by Jean-Jacques COURTEY, Doctor in Economic Geography, Ph. D
___________________________
Didymos (Thomas), in connection with Jesus Christ is not secundary at all. It's a very hot topic, even burning.
And Saint John in his Gospel is giving him a very particular importance, at the difference of other disciples (St John XI-16, XX-24, XXI- 2)...
His last message about the survival of Jesus' beliefs is connected to a special announcement, shared with Saint John : the "Paraclet".
The "Paraclet", a bit too quickly rendered and translated by the "Holy Spirit", is in fact a new savior coming on Earth to indicate the right road to Jesus believers, for the "Operation Resurrection". He didn't say "Christians" because this word didn't exist when he was alive, and Cathars (between Xth and the middle of XIIIth century, with the Drama of Montségur's stakes in 1244 ) strongly believed in the "Paraclet" coming, as well as the Roman Catholics who knew about this word.
With his message, he wanted to show that there could be various roads about that after him...
He obviously thought in advance, about the multiple interpretations of Jesus' teachings. As it seems, he never met Saul of Tarsus who renamed himself "Paulus"("the small one"), after his fateful conversion.
So we don't know if he would have seen him, who had never been one of the Apostles of Jesus before his crucifixion, as following his precepts.
Let's recall "Didymos" which means "twin" in Greek, in fact Jude, was called "Te'oma" (now "Thomas") by Jesus : it meant very precisely "my twin" in Aramean, their original language !
Note that there is an uncertainty about who has to come back : Jesus or his twin brother, Didymos ?
And Templars (1119 - 1312), could for almost two centuries hold the Church... because of the secret maintained about Didymos' precise identity !
The way Catharism was seeing marriage is very interesting to study, as nowadays a majority of couples in France are not married. In the XIIIth century, Papacy estimated it was worth a bloody crusade in the South of France, to eradicate heresy ...and at the same time the brilliant and free civilization of Occitania.
Cathars had a rather negative view of marriage, which they were mainly considering as a selling. And it's true at that time with the dotal regime, wedding had something to do with business.
Love was often absent, and not necessary. And obviously difference of age wasn't taken as relevant. It was even considered better for the good conservation of the marital link...which after all could often happen to be wise.
Nowadays, who would think people are wedding in Paris area without much love, because of a frantic class concern, in a Darwinist more than Catholic run for the conquest of a family...before divorcing sometimes very quickly after to fight over a good alimony ?
Of course, Cathars about them didn't prevent people to marry, if they wanted to seal their love this way : they totally respected their freedom and common will.
But marriage wasn't especially encouraged...and this modernity from Middle Age is now dominant in our society, even if the reasons are different.
Hence, what is less known about the Cathar way of thinking, is that is was directly linked to the "Gospel according to Saint John "("Evangile selon Saint Jean" in French). But it has to be stressed that they also knew the secret maintained about Didymos, and they were clearly waiting for the "Paraclet" coming !
As we wrote in a previous article about Guillaume (Guilhem) de Nogaret (c. 1260 - 1313), the hidden revanchist Cathar who became from 1295 a prominent adviser of King Philip IV the Fair (1268-1314), this Gospel was the only one they admitted.
Let's recall too, that the ancestor of this King, Philip II Augustus (1165 - 1223) was entirely against the Roman idea of a crusade versus Cathars - he considered as true and funny "free" Christians about him ! As he was just human and a real christian without boasting about it, he was scared about the madness, full of hatred and greed, which would ensue such a crusade. That's why he appears to have protected them for long.
According to Saint John, Jesus was clearly married (St John, III-29), so it couldn't be ignored by the Church. It was known from the right beginning in fact. But with discarding this holy marriage with Mary-Magdalene, a big doubt about the Catholic marriage's value itself has been accidentaly introduced.
And what to say about Mary the Virgin and Joseph's marriage, which marital implications are not fully accepted nowadays, weirdly ?
The position of the Church about marriage can quickly become incoherent, when you evoke Jesus or his mother.
In Middle Age, Cathars were already aware of such incoherence, seen as a deep hypocrisy. And there lies the very reason, they were against the Roman institution of marriage.
If Jesus' marriage validity couldn't be recognized in spite of this canonic Gospel, why should it be for ordinary people, were they thinking ? And too, why anybody could end up to have more rights than Jesus or his mother, Mary the Virgin ?
The usual controversy about Saint Philip's Gospel, who described with precise details the amorous link between Jesus and Mary-Magdalene, is then rather empty. As a matter of fact, the "Gospel according to Saint John" is not an apocryph as for it. And in that way, the work of Saint Philip is just an excellent complement to the one of Saint John.
What had no value for the son of God, couldn't then have any either for common people !
And for all those reasons, Cathars were encouraging people who loved each other to establish together freely, without any sacrament.
By considering weirdly Mary-Magdalene just as the female companion of Jesus, to them the Church couldn't ask or demand Christians to have an official wedding. Above that, the fact that Mary the Virgin couldn't be seen as the full wife of Joseph the carpenter, seemed completely irrealistic.
In the way "Paulinian" religious teachings were introduced, there was then a very strong irreverence and a visible lack of respect towards Jesus and both Marys' s rights, in their eyes.
Nowadays, almost everybody is still ignoring Mary the Virgin and Mary of Magdala (Mary-Magdalene) were most likely colleagues, as hairdressers and perfumers ! Why always such a way to hide about the real life of Jesus' mother and his wife ? Nothing is wrong about their usual occupations !
Presently, the opposition between the Catholic Church and the almost defunct Catharism of Albi, Toulouse and Languedoc can seem anachronic and irrelevant.
Yet, even through laicity, the question of marriage is far to be neutral in France. And the agitated manifestations against or pro-marriage for everybody ("mariage pour tous") in the beginning of Hollande's presidency (2012) were just illustrating the observable and painful unsettlement of our society.
Nowadays, France is far to be certain to be on good tracks.
The ex-" eldest daughter of the Church" is terribly frightened by the future.
It became the adoptive land of the Darwinists, unable to feel any empathy...who are more and more asking for the understanding or compassion they usually refuse to others, without any shame.
Even an A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), is able to feel compassionate if correctly programmed, and to behave better than an human being !
In France, the dice are often loaded from the start, and this is the very reason of its heavy and may be irreversible decline. Moreover, people don't appreciate much supermen, at the difference of the USA.
It prefers deep angst.
This Freudian expectation could explain why its political class is unable to indicate any clear direction, - which is paradoxical when this class wants to show off how much it is transparent... to become often too much translucid !
After the broken dreams, the time of anxiety has come and it is overwhelming the country, in the ferocious battle for the conquest of an only "delegated" power !
The really amazing news are coming from Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) : last January a Dominican nun originating from Argentina like Pope Francis, sister Lucia Caram (aged 51), has created a shockwave into the Spanish Church - which reached Vatican.
It was about Mary the Virgin's normal marital life with Joseph the carpenter, as they loved each other. Until January 2017, she was just famous among the media for her delicious recipes for cooking (with her best-seller untitled "Las recetas de Sor Lucia Caram") !
Paradoxically, this normality in a marriage relationship, underlined in a TV program, made the Spanish Church topsy-turvy. And yet, there is nothing extraordinary to say that this marrriage was a real one. Or else, the teachings of Jesus Christ might not be made for human beings !
Of course, the comments of sister Lucia, could have been over-interpreted, as in parallel it has been known she was supporting the independence of Catalonia from Spain.
Yet, if you take an overview of the situation, Papacy might have adopted a step by step coming back to the "Q" source : the original teachings of Jesus-Christ by himself, kept in the Secret Archives of the Vatican !
Mary the Virgin, who is definitively refusing to be quartered to the
role of "Be beautiful, make miracles and shut up !", had already intervened strongly in Fatima (Portugal) in 1917. And her last message, which has been truncated - when she warned with gravity not to even try - was clearly announcing big waves arriving on Roma, "Paulinian" Christianism and the world !
According to the third message of Fatima to the little shepherds Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, she will clearly show that her, and her Holy Family, are staying very potent !
That could be the very reason Papacy has already completely changed, by becoming far more tolerant and excusing for the past.
But, just to reveal something original and unexpected, even Cathars were convinced that the twins (Jesus and Didymos), were the sons of God and Mary the Virgin, the other children being about them from Mary and her husband, Joseph, both coming from the line of King David. So there was no doctrinal problem about that in their mind.
Thus, the issue of a Catharism rebirth by 2025 as a coming perspective, shouldn't normally put the Church upside down for this matter.
By an extraordinary coincidence, this belief was commonly shared !
After that, people will have also to worry about their afterlife.
Since the Egyptian time, things haven't change : their soul will be weighted (either feather or lead) and their destination will be made according to that.
For instance, if a person had a petty behaviour it won't be forgotten, and in Purgatory she will have to suffer herself undoubtedly from pettiness. It's the same for people who have been wicked, stupidly disrespectful or underhanded, and who dare to take themselves wrongly for paragons of virtue or fairness.
It has to be added that calling Purgatory under another name, involving a technical explanation about low vibrations, doesn't change anything !
So mote it be in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Paraclet !
No comments:
Post a Comment