The Gospel of the Beloved Companion
I interrupt this series to bring forward into the light of day something new and enlightening, something I have never seen in the Canonical Gospels of the New Testament Bible. It’s found in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which reveals a different view of the life and public ministry of Jesus — whose historic name, by the way, was “Yeshua.” I found this while reading THE GOSPEL OF THE BELOVED COMPANION by Jehanne De Quillan, who translated her gospel directly from the original Greek.
The setting for these words spoken by Mary Magdalene is a room in the “House of Bethany” where the disciples of Jesus had gathered just after the crucifixion and resurrection of their Master. As the Canonical Gospels relate the story, Mary of Bethany – whom Jesus had called “the Migdalah” (which means tower of strength and courage) – went to the tomb where Jesus’s body had been placed and found the stone rolled back and the tomb empty. Mistaking a presence in the garden as the gardener, she asked where he had taken the body, at which point Jesus called her by her name, “Miryam,” to which she answered “Rabbouni.” Being moved to embrace her Beloved, Jesus said to her “‘Miryam, do not hold to me, for I am not of the flesh, neither am I one with the spirit….'” He then asked her to go to his disciples and tell them the good news of his resurrection so that, as he put it, “‘all would know that my words are true and that any who should choose to believe them and keep to my commandments will follow me on their last day.'” [These words are packed with historical significance – which I may unpack in a future post.]
So Mary went to the disciples and told them how she had seen and spoken with Jesus. They apparently were a bit disbelieving and even jealous of her intimate rapport with their Master, especially Peter, who said “‘Sister, we know that he loved you more than any other among women. Tell us the words of the Rabbi, which you remember, which you know and understand, but we do not, nor have we heard them.'”
And here is what she reportedly answered them:
What is hidden from you, I will proclaim to you.
My Master spoke thus to me. He said, “Miryam, blessed are you who came into being before coming into being, and whose eyes are set upon the Kingdom, who from the beginning has understood and followed my teachings. Only from the truth I tell you there is a great tree within you that does not change,summer or winter, and its leaves do not fall. Whosoever listens to my words and ascends to its crown will not taste death, but will know the truth of eternal life.”
Then he showed me a vision in which I saw a great tree that seemed to reach unto the heavens; and as I saw these things, he said “The roots of this tree are in the earth, which is your body. The trunk extends upward through the five regions of Humanity to the Crown, which is the Kingdom of the Spirit.
“There are eight great boughs upon this tree and each bough bears its own fruit, which you must eat in all its fullness. As the fruit of the tree of the Garden [referring to the “fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”] caused Adam and Chav’vah [Eve?] to fall into darkness, so this fruit will grant to you the Light of the Spirit that is Eternal Life. Between each bough is a gate and a guardian who challenges the unworthy who try to pass.
“The leaves at the bottom of the tree are thick and plentiful, so no light penetrates to illuminate the way. But fear not, for I am the Way and the Light, and I tell you that as one ascends the tree, the leaves that block one from the Light are fewer, so it is possible to see all more clearly. Those who seek to ascend must free themselves of the world. If you do not free yourself from the world, you will die in the darkness that is the root of the tree. But if you free yourself, you will rise and reach the Light that is the Eternal Life of the Spirit.”
She continues to relate how she ascended the tree, bough by bough, entering gate by gate, until she reached the top crown of the tree. Each bough had its own unique requirement and its own unique gifts.
On the first level, she had to release all judgement and wrath in order to receive the nourishment of the gifts of love and compassion.
On the second bough, she had to release ignorance and intolerance to receive the gifts of wisdom and understanding.
To enter the third gate on the level of the third great bough, she had to release duplicity and arrogance in order to receive the gifts of honor and humility.
At the level of the fourth great bough, she had to confront and free herself of the weakness of the flesh and the illusion of her fears. Here she received the gifts of strength and courage.
Then she says this about her remaining ascent upward:
Only then, my Master told me, when you have rejected the deceiver, can you pass through the hardest gate of all, to attain the fifth bough and the fruit of clarity and truth. Only then will you know the clarity and truth of your soul and, knowing your Self for the first time, understand that you are a child of the Living Spirit. And as my soul moved upward, I realized that I could no longer hear the voice of the world, as all had become as silence.
Then in the Light above, I saw the sixth bough, the one that bore the fruit of power and healing. My Master told me that when you truly have eaten of the fruit of the clarity and truth of your Self, then could you partake of the fruit of power and healing. The power to heal your own soul and thereby make it ready to ascend to the seventh bough, where it will be filled by the fruit of Light and Goodness.
And I saw my soul, now free of all darkness, ascend again to be filled with the Light and Goodness that is the Spirit. And I was filled with a fierce Joy as my soul turned to fire and flew upwards in the flames from whence my Master showed me the eighth and final bough, upon which burned the fruit of the grace and beauty of the Spirit.
And I felt my soul and all that I could see dissolve and vanish in a brilliant Light, in a likeness unto the sun. And in the Light, I beheld a woman of extraordinary beauty, clothed in garments of brilliant white. The figure extended its arms and I felt my soul drawn into its embrace and in that moment I was freed from the world and realized that the fetter of forgetfulness was temporary. From now on, I shall rest through the course of the time of the age in silence. And then, as if from a great distance, I heard the voice of my Master tell me, “Miryam, whom I have called the Migdalah, now you have seen the all, and have known the truth of your Self; the truth that I Am. Now you have become the completion of completions.” And thus the vision ended.
“This is what my Master has told and shown me, and only from the truth I tell you, that all that I have revealed to you is true.”
When the Migdalah had told of all the Yeshua and said and done, she fell silent, since it was in that silence that Yeshua had spoken with her and revealed these truths.
And she has remained silent ever since. The Catholic Church and all of Christianity has kept Jesus’s Beloved Companion, along with the feminine in general, suppressed and silenced. But she is silent no longer. It’s no coincidence, I feel, that this Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Beloved Companion has surfaced in this day and at this specific time of the rise of the feminine movement. It may even be vibrationally causal relative to that movement.
This passage bears much fruit for meditation. Just the revelation that the Spirit is feminine, “a woman of extraordinary beauty, clothed in garments of brilliant white,” is thought provoking in the context of a male-dominating world and religion. Here is the Divine Feminine revealed to the world through Mary Magdalene, Jesus’s beloved companion. Earlier in the text of this Gospel, Jesus refers to the Spirit as “she.” I felt a refreshing breeze blow through my soul as I read his reference to the Spirit as feminine — my own feminine energies, no doubt, stirring with recognition and acknowledgment.
In rejecting the Divine Feminine, the Church rejected the Spirit, leaving it spiritless and dead – my own personal impression of the Catholic Church and its priesthood, to which I once aspired as a young man. There is more spirit expressed in the Pentecostal religion, and in the worship service of the Black churches I’ve visited, than in all of Catholicism – in my humble opinion anyway.
I will leave you to your own thoughts and realizations and return to share some of my own in another post. Until then,
Be love. Be loved.
Anthony
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