scenes from Holy Week: Wednesday

The seven days after Palm Sunday leading to Easter are sometimes called “the Holy Week,” and each day presents scene or episodes that I think over and contemplate and I would like to invite readers to do that with me. 

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Yesterday was Tuesday.

Wednesday is under the sign of Hermes-Mercury and I would like to explore this fact to establish the “mood” or “color” of the day before proceeding to contemplate, two images from the Gospels: the cursing of the fig tree and the scene in which Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with oil of spikenard, very costly.

Again, an interesting connection presents itself in light of the so-called interpretatio germanica by which the salient members of the Greco-Latin pantheon were indexed to correlative members of the Norse-Germanic one. This topic is itself fitting to contemplate today because Christ is the soul and axis of all pantheons and Mercury, like the spoke of a wheel emanating from a central hub, can be seen as an abstraction of the archetypes of commerce, correspondence, and communication, among others, from the fullness of God. While in Latin this third or fourth, depending on you mode of reckoning, day of the week is designated as dies Mercurii, in English it takes its name after the Norse-Germanic Odin-Wotan. Hence, our contemporary name derives from the Old English Wōdnesdæg just as, as was observed in yesterday’s post, “Tuesday” is derived from Tiwesdæg in honor of the heroic swordsman.

The logic of the correlation between Mercury and Odin is more transparent than that which links Mars and Týr-Tiw, in which case the tertium comparationis can seem slightly artificial to the analytically-disposed. But Odin, like Mercury, Hermes, and their Egyptian counterpart, Thoth¹², was credited with having conferred the power and technology of writing to man in ancient times. As a runic poem written in Old English recounts:

ōs byþ ordfruma ǣlcre sprǣce
wīsdōmes wraþu and wītena frōfur
and eorla gehwām ēadnys and tō hiht

god is the origin of all language
wisdom’s foundation and wise man’s comfort
and to every hero blessing and hope³

and perhaps even more pertinently to the overarching spirit of these reflections, the following verse is attested in Hávamál:

I know that I hung on a wind-rocked tree,
nine whole nights,
with a spear wounded, and to Odin offered,
myself to myself;
on that tree, of which no one knows
from what root it springs.
Bread no one gave me, nor a horn of drink,
downward I peered,
to runes applied myself, wailing learnt them,
then fell down thence.⁴

Odin depicted on a monument from about the 9th century in Gotland

It is difficult not to be struck by the isomorphism between the scene of Odin’s sacrifice and the scene from the Gospels that we will be encountering at the end of this week. Again, Odin can be seen as one aspect or one valence of a power and intelligence that, when taken together in its fulness, dwelleth bodily in Christ. The Psalmist exclaims:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

“Odin” is the name given to that power which imparted this divine capacity to man. In the words of Owen Barfield:

in the course of the Earth’s history, something like a Divine Word has been gradually clothing itself with the humanity it first gradually created—so that what was first spoken by God may eventually be re-spoken by man.⁵

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The first scene from the Gospels that I would like to contemplate for this day is the notorious “cursing of the fig tree.” It is notorious because it is often regarded as at best inscrutable. More often, people are thoroughly scandalized by the apparent injustice of the event. Confer from Matthew:

18Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.⁶ 19And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.

20And when the disciples saw, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away! 21Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. 22And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

from Mark:

12And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: 13And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. 14And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it….

20And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. 21And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. 22And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. 23For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. 24Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. 25And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. 26But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.

When we encounter this scene, we are confronted with a turning-point or crisis of sort. Do we say, with Bertrand Russell and others, that such is our certainty over how a righteous man must behave that the perceived injustice of Jesus’ actions establishes to us that he is not great, or do we say, like Hamlet, that “there is more in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your Philosophy,” and with George MacDonald that “If it be said by any that God does a thing, and the thing seems to me unjust, then either I do not know what the thing is, or God does not do it.”

On this note I’d like to turn to another scene from the Gospels that captures the moment of just such a crisis: namely, the conflict between Mary and Judas Iscariot. Interestingly, Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet with oil prefigures the iconic “washing of the disciples’ feet” on the eve of Good Friday, which will be among the subjects of tomorrow’s contemplation.

As the Gospel According to Matthew attests:

3Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. 5But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people. 6Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, 7There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. 8But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? 9For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. 10When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. 11For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. 12For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. 13Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

and Mark:

1After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. 2But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people. 3And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. 4And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? 5For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. 6And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. 7For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. 8She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. 9Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

and John:

1Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. 4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, 5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. 7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Traditionally, this is regarded as the moment in which Judas’ heart is hardened against Jesus for the latter’s rebuke. As indicated in Sunday’s contemplation, man Jews hoped that the Messiah would come as a political revolutionary to reclaim the Holy City from the Roman occupation and usher in a utopia through social upheaval. Whether Judas’ intentions were sincere, as Matthew and Mark seem to suggest, or perfidious, as John asserts, the fact remains that Judas’ hope and expectations around the program of the Messiah led him to demand certain behaviors from Jesus and, when the latter failed to oblige and Judas failed to relinquish his prejudices. But Lazarus and Mary present the reverse of Judas. Rather than attempting to force fit Jesus into the mould of their foregone concepts about him, they allow their concepts about him to be informed by their encounter. And this gesture of “reversal” or περιπέτεια, as Aristotle described it, is the very crux of the dynamics of love.

Lazarus whom “whom Jesus loved” and whom Jesus raised from the dead is in fact John, author of the present Gospel. Judas, like Caiaphas the chief priest of the Pharisees, is not unlike the sanctimonious intellectuals of today who are always telling us how to “save the world” through some elaborate schema of utilitarian logic or social engineering while ignoring what is nearest at hand.

I would have liked to return, at leisure, to the cursing of the fig tree but, regrettably, for the purposes of these contemplations, I have to teach an evening class that starts in 5 minutes so I will have to conclude today’s reflection at this time.

Wednesday

• planet: Mercury

• quality: equilibrium, lability

• color: yellow

• vowel: e

• organ: lungs

• metal: quicksilver

• tree: elm

1. cf. from Plato’s Phaedrus:

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

2. Budha (Sanskrit: बुध) is the Sanskrit word for the planet Mercury. Budha is also a god of Planet Mercury.

3. Pollington, Stephen (2008). Rudiments of Runelore. Anglo-Saxon Books. ISBN 978-1898281498, 46

4. Benjamin Thorpe translation, 1907

5. Barfield, Saving the Appearances, 128

6. 4But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.