During Europe’s Middle Ages, the Day of Innocent Saints turned power over to children, idiots, and the demented. In England reigned the Lord of Misrule, and fighting for Spain’s throne were the King of Roosters and the King of Pigs, each of them denizens of the insane asylum. A child decked out in miter and crosier played Pope of the Crazies and made people kiss his ring, while another child mounted on a mule pronounced the bishop’s sermons.
Like all fiestas of the looking-glass world, those fleeting spaces of liberty had a beginning and an end. They were brief. When the captain’s around, the sailors pipe down.
FORBIDDEN TO LAUGH
The ancient festivals that marked the cycles of nature now called Christmas and Easter are no longer homages to pagan gods, but rather solemn rituals that venerate the divinity who kidnapped their days and hijacked their symbols.
The Hilaria, a festival either inherited or invented by Rome, greeted the arrival of spring. The goddess Cybele would bathe in the river, calling for rain and fertility in the fields, while the Romans, dressed in bizarre clothes, laughed themselves silly. Everyone made fun of everyone else, and there was no person or thing in the world undeserving of a good ribbing.
By decision of the Catholic Church, this pagan festival, which celebrated with hilarity the resurrection of spring, was deemed to coincide each March, more or less, with the resurrection of Jesus, of whom the scriptures record not a single laugh.
And by decision of the Catholic Church, the Vatican was built in the exact location where the festival of glee used to reach its zenith. Now, in that vast plaza where the guffaws of the multitudes once resonated, we hear the grave voice of the pope reciting passages from the Bible, a book where no one ever laughs.
THE SMILING DIVINITY
Images of him show him smiling, serenely ironic, as if mocking the paradoxes that defined his life and afterlife.
Buddha did not believe in gods or in God, but his devotees made him one.
Buddha did not believe in miracles, nor did he perform them, but his devotees attribute to him miraculous powers.
Buddha did not believe in any religion, nor did he found one, but the passing of time turned Buddhism into one of the most popular religions in the world.
Buddha was born on the banks of the Ganges, but Buddhists make up less than 1 percent of the population of India.
Buddha preached asceticism, the renunciation of passion, and the negation of desire, but he died from eating way too much pork.
A FATHER WHO NEVER LAUGHS
Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship the same divinity, the god of the Bible who answers to three names, Yahweh, God, and Allah, depending on who happens to be calling. Jews, Christians, and Muslims kill one another on His orders, they say.
In other religions, the gods are or were many. Greece, India, Mexico, Peru, Japan, China all boast or boasted numerous Olympians. Yet the God of the Bible is jealous. Jealous of whom? Why is He so worried about the competition if He is the only true god?
Thou shalt not bow thyself down to any other god, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:5)
Why does He punish several generations of offspring for the disloyalty of their parents?
I the Lord thy God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. (Exodus 20:5)
Why is He so insecure? Why does He mistrust his devotees so? Why must He threaten them to get them to obey? Speaking live and direct, or by the mouths of the prophets, He warns:
If thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God . . . the Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with extreme burning, and with drought . . . A wife wilt thou betroth, and another man shall lie with her . . . The Lord shall give as the rain of thy land powder and dust . . . Much seed wilt thou carry out into the field, yet but little shalt thou gather in; for the locust shall consume it. Vineyards wilt thou plant and dress, but wine shalt thou not drink nor lay up; for the worms shall eat them . . . Ye will offer yourselves for sale unto our enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, without any one to buy you. (Deuteronomy 28)
Six days may work be done; but on the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord; whoever doeth any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 31:15)
He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. (Leviticus 24:16)
The stick works better than the carrot. The Bible is a catalogue of harrowing punishments meted out to the unbelieving:
I will send out against you the beasts of the f ield . . . I will chastise you, sevenfold for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat . . . I will draw out after you the sword; and your land shall be a desolate wild, and your cities shall be a waste. (Leviticus 26)
This perpetually angry God rules the world in our days by means of His three religions. He is not what we might call nice:
God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. (Nahum 1:2)
His ten commandments do not outlaw war. On the contrary, He orders it done. And His is a war without pity for anyone, not even babes:
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (Samuel 15:3)
Daughter of Babel, devastator: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. (Psalms 137:9)
THE SON
No one knows how: Yahweh, the one god who never made love, fathered a son.
According to the scriptures, the son came into the world when Herod reigned in Galilee. Since Herod died four years before the beginning of the Christian era, Jesus must have been born at least four years before Christ.
What year, nobody knows. Or what day or what time. Jesus had spent nearly four centuries without a birthday when Saint Gregory Nazianzen issued him a birth certificate in the year 379. Jesus was born on December 25. Thus the Catholic Church once again draped itself in the illustrious robes of idolatry. According to pagan tradition, that was the day the sacred sun initiated its march against night through the winter’s darkness.
Whenever it may have occurred, that first silent night of peace and love was certainly not celebrated as it is now in many lands, with the deafening battle roar of firecrackers. For sure, there were no little pins showing the golden-curled babe which that newborn was not. Any more than the ones who followed a star no one else ever saw to a manger in Bethlehem were either three or kings. And certainly that first Christmas, which foretold such bad news for the merchants in the temple, was not and was never intended to be a promise of spectacular sales for the merchants of the world.
WANTED
WANTED
NAME, JESUS.
AKA, MESSIAH.
NO JOB OR FIXED ADDRESS.
He claims to be the son of God, who came down from heaven to set fire to the world.
An outlaw from the desert, he gets townspeople all riled up.
He promises paradise to the destitute, to slaves, crazies, drunks, and prostitutes.
He fools the common people by curing lepers, multiplying loaves and fishes, and performing other tricks of magic and sorcery.
He does not respect Rome’s authority or Jewish tradition.
He has always lived outside the law.
For thirty-three years he has been running from the death sentence he received at birth.
The cross awaits him.
THE ASS
He gave warmth to newborn Jesus in the manger, and that’s why he is in all the pictures, posing with his big ears beside the bed of straw.
On the back of an ass, Jesus escaped Herod’s sword.
On the back of an ass, he wandered all his life.
&nbs
p; On the back of an ass, he preached.
On the back of an ass, he entered Jerusalem.
Perhaps the ass is not such an ass after all?
RESURRECTION OF JESUS
In Oaxaca, the Mazatecos say Jesus was crucified because he gave the poor a voice and made the trees speak.
And they say that after long suffering, they took him down from the cross.
And he was already buried, asleep in his death, when a cricket began to sing.
And the cricket awakened him.
And Jesus said he wished to leave death behind.
And the cricket told the mole, who then dug a long tunnel underground until he reached the casket where Jesus lay.
And the mole sought the help of the mouse, who then broke open the casket with his sharp teeth.
And Jesus got out.
And with one finger he pushed aside the immense boulder that the soldiers had put in his way.
And he thanked the cricket, the mole, and the mouse who had been so kind.
And he rose up to heaven, though he had no wings.
And above the open tomb he left the immense boulder floating in the air with an angel seated on it.
And the angel told all this to lady Mary, mother of Jesus.
And lady Mary could not keep the secret and she told her neighbors in the market.
And that is how we know.
MARYS
In the scriptures, Mary seldom appears.
The Church ignored her too until about a thousand years ago. Then the mother of Jesus was consecrated as the mother of humanity and the symbol of the purity of the faith. In the eleventh century, while the Church was inventing purgatory and obligatory confession, in France eighty churches and cathedrals sprang up in homage to Mary.
Virginity was the source of her prestige. Mary, nourished by angels, impregnated by a dove, was never touched by a man. The husband, Saint Joseph, said hello from afar. And she became even more holy after 1854, when the infallible Pope Pius IX revealed that Mary had been conceived without sin, which in translation means that the mother of the Virgin was also a virgin.
Today Mary is the most adored and miraculous divinity in the world. Eve brought ruin to all women. Mary redeems them. Thanks to her, the sinning daughters of Eve have the chance to repent.
And that is what happened to the other Mary, the one who appears in the pictures at the foot of the holy cross, beside the immaculate one.
According to tradition, that other Mary, Mary Magdalene, was a whore and became a saint.
Believers humiliate her by offering forgiveness.
RESURRECTION OF MARY
Mary was reborn in Chiapas.
It was announced by an Indian from the town of Simojovel, a cousin of hers, and by a hermit who was unrelated and lived under a tree in Chamula.
And in the town of Santa Marta Xolotepec, Dominica López was harvesting corn when she saw her. The mother of Jesus asked her to build her a chapel because she was tired of sleeping in the woods. Dominica paid heed, but in a few days the bishop turned up and arrested her along with Mary and all her followers.
Then Mary escaped from jail and went to the town of Cancuc and spoke out of the mouth of a girl who was also named Mary.
The Tzetzal Mayas never forgot what she said. She spoke in their language and in a hoarse voice she ordered:
that women should not deny their bodily desires, because these cheered her;
that women who wished to get married to other men should do so, because
marriages performed by Spanish priests were no good;
and that the prophecy that the yoke would be thrown off and lands and
freedom restored had come to pass, and there was no longer any need for
tribute or king or bishop or high mayor.
And the Council of Elders heard her and obeyed. And in the year 1712, thirty-two indigenous towns rose up in arms.
ORIGIN OF SANTA CLAUS
The first rendering of Santa Claus, published in 1863 in Harper’s of New York, showed a hefty little gnome entering a chimney. He issued from the hand of the artist Thomas Nast, vaguely inspired by the legend of Saint Nicholas.
Christmas of 1930 saw Santa Claus working for Coca-Cola. Before then he did not wear a suit and generally preferred to wear blue or green. The artist Haddon Sundblom dressed him in the company colors, bright red with white piping, and gave him the features familiar to us all. Every child’s friend has a white beard, laughs all the time, travels by sleigh, and is so plump that no one can figure out how he gets down the world’s chimneys loaded with presents and carrying a Coke in each hand.
Neither can anyone figure out what he has to do with Christ.
ORIGIN OF HELL
The Catholic Church invented hell and also invented the devil.
The Old Testament makes no mention of the perpetual barbecue, neither do its pages feature an appearance by the monster reeking of sulfur, who carries a trident and sports horns and a tail, claws and hooves, goat’s legs and dragon’s wings.
But the Church asked itself: what will become of reward without punishment? What will become of obedience without fear?
And it wondered: what will become of God without the devil? What will become of good without evil?
And the Church concluded that the threat of hell is more effective than the promise of heaven, and from then on ministers and holy fathers have terrorized us with sermons about torture in the fiery abyss where the evil one reigns.
In the year 2007, Pope Benedict XVI confirmed it:
“There is a hell. And it is eternal.”
PRISCILLIAN
And the time of the catacombs ended.
In the Coliseum, the Christians ate the lions.
Rome became the global capital of the faith and the Catholic religion became the official religion of the empire.
And in the year 385, when the Church condemned Bishop Priscillian and his followers, it was the Roman emperor who killed them as heretics.
Heads rolled.
The Christians led by Bishop Priscillian had been guilty:
they danced and sang and celebrated darkness and fire,
they turned the mass into a pagan festival from Galicia, the suspicious
land where Priscillian was born,
they lived in community and in poverty,
they repudiated the alliance of the Church with the powers that be,
they condemned slavery,
and they allowed women to preach, as priests.
HYPATIA
“She’ll go off with anybody,” they said, to denigrate her freedom.
“She is not like a woman,” they said, to praise her intelligence.
But numerous professors, magistrates, philosophers, and politicians came from afar to the School of Alexandria to hear her words.
Hypatia studied the enigmas that defied Euclid and Archimedes, and she spoke out against blind faith unworthy of divine love or human love. She taught people to doubt and to question. And she counseled:
“Defend your right to think. Thinking wrongly is better than not thinking at all.”
What was that heretical woman doing giving classes in a city run by Christian men?
They called her a witch and a sorcerer. They threatened her with death.
And one March day in the year 415, a crowd set upon her at noon. And she was pulled from her carriage and stripped naked and dragged through the streets and beaten and stabbed. And in the public square a bonfire disposed of whatever was left of her.
“It will be investigated,” said the prefect of the city.
THEODORA
The city of Ravenna owed allegiance to Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, but the city’s sharp tongues delighted in digging up the empress’s murky past: dancing in the slums of Constantinople as the geese pecked grains of barley off her nude body, her moans of pleasure, the roars of the audience . . .
But the sins which puritan Ravenna could not forgive were others, the o
nes she committed after her coronation. Theodora was the reason why the Christian empire of Byzantium became the first place in the world where abortion was a right,
adultery was not punished by death,
women had the right to inherit,
widows and illegitimate children were protected,
a woman’s divorce was not an impossibility,
and the marriage of Christian nobles to women of lower class or different religion was no longer prohibited.
Fifteen hundred years later, the portrait of Theodora in the Church of Saint Vitale is the most famous mosaic in the world.
This masterpiece of stonework is also the symbol of the city that loathed her and now lives from her.
URRACA
She was the first queen of Spain.
Urraca ruled for seventeen years, though Church records say her reign lasted no more than four.
Fed up with insults and beatings, she divorced the husband of a forced marriage, booting him out of her bed and her palace, though Church records say he left her.
To show the Church who was in charge and teach it to respect the female throne, Queen Urraca locked up the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela and seized his castles, something unheard of in such a Christian land, though Church records say that was but “an explosion of womanly spirit, easily unhinged, and of womanly mind, filled as it is with pestiferous poison.”