Templar Edification

 The second in our series of biblical woodcuts by Gustave Doré takes as its subject Mark 15:21— They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it  was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Mark’s is the shortest and likely the oldest of the four canonical Christian Gospels, one that starts in "media res" [in the middle of things] and leaps breathlessly from each event in Jesus’ life to the next. The author’s conjunction of choice is “and immediately!” Were one so inclined, one could memorize Mark’s Gospel without overmuch effort and preach it on streetcorners. Such was probably Mark’s aim. Whereas John’s Gospel makes the point that Christ carried His own Cross, Mark clearly states that the Romans compelled an innocent passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the Cross for Him. This verse has the hallmarks of eyewitness testimony, pointing out Simon’s sons Alexander and Rufus as characters who presumably would’ve been familiar to ...

The first in our series of woodcuts, produced for Le Grande Bible de Tours by Gustave Doré, illustrates John 19:15— They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” Christ stands tall and straight, with the willowy build so characteristic of Western artistic depictions of spiritual people, clearly denoted by His halo. The notion that gods, heroes, and occasionally kings emit a divine light about their heads dates back at least to ancient Sumer, and is found throughout Greek and Persian literature. Egyptian art would typically place the pharaoh’s head within the sun disk, identifying the ruler with Ra. When Caesar Augustus conquered Egypt for his personal possession, his image took on the pharaonic halo. Christian art thus could be construed as presenting Jesus as the true and rival Emperor, whose Kingdom is not of this world. Equally striking in the woodcut is the clear...

The Bible is a vulgar thing—from the Latin vulgus, meaning “common people.” When St Jerome translated the Christian Scriptures into Latin at the end of the fourth century, he did so because few in the West still spoke Greek. Latin was the common tongue of the common people; thus, Jerome’s Bible came to be known as the Vulgate, regular language for regular folks. The dialect of Greek from which Jerome had worked was koine, which also means “common.” Koine was the language of the Hellenistic world, of all the varied cultures and kingdoms conquered by Alexander the Great. The Gospels were written down in koine, despite Jesus teaching in Aramaic, so that everyone could hear and understand. And what was Aramaic? Why, it was the common Semitic tongue spoken by the Judeans following their return from the Babylonian Exile. We read in the Book of Ezra that most exiled Israelites could no longer understand Hebrew, the language of the Law, and so when the Law was read aloud, learned Levites had t...

The Year of Our Lord 1866 witnessed the publication of a remarkable two-volume French-language folio edition of the Holy Scriptures, translated from the Vulgate, as La Grande Bible de Tours. And for this worthy and weighty tome, the French artist Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré produced 241 woodcuts illustrating the sacred texts. They are gorgeous and immensely popular works of art, dripping with drama and heavy with doom. Published simultaneously in the UK, Doré’s illustrations of the Tours Bible both influenced and were influenced by the Victorian Age (1837-1901). His Old Testament scenes focus on massacres and murderers; his New Testament on sentiment and sapience. He seems to have enjoyed high drama all around. We all know how the lurid bits of the Bible keep the rest of it arresting. Over the course of the following year, and by special request, we will take a monthly look at just under a dozen of these woodcuts corresponding to the Passion of the Christ; paying close attention...

The 2024 Minnesota Grand York Rite session has come to a close, marking the 162nd Grand Chapter Convocation, the 154th Grand Council Assembly, and the 159th Grand Commandery Conclave. Hosted by the Best Western Plus Kelly Inn in St. Cloud, the event was a resounding success, offering invaluable experiences to all attendees. If you missed this year’s session, you missed out on crucial resolutions affecting our esteemed orders. While amendments may seem dry, they are vital for the continued prosperity of our Grand York Rite bodies.  On June 27th, we held the Grand Chapter meeting, where we heard from dignitaries, enjoyed camaraderie, and celebrated the night with the Royal Arch ceremony and awards. The evening concluded with the entertaining Royal Arch Widow’s Degree, a fun event filled with laughter and fellowship among Companions and their ladies. June 28th saw the Grand Council assembly, following a similar structure. We heard from our leaders, passed resolutions, and elected offi...

The day upon which I’m writing this missive now before you, 21 May, marks for Eastern Christians the commemoration of the Roman Emperor Constantine, hailed as “Saint,” “the Great,” and “Equal to the Apostles.” Others have not been quite so generous with their praise. For centuries, the Roman Empire persecuted Christianity. Cast out from synagogues after a tragic parting of the ways, Christians had no resort to the legal protections offered by the Senate to ancient religions such as Judaism. Worship in urban centers literally went underground, as house churches became catacomb churches, celebrating the Eucharist atop the martyrs’ tombs. Recent scholarship has sought to downplay the severity of Roman persecution, in part due to the exaggerations of medieval hagiography [defn: the writing of the lives of saints], and in part as a reaction against American Christianity’s recent history of claiming victimhood whilst nakedly pursuing political power. Yet for generations, prominent churchmen ...

The emergence of biologically modern humans, as best we can determine from DNA studies and the fossil record, occurred some 300,000 years ago. Cultural artifacts, tools and art, developed perhaps 60,000 years ago. Yet for the majority of our time on this planet, Homo sapiens differed little from other complex primates, small in numbers, modestly shaping our local environment. All that changed roughly 30,000 years ago, when our species formed an alliance, a symbiosis, with another well-adapted predator, the grey wolf. Thus was birthed the dog, and the miracle of domestication. Before we herded sheep, before we rode horses, before the agricultural revolution, human beings loved and raised and lived with dogs. I used to like to think that domestication of the dog was the one unalloyed good that humanity had managed to accomplish. Yet more recent studies indicate that we didn’t tame them; they chose to interact with us. Certain wolves soon discovered that following bands of hunter-gatherer...