Analogue 18: The Template of the Three Marys

 ANALOGUE 18

The Template of the Three Marys

There were three named “Miriam” who continuously walked with the Master: his mother, his sister and Magdalene who was called his companion. Thus, Miriam is his mother, his sister, and his mate.

• This Analogue introduces the template of three feminine figure mirroring Wisdom as Sacred Spirit—the divine feminine energy in the mode and metaphor of the three Miriams. 
• There is a complex "physical" matrix of the energies of Sacred Spirit in manifestation, and it can itself be understood as a Trinity of divine revelation on the human plane. 
• This Philippian Trinity is embodied in the beings who were all called Miriam (a common Jewish name in that era), and these three modeled Yeshua's understanding of the work of the divine feminine.  
• He came to know the meaning of this aspect of the divine Reality through the three women in his life—his mother, his sister, and his loving companion or mate—each serendipitously named "Mary". 
• These three women and family members were constantly with Yeshua and assisted his journey, spiritual evolution and human becoming. They were embodied prototypes for the expression of the divine energy of Sacred Spirit—the feminine form and Wisdom energy of God. 
• This introduces us to the divine energy of Sacred Spirit in her modes of mother, sister, and Lover. The first (the mother) is primarily experienced in the early stages of development (infancy and childhood), the second (the sister in childhood and adolescence), and the last, the lover (in adulthood). 
• Mary, then, becomes the symbolic equivalent on earth for the work, activity and ministry of the Sacred Spirit in all of Wisdom’s roles.

COMMENTARY

The Women in Yeshua’s Life

This commentary is a reflection on possibilities. It is also an attempt at a historical reconstruction based on the little that we know of Yeshua’s life and upbringing.. The Gospel text hinted at this subject earlier but now brings it to the forefront as a metaphor for the divine energy and its work under the name Miriam. According to this Gospel, the three Marys of Yeshua’s life becomes a template for the work of the Sacred Spirit in her different modes or guises as the divine feminine principle. This complex metaphor was introduced from Analogue 14 onward as a significant aspect of Yeshua’s own understanding of the mysteries of spiritual becoming. Sacred Spirit has been at work birthing the world as the feminine principle, active with the energies of the Source—and the progeny is the “son”, or sons and daughters, the children begotten from the divine energies as a result of their procreative activities. 

Historically, it seems that Yeshua began to have insight into these principles due in part to his family of origin. Mary (or more correctly, Miriam) his mother and sister, also named Mary, and finally the Mary known as his female companion (in this text called his mate), were all iconic figures playing formative roles in his life at various stages of his spiritual journey and psycho-social maturation. These complex relationships became metaphors for the activity of the Sacred Spirit as the divine feminine principle at work not only in him but also in the entire creation.

Images of the Sacred Spirit

Mary birthed Yeshua and he grew up under the guidance of her mothering presence. With his sister, another form of growth and perhaps playful companionship emerged between infancy and adulthood. We could say that both these Miriams played important roles as nurturers and companions while he made discoveries in his adolescence. They also helped to determine his future relationships. In adulthood, Mary Magdalene enters the picture. From all accounts she was a serious student of Yeshua’s but also became an intimate, even perhaps a lover and spouse. Historically nothing is determinative, but her role in the Oriental Tradition of Christianity sets her in a very positive light: she is described in this Gospel as a loved one and in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene as an advanced follower of his teaching. 

In each case, beyond the obvious historical and personal considerations of the social roles these three women may have played, they became spiritual types and metaphors for the activity of Sacred Spirit as divine feminine principles pointing to an ancient, iconic and transcendent figure known as Lady Wisdom. Under the guise of mother he was birthed and nurtured. Under the guise of sister he knew playful companionship and perhaps adolescent exploration. In the role of lover he found an adult relationship with someone who loved and trusted him and perhaps kept some of the deep secrets of his visionary seeing and mystical experiences. 

Lady Wisdom

What is clear in this Gospel is that from a spiritual point of view, and from the inner determination of his own experience, these three women acted as Sacred Spirit to him—they conveyed the mysterious energies of the divine feminine force as a trinity representing aspects of Lady Wisdom. He came to know and experience these cosmic forces through his own familial and intimate relationships. 

Divine Wisdom appeared and was present in the First Temple built by Solomon. She had a role there and yet later she was banished and then excluded from the Second Temple. In an attempt to rehabilitate this very figure from the early history of Solomon’s Temple, Lady Wisdom (Hokhma and Sophia) was being honored by Jewish seekers in various religious and spiritual communities, though perhaps secretly. The Miriams acted as templates for Yeshua, helping him to understand the very principles of this renewed form of Mysticism. The three showed Yeshua what was meant by the Presence of Lady Wisdom in Temple worship and in his life directly. Personally, the three Miriams also gave him joy, solace, care and, most importantly, their wisdom. Together they were a sapiential manifestation, helping him to clarify who Lady Wisdom was in her ancient roles as expositors of Wisdom and as caretakers of the human family both before earthly history and over the course of time.  

The three Marys also grounded him in the practicalities of this world. They assisted him as he grew up in Palestine and began maturation and learning, though we will perhaps never understand specifically how they played their roles or influenced his deeper mystical experiences. They appear, however, to have been central to all those experiences, ministering and revealing the powers of the Sacred Spirit which had anointed him. This is the crucial point being made in this Gospel.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. What is your historical understanding of each of the three Marys? How would you describe them? 
2. How do you imagine these three women affected and influenced Yeshua in ways that allowed him to understand the wisdom that he was carrying into the world following his anointing by Spirit?
3. Do you have a special relationship with St. Mary, Yeshua’s mother? Are you devoted to her in any way? Do you think of her as the Virgin?
4. How familiar are you with the story of Mary Magdalene? If you have not read the Gospel attributed to her, please read it from the text of The Luminous Gospels (Praxis Publishing 2008). 
5. What would be your reaction to the possibility that Yeshua was married to Mary Magdalene, or at the very least had a romantic relationship with her?
6. Think about the Trinity of the Sacred Spirit as manifestations of the divine feminine principle in three modes. Journal your understanding of these principles based on the three historical female figures. 
7. How does seeing these modes of Sacred Spirit as feminine, not masculine, affect you and your life? 
8. How might the fact of the banishment and exclusion of Divine Wisdom from the second Temple have affected Yeshua’s understanding of who she was and perhaps his mother’s own sense of rejection, as well as that of Mary Magdalene? 

Notes for Reference and further Study

1. Mary, the Mother of Yeshua, has been held in high regard playing an important role as a feminine exemplar of the divine in multiple Christian traditions both East and West. In the Catholic and Orthodox West she is seen as the Virgin Mother, undefiled, and for some, ever-virgin, having never known any sexual relationships. Elevated in this way she has become for many the “Queen of Heaven” represented here on earth. These images of her may be carrying certain aspects of an earlier tradition where the divine feminine was understood to be the central figure in the godhead and perhaps the ground of all existence. In Hebrew tradition she was understood to be the consort of the Source itself, instrumental in humanity’s becoming. Please pay special attention to Proverbs 8-9 where her cosmic role is described in detail. 
2. The Mother of Yeshua was both practically and metaphorically beloved and honored by all traditions in some manner, though their theologies often differed widely. In some Christian traditions Mary has stood as a central figure in the pantheon of the saints, but for many  Protestants her role may have been diminished to simply being a major figure in the narrative Gospels, especially during the Christmas season. 
3. The canonical Gospels name a Mary as the sister of Yeshua (seen by some as a step-sister from a previous marriage of Joseph), but nothing much is said about her though she appears in various scenes during his public ministry. Little is said here in Philip either except to indicate that she was beloved to him and was in some sense an early companion. John’s Gospel names Mary as his sister and in John 19:25 she is a witness to his crucifixion and is called Mary of Clopas, who may have been her husband. Similar references are made in Matthew 27:56 and Mark 15:40. 
4. Mary Magdalene is a complex and enigmatic figure whose life appears to have been filled with tragedy, perhaps both before and after her association with Yeshua. There are legends and narratives of her life in both the western and eastern traditions which differ considerably. One eastern legend tells of her arranged marriage to a merchant in Damascus by her father. As she traveled to the East to be married, she was captured and abused by brigands, later escaping to return home to Palestine a bitter and aggrieved woman. In this telling, she crossed into Palestine at the very moment and place where Yeshua was being baptized and met him there, becoming his student and later his companion, lover and wife. (This story is reported by Stephan Hoeller in several of his texts; see The Mary Magdalene Coverup: The Sources Behind the Myth). In the West, the narratives are equally complicated, sometimes portraying her as an adulterous woman forgiven by Yeshua who then became his student, and in some accounts even bearing his child after his death, founding a lineage of French royalty known as the Merovingian bloodline. It is difficult to assess the veracity of any of these narratives, except to say that they indicate she played a strong role in Yeshua’s life. Perhaps the most powerful insights into her vocation as a singular Apostle are presented in The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (from the Luminous Gospels, Praxis 2008).
5. Lady Wisdom’s place in the First Temple is a subject of great academic interest and debate. Foremost in this exploration is the academic work of Dr. Margaret Barker, a British scholar who has devoted much of her career to this topic. Her arresting conclusion is that the figure of Lady Wisdom was exiled by King Josiah from the Solomon’s temple before it was destroyed by the Babylonians. King Josiah’s so-called reforms centralized Jewish worship in Jerusalem, “cleansing” earlier impurities in order to establish a religion focused not so much in the tradition of the Abrahamic ancestors as in the writings of Moses and the Torah. This is a highly complex topic with much scholarly disagreement about the relative relationships of these histories to the biblical tradition. Margaret Barker, however, makes a compelling case and establishes a clear possibility that many first-century Jews, including Yeshua, championed and practiced a form of worship and spirituality that harkened back to what was lost from the first Temple. This tradition was a living part of Hebrew wisdom and established various forms and movements of theology and narrative different from the establishment tradition in the Judea of Yeshua’s time. It may have been practiced by many Galileans as well, perhaps by some sects of the Essences. For a clearer understanding of this point of view see Dr. Barker’s extensive website and also various of her texts, including Temple Theology (2004) and Temple Mysticism (2011). 

Notes for the Translation

1. Miriam is Maria in the original text.The usual English form of Mary and Maria, the Latin form of the New Testament Greek names Μαριαμ (Mariam) and Μαρια (Maria) - the spellings are interchangeable - which were from Hebrew מִרְיָם (Miryam), a name also borne by the sister of Moses in the Old Testament. The meaning is not known for certain, but there are several theories including "sea of bitterness", "rebelliousness", and "wished for child". However it was most likely originally an Egyptian name, perhaps derived in part from m-r-y "beloved" or m-r "love". To support this, it was the name of Moses' sister in Egypt. 
2. The original word “mate” implies that Yeshua and Miriam of Magdala were deeply bonded in a very significant way.