The Jesus Mysteries
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- Full Title: The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?
- Author: Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
- ISBN 060960581X (Hardcover)
- ISBN 0609807986 (Paperback)
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
The Jesus Mysteries is a book by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy arguing that "the Jesus story was not a biography at all but a consciously crafted vehicle for encoded spiritual teachings by Jewish Gnostics. As in the Pagan Mysteries, initiation into the Inner Mysteries would reveal the myth's allegorical meaning." Their argument rests on parallels between the story of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels and pagan myths.
[edit] Review
When researching the references that are supposed to back up Freke and Gandy's claims, several problems are found. In some cases, Freke and Gandy cite a claim in their main text and endnote it, but the source cited actually supports a different claim which is mentioned in the endnote but not the main text. In other cases, the source itself is misleading, sometimes because it is ambiguous, sometimes because it is unevenly reliable, and sometimes because the source is simply wrong. In still other cases, the source will even be misquoted. There are even claims which are bald assertions backed up by no sources at all, though this is disguised by surrounding them with claims for which sources are given. Often, these problems even appear in combination. The problems go beyond sourcing issues; Freke and Gandy also grossly misinterpret evidence.
Some examples should show that Freke and Gandy's work should not be trusted.
[edit] Claims of pagan virgin births
On page 29 of their book, Freke and Gandy write,
- Like Jesus, in many of his myths the Pagan godman is born of a mortal virgin mother.14 In Asia Minor, Attis' mother is the virgin Cybele. In Syria, Adonis' virgin mother is called Myrrh. In Alexandria, Aion is born of the virgin Kore.15 In Greece, Dionysus is born of a mortal virgin Semele, who wishes to see Zeus in all his glory and is mysteriously impregnated by one of his bolts of lightening.16
The superscripts in the above quote are the endnote numbers, preserved as they are in the text of The Jesus Mysteries. Endnote 14 reads,
- Lane, E. N. (1996), 40. Cybele the virgin goddess was known as Mater Deum, the Mother of God. In the fourth century Mary took over this title.
"Lane, E. N. (1996), 40" is page 40 of the book Cybele, Attis, and Related Cults, a collection of essays edited by Eugene N. Lane. The essay cited discussed the rivalry between Christianity and the cult of Cybele and Attis, and the relevant passage reads,
- Beyond Attis himself, Cybele too offered a challenge to Christian divine nomenclature. Cybele was regarded as a virgin goddess and as such could be seen as a rival to the Virgin Mary. By the fourth century the title Mother of God, theotokos, was commonly given to Mary by Christians; Cybele as the mother of the Gods, mater Deum, here again presented a starkly pagan parallel to the Christian Mother of God.
Here the source, for the most part, corroborates the content of the endnote, but not the claim actually made in the main text, which is that Attis is an example of a pagan godman is born of a mortal virgin mother. Nowhere does the essay say that Cybele was mortal or that she was the mother specifically of Attis. The endnote functions as a distraction to hide that the source is a non sequitur.
There are a couple other problems, which Freke and Gandy do not deal with. First, the core relationship between Cybele and Attis is not mother and son, but dramatic love. As Vermaseren puts it in his book Cybele and Attis: the myth and the cult,
- The common thread that runs through the various stories is that of Dramatic Love. Sometimes the shepherd boy is the son of the Mountain deity, sometimes merely her lover, sometimes he is of royal descent, and then again a simple herdsmen. Many fairy-tale motifs, such as the miraculous rebirth itself, the rescue of the foundling and the recognition, have been used, interlocked and interwoven. There exists even a version in which Cybele herself is abandoned as a foundling. But the ever-recurring theme is that of Cybele's vengeance, when Attis meets another woman [emphasis added] (p. 92).
Often, Attis castrates himself to prevent further infidelity and dies from his wounds, but this varies, depending on the particular myth.
What is interesting to note is that a proclamation that a goddess is a "virgin" does not mean the myths necessarily reflect that virginity. In the myths, Cybele is clearly Attis' lover, and in one version of the myth, she is even pregnant with his child (Vermaseren, p. 92). Indeed, in the fourth century, Julian does hail Cybele as the "virgin, without mother" (parthenos ametor or παρθενος αμητωρ) in section 166b of his Hymn to the Mother of the Gods. He then, however, has to reinterpret the myths to make them consistent with her being virgin, going out of his way to describe her love for Attis as being "without passion" and interpreting Attis' castration allegorically. Freke and Gandy, however, appear give far more weight to Cybele being entitled "virgin" than the myths would grant.
Second, Freke and Gandy use their source selectively without informing the reader. The essay in question describes several superficial parallels between the cult of Cybele and Christianity, only to say later, "The exact relationship between the two groups is highly problematic. One strand in the history of religion has sought to see Christian ritual as simply a variation on the theme of pagan mystery cults ... Such a view becomes untenable when examined closely" (p. 40). As the essay goes on, its line of argument undercuts Freke and Gandy's thesis, pointing out that the significant parallels between the cult of Cybele and Christianity were late features of the cult that came well after Christianity started.
There is even a subtle misquote in the endnote. The essay calls Cybele "mother of the Gods," and it is Freke and Gandy, not the essay writer, who calls her "Mother of God."
Freke and Gandy give no citation to support the claim that "In Syria, Adonis' virgin mother is called Myrrh." Their claim is even contradicted in book 10 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Adonis was the offspring of Myrrha's incestuous union with her father [1] (See also [2] for a summary).
Endnote 15, supporting the claim "In Alexandria, Aion is born of the virgin Kore," says "See The Hermetica (Stobaeus fr. 23), where Isis is hailed as Kore Kosmu, the Virgin of the World." This is not particularly relevant to the point, as there is nothing in the text of this part of the Hermetica, The Virgin of the World, about the birth of Aion. Isis here is also no mortal. This is another example of a source that is a non sequitur to the claim being made.
That said, on page 33 of The Jesus Mysteries, Freke and Gandy do discuss that Epiphanius, who lived in the fourth century, writes of a feast in Alexandria where an image of a god carved in wood was brought out of an underground sanctuary and "marked with 'the sign of the cross on hands, knees, and head.' The highlight of this Mystery celebration was the announcement: 'Today at this hour the virgin Kore has given birth to Aion.'" There are a few problems with this, however. First, they do not mention that this report dates from the fourth century. Second, there is some subtle misquoting, which can be shown by comparing their translation with the translation of Epiphanius' Panarion by Philip R. Amidon:
- ... in Alexandria they hold the festival in what is called the Coreum, which is a great temple, namely the sacred precinct of Core. They stay awake the whole night singing hymns to the idol to the accompaniment of flutes. They keep it up the entire night, and after cockcrow torchbearers descend into an underground shrine and bring up a wooden statue seated naked <on> a litter, having a seal of a cross inlaid with gold upon the forehead, and two other such seals on both hands, as well as another two upon the two knees themselves, making altogether five seals impressed with gold. They carry the statue in a circle seven times around the very center of the temple to the accompaniment of flutes, kettle-drums, and hymns, and thus reveling carry it back down to the place underground. Asked what the rite means, they say: Today at this hour Core (meaning the virgin) engendered Aeon. (Panarion 51.22.9-10)
Freke and Gandy's translation hides that it is Epiphanius who describes Core (or Kore) as "the virgin." Also, the phrasing "the sign of the cross on hands, knees, and head" is misleading, since it implies one cross being drawn over the whole image and suggests a crucifixion, rather than five smaller gold marks whose meaning is more ambiguous. The misleading phrasing, however, is directly from Joseph Campbell's Occidental Mythology (p. 339), and cannot necessarily be blamed on them.
What is more critical, though, is that there is no taking into account of Epiphanius' reliability, which is uneven. As the translator of the text noted in his foreword, Epiphanius' "chapters are of unequal value to the student of history or theology; some of them repeat baseless legends or gossip, others offer material from unknown sources or uncertain reliability, while still other contain precious documents preserved nowhere else or Epiphanius's recollections of his own encounters, conversations, and arguments of other figures of note." The rough outline of the ritual is probably correct, as is the mention of the meaning of the rite as "Today at this hour Core engendered Aeon," but Epiphanius is not likely to be in the temple to see these rites himself, so he is probably at best receiving his information second-hand and could easily be misinterpreting it or passing along another's misinterpretation. For example, the Greek word kore (κορη) can mean "virgin," but it is also the feminine form of koros (κορος), which means boy, lad, or stripling, and so kore also means "girl," "daughter," or even "newly-married woman." It also is a name for the goddess Persephone, in which case it means "the Daughter" as in "the Daughter of Demeter" (The Classic Greek Dictionary by George Richer Berry, 1962). It is easily possible that the "Kore" mentioned in the rites is either Persephone or another goddess identified with her, rather than a genuine reference to a virgin per se. Freke and Gandy give no discussions about what is the actual content and meaning of the ritual versus Epiphanius' interpretation.
Again, there is no hint here that either Kore is mortal, or that Aion is a god-man rather than a god, so even if it were granted that Epiphanius was correct in glossing "Kore" as "virgin", it is questionable to say that Aion was a pagan god-man born of the mortal mother Kore.
The claim that "Dionysus is born of a mortal virgin Semele" is arguable since the birth stories of Dionysus vary. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Semele is simply said to be Zeus' lover [3]. Much more problematic is the endnote that goes with this claim. Endnote 16 reads,
- Campbell, J. (1964), 26. The mythologist Joseph Campbell writes of similarities between the birth of Jesus and the Orphic myth of the miraculous birth of Dionysus, "While the maiden goddess sat there, peacefully weaving a mantle on which there was to be a representation of the universe, her mother contrived that Zeus should learn of her presence; he approached her in the form of an immense snake. And the virgin conceived the ever-dying, ever-living god of bread and wine, Dionysus, who was born and nurtured in that cave, torn to death as a babe and resurrected....
This is from Joseph Campbell's book Occidental Mythology (and the quote may be on page 27, rather than 26, depending on the printing). One might conclude that the above was a reference to Semele, since Freke and Gandy mention no other mother of Dionysus. However, in another mythology—which Freke and Gandy do not mention— Dionysus, called Zagreus, is born of the union of Persephone and Zeus, who takes the form of a serpent. The Titans tear Zagreus apart, but Zeus recovers his heart, forms it into a potion, and makes Semele pregnant with Dionysus, who is Zagreus reborn [4]. It is this myth to which Joseph Campbell refers; the "maiden goddess" is Persephone, not Semele. In Occidental Mythology, he writes,
- For have we not already seen the serpent Zeus Meilichios? And was it not in such a form that Zeus had intercourse with his daughter Persephone when the earth-goddess Demeter, of whom she had been born, left her in a cave in Crete, guarded by the two serpents normally harnessed to her chariot?
- The reader recalls, perhaps, the Orphic legend cited in Primitive Mythology, of how, while the maiden goddess sat there peacefully weaving a mantle of wool on which there was to be a representation of the universe, her mother contrived that Zeus should learn of her presence; he approached her in the form of an immense snake. And the virgin conceived the ever-dying, ever-living god of bread and wine, Dionysus, who was born and nurtured in that cave, torn to death as a babe and resurrected.
Interestingly enough, both Campbell and Freke & Gandy are misleading. Campbell's choice of language certainly implies a parallel with the Christian account of the virgin birth of Jesus, yet in the above passage, it is misleading to describe Persephone as a "virgin" since she had intercourse with Zeus. Freke and Gandy mislead in implying that Campbell was referring to Semele rather than Persephone.
Freke and Gandy attempt to argue that there is an archetypal myth of a pagan godman born of a mortal virgin mother, yet not only is their evidence is at best ambiguous, but most of the sources that they cite simply do not back up their claims, and other sources contradict them altogether.
[edit] Cross and crucifixion
Freke and Gandy try to argue that that Dionysus was crucified, and they begin their actual argument on page 51, where they write,
- In some myths it is Dionysus' adversary, representing the initiate's lower self, who dies the godman's death in his stead. In The Bacchae, King Pentheus sets out to kill Dionysus, but is himself lifted up on a tree.209 In a similar Sicilian myth, Dionysus' adversary King Lycurgus is crucified.210 This suggests that while in some Mystery traditions Dionysus is hung on a tree, in others his fate was crucifixion.
Again, the superscripts in the above quote are the endnote numbers, preserved as they are in the text of The Jesus Mysteries. At this point, they have yet to attempt to provide support that there were traditions where Dionysus was crucified. That comes in later paragraphs. Here they misrepresent the traditions of Pentheus and Lycurgus. These kings did not die in Dionysus' stead, but were punished by him for refusing his cult. Freke and Gandy completely misrepresent the tradition of Pentheus. Their language describing him as being "lifted up on a tree" is obviously meant to echo Jesus being described as being hung on a tree, but this is what is described in the play The Bacchae by Euripedes, where a messenger reports,
- And then I saw the stranger perform a marvelous deed. For seizing hold of the lofty top-most branch of the pine tree, he pulled it down, pulled it, pulled it to the dark earth. It was bent just as a bow or a curved wheel, when it is marked out by a compass, describes a circular course: in this way the stranger drew the mountain bough with his hands and bent it to the earth, doing no mortal's deed. He sat Pentheus down on the pine branch, and let it go upright through his hands steadily, taking care not to shake him off. The pine stood firmly upright into the sky, with my master seated on its back. He was seen by the Maenads more than he saw them, for sitting on high he was all but apparent, and the stranger was no longer anywhere to be seen, when a voice, Dionysus as I guess, cried out from the air: "Young women, I bring the one who has made you and me and my rites a laughing-stock. Now punish him!" And as he said this a light of holy fire was placed between heaven and earth. [5]
King Pentheus had gone to spy on the rituals of the Maenads, dressed as a Maenad himself [6] and guided to where they were by Dionysus, who takes the form of a stranger. When he encountered the Maenads, he was give the treatment described in the above quote, and then the Maenads uprooted the tree and caused it to fall and tore Pentheus limb from limb (Bacchae 1043ff.).
Weak support for Pentheus being identified with Dionysus comes from endnote 209,
- Burkert, W. (1985), 165, notes that Pentheus is dressed like Dionysus before his death, which is then carried out in exact imitation of the fate usually inflicted on the god himself.
Walter Burkert, in his book Greek Religion, does indeed remark, "It is particularly uncanny to see how Pentheus, already lost, arrays himself in Dionysian attire with the long, womanly robe, the very image of the effeminate Dionysos himself." He does not, however, discuss the significance of this, or even go on to say that this means that he dies in Dionysus' place.
That "King Lycurgus is crucified" is indeed supported by endnote 210. Although the more common myth was that Lycurgus was drawn and quartered by his own people, the Thracians, after Dionysus cursed the land of Thrace as punishment for his opposition [7], Diodorus of Sicily, in Bibliotheca Historia 3.65, writes that Lycurgus sent soldiers to attack Dionysus, and then Dionysus countered by conquering the Thracians in battle and then putting out Lycurgus' eyes and crucifying him. Again, however, Lycurgus does not die in Dionysus' stead. Further, it is a mistake to see crucifixion here as pre-Christian content; here crucifixion is used in the usual way as a humiliating and dishonorable execution.
On the next page, 52, Freke and Gandy attempt to offer more direct evidence that Dionysus was crucified.
- It seems incredible that Osiris-Dionysus could have been portrayed as meeting the exact same death as Jesus, but this is what the evidence suggests. The Church father Arnobius is scandalized that in the Mysteries of Dionysus initiates passed around a holy cross.215 On some vase representations the idol of Dionysus is shown hanging from a cross.216 A sarcophagus of the second and third centuries C.E. from Rome pictures an aged disciple bringing the divine child a large cross.217 One modern scholar describes this cross as "an intimation of the child's ultimately tragic fate"218
(As previously, superscripts in the above quote are the endnote numbers, preserved as they are in the text of The Jesus Mysteries.)
Endnote 215 reads, "Arnobius, Against the Gentiles, 2.344, quoted in Dunlap, S. F. (1866), 106...." In vain, however, will one find Against the Gentiles 2.344. Here, Freke and Gandy misquote their source, Sod: The Mysteries of Adoni by S. F. Dunlap, which reads, "Arnobius is scandalized at the Golden Serpent, and the 'handled Cross' in the Mysteries of Bacchus at Alimunt in the Athenian territory.—Arnob. adv. Gentes; Nork, Bibl. Mythol., II. 344; see Spirit-Hist., 190. [emphasis original]" Now there are two ways in which Freke and Gandy misquote their source. First, their source is not clearly describing initiates of Dionysus passing around a holy cross. Second, the reference "II. 344" is not of Arnobius' work Against the Gentiles (or Adversus Gentes in the Latin) but of the book abbreviated as Bibl. Mythol. This becomes clear from the Preface of Sod: The Mysteries of Adoni, which on page v. reads, "Besides giving the reference from which an extract has been taken, we have usually added other interesting references; connecting them by semi-colons immediately after the first authority [emphasis original]." It turns out, too, that this source is itself unreliable. This is what Arnobius really had to say about the mysteries at Alimunt:
- I confess that I have long been hesitating, looking on every side, shuffling, doubling Tellene perplexities; while I am ashamed to mention those Alimontian mysteries in which Greece erects phalli in honour of father Bacchus, and the whole district is covered with images of men's fascina. The meaning of this is obscure perhaps, and it is asked why it is done. Whoever is ignorant of this, let him learn, and, wondering at what is so important, ever keep it with reverent care in a pure heart. While Liber [a.k.a. Dionysus], born at Nysa, and son of Semele, was still among men, the story goes, he wished to become acquainted with the shades below, and to inquire into what went on in Tartarus; but this wish was hindered by some difficulties, because, from ignorance of the route, he did not know by what way to go and proceed. One Prosumnus starts up, a base lover of the god, and a fellow too prone to wicked lusts, who promises to point out the gate of Dis, and the approaches to Acheron, if the god will gratify him, and suffer uxorias voluptates ex se carpi. The god, without reluctance, swears to put himself in his power and at his disposal, but only immediately on his return from the lower regions, having obtained his wish and desire. Prostmmus politely tells him the way, and sets him on the very threshold of the lower regions. In the meantime, while Liber is inspecting and examining carefully Styx, Cerberus, the Furies, and all other things, the informer passed from the number of the living, and was buried according to the manner of men. Evius comes up froth the lower regions, and learns that his guide is dead. But that he might fulfil his promise, and free himself from the obligation of his oath, he goes to the place of the funeral, and -"ficorum ex arbore ramum validissimum praesecans dolat, runcinat, levigat et humani speciem fabricatur in penis, figit super aggerem tumuli, et postica ex parte nudatus accedit, subsidit, insidit. Lascivia deinde surientis assumptâ, huc atque illuc clunes torquet et meditatur ab ligno pati quod jamdudum in veritate promiserat." Adversus Gentes, 5.28
This is the only place in Adversus Gentes where the mysteries at Alimunt are mentioned.
Their claim "On some vase representations the idol of Dionysus is shown hanging from a cross" is not supported by endnote 216, which refers to page 240 of Walter Burkert's book Greek Religion.
- [The Lenaia Vases] show women drawing wine, drinking, and dancing before the most primitive Dionysos idol imaginable: a bearded mask—or two masks facing opposite directions—hung on a column. A cloth is wound about the column to indicate the body, and is occasionally held by a cross-bar like a scarecrow; arms and legs are not even hinted at.
This is clearly not a depiction of Dionysus being crucified.
Technically, Freke and Gandy are fairly close to correct when they write, "A sarcophagus of the second and third centuries C.E. from Rome pictures an aged disciple bringing the divine child a large cross." The aged man is more likely a silenus than a disciple. More problematic is the meaning of this "cross." Their source, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life by C. Kerenyi, writes on page 378, "He is bringing the child the mysterious cruciform structure that was carried about in Athens at the feast of the Anthesteria, an intimation of Dionysos' impending stay in the underworld, during which time the mask and garment on the structure will represent the god." Kerynyi has a footnote to this where he points out that another scholar, Erika Simon, describes it as a "staff adorned with a large bow." (This is from a German article "Dionysischer Sarkophag in Princeton," Römische Mitteilungen, LXIX, 1962, p. 145.) Kerynyi himself understands the "mysterious cruciform structure" to be the wooden understructure of the idol that Burkert described above. Nowhere does Kerynyi suggest that Dionysus is hung or nailed from it. The "impending stay in the underworld" is not at all an aftermath of a crucifixion, but rather what Arnobius described in the above quote. Kerynyi (pp. 180-181, 292) is referring to the myth where Dionysus enters the underworld not by dying, but rather via a gate within the Lake of Lerna. He then comes back through that same gate, and in many myths comes back with his mother Semele, who he rescues from the dead. It is also worth noting that the meaning of this "mysterious cruciform structure" is Kerynyi's own speculation, and apparently one not shared by the scholar cited in his footnote.
Freke and Gandy's evidence for the crucifixion of Dionysus is tenuous at best, and they present it in a misleading fashion.
[edit] Conclusions
"Internet Infidel" Richard Carrier wrote of Kersey Graves' book The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, "All this is not to say Graves didn't have some things right. But you will never be able to tell what he has right from what he has wrong without totally redoing all his research and beyond, which makes him utterly useless to historians as a source. [8]" A very similar thing can be said for the book The Jesus Mysteries. Their repeated misuse of sources makes them so unreliable that one would have to look up their references just to make sure that they didn't misrepresent them. This makes them useless as an authority. In addition, following up on their sources often yields evidence that undermines their thesis. The Jesus Mysteries is an all too good example of pseudohistory.
[edit] References
- Sod: The Mysteries of Adoni by S. F. Dunlap.
- The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.
- The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and his Mysteries by Manfred Clauss.
- The Seven Books Against the Heathen by Arnobius [9].
- The Works of the Emperor Julian, volume 1, from the Loeb Classical Library, translated by Wilmer Cave Wright, 1930.
Review by jjramsey.
