Books: Old Heresy, New Version

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Agabus-Graves's account of Jesus' identity is not half so strange as his interpretation of Jesus' role. His royalty, as scion of both the House of David and the Herodian line, carried with it the mythical attributes of a "sacred king"—of Tammuz, the Babylonian Adonis, who annually died and rose again, whose festival occurred at the same time of year as the Jewish Passover. Jesus (says Agabus-Graves) was endowed with supernatural powers of mind and will, and he did in fact conquer death. But, far from ascending into Heaven after the Resurrection, Jesus was condemned to expiate his sins (of blasphemous pride) by becoming a ghost, an "earthbound spirit."

Jesus' real mission, explains Agabus-Graves, was to "destroy the power of the Female"—i.e., of Jehovah's predecessor, rival and unacknowledged consort, the Great Mother Goddess or Triple Moon Goddess, known in the Eastern Mediterranean lands by various names, including Hecate and Astarte. She had ruled Canaan before the Israelites came; her worship included ritual prostitution, and Jesus' mother Miriam (Mary in the English Scriptures) had actually been born, so the High Priest said, "under the old dispensation," as a result of a dreamlike unmarital incident in a garden during the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus' losing struggle with the Female was the drama of his public life. In the Gospel according to Agabus-Graves:

¶ Jesus overcomes the Goddess' chief priestess, Mary the Hairdresser (Mary Magdalene) in a tremendous spiritual combat in her "House of Spirals," casting out Mary's seven devils.

¶ Jesus takes Mary the sister of Lazarus as his Queen at the ancient rite during which his cultist followers lame him and anoint him King; but to everyone's dismay he announces his New Law of chastity.

¶ Mary, thus deprived of a son, demands that Jesus give her her due by restoring Lazarus to life; and Jesus, recognizing his defeat, consents to do so by pronouncing the holy name of God, though he knows that for this act he must give his own life in exchange.

¶ At the Last Supper Jesus' words "one of you shall betray me" are not a prophecy but a command—and interpreted as such by Judas, the only one of the apostles who understands the choice Jesus has made. Jesus, knowing that Judas understands, gives him the sop to confirm it.

This crossword puzzle is all worked out very suavely by one of the most workmanlike of narrative puzzle-makers. Graves's account of Jesus' childhood in Egypt is written with simplicity and reverence; his accounts of ancient ritual surpass anything in The Golden Bough; his reporting of ancient theological discussions is sometimes dull but often absorbing, for Graves is a writer of practiced lucidity. If it could be read in the same spirit as the Claudius books, King Jesus would be fair enough reading.