Jesus and the Goddess
The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians
By Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

The Inner Mysteries

In our latest book Jesus and the Goddess we explore how the Jesus story was only a part of a much greater body of Christian mythology, all of which combined Jewish and Pagan mythological motifs. The original Christians treated the Jesus story as an allegory to be used to introduce beginners to the spiritual path. For those wishing to go deeper than the ‘outer mysteries’, which were only ‘for the masses’, there were secret teachings or ‘inner mysteries’. These were ‘the secret traditions of true Gnosis’ which, according to the ‘Church Father’ Clement of Alexandria, were transmitted ‘to a small number by a succession of masters.’ Those initiated into these inner mysteries discovered that Christianity was not just about the dying and resurrecting Son of God. They were told another myth that few Christians today have even heard of. The story of Jesus’ lover. The lost and redeemed Daughter of the Goddess.

The original Christians venerated the divine not only as God the Father, but also as Sophia, the Wise Goddess. Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Corinthians that ‘Among the initiates we speak of Sophia’, for it is ‘the secret of Sophia’ that is ‘taught in our Mysteries’. When initiates of the inner mysteries of Christianity partook of Holy Communion it was Sophia’s passion and suffering they remembered. Amongst the original Christians, priests and priestesses would offer initiates wine as a symbol of ‘her blood'. The prayer would be offered ‘May Sophia fill your inner being and increase in you her Gnosis’. It was her they petitioned

Come hidden Mother; come, you who are made manifest in your works, and give joy and rest to those who are bound to you. Come and partake in this Eucharist which we perform in your name, and in the love feast for which we have assembled at your invitation.’

In the secret inner mysteries of the original Christians the Jesus story was put in its rightful context at the end of a cycle of Christian myths which begin with the ineffable Mystery manifesting itself as a primordial Father and Mother, and which culminates in the mystical marriage of Jesus and Sophia. All of these myths were then revealed to be allegories of spiritual initiation - symbolic stories which encode a profound philosophy, with the power to transform an initiate from a Christian into a Christ.