The Black Madonna and the Suppression of Women
From Where Were You Before The Tree of Life? Vol 3

By Peter Farley www.4truthseekers.org

By pandering to a Roman audience, deifying Jesus, and casting the
Jews as scapegoats, the spread of what subsequently became Christian
orthodoxy was assured of ultimate success.

As the disciples of Jesus traveled throughout the ancient world,
many pagans were then converted to the new belief. Christianity was
originally regarded as a Jewish sect, but as more and more pagans
were accepted into Christianity, their faith revolved almost
entirely about the person and preaching of Jesus, as propagated by
Paul. The Jewish members of the Jesus movement, on the other hand,
remained essentially Jews. The Jewish answer to these new movements
was to permit no laxity in observance of the forms of traditional
religion.

The Roman Church chose in due course to discredit Mary Magdalene in
an attempt to exalt her mother?in-law, Jesus' mother, Mary. To
accomplish this, they made use of ambiguous comments in the New
Testament, comments that originally described the unmarried
Magdalene as a ?sinner' (which actually meant in the Essene Way that
she was a celibate ?almah' undergoing assessment in betrothal).
Because of his dislike for women, especially educated or intelligent
women, Peter had always regarded highly-ranked women with great
fear, and those related to Jesus were almost always a constant
threat to his own position of prominence, especially the Magdalen.
In the Gospel of Thomas, Peter's disregard for women is made
obvious: ?Simon Peter said unto them, Let Mary leave us, for women
are not worthy of life'.

The Roman-Catholic Church inherited that same dislike and that same
fear of women and their part in Creation: thus the once venerated
image of ?scarlet women' ?the hierodulai ? was transformed into
harlots. Prostitutes still use this perverted Church imagery by
wearing red or by displaying themselves under a red light. The
Scarlet Women were so called because of their being a direct source
of the priestly Star Fire also known as shem-an-na [white powder gold]. In the
early Germanic tongue they were known as hor?s, which was later Anglicized to
'whores'. However, the word originally meant, quite simply, 'beloved ones'. As
explained in good etymological dictionaries, these words were descriptions of
high veneration and were never interchangeable with such definitions as
prostitute or adulteress. Their now common association was, in fact, a wholly
contrived strategy of the medieval Roman Church in its bid to denigrate the
noble status of the sacred priestess. The Church used the quotes from the Bible,God said to Eve: ?He shall rule over thee," and St. Paul saying: ?The head of the woman is the man', to justify this position.

Mary Magdalene was a Head Sister of the Order of Nazarites and was
entitled to wear black, the equivalent of a senior bishop and the
priests of Isis. The early reverence for Mary Magdalene led to the
establishment of a cult known as that of the ?Black Madonna', which
emanated from Ferrieres in AD 44 just after the time Mary and her
entourage arrived in France. She was also portrayed wearing red as a
sign of her office, and green as a sign of fertility. Black would
also now be a symbol of mourning for the dead.

Kali (feminine form of Sanskrit kala, "time" or "dark"), the consort
of the Hindu god Shiva in her manifestation of the power of time,
was frequently depicted as a black, laughing, naked hag with blood-
stained teeth, a protruding tongue, and a garland of human skulls.
Women were always barred from ordination in the Catholic domain, or
from holding any office of power. The relegation of women other than
Jesus' mother from any venerable status pushed Mary Magdalene even
further into the background. By the same strategy, Jesus' own heirs
were totally eclipsed, and the bishops were then enabled to
reinforce their claim to holy authority by means of ?self-devised
male succession.' It was not Messianic descent from Jesus, as should
have been the case if he were truly a savior of the world, nor even
a descent from the ?rama-theo' (Arimathea prince), James the Just
(brother of Jesus), but a contrived ?succession' from Peter, the
headstrong rustic Essene who despised all women in general.
The image of the Black Madonna and her child (the child of Jesus)
presented a constant dilemma for the Church. The features of the
Black Madonna are in no way negroid in racial characteristics, but
are simply black in color.

The Black Madonna has her tradition in Queen Isis and her roots in
the pre-patriarchal first partner of Adam, Lilith. She thus
represents the strength and equality of womanhood?a proud,
forthright, and commanding figure?as opposed to the strictly
subordinate image of the conventional White Madonna as seen in
church representations of Jesus' mother. It was said that both Isis
and Lilith knew the secret name of God (a secret held also by Mary
Magdalene, ?the woman who knew the All')?in this case it would have
been Lucifer's original name Be'el-zebub. The Black Madonna is thus
representative of the Magdalene who, according to the Alexandrian
doctrine, ?transmitted the true secret of Jesus'. She is black
because in gnostic thought Wisdom (Sophia), with whom the Magdalen
is equated, is black, having existed in the darkness of Chaos before
the Creation).

To the Gnostics of Simon (Magus) Zelotes, Wisdom was the Holy Spirit?
the great and immortal Sophia who brought forth the First Father
Yaldaboath from the depths. Sophia was held to be incarnate as the
Holy Spirit in Queen Mary Magdalene, and it was she who bore the
ultimate observance of the Faith.

All texts were therefore censored or excised by the Church. The
point was that women had to be excluded at all costs. If they were
not, the Magdalene's lingering presence would be seen to prevail. As
the wife of Jesus she was not only the Messianic Queen but also the
mother of the true heirs. For centuries after her death, Mary's
legacy remained the greatest of all threats to a fearful Church that
had by-passed Messianic descent in favor of Apostolic succession. To
Gnostic believers, the Holy Spirit was essentially the female
element that bound the Father to the Son. But Rome decreed that the
trinity was ?One God'. For this reason, although Jesus' mother Mary
afforded some concession as the Mother of God, she was not a part of
the divine trinity which remained defined in wholly masculine terms.
Women had much equality throughout religions and the world at the
time, and it was only the Roman Church that was the exception for at
least one overriding reason: to curtail Jesus' dynastic royal legacy
and Lucifer's genetic strain as embodied in Mary Magdalene.
According to the Gospel of Mary, Levi argued with Peter over the
rights of Mary Magdalene:

"But if the Saviour found her worthy, who are you, indeed, to reject
her? The Saviour surely knows her well enough ?that is why he loved
her more than us."

In contrast to Peter and his brother, Andrew, the other disciples
are said to have agreed with Levi, for they were encouraged by what
Mary had said, and readily accepted her teaching. Gospels that
showed Mary in such a light were, in the event, simply not selected
for inclusion in the canonical New Testament.

To understand the reverence paid to her, and the mighty efforts by
the Catholic Church to cast her in unfavorable light or expunge her
from the records at all, we must go back to the crucial statement
made earlier ?"one thing is clear from the Qumran Scrolls is that
the Community (the Essenes at Qumran) lived in expectation of two
important Messiahs. One would be of the priestly caste, whom they
called the "teacher of Righteousness;" the other would be a prince
of the line of David?a warrior who would restore the kingdom to his
people."

From what we now know of Jesus, he was the latter, the "prince of
the line of David," the "warrior who would restore the kingdom to
his people," a role he usurped from his brother James the Just. But what of the
first of the two Messiahs, the one who would be of the priestly caste, whom
would be a "teacher of Righteousness?"

Mary Magdalene was a Head Sister of the Order of Nazarites and was
entitled to wear black, the equivalent of a senior bishop in the
priests of Isis. The disciples (except for a few) readily accepted
her teaching. Peter's most conspicuous enemy and threat to his
prominence was the Magdalen. She was also the greatest of all
threats to a fearful Church that had by-passed Messianic descent in
favor of apostolic succession. She was revered by the Gnostics to be
Sophia, incarnate as the Holy Spirit in Queen Mary Magdalene, and it
was she who bore "the ultimate observance of the Faith". It was she,
along with both Isis and Lilith, who knew the secret name of God
(Mary Magdalene, ?the woman who knew the All') and it was she
who ?transmitted the true secret of Jesus'. As the Black Madonna,
she represented the strength and equality of womanhood?a proud,
forthright, and commanding figure?as opposed to the strictly
subordinate image of the conventional White Madonna as seen in
church representations of Jesus' mother.

Similar to Kali, the consort of the Hindu god Shiva, she was a
manifestation of the power of time. It was she who was the ?migdal'
meaning ?tower', the Magdal-eder who was ?the watchtower of the
flock', and it was she who was so jealously guarded by Lazarus
(Simon Zelotes), Martha, and Joseph of Arimathea, and whisked away
to Marseilles, France, to keep her out of harm's way. It was Mary Magdalen who
WAS, not only the wife of the one Messiah, but was also herself the second
Messiah, the ?teacher of righteousness'.

IN an attempt to bring the female back into the world's thoughts and
religions, the Spiritual Hierarchy brought this aspect of the Mother
energy of Creation (as the Gnostics correctly judged Mary Magdalen
to be ?Sophia) to the planet to be incarnated as a Messiah in that
lifetime in order to try and resurrect the feminine aspect of
Creation. This was obviously known to many at the time, both in the
Essene Community who prepared and initiated her, and in those who
came after her and worshipped her rather than Jesus as the true
source of Wisdom.

While the male Creator Son energy only had a small part to play as
Jesus' father, Joseph, in that lifetime, the Mother Energy was bent
on healing both herself and her children here and in the higher
planes with the strong feminine presence she brought to religion and
to her worship. Had it not been for the thoroughness of the attempts
of the Catholic Church to erase her presence from history, life on
this planet could have been so much different for those who
incarnated in a female body. Instead, the patriarchy ruled, and the
women suffered.

2006-12-06