Really sexy

Saul of Tarsos, before he met a pissed-off Jesus on the road to Damascus and got transformed into Saint Paul, was a tent-maker and traveling merchant who occasionally took contracts as a hired assassin for the Sanhedrin. It’s no wonder, then, that his particular brand of Christianity won out against the older and better established competitors, such as those branches promulgated by James and Peter in Jerusalem or Thomas in India – and I’m not talking about the fact that he was a Jewish Ninja, though that may well have had something to do with it!

Before they had been called to discipleship the original Twelve were fishermen and country-bumpkins for the most part – the one guy among them who had any sort of financial sense ended up swinging from a noose. They were mildly successful in attracting a Jewish audience (though that probably had more to do with the fact that a lot of those people remembered seeing all the strange shit that went down with Jesus) but shit at attracting Gentile converts. Then in sweeps this handsome, charismatic, quick-witted and sweet-talking huckster who made himself seem all things to all people. He could talk Torah with the best of the Rabbis and name-drop obscure Greek poets like Aratos of Soli or Epimenides of Knossos when among Goyim – but the real population that he targeted was women. Specifically lonely widows and virgins with large fortunes who were willing to use them to further a worthy cause, in turn enabling him to build up a strong, extended network of support for missionary activity. Acts and the Epistles are full of references to these philanthropic ladies who are all too often left out of accounts of the rise of the early church. One of the most interesting for me (in light of Paul’s later association with tarantism) is Lydia the dealer in purple cloth:

On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer. We sat and spoke with the women who had gathered there. One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, ‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,’ and she prevailed on us. (Acts 16:13-15)

Though the story of Saint Thecla from the Apocryphal Acts of Paul gives you a better sense of how the man operated.

For the ancients persuasive language and dangerous sexuality were indelibly linked:

It indicates brothers and all blood relatives since the interrelationship of the entire house depends upon the penis. It is a symbol of strength and physical vigor, since it is itself the cause of these qualities. That is why some people call the penis ‘one’s manhood.’ It corresponds to speech and education because the penis like speech is very fertile … Furthermore, the penis is also a sign of wealth and possessions because it alternately expands and contracts and because it is able to produce and to eliminate. It signifies secret plans in that the word medea is used to designate both plans and a penis. (Artemidoros, Oneirocritica 1.45)

Which is why Hermes, the inventor of language and guide of souls, is an ithyphallic deity:

Worshiping, however, Kyllenios with special distinction, they style him Logios. For Mercury is Logos, who being interpreter and fabricator of the things that have been made simultaneously, and that are being produced, and that will exist, stands honoured among them, fashioned into some such figure as is the pudendum of a man, having an impulsive power from the parts below towards those above. And that this deity— that is, a Mercury of this description— is, the Naassene says, a conjurer of the dead, and a guide of departed spirits, and an originator of souls; nor does this escape the notice of the poets, who express themselves thus:—

Kyllenian Hermes also called
The souls of mortal suitors.

Not Penelope’s suitors, says he, O wretches! But souls awakened and brought to recollection of themselves,

From honour so great, and from bliss so long.

(Hippolytos, Philosophumena 5.2)

The precise deity, in fact, that Paul was mistaken for:

And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’ Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. (Acts 14.11-12)

To be a master of words in the ancient world was to be a magician:

Fearful shuddering and tearful pity and sorrowful longing come upon those who hear it, and the soul experiences a peculiar feeling, on account of the words, at the good and bad fortunes of other people’s affairs and bodies. But come, let me proceed from one section to another. By means of words, inspired incantations serve as bringers-on of pleasure and takers-off of pain. For the incantation’s power, communicating with the soul’s opinion, enchants and persuades and changes it, by trickery. Two distinct methods of trickery and magic are to be found: errors of soul, and deceptions of opinion. (Gorgias, Encomium of Helen)

And that’s why Paul was able to gain the support of a broader female base than his competitors which enabled him to make a dominant impression on the nascent body of Christ. Only those who were willing to imitate him were able to have their message propagated and there were plenty willing to imitate Paul as Kelsos demonstrates in this passage quoted by Origen:

We see, indeed, in private houses workers in wool and leather, and fullers, and persons of the most uninstructed and rustic character, not venturing to utter a word in the presence of their elders and wiser masters; but when they get hold of the children privately, and certain women as ignorant as themselves, they pour forth wonderful statements, to the effect that they ought not to give heed to their father and to their teachers, but should obey them; that the former are foolish and stupid, and neither know nor can perform anything that is really good, being preoccupied with empty trifles; that they alone know how men ought to live, and that, if the children obey them, they will both be happy themselves, and will make their home happy also. And while thus speaking, if they see one of the instructors of youth approaching, or one of the more intelligent class, or even the father himself, the more timid among them become afraid, while the more forward incite the children to throw off the yoke, whispering that in the presence of father and teachers they neither will nor can explain to them any good thing, seeing they turn away with aversion from the silliness and stupidity of such persons as being altogether corrupt, and far advanced in wickedness, and such as would inflict punishment upon them; but that if they wish (to avail themselves of their aid,) they must leave their father and their instructors, and go with the women and their playfellows to the women’s apartments, or to the leather shop, or to the fuller’s shop, that they may attain to perfection;–and by words like these they gain them over. (Contra Celsum 3.55)

We have always loved our rockstars, going back as far as Orpheus:

At the base of Olympus is the city of Dium, near which lies the village of Pimpleia. Here lived Orpheus, the Ciconian, it is said — a wizard who at first collected money from his music, together with his soothsaying and his celebration of the orgies connected with the mystic initiatory rites, but soon afterwards thought himself worthy of still greater things and procured for himself a throng of followers and power. Some, of course, received him willingly, but others, since they suspected a plot and violence, combined against him and killed him. And near here, also, is Leibethra. (Strabo, Geography 7.7)

Total aside – but did you know that Paul died by having his head cut off, just like Orpheus? Here’s a modern depiction bordered by some lovely decorative grapevines:

Jim Morrison, one of the prophet-heroes of the Bacchic Orphic tradition, warned of art’s ability to ensnare people and get them to do things they might not otherwise:

There are no longer “dancers”, the possessed. The cleavage of men into actor and spectators is the central fact of our time. We are obsessed with heroes who live for us and whom we punish. If all the radios and televisions were deprived of their sources of power, all books and paintings burned tomorrow, all shows and cinemas closed, all the arts of vicarious existence…

We are content with the “given” in sensation’s quest. We have been metamorphosised from a mad body dancing on hillsides to a pair of eyes staring in the dark.

Cinema is most totalitarian of the arts. All energy and sensation is sucked up into the skull, a cerebral erection, skull bloated with blood. Caligula wished a single neck for all his subjects that he could behead a kingdom with one blow. Cinema is this transforming agent. The body exists for the sake of the eyes; it becomes a dry stalk to support these two soft insatiable jewels.

The Lords. Events take place beyond our knowledge or control. Our lives are lived for us. We can only try to enslave others. But gradually, special perceptions are being developed. The idea of the “Lords” is beginning to form in some minds. We should enlist them into bands of perceivers to tour the labyrinth during their mysterious nocturnal appearances. The Lords have secret entrances, and they know disguises. But they give themselves away in minor ways. Too much glint of light in the eye. A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a glance.

The Lords appease us with images. They give us books, concerts, galleries, shows, cinemas. Especially the cinemas. Through art they confuse us and blind us to our enslavement. Art adorns our prison walls, keeps us silent and diverted
and indifferent.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well, ladies, it’s because I think it would be really sexy if you contributed to the cause of getting Rhyd Wildermuth to the Polytheist Leadership Conference so that he can discuss how Slavoj Zizek‘s theories intersect with polytheism. Really sexy.