“We botanists consider the new plants we describe as new-born children and love them all. I have now 42 such plants and it is hard to say whom I love more.” (1)
— Avinoam Danin
Satureja nabateorum, new species discovered near Petra by Avinoam Danin
If you’ve read The Gospel According to Yeshua’s Cat, you may have wondered where I found the inspiration for Yeshua’s parable of the caper flower, or the sycamore fig tree. The answer? Eminent botanist Dr. Avinoam Danin, most recently in the public eye with his book, Botany of the Shroud: The Story of Floral Images on the Shroud of Turin.
For much of the time when I was writing Yeshua’s Cat, I was living in isolated rural environments, with no access to academic libraries. When it came to biblical history and texts, this wasn’t a problem. My own knowledge and personal library were adequate. But I found that I wanted more details: what wild plants were native to Galilee? Judea? the Decapolis? Which of them might have provided food for hungry travelers? What trees were native to the different regions? How big were they, and what did they look like? In what seasons did they bear fruit? Have plant species mentioned in the Bible been identified? Might any have inspired parables that never reached us through the gospels? You get the idea.
So, like many writers before me, I turned to the internet, beginning my project with search terms like “indigenous plants of Israel.” It didn’t take long before I identified a site on the Hebrew University server as a gold mine: Flora of Israel Online, moderated by Professor Emeritus Avinoam Danin. Not being a botanist, I found navigating around the site to be quite a challenge at first: if I didn’t come armed with a specific plant’s Latin name, I got nowhere. But once I located a Latin list of Israel’s plants on a less tantalizing website, I was on my way. Each plant on Professor Danin’s site was documented with a wealth of photographs and data.
Tabor Oak, E. Strawberry, Date Palm, Olive, Carob. All photos Flora of Israel Online, Hebrew University
But that was only the beginning. One day I stumbled onto a different section of the site, sometimes called “Plant Stories,” sometimes “The Vegetation of Israel and Neighboring Countries.” Here Dr. Danin allows himself to speak more informally, using personal and cultural anecdotes to enrich his discussion of a huge variety of plants and habitats. From what I could tell, there are few wild places in Israel or its surrounding neighbors that he hasn’t explored.
And hidden among the plant stories was “The Story of the Caper”:
I liked the “tales of the caper” in the Mishnah. Raban Gamliel stated that “There will be trees that will provide fruits daily.” His pupil said “But it is written that there is nothing new under the sun”; Raban Gamliel said “Come and I’ll show you that they already exist in our world – they went out and he showed him a caper. . . (2)
Well, I was hooked, but it only got better–he went on to describe the caper blossom’s transformation through the dusk and night-time, which I used as the basis for Yeshua’s parable told to the young philosopher of the Decapolis (YC, p. 163).
Caper blossoms, all photos Flora of Israel Online, Hebrew University
Interspersed throughout the article I found more reminiscences of his own experience with the caper plant, including his personal practice of pickling and canning hand-picked capers as gifts.
Pickled buds, fruits, leaves and stems of the Capparis zoharyi, photo Avinoam Danin, Flora of Israel Online
Most of his plant stories never found their way into Yeshua’s Cat, although Yeshua’s makeshift meals of kanari berries and locust pods (YC, p. 83) I credit to him, as well as Yeshua’s examples of common knowledge: “If you feast on bitter almonds, will you not die? Where date palms grow, will you not find water?” (YC, p, 172). It still grieves me that I wasn’t able to use his explanation of how to recognize ancient cisterns in order to find water in the desert. Perhaps in the next book.
Ancient Har Nafka Cistern, photo Avinoam Danin, Flora of Israel Online
I suppose this whole blog entry is simply my way of saying thank you to Dr. Danin for being the kind of scholar who is driven by love of his discipline to share what he knows in appealing and accessible ways, so that everyone–not just other specialists in his field–can appreciate it. Whether he will be pleased to find his name mentioned in the context of an imaginative Christian biography of Jesus of Nazareth, I can’t say. But I suspect he is always delighted when his love of Israel’s native plants is shared with new audiences.
Want to read more about Avinoam Danin? Here’s an interview published in 2012.
In the days before Yeshua’s Cat was written, before the wildfire scorched our land, I was exploring the changes that had carried humanity forward in time from the old Earth-based cultures of the Stone Age, through the violent upheavals of the late Bronze Age, and into the time of the Roman Empire. The planned lectures and workshops vanished in the wildfire’s smoke, but something else emerged. I realized that without the art of these ancient peoples we would understand almost nothing about them. So where was the art of the early church? How had my education in early Christian history managed to focus so entirely on words? As a result, I turned to the internet and the local university library and began to search for the visual language of the early Church. (In case you’d like to explore on your own, Picturing the Bible by Jeffrey Spier is a good place to start.)
Painted bust of Jesus, Nunziatella Catacombs
For much of the mid-20th century, common wisdom dismissed the “search for the historical Jesus” as a groundless hope, a fantasy for the unrealistic. But although we may never see a portrait of the flesh and blood man Jesus, the search has proved far from “groundless”: in our time the Earth herself has been yielding up the voices and visions of Jesus’ earliest followers with increasing frequency.
1st C walls under San Clemente, photo Marc Aurel
Anyone who visits Rome today steps into a buzzing archaeological hive. This in itself isn’t so strange; after all, many of Rome’s greatest attractions were literally unearthed from its ancient past. What fascinates me is how these ruins emerge. They aren’t turned up by a farmer’s plow, or weathered out of an eroding riverbank, but excavated from beneath the city’s basements. Apparently, Rome buried itself. And the same can be said of Jerusalem, or almost any other Mediterranean capital.* In Rome, for example, the twelfth-century Basilica of San Clemente that still stands today used the walls of the fourth-century San Clemente as foundations. This earlier church rose on top of a first-century mansion. Stairs of ever-increasing age, exposed in recent excavations, descend from the sunlit world down through the virtually intact fourth-century church and into the bowels of ancient Rome. There visitors can walk along a first-century Roman alleyway and explore a now-subterranean apartment building adjacent to the walls of the mansion used as an early Christian meeting place. And under it all lies the rubble of Rome’s great fire of 64 CE.
Santa Maria Antigua, Rome
Canyons carved into the human past are literally opening at our feet along the Roman streets. We can almost believe we hear the slap of sandaled feet two thousand years dead. Anything seems possible. The past walks with us in ways we never imagined. Beneath the many strata of Roman civilization lies tuff, or hardened volcanic ash. Tuff is relatively soft until exposed to air, and is ideal for tunneling. This Roman bedrock made possible the creation of the lowest levels of all Roman ruins, the catacombs. As long as sufficient structural support was left in place, there was almost no limit to the number and extent of these labyrinthine burial chambers.
Catacombs of St. Callisto
Although the most famous are Christian, catacombs existed before the early church period, and provided burial space well into the Common Era for those of many different religions. Their painted burial chambers offer us some of the earliest glimpses into the faith of Christian believers, perhaps even back to the middle of the first century.
Vatican Necropolis, 3rd C. CE
Visual art as a way of communicating our experience of the world is always personal, and far more powerful than words. Art strikes human depths directly. When a person chooses images to express the soul’s deepest yearnings in the face of death, non-essentials fall away. The heart chooses whatever makes life livable, hope possible. When we look at funerary art, we meet human beings as they turn their faces toward the mystery of life moving into death. This mystery is what we find in the catacombs.
Jesus raising Lazarus, Via Latina catacombsWinged Victory and Hercules
So why are these earliest of Christian testimonies so little known? Why have these painted gospels made so little impact on how Christians understand their faith today? Perhaps it is because our own worldviews get in the way. So an American tourist in Rome snaps a photo of Nike (Winged Victory), and calls her a Christian angel. Another sees a faded catacomb painting of Hercules with the three-headed dog Cerberus and identifies him as the Good Shepherd (with peculiar sheep). We see what we expect to see, squeezing everything into familiar molds. Or perhaps most people just haven’t had the chance yet to truly experience these painted gospels for themselves.
Early Christians chose dramatic images of Jesus and the Old Testament when they painted their tombs. Those appearing most frequently in the 3rd century and earlier are below:.
Jesus the Good Shepherd, who cared unceasingly for his flock:
Early catacomb images of the Good Shepherd
Jesus the miracle-worker, who healed the sick, raised the dead, and controlled the elements:
Early catacomb images of Jesus performing miracles
Jesus the wise teacher:
Early catacomb images of Jesus teaching
Jonah’s sojourn in and emergence from the fish’s belly:
Early catacomb images and tomb carvings of Jonah
Daniel’s deliverance from the lions:
Early catacomb images of Daniel in lion’s den
The three young men protected from the fiery furnace:
Early catacomb images of three men in fiery furnace
Early Christians also painted images of themselves on tomb walls, using two motifs more often than others: women and men with arms raised in prayer and praise; and small groups of Christians gathered around shared ritual meals.
Early catacomb images of Christians gathered together
The paintings in the house church at Dura Europos in Syria (dating from about 230-250 CE) are the only Christian images of similar age that have been discovered. The paintings there depict the good shepherd, Jesus’ miracles, the Samaritan woman at the well, and the women at the tomb, as well as Old Testament scenes. Also like the catacombs, they portrayed contemporary believers in positions of praise (orants).
Dura Europos, Good Shepherd
Dura Europos Jesus walking on water
Dura Europos, Good Samaritan
Dura Europos, Jesus healing the paralytic
No crucifixes, no suffering martyrs, no images of sacrifice appeared in the early years. These came at least 500 years later, with the developing doctrines of the church.
Possible crucifixion or possible orant figures, Santa Sabina, Rome, 6th C
Crucifixion, 8th C, Santa Maria Antigua
But what does all this have to do with people like us, living two thousand years later? What impact might it have? Let me paint you a picture with words.
Jesus, Nunziatella catacomb
The Christian faith whispering from the dark walls of the catacombs shows us a young man of their own culture–robed, beardless, often holding a wand in his hand–reaching out with compassion and power to touch and heal the human pain around him. He stops the flow of menstrual blood that has made a woman ritually unclean for years. He commands death to release the dead Lazarus, and death yields to him. He sits as a teacher in a circle of disciples, speaking words of life. A strong man with bare legs, he stands among a flock of sheep, carrying a lamb across his shoulders. He betrays no weariness or impatience, only watchful care.
The faith pictured here is in a loving, powerful, and wise man sent from God to point the way and guide his people. They relied on his healing power, his love, and his commitment to their well-being. His God-given power was stronger than death, stronger than the destructive powers of nature, and stronger than human malice.
Early catacomb image of women serving a meal
The believers in these painted gospels were neither theologically complex nor concerned with church structure. Women appeared in positions of leadership as often as did men. No canon of scripture had yet been established, although Paul’s letters were circulating among believers by the 50’s–when there were already growing Christian communities in Rome. Church hierarchy was only a spreading shadow on the horizon, and authority was fluid. What we now consider to be the four gospels were written between 70 and 100 CE, and did not become authoritative until much later. Communities of Christians followed their own personal experience and oral traditions, and suffered at the whim of Roman emperors.
By the third and fourth centuries, the increasingly hierarchical church forcibly silenced dissenting voices. Orthodoxy narrowed to a fine line. A few men concentrated all the power in their own hands. Congregations became sheep in ways they had never anticipated in the early years, and their shepherds were not always good. Too often fear, shame, and guilt discouraged the sheep from straying. Bloody sacrifice–Jesus’ own, and that of the martyrs–became a cornerstone of church doctrine where it had never been before. Bishops formulated creeds, damning those who did not confess Jesus in precisely their words–along with all followers of other faiths. The groundwork was laid for the Crusades and the Inquisition.
The Pains of Hell, 1100 CE
Like the Romans buried Rome, the church buried itself. But unlike Rome, what the church buried they rarely considered fit to use for new foundations. Whether these developments, and those that have followed in the centuries since, have anything at all to do with the message of Jesus of Nazareth is a question more and more people are asking today. In the end each of us may need to dig through the rubble of time and consciousness to find our own buried treasure. But one thing seems clear: the treasure is there. Perhaps our perceptions are at fault.
.
.
Wealthy Jerusalem home of the Herodian period
* The Wohl Museum of Archaeology in Jerusalem has excavated similar subterranean houses of the Herodian period from the hillside overlooking the Temple Mount. Although currently the museum has no website of its own, many pictures of their discoveries are available online . . . .
What exactly was the Decapolis? It was mentioned twice in Mark’s gospel and once in Matthew’s, but described only as a region near Galilee where Jesus’ fame spread. In The Gospel According to Yeshua’s Cat, Yeshua and Mari spend considerable time in the Decapolis among the Greco-Roman peoples there.
Decapolis meant literally “ten cities” in Greek, and referred to a loosely knit group of ancient cities in what is now Israel, Jordan, and Syria. No one can say for sure which cities were included in the ten–or even if there were exactly ten–since their relationship was never formalized in Greek or Roman law. As best we know, they were independent cities, each established as a polis, or city-state, with its own local sphere of influence. They supported each other because of their common ties of culture, similar economic interests, and commitment to the Greek, and later, Roman, empires. With the construction of Roman roads they became even more closely interconnected: outposts of the Roman Empire on its furthest eastern edges, islands of Greco-Roman speech and culture, determinedly set apart from the Aramaean, Nabataean, and Jewish populations all around them.
The Decapolis
The red dots on the map above mark the eight cities closest to Galilee that were probably included in the Decapolis in the early 1st C. CE. The cities connected by red lines are the ones Yeshua visited in The Gospel According to Yeshua’s Cat, although (except for Scythopolis) they aren’t identified by name in the book. In the paragraphs below, cities where specific events in Yeshua’s Cat took place are identified by small cat silhouettes:
Antiochus Epiphanes
Greek influence in Syria was strongest between the time of Alexander the Great and the reign of the Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes, whose rule ended a century before the Roman conquest in 63 BCE. Most of the Decapolis cities were founded during this period.
When Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Temple and forbade the observance of the Jewish religion, Israel revolted, led by Mattathias the
Judas Maccabeus, Acre Synagogue, photo Dr. Avishai Teicher
Hasmonean and his five sons, later known as the Maccabees. They overwhelmed the Seleucids and forced them to concede Israel’s limited independence, thus founding the Hasmonaean dynasty, which ruled in Israel until after the Roman conquest. Once the Greeks were defeated in Israel, the Hasmonaeans turned their eyes to the walled cities of Trans-Jordan, and conquered most of the Decapolis by the beginning of the 1st C BCE.
Ancient Roman statue of Pompey the Great
After annexing the Decapolis, the Hasmonaeans forced Judaism and circumcision on the predominantly gentile population of Hippos, exiled the gentiles from Scythopolis, and burned Pella to the ground after it refused to accept the Jewish religion. Circumcision was a point of irreconcilable conflict between Greeks and Jews. For the Jews it was the essential mark of the male believer in the One God; for Greeks it was a desecration of the divinely formed human body.
Hard feelings between the people of Israel and the Decapolis during the time of Jesus had roots both in the Seleucid oppression of Israel and the years of warfare under the Hasmonaeans. Each side had known cruelty and suffering. When Pompey claimed the Decapolis for Rome in 63 BCE, the gentile population greeted him as a liberator, and killed many Jewish residents in revenge for Hasmonaean cruelty. Once the Romans established themselves in the Decapolis, a period of extensive rebuilding began, lasting into the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. As a result, little remains of the original Greek cities.
Hippos looking west across Sea of Galilee
HIPPOS sat on a high ridge overlooking the eastern side of Sea of Galilee, surrounded on all sides by steep inclines and high fortifications. One thin shoulder of rock approached the main gate on the east, where a fortified road connected the city to the eastern hills as well as indirectly to the sea. Of all the Decapolis cities, Hippos is said to have harbored the greatest antagonism toward Israel for her part in the Hasmonaean wars.
As you read of the blind man Yeshua healed outside the gates of the first Decapolis city he visited, you can imagine that long ridge by which travelers still approach the gates of Hippos.
View of the eastern approach to Hippos
GADARA, like Hippos, was built on a long ridge with steeply sloping sides. Unlike the other Decapolis cities, Gadara developed an international reputation for philosophy, art, and literature. Pilgrims to the hot springs located below the city also contributed to its cosmopolitan atmosphere. Some scholars believe that the story of the demoniac among the tombs was set in its general locale.
Yeshua’s debate with the young philosopher took place in a wealthy home in Gadara.
Gadara’s theatre, photo by Berthold WernerAbila, photo by APAAME
ABILA is still little more than an excavation in process, with only tantalizing possibilities visible to the visitor. But the area awaiting excavation is immense. The ruins extend across two tells, and appear to include structures going back as far as 4000 BCE.
Gerasa Cardo, photo by Bgabel
GERASA, or JARASH, was a strong walled city, but stood in a river valley rather than on a hill. Most of the surviving structures date back to a massive Roman building program begun in the 1st C CE. The Cardo, or main thoroughfare, is one of oldest structures, running east-west through the city, with the marketplace on its west side.
Below are the remains of the market, or macellum, where Yeshua’s parable of the prodigal son brought a tide of change to the people of the Decapolis. This was also the market where Mari trapped Maryam into speaking with Yeshua.
The Macellum at Jarash, photo by APAAME
PELLA, of all the ancient cities of the Decapolis, has left the greatest mystery behind. Almost no ruins from the Roman period have survived. Located in the hills on the east side of the Jordan Valley, on a major Roman road, Pella lay in an area with fertile soil and plentiful water, where towns had stood almost continuously from Neolithic times. After Alexander Jannaeus sacked and leveled the city in 82 BCE, it was entirely rebuilt by the Romans. Archaeologists have suggested that after the great earthquake of 526, the inhabitants of Pella might have recycled the rubble of Roman buildings to rebuild the city.
Site of ancient Pella looking toward the Jordan River
SCYTHOPOLIS, or BEIT SHE’AN, is the only one of the Decapolis cities located on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. These ruins have been extensively excavated, revealing almost continuous occupation from the earliest times, although the city’s significance fluctuated with intermittent wars and violent conquest. The Seleucids founded Scythopolis in the 3rd C BCE on the ruins of the ancient city of Beit She’an, destroyed during the Assyrian sack of Israel. During the Hasmonaean wars much of the Greek polis was destroyed. Once the Romans took over, Scythopolis was named the capital of the Decapolis, and a massive urban building program began, which continued through the next 2-300 years. The steep hill, or tell, which rises to the north of today’s excavated Roman city, covers the remains of the biblical Beit She’an, as well as Seleucid and early Roman ruins. Most of the monumental Roman buildings were completed during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE on the flat land to the south and east of the tell, leaving little evidence of the city’s appearance during the time of Jesus, although the main layout of the streets may have been similar.
Temples were built on the tell at various times during Greek and Roman occupation, perhaps partly because of Scythopolis’ fame as a major center for the worship of Dionysos. Legends of the time located the tomb of his nurse Nysa at Scythopolis.
Because of the city’s connection to the Greco-Roman dying and rising agricultural god, in Yeshua’s Cat the procession of Tammuz’ devotees witnessed by Mari, Yeshua, and the disciples took place in Scythopolis. The tell was the hill the mourning women climbed by torchlight.
My sister-in-law Wendy Francisco (who did the art for Yeshua’s Cat’s front cover) has insisted that I would find myself adding new pages to the Cat from time to time, and I have equally firmly replied that I never would. Well, Wendy won. Over the last two or three weeks that unmistakable nudge (much like a cat butting her head against your chest) has been growing more insistent.
And, Donna West, it was your kind comment on my post about the cat who inspired the book that pushed the nudge into actual words, drawing me out of the busy-ness of publishing concerns and back into Mari’s world.
So, I wish each of you a blessed Christmas, and as a gift from Mari to you, here are a few new words from her, never published before–perhaps for some later edition.
For those of you who have the paperback edition, this would be inserted at the top of page 124, just after “. . . filled with laughter.” For those of you with the Kindle edition, it’s in Chapter 15, Magdala, just after Mari muses about the nature of the festival of lights, and before Yeshua starts speaking on the last night of the feast.
* * *
One night after everyone had gone to bed I finally asked him. “Are your people celebrating the return of the sun’s warmth when they celebrate their festival of lights, son of Earth?”
“Yes and no, little mother,” he replied, turning his head and smiling as he opened his eyes. “We measure the years by the seasons of the moon, not by the sun’s path, so none of our holy days takes note of the sun’s movement, not even this one. No, this week we rejoice in events almost 200 years past, when a great man named Judas Maccabeus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem from the pollution of a pagan altar put there by foreign conquerors. Our many lamps call us to remember that the One’s light can dispel even the deepest darkness.”
He rose to his feet and reached out his arm in invitation, so I leapt to his shoulder, wrapping my tail around his neck. Together we walked out under the winter sky and stood on the hill, watching the stars touch the great sea with their cold fire.
“Yet, little leopard,” he continued as if he had never paused, “you are right when you wonder if we are also welcoming the sun’s return. Just as stars grow brighter in the long nights, each light that burns in winter’s darkness whispers of that hope. Together with all Earth’s children, our hearts grow full when we see the sun begin its long journey back to the heights of heaven. This too reminds us of the One’s faithfulness.”
I curled around his neck more closely to dispel the night’s chill, but I said nothing. I only purred with pleasure at his closeness. I sensed that words still lay unspoken in his heart.
“Sweet Mari, my mother told me that I was born on a night like this, when the stars danced in a black sky, and the breath of humans and beasts alike clouded vision with their brief mist. Joy filled the night and sang in the heavens at the wonder of my coming into the world. All things were made new under that sky, she said.”
I rubbed my whiskers against his cheek, and he continued.
“I can almost hear the heavens singing on such nights. The One’s face shimmers behind the host of stars like a distant oasis in the heat of a desert’s summer day. And yet the chill of a winter night and the searing heat of the desert’s noon both lie quiet in the hollow of his hand.
Catacomb of St Callisto, Rome. Photo by Jim Forest
Did you know that most of the very early “Christmas” art that has survived into the present is in the catacombs around Rome?
The Annunciation, Catacomb of Priscilla, 2nd C CE
Perhaps the earliest known Christian painting is a simple 2nd century portrayal of the Annunciation, on the dome of a tomb in the Catacomb of Priscilla. But dating wall paintings is an inexact science at times, and many believe the paintings at Dura Europos to be earlier.
Virgin and Child with Balaam, Catacomb of Priscilla, 3rd C CE
A painting of the Madonna and Child in the same catacomb complex has been dated to the late 3rd century. These paintings were done in the popular Roman style of the time.
Much of what remains of early Christian art has been discovered in these catacombs, which were used primarily from the 2nd through the 8th centuries CE. They were closed in the 9th century, mainly because of repetitive destruction by invading Goths and Lombards.
Crosses were not common among the earliest symbols. Instead, the Chi Rho, Good Shepherd, fish, anchors, alpha and omega, and praying figures known as “orants” were typically used to decorate tombs. The Good Shepherd in particular was also a common symbol for pagan Roman burials.
Orant figure, Catacomb of Priscilla, 3rd C
Good Shepherd, Catacomb of Domatilla, 3rd C
Jesus with Alpha and Omega, Catacomb of Sts Peter and Marcellinus, 4th C
Chi Rho, 3rd C catacomb
The Magi before Herod, 431, Santa Maria Maggiore
Not until after 313, when the Edict of Milan made the practice of Christianity legal throughout the Roman Empire, did Christian art become more public, and eventually, more complex. The Magi with their gifts was a favorite theme in the 4th and 5th centuries, as was the Annunciation, the angels singing praises, and the Virgin and Child; however, Mary was most often portrayed solemnly, seated on a throne with the child in her lap.
There has been some discussion about whether the arrow-like symbols in the painting below of Jesus with Peter and Paul might also be angels.
Angel, 530, San Vitale, Ravenna
Virgin and Child, 560, St. Apollinaire Nuovo
Christ with Peter and Paul–and possibly angels, 3rd-4th C, Catacomb of Sts Peter and Marcellinus
After the first millennium artists began to “humanize” the nativity, adding details to the scene and softening Mary’s appearance. Finally, by the 1300’s the classical paintings we’re familiar with today began to emerge.
Virgin and Child, 13th C stained glass, England
Adoration of the Magi, Luca di Tomme, 1365
Interestingly enough, the first portrayal of Jesus on the cross didn’t appear until sometime between the 6th and 8th centuries.
Possible crucifixion or possible orant figures, Santa Sabina, Rome, 6th C
Thanksgiving’s closest parallel in Israel’s year is the Festival of Sukkot, or Booths/Tabernacles, one of the three great Jerusalem pilgrimage festivals. Because of Israel’s lunar calendar, Sukkot, like Passover, falls on different days and even different months each year in our solar calendar, but generally it comes in mid-October.
In the story of Yeshua’s Cat, Sukkot is the time Yeshua and his disciples spend at Bethany, when Lazarus attacks Mari, and Mary of Magdala is healed.
van Gogh, Olive Orchard
Sukkot has its roots in Israel’s celebration of the harvest, when they gathered in the fruit of their labors from the fields and vineyards, and celebrated the beginning of the rainy season.
Throughout the week, four species of plants were ceremonially waved (citron fruit, the closed frond of a date palm, and leafy boughs of the myrtle and willow trees) in recognition of the green trees of the land. Wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates represented their harvested crops. Above all, the week was a time of rejoicing, and of remembering God’s care for Israel during the years of her wandering in the wilderness and living in tents, or booths.
Before the first and holiest day of Sukkot, which came five days after Yom Kippur, each family built a small booth, where they lived together during the festival.
Illumination of the Temple
On the day itself, sacrifices of animals and grain began and continued throughout the week. The Illumination of the Temple came at the end of the first day, when four seventy-five-foot candelabras were lit in the Women’s Court of the Temple to remind the people of the pillar of fire that had guided them in the wilderness. Dancing and rejoicing continued through that night, and the whole city was lit by the brilliance of the lamps.
The Pouring of the Water was observed each morning when a priest drew water from the pool of Siloam and poured it on the great altar, as both prayer and thanks for the coming of the rains. Each evening the devout men of Israel gathered at the pool to dance and rejoice with music and torches.
Pool of Siloam
Not only did Sukkot celebrate the gathering in of the crops before the heavy rains and the memory of Israel’s wilderness journey, but also the beginning of the New Year, when the past year’s mistakes had been wiped away, and all the world was new.
What are Egyptian Mau cats? I guess there are a good many people out there who know as little about the Mau as I did before I did a little digging, so I’ll offer a brief history (apart from the fact that these are the cats from whom Mari is descended).
Cat sarcophagus, early 14th C BCE, photo Lazaroni
“Mau” is the Middle Egyptian word miw for “cat,” or “one who mews” (coming into use somewhere in the period from 2000 – 1300 BCE)–a great example of onomatopoeia in human language development. At the left is the hieroglyph “miw,” according to Alan Henderson Gardiner’s sign list. The Egyptian Mau appears in numerous papyri, tomb paintings, and carvings from about 2000 BCE onward, including the sarcophagus of Prince Thutmose’s cat (right). Thutmose was Akhenaten’s elder brother, who died before ascending the throne.
Most scholars agree that the Mau is descended from the African wildcat common to north Africa (felis sylvestris lybica) and the Egyptian jungle cat (felis chaus nilotica). But these wildcats as we know them are not spotted like the Egyptian Mau. It’s hard to say when the early Egyptian Mau replaced its body stripes with spots. As late as 1350 BCE, the Tomb of Nebamun depicted a striped tabby cat helping Nebamun hunt birds. But we do know from the evidence of thousands of cat mummies that today’s spotted Mau were common before the Common Era.
Ra and Apophis, Papyrus of Hunefer, 1300 BCE
Somewhere around 1500 BCE the sun god Ra took on the characteristics of a spotted male cat and, according to the myths of the time, journeyed to the underworld every night, where he killed the snake demon Apophis, who nightly tried to prevent the sun’s rising.
Hathor, temple of Bubastis, photo Nicholson-CRBastet, Louvre, photo Mbzt
Bast was a cat/lion goddess who served as protector and defender of the Pharaoh and later of the sun god Ra in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. She was eventually eclipsed by the goddess Sekhmet, also a warlike lion goddess. The changes in Bast’s significance, title, and even name were complex and confusing, all morphing as dynasties changed and regional beliefs merged over time. Near the beginning of the first millennium BCE she became known as Bastet, and was identified almost solely with the Egyptian domestic cat. She retained her protective role, influenced by the domestic cat’s skill in dealing with cobras and rodents, and also became associated with fertility and motherhood. Bubastis , or Pe-Bast, was established as the temple center of the cat goddess’s worship early in the 1st millenium BCE. The temple was famous for its beauty, although its significance declined after the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525 BCE. Worship of Bastet was finally outlawed in 390 CE, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
Bronze Cat, ca 500 BCE, photo Glenn Ashton
During its most active years, the temple at Bubastis was renowned throughout the ancient world for the ecstatic revelry of its festivals, it oracle, and its innumerable domestic cats and cat mummies, many buried with grave goods for the afterlife (milk, mice, and other edibles). In fact, the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 30:17) mentions the city of Bubastis, and by implication its temple to Bastet with its famous revels, when he makes his prophecies concerning the downfall of Egypt.
The reverence Egyptians felt for their cats is well documented. While cats themselves were not considered divine, they were sacred to the deities who adopted their appearance, and thus were due scrupulous respect and honor.
According to Herodotus (5th C BCE), families grieving for dead cats shaved their eyebrows as an expression of their grief. More curious is his description of the behavior of cats around fires. “When a fire occurs,” he said “the cats seem to be divinely possessed; for while the Egyptians stand at intervals and look after the cats, not taking any care to extinguish the fire, the cats slipping through or leaping over the men, jump into the fire; and when this happens, great mourning comes upon the Egyptians.” Perhaps Herodius was confused; surely cats can’t have changed that much in two thousand years.
Herodius’ account of a battle between Persians and Egyptians near Pelusium may be more accurate. According to Herodotus, the Persians had captured numerous cats before the battle and released them as battle was joined. Rather than risk harming the cats, the Egyptians surrendered. From their point of view, this was probably wise: unless you happened to be a servant of the goddess in the temple of Bastet, killing a cat was a crime punishable by death, not to mention whatever punishment the gods might inflict in the afterlife. Diodorus (1st C. BCE) describes a mob slaying a Roman soldier who accidentally killed a cat, in spite of the pharaoh’s pleas for mercy.
Cairo Cat, photo Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Sadly, in many of Egypt’s cities today, cats are considered pests, and are often abused, neglected and even slaughtered. The recent turmoil in Egypt has only aggravated their situation, adding many abandoned pets to the feral population, and killing uncounted animals in the streets. The Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals (ESMA) continues to fight an uphill battle for their protection.
For the most part, Egypt’s cats have retained their distinctive appearance through the centuries. Many are identical to the cats of ancient history–and to the breed standards of the Egyptian Mau among cat fanciers. After all, “Egyptian Mau” literally means “Egyptian Cat.” DNA studies of cat mummies show very little difference between the ancient and modern Mau. Cats like the one above could easily be Ptolemaic statues come to life. Modern breeders have even traveled to Egypt to acquire likely cats to expand the genetic pool of the pedigreed Mau.
For an excellent all around presentation of the breed known today as Egyptian Mau, take a look at http://www.isiska.co.uk/ , the website of Isiska Egyptian Maus.
“If the Savior considered her worthy, who are you to reject her?” from The Gospel of Mary of Magdala, trans. Karen L. King
“Mary Magdalene,” by Piero di Cosimo
I guess quite a few church leaders over 2 millennia—including Peter, if Mary’s gospel is to be believed—felt comfortable doing just that. Both the Gospel of Mary of Magdala and Mary herself were very nearly buried for two thousand years. Of course she’s practically a cultural icon today, what with her rediscovered gospel, the Da Vinci Code, and even her own opera. If you haven’t kept up with all the brouhaha surrounding her contemporary rehabilitation, try the Smithsonian’s excellent overview, “Who Was Mary Magdalene?” online at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-mary-magdalene-119565482/.
It’s curious that although the gospels’ cast of characters reads like the credits for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (blink and you’ll miss the women) church fathers still conflated most of the few women mentioned into a composite Mary Magdalene. References to Mary Magdalene’s character in the original texts described her only as previously demon-possessed and a follower of Jesus, helping with his support.
Botticelli’s “Lamentation Over the Dead Christ
Rubens, “Feast of Simon the Pharisee”
Crivelli, “Mary Magdalene”
Francesco Hayez , “Mary Magdalene as a Hermit”
As a result of the pronouncements of such men as Pope Gregory the Great, the two most important women in church tradition became the ever-virgin Mary and the Magdalene montage: a woman taken in adultery, demon possessed, and repenting of great sexual sins. In other words, the virgin and the whore: one of the most common and destructive stereotypes ever devised of women. I should mention that this conflation only happened in the Western, or Roman, church. What is now the Eastern Orthodox Church preserved the older, more balanced view of Mary Magdalene as the Apostle to the Apostles, and companion of Mary the mother of Jesus.
Who was Mary Magdalene really?
“Mary Magdalene,” Jose de Ribera
I’m staying out of the debate. It’s not my area, and Karen L. King is doing a commendable job of defending my general point of view. But I will say that the now-outdated descriptions of her as a woman with a profligate past should have been buried long before now.
Two major traditions developed around the question of how Mary Magdalene lived her life after the resurrection. According to one, she lived with Mary the mother of Jesus and John in Ephesus, where she eventually died and was buried. According to the other, she went with Lazarus to France, preaching and later living as a penitent hermit wearing only her own hair, and died and was buried there. This latter legend was by far the more popular in Western art, and is the inspiration for Mary Magdalene’s frequent portrayal with long hair and meditating on a skull—as well as the term “maudlin,” derived from “Magdalene” and referring to her constant weeping for her sins.
“Mary Magdalene’s Voyage to Marseilles,” Giotto
“Mary Magdalene,” Donatello
“Ascension of Mary Magdalene”, anon, 1510
The evolving legends of Mary Magdalene wove themselves into a fascinating and bizarre bit of history. Among the more macabre elements were the acrimonious claims to what appear to be multiple sets of her earthly remains. Much of the bickering died down after the French Revolution, when many sites claiming to possess her relics were destroyed. Today, in addition to her possible burial places, relics reputed to be hers are still preserved, including a gold-encased skull, a piece of her tibia, a tooth, part of an arm, and a bit of a foot, to name only a few. And that doesn’t begin to account for the second and third class relics.
Presumed Skull of Mary Magdalene,St Maximin-de-la-Ste-Baume Basilica
Reliquary with supposed fragment of Mary Magdalene’s arm
Reliquary with what is believed to be Mary Magdalene’s tibia
In case this is alien territory for you, I’ll explain. There are three classes of relics in the Roman Catholic Church: 1st class relics, items relating to Jesus (robe, cross, etc.) or actual bits of saints’ bodies; 2nd class relics, including items used or worn by saints; and 3rd class relics, items that have touched 1st or 2nd class relics. It’s a fascinating subject, spilling into Paul Koudounaris’ amazing newbook, Heavenly Bodies, which documents the discovery of the jeweled skeletons of the “catacomb saints.”
Mary of Magdala is the most important character in Yeshua’s Cat after Yeshua and Mari. And I’ll give you clue: she isn’t a prostitute or a penitent there. But she has always fascinated me in all her incarnations, as you can see below in my digital mosaic, which expresses my own grief over the church’s demonization of Mary.
My own expression of grief over church tradition’s warping of Mary Magdalene’s memory
I’d like to say that Mari emerged fully grown from my brow, like Athena from the brow of Zeus, but it didn’t happen that way. She grew slowly as I wrote, born from the personality of the small black cat under the fir tree in the photo, maturing and growing as the book grew, and I with it. She was the author of the book as much as I.
Ragdoll kittens
While I was writing Yeshua’s Cat, I was also lending a hand with my sister-in-law Wendy’s Ragdoll cattery. So not only did I have my three rescue cats dancing in and out of my thoughts and over my computer keys, but I also entertained rolling tides of soft-furred queens, kings, princes and princesses, rising and tumbling over the threshold of my room with the rhythms of the day. (They’re gorgeous, by the way: Treasure Mountain Ragdolls).
Chami
And then there was Chami, the elegant Bengal queen who moved in with me for several weeks while she was between homes. Beautiful and sweet-tempered though she was, she left me feeling as if living with her was a bit like inviting a panther into my bed. I slept lightly in her presence. I suppose the movie Cat Woman deserves mention as well, disappointing as it was. It did send me googling off for more data on the Egyptian Mau. Before seeing the movie, I knew little more than rumors of the breed. Afterwards I was curious enough to want to discover how much of the movie’s hype had been based in fact.
Egyptian Mau, photo Liz West
What conclusions I drew about the relationships between the movie and the Mau I no longer remember, but I did stumble onto one amazing thing: the Egyptian Mau cats in the photos looked like the Mari in my mind. I had finished the book by the time I made this discovery, but that made no difference to the identification. Mari was darker than most Egyptian Mau, more like a black or smoke Mau, but her build, her markings, and her face were all theirs–not to mention her affectionate nature, her devotion to her human, her protectiveness, and her hunting skills. So her breed was established, at least in my mind.
Egyptian Bronze, ca 400BCE, photo KaDeWeGirl,Flickr
Since Yeshua discovered Mari on the edges of the barren desert surrounding the Dead Sea, I decided that her feline family might have arrived in the area by way of the Nabataean caravans traveling up from Sinai. Or perhaps they were wandering strays from one of the Nabataean cities to the south, or even escapees from a passing camel train. The Nabataeans had originally been tent-dwelling desert shepherds and traders, a mysterious group related to the Bedouin who amassed great wealth over several centuries from their trading networks, and eventually settled down in desert cities. Rock-cut Petra is their most famous settlement, although they also built cities further west and south along the ancient spice routes.
Nabataean sculpture, Petra, photo Berthold WernerAsian Wildcat indigenous to Israel, photo by Terry Whittaker
As far as research can tell us, people of 1st C Israel did not keep pets–even dogs–although there was some limited cooperation between the two species. Perhaps the absence of pets was due to Israel’s concern for ritual purity, particularly relating to the ritual uncleanness of scavengers and predators. In any case, their attitude toward animals seemed largely functional. The prophet Ezekiel singled out Bubastis, city of the temple of the cat goddess Bastet, as one of the cities upon which God would pour out his wrath (Ezek 30:17). His mention of this city suggests that the cat goddess was familiar to the people of Israel. She might even have inspired dislike of cats in general. Wealthy Greeks and Romans, however, frequently kept pets, ranging from snakes, monkeys, and fowl to their favorite pet, the dog. But outside of Egypt cats weren’t often accepted as companions until the Common Era.
Cats almost certainly lived on the fringes of Israelite society, even though they may not have been welcomed into people’s homes. By the 1st C C.E., cats had been semi-domesticated throughout the eastern Mediterranean area for several thousand years. Wherever grain was cultivated, rodent control was essential, and cats filled that ecological niche efficiently. They would have been a long-established part of Israel’s environment.
For Yeshua to have kept company with a cat would certainly have been seen as aberrant behavior, even religiously questionable. But he had his own ways of dealing with such things.
Throughout the week, four species of plants were ceremonially waved (citron fruit, the closed frond of a date palm, and leafy boughs of the myrtle and willow trees) in recognition of the green trees of the land. Wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates represented their harvested crops. Above all, the week was a time of rejoicing, and of remembering God’s care for Israel during the years of her wandering in the wilderness and living in tents, or booths.
Before the first and holiest day of Sukkot, which came five days after Yom Kippur, each family built a small booth, where they lived together during the festival.
