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The Imitation of Christ
Or, On the Gospel of Joseph
It strikes me that I have fallen into a common trap re: Christianity. I originally tried to escape this trap through some heavy study of gnosticism, but really all it did was reconfigure the shape of the trap for me. And that trap is this: trying to be Jesus.
By that, I don’t mean that I believe myself to be the Second Coming of Christ, but that I have always wanted to identify myself with the “Jesus character” in regards to my life. I want to be the hero of my own story, the savior of my own world. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing to think. There are a lot of useful aspects to it as a transformative myth. But it is also riddled with traps and blind alleys.
For a good solid look at how trying to “be Jesus” might play out in the real world, we could try looking at the Catholic Church. It’s teachings center around the idea (not sure what the theological term is) that during the celebration of the Eucharist, the officiating priest in essence becomes a stand-in for Jesus, if not Jesus himself. Again, I’m not sure of the exact theological technicality here, but it’s plain enough to see since the priest re-creates the event of the Last Supper, duplicating what Jesus is supposed to have said at that event. The priest tries to be Jesus. If the historical record of the Catholic Church is any indicator, this philosophy has a lot of trouble playing out in the real world: it can lead to wars, an attempt at domination, the violent suppression of any other potential Jesuses (Jesusi?), and so on.
Gnosticism, in my eyes, seems to be somewhat mixed up in this at times as well, although it re-envisions what Jesus really was, and thus trying to be him means something rather different and more open. Gnosticism that focuses on Sophia instead, I think goes one step removed from Jesus. Through this feminine figure of Holy Wisdom, the Bride of God, etc, Sophianic Gnostics seem to try to imitate Mary, instead of Jesus. And then they prepare themselves spiritually to birth Christ, to bring forth the Spirit of God within the world. While this is a noble goal (and they all are, as far as pure goals are concerned), I have realized it is not for me either. It’s trap is not quite egocentrism (though it may be), but is an intense focus on one’s own personal spiritual development. A noble goal, as I’ve said, but if you’re so caught up in developing yourself, where does that leave you in relation to everyone else?
Which is why I have struck upon the figure of Joseph lately in my own weird approach to Christianity. I have begun to like, begun to identify with the character of Joseph partly because so little is said about him in the canonical Bible. And also partly because his role is entirely supporting, and not really heroic at all - or at least not overtly. It is a subtler kind of heroism to be the man whose destiny it is that your wife is going to become the Mother of God, and you’re going to have do the actual dirty work of raising the little bastard. Did Joseph ask for any of this? Not as far as I can tell. But he didn’t just give up either, and walk away from Mary - even though I think according to Jewish law he could have since she was pregnant and not by him during their betrothal (although I’m not certain of the legal technicality there, so don’t quote me on it. It does seem to be implied by Matthew 1 though).
Anyway, the fact that he had to deal with the practical matters of the whole thing I think explains why Joseph was depicted as a carpenter or skilled craftsman (and also later became the patron saint of workers), because he had to take the “raw materials” and use them to support and protect others at different stages of the game than him: notably Mary and Jesus. And within that image I think I am beginning to understand more clearly what is meant by notions of service and humility to others. It means that you may not ultimately become the hero of the story, you may not get a lot of stories told or books written about your acts. You may only be a footnote of history, but what you will have done is enabled other people to bring forth and to become that spirit God wishes to bring into the world. Without you, noone else would have the support, protection or love to be able to do it.
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September 30th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Never thought of Joseph in that way - or at all, really. A nice shift of focus to deflate the Christ/ego.
I always think that since these occult and spiritual ideas are generally propagating in our society now without any consensual process of initiation, there’s a lot of scope for confusion. Specifically, someone might go through a process themselves, pass through some stage, and then realise they need to shed that stage to move on. The danger is that at each stage, you think you’ve found some higher level of “truth”, when of course, you’ve just found the next stage. That heroic Jesus trip might be where some people need to be, even as others like yourself are shedding it.
This is no comment on how you’re putting it across - you seem to be pretty conscious of these sort of pitfalls - it’s just a tangent that your description of this process made me think of.
To me it’s all down to that horrible parental statement, “It’s just a phase.” The word “just” is usually worth excluding from conversation, it’s a pesky agent of reductionism. Phases are important, and deserve more than patronizing. And while some people might need to rebuild their shattered egos with some Christic aspirations, our culture seems to breed more who need to downgrade the importance of the spotlight, and quietly serve.
Of course, this selfless generosity of service is ostensibly Christ’s whole thing - washing the feet, etc. - but our culture has distorted this almost beyond recognition. Turning to Joseph as inspiration for service seems to be an interesting tactic.
September 30th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
St. Joseph http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm
You know what is really weird?- the couple of coincidences I have had with this website. Before checking PopOcculture today I was searching through Catholic Encyclopedia. And one of the things I read was about Joseph. And then I came on this site and there is an interesting post on Joseph. Go figure! Weird! What are the odds? Geeze louise!
Were you confirmed Catholic? I wonder if Joseph is your confirmation name?
September 30th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Joseph was smart in the sense that he played along , most likely because he really liked Mary even though she was probably crazy.
He must have like her well enough to support her knowing that even if he hadn`t had sex with her , which by the way he may have , and it was a cover up, He knew at some point, if he stuck with her he was going to get laid.
The alternative was turning her in to the authorities, and back then , yes , they might smash you to death with rocks. They were not liberal.
Keep in mind that the whole story is actually told as a moral , and most likely nothing much like it happened in reality. Virgin births.? god making someone pregnant.? The whole son of god thing is bogus to say the least.
It does make a pretty good story or theatre though, and I see many of the ideas of Christianity as a kind of culmination of the concepts from the Classical and then Hellenistic world, kind of rolled into one.
I think that awful Paul character is the one that probably wrecked the whole thing in a way. Apparently he frightened the old guard, and was not well regarded by the original group. I think he freaked out Barnabas and others with his Jesus as son of god marketing approach, which did catch on with the ignorant. The supernatural version that is. This was reinforced later by Constantinople. The Egyptian version which is not supernatural, was put in the ashcan of history. That version to me is the interesting version.
To me Joseph was too smart to spill the beans. In a way he was just along for the ride. He obviously wanted more of what Mary had. By hanging tight he definitely got more.
The moral of Joseph may be ; If you want to get laid , you sometimes have to put up with some crazy stuff, if it is worth it , is always a personal decision.
September 30th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Yeah, absolutely! I’m glad someone brought that to the table cause I meant to. It really is so distorted now though, isn’t it?
Speaking of, wow Skip, you certainly have a penchant for deflation, eh?
Gnomely, my confirmation name is Raphael, after the archangel
September 30th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
after all are we not ordinary men?………..and also gods as well……….in equal measure.
skip, i can see your point. once the romance and fanasy is taken out of the bible it does read like a……..soap opera, at times. but in that it can be a more accessable method for living a regular life.
October 1st, 2006 at 11:04 am
“Of course, this selfless generosity of service is ostensibly Christ’s whole thing”
When you first mentioned the wanting to be Christ tendency, this is the aspect I first thought of. The pitfall of this is in some ways just the opposite of the ones you brought up– namely martyr syndrome. When you try to live up to the Christ ideal by focussing on selfless generosity, there is a potential to overemphasize the “selfless” part– you begin to think of any and everything as worht more than you are, and that your duty is to debase yourself to whatever comes your way (or whatever you deem worthy, but a lot of people I’ve seen with martyr syndrome have pretty low standards.) Of course, this ends up being painful for you and everyone else . . .just an interesting flipside to the other traps in this post.
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:59 am
Isn’t weird that the whole idea of Jesus’ “mission” in the orthodox sense - that of sacrifice, seems so displaced and misunderstood by so many people, traditional followers and their organizations? I appreciate the hard selfless work the historical christian commited on behalf of education, learning, charity and healthcare, but seems like so many now just want to use money to print bibles and build TV stations.
I think your ideas are compelling and on track accurate. My concept of Jesus sees not that he was the hero and savior of his own story, but made others the heros, and taught that we might be saved, by opening up the relation between a child and our Father, the most high. Love being the revolutionary concept behind the sacrifice, blood the visceral symbol.
I hope Joseph was a good manager of all that magi gold!
Keep searching. I really enjoyed a similar perspective from a book “Mary, called Magdalene,” which came out before all the Davinci hoopla. It really sent me back and I gained a sense of what the whole business was about
Yeh, that Paul …interesting to know what he was really up to, considering Jesus never wrote anything, and he wrote so much!(?)