The Pope a Hierophant?

Abrac

The title is Hierophant, but what we see is a Catholic Pope.

In ancient Greece, the Hierophant acted as priest and prophet within the Mystery schools. Is Waite trying to tell us that the Roman Pontiff holds the office of Hierophant within the Mystery religion that is the Roman Catholic Church?
 

StellarMyst

Good Question. I'm curious to see what others say on the matter...? ;)
 

Sophie

Well, the original title of the card is The Pope, and that is where the imagery comes from. It was changed to "Hierophant" by the Golden Dawn, most of whose members spoke Latin and Greek and were in love with the ancient Hermetic mysteries and had all gone to universities where places and people were given fancy Greek names (e.g. the Thames in Oxford is called the Isis), but the basic symbol remained the same. Most of the Golden Dawn were not Catholics, but Pamela Colman-Smith was, interestingly. Waite was a Christian Hermetic - I don't think he meant the Hierophant to represent the Catholic Pope as he was in 1910 so much as the idealised high representative of the Church of Christ on Earth - which was, to him, a mystery cult.
 

Teheuti

Here's a couple of quote regarding the title and role:

“Discloser of sacred learning. The Old Man, the Chief of the Adepts at the initiations, who explained the arcane knowlede to the neophytes. … In Hebrew and Chaldaic the term was Peter, or opener, discloser; hence, the Pope, as the sucessor of the hierophant of the ancient Mysteries , sits in the Pagan chair of “St. Peter.” [Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled I:xxxviii]

“The nature of his office is expressed by his title: strictly speaking, hierophantes, means not he who “shows the holy things”—that would have had to be called hierodeiktes in Greek—but “he who makes them appear,” phainei. Kerényi, Eleusis, p. 90.

Mary
 

Teheuti

Kenneth MacKenzie (probable creator of the cypher manuscript) describes the Hierophant thusly:
"Greek - 'one who explains sacred things'). Chief director ofthe ceremonies and expounder of the doctrines in the mysteries of Eleusis, peculiar to the descendants of Eumolpus. Perfection of body and mind ws necessary in the holder of the office. In the inferior mysteries, he introduced the neophyte into the Temple, and he was the final initiator into the last and greater mysteries; and he figuratively represented the Creator of the world, and explained to the novice the various phenomena that appeared to him. He was the sole expounder of the esoteric secrets and doctrines." _The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, p. 312-313.

Waite describes the Priest of Elusis in a Masonic ceremony as having to go through a symbolic "death of error as an expounder of the old Mysteries, but that he shall be re-born according to the Life and Grace imparted by the truth that is in Christ. He becomes in this manner the Priest of a more holy Temple and is raised into the Divine Light." _The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry_, p. 597.

Mary
 

Dulcimer

A further link is that both the Hierophant and the Pope are regarded as incarnations of a god on earth; the former in the Eleusinian fertility mysteries, the latter as Christ's representative on earth in the Catholic mysteries. Both offices hold the keys to the Kingdom of God; only by following the precepts ordained by them can the initiate enter the blessed state. It says here ;).

Waite's description of the card in PKT, full of sneers and sarcasm, speaks volumes. His description that "...he is the leader of salvation for the human race at large.", is possibly the kindest thing he has to say on the matter.
 

Teheuti

Dulcimer said:
Waite's description of the card in PKT, full of sneers and sarcasm, speaks volumes. His description that "...he is the leader of salvation for the human race at large.", is possibly the kindest thing he has to say on the matter.
Personally, I read Waite's description quite differently. He was fully aware of the dangers and downfalls of one who assumes the role of Hierophant/Guru/Adept when he had forgotten his highest purpose and gotten mired in the rigidity and dogma of the outer world. But, Waite found it a admirable and important calling when appropriately expressed. "He symbolizes all things that are righteous and sacred on the manifest [exoteric] side. . . . He is the channel of grace belonging to the world of institution as distinct from that of Nature." (PKT)

"Hierophants who are supposed by their admirers to have achieved all heights, . . . [by] their writings reveal them[selves] as by no means advanced students of physical science. . . . We find that in most questions of religion they appear to have adhered to the doctrines which were current at their particular epochs." He explains that this may, in part, be because true 'transcendental doctrine' would be incomprehensible to the public. The heights that occultism can reach were "the Promised Land of their own aspirations, and not attained in their lives." So, like Moses, all too many of the Hierophants are not privy to "the ecstatic intuition of the Ineffable and Substantial All." (from Waite, _The Occult Sciences_).

It's not so much scorn, as a recognition of the limits of the role. This is not the card of the mystic bridegroom but of one who stands, with keys, at the door of the outer temple, revealing that the sanctuary of the mystic bride and groom lies within. And, as doorkeeper/explainer, he might never, himself, have entered, or, if he had, been able to explain well to those without what will best prepare them for what lies within. Therefore, he all too often falls back on dogma.

Mary
 

Rosanne

the RWS image itself is psuedo Pope. Although on the surface it looks like a Bishop of Rome- there is lots wrong with the attire. Waite was what might be called a heretic Priest- he performed Mass and Communion and other rites without ordination.
The red vestment is all wrong and would be called a zuchetto.
The white Lappetts (pluto ears under the tiara) are neither male or female and are too short.
The papal shoes/slippers should be red- never white.
The Pallium should have 5 crosses on it front and back and hangs from the shoulder, not down the center. The fancy dressed Monks/Cardinals in front have the pallium as it looks down their backs but they should be white.
There is never a blue chaucible vesment worn underneath either. So when I look at the Pope I do not see the Roman Catholic Pope except in a dress-up sense that has got it wrong. ~Rosanne
 

Teheuti

According to Wikipedia:
"The papal hat, mozzetta, cloak (tabarro) and shoes are the only remnant of the former red costume of the popes. Since St. Pope Pius V (died 1572), the popes have worn mainly white.

"During the octave of Easter, instead of red, the popes wore a white damasked "pascal" mozzetta and white silk slippers."

I agree that the image is a kind of pseudo-Pope and that the details are not totally accurate - but is that really necessary, since he's supposed to be representing the head of a variety of religious institutions through the ages?

I enjoyed, though, getting the details and names of so many things Papal details of which I was unaware.

Mary
 

Rosanne

Teheuti said:
According to Wikipedia:
I agree that the image is a kind of pseudo-Pope and that the details are not totally accurate - but is that really necessary, since he's supposed to be representing the head of a variety of religious institutions through the ages?
Mary
I agree it is not at all necessary Mary, as I believe it is a representation of the idea- not a photo of the Pope. Unfortunately because of the influence of earlier cards which do show a Roman Pope- people miss the Wood for the Trees. Oh I had forgotten about Easter and the wearing of white. In most official paintings of the Pope- that even today are recognizable, he is in a red Zuchetto with the white half cape called a Fanon (my mother wore a fur one as a stole 1930-1960)
The Papal Tiara is flared with artistic licence, instead of beehive shaped. This has not been worn for a long time 1400's maybe- then Pope John Paul 23rd wore a bullet shaped one. He was the last Pope to do so. One of those early Popes sold all the tiaras to raise money. Unfortunately it was not to feed the poor, but to go to War and to appease those who thought the word Papist was a swear word for gross behaviour and greed. ~Rosanne