Sacraments Ambrose makes extant use of
Canticles in his explanation of the Holy
Communion (V,7-16: 8 quotations+ 1 in
VI,6). In the 3rd of 4 sermons on baptism by
John Chrysostom from the year 388, in the
sermon held just before baptism, the theme is
“The coming of the Bridegroom”44. Because
the candidates are to receive Christ’s garment
and a crown as the gifts of the Groom, they
are to be “praised even before their entrance
into the bridal chamber” (1st sermon,2). Cf.
the words of John the Baptist John 3,29: “He
who has the bride is groom”. In John 14,23
the terminology of the temple theophany:
“God’s coming” “to dwell among his people”
is framed by a repeated mentioning of love
(18 times in John 14,14-15,17): the unity with
God is the unity of mutual love.
In the Acts of Thomas there is an elaborate
description of the Syrian ”bridal chamber”: It
is called the chamber of “the daughter of
light”, it “breathes forth the odor of balsam
and all spices….and within are myrtles strown
… and garlands of all manner of odorous
flowers…and surrounding her her groomsmen
keep her. …and 12 in number are they that
serve before her…and they look toward the
42
44
Fontes Christiani, Johannes Chrysostomos,
Catecheses Baptismales, Taufkatechesen, I, 1992, p.
226ff.
15
bridegroom, that by the sight of him they may
be enlightened…and shall glorify the Father
of all things, whose light of exultation they
have received, and are enlightened by the
vision of their lord, who’s ambrosian food
they have received”45 (1st act,6-7). The
description is part of a song sung by Thomas
at a wedding at the king’s court and later he is
asked by the king to come and pray for the
newlywed couple. He does so, but when he
has left, and the groom lifts up the curtain of
the bride-chamber he sees Lord Jesus in the
likeness of Thomas speaking with the bride.
Jesus explains that he is not Thomas but his
brother and sitting on the bed he preaches for
them about the true marriage which is to
“enter into the bride-chamber full of
immortality and light.” Both bride and groom
choose to be yoked46 unto a true husband. The
bride is “in great love” with him, and the
groom asks Jesus to “unite me unto thyself”,
for Jesus has shown him “how to seek myself
and know who I was, and who and in what
manner I now am, that I may again become
that which I was” (i.e. his true self, the image
of God, Adam before falling into sin).
This image-symbol is an important part of
early Christianity. Jesus is the heavenly
twin/image of Thomas. In 1.Enoch the “Son
of Man” is the heavenly double of Enoch
(Andrei Orlov, J.C. VanderKam). Adam
before falling was the image of God. Later in
the Acts of Thomas we come across the
“Hymn of the Pearl” where the young prince
when returning to the holy Orient, his
fatherland, is met by his image, in form of a
precious garment, the garment of glory worn
by Adam in Paradise before falling.
10 Jakin and Boaz, “Gate of the Sun of
Justice”.
”A young stag on cleft mountains”, Cant 2,17.
At end of the day “I will go to the Myrrhamountain”, 4,6. At the end of the day the sun
hero goes to the Paradis mountain over which
the sun rises cleaving it into two pillars. The
temple is a microcosmos, and Jakin and Bo´az
forming the eastern gate are an old symbol of
this gate of the sun. Byron E. Shafer says
about the Egyptian temples: “The gateway
was usually a pylon, a pair of high trapezoidal
towers linked at the top by a bridge decorated
with solar images… The pylon represented
the mountain peaks that flanked the eastern
horizon at the mouth of the cavern from
which the sun rose each day.47” Ragnhild
Finnestad has given a vivid description of the
act of “seeing god” at sunrise in an Egyptian
temple dedicated to a solar god (Horus in
Edfu): “The morning ritual revolved around
three key concepts: seeing god, the
appearance of god, and the coming out of
god. Partly overlapping…these concepts
belonged to a religious cosmology in which
sunlight was the divine, vital, creative
element in the world”48.
11. Vision of God in Qumran
Temples of Ancient Egypt, ed. Byron E. Schafer,
1997, p. 5. This motif, the gate of the sun as a symbol
of justice and world-order, is dealt with extensively in
my 2 articles on “Prehistoric religion”,
www.academia.edu and in The Origin of our Belief.
www.erik.langkjer.dk.
48
Finnestad, ibd. pp. 206f.
47
Greek text: Matthias Lipinski, Konkordanz zu den
Thomasakten, 1988, pp. 540f.
46
The word syzygos is not used here but later by the
devil when forced to leave the woman he calls his
fairest syzygos, ch. 46,1.
45
16
Perhaps this vision is mostly experienced as a
liturgical event, as the old ritual theophany
experienced in the sunrise on the second
morning of Tabernacles (but in Qumran
changed into the ritual behind the “Songs of
the Sabbath Sacrifice” and the ritual
culminating at sunrise described by Philo of
Alexandria in De vita cont., “On the
contemplative Life”) the coming of God’s
glory to his temple to be enthroned in the
Holy of Holies to rule on earth as in heaven.
This coming was through “the gate of
justice”, Ps 24: We know that when the light
of the rising sun hit the polished bronzesurface of the Nicanor-gate, no human eye
was able to endure the splendor. Nicanor
means “he who is victorious”, cf. the Syrian
belief in sol invictus.
The praise of God seems to be the ultimate
goal of the Qumran society and in this praise
they join the heavenly singing of the angels49.
Philo gives a vivid description of how a
whole nightly vigil with singing and dancing
culminates in the ecstatic adoration of God in
the sunrise. The ecstatic vision of divine light
is the typical reward for an over-exhausted
mind.
Acc. to Philo this being face to face with
God in the sunrise is vita contemplativa. It is
perhaps a more popular mysticism than the
49
Carol Newsom; The Self as Symbolic Space,
Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran,
2004, p.208: “A sectarian without a voice to praise
would be almost literally unthinkable”. Björn
Frennesson, In Common Rejoicing, Liturgical
Communion with Angels in Qumran,1999. Philip
Alexander, The Mystical Texts, Companion to the
Qumran Scrolls, 2006, stresses that “without praxis no
mysticism”. The praxis was “communal chanting of
numinous hymns in a defined cycle…building up to a
mystical climax” (p.11). The fundamental task of the
Sabbath Shirot was “to exalt God’s glory and proclaim
his kingship” (p.16).
Neo-Pythagorean, Middle-Platonic mysticism
of the day. It is to experience God directly as
“Light and Life”, as recreating and giving life
to cosmos, for each morning is a reflection of
the first morning when God’s light shone
forth in the depths of darkness. Perhaps a
mystic philosopher will not accept this as
visio dei, but the vigils hinted at in the
Psalms, trusting God to “come to the
assistance” of the suffering “when morning
dawns” is continued in early Christian
spirituality: Bar Hebraeus mentions the many
Psalms said as prayers before the rising of the
sun, and in Plinius’ letter to Trajan the singing
of Psalms before sunrise is mentioned, and
even Jesus himself liked to dwell the whole
night in prayer in lonely places. The spiritual
life of the monks at Qumran was carefully
tuned to the rhythm of the sun-light. The
sunrise brought order and life to the sleeping
cosmos, almost sunk in the unconscious state
of death. Night is the time when thieves and
robbers and animals of prey go out, the
sunlight is a symbol of divine justice
spreading the spell of darkness.
Early Christian baptism was at sunrise and
turned towards the west one had to renounce
the devil but was then turned towards the
rising sun when professing the faith in the
triune God. Therefore, the first believers were
called “children of the light”. Baptism is “to
be seized by the light, already shining into
this age and this world from the Day of the
Lord” (Klaus Berger50). Marc 1,35 tells us
that Jesus, early, before the break of day, went
out to be alone and pray. “The Day” is used in
Old Test. about the coming of the Lord and
50
Jesus,2004, p. 578.
17
his justice, the sunrise is an icon of the
coming of the Kingdom, therefore: “Wache
und Bete”51, “be awake and pray”.
Philip Alexander52 has drawn attention to the
cosmological motif in the yearly Renewal of
the Covenant as it is reflected in fragments
preserved from the 4Q Berakoth text. In
4Q287 1-3 with parallels it says: “And they
will bless Your holy name… all creatures of
flesh, all those whom (You) have created …
beasts, birds, reptiles and the fish…” 4Q286 5
1-5 describes how even the inanimate nature,
hills, valleys, forests, rocks, the springs of the
abyss and the waterfalls join in the praise.
Another fragment mentions the priests “and
the holy angels in the midst of all” 4Q289.
A description of the whole cosmos praising
God is, as mentioned by Alexander, also
found in Septuaginta’s addition to the book of
Daniel, the Benedicite, and I could add: In
Rev and in the “New Song” sung by the
temple choir of Levites at the New Year’s
festival, cf. Ps.96 & 9853.
ibd, pp.141; 144; 146.
The Mystical Texts, pp. 61-3.
53
In Rev 4.8ff. and 5,8ff. the singing is inaugurated by
the “Living Beings” saying the Qedushah, then the “24
Elders” sing a ”New Song” and are joined by myriads
of angels, and finally by every creature in heaven and
on earth and in the sea. That the praise is the ritual
manifestation of the Kingdom of God is seen from the
submission 4,10 and 5,14 and 7,11: “fall down in
adoration”, “put down their crowns”. Already Hugo
Odeberg has stressed that the Qedushah is the
“realization of the Kingdom of heaven among the
angelic orders”, 3.Enoch, 1928, pp.186f. The New
Song is the old symbol of the recreation brought about
by God’s coming to be enthroned in his temple, cf. Ps
96, 1+11-13: “Sing to Yhwh a new song, sing to Yhwh
all the earth…Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be
51
52
In is well-known that there is a kind of mystic
vision often named “cosmic consciousness”, a
feeling of being one with nature and the
whole mighty creation surrounding one. In the
temple theology we come across a similar
feeling of joining the whole cosmos in its
glorification of its creator.
That the religious experience for Essenes is
some kind of cosmic consciousness is also
clear from the way Philo describes the
Therapeutae after he has recounted how they
“turned to the east” greet the rising sun,
“drunk” with a sober drunkenness after their
nightly vigil with dancing and singing: they
”have embraced the contemplation of nature
(physis) and the things in it and have lived in
the soul alone, citizens of heaven and earth”,
De cont. vit. 89f. In some texts with a
background in the covenant ritual man is
constantly admonished to contemplate the
great order of nature: “Consider all his works
and observe all the works of the heavens…
glad, let the sea thunder…the fields exult. Let all the
trees of the forest shout for joy, before the face of
Yhwh, for he is coming.” “Fall down before Yhwh in
splendor of holiness, trembling before the face of him”,
v9, describes the submission to the theophany. “Yhwh
has become king…the world is firmly fixed, it will not
shake”: the result of God’s enthronement is that chaos
and instability is done away with, cosmos is “made
firm” (kwn, niphal). This description of nature and the
whole earth singing a New Song to the honor of God at
his theophany is also typical of Is 42,10-16 and 44,23.
(And early Christian liturgy, Const. Apost. VII,35:
“choir of stars… animals… trees…all creatures”.) Cf.
Ps 98,1+4-9: “Sing to Yhwh a new song… shout with
joy to Yhwh all the earth... let the sea… the rivers…
the mountains shout … before the face of Yhwh, for he
comes to judge the earth” (new song, jubilation of the
whole earth and nature, theophany, Yhwh as king, v6).
18
observe the earth and consider its works…
observe the signs of summer…observe that all
trees etc. “, 1.En 2,1ff., cf. the theophany Is
6,3: “the fullness of the earth is his glory”.
“And when they enter the covenant the priests
and the Levites shall bless the God of
salvation and all the works (ma´ashê) of his
truth… ”, 1QS 1,18f. The contemplation of
the great order of nature referred to in 1.En
2,1ff is, as proved by Lars Hartman54, a motif
linked to the New Year’s celebration with its
theophany.
12. A ritual continuity
There are some kind of ritual continuity from
the investiture of the High Priest (with
baptism, Lev 16,4) through the entrance into
“The Order of the Unity” at Qumran to early
Christian baptism with its solemn
renunciation of Satan: “I renounce you,
Satanâ” (Cyril of Jerusalem). Zech 3,2:
“Yahweh said to Satan: Yahweh rebukes
(jig`ar) you Satan”. The same Hebrew word,
ga`ar, is used in the initiation into the
covenant at Qumran: “…with rebuke from
within me, and you have set a pure heart
instead of it, evil inclination (jezer) you have
driven away with rebuke…. (4Q 436 frag. 1
1-2)…to walk on your roads (ibd.) …men of
portent you made sit before me…you have
wiped out, and with the spirit of salvation you
have clothed me” (4Q 438, frag.4). Cf. Zech
3,7: “walk on my road” and 3,4: “I remove
your guilt and clothe you in precious
garments” and 3,8: “your brothers that sit
before you”.
54
Asking for a Meaning, 1979, pp.109ff.
The precious garment of the High Priest is
almost identical with the gem-studded
garment covering the cherub in the Garden of
Eden, Hez 28, and actually the white garment
given to the newly baptized was a symbol of
the glorious garment covering Adam before
the fall55.
Acc. to the research done by Geo
Widengren56 the sacred king or high priest
acted in the ritual frame of the temple service
as Adam, the king of Paradise clothed in his
ephod covered with the precious stones
mentioned in Ez 28. Now Wayne A. Meeks57
has shown how the baptismal candidate in
baptism received “the image of the
androgyne”: primordial man was seen as the
unity of opposites, man and wife, Jew and
Greek, the four corners of the universe. Adam
before the fall had cosmic dimensions58 and
was shining with God’s glory, and this is the
Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy, pp.50.53
“Baptism and Enthronement in some JewishChristian Gnostic Documents”, in The Saviour God,
ed. S.G.F. Brandon, 1963. “Heavenly Enthronement
and Baptism. Studies in Mandaean Baptism”, in
Religions in Antiquity, Essays in Memory of Erwin
Goodenough, ed. Jacob Neusner, 1968. Important are
also Per Beskow, Rex Gloriae, 1962, pp.147-56 and
Frederick Houk Borsch, The Son of Man in Myth and
History,1967, pp.184ff.
57
“The Image of the Androgyne”, History of Religions
13,1974, pp.165-208 (now in Meeks, In search of the
Early Christians, Selected Essays, 2002, pp.3ff.) about
the baptismal symbolism of an androgynous Urmensch,
and the baptismal formula in Gal 3,28; 1.Cor 12,13,
hinting at this mystic symbol of unity of opposites
connected to baptism and the heavenly Adam. Cf. also
Meeks’ important art.: “In one Body: The Unity of
Humankind in Col and Eph.”, in God’s Christ and his
People. Studies in Honour of Nils A. Dahl, ed. Jervell
& Meeks,1977, pp. 209- 221.
58
Adam as microcosmos and the unity of the four
world corners, Christfried Böttrich, Adam als
Mikrokosmos, 1995.
55
56
19
background for the Pauline teaching about the
church as many members and opposites
united in Corpus Christi.
By comparing Jesus with several preachers of
holy war against the Romans mentioned by
Josephus, Per Bilde59 concludes that Jesus has
to be seen as a similar prophet with a similar
intention (but with no use of violence) to
restore God’s people, Israel, before the
immediate arrival of the Kingdom of God
seen as a political entity, a Jewish kingdom,
established by the intervention of God’s
legions of angels. But there are no
preparations for such a chiliastic regime by
Jesus, nor any mentioning of how it is going
to function. When the sons of Zebedee ask for
a seat at his right and left hand in the
Kingdom, he says that it is not for him to give
them such status. Jesus’ sole interest seems to
concentrate on the way the Kingdom was
understood in the cultic frame of Tabernacles.
He focuses very much on the theophany as
the coming to judgment. The temple will be
broken down and a new (spiritual) temple will
be built on the rock, and in a final Yom
Kippur-ceremony cleansed by his blood. The
coming of the Kingdom is fulfilled in healing
the sick, in the vision of God’s Glory (Marc
9,1ff), in celebration of holy wedlock, Matt
9,15; 22,1ff.; 25,1ff., in the entrance of a
humble Savior-King through the gate of the
sunrise. The theophany is fulfilled in the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit with fire and
roaring and the characteristic “filling” (Acts
Hvor original var Jesus? 2011, English title: The
Originality of Jesus, 2013. I consider this book the
work of a very honest and sharp-witted thinker, and I
am fully aware that my few and insufficient remarks
can only be a footnote to the works of this late scholar.
59
2,2; Is 6,1+4; 1.Reg 8,10f.; Ex 40,34f.; Ez
10,3-5)60. God’s mighty deeds being praised
in all kinds of languages (Acts 2,11) is the
cosmic praise, the “New Song”.
Harald Sahlin has proved that Acts 2,1ff. has to be
seen as the continuation of the theophany-scenes in the
Old Testament, “Pingstberättelsens teologiska
Innebörd”, Svensk Teologisk Kvartalsskrift, 1949,
pp.187ff.
60