Affirmations and Confessions of a Progressive Christian Layman
Modern Novelists Spread Unorthodox Christian Ideas
Part 5 – Cabal of the Westford Knight

 
In David S. Brody’s novel, Cabal of the Westford Knight (2009), a Canadian Catholic priest explains to lawyer/historian Cameron Thorne and Amanda Spencer, a British researcher, several unorthodox beliefs.
 
For instance, the priest believed that Jesus was married and produced offspring. As a priest, he would prefer to believe otherwise, but as a scholar, the evidence can’t be ignored. As evidence, he offered that Bernard de Clairvaux, a 12^th century Cistercian monk and a very powerful man in the history of the Church, referred to Mary Magdalene as the “Bride of Christ” in his Sermon 57. The priest also referred to a stained-glass window in 1906 Kilmore Church in Western Scotland that depicts a bearded, haloed Jesus holding hands with a pregnant, long red-haired woman dressed in a green gown, which are historical characteristics of Mary Magdalene. He contended that legend is more historical than fact, because written history reflects the beliefs or opinions or agenda of one man, the writer, while local legends and traditions are the most accurate versions of history and tell us the beliefs of millions.
 
Furthermore, he told Thorne and Amanda about carvings in England’s Royston Cave which picture Jesus, Mary Magdalene and their daughter, Sarah. The three figures are surrounded by ancient fertility symbolism, to make the message abundantly clear.
 
The priest believes the Church does more good than harm, but if the Church is built on faulty dogma, it should be addressed. If Jesus married and had a child, so what? Is the Church so vulnerable, so morally precarious, that it cannot deal honestly with history? He said, “It all goes back to not telling the truth in the first place. You look pretty silly when the world proves you wrong. Especially when you’re wearing a cloak of infallibility… The Catholic Church is built on faith, not reason. None of it – the conception story, Christ’s resurrection, the concept of Communion – is rational.”
 
He also thinks that John the Baptizers’ Essenic religious roots were derived from the Egyptian worship of the goddess Isis. The similarities between the story of Jesus and Mary and the legend of Isis are striking: The husband of Isis, Osiris, was killed and resurrected three days later to conceive their son, Horus. Many of the icons of Isis show her nurturing this son at her breast in much the same manner as Mary is shown nurturing Jesus. And the teachings of the Isis religion emphasize repentance and confession. Even the ritual of immersion into water as a purification rite has its roots in Egyptian legend.
 
He comments that the number 40 is repeated often in the Bible: the Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years; Noah’s flood lasted 40 days and 40 nights; King Sol, King David and King Solomon all reigned for 40 years; Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights; Lent lasts for 40 days; the period of postpartum rest and purification under Jewish law is 40 days; and the list goes on and on. He thinks these examples are related to Venus’ 40-year cycle.
 
His explanation of why Gothic cathedrals have two spires on each side of an entrance leading into the sanctuary is interesting. He says, “If a woman lies on her back – and then lifts her knees to be perpendicular to her body, her legs will obviously be elevated above her body as two projections” and, in the position for giving birth, her genitalia are in full view. He believes that posture was transferred to the architecture of cathedrals with two spires.
 
He explains that Easter was originally an old pagan fertility ritual that was celebrated on the spring equinox. The celebration, named after the fertility goddess “Ishtar,” was little more than a mass orgy before the Church hijacked the holiday and turned it into Jesus’ resurrection.
 
Similarly, he claimed that Jesus was born in September, not December. The Church appropriated the pagan winter solstice celebration when the sun was thought to be born – December 25^th – to help convert the pagans.
 
I had always heard that Christians worship on Sunday because that was when Jesus rose from the dead, but this priest claimed it was because pagans worshiped the sun, so the day of worship was moved from the Sabbath to the day of the sun, Sunday.
 
Many early Christians followed Mary Magdalene because they believed she was the wife of Jesus and the mother of his child, Sarah. After the crucifixion, Mary and Sarah fled Jerusalem and eventually ended up in France, where their descendants, the Merovingians, ruled France and Germany towards the end of the Dark Ages. This adoration of Mary Magdalene was just a continuation of the worship of the Sacred Feminine. The Church was patriarchal and marginalized the role of women.
 
In Hebrew, the name “Yahweh” was written Yud, Hey, Vov, Hey. In Hebrew, like Spanish and French, words are either masculine or feminine, depending on their final letter. So, “Yahweh” was a feminine word. Elohim: one of the names for God in the Hebrew Bible, comes from the root word “Elowah,” which is also feminine.

Read Part 1 Here
Read Part 2 Here
Read Part 3 Here
Read Part 4 Here
Read Part 5 Here
Read Part 7 Here