CHRIST UNVEILED

“A birth like that of Priapus is ascribed by some writers of myths to Hermaphroditus, as he has
been called, who was born of Hermes and Aphrodite and received a name which is a
combination of both his parents. Some say that this Hermaphroditus is a god and appears at
certain times among men, and that he is born with a physical body which is a combination of
that of a man and that of a woman, in that he has a body which is beautiful and delicate like
that of a woman, but has the masculine quality and vigour of a man. But there are some who
declare that such creatures of two sexes are monstrosities, and coming rarely into the world as
they do they have the quality of presaging the future, sometimes for evil and sometimes for
good.”1

In the myths associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries the daughter of Demeter is abducted by
Hades and taken down into the underworld. On her journey to find her daughter the distraught
goddess ultimately reaches Eleusis and inaugurates the mysteries.

“Now when Ceres (Demeter) did not know what had happened, and had no idea where in the
world her daughter was, she set herself to seek the lost one all over the world. She snatches up
two torches lit at the fires of Aetna; and giving herself light by means of these, goes on her
quest in all parts of the earth.”2

Eventually reaching Eleusis, thus cementing the myth’s central role in the Eleusinian Mysteries,
Demeter is found by one of the original inhabitants, Baubo. Attempting to console the
distraught goddess Baubo offers her the sacrament of kykeon, the grain derived draught that
was consumed in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Failing in this effort to cheer the goddess, Baubo
exposes her genital parts. This action was met with laughter by the goddess after which she
willingly drank the sacrament. The act of exposure must have been that of a hermaphrodite in
order to explain the reaction of the goddess.

“For Demeter, wandering in quest of her daughter Core, broke down with fatigue near Eleusis…
The indigenous inhabitants then occupied Eleusis… (one of these) Baubo having received
Demeter hospitably, reaches to her a refreshing draught; and on her refusing it, not having any
inclination to drink (for she was very sad), and Baubo having become annoyed, thinking herself
slighted, uncovered her shame, and exhibited her nudity to the goddess. Demeter is delighted
at the sight, and takes, though with difficulty, the draught - pleased, I repeat, at the spectacle.
These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians; these Orpheus records. I shall produce the very
words of Orpheus, that you may have the great authority on the mysteries himself, as evidence
for this piece of turpitude:
‘Having thus spoken, she drew aside her garments,
and showed all that shape of the body which it is improper to name,
and with her own hand Baubo stripped herself under the breasts.
Blandly then the goddess laughed and laughed in her mind,
and received the glancing cup in which was the draught.’”3

Clement of Alexandria, despite quoting Orpheus, refrains from revealing the obvious inference
of the poem. Only the unexpected exposure of a hermaphrodite in this context could have
provoked the goddess to laughter. Arnobius makes more explicit that this Eleusinian myth
centred around the revelation of the genitalia of a hermaphrodite.

“What, I ask you, was there in such a sight, what in the genital parts of Baubo, to move to
wonder and laughter a goddess of the same sex, and formed with similar parts? What was there
such that, when presented to the divine eyes and sight, it should at the same time enable her to
forget her miseries, and bring her with sudden cheerfulness to a happier state of mind?” 4
Arnobius supports the main thrust of the Eleusinian myth with the difference that the exposure
is performed with a playful purpose rather than in annoyance at the goddess.

“... Baubo who, we have said, dwelt in the canton in Eleusis, receives hospitably Ceres
(Demeter), worn out with ills of many kinds, hangs about her with pleasing attentions,
beseeches her not to neglect to refresh her body, brings to quench her thirst wine thickened
with spelt, which the Greek term kykeon. The goddess turns away from the kindly offered
services, and rejects them… Baubo changes her plans, and determines to make merry by
strange jests her whom she could not win by earnestness… she uncovers herself, and baring her
groins, displays all the parts which decency hides; and then the goddess fixes her eyes upon
these, and is pleased with the strange form of consolation. Then becoming more cheerful after
laughing, she takes and drinks off the draught spurned before, and the indecency of a
shameless action forced that which Baubo’s modest conduct was long unable to win.”5

Arnobius also invokes the Orphic poem that was referenced by Clement of Alexandria in order
to support this interpretation of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

“If any one perchance thinks that we are speaking wicked calumnies… we shall bring forward
the very verses which the son of Calliope uttered in Greek, and published abroad in his songs to
the human race throughout all ages:
‘With these words she at the same time drew up her garments from the lowest hem,
and exposed to view formatas inguinibus res,
which Baubo grasping with hollow hand, for
their appearance was infantile, strikes, touches gently.
Then the goddess, fixing her orbs of august light,
being softened, lays aside for a little the sadness of her mind;
thereafter she takes the cup in her hand, and laughing,
drinks off the whole draught of kykeon with gladness.’”6
For the appearance of the genitalia to be “infantile” is confirmation that they are those of a
hermaphrodite. Art of this period shows male genitalia on hermaphrodites that are far from
infantile displaying full erections such as are depicted on satyrs. This is the case in the ancient
Roman statuette of a hermaphrodite that was in the collection of Richard Payne Knight and is
now in the British Museum. The figure unveils her genitals in a way that is strikingly similar to
the Orphic poem referenced by Clement of Alexandria and Arnobius.

Similarly in a wall-painting from Pompeii (House of Epidius Sabinus) the figure of Pan recoils
when a hermaphrodite, mistaken for a nymph, exposes male genitalia. The humorous nature of
the encounter is consistent with the laughter of the goddess at Baubo’s exposure. A marble
sculpture of a hermaphrodite from Pompeii (House of Octavius Quartio) repeats this act of
unveiling or exposing the male genitalia. This sculpture has a quality that suggests that this is
the image of a goddess.

In this sense the sculptures and paintings of antiquity are less constrained than the Orphic texts
in the explicit nature of the exposure of the genitals of the hermaphrodite. Despite this literary
reticence the act of exposure or unveiling of the genitalia is consistent across both the literary
and visual arts.

Ovid’s poem about the metamorphosis of Hermaphroditus into a hermaphrodite takes place
when he is fused with a nymph in the water of a stream. Narcissus is transformed into a flower
through the act of gazing at his reflection in water. The myth of Narcissus runs parallel to that of
Hermaphroditus with the quality of water placed at the centre of both myths.

The reflective nature of water has a magical element as it creates an alternate image that has no
physical form. Through the act of exposure Baubo is in effect holding up a mirror to the goddess
and this explains the laughter of the goddess as she sees reflected her own genitalia. This is a
knowing laughter that comes from the knowledge that Demeter herself is a hermaphrodite and
that it is this secret that pervades the mysteries.
A series of images in the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii culminates in a depiction of the
unveiling of the phallus. This is interpreted as referring to the Eleusinian Mysteries. The
unveiling of a phallus, a ubiquitous symbol in antiquity, cannot have been a revelatory act
capable of invoking a sacred catharsis.

The act of unveiling the genitalia of a hermaphrodite would have initiated this sacred state.
Hermaphrodites were considered prodigies wielding supernatural powers and capable of
shifting the balance of natural forces. In the Eleusinian myths the goddess suspends the fertility
of the fields while in a state of grief. Hermaphrodites were credited with these powers “and
coming rarely into the world as they do they have the quality of presaging the future,
sometimes for evil and sometimes for good.”7

Kykeon was consumed at the mysteries in a ritual that was inherited by the Christian church.
The Eucharist contains the same concept of consuming the body and blood of a god leading to
the deity being reborn within the human body. Epiphanius states that the participants in the
Gnostic Eucharist offer “semen on their hands to the true Father of all, and say, ‘we offer thee
this gift, the body of Christ.’”

“For after having made love with the passion of fornication in addition, to lift their blasphemy
up to heaven, the woman and man receive the man’s emission on their own hands. And they
stand with their eyes raised heavenward but the semen on their hands and pray… The ones they
call Stratiotics and Gnostics - and offer that semen on their hands to the true Father of all, and
say, ‘we offer thee this gift, the body of Christ.’ And then they eat it partaking of their own
semen, and say, ‘This is the body of Christ; and this is the Pascha, because of which our bodies
suffer and are compelled to acknowledge the passion of Christ.’ And so with the woman’s
emission when she happens to be having her period - they likewise take the unclean menstrual
blood they gather from her, and eat it in common. And ‘This,’ they say, ‘is the blood of Christ.’” 8
Epihanius states that the Gnostic Eucharist, potentially inspired by the mysteries of antiquity,
incorporated offerings of human semen and menstrual blood. The combination of bodily fluids
specific to each sex as sacraments demonstrates their unity in the body of Christ.

Outside the gate of the temple complex in Samothrace stood two phallic male statues. Varro
describes them as ‘virilis’ but then describes the two male statues as representing a male and
female duality. This could be a reference to the forces of magnetism which formed a part of the
mysteries celebrated in Samothrace. As with the caduceus with its two mirrored snakes the two
statues form a positive and negative polarity at the gate.

“For Earth and Sky, as the mysteries of the Samothracians teach, are Great Gods, and these
whom I have mentioned under many names, are not those Great Gods whom Samothrace
represents by two male statues of bronze which are set up before the city-gates (ante portas
statuit duas virilis species aeneas dei magni), nor are they, as the populace thinks, the
Samothracian gods, who are really Castor and Pollux; but these are a male and a female, these
are those whom the Books of the Augurs mention in writing as potent deities for what the
Samothracians call powerful gods.”9

Hippolytus gives a Gnostic interpretation to the two statues, exhibiting erect phalli, that framed
the entrance to the temple. The Samothracian Mysteries were held here, attracting seafarers
from the Mediterranean region, including from Alexandria, a metropolis where Egyptian and
Greek religious concepts were synthesized. The Gnostic element in the text of Hippolytus is
evident in his description of the statues as representing Adam as the primal man together with
the spiritual man that is born again. The stance of the statues having both hands stretched aloft
towards heaven is paralleled by the description of the Gnostic rites where semen is offered to
the heavens as the body of Christ.

“This is, he says, the great and ineffable mystery of the Samothracians, which is allowable, he
says, for us only who are initiated to know. For the Samothracians expressly hand down, in the
mysteries that are celebrated among them, that (same) Adam as the primal man. And habitually
there stand in the temple of the Samothracians two images of naked men, having both hands
stretched aloft towards heaven, and their pudenda erecta, as with the (phallic) statue of
Mercury on Mount Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of the primal man, and of the
spiritual one that is born again, in every respect of the same substance with that man.” 10

Adam, as the primal human, was created before Eve was separated and formed from his body.
Before Eve’s creation Adam was therefore initially composed of both male and female natures.
This was the pure magical primordial state that existed in the garden before the splitting of the
sexes led to the fall.

The biblical story contains similarities to Plato’s creation myth in the Symposium. Mythical
primordial humans originally contained both male and female genitalia. The gods sliced each of
these primal entities into two parts, one with male and the other with female genitalia. Then
the gods proposed “to slice every one of them in two, so that while making them weaker we
shall find them more useful by reason of their multiplication; and they shall walk erect upon
two legs.”11

The consequence was that humans were henceforth always searching for their severed half.
“Now when our first form had been cut in two, each half in longing for its fellow would come to
it again; and they would fling their arms about each other and in mutual embraces yearn to be
grafted together.”12

This original state is equivalent to the paradise inhabited by the primal hermaphrodite Adam
before the creation of Eve from his body parts. It was a vision of this pure primal state that
infused Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, symbolically alleviating humans from the sin of the fall. As
the pure product of God the body of Christ replicated the original hermaphrodite nature of the
primal Adam.
“Adam was a man, and also a woman, and yet none of them but a virgin full of chastity, modesty
and purity… Eve was half the Adam, viz. the part wherein Adam should have loved and
impregnated himself; the same, when as he stood not, was taken from him in his sleep, and
formed into a woman…”13

Christ was the second manifestation of the primal hermaphrodite Adam reflecting the state of
purity before the splitting of the sexes and the bestial nature of the fall. It was only in this
purified hermaphrodite state that Christ as the second coming of the primal Adam could be
imagined. This was a being uncontaminated by the lust of the humans that had originally been
split from their other halves.

“... therefore Christ became man in the woman’s part, and brought the man’s part again into the
holy matrix, so that the limbus and female matrix were again one image… for this was Adam
also, before his Eve, and so must we also be in Christ, if we would be the image and temple of
God. Now when the pregnant matrix was taken from Adam, the woman was every way formed
with such members for propagation as she is at this day; and so Adam also; for before when
Adam was male and female, he needed no such members; for his birth was magical…” 14

In a text from Arnobius that relates the myth about the birth of Agdestis he states that the
supreme deity “spent his lust on the stone.” The stone became pregnant from this act and after
ten months gave birth to Agdestis. This allegorical and alchemical myth appears to refer to
lightning striking the rock. This was the mechanism by which the deities interacted with the
physical plane. Lightning, the phallus of the gods, strikes the earth and through this deified
sexual act inseminates it.

“Within the confines of Phrygia, he (Timotheus) says, there is a rock of unheard-of wildness in
every respect, the name of which is Agdus, so named by the natives of that district. Stones
taken from it, as Themis by her oracle had enjoined, Deucalion and Pyrrha threw upon the
earth, at that time emptied of men; from which this Great Mother, too, as she is called, was
fashioned along with the others, and animated by the Deity. Her, given over to rest and sleep on
the very summit of the rock, Jupiter (Zeus) assailed with (the) lewdest desires. But when, after
long strife, he could not accomplish what he had proposed to himself, he, baffled, spent his lust
on the stone. This the rock received, and… Acdestis (Agdestis) is born in the tenth month, being
named from his mother rock.”15

The entity that was born from the god’s semen that was ejaculated on the rock was born with
both male and female sexual organs. This appears to be a myth drawn from the most ancient
archaic myths where lightning strikes the barren earth, “at that time emptied of men,” resulting
in the creation of the first biological forms. Thus the first deities born from lightning striking the
primordial earth are hermaphrodites.

“Zeus, it is said, let fall in his sleep seed upon the ground, which in the course of time sent up a
demon, with two sexual organs, male and female. They call the demon Agdistis (Agdestis). But
the gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ.”16

The Christian rite of Transfiguration is linked to archaic creation myths through the concept of
lightning creating a deity on earth. Transfiguration derives from the Latin transfigere meaning to
pierce or thrust through and is therefore consistent with Zeus striking the heights of a primordial
mountain with lightning, and by this act inseminating a barren rock. After the Transfiguration
Christ is described as being imbued with a bright white light such as the light that accompanies
a lightning strike. This transformation or metamorphosis occurs after he has ascended a
mountain to commune with his father, the ultimate deity.

“About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up
onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes
became as a flash of lightning.”17
It is this light, which is neither male nor female and transcends both categories, that is
transmitted through the body of Christ, passing through it rather than merely illuminating the
bodily surface. The irradiating light passing through all existing things is a concept that unites
the ancient mysteries, as explained by Iamblichus, with the light that imbues Christ in the
Transfiguration.

“This, then, is the explanation: Whether the allotment be to certain parts of the universe, as to
heaven or earth, whether to holy cities and regions, whether to certain temple-precincts or
sacred images, the divine irradiation shines upon them all from the outside, just as the sun
illuminates every object from without with his rays. Hence, as the light encompasses the objects
that it illuminates, so also the power of the gods comprehends from without those that
participate of it… so also the light of the gods shines while entirely separate from the objects
illuminated, and, being firmly established in itself, makes its way through all existing things.” 18

"And when Christ on the cross had again accomplished this redemption of our virgin-like image
from the divided sex of male and female, and tinctured it with his heavenly blood in the divine
love... Christ turned back Adam in his sleep from the vanity, and from the man, and woman,
again into the angelic image."19

1. Diodorus Siculus - Library of History 4.6.5

2. Arnobius - Against the Heathen 5.24
3. Clement of Alexandria - Exhortation to the Heathen 2
4. Arnobius - Against the Heathen 5.27
5. Ibid. 5.25
6. Ibid. 5.26
7. Diodorus Siculus - Library of History 4.6.5
8. Epiphanius of Salamis - Against the Gnostics or Borborites - Panarion 1.26.4.5-8
9. Varro - On the Latin Language 5.58
10. Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 5
11. Plato - Symposium 190d
12. Ibid. 191a
13. Jakob Bohme - Mysterium Magnum 18.2-11
14. Ibid. 19.18
15. Arnobius - Adversus Gentes 5.5
16. Pausanias - Description of Greece 7.17.11-13
17. Luke 9:28-29
18. Iamblichus - Theurgia 1.3
19. Jakob Bohme - Mysterium Magnum 19.7