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The Esoteric Gospel of Matthew 12:22-30
Jun. 15th, 2022 08:25 amThe Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 12, Verses 22-30 reads:
A Time of Devils
This passage concerns exorcism, so it's worth taking a moment to make an observation: In Jesus's time, exorcism was extremely common, and evil spirits seemed to be everywhere. It's popular in contemporary thinking to view the triumph of Christianity over the pagan religions of the late Classical period-- and, later, over other pagan religions through the Middle Ages-- as simply an act of violence, or cultural imperialism, or genocide. And to be fair, there was a fair bit of that. But the truth is that one of the single most important reasons for Christianity's success was its effectiveness as a system of practical magic and spirituality. And in a time like that of late Classical antiquity-- that is to say, a time burdened by demons-- that very much meant its effectiveness at performing exorcisms.
Now, that said, there is another issue that this section immediately raises:
Can Satan Cast Out Satan?
Here are our old friends the Pharisees again. They see Jesus healing the people, which they cannot or will not do; they see him cast out demons, which they are unable or unwilling to do. And what is their claim? It is by the power of the Devil Himself that he casts the demons out!
Jesus very quickly and very characteristically tears apart this bit of idiocy. He gives us a parable, an image on which to think, which contains a straightforward bit of practical wisdom.
You see, it is possible to know whether he is casting out demons by the power of the Devil. You don't have to guess or wonder; you can put it to the test, and the test is this:
Is the soul healed?
If so, it is not and cannot be the work of evil spirits. God is One; God is Absolute Unity. The coming of the Kingdom of God is the healing of division, especially that division within the soul that is caused by the Devil-- his name, diabolos, literally means the divider.
Now, the implications of this should be obvious, though many Christians have gone out of their way to avoid noticing them for the past, oh, one thousand nine-hundred eighty-nine years or so.
God Heals
Any spiritual path which heals the soul and brings it toward unity with the Divine, regardless of the particular Names and Images by which it invokes the Divine, necessarily and by definition is Divine and is the work of God. It's not that names and images don't matter-- they do matter, a great deal. But it is the case that whether a particular spiritual path is the work of God or the Devil is very easy to determine. Simply look at the behavior of those who follow it. If they act like they are possessed by devils, it is the work of the Devil; if they act like saints, it is the work of God; if a particular path heals the souls of those who are afflicted by demons, then it is and can only be the work of God.
And this is absolutely critical for our own time, because we, like Jesus himself, live in a time and a place in which the demonic is rampant. Here are two pieces of evidence for that claim. First, the number of drug and alcohol related deaths in the United States per year is between 180,000 and 250,000. Addiction has a physical aspect, but its cause is spiritual in nature, as anyone who has ever worked with recovering addicts can tell you The cure for addiction is a life dedicated to an appropriate spiritual practice, which is one of the ways you can tell it is a spiritual illness, because spiritual solutions don't typically help purely physical problems; it's far easier to pray your way out of alcoholism than colon cancer (though the latter does happen, of course).
The second piece of evidence is simply that exorcisms and requests for exorcisms are at record highs.
And, what is more, we also live in a time and place where our traditional religions-- while still very effective for many, have also failed many, and become actively harmful. Please don't misunderstand: I write and share the traditional practices of Roman Catholicism, my birth religion, because I believe in and have seen their power and their efficacy, and I want to get them into the hands of as many people as possible. But there are people out there, good people, who simply cannot read the posts I do on Christian magical practice or the Bible itself. It's not because they consciously reject God-- it's because they've suffered such severe abuse by clergy or zealous parents or others acting in the name of the Church and of Jesus that even to encounter these words produces PTSD symptoms.
And this sort of thing isn't new, either.
The Fall of the Gods
Publius Ovidius Naso-- known today as Ovid in English speaking countries-- was a contemporary of Jesus who died while the latter was a teenager. Ovid is today remembered as one of the great poets of Roman antiquity, and justly so. His greatest and most ambitious work is the Metamorphoses, which re-tells a great many Classical myths in what was then the contemporary style.
Here's the thing about the Metamorphoses which interests me right now: In it, the Gods appear as absolute monsters. If you read earlier works of mythology, like the works of Homer or Hesiod, or the Homeric hymns or the Orphic hymns, the Gods can be very difficult, to be sure; they're sometimes petty, sometimes jealous, sometimes tyrannical. But there is always a sense of majesty and grandeur that accompanies their actions, and always a sense-- this is critical-- that what seems capricious or arbitrary to mortals is driven by a higher moral law. That higher law is sometimes harsh, by our standards; it can sometimes be understood only by a great effort of the mind, and sometimes not at all. The fact that it can be hard to understand the goodness of the Gods is one of the reasons that Plato suggested in the Republic that the traditional poets, with their episodes of Divine cruelty or deception, should not be read at all, except in very special, ritualized circumstances. But the goodness was there, even when hard to see.
Not so in Ovid. In the Metamorphoses, the Gods are spiteful, petty, jealous horrors. In such a situation, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to worship the Gods, and it is very easy to see how people would turn en masse to a system which offered them liberation from the spiritual tyranny to which they were subjected.
Can we not see the same pattern in our own time? Isn't it very easy for us now to look at great Mysteries like the Fall from Paradise or Noah's Flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and simply see the petty cruelty of a cosmic tyrant? How easy is it for us to look at the episodes of seeming cruelty in the Bible, set them alongside the behavior of the contemporary Church, and see the same kind of spiritual tyranny that people like Ovid lived under? Are we not awaiting the coming of a new savior, who will be to us as Jesus was to the pagan world? I think so. But it is my hope that the best in Christianity will survive, and survived in a more intact fashion than ancient Paganism did. That is a major part of the reason that I'm doing this work here.
22 Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.
23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?
24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.
28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.
29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
A Time of Devils
This passage concerns exorcism, so it's worth taking a moment to make an observation: In Jesus's time, exorcism was extremely common, and evil spirits seemed to be everywhere. It's popular in contemporary thinking to view the triumph of Christianity over the pagan religions of the late Classical period-- and, later, over other pagan religions through the Middle Ages-- as simply an act of violence, or cultural imperialism, or genocide. And to be fair, there was a fair bit of that. But the truth is that one of the single most important reasons for Christianity's success was its effectiveness as a system of practical magic and spirituality. And in a time like that of late Classical antiquity-- that is to say, a time burdened by demons-- that very much meant its effectiveness at performing exorcisms.
Now, that said, there is another issue that this section immediately raises:
Can Satan Cast Out Satan?
Here are our old friends the Pharisees again. They see Jesus healing the people, which they cannot or will not do; they see him cast out demons, which they are unable or unwilling to do. And what is their claim? It is by the power of the Devil Himself that he casts the demons out!
Jesus very quickly and very characteristically tears apart this bit of idiocy. He gives us a parable, an image on which to think, which contains a straightforward bit of practical wisdom.
You see, it is possible to know whether he is casting out demons by the power of the Devil. You don't have to guess or wonder; you can put it to the test, and the test is this:
Is the soul healed?
If so, it is not and cannot be the work of evil spirits. God is One; God is Absolute Unity. The coming of the Kingdom of God is the healing of division, especially that division within the soul that is caused by the Devil-- his name, diabolos, literally means the divider.
Now, the implications of this should be obvious, though many Christians have gone out of their way to avoid noticing them for the past, oh, one thousand nine-hundred eighty-nine years or so.
God Heals
Any spiritual path which heals the soul and brings it toward unity with the Divine, regardless of the particular Names and Images by which it invokes the Divine, necessarily and by definition is Divine and is the work of God. It's not that names and images don't matter-- they do matter, a great deal. But it is the case that whether a particular spiritual path is the work of God or the Devil is very easy to determine. Simply look at the behavior of those who follow it. If they act like they are possessed by devils, it is the work of the Devil; if they act like saints, it is the work of God; if a particular path heals the souls of those who are afflicted by demons, then it is and can only be the work of God.
And this is absolutely critical for our own time, because we, like Jesus himself, live in a time and a place in which the demonic is rampant. Here are two pieces of evidence for that claim. First, the number of drug and alcohol related deaths in the United States per year is between 180,000 and 250,000. Addiction has a physical aspect, but its cause is spiritual in nature, as anyone who has ever worked with recovering addicts can tell you The cure for addiction is a life dedicated to an appropriate spiritual practice, which is one of the ways you can tell it is a spiritual illness, because spiritual solutions don't typically help purely physical problems; it's far easier to pray your way out of alcoholism than colon cancer (though the latter does happen, of course).
The second piece of evidence is simply that exorcisms and requests for exorcisms are at record highs.
And, what is more, we also live in a time and place where our traditional religions-- while still very effective for many, have also failed many, and become actively harmful. Please don't misunderstand: I write and share the traditional practices of Roman Catholicism, my birth religion, because I believe in and have seen their power and their efficacy, and I want to get them into the hands of as many people as possible. But there are people out there, good people, who simply cannot read the posts I do on Christian magical practice or the Bible itself. It's not because they consciously reject God-- it's because they've suffered such severe abuse by clergy or zealous parents or others acting in the name of the Church and of Jesus that even to encounter these words produces PTSD symptoms.
And this sort of thing isn't new, either.
The Fall of the Gods
Publius Ovidius Naso-- known today as Ovid in English speaking countries-- was a contemporary of Jesus who died while the latter was a teenager. Ovid is today remembered as one of the great poets of Roman antiquity, and justly so. His greatest and most ambitious work is the Metamorphoses, which re-tells a great many Classical myths in what was then the contemporary style.
Here's the thing about the Metamorphoses which interests me right now: In it, the Gods appear as absolute monsters. If you read earlier works of mythology, like the works of Homer or Hesiod, or the Homeric hymns or the Orphic hymns, the Gods can be very difficult, to be sure; they're sometimes petty, sometimes jealous, sometimes tyrannical. But there is always a sense of majesty and grandeur that accompanies their actions, and always a sense-- this is critical-- that what seems capricious or arbitrary to mortals is driven by a higher moral law. That higher law is sometimes harsh, by our standards; it can sometimes be understood only by a great effort of the mind, and sometimes not at all. The fact that it can be hard to understand the goodness of the Gods is one of the reasons that Plato suggested in the Republic that the traditional poets, with their episodes of Divine cruelty or deception, should not be read at all, except in very special, ritualized circumstances. But the goodness was there, even when hard to see.
Not so in Ovid. In the Metamorphoses, the Gods are spiteful, petty, jealous horrors. In such a situation, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to worship the Gods, and it is very easy to see how people would turn en masse to a system which offered them liberation from the spiritual tyranny to which they were subjected.
Can we not see the same pattern in our own time? Isn't it very easy for us now to look at great Mysteries like the Fall from Paradise or Noah's Flood or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and simply see the petty cruelty of a cosmic tyrant? How easy is it for us to look at the episodes of seeming cruelty in the Bible, set them alongside the behavior of the contemporary Church, and see the same kind of spiritual tyranny that people like Ovid lived under? Are we not awaiting the coming of a new savior, who will be to us as Jesus was to the pagan world? I think so. But it is my hope that the best in Christianity will survive, and survived in a more intact fashion than ancient Paganism did. That is a major part of the reason that I'm doing this work here.
