A Hard Day's Night

The last night of Jesus is based on the story of the last night of Horus in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The drama of the temptation, crucifixion and resurrection only make sense when understood in the light astronomical symbolism. If we take Leonardo’s painting of The Last Supper as reality it would have lasted for several hours. After that came the walk and return from the Mount of Olives. Then the scene segues to Jesus’ suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane; the disciples falling asleep; Jesus’ arrest and brief victory over his captors. “This is your hour,” Jesus says to his captors and, believe it or not, there are three separate trials which could never be organized in one night. From his conviction we go to the mockery of the soldiers who put a crown of thorns on his head and march him to Golgotha with the cross on his bleeding shoulders.

The last night of Jesus becomes arguable when presented as historical fact. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is nailed to the cross accompanied with two thieves who witness his final agony. Here we have the record of facts claimed as historical truth, found only in one book, with four variations by writers who were not there to witness the drama. And, on investigation the veracity of the Last Night disintegrates in the light of comparative myth and religion. We can only understand the life of Christ through the symbols of the Mystery Religions which dramatized the death of the ego and the resurrection of the divine Christ soul. This should be food for thought for any ‘Doubting Thomas!

The early Church Fathers changed spiritual allegory into historical fact and denied Christianity’s connections with older religions even though St. Paul proclaims that the whole Gospel story is an allegory. The thesis of Alvin Boyd Kuhn’s, A Rebirth of Christianity, is that if the gospels been presented as an invisible reality of inner experience and eternal truth, they would have become meaningful for us all. All the drama of temptation, crucifixion and resurrection can be elevated from Passover realism to the true significance of all souls in human experience. Sincere religious worship can dissolve separation between the human and the divine by integrating them into one divine human, at peace with itself. The Cross of the Crucifixion has been a burden on our backs for two thousand years.