Encountering
the Galilean
In this short essay I am going to briefly consider aspects of historical “Pagan” views of Jesus and then conclude with a summary of some of my own views as a contemporary devotee of the Craft and initiate of the Western mystery tradition.
It is fairly well known that the term “pagan” is derived from the Latin paganus, which simply means rural, rustic, or “a country dweller.” When Christianity began to be practiced as the state religion of the Roman Empire and Pagan temples were being closed and often plundered and vandalized by zealous Christian monks, it flourished first in the cities. The pagan (rural) areas were places that often lagged behind the cities when social changes occurred. The temples and shrines of the old gods in the countryside often survived a little longer than did their urban counterparts; hence the country-folk were generally devoted to the old gods for longer than the city-folk, though history has shown that the old ways survived in various forms, both in towns and in the countryside.
The shift towards the Christian faith (that was becoming statically systemized into a Catholic “universal” form rather than being an assortment of various cults or “Christianities”) occurred during the reign of the Emperor Constantine I, who ruled from 306–337 ce. Constantine’s nephew Julian, Roman Emperor from 360–363 ce, was raised and trained as a Christian but recanted that faith in favor of Hellenic Paganism and is thus often called Julian the Apostate. Julian was particularly devoted to the god Helios, “the Sovereign Sun”; to the solar divinity Mithras, as was common amongst the Roman military; and to the Mother of the Gods, known by many names. Eclecticism was as much a feature of ancient Paganism as it is of modern Paganism. One of the hallmarks of ancient “Pagan” society in the West, especially in late antiquity, was a tolerance of different ways of being devoted to spiritual experience and service. It is a noble tradition that individuals can serve and have special relationship with a deity or deities that they choose, or that choose them. Connection with the Divine through an aspect of it (a particular goddess, god, or some other symbol) is the basis of reflecting cosmic principles in personal contexts, which is a central aspect of priesthood as well as of initiation.
Julian was the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire. He was politically tolerant of Christianity but opposed its supremacy as a state religion; he hated hypocrisy in Pagan as well as Christian contexts. He attempted, most often unsuccessfully, to re-establish the Pagan temples, shrines, oracles, and cults that had begun to wane. Many view it as one of his weaknesses that he was idealistic philosophically, in his personal views, and that he was interested in mystical philosophic-religious experiences. Julian was a dedicated student of Pagan philosophy, particularly Platonism, and was a practitioner of ritual theurgy in the style of Iamblichus. Julian worshipped the gods of his ancestors while also honoring the One and the Good—the ultimate God who was beyond all knowledge, description, gender attribution, or anthropomorphisation. Many “Pagans” throughout antiquity were much more than nature worshippers. They were pantheistic, and sometimes also animistic monotheists who understood that behind all goddesses was one Goddess, behind all the gods was one God, and beyond all was ultimately only One. Modern Hindus could in no way be called “Pagans,” and their ultimate religious philosophy is very much what has just been described: the One is encountered at first through multiplicity in the phenomenal world. Many of the ancient “Pagans” would have seen worshipping a rock as just as much an act of superstitious idolatry as would a Hebraic monotheist—however, it would be accepted that one could worship the divine through the symbol of a rock.
In 361 ce Julian wrote a satire called The Caesars, in view of traditions surrounding the Kronia or Saturnalia festivities, when it was traditional to mock and invert all authority in jest and the gods permitted “man to make merry.” In the satire several of Julian’s forebears attend a banquet being hosted by Romulus in the netherworld to which several goddesses, gods, and heroes have also been invited. Part of the plot involves each of the assembled Roman Emperors choosing a guardian deity from amongst the gathering of divinities.
Julian depicts Jesus attending the gathering (as a deity) in the company of Pleasure and Incontinence, sported as minor deities. He writes of his uncle, who first began to entertain Christianity as a state religion, though he was not fully converted to that religion until the end of his life:
As for Constantine, he could not discover among the gods the model of his own career, but when he caught sight of Pleasure, who was not far off, he ran to her. She received him tenderly and embraced him, then after dressing him in raiment of many colors and otherwise making him beautiful, she led him away to Incontinence. There too he found Jesus, who had taken up his abode with her and cried aloud to all comers: “He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer, he that is sacrilegious and infamous, let him approach without fear! For with this water will I wash him and will straightway make him clean. And though he should be guilty of those same sins a second time, let him but smite his breast and beat his head and I will make him clean again.” To him Constantine came gladly …
—(Julian, Caes. 336B, trans. Wright)
Here, Jesus—or at least the way in which Jesus was being used by the Church to proffer forgiveness to converts—is criticized. Julian’s Pagan morality had a sense of honor at its heart in which people owned their sins and paid for them themselves. Admission of wrongs and attempted reformation of poor behavior was also held in high esteem amongst Pagans, especially those influenced by Stoicism, Platonism, and the codes of morality communicated in the Mystery cults. All human constructs are imperfect and open to abuse, including the Church. Julian was illustrating the sham of supposed forgiveness and salvation that even hypocrites seemed to be able to enjoy (or buy) through their patronage of the Church and receipt of baptism. Julian’s Against the Galileans is an interesting short argument that encapsulates the anxiety of a Pagan who cared about Pagan heritage being obliterated by the political machinations and sophistry of early state-sponsored Christianity.
Early Christians sought to convert Pagan gentiles as well as Jews, and presented Christ in contexts that would appeal to their sensibilities and theological understandings. The Christ of the New Testament was constructed in narrative symbolic terms that Pagans as well as Jews could understand—this Christ was sometimes defined in Pagan terms and is a composite, in some respects, of other mythological figures. When the Apostle Paul preached in Athens—the only place where he preached and managed to attract only a few followers and failed to found a fledgling church—he appealed to the philosophically inclined Pagan audience to consider a statue to “an unknown god” amongst them. He also used some Pagan poetry, originally referring to Zeus, to introduce Christ to his hearers: “For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:28) Also, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, most probably referring to himself, that: “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows.” (2 Cor: 12:2), he was appealing directly to his readers’ interest in mystical experience—which they would have been familiar with through the initiatory teachings and rituals of the mystery cults and some of the temples. The Gospel of John with its Gnostic overtones and explicit reference to Christ as the logos (John 1:1) meaning “word” (or as Erasmus translated it, “the conversation”) was written to appeal directly to a Pagan audience that was already familiar with such mystical terminologies. There is a great amount of evidence that the Christ who is now so often enshrined in orthodoxy functions equally well in mystical, Pagan, and liberal contexts as a force for good.
A Pagan view of Jesus Christ must ultimately be an individual or personal opinion rather than an institutionally inspired or endorsed one. Contemporary Neopaganism is not a homogenized movement with a central core of creeds or doctrines, though there may be some similarities between individuals and groups that would be happy to term themselves as being “Pagan.” Certainly not everyone in the Craft or amongst the various Druid orders (or in other groups that maintain, practice, and develop various revived mystical spiritualities and traditions) would identify themselves as Pagan. Some Craft folk and Druids happily practice forms of Christianity as well as more ancient mysteries or restored versions of them. Personal connection with the Divine through self-determination and the utilization of various mystical and sometimes arcane disciplines that contribute to individual and collective realizations of truth is of paramount importance in the Mysteries.
Jesus is often identified with other sacrificial (and sometimes solar) divinities, and is thus symbolically relevant and most welcome in some personal, and even communal, rites performed in grove, by stream, or where three ways meet beneath the moon—the White Lady of Dark Night. Equally, many of the Craft and those of other mystical persuasions can worship the Divine as easily in a church as they can outdoors in the temple of nature, a temenos, or an ancient shrine. It is the mindset that counts and the ability to use various sets of symbols as keys within the temple of the self wherever one is bodily present. Christ is a powerful symbol, as in accompanying biblical and ecclesiastical mythology, which was often borrowed from earlier “Pagan” mythologies.
The Christ can be used as a key and evoked powerfully in mystic rites that have roots far older than Christianity. The real essence of Christ is beyond orthodoxy or “systematic theologies,” though it can be encountered within them. Many old churches and Christian works of art display symbols that pertain to the “old religion” and mystical paths of the past such as carvings, concealed artifacts, architectural designs and alignments, north doors that were bricked up for a reason, etc … Many of the Craft could perform worship in their way beneath the noses of bishops and priests without causing any trouble and even being seen as devout—which they were in the context of their own inner illuminism. The Craft is often known as the way of the wise, true Crafters have never been fundamentalist zealots; rather, they are students of the alphabets of the mysteries which spell out the sacred ways in the symbol-structures of the words of many languages. The language of symbolism can lead to reunion with that which is beyond all representation, articulation, or description and this is the reason for the Craft’s Arte; wisdom is the Craft’s heritage.
About the Author
Steve Critchley leads a Craft of the Wise group called Folk i’the Wood which is part of the Servants of the Light School of Occult Science. He is also an SOL supervisor. He was trained and initiated by Patricia C. Crowther in Gardnerian Wicca and led a coven in that tradition for several years before teaching and practicing his own synthesis of Wicca, Traditional English Craft, and folk magic within the SOL under the direction of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki. Steve writes and organizes public workshops as well as teaches privately from mouth to ear and free of charge, as is the traditional way. Visit his site at: www.folkithewood.co.uk.