In Part one I presented the idea that the “Three Marys” of biblical story telling have much in common with the ancient Greek Moirai. We looked at their appearance at pivotal points in the Jesus narrative, the death and resurrection. Whilst these connections are all good and well, if the Marys are just a slight variation of the Moirai, then we would expect to see them at the initial birth of Jesus. This is of course the most common place the Divine fate weavers appear in mythology, from Greek to Norse often bearing magical gifts. As most people are quite familiar with the story of Jesus, you will all be quite aware that whilst three people bearing gifts do appear they are not called Mary, nor are even female- or are they?
In most bible translations today, these three gift bearers are either referred to as “Wise men” or “Kings”, but this is not what the bible calls them. Out of the four canonical Gospels, Matthew is the only one to give them a name and he calls them the Magi. Despite what the nativity scenes have lead you to believe, Mathew doesn’t give a fixed number of Magi, or even mention their sex!
The reason we think of “three kings” or “three wise men” is because most theologians determine this from the number of gifts the infant Jesus receives, which is always three. As for the sex, well that is simply assumed, most likely based on later cultural norms. The original translators of the bible though, did not feel the need to ascribe a new meaning to the word magi, like “Wise men” and in these early works simply refer to them as the text describes them “magicians”.
The word “Magi” itself is an old Persian word for a Zoroastrian priest, but in Biblical Greek times had somewhat changed meaning to “magician” or sometimes negatively used as a word for a trickster, conjurer or charlatan. In its original form though we can see why these “Magi” would have followed a star, as Zoroastrian priests were connected to astrology by the Greeks. Astrology being the prediction of “fates” by studying the movements of the heavens, gives us a direct connection to the idea of knowers of fates visiting the stable. This is of course directly referred to in the bible itself, as the Magi follow a star to find the baby Jesus. Which shows they were actively taking audience from heavenly predictions.
In ancient times it was entirely possible and also sometimes directly referred to that women could be of the Zoroastrian priestly class, so this gives us little clue to the actual sex of these Magi. It does however pose us another question, were they Zoroastrian priests at all? Given that by this time the word in Greek society had taken a slight turn in meaning, it could simply be referring to a “fortune teller” of sorts, or even possibly a trickster. Whilst I very much doubt the bible would portray the visitors of Jesus as “charlatans” it could hint at a far greater trick being played by a cunning author.
Regardless of this though, we have a group of fortune tellers-that is “knowers of fates” that appear at the birth of Jesus bearing three gifts. If a European Heathen were to read that sentence without prior knowledge of the bible, I doubt any would not assume the identity of such determiners of fortune as the Norns, Moirai, or Fates.
There is also the little fact of number, as we do not know how many turn up, just that there are three gifts given, it is entirely possible that one of those gifts were given by the “virgin Mary” herself. This is something that also has to be mentioned, as if the Marys are in fact the Moirai, then Jesus, is their child. Immaculate birth here is not a problem; they as weavers of fate are more than able to weave a fate of their own; in fact they are charged with bringing things in and out of existence. I will leave this part here though, as it relates to the “divine leader” archetype, and in my opinion, this archetype idea was stolen and twisted in the bible to bring the European into submission.
Regardless of whether the “Virgin Mary” was or was not part of the trio, is there any other evidence to suggest these Magi were in fact women? Whilst we have good connections to dealers in fates, we have little solid evidence of them as females. Here we will turn as we did in part one to the Latin countries. These Western European nations like Spain, France and Ireland held the symbol of Mary in great reverence. As I presented in part one, whole myths of towns are centred around the Three Marys from the tomb, as well as them taking up large parts of ceremonial procession.
Orion’s belt is often called the “three kings” and this has lead many to connect them to the biblical story and to see it as an astrological one with stories of the ‘morning star’, Venus and the ‘dog star’, Sirius playing heavy roles. Astrology aside, it is not only known as the “three kings”, but also the “three sisters” and even more intriguingly in Latin countries as the “three Marys”.
So, are there any other connections between the “Marys” and the Moirai, past the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus? Well, Ill run through a few points now, so as not to make this article a little to large for purpose.
The Virgin Mary’s mother is mentioned in the Gospel of James as “Saint Anne”. It is also stated much later by John of Damascus that Saint Anne had three children, by three different men, all named, you guessed it Mary! So what of the Moirai, do they have a Mother? Well indeed they do , Plato states that the mother of the Moirai is Annanke! Again the similarity in names between “Anne” and Annake” is quite striking, let alone that both are depicted as having three children, called either the “Three Marys” or the “Three Moirai”.
So how about weaving? The Moirai symbolically are little without their threads, so what of the Marys? In the Gospel of James when the archangel Gabriel appears to Mary the second time, she is interrupted from her spinning. This lead to many an early depiction of Mary holding a distaff! The first appearance of Gabriel is no less revealing either, as she was drawing water from a well, again another striking motif of the Norns, or Moirai. In fact there is a well called “Mary’s well” said to be the very one where the Angel appeared.
In part one, I also mention the origin of the name Mary and how an entwining of words may also help us understand its origin. The Greek mythology surrounding Adonis is most interesting in this regard. The Mother of Adonis is called Myrrha and she gives birth to him when she is turned into a Myrrh Tree. As the Jewish name “Maryam” shares a root with the Word Myrrh, this gives us a reasonable case for how it came to be confused with a word for “bitter”, as the word Myrrh roots in bitter. Whilst many scholars believe its true root is in an Egyptian word, it is equally as likely in my opinion to root in western words.
This Myrrh connection also adds a little to the three gifts given to Jesus, and if Mary was one of the gift bearers. One of the gifts given was Myrrh, with this entwining of words, or Myrrh and Mary, it could be that Mary gave herself?
There is a lot more that could be said on the story of Adonis and those connections, as with everything I have touched upon in this article. It would take a whole books worth of material to uncover the truth behind this connection fully though, which one day I plan to do. For now though I hope I have at least opened up this idea to a wider audience and presented enough evidence that people may find it worthy of further exploration.
Edited by CJ
Excellent research!