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Stations of the Cross

  
 
delacroix
15:19 / 07.06.07
Had a creepy nightmare a while ago--still makes me uncomfortable. But I really want to structure a stage play out of the Stations of the Cross--but I'm wondering if there's a deeper, pagan origin to the 14 stations? What did they mean before they meant what they mean now?
 
 
Quantum
15:36 / 07.06.07
Are you serious?
 
 
EvskiG
15:39 / 07.06.07
I believe it's an entirely Christian practice. It developed as a clever substitute for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Here's a nice, detailed discussion.
 
 
delacroix
15:44 / 07.06.07
Yes, Quantum, I'm serious. Thank you for your "contribution."
 
 
Papess
15:46 / 07.06.07
I don't know if there are "pagan origins" of the stations of the cross, but I did come across this from a self-professed female priest of the Gnostic Church of St. Mary Magdalene while I was researching Sophia. She (the Priest) states her Sophianic version of the Stations as:


1 Christ is condemned to death
a. Sophia yearns for the Pro-Pater
b. The seeker makes a decision to become dedicated to the path of Initiation and renounces the archons.

2 Christ takes up His cross
a Sophia movers toward the Pro-Pater’s reflected light
b. Initiation as a neophyte on the Path of Liberation

3 Christ falls for the first time
a. Sophia groans in Her longing to create as the Unknown Father had without
the aid of Her partner, the Logos.
b. Symbolic of human frailty and that life means suffering. Learning to govern one’s body.

4 Christ meets His mother
a: Sophia gives birth and in doing so becomes the Mother of all gods and humans.
b The initiate ‘discovers’ the need for the restoration of the lost Divine Feminine to her rightful place in worship and in his/her life.

5 Simon helps carry Christ cross
a: Sophia recognizes Her error and cries out for help
b: The initiate is no longer a neophyte but through trial has become a
dedicated disciple.

6 Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
a: The Logos hears Sophia’s cries of repentance
b: The disciple learns to balance the male and female energies within them.
He/She begins the process of making the inner as the outer, and the two
into one.

7 Christ falls for the second time
a. Sophia continues Her repentances and sings the praises of the Logos.
b. The illusions of Desire fail. Purifying wrong desire and the emotions

8 Christ speaks to the weeping women
a. Sophia feels compassion for Her creation and desires that Her creation
be liberated as well.
b. Recognizing that all beings are suffering. The disciple thinks not of his/her
own suffering but of those of others.

9 Christ falls for the third time
a Sophia continues crying out her repentances and praises to the Logos.
b The disciple learns to purify the mind

10 Christ is stripped of His garments
a Sophia final repentances have been consummated.
b The lower will and ego have been purified and those things which inhibit
the disciples quest for union with the Divine are renounced and cast off.

11 Christ is nailed to the cross
a Sophia is surrounded by the Light and is suspended between the material
world and the Pleroma
b Complete surrender to the Will of the Divine. The disciples calling as one
one of the elect is made sure.

12 Christ dies on the cross
a Sophia is restored to the Pleroma.
b The initiates path as a disciple is accomplished.

13 Christ is taken down from the cross
a Sophia elects to have a part of Herself remain in the material world to
guide and care for her creation.
b Liberation from all suffering from the illusions of the world.

14 Christ is laid in the tomb
a Zoe, Mary Magdalene others carry the spark of the Divine Feminine with
in them in such a way that we may follow their example
b The way is open for further initation by chosing to return to the cyclical
world and illuminate the Path for others.


I am not sure if that helps or not, but best of luck with your work.
 
 
Quantum
15:47 / 07.06.07
Why would there be pagan origins of the stations?
 
 
grant
15:50 / 07.06.07
Hmm. I wonder if it could relate to practices around sacrifices....

I've never heard of anything, though, and have never been able to fit them into any kind of Hero's Journey outline in any specific way.
 
 
This Sunday
15:54 / 07.06.07
Christianity's rife with appropriation (in this case, appropriating Bowie's Station to Station), but yes, element for element there are deep and deeper meanings. I don't know that pre-christian meanings are inherently deeper. Any decent book on passion plays from a historical or analytical standpoint should have plenty of material for you, though.

Oh, and Pope Benedict XVI - the Ollie North lookalike pope? - he just authorized a new set for the Catholic Church. Previous to that, John Paul II, had also revised the stations. There have been connections drawn between the stations of the cross and what little we know of the Orphic mystery religion, in terms of a cleansing from the world, death, embracing of everything we just washed off, and resurrection. David Icke thinks the stations of the cross validate the notion we've been bred by space lizards. Holy Blood, Holy Grail back in the day, made some noise around an alteration of the stations' representation, to explicate a global conspiracy, which has since become a major motion picture saved only by having a helluva supporting cast. By which I just mean it's very easy to read all kinds of things into the stations, especially if you've got a pre-existing agenda (and we have) and can feel free to chuck the ones you don't like or resurrect the good ones that got knocked out.
 
 
grant
17:47 / 07.06.07
Wikipedia lists four different versions of the stations, which is kind of interesting. Two of them are the PJII and BdctXVI versions.
 
 
EmberLeo
18:47 / 07.06.07
I think the Stations are SO specific to Christianity, and not even in a confusing way, that I wouldn't suppose any Pagan underpinnings that aren't simply Human Experience underpinnings.

That is, there may be other places where an underlying pattern exists both in the Stations and elsewhere, but that's not because the Stations were appropriated. It's simply because human nature and human experience only change so much over the years, and there's bound to be similarities somewhere.

--Ember--
 
 
Quantum
19:29 / 07.06.07
Christianity's rife with appropriation

Of course. But is there any indication the stations may have been appropriated other than the horrible dream delacroix had?
Delacroix- sorry if I came off as rude. Why do you think there's a pagan underpinning to it?
 
 
delacroix
17:25 / 09.06.07
Often things seem to rise out of a specific need in a political or social body, like the stasions, but, by the natre of human consciousness (some say) there will necessarily be a pagan precursor: Set on the Tree / Odin on Yggdrasil / Christ on the Cross. I just wondered if people had heard of anything like that for the stations; the responses were generally helpful, including yours, Quantum, even though it seemed rhetorical and pointless initially.

As for my own nightmare, I probably shouldn't have mentioned it--it was personal and irrelevant, I shouldn't have mentioned it.

It just seems as though the world of image and myth informed the Stations, though after a little research, I almost think they were developed, with a half-conscious perversity, in order to be as un-pagan as possible: 14 has few precedents in sacred numerology, and it's hard to make the Stations jive with any other philosophical system.

Maybe that's part of Christianity's immune system? It's fighting off influences and appropriation, maybe...
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
17:37 / 09.06.07
Christianity fights off influences and appropriation? That might seem true in a rapidly changing world, but over the course of Christianity there have been a great deal of changes - my favorite is Santa Claus - which have helped to ensure it's survival and 'convert the heathens' by offering a spoonful of Pagan sugar to make the Christian medicine go down.
 
 
delacroix
18:47 / 09.06.07
Well, disease and inocculation are always similar and mutually exclusive at once, I'd say... Voodoo / icons is a counter example to the Santa Claus anaology: those full color images were not sufficiently immune to appropriation: the Virgin and Ezili are too easily identified with one another. But with the Stations, it's really tricky to find pagan resonance therein: maybe that would have been a better question. What pagan resonance do we detect in the stations?
 
 
Unconditional Love
09:23 / 16.07.07
Their is one way i can see this having some bearing not only to pagan traditions but all world religions that include ancestor worship, if you read through this link Origins of the Stations: 4th Century Jerusalem and also read the account by Egeria.

It reminds me of accounts i have heard in Islam of various Imams tombs believed to be filled with their ka in folk belief,so pilgrimages are made to them, so in a sense following the route of Christ to his death is a sympathetic way to invoke the experience in a believer of the trials of Christ.

Christianity as much as any other religious tradition seems to have its roots in folk/human ritual and custom. The basic functional aspects of human communal behaviour are overlayed with Magical/religous connotations.
 
  
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