Christmas fast approaches. And even though I consider myself a Druidic sort, the scholarly "Happy-Everything" Sagittarian in me can never quite resist going back and revisiting the topic of Yeshua, aka "Jesus." After all, his birth has been celebrated on December 25th for centuries now, starting around 354 CE, within the Roman Empire.
This date is approximate, given one particular fact: The Jewish calendar is lunar and so the attempt to calculate the day based on solar measurement places the date of Yeshua's birth around December 25th...or April 6th, depending on the source of info. In fact, there has not yet been a month in which scholars have NOT tried to place Yeshua's arrival, simply because he was truly born so long ago, we don't know precisely when his birth actually took place. For all we know, it could have been December 25th and no one would truly be the wiser.
Oh, sure, my fellow Pagans are keen to argue that the December 25th date is also the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which also falls on the week of the Winter Solstice, a scientifically provable solar event, whether or not you are a Pagan or any other spiritual path. :-P My fellow Pagans--particularly the more vociferous ones--also opine that the date of December 25th was chosen solely for the purpose of converting the pagans of the time to Christianity.
Upon researching further, I discovered a few interesting tidbits.
In the year 354, (the earliest time recorded for celebrating Yeshua's birthday on the 25th of December), Constantius II, one of the sons of Emperor Constantine I, was Rome's head cheese, the direct predecessor to Julian, another of Constantine's sons. Julian himself went back to being a Roman Pagan, and thus earned the title "Apostate." But that's a topic for another time.
Constantius II partly subscribed to the philosophy of Arianism, NOT to be confused with "Aryanism." A church priest named Arius posed the question "Is Jesus unbegotten?" The upshot of this challenge to the more popular trinitarian view of Yeshua (The whole Father-Son-Holy-Ghost schmere) was that Yeshua was created like any other human soul, and Arius backed up his hypothesis by referencing John 14:28, in which Yeshua says that the father "is greater than I", and John 17:20-26, where Yeshua requests of his disciples to "become one as we are one." Both scriptures indicated, at least as far as Arius was concerned, more of a oneness of will and thought, rather than ultimate unity within a Trinity.
End result? Arius was branded a heretic, but his ideas ended up becoming the longest-running controversy within the Church. (This tells me he was likely onto something, at least philosophically speaking, because if something challenges the political powers-that-be, that means their ideas are not very solid and they darn well know it.)
So, what about Yeshua, anyway? Begotten or not? After all, the word "begotten," in this sense meant that the Divine Essence had always existed, and theforefore Yeshua did, too...that is, if one believed that Yeshua was the "only begotten Son of God."
Whether or not Yeshua was "begotten" or "unbegotten" does not necessarily matter to me, personally. His intent was Love, and that is that, to my mind. Same thing with the whole "Messiah" deal. The concept of his being "begotten" and the idea that he was THE Messiah are long-intertwined, but as far as I am concerned, Yeshua was simply a good, loving man with some pretty extraordinary gifts for healing, if the Synoptic Gospels have any ring of historical truth to them, regardless of what time they were written.
That being said...
Such an apocalyptic view of someone--ANYone--anticipated to be a Messianic figure in the time of John (Yohannan) the Baptist and Jesus (Yeshua) was a popular one, given that the Israelites were under the harsh thumb of Rome at the time. I mean, if I were in that time cycle, in that tribe of people, having to deal with the way Roman emperors made such dictatorial--and often cruel--decisions about the populace, I'd kinda be a bit anxious for some relief, political or religious, or a bit of both.
And when you put that anxiety together with some pretty convincing prophecies by Micah, Nahum, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a bunch of others, you have a recipe for the multitudinous cries of "Save us!"
Add a pinch of "original sin" doctrine of one type or another, and you have a religious mixture that lends very well to the well-entrenched belief and action of "taking Jesus as one's personal savior," and "Jesus is the reason for the season" holiday cards and lighted yard signs at this rather magical time of year.
Do I believe in original sin, as put forth by many religious scholars and priests? No. I do not. "Adam and Eve" to me are simply symbological names given to the evolutionary jump from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens. In evolutionary theory, there existed no such being as "the Devil," no matter what form such a being might take. "Sapiens" is loosely translated, according to my inferences of the phrase "sapiential eschatology," as 'human being with the ability to think or reason.' "Sapiential eschatology" in this sense, is the concept of using reason to act in a 'Godly' manner, thereby not requiring God to intervene as far as the concept of the "end of the world" is concerned. Perhaps it is a philosophical stretch between one 'tribe' and another, but I think the Hopis said it best: "We are the ones we have been waiting for."
Besides, I have personally come to the conclusion that we never really were "separated" from the Divine in the first place. Okay, so we lower our vibrations in order to manifest in, and "operate" a physical body...but does this mean we are somehow "faulted" or "weak" because we are embodied spirits and have been this way since humans first existed as a result of some sort of "temptation"? Not by my reckoning. The only "hell" that exists is within our minds and hearts, in our false assumptions about ourselves and others, in our illusions about human nature ("we behave badly therefore we are inherently bad").
My point, and I do have one, in all this meandering around from subtopic to subtopic is this...
In my readings about Yeshua and other topics (inside and outside of my college religion classes), I have come to understand three salient ideas:
1) Yeshua very likely existed; he was raised in the extant faith of the time, but seemed to develop some very controversial ideas that, in the minds of the Sanhedrin, posed a religious threat to their power as well as a threat to Rome, who might punish the Israelites for "aiding and abetting" someone who might advocate the beginnings of a revolt against the Empire.
2) Yeshua did not come here to purposefully BE a revolutionary, though his ideas of "love your enemy" and to be self-sacrificing on behalf of someone else who is in trouble were certainly eyebrow-raisers. This dude was more like Gandhi or Buddha and less like the "uber-warrior" that the politicos of the time thought he might be.
3) Ultimately, he came here and showed us a very beautiful way to live in the Divine Light of Love.
Is the fact that his approximate birth date, (at least according to the Jewish calendar day, which has been roughly translated into the solar day of December 25th), happens to fall during the week of both Winter Solstice (a scientifically observable occurrence) and the old Roman holiday of Saturnalia a coincidence? We have no real way of discerning the factual truth of it, considering Yeshua was alive and kicking a good 2.5 millenia ago.
So perhaps we may be allowed to put aside our scientific hats for a time, and put on a more meditative mystic's robe, and ponder a while the mystery of the healer and teacher so many have come to revere. Whether or not he is some sort of "savior," is doubtful to my reasoning mind (what a burden that ephithet must be!), but what I am never doubtful of is what he taught, and what he taught can be used by the rest of us reasoning members of Homo Sapiens to better ourselves in the hopes that swords CAN be made into plowshares, that we will one day taste the sweet juice of peace and never again the bitter flavor of war.
In the words of my Yes-brothers: "The Time is Now, the Word is Love."
Always Love...
Brightest Holiday Blessings,
Rev. Kat ^.^
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