The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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You’re listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production. Music provided by Joseph McDade. He is your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the Ancient Tradition podcast. I’m your host, Jack Logan. Today I’m not going to waste any time getting started. Today’s episode is the cloak of invulnerability. I’m going to jump right in. Today we’re going to pick up where we left off in our last episode. In that episode we learned that the great primordial battle that took place before the earth was formed, the God who volunteered to do battle against the God who rebelled against the authority of the hide God.

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was given a special weapon or weapons, which were critical to his victory over the rebellious god, the god who is almost universally depicted in both the ancient and the modern world as this hideous sea serpent monster or dragon. If you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you should be noticing by now how truly important deciphering symbols is, if we wanna truly grasp the theology that was taught in the ancient tradition.

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The theology was both revealed and concealed by way of symbols. So to understand the theology, you kind of have to understand the symbols. In our last episode, I challenged you to see if you could do this, to see if you could figure out what the special weapon was that was given to the divine son who volunteered to protect his father’s kingdom from the rebellious son who threatened to usurp it. So did you figure it out? Did you figure out what the special weapon is?

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what it symbolizes theologically. That’s not always easy to figure out what the symbols mean. And I don’t think they’re supposed to be easy to figure out. Why? Because by pondering and studying the symbols and investing our time and our thoughts into thinking through them and parsing out their meaning, then we begin to grow, to mature spiritually ourselves as a consequence of that pondering and studying. It’s kind of all part of the spiritual process.

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So hopefully some of you experienced some of that as you thought through what this special weapon, which is symbolized in the myths and legends and folk tales as a epic sword or a golden bow or even ruby slippers symbolizes theologically. In the podcast so far, we’ve uncovered a lot of clues which can help us decipher what this special weapon is. So hopefully some of you parsed it out, but if you didn’t, don’t worry because

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Even with all those clues, it’s kind of can still be difficult to connect the dots. But I think you’ll find that as we put the clues together, you’ll see how they fall in place in this perfectly coherent and cohesive manner, which speaks to me of a divine origin. Mercea Eliade. I don’t know if you remember him, but I’ve mentioned him before. He’s one of the world’s foremost scholars of comparative religion. And he said it like this. Quote.

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Symbols are signs of transcendent reality. Instead of being isolated fragments, become part of a whole system. All right, let me stop there for just a second. This is a system which I would call a fully cohesive theology. He continues, we have therefore every reason to speak of a logic of symbols in the sense that religious symbols of every kind and at every level are always

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consistent and systematic. Now that’s crazy. He’s saying that all of the symbols he’s come across in the ancient world are quote, always consistent? How is this possible? I mean, we’re talking about thousands of years of ancient history, where we should theoretically be seeing considerable variability and divergence in the symbols that the ancients were using.

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We should be seeing variable meanings attached to divergent symbols, and we should be seeing an extensive variety of religious ideas and conceptions and theologies in the ancient world. That’s just not what Iliade found. He found the opposite. He found that symbols are quote, always consistent with one another and even more mind boggling. He found that they made up the individual parts of a singular full system.

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which like I just mentioned, I would call a fully cohesive theology. And this is truly mind boggling. I’ve definitely seen this as I’ve studied the religious symbols and the precepts of the ancient world. And to me, it’s kind of akin to a miracle. It speaks to me of a divine origin. In fact, Plutarch, a Greek middle Platonist philosopher who lived between 46 and 1, 1980 argued the same thing.

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He argued that although there are various religious traditions in the world appear to be quite diverse, this is actually betrayed by the fact that these various religious traditions use the same symbols, the same symbolic system to express their theology, which Plutarch maintains reveals the fundamental unity of religions. But in order to see, and I say that in quotes, this cohesive theology that Eliade and Plutarch are talking about,

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We’ve got to start with the symbols. We have to decipher what these symbols meant to the ancients. If we don’t, then the symbols just look like some random set of kind of bizarre and fragmented, isolated and antiquated images. But as we decipher them, you’re going to begin to see just like Eliade saw that they make up a magnificent, cohesive, fully coherent whole, this beautiful theology, which on this program we refer to.

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as the ancient tradition. So let’s jump back to those special weapons. What is this special weapon that the ancients are teaching us we must have if we’re to successfully beat the dragon, the evil rebellious son of the high god who wants to drag us farther and farther away from God? What did the ancients mean by this weapon? And thankfully the ancients left us a lot of clues in the ancient record to kind of help us out. So what are some of those clues?

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So first we know from the ancient record that this weapon is a gift. In all of the examples I gave in the previous episode, from the Mesopotamian Marduk to the Hindu Indra to the Greek Perseus to the Norse Thor to the Japanese Yamato Takaru to the children and the lion, which in the wardrobe and if Frodo Baggins, the special weapon that these heroes use to successfully defeat the dragon.

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had been given to them as a gift. Now I looked up the Merriam-Webster definition of gift, and these are the definitions that it gives. It gives two, number one, it says, it’s a notable capacity, talent, or endowment. That’s the very first definition of gift. The second is something voluntarily transferred from one person to another without compensation.

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Okay, so this means that the special weapon we see in these accounts was not something that the hero deserved or merited or earned or purchased or even made by him or herself. This was something given to the hero completely as a gift. All right. The second clue we learned in the previous episode in the in the legend of Fafnir that the special weapon is a gift of the tree. A gift given by the tree.

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And that was perfectly clear when the strange man thrust the sword into the tree like a branch and our hero Sigurd had to pull the sword, the sword he would use to slay the dragon Fafnir out of the tree. In order to figure out why the tree is giving Fafnir this special weapon as a gift, we have to figure out what this tree is or rather who this tree is. Especially since this tree, which is

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found literally all over the world is absolutely central to everything in the ancient tradition. The legend itself gives us some pretty important clues as to who the tree represents. We talked about this in the previous episode, but in case you’ve forgotten, let’s return to Mircea Eliade, the scholar who I just mentioned, who says this of the identity of the tree,

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manifested in a tree is a motif that runs through all Near Eastern art. It can also be found in the whole Indo-Mesopotamian Egypto-Aegean area. So Eliade found from all of his extensive research in the ancient world that the ancients used a sacred tree to symbolize God. And there are a lot of

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very, very important reasons why the ancients used a tree to represent God. And we’re definitely going to parse those out in future episodes. But for this episode and all future episodes, it’s very, very important to recognize first and foremost that the tree symbolizes God. Eliade continues and he says, at Mohenjo-Daro, and that’s an archaeological site that’s in the Sindh province of Pakistan.

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dated to around the third millennium BC. Quote, we find a divine epiphany in Ephescus religiosa. The tree is stylized in a manner reminiscent of the Mesopotamian sacred tree. Even in Vedic texts we find traces. Brahman is revealed in a tree. An excellent example of a theophany in a tree is the famous

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which represents the God with the upper part of his body coming out of a tree. In Egyptian iconography we find the motif of the tree of life out of which divine arms come laden with gifts and the pouring the water of life out of a vase. So did you catch that last part? In Egyptian iconography, quote, we find the motif of the tree of life out of which divine arms come laden.

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with gifts right there in Egyptian iconography. It’s pretty amazing. See when we recognize that the tree represents God, that it makes complete sense in the legend of Fafnir that the sword protrudes out of the tree. The tree is extending a special gift to Sigurd, a gift that without which Sigurd would fail in his conquest to beat Fafnir. Whatever this special weapon is, it’s a weapon that all of us need.

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if we’re to conquer the great enemy, the rebellious son who aims to keep us from God and the golden treasure which represents his kingdom. So if we all need this gift, what is it? And as we noted in the previous episode, this gift is often symbolized as a weapon, a sword, a bow, an arrow, a net, a hammer. The weaponry symbolism here indicates that whatever this gift is that God gives to those who are worthy to pull it from the tree,

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or to obtain it from God, this divine gift gives that person the power to threaten, deter, inflict harm, repel, or even slay the enemy. The main point to make here is that this weapon gives the God, the king, the hero, or the scullery maid greater power than the enemy. You heard that right.

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the Mesopotamian Tiamant, the Hindu snake Vritra, the Japanese dragon Oruchi, the Christian Satan. In modern iconography, this monster is portrayed as a massive, potent, toxic, fire-breathing dragon. So whatever it is that God gifts to those who are worthy, this is no light thing. It gives them the power to

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conquer the the ugliest most vile most poisonous most horrendous most powerfully profane being known That being that desires nothing more than our spiritual destruction Desires nothing more than to destroy us and the world by sowing darkness deceit division disorder duplicity and desolation Everything that’s contrary to the laws of God

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against which he chose to rebel. So again, whatever this spiritual weapon is that God gifts to those who are worthy, it is no light thing. And as the strange man told Sigurd in the legend of Fafnir, quote, the man to pull out this sword from the trunk shall receive it from me as a gift. And he will find out for himself that he never bore in hand a better

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sword than this. Oftentimes in the ancient record, the god, the king, the hero, and the scullery maid are given other gifts that will enable them to gain victory over the dragon gifts that are best described as spiritual armor. For example, in Greek mythology, the

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which gave Hades the ability to become invisible. Hades uses this special helmet to destroy the weapons of the Titans. And there are a litany of special helmets in the ancient myths and legends. In Chinese mythology, Sun Wukong wears a magical headband. In the Arthurian legends, King Arthur wore Goswick, a magic helmet that had been passed down to him from his father, Uther Pendragon.

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At one point, Marilyn casts a spell on Goswick which allows Arthur to become invisible. Interestingly, this helmet was said to have been buried with King Arthur when he died. Sometimes this so-called helmet is depicted as a halo, which is also known as nimbus, which according to the dictionary is, quote, a luminous cloud or halo surrounding a supernatural

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or a saint. Now I know I seem to have a lot of Harry Potter references in these episodes, but that’s because Rowling really milked the ancient symbolism. And quite honestly, she did it quite nicely in a manner that was congruent with the original meanings of much of the symbols. So it was no surprise that Rowling named Harry’s broomstick, which was a powerful magical broomstick no less, the Nimbus 2000. A name which to those aware of its meaning,

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marked Harry as the hero who would save his people. From the evil basilisk snake, Voldemort. Also in Greek mythology, in the 18th book of Homer’s Iliad, we learn that Hephaestus, the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, and metalworkers, forges a spectacularly detailed shield of Achilles, a hero of the Trojan War.

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And this shield is so spectacular that Homer spends over 125 lines in the poem of the Iliad, just describing the intricate details of this shield. Achilles uses this shield to protect himself in his battle against the Trojan Prince Hector, whom Achilles ultimately slays. If you’d like to see Angelo Monticelli’s rendition of Achilles’ shield, you can find it on our

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thea under the show notes for this episode. We can find many other magical shields in the ancient myths and legends. Another one I want to mention is found in the Arthurian legends. Here we find the shield of Lancelot, which was given to him by the lady of the lake. The shield instantly cured Lancelot of tiredness and gave him the strength of three men. In the Shana-Mei, which is

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The Book of Kings, it’s an epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi. It was written between 977 and 1010 AD. It tells how the hero Rostam, before he went into battle, put on a special fur coat over his chainmail called the Bab-Rabayan. Some sources say that this special fur coat was sent from heaven. Other sources tell us that Rostam, when he was 14 years old,

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killed a dragon in India known as the Babra Bayan. No surprise, this dragon lived in the sea. And from the hide of the dead dragon, Rastam made this special coat that had supernatural qualities that made him invulnerable to fire and water and weapons. And I find this legend quite interesting because if you remember back a couple of episodes, Marduk formed the earth from the hide of the dead sea monster Tiamat.

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We mentioned that this makes sense because once the chaos monster has been destroyed, life could emerge, the creation could take place. In this legend of Rastam, we seem to see echoes of this. Once Bab-Rabbi is destroyed, nothing can threaten his life. And this also seems to be somewhat akin to the ancient Hebrew high priest wearing the dead leviathan as a sash around his waist as part of his vestments. It’s a reminder that life

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both physical and spiritual comes as a result of vanquishing the dragon. In either case, whether the coat came from heaven or whether it came from the hide of the slain dragon, they both echo themes that we keep seeing over and over again. In Norse mythology in the 13th century AD in a saga known as the Orvar Odds Saga, Fulvio Ferrari, who’s a Norse scholar, says this of our hero Odor, quote.

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In the universe in which Oda lives and acts is pervaded by magic. He himself resorts to enchanted objects and forces in order to reach his goals, such as magical arrows, the shirt of invulnerability, and the always favorable wind. Now, this is super interesting. I find all three of Oda’s magical items fascinating. We have the favorable wind.

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which in episode number 13, the incomprehensible brooding wind, we learned how a special wind which came directly out of God brooded over the primordial waters of chaos. This wind essentially conquered the chaos. Odor also had magical arrows, which are clearly special weapons, but Odor also, like we just saw in our Persian hero Rostam, wore a special shirt which protected him in battle.

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the shirt of invulnerability. And guess who Odor used his favorable wind and magical arrows and shirt of invulnerability to fight? You guessed it, monsters. Ferrari writes, quote, the malignant and ugly giants whom Odor fights against during his first journey to the north are the same grotesque trolls.

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Okay, so I don’t wanna steer too far off topic here, but I wanna talk about trolls for a minute. First of all, trolls are a Norse invention. The Norse word troll actually means fiend or demon. So listen to how this description of a troll in the Norse pros-ita text kinda matches many of the characteristics of our sea monster. It reads, they call me a troll, moon of the earth.

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Runger, wealth sucker of the giant, destroyer of the storm sun, beloved follower of the cirrus, guardian of the knopfjord, swallower of the will of heaven, the sun. What’s a troll if not that? Okay, so trolls are quote, wealth suckers. Now, where have we seen this before? We saw this in the legend of Fafnir.

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when Fafnir killed his father, Raymar. And he did this so that he could steal the gold which the high god Odin had given his father, Raymar. Trolls, quote, destroy the storm sun and, quote, swallow the will of heaven. And both of these lines refer to the monster that destroys the sun, which is a well-known archaic symbol of the high god. So these lines.

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definitely resonate with the notion of rebellion, one who seeks to destroy the high god and take the wealth of his kingdom for himself. And finally, this troll is described as a quote, guardian of the Nafjord. Now Nafjord appears to be a proper name here, but I couldn’t find anything on where or what this place is precisely. But I do know what a fjord is. And if you’re not familiar with a fjord, a fjord is a long kind of narrow inlet of water.

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that’s typically formed by a glacier. They’re usually characterized by steep cliffs that are on either side. They often have stunning natural beauty, clear cold waters surrounded by towering mountains. And if you look at an aerial view of a fjord, and I’ll post some on the website, it looks like a narrow passage of water winding its way inland until it stops, usually at the base of a breathtaking mountain.

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We haven’t yet discussed the symbolism of the winding path that culminates in a mountain yet, but you do already know that the mountain represents where God dwells. So according to Norse mythology, our lovely troll stands outside the entrance to the fjord, a watery pathway that leads to a mountain. So you see the symbolism here. The prose Editech says that the troll guards the entrance to the fjord. So if one can’t make it past the troll,

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one has no chance of making it to the mountain where God dwells. I personally don’t like the use of the word guardie in here because this suggests that the troll is in some way working for or in behalf of God, kind of guarding his sacred abode. But everything we’ve seen so far, the awful dragon rebelled against God’s power and authority and is doing everything in its power to repel or block us from God’s presence.

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It’s in this light, he isn’t a true guardian per se. He’s an obstacle, a barrier, an impediment, preventing us from entering where God resides. As a quick aside, one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life is to take a rigid, inflatable boat through Njeri Fjord. It’s one of only two World Heritage Fjords in Norway. The scenery is beyond stunning. In fact, it’s along this fjord that you find

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little village that looks remarkably similar to the village Arendelle in Disney’s Frozen and that’s because this is the little village which inspired Arendelle but I digress but if you ever have the opportunity in your lifetime to visit Nurefjord do it. Do not let the opportunity pass you by. While I was in Norway I took a lot of pictures of Nurefjord and that little Norwegian village and I’ll post them on the website under this episode’s show notes

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Check them out, they’re truly magnificent. Okay, back to our trolls. There are two additional aspects of trolls that correspond with the awful dragon. So first trolls, like the dragons we’ve seen, are malevolent, terribly hideous creatures. I think this is really well depicted in the Harry Potter series in the Philosopher’s Stone when Harry encounters a large, grotesque mountain troll in the bathroom. J.K. Rowling describes him like this,

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It was a horrible sight. 12 feet tall. Its skin was a dull, granite gray. Its great, lumpy body like a boulder with its small balled head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs, thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long. Ugh.

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In addition to its hideous nature, trolls are also vulnerable to sunlight. You might’ve thought it was only vampires, but no, trolls as well. Legend has it that when a troll is exposed to sunlight, they turn to stone. Consequently, trolls, like the sea serpent who lives in the dark, primordial ocean, lives either in dark, isolated subterranean caves or grottoes, or deep in a foreboding forest or under a bridge that marks the path.

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to the mountain where the high god dwells. And like the dragon, the troll must be vanquished if one is to proceed to the tree or the mountain where the tree dwells. Okay, that was a little longer detour than I’d planned to make. We were talking about our hero Odor, who before he went to battle against the grotesque trolls, put on a powerful silken shirt, which no weapon could pierce. Now that is some very special armor.

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In Greek mythology, the aegis, which was a shield or a cape or a breastplate, no one’s quite sure, was made from the hide of the goat, Omaothu. Aegis actually means goat skin. However, it’s portrayed this goat skin, which came from the goat which suckled Zeus, protected whomever wore it. So back to our original question, we know that these special weapons and special armor are symbolic.

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Like Eliade tells us, religious symbolism is meant to teach us something about transcendent reality. They’re supposed to teach us something about the true nature of spiritual reality. And based on what we’ve learned so far, based on their proliferate symbols of special weaponry and special armor, the spiritual battle that started when a rebellious son of God decided to challenge the high God’s authority, a battle that from everything we see in the ancient texts,

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that appears to be continuing in our day is real, very real. And it’s not a battle that should be taken lightly. It’s a battle with serious repercussions. So if we learn anything from the ancient record, it’s that we should not despair. We’re not doomed or fated to be consumed by the malevolent dark forces of evil.

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In fact, it’s pretty darn clear from all of the sacred texts and myths and legends and folktales that we’ve been discussing over the past couple of episodes that the high god does not leave anyone who chooses to battle the dragon empty handed. He empowers them with fierce, powerful spiritual weapons and invincible spiritual armor, which will ensure their victory.

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But I want to be super clear here. The ancient record also tells us that this spiritual weaponry and spiritual armor is not handed out willy-nilly. There appear to be some very important qualifications. The God, the King, the hero or the scullery maid must meet before they’re able to symbolically pull the sword from the tree, which you know now is just another way of saying obtain these spiritual weapons and spiritual armor from God.

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And we’ll talk about what those qualifications are in a future episode. But unfortunately, it might be a bit down the line because I have a lot to cover before we get there. But for right now, we’re gonna still work on what these spiritual weapons and armors actually are. And for the answer of that, we have to go back and learn a few more things about the great primordial Theomache. So after one of the high gods beloved sons rebelled, another one of the high gods beloved sons,

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willingly volunteered to directly battle the rebellious son to save his father’s kingdom. And like we mentioned, this hero son, who’s called by the name Marduk in the Mesopotamian literature, that name actually comes from Mar-u-tu-ak, which means son of the sun, S-u-n. The sun, S-u-n, being symbolic of the high god. So he’s the son of the high god.

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In the Enuma Elish we’re also told that he’s the first born son. All right. So Marduk is gifted special weapons and special armor by the high god before he goes into battle. And keep in mind that these weapons and armor are symbolic again of transcendent reality. These are really spiritual weapons and spiritual armor that we’re talking about. In tablet number four of the Enuma Elish the gods tell Marduk quote,

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who began the rebellion, pour out his life. When the gods, his fathers beheld the fulfillment of his word, and they’re talking about Marduk there, they gave him an invincible weapon which overwhelmeth the foe. Go and cut off the life of Tiamat. Now listen to how Marduk, the son of the high god, takes all of the weapons he’s been gifted.

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and prepares for spiritual battle. His spiritual preparations are quite impressive and try to envision it as I read. Quote, he made ready the bow. He chose his weapon. He slung a spear upon him and fastened it. He raised the club. In his right hand, he grasped it. The bow and the quiver he hung at his side. Okay, so like I mentioned,

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His spiritual preparations are pretty impressive. He arms himself with a spiritual bow, a quiver full of spiritual arrows. He slings a spiritual spear over his shoulder and fastens it. He raises a spiritual club in the air. He is armed. But this is not all. Listen to what he does next as part of his preparations. Quote, he set the lightning in front of him. With burning flame, he filled his body.

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Okay, this is pretty interesting. The symbols we have here are lightning and burning fire. In the ancient world, lightning and fire are emblematic of virtue, righteousness, illumination, glory and light. So take a second and think on the imagery of a lightning bolt. So here we see that a lightning bolt goes in front of Marduk. In our lived experience, we know that a lightning bolt is a flash of…

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immeasurable brightness and power. And these are the images that we’re supposed to be getting. More often than not, lightning is associated with the high god. So it’s probably not too far of a stretch to suggest here that this powerful spiritual lightning bolt was a gift to Marduk from the high god. The text also tells us that Marduk prepared for battle by filling his entire being with fire.

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Okay, in the ancient record, fire is kind of like serpent symbolism. It can kind of take on both negative and positive connotations. Here it’s used as a symbol of Marduk’s glory, the glory that’s associated with righteousness and virtue. The association between fire and glory is all over in the ancient record. We see it in ancient Egypt, in chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead. The god Osiris is described as the fiery benben bird, the phoenix.

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It reads, quote, I am the great Benu bird, which is in Ununu, which is a town named Heliopolis. What does it mean? As for the Benu bird, it is Osiris. We see it in Daniel chapter 10 verse six. We see an association between the God Jehovah and both lightning and fire. In this verse, Daniel describes what Jehovah looks like. He says, quote,

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His body also was like the barrel. Now barrel is kind of similar to crystal and his face as the appearance of lightning and his eyes as lamps of fire. The god Agni, which means fire, is a major god in the Vedic tradition associated with fire, lightning, and the sun. In Hindu iconographies depicted with red skin,

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with flames engulfing his crown or a halo of flames around his body. And there’s literally hundreds of examples like this that I could give you. So for Marduk to fill his body with fire, fire which symbolizes the radiant glory of one who has obtained the highest level of holiness is another way of saying that Marduk prepared for the battle against the great dragon by filling himself with the purifying.

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power of righteousness, virtue, and holiness. But this is not all. He makes even more preparations. The text continues, quote, he made a net to enclose the inward parts of Tiamat. And we learned in our last episode that this net was a gift of the high God Anu. Quote, then he gets the winds ready, the four winds he stationed so that nothing of her might escape.

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He created the evil wind and the tempest and the hurricane. He sent forth the winds which he had created, the seven of them. We’ve talked plenty about winds, but there’s more. We’re starting to get the picture here that Marduk made extensive preparations before he ever went into battle. And listen to what else he takes with him. Quote, the Lord raised the thunderbolt, high mighty weapon. He mounted the chariot.

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storm unequaled for terror. He harnessed and yoked onto it four horses, destructive, ferocious, overwhelming, and swift of pace. Their teeth were flecked with foam. They were skilled. They had been trained to trample underfoot, mighty in battle.” Now remember again that all of these preparations are spiritual preparations for the great battle. It’s at this point in the text that we might be thinking, those are a lot of preparations.

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We might be thinking Marduk is ready to go. He’s fully prepared, but he’s not. It’s here that we are told about one more very, very important item. Listen to what it is. And this is the Stephanie Dally translation. It reads, quote, clothed in a cloak of awesome armor. His head was crowned with a terrible radiance. Okay. This is really interesting.

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The last thing Marduk does before he is fully prepared for battle is put on a special cloak of armor. Just like we’ve been talking about. Now this cloak is pretty interesting. In the earlier LW King translation, this cloak is referred to as a garment. It reads, quote, this garment was clothed with terror.

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Interestingly, earlier in tablet number four in the LW King translation, we learn a little bit more about this special garment. Listen to who gave Marduk this garment. In these lines, the gods have been praising Marduk for volunteering to take on Tiamat, and the text reads, quote, “‘Then set they,’ now they is referring to the council of the gods, “‘in their midst a garment.'”

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And unto Marduk their firstborn they spake, may thy fate, O Lord, be supreme among the gods. Here we clearly see that this special garment with which Marduk cloaked himself was a gift from the council of the gods. And we already learned that this council was governed over by Anu, the high god. The council didn’t do anything without the decree of the high god. So this special garment or cloak was really a special gift given to him by virtue.

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of the High God himself. I think it’s really interesting that this garment is the last piece of Marduk’s battle gear to be mentioned before he’s ready to go off to war. It must have been a very, very important item. And I absolutely love how the LW King translation says that with this garment, Marduk was quote, clothed with terror.

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In other words, this wasn’t an item that upon seeing it would terrify or evoke terror in the evil sea serpent Tiamat. So this must have been a very special spiritual cloak indeed. There’s an interesting parallel to this in Genesis, which we’ll discuss in greater detail somewhere down the line. But you should note that in Genesis chapter three, Adam and Eve are naked. And I mentioned this before, the word naked here is loaded with a lot of very interesting possibilities.

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And I offer up here that one of these possibilities is that naked means that they were unprotected. Can you imagine going to battle without any armor? My guess is that you’d feel extremely naked. Well, Adam and Eve don’t have the protective special armor that they need to victoriously beat the evil serpent who will tempt them and try them in mortality. In this section of the text, Adam and Eve have succumbed

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to the deception of the serpent lurking in the garden and they’ve partaken of the fruit. As soon as they do this, as soon as they partake of the fruit, the text says their eyes were opened and they quote, knew they were naked. My argument here is that they knew they were no longer protected. At this point in the text, we get this really interesting interaction between Adam and Eve and God. The text reads, quote,

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And they Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.

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So after this, there’s a little more dialogue. And then the Lord God addresses the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit. It reads, quote, “‘And the Lord God said into the serpent, “‘because thou has done this, thou art cursed.'” I’m gonna skip a bit forward. Quote, “‘I will put enmity between thee “‘and the seed of the woman,’ which is mankind. “‘It,’ referring to mankind, “‘shall bruise thy head,

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and thou shall bruise his heel.” In other words, we learn here that this evil serpent has not yet been fully vanquished. God is telling Adam and Eve that this serpent will have power to continue to wage war against human beings in the mortal realm. Now, there’s a purpose to this, which we’ll discuss at some other time. At this point in the text, the Lord God is preparing to kick Adam and Eve out of the garden. They’ve partaken of the fruit so they can’t stay where God dwells.

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But it’s what God does before he kicks them out of the garden that’s of greatest interest to us here. Listen to what God does. And this is in verse 21, it reads, quote, “‘Unto Adam also, and to his wife, “‘did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothes them.'” See here, just how we saw the gods or the high God give Marduk a special cloak to protect him before he went into battle. Here we see God.

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give Adam and Eve special coats made of skins before he kicks them out of the garden. Coats of skins, which I argue, are meant to protect them in their battle against the serpent, Satan, in the mortal world. And note too how in this first, that it’s the Lord God who actually makes the coats for Adam and Eve. These coats are of divine origin. They are gifts that God gives Adam and Eve.

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And with these coats, Adam and Eve are no longer unprotected. They are no longer naked. Now like Marduk, they are cloaked in spiritual armor ready to take the battle to Satan. And hopefully like Marduk’s special garment, Adam and Eve’s coats of skins will invoke terror in Satan. Okay, let’s return to the Enuma Elisha. At this point in the text, Marduk is fully equipped. Now he’s equipped, he’s ready.

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He’s made all of the necessary preparations for spiritual warfare. And the text says this, quote, his garment was clothed with terror, with overpowering brightness, his head was crowned. Then he set out, he took his way. And toward the raging Tiamat, he set his face. I love that, I can just feel his courage.

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I want to stop here and remind you one more time that all of this is symbolic. The ancients are teaching us about the nature of spiritual things. These accounts are talking about spiritual warfare, the battle that you and I must face if we’re to make it past the formidable troll guarding the fjord passage leading to the mountain of God. The ancients are teaching us how we can make it past the troll, the dragon, or the sea serpent.

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And it’s here that I want to make a very, very important point about the ancient world. It’s a point that I’m going to make several times in the future, and it’s best expressed by the Hermetic adage, as above, so below. Mersey El-Yati really drilled down on this aspect of the ancient world. We see a very similar statement in the Vedic Suttabhatha Brahmana, which says, quote, thus the gods did, thus men do.

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See, the ancients taught time and time again that we as mortals were to try and imitate what happened in the spiritual world, or to follow their example. The heavens are our exemplary model. In other words, we should pattern our spiritual preparations after Marduk’s spiritual preparations. He’s the exemplary Mesopotamian model. If we want to succeed in defeating the dragon,

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We must do what needs to be done to release the sword, like Sigurd, from the barn stoker tree so that we can be armed with the special weapons and the special armor needed to come off victors. We’re to emulate the preparations of the primordial hero god. Now don’t hate me because I haven’t yet answered the question I posed at the end of last episode and the beginning of this episode, which was.

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what is this spiritual weapon that all of us must have? And I promise we’re getting closer, but I can’t yet explain until we go over a little more of what happened during the primordial Theomache. And I promise that we’re gonna get to that. I was hoping we’d get to it today, but sometimes I’m kind of distracted by so many interesting things that I wanna tell you. But I hope you’re beginning to see how, by deciphering the symbols, that we’re deciphering the theology. I’m gonna have to leave it there.

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I look forward to seeing you next time on the ancient tradition. With that, I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare. Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. I’m Jack Loogan.

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You’ve been listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production.